19th Floor Garden: One month later

It's been a little over a month since I began my series on gardening, by way of my 19th floor garden. Several updates: as you can see, the tomatoes and basil have flourished. The thyme, which was in the forefront in the pics of the first post, have perished. I have never had luck growing thyme. Lots of sun or shade? Lots of water or little water? I am not sure.

I have just received my copy of Gaias Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, and as much as I feel weird admitting it, it excites me. I have read alot about Permaculture online, watched videos on YouTube, visited websites and on-location experiments. Most give a summary of Permaculture philosophy and tenets. Few actually give concrete steps (of which I am a fan) of what to do, how to do it, and how to fix it if it goes wrong. I was able to download a copy of Bill Mollisons A Permaculture Design Course from Scribd.com. This was actually very helpful. I learned applicable techniques. I recommend this if you too are interested in the topic. But eventually you will feel the need to learn more and move onto a piece of land to implement all these wonderful skills that you have aquired. As I mentioned before, I really can't do that while here in Taiwan.

Which brings me to another point. I will be moving back home to Maui to live with my parents. As loser-ish as this may seem, I don't care. I want to commandeer a portion of their yard to carry out my botanical experiments. In the process, I hope to repair the soil, bring wildlife to their yard, fill the bare ground with fruiting plants and trees, provide food for them, and build a welcoming envrionment. I am now formally against lawns and ornamental fixtures in a yard. I believe it is a waste of time and space. We are always complaining that our food isn't healthy, medical science is lacking. We have the potential in ourselves (by extension of our yard) to provide some of the healthful things we need to be stronger, live longer and happier. We as a society can do so much more with this land.

But I digress. I hope soon that tomatoes will bear fruit soon as winter is approaching, with cooler shorter days. Not good for tomatoes which like sun and warmth. Winter in Taiwan isn't so harsh, no freezing or snow, but not conditions for growing great tomatoes outdoors. We will see how this all plays out within the next couple of months.

Save the Amazon: Grow a backyard garden

There are myriad data and stats thrown around all the time about the rate at which the Amazon rain forest is shrinking, due to land being consumed for crops and animals. So many feet per second, acres per year, football fields per day, and such. It's all very disheartening to hear about a large wonderful ecosystem like the Amazon being desecrated for the sake of soy and beef. I'm not much of a numbers guy so I won't add a digit to the orgy. But what I will do is offer a solution. And in this solution can also be found answers to many of our other societal shortcomings that become more apparent daily.

You will often hear proponents of organic foods say, "eat local." This means to consume food that has been grown within a predetermined range of let's say 5 to 10 to 100 miles. Some will argue the exact distance from farm to table, but the point is the closer the food was grown to where it is eaten, the better. Reasons for this are aplenty: it supports local economy/farmers; it's fresher; due to freshness, it tastes better; the foods ripen on the plant/vine; less chemicals are needed to produce nutritious foods; it has traveled less and therefore spent less fuel; it promotes healthy land development; ad infinitum. Another major reason is that is puts less strain on ecosystems/economies in far away lands, like the Amazon. You can trust that a tomato grown 7 miles from your doorstep has done less damage than one that has traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles.

But what about the beauty of a vine-ripened tomato that was grown 7 feet from your door? A sprig of rosemary clipped minutes before being added to a dish? An onion so fresh, clods of dirt still stick to its roots? Apart from the philosophical aspect of growing your own food, the practical benefits are endless.

No need to run to the store to pick up a bottle of thyme that was dried months (or years) ago in a farm where pesticides and fungicides and chemical bathes called fertilizer were used to "make" it grow. Forget tasteless lettuce, grown hydroponically in a hothouse thousands of miles away in the winter, apples that have sat "ripening" in a warehouse for months, or oranges with waxes and chemicals to make the fruit orange and plump.

You can have the best of all these plants right in your back yard. Unbeatable freshness, minus the enigma of where it actually came from. As a matter of fact, do you know where your food comes from? Honestly, I must admit that I too am not aware, which further proves the point that I don't know what has been done to it, and how it has affected its place of origin. For all I know the soy beans I pop in my mouth could have sprouted in the same place where mammoth trees once stood.

Another reason to grow your own food, is that it will lessen our dependence on fuels like oil. If you organically grow your own potato, for instance, there is little if any oil consumed in the process. On the other hand, if you purchased a potato that was mass produced in Idaho, petroleum based chemicals used as fertilizers and pesticides, gas used to plant and harvest, energy used to transport, separate, and ship, you have run up quite a high energy bill for a single potato. Growing your own foodstuff will greatly reduce our need for resources.

All it takes is a seed, in your mind or in the ground. It starts somewhere. And where you end up may be miles or steps from where you expected.

P.S I "borrowed" the above picture from www.photographersdirect.com, if you couldn't tell. I hope this frees me from liability.

You and Your Company

We all hold companies to high standards of financial reporting. When it comes to the publichly held companies, they must have standard reporting practices such as quarterly statements and GAAP accouting. They are stringently judged by analysts, speculators, investors and the market in general. If they don't do well in a particular quarter, the stock often drops (which brings up another concern for another time). On the other hand, if the company has strong revenue, low expenses, good accounting practices and reporting, usually a company and its stock will do well.

What about You?

For all the time you spend analyzing charts, ticks and reports, do you put in the same time and emphsis in your own "company?" You are a small (or large) company in and of yourself. You have revenue (income), expenses (expenses), and budgets to keep track of it all. Or you should.

If a company spends more money than it makes and it doesn't change or get help, it will go bankrupt. If you spend more money than you make, you too will go bankrupt. If a company doesn't keep records of its activities, it will not know how much or little it makes or has. The same with you. If you don't keep track of what you make or spend, you will have no idea if you have money or not. Is this a good way to go about something that is so important?

A company may seem more important becasue it is bigger and makes more money, but you are your own company and are importatnt to yourself or your family. Run your finances like a company. Hold yourself to high standards when it comes to taking note of what comes in what goes out, and how it goes out.

This leaves us with some final questions. In what state are your finances? Are you an Enron or a Google (GOOG)? Would anybody purchase shares in your company?

Would you?