Author:
Mathew Iantorno | Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
In the final quarter of 2022, as Canadians were grappling with rapid inflation on their grocery bills, Loblaw posted $529 million in profits — up 30 per cent from the previous year.
Canadians have been demanding for years that the big grocers be restricted, yet nothing has happened.
Hopefully Carney finally listens to us and does something about this fucking bs.
Start community gardens if you can, wherever you can.
Grow any and everything you can. From parsley to potatoes and everything in between. If you get sun, and can make room for/hav soil use it for food. Not flowers. Not grass. Food.
Share if you can. Build if you can. Help if you can.
Fast growing foods like peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers are great and can be grown in pots. A single fruit can seed another 100 plants. They can also be eaten raw, kept frozen, pickled, dehydrated, etc. Versatile and nutritious.
So, victory gardens.
And every little bit helps.
I’m not gonna be able to be self-sufficient anytime soon, but it’s fine to start with what you can achieve at the time.I rent, but I lucked into a shared home and became property manager/msintenance, etc. The landlord has pretty much let me do whatever I like as far as gardens.
I have a fairly large backyard which is surrounded by grapes on all sides along the fences.
Lots of folk come gather in season. I welcome them into the yard and point out the best grape leaves.
The yard had some large raised bed garden boxes and I have made more.
I’ve also dug up about a ½ metre wide border around the yard which was just untamed grass and weeds and now grow red and yellow potatoes, green/red/bell and jalepeno peppers, onions, peas, green beans, bush/cherry/plum/Roma tomatoes, cucumbers of many sorts, sunflowers, a variety of herbs and garnish like chives, green onions, parsley, cilantro, basil, and some local wild edible plants most people call weeds.
Corn actually worked last year, but, along with the sunflower, it seems either the squirrels or racoons wanted them more.
I compost all the yard waste and have a compost bin I encourage the tenants to discard any non animal (eggshells are OK) food waste in it.
I’ve learned a hella lot about gardening the past few years.
Some things I ended up with so much I couldn’t even give it away. Like basil - I had no idea how fast it could grow and the yield per plant is more than I would use in a lifetime.
Parsley and cilantro I could never grow enough.
And I get maybe a couple hundred jalapeño which I consume with joy.
Along with gardening I’ve also learned how to pickle and preserve various crops.
I love it.
I just wish it wasn’t apocalyptic necessity these days.
