We had a hurricane pass us about a week ago (Nora). It did not hit us here in Mazatlan near as hard as we expected, but we did have heavy showers and wind for about two days.
Because there has been so much deforestation and unsustainable farm (and other) practices in the catchment areas, all that rain of course was forced to drag a bunch of soil with it (ordinarily healthy ecosystems absorb and filter water). And now the city's water system is heavily clogged up and some of the zones in Mazatlan (ours included) are without water (coming into day 4 now).
Having grown up in the desert and knowing how precious water is, I am relatively comfortable making it work without a running shower, running tap and flushing toilet for an extended period of time. At least I don't have to walk 10 km a day to carry 20 litres of water on my back. Because we have a badly managed water supply and not enough polluter-cleans-up-their-mess, we anyway have to buy 20l drinking water bottles, so we can survive off that using minimal quantities for bare-bone neccesities.
But it has given me some thought about vulnerability and resilience at the household level. At the same time, I am moving house (from a flat to a small house with a big yard that has three mango trees!). So with this upcoming move, I have been thinking about gardens and growing my own food by just recycling vegetables and herbs we have bought from market.
Doing a little YouTube scouring on permaculture practices, my brain was switched on. This mini water crisis is a taste of the future. While it is important to consider our role in society and to learn to live minimally and creatively without waste and over-consuming, we also have to think about how we can build household, and community, resilience, in the face of coming shocks that will cripple the centralized economic system. There are three key themes here where one can start doing this: water, energy, food. I have been thinking a lot about water and energy (I guess rainwater harvesting and solar energy are the first investments if you have money and actually own your property...which we don't). But here I want to focus on food, as this will be my first focus in the new house we will rent.
I live next to a park (and the new house is only a few doors away, so will continue living next to it), and have started small steps working with the community to actually plant some more fruit trees, and with time we could create a community composting pit and grow food. But that is a longer term project. At household, we can do quicker steps in shorter time frames (because it requires the buy-in and habit-changes of a whole community, not just myself). And the more successful I can be at household level, the more the neighbours will buy into the idea to do this at community level. This is not the first time I have done this, so I have some learnings from my previous experiences. In Namibia, and Mexico over the past two years, I always had some level of food gardening in every apartment or mini-house I lived in - whether it was carrots and lettuce in pots, to a keyhole garden, to working with communities on community gardens. So I can learn from previous mistakes (of which there are many), but have also picked up a few tips in the permaculture and household garden YouTube hole I got stuck in yesterday (and much research and professional work experience on this topic).
The most important is to not do a radical change overnight. I tend to get inspired and want to immediately do everything at once, take on ALL the ideas and thus many projects at the same time, and of course, this becomes a burden and I end up dropping all of them. Already, I am thinking vertical gardening, large-scale composting and maybe even biodigesting, aquaponics, chickens/ducks/quail, and mealworms to digest polystyrene and provide us with protein.....its too much! So, this time, I will (try to) start with small steps.
I already have a composting practice that I can upscale because now I will actually have a little bit of land. It has been really easy to make my own soil this way, using very little soil discarded in some dumping sites (lucky for me there is one in our park) and morabund (like discarded tree leaves, etc).
I watched an interesting video where the person used discarded veggies she bought at a grocery store and started growing and harvesting these (i.e. the stems she cut and instead of throwing away, she "planted" them), in plastic bottles (much like the one in the picture). I thought this would be an interesting starting point, and using the seeds from the tastiest cucumbers, the tastiest tomatoes, etc, that I have bought from the local vegetable markets. Another person who started their permaculture garden on their property said the best is to start with just a small space first, and then go from there. So I will do that (2m by 2m to start with).
Generally, for any permaculture garden or forest, the initial investment, in terms of learning and setting up, takes time and some resources (not many in terms of finances if you are creative enough), but after that, you can grow your own food (excluding grains, you could probably self-sustain depending on which ecological area you live in) with as little as four hours of labor a week (if you work with nature, not against it). The most important thing though, is to learn what works in this climate, this soil type, and adapt my eating habits to that, and not the other way around.
Another good tip that I picked up and will make my best effort to use - is having patience and curiosity (always learning with joy) - in the process.
If you do not have the privilege of outside space (or for other reasons find it easier to do something indoors), there are very simple things to start with too, all you need is access to the internet and a bit of curiosity to drive you. I will record my process and share. Please feel free to do the same, by commenting below :)
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