Realistic gardening (and some links on storing and preserving what you grow)

Energy Bulletin has a short article by Zachary Nowak touching upon what he calls the ''illusion'' that those concerned about Peak Oil have about being able to adequately feed themselves with their own gardens. He presents some hard and realistic questions that prospective gardeners should ask themselves and he makes a handful of suggestions. The gist of it is that there's a difference between being a backyard hobby gardener and on literally needing to be able to fill your cupboards with what you grow. It takes a lot of time and energy and a lot of knowledge to grow food. At least to grow enough to feed yourself adequately. Nowak has recently written a book called Crash Course: Preparing for Peak Oil which looks at his 7-year-long attempt to become self-sufficient and addresses the challenges of post-Peak life. You can download the intro and first chapter for free, as well as order the entire book itself on his website.

Oh yeah... I added a new links section called ''Food Storage'' earlier today, and I posted a link to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s information on storing horticultural crops. Further along in their document, they have a section on processing horticultural crops, including info on solar drying, canning, etc. Most of the information is designed to be used by a non-technically oriented audience. If you nose around their site, you'll find tons of useful information there, including Ecocrop, a searchable database of over 2300 plant species that provides environmental crop information.