Alarming Number of Disasters Striking World "Food Baskets"
Alarming Number of Disasters Striking World "Food Baskets"
May 16, 2011
Holly Deyo
Dear Friends and Readers of Millennium-Ark,
For the last 5 years, we have posted countless articles covering both natural disasters and their impact on our food supplies as well as on many other timely topics. After several decades of monitoring these events, it's hard to convey how shocked we are by the sheer number of disasters that have occurred just in the first 4 months of 2011.
Yesterday, all day, I spent analyzing natural disasters and plotted them against our food belts. Never, ever, have I seen so many federally declared disasters this early in the year.
The DHS/FEMA maps were defined by 2 colors: blue signified no disasters (to distinguish the disaster-free areas from water, they are shown in white below) and yellow indicated declared disasters. Map after map, state after state were mostly yellow. Surely this must be an error? Thinking through the numerous news items on Earth Changes, with sinking feeling, I knew they were correct. It was only when the state information was transferred to a single national map, the implications become uncomfortably clear.
see the full story @
http://standeyo.com/NEWS/11_Food_Water/110516.nat.diz-crop.impact.html
Gardens – Good Insurance
Whispers of civil unrest are rattling global markets. Look where prices are even now – the highest in nearly a decade and the year is not even half over.
This weekend, and for the last several weeks, Stan and I have enlarged our fruit and vegetable gardens doubling them. By using raised beds and biointensive methods as described in Garden Gold where you cram a lot of seeds and seedlings together, you net big yields from little areas. Even people with very limited space can enjoy lush, bountiful veggie gardens.
In April friends from Montana had brought us fruit bushes and fruit trees along with non-hybrid herbs and potatoes she's grown for 40 years. We happily incorporated them into our growing gardens appreciating what they will produce.
Saturday, as I sweated over chiseling a hole in the crummy dirt here that passes as soil, a neighbor good naturedly joked, Hey, when are you gonna eat that? Yes, the new Redflame and Concord grape bushes were small, but with a little TLC, sun, water and fertilizer, we'll enjoy grapes, jelly and wine in no time.
I pounded out another new hole and wondered absently how glib the neighbor will be when food conditions get really tough and he knocks on our door for help. (Let me share that we totally remove the poor quality dirt [read that as 'tan concrete'] and replace it was Garden Gold's Super Soil recipe. It would take several years to amend it properly so it's just easier to ditch the poor dirt and replace it.) Not surprisingly, these neighbors are Wisconsin transplants where water is plentiful and disasters were few. They've had few points of reference. However, things have changed and nearly 3/4 of Wisconsin has already experienced federally declared natural disasters this year.
In addition to the existing orchard, fruit-bearing bushes and raised beds, last year we started an asparagus patch. They need a year to establish themselves and then you have a wonderful, vitamin-rich crop that comes up year after year and they beat the socks off grocery store asparagus for tenderness.
Containers, No Brainers
Two weeks ago for a neighbor who'd had surgery we took her two container-planted tomatoes. They are Italian so naturally we gave them Romas. You should have seen her face light up! Being Brooklyn transplants, Pat never had a garden, but since the tomatoes were in pots they were something she could manage even in her debilitated state. These will give her fresh fragrant TASTY tomatoes, unlike the grocery store trash that fills your belly but not your soul. It will also give her a sense of accomplishment that she can now raise some of her own food and perhaps encourage her to try a real garden. Flowers die, fruit baskets disappear, but these plants she'll enjoy for many months.
We also have planted six 5-gallon containers with tomatoes and peppers. They'll live outside till bad weather requires them to come inside. For the first time in years, we'll enjoy wonderful tasting veggies all through winter instead of grocery stores' tasteless offerings.
Several months ago, we ordered in a TON of seeds. We purchased both hybrids for this year and non-hybrids for upcoming growing seasons. The extra seeds we'll keep in the freezer to extend to maximum storage life. These are unsettled times and we promise, things will only get more challenging. We are seeing the End of this Age balanced on a banana peel.
With these maps in mind, we encourage you to think outside the comfort zone and envision how you would fix dinner and with what... without going to the grocery store. Don't let it overwhelm you. Be courageous and consider your family, not your fears. Reset your priorities and order foods that you can't grow. Plant your gardens now, while you have leisure time. Get the family involved and make it a fun project, not one borne of necessity. Time is always shorter than we think...
Permission granted to repost in its entirety with all links and graphics included.
http://standeyo.com/NEWS/11_Food_Water/110516.nat.diz-crop.impact.html
May 16, 2011
Holly Deyo
Dear Friends and Readers of Millennium-Ark,
For the last 5 years, we have posted countless articles covering both natural disasters and their impact on our food supplies as well as on many other timely topics. After several decades of monitoring these events, it's hard to convey how shocked we are by the sheer number of disasters that have occurred just in the first 4 months of 2011.
Yesterday, all day, I spent analyzing natural disasters and plotted them against our food belts. Never, ever, have I seen so many federally declared disasters this early in the year.
The DHS/FEMA maps were defined by 2 colors: blue signified no disasters (to distinguish the disaster-free areas from water, they are shown in white below) and yellow indicated declared disasters. Map after map, state after state were mostly yellow. Surely this must be an error? Thinking through the numerous news items on Earth Changes, with sinking feeling, I knew they were correct. It was only when the state information was transferred to a single national map, the implications become uncomfortably clear.
see the full story @
http://standeyo.com/NEWS/11_Food_Water/110516.nat.diz-crop.impact.html
Gardens – Good Insurance
Whispers of civil unrest are rattling global markets. Look where prices are even now – the highest in nearly a decade and the year is not even half over.
This weekend, and for the last several weeks, Stan and I have enlarged our fruit and vegetable gardens doubling them. By using raised beds and biointensive methods as described in Garden Gold where you cram a lot of seeds and seedlings together, you net big yields from little areas. Even people with very limited space can enjoy lush, bountiful veggie gardens.
In April friends from Montana had brought us fruit bushes and fruit trees along with non-hybrid herbs and potatoes she's grown for 40 years. We happily incorporated them into our growing gardens appreciating what they will produce.
Saturday, as I sweated over chiseling a hole in the crummy dirt here that passes as soil, a neighbor good naturedly joked, Hey, when are you gonna eat that? Yes, the new Redflame and Concord grape bushes were small, but with a little TLC, sun, water and fertilizer, we'll enjoy grapes, jelly and wine in no time.
I pounded out another new hole and wondered absently how glib the neighbor will be when food conditions get really tough and he knocks on our door for help. (Let me share that we totally remove the poor quality dirt [read that as 'tan concrete'] and replace it was Garden Gold's Super Soil recipe. It would take several years to amend it properly so it's just easier to ditch the poor dirt and replace it.) Not surprisingly, these neighbors are Wisconsin transplants where water is plentiful and disasters were few. They've had few points of reference. However, things have changed and nearly 3/4 of Wisconsin has already experienced federally declared natural disasters this year.
In addition to the existing orchard, fruit-bearing bushes and raised beds, last year we started an asparagus patch. They need a year to establish themselves and then you have a wonderful, vitamin-rich crop that comes up year after year and they beat the socks off grocery store asparagus for tenderness.
Containers, No Brainers
Two weeks ago for a neighbor who'd had surgery we took her two container-planted tomatoes. They are Italian so naturally we gave them Romas. You should have seen her face light up! Being Brooklyn transplants, Pat never had a garden, but since the tomatoes were in pots they were something she could manage even in her debilitated state. These will give her fresh fragrant TASTY tomatoes, unlike the grocery store trash that fills your belly but not your soul. It will also give her a sense of accomplishment that she can now raise some of her own food and perhaps encourage her to try a real garden. Flowers die, fruit baskets disappear, but these plants she'll enjoy for many months.
We also have planted six 5-gallon containers with tomatoes and peppers. They'll live outside till bad weather requires them to come inside. For the first time in years, we'll enjoy wonderful tasting veggies all through winter instead of grocery stores' tasteless offerings.
Several months ago, we ordered in a TON of seeds. We purchased both hybrids for this year and non-hybrids for upcoming growing seasons. The extra seeds we'll keep in the freezer to extend to maximum storage life. These are unsettled times and we promise, things will only get more challenging. We are seeing the End of this Age balanced on a banana peel.
With these maps in mind, we encourage you to think outside the comfort zone and envision how you would fix dinner and with what... without going to the grocery store. Don't let it overwhelm you. Be courageous and consider your family, not your fears. Reset your priorities and order foods that you can't grow. Plant your gardens now, while you have leisure time. Get the family involved and make it a fun project, not one borne of necessity. Time is always shorter than we think...
Permission granted to repost in its entirety with all links and graphics included.
http://standeyo.com/NEWS/11_Food_Water/110516.nat.diz-crop.impact.html
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