Victory Gardens in San Diego

As per Jeremy's last blog, here's some info on Victory Gardens in San Diego! I heard the tail end of These Days on NPR this morning, and they were talking about Victory Gardens and other gardening goodness. Here's the transcript.

Mindy Swanson was a guest, and she is the coordinator for Victory Garden's San Diego. There's a ton of helpful links on that site. It's encouraging to see the movement here in San Diego towards food, not lawns.

We personally are trying to eat all the lettuce that's growing in our garden. It's overwhelming us, and our plot is pretty small! Here are some recent photos.

We've recently planted potatoes and zucchini in the back, and our strawberries are getting ripe too! yum.

1944. Patriotism blew through the air like honey bees looking for a hive. America fought the enemy with soul, community and purpose. Forget your shopping and your American flag made in China. This is the time to recycle your tin, conserve sugar and fight totalitarian dictatorships with carpooling. This was an era of honesty with all of its inconsistencies, hatred, love, fear, racism and perseverance. Propaganda was plastered on brick walls in school buildings. Propaganda streamed through the air waves, shone on movie screens and rained down heavy and fierce on souls. People listened. Forty percent of all vegetables in the U.S. were produced through small Victory Gardens housed in backyards, balconies, jails, school yards and abandoned lots. People had ration cards they used, traded and sold for sugar, gas, and other commodities. People volunteered, conserved, fought and worked to help the war effort. Rosie the Riveter raised her fist in the air. We won. Atomic mess, Hitler suicide, tear stained Japanese internment camps, and cheering American soldier marriage. And than came the suburbs....

2009. Patriotism blew through the air like SUV's looking for a gas station. Built in obsolecencse, freedom fries and independence. Urban sprawl, lattes and convenience. Our loyalty and patriotism is measured by one of George Bush's most famous quotes after 911 in his efforts to ease our country and inspire patriotism by telling us to "Go out and shop" Our patriotism got highjacked. Lets highjack it back.

America. I have never been big on pledging allegiance to a country, to waving a flag or singing the national anthem. However I love this country. I love the colors on El Cajon Blvd, the mountain peaks in Alaska, the low hanging mist in Big Sur, the Sudanese Americans hanging by 711 with Mexican coyboys, churches at high schools and my family. I love the opportunity our country has to change. I love the homeless on the bus. I love the fact that I can bitch about the government and not get arrested. I love my friends and chickens.

Inconvenience. Los Angeles in the 1930's had the most advanced and extensive light rail public transit system in the world. San Diego had 100's of miles of light rail system.in the 1930's. It came all the way through City Heights. Than came the GM, Standard Oil and Firestone Tire buy out. Massive piles of train cars were demolished to make way for the latest new invention that ran on gas, rubber and had an internal combustion engine. The bus. Which is a perfect segway to my story. Here is my commute in 2009. It takes me about 2 hours to get from my job in Alpine to my house off the Blvd in San Diego, which is about a 1/2 hour drive. I may have a 55 minute bus ride, a 15 minute trolley ride (not including wait times which can range from 5-25 minutes), and a 1/2 hour walk just to get home one way. Fortunately I can carpool. Sorry Hitler. On Monday's and Wednesday's I get a ride to work. I get a ride back with a Buddhist co-worker to El Cajon Transit Depot and have a 1 to 15 minute wait to catch a 15 minute trolley to SDSU. I than have a 25 minute walk to my house with the orange garage door. Tuesday's I drive my coworker to and from work and on Thursday's he drivesbothe ways. He lives in City Heights which makes it perfect. Except for the fact that we have to leave at 6:30 in the morning and my first class is not until 10:30. Oh well. Friday's I ride my bike 15 minutes to my other job with The Wooden Floor Co. and have a 15 ride home. I never knew how liberating inconvience could be.

Patriotism redefined!! We are shopping for something I cant for the life of me find on a shelf. We are shopping for our kids future. We are shopping for community. We are shopping for a car with 3 hub caps and a bike from 1987. We are shopping for gardens, community supported agriculture, good local beer and eggs in my backyard. We are shopping for creativity. We are shopping for the Jubilee. For restoration. For frienship and life. I pledge allegiance to God and his creative genuis. I pledge allegiance to patriotism redefined.

When you drive alone you drive with Hitler. Join a Car Sharing Club Today!

as our garden grows

awhile back our neighbors came over and helped us plant our garden in the front of our house. i thought i'd give a little update on the progress, and also give "before" and "now" pictures. we're pretty excited about what's growing!

here's some pics from our garden planting party.


We got about 17 rows in our little plot! Goes to show how much you can grown in a small urban garden! This is what we planted:

• 3 rows of carrots
• 2 rows of cauliflower and broccoli
• 1 or 2 rows of turnips, beets, and daikon
• 5 or so rows of red and green leaf lettuce and kale
• 1/2 row of cilantro
• 4 or so rows of snap peas and beans
• some bulbs and flowers for color and general prettiness

Here's what it looks like almost two months later:


pretty exciting. if you can't get enough plant pictures, here are some more.

more number crunching

Tough girl on the bus

We had to get a food refill for the hens today. Last food was provided by BJ on January 19th. That means that it lasted 6 weeks. The cost at the time was approx. $14. and we were totally on empty when he brought it, as we are on totally empty today. Weekly cost of feeding 4 hens? $2.33 in food, $0.54 for grit = $2.89 for all organic whole grain chicken feed. We are switching recipes to this recipe for layers this week and will be doing it this way from here on out, so I'll hash out the cost break down when we run out of this new batch.

More numbers for comparison - last week we drove (in our shared car) approx. 44 carpool miles and 57.6 non-carpool miles. Jeremy also carpooled approx. another 79 miles where he was the passenger. We also logged about 14 miles bicycling to the park/running errands and we had a potluck at the park on Wednesday night that we utilized public transportation for. Riding the bus down El Cajon Blvd. at night is quite an experience, let me tell you! Jeremy also took the bus/trolley for another 35 miles or so. Yay for two hour busrides to cover 22 miles!

Waiting for the #1

making the best of waiting for the bus

The nitty gritty

just wanted to quickly post some #'s. Had to buy chicken grit on Sunday at $2.70. Last had to buy it on Martin Luther King day, Jan. 19th. That means one box lasted pretty much exactly 5 weeks. Breakdown - $0.54 per week. Pretty sure I can get it cheaper somewhere else, or just use beach sand since there's plenty of that around here. Or maybe they don't even need it since they are out free ranging a good part of the day... We mostly have clay here, though - not too much gritty stuff. I need to look into that.

turning up the heat

The super sexy eco-box

We are gleefully marching forward in our quest for greenification. Our mission: to provide heat to our house in an eco-minded manner. Since last winter we had been heating our blustery San Diego nights with an oh-not-so-friendly 1600 watt electric heater. Umm, two of them, actually. Needless to say, our electric bill skyrockets during the late November to early March timeframe in which the nights in San Diego MUST be supplemented with some sort of heat source. Our average kw usage during the summer months is somewhere between 155 and 180 per month. During the cold months it jumps to between 220 and 475 (Jan. '08!!)

In order to conserve kilowatts (and consequently, dollars from SDG&E) we did some research on heat. One option that we quickly ruled out was central heat. For our 800 sq. ft. mansion, it just wasn't a pracitcal investment. We also realized that we would prefer something electric rather than gas with hopes that one day soon we will be able to purchase some solar panels and be more fully self sustaining.

The installed product

Our friend Stuart had this cool Eco-Heater in his daughters room that he really liked so we decided to look into those. A chic, flat-panel, super energy efficient heating element from South Africa that is the epitomy of eco-cool. At only 400 watts a pop, what have we got to lose? I found this deal where we could get a 4 pack for a discount. The total cost for our entire house is $440, a fraction of the price of a central heating system. And the kids were occupied all night and all day today with their free toy... I'll let you know how the kw usage pans out!

The unbelievably cool free toy

never say never

A scenario presented itself to us last night that was supposed to be one of the toughest we'd have to deal with. All of the factors adding up to an almost-perfect storm. First, we did not have the car and we didn't have access to it because it was in use by our car-share buddies. Second, Estelle was sick. Third, it wasn't an ambulance-calling emergency, but she really needed to go to the doctor at some point. I called urgent care and they advised bringing her in, so I made the appointment for the 8:00 pm time slot that they had available. What were my options? Hop the bus with a sick kid at night and not come home until way late? Alison and Eddie, our neighbors who are supposed to be our backup people, were gone. As I was trying to figure out an alternative, it occured to me that both of our carseats were in the shared car. Damn.

As luck would have it, we are surrounded by a wonderful community of people that we are blessed enough to call friends. Other neighbors of ours, Heather and Chris, were just coming back into town from a long weekend. I was keeping an eye on a couple of things for them, so I had a key to their house. A phone call to them was all it took to secure one of their spare cars, and I had forgotten about an extra old car seat still gathering dust in the garage. Wonderful oh wonderful Jeremy gave up his evening to take Estelle to the Dr. Offical diagnosis - secondary ear infection. The joys of parenting.

This experience taught me, I think, that we should put our fears about this to the side. This was almost the worst of the worst that could happen being without a car 100% of the time, and it was no big deal. If it were truly an emergency, and ambulance would be the only way to go, regardless if we had a car or not. In every other case, I can't think of any time where we wouldn't be able to make it work thanks to loving friends, family and neighbors. We couldn't do it without them!