Getting Started.

Getting started has been an interesting experience. 3 years of wild planting. The notable events. Location coastal California, system planting edibles. the results. I can say the deer and gophers, and turkeys are well fed. I have found that I can establish a feeding ground for the wild life. this brings the higher end protein sources to me. Yet getting started has been fairly expensive. the cost of seeds in those little packages is roughly $400 - $906 U.S. dollars per pound. The seed potatoes, onion, and garlic that are in the home improvement stores is almost 4 times as expensive as buying fresh groceries in the grocery store. the time and energy spent has been real high. the results... things that do not get eaten: nasturtium, fennel, garlic, rosemary, there are others. things that recover from being eaten: Avocado, potato, garlic, oak, as well as others. Most of the plants that I put in the ground failed to survive. Many factors can be seen, lack of rainfall and over predation being the two on the top of the list. Although when things did survive I was surprised to find them where I thought nothing would grow. As well as when I thought I had Ideal conditions the survival rate was so low I was baffled. When things did come up I was also surprised at how much of it was stunted and what grew out of control.
The leader for out of control growth is Nasturtium. The leader in return of surplus is Fennel. The leader in overall survival in the harshest conditions is Garlic tied with fennel. Garlic seems to need water conditions that are not available in the wild. Garlic survives but it does best in shaded woodland with low predation. The cost of this experiment has been 10% of my income. the result is that growing in controlled environments such as peoples back yards has a better possible success rate. Yet the most destruction and total annihilation of what I was doing was when other people got involved and went to the scorched earth policy. When others do not fully accept, or understand what is being done they destroy it. This cost me over $5,000 in loss in one garden. So be careful who get one of your precious gardens. Have fun and keep on planting regardless of others.

Things to note. The successes that I have had are exponential. From few come many. People have a tendancy not to believe me when I let them know that I have personally harvested thousands upon thousands of fennel seeds, and that I get tired physically tired of harvesting fennel. I fennel seed that survives to maturity has the potential to produce 1,000. - 10,000 seeds. 1 seed has the potential to become 10,000 seeds in one season. Tomatos 1 seed can create hundreds of cherry tomatos, each tomato can contain 20-40 seeds. 40seeds per tomato x 100tomatos per plant = 4,000 seeds 1 seed can become 4,000 seeds.
This idea is wealth at the core of the equation. We do not have a population problem we have a planting problem. NO ONE HAS TO STARVE. WE HAVE HAD THE TECHNOLOGY TO GROW FOOD FOR 12,000. YEARS. AND PEOPLE ARE STARVING? ? ? ? ? This is just pure lazyness. If every American planted one tree a year we would have 300,000,000 new trees every year. If every American planted one tree a day we would exceed 1.6 billion trees annually. We do not have a deforestation problem we have a involvment problem. Take action I have planted over 2,000 trees last year alone. Garden of eden here we come. Never Quit! Never surender.

What you have observed is that when plants are in the perfect climate for them, they do amazingly well. Fennel needs no help along the California coast and is remarkably prolific there. Too bad most of it is not the bulbing kind that has been developed by the Italians. I suppose if you cook the stalks a little longer, they will soften up and think of all that fiber in the diet. For those here that are not familiar with fennel, here's the right way to fix it:

I still enjoy our fennel. The green leaves still taste great. The seeds are very easy to gather from the plant. I am not the biggest fennel fan but I am moving away from candy like sugary yumminess so fennel can be a nice change of pace for flavor. The foods that are available in grocery stores is mostly stuff I can no longer eat so I go for plants and grains. I still eat meat, although meat is becoming a thing for rich people anyway.
So getting sarted in reducing my consumtion rate is a good thing. So here is to starting. Have a great day.