Ending and Beginning

Last night we had a light frost. I covered the strawberries (which are in bloom), and the beet, kidney bean, and carrot seedlings. I haven’t been out there yet this morning to check on them, but they should be okay — it was only about 30F this morning. [Update — the kidney beans got a little frosted, but most should be okay, and everything else was fine.]

We’ve had a very warm, early spring, and it’s definitely time to plant a lot of other seeds, but it’s also been showery enough (and I’ve been busy enough) that it’s been hard to get out into the garden.

The tomato, ground cherry, pepper, and onion seedlings are all looking good. We’ll get those outside in another week or two. I’ve been moving them outside for half a day at a time when it’s sunny to get them used to full sun.

Planted in main garden today:

• Purslane in 2nd raised bed to complement existing self-seeding wild purslane
• Sunflowers just to the north of the raised beds, on north edge of main garden
• Swiss Chard Fordhook Giant (Johnny’s sell by 6/10)
• Collards Champion (Johnny’s sell by 7/09)
• Kale Hybrid Starbor F1 (Johnny’s sell by 8/09)

The world financial system looks like it’s on the verge of another crash, but it’s also impossible to predict. Powerful people and institutions are doing everything in their power to prevent it, and although it doesn’t appear that they’ll succeed, they may delay it for another few years.

Who knows what people should do to protect themselves from a world financial meltdown? I think reducing debt to the maximum extent possible is a good idea, and we’re doing well on that front; I suppose it makes some kind of sense (strictly on an intuitive level, I’m not smart or financially savvy enough to explain it otherwise) that if the world’s problem is too much debt compared to productive capacity, individuals should do what they can to reduce household debt.

Beyond that, we’re going with the usual TEOTWAWKI preps — striving for independence in food, water, and energy. I believe everyone will see a severe reduction in quality of life, and whatever we can do to increase independence will mitigate that reduction.

We’re considering a new, more-efficient propane furnace to replace our 14-year-old model and to take advantage of the tax credit that expires at the end of this year. Our current furnace works well, but higher efficiency is always good and if we’ll be replacing it in 5 years anyway….

This entry was posted on 9 May 2010 at 6:52 am and is filed under Climate Change, Financial Meltdown, Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.