Life Skills 101: Grow Your Own (part 3)

They sell pots. They sell tubs. They sell potting mix and blood&bone. They will sell you dynamic lifter, which is actually chook poo. If you have a good garden emporium, it may actually sell you varying kinds of manure [horse poo, cow poo, zoo poo…]. Just don’t go with people poo ‘cause our guts manufacture some really nasty shit. No joke. Cholera, typhus, ebola, and many, many more.

What most garden places don’t sell are what’s now known as “heirloom seeds”. These are viable seeds from plants that really grow and actually give a yield. People like Monsanto and other frankenfood manufacturers sell plebes the seeds that won’t work, are fragile or otherwise need delicate treatment, and give weak, nasty yields. All to convince you, the money-spending plebeian, that growing food is too hard, and to yolk you back into the corporate treadmill.

But wait, there is hope! People all over the world have noticed that the store seeds are crap and are saving and selling “heirloom seeds”. You can find them locally, you can even mail order them in the right circumstances. Once you have heirloom seeds for the plants you want, you can save them from the plants you grow and spread the wealth.

More good news, the Frankenfooderies have yet to discover how to sterilise a carrot or a potato.

You probably did this once or twice for a science fair. Put toothpicks into a potato and suspend it over a glass of water. A week or three passes and you have leaves and roots forming. Bingo - new potato plant. Now stick it in a tub of soil and cover it with something to keep out the weeds [a friend of mine recommends sugarcane mulch] and you have a potato plant flourishing in or near the comfort of your own home.

Carrots are easier. Lop off the top of a carrot and place green-side up on a different tub of soil. Make sure it’s well watered and gets some sun. I admit, I haven’t done this, before, but when you buy carrots to plant, you get a packet of carrot tops.

I know some executive offices and houses grow wheat grass for their smoothies and health shakes… ask around. I’m sure some health shop somewhere is willing to help you, the plebe, grow your own wheat. Back when I was a kid, a few would even sell you a stone grinder known as a quern so you could make your own flour. Now, you may have to look for these.

There are some herbs you can’t kill with a hammer, and are easy to grow in little pots on your kitchen countertop or outside your windowsill. Mint is a favourite, as is Mother-of-all herb, which can substitute for nearly everything except mint. And, of course, the old favourites, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. You may have a knack for growing oregano. I’m not too certain how easy that one is to grow.

I do advise that you mix your potting mix with some kind of fertilising agent, like blood&bone or manure, because every single potting mix I have encountered is basically bark chips from a sawmill, and can barely grow weeds.

Start small and work your way up. Always look for guidance from people who’ve done this sort of thing before. We can have open-source food.

And we should view cross-pollination from Frankencrops as industrial pollution and sue the companies responsible.

One bonus of growing your own is that you can share your bounty with a neighbour, and thus convert them to the Gridle$ ideas of frugality for freedom.

Cut the chains to corporate slavery one link at a time :)