Paul - I really like your food pump idea. I am especially enthusiastic that you are focusing on a wide range of groups (people needs, stages, etc). This should result in a number of models that people can use and tweak and make them their own.
At the moment, I have a basic question (preoccupation?): how is “staple crop” defined and operationalized? The bullet points listed under your initial list (sunchokes, walking onions, and the other one that just slipped my mind) is helpful in providing some different ways to think about it. Of course there will be variations in the actual plants that different people advocate for (or against) based on their individual circumstances - growing experiences, tastes, resources, geography,
……
So I am assuming that you offer the 3 that you derived from your poll as an heuristic device. I am proceeding as though that is the case, and please pardon me if I am wrong about that.
Anyway, I am finding your project timely, and expect to be following it closely. I have had to downsize drastically the space I have for growing food, and the space itself is fraught with challenges that I won’t bother to list here.
I moved here last May, so had little time for planning and planting (and figuring out how to work around those challenges). Having been a regular reader on the website for a number of years, at least I was equipped with a lot of potential strategies in my back pocket and managed to get a little good out of my yard and generate some ideas going forward.
I’m just begun my second year here. I implemented some of those ideas, tried out new ones, got more food out of my yard than last year, and learned a lot more about how this plot of land works.
But coming back to the food pump idea, and defining one’s staple crops.
Gradually over the summer, I had to jettison so many taken for granted expectations regarding what I grow, how much of it I grow, and how I grow it. Years and years of gardening and eating.
It has been a difficult road, accepting that I couldn’t provide for myself as before, and have confidence that nearly everything I ate was produced in ways that nurtured the land and at the same time maximized the nutrients in my food.
Then, just a couple of weeks ago I realized I’d been in mourning and it was time to rethink my whole food producing system. That was daunting. But a few days after that, it occurred to me I couldn’t provide start by identifying which dietary niche I could best meet with the resources I have.
Hence, my question: how to define staple crops?
My conclusion for my situation:
1. Calories no longer matter in my calculus for what grow. If we get to a place where I can’t afford enough beans and rice, I’m doomed anyway.
2. I’m getting older. I like perennials. So much less work. Much kinder to the soil. And many of them provide much needed hedges and shade. I can nibble on fruits all summer and still have plenty to preserve for the winter, even after the birds take their share. And, I can repurpose my stupid front lawn to food production without irritating my way too close to me neighbors by planting the pretty ones out front. Persimmon. Elderberry. Plum. Interspersed with natives that might tempt the urban wildlife enough that they leave enough fruit for me. (And eventually fill up the whole front yard until there is no more room for lawn, save a few paths).
3. Backyard: continue focus on high nutrition foods. Yes, I started some jerusalem artichoke. Tree collards. Blueberries and raspberries. But as much variety as I can get in the vegetable department. Lots of raised planters (at least 2 feet high - I’m old, and my soil is heavily compacted clay fill. I can make it better but it will take time).
Bottom line: my staple crops will be:
1. those which provide the greatest variety of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and all that other good stuff that others take pills for but I’d rather get from my food. So: maximize variety for good nutrition.
2. Those that I can find space for, or create space for, that I can manage (physically) while aging in place.
3. Those that are good for the ground and the air and help support birds and bees etc. And don’t require crazy amounts of water (it no longer rains here in summer), and can tolerate ever increasing heat.
Long winded, as usual. I blame Paul. Having to think very differently in a very short time, and not of my choosing, has been a slog. Then Paul shows up with a framework that can help me to focus my goals (as in, what amI doing this for? What do I expect to get given what I have? What is important to me? Is it attainable given what I have available?).
So here is my stream of consciousness shaggy dog story offered as an illustration of one way to apply a food pump model.
Again, I apologize if I’ve got the concept all wrong. But I think it’s not there to tell us what to grow. Even Paul can’t make me eat kale. Ever.
Rather, I see it as a very helpful model to help us along the path of defining our needs and wants and figuring out the best way to meet them.
I learn best from examples. Not one or two, but many.
And given that this model aspires to focus on all different kinds of growers and growing situations, I’m thinking there might be lots of thoughtful examples to inspire me for a long time.
And I’m not going to pay attention to stuff I don’t like in it (like kale, or making my own biochar).
I’m going to pay attention to the parts that get me thinking of possibilities I hadn’t thought of.
Thank you, Paul.
