resilience

there were a few flurries in the air and ice on the puddles left from yesterday's rain when i left to check out the garden this morning...this season is all but done ( more on that in a minute ) and there's time to ponder imponderables among the beds...i read a lot about transition and localization and food security and sustainability and i wonder at times where this fits in...the garden isn't really about food security...it is too small to feed many people ( as it stands today...that could be changing )but it's a pretty good workshop to work with some of the other topics i listed...sustainability is one...we are trying to close nutrient cycles with green manures and i would like to see a seed saving program in the near future...a small-scale seed bank would be a step in the food security direction and easily affordable and it would create a local resource that could go on for some time...two bird with one stone... there are exactly 1 1/2 native food plants in the garden...the jerusalem artichokes are truly local and the strawberries half that...but cultural diffusion has spread food crops from both hemispheres world wide, so what's local? local is what we can do with the climate and resources at hand to make ourselves a bit less dependent on a social and political center that seems to be driven by expedience and wishful thinking with a perverse touch of greed thrown into the mix...the more irrelevant they are to our lives the better off we will be...they seem determined to do things the same way they always have...i am afraid the result they reap in the future will be drastically different that those of the past...the garden is small but it can teach us a lot of valuable lessons...we really need to slow down, get out from behind the tv and computer screen ( yes i get the irony there...but i was just out at the garden...this is a tool, not a lifestyle ) and give what it has to say a listen...we might even rediscover conversation...we need to talk....we need to listen...we need one another. frost on the green manures this morning...but not on the winter wheat...defiant and hardy i will be watching for dormancy all winter...the mulch covers are holding up well..i have fabric in reserve for repairs if necessary but so far the new stuff seems good...the last photo is the autumnal garden at about 7:10 this morning...we are good...now to get after those wild potatoes...more on that later.