For
most of this spring, I have had to continually remind myself that the sun is
still there; we just can’t see it.
To
make matters worse, I’m drawn to flipping through my personal copy of Tom
Seymour’s Forager’s Notebook. Entries there indicate that in 2012, I had
planted all of my garden beds by now. This year, the soil in my raised beds is
wet and cold and not even ready for tilling. That would only compact it and
make it harder to deal with later.
Also
on this date in 2012, dame’s rocket was in full bloom, hummingbirds had
returned nearly one week prior and jewelweed was ripe for picking. Today, only
one of these annual events has occurred. A hummingbird came buzzing around the
greenhouse looking for its sugar feeder.
And
on Saturday, May 26, 2012, the first June bugs (May beetles) had come buzzing
and crashing into my porch light.
Will
everything come out alright in the end? Well, sure. Wild plants will do just
fine. They’re programmed to endure tough and changeable conditions. It’s the
cultivated stuff that has me worried. Everything depends upon the first frost
date. If, for instance, tomatoes haven’t ripened by that time, they will need
to be picked and taken inside to ripen. And house-ripened tomatoes are never as
good as the vine-ripened variety.
So
everything depends upon getting our crops in the ground and growing so that
they can germinate and mature before the first frost. There’s still time, but
it’s growing shorter and shorter.
This
is a good lesson for those who would compare a totally agrarian society to that
of hunter-gatherers. The agrarian types raise all their own food and eschew
wild things. But weather, climate, disease and a host of other factors often
disrupt the system, plunging this entire class into chaos. That ultimately
leads to famine and possibly death from starvation, which in turn dictates
population migration.
On
the other hand, the hunter-gatherers just put on an extra jacket and hunker
down by the campfire. The wild plants, fish and animals they seek remain
unchanged. “Ho-hum. It’s cold. Better throw another log on the fire.”
Of
course we here in America
However,
remainders of the hunter-gatherer society still exist in the form of modern-day
foragers. These individuals glean what is best from every source. This gives
foragers a leg up on those who totally depend upon supermarkets for their
sustenance.
In
2009, the weather was so wet and cold that all my crops failed. I managed to
get a few pallid stalks of Swiss chard from inside my greenhouse. But
everything else died from standing in water and lack of sunlight. However, I
harvested enough wild food so that I could home-can and freeze enough to last
me through the winter. This was in addition to eating fresh, albeit wild,
vegetables all summer, too.
So
if this year turns out to be another one like 2009, it’s not the end of the
world…at least not for foragers. It won’t be fun, but it won’t be a disaster
either.
