growing food

The latest snowfall of any kind I remember growing up in Iowa was around April 15 -- but that was flurries. Today Iowa woke up in a blanket of mid-April snow in the same week that much of the nation faced numerous record lows and crop failure. Florida fared fine, and we even had a slight easing of our drought last night.

Many of you likely remember the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", which was in theaters just a couple years ago. While the hundred-foot tidal waves and stratosphere-sucking storms were pure fiction, there is some truth to the basic premise -- the collapse of the ocean conveyor belt in the Atlantic. RealClimate has an excellent explanation of the effect here.

As the RealClimate article mentions, there are indications that the thermohaline circulation has decreased by as much as 30% in recent times. So, I'm keeping a wary eye on the weather and its relation to the melting of Greenland, especially given that we're seeing record cold temperatures for the month (not just a particular day).

Producing food is a critical need for any community project. Your first thought might be traditional gardens or farm plots, neatly ordered into precise rows, tucked away on a back corner of your yards. That’s certainly one vision of personal food production, but is far from the most efficient. Why not let your food production aid in other areas of your design?