March is the perfect time to start seeding in six packs and flats.  For best results make sure your pots, flats or six packs are clean–if you are reusing last years six packs, wash them in hot soapy water before planting. Seeds will start best in a fine absorbent medium that gets good drainage.  Pre-mixed seed mediums are expensive and it is so easy to mix your own.

Here’s how:  3 parts fine coconut coir, 1 part perlite, 1 part worm castings.

Traditionally peat moss was used rather than coconut coir.  But peat moss is non-renewable while coconut coir is a product rescued from the waste stream.  It is available from many local nurseries and also online.  Be sure to get the fine grade–it also comes chopped coarsely and in that form is an excellent mulch.  Cocnut coir is the part of the mixture that holds and absorbs moisture so your wee seeds won’t dry out.  Perlite, also available at nurseries is a volcanite glass.  It helps with permeability and drainage in the mixture.  If you wanted you could just mix these two together 3:1 or so.  But you would need to start fertilizing your seedlings with a balanced dilute fertilizer once they have their first leaves as neither cocnut coir nor perlite contains any nutrients.  Another option is to add one part worm castings or well aged compost to the mixture.  There is some danger of introducing pathgens by this method, however it also greatly increases the seedlings strength and immune system.

Happy planting!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our culture is growing now into the next level of change, evidenced by social movements addressing the environmental crisis with direct actions toward revising how we live today. Urban homesteading is just one of many creative approaches to this problem. The Transition Town movement is another, as are the growing numbers of young people from all strata of society training to become organic farmers, solar installers, and water conservation experts. There will undoubtedly be setbacks along the path, but as the diagram illustrates, this kind of change is cyclical and continues to ripple outward, especially as new habits are created and maintained. Engaging in the cycle of change with compassion for oneself and acknowledging the magnitude of the problem will be necessary to successfully take on an urban homesteading lifestyle. No one can do all of this, but everyone can do something. Don’t worry about how or where to start. Just pick something you love, and do it.

In the wake of recent natural and man-made disasters like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, research has been done on human resilience that reveals interesting trends for recovery. Dr. Alicia Lieberman’s studies on the brain development of young people who witnessed trauma or violence show that their experiences of spirituality, animals, nature, and creativity were instrumental in sparking their recovery. Judith Lewis Herman’s research into trauma reveals the following resilience factors: the ability to help someone else during the trauma (taking action, rather than fleeing or freezing); the ability to make meaning and purpose out of the experience, to understand its history and context; and the ability to stay connected to at least one other person. Recent studies of resilient people reveal some additional working strategies for recovery, including optimism, a sense of playfulness and generosity, the ability to “pick your battle,” and the ability to focus on things over which you have some influence. Staying healthy is important, as is the skill of finding a silver lining. In a recent article on resilience, Beth Howard writes, “Resilient people convert misfortune into good luck and gain strength from adversity. They see negative events as opportunities for change and growth.

These strategies mirror basic homesteading practices as steps toward healing and change: our renewed relationship to animals and the earth; our sense of meaning and purpose in the work we do; our connections to one another in community; and a spiritual understanding of our actions.

A sense of creativity, play, generosity, and optimism are all activated as well. Urban homesteading is a battle that can be picked—actions bearing on our local economies and our homes have real influence, and are a wonderful example of converting adversity into possibility.

Resilience is the ability of a system to recover from shock, trauma, or change. The more resilient a system, the more shocks and impacts it can withstand and still recover. As systems—cultural or ecological—lose the strength of diversity, they become vulnerable to disruption or collapse. Nature is the ultimate example of resilience, with its systems of multiple planned redundancies and complex relationships between organisms responding in different ways to threat. Fungi have the ability to begin the regenerative processes within a landscape after fire, paving the way for other microorganisms and animals to return to the devastated area and continue the repair work. Animals contain population through the checks and balances of the food chain. Nature grows through an understanding of limits and through the conservation and recycling of resources. We must learn to do the same. Inevitably, nature will be our strongest teacher in the process of change, or the agent of our harshest consequences. To quote Paul Hawken, “There are no economies of scale; there is only nature’s economy.”

While individuals and sometimes communities possess resiliency in the face of difficulties, the more common human reaction to threat is a frozen or traumatized state of fight, flight, or freeze. People (and cultures) in this state can’t make good choices or think clearly through a problem or creatively get out of a box. This frozen reactivity keeps us repeating the nightmares of the past, unable to see what is really happening in front of us, doing the same things and imagining a different future. Yet the imperative is clear. We need to find a way beyond our terrifying possibility—the collapse of our environment and our civilization—and we need our thinking to be crystal clear, creative, and responsive to the challenge facing us.

Even as global consciousness about our situation rises, it remains difficult to harness our energies toward cultural regeneration. We see this especially when we look at our social institutions, but also when we look at ourselves. What is it that makes it so hard to change, especially when the problems we face are so serious, and have been so well articulated? Part of our limitation is our understanding of change as something that just “happens,” as opposed to a process that requires our participation, awareness, and agreement. Denial, addiction, and a lifestyle of affluence also insulate people from the need (or desire) to change. And finally, a pervasive sense of pessimism about the powerlessness of our actions immobilizes many of us. If we are to make sense of the situation we are in, each of us has to go through our own individual process, confronting our habitual mechanisms of avoidance and denial to overcome our fear and conditioned cynicism. This process can only happen in stages, and will require patience, cooperation, and a little bit of humor.

The writing my essay Stages of Change, highly successful with addicts in recovery, seems particularly apt for our relationship to fossil fuels and our inflated sense of planetary entitlement. The Stages include recognition of a problem, a willingness to contemplate change, planning for possible new behaviors, and a time for both activating a plan and integrating the changes. Within the process lies the inevitability of relapses and cycling back again. This model requires a shift in awareness and a personal desire to participate in making change happen. It works best within a context of community support, over time. An awareness of the cyclical nature of the process helps us keep renewing our commitment toward new behaviors, which cannot happen overnight. Change really is two steps forward, one step back.

In terms of the ecological and cultural problems we face, pre-contemplation on a social level began about forty years ago with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the emergence of a broader ecological movement. Contemplation of the problem followed, and beginning steps toward change were enacted: early attempts to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, the back-to-the-land movement, and the inevitable pushback from industry. The cyclical and recursive nature of the process is evident in the progression of these cultural movements.