How does your garden grow?

How are you preparing to deal with the upcoming financial crisis? The answer might be as close as your back yard.

Ron Paul is one of the many harbingers who is predicting that the financial woes we're experiencing are only the tip of the iceberg. Times may get tough, but the good news is - we're all in this together.

The Coporatocracy is expert at jacking up the prices for the very things we depend on, like energy, health care and food. There's lots of good tips on how to save energy on the internet (I suggest getting a wood stove installed during the warm months - it'll pay for itself in the first 2 years if not sooner). Now that Spring is upon us (the redbud two blocks over is already blooming), I think it's time for people to consider how they can counter the ever rising food prices.

Food prices are expected to rise in some cases by 25-50% this year. Part of the reason has to do with the plunging value of the dollar, (in 2002, the Euro was worth less than a dollar - it's now worth $1.56). All imported foods have shot up, because it takes more US cash to buy them on the open market.

The other factor jacking up the price of food is gasoline. Did you know that when you buy a head of lettuce, you're paying more for transportation costs than for the lettuce itself? As the price of gasoline skyrockets, food prices are only going to get higher - that is for food that you buy at the supermarket, most of which comes from other parts of the nation, if not the world.

One other factor affecting the price of food is the worsening water shortage. Thanks to global warming, we're losing more and more precious fresh water each year. Global warming has also brought extreme droughts to more than half of the nation, and especially to the southeast where I live.

We can't expect politicians or corporations to help us out of this mess. We have to take responsibility and change our buying habits if we truly expect to find any relief.

I propose that in between trips to the grocery store, each of us also make a trip to your nearest garden store to buy mulch, starter soil and seeds. You can't afford to water your lawn anyway, so why not produce most, if not all of your vegetables from the land around your home?

Forget the protests, the letters to your senators and congressbums - they're not going to change any policies that will help you "put food on your family" as Bush so famously and erroneously quipped.

Get out in the wild open spaces of your yard and till the lawn under. Sow vegetables and fruit bearing plants. Get together with your neighbors and diversify your crops so you can share the harvest. If you start now, you can be reaping (and eating) some of the fruits of your labors by late April. And once late summer comes, you'll have such a bounty of produce that you will be able to avoid many of the soon-to-be-astronomical prices at the supermarket.

My lovely and resourceful partner Beth has created a blog called An Urban Plot, which can help you find the resources you need to get started.

I used to be the kind of guy who mowed the lawn once every 3 months whether it needed it or not. Last year, I discovered the joy of shopping for my salad fixin's in my own back yard - and that includes luxuries like shitake mushrooms! It's easier than I thought it would be - and it sure is nice getting out under the sky with my hands in the soil. It reminds me I'm alive.