Back to basics

For many months now I haven't really read any Peak Oil stuff - websites, blogs, books or message boards. The sense of doom eased off and I was just enjoying life at where we were at.

I'd done plenty of preparation stuff for most of last year - educated myself (and gave it a go) on vegetable gardens, stocked up on seeds, assessed our equipment/supplies/knowledge for all aspects of life, learned about food preservation, implemented systems to utilise our roof water on the garden, streamlined our day to day life as far as petrol usage, stopped buying non-essentials (but stocked up on a few key things that I felt were important to have on hand), put together an emergency food kit/first aid kit...

Then I just let things be and went about our life without thinking about Peak Oil and the post-peak oil world.

However, in the past month I've started a little reading here and there again and have reconnected with where things are at. It's been timely, and helped me refocus. It could also be the seasonal change - my garden focus during Spring and Summer has come to an end and it feels like it's time to refocus on gaining more skills and preparing in ways I hadn't already done or thought of.

I don't feel the real sense of doom and gloom that I did when I first became aware and delved into PO and the surrounding issues, but it's back in my fore-thoughts but in just a reminder kind of way rather than depressing.

So today I set myself a few little projects...

As a part of my organic horticulture course we needed to complete a Shelter Belt (wind break) module. I wasn't particularly interested when I first read it, but one option was to plan an Insect Habitat. That got me thinking about a Real project, rather than just a mock one to get the assignment out of the way. In my front garden there is currently a herb circle which is partly planted out and a redundant square foot garden. So for my assignment I planned to fill in one side of our garden with trees and herb plants to provide wind shelter (my tomatoes up in this garden took a bashing during the spring winds), insect habitat and a place to grow medicinal and culinary herbs. I had Simon chop down a dead tree that had just been sitting there (a bit more firewood lol) and dismantle the square foot garden, I bought my herbs and plants based on my assignment plan (already assessed for soil type, location and space required - I have very sandy soil and this garden receives full sun) and we spent some time planting them all before dinner. The kids got right into it and this was the first time that Danielle has really shown a lot of interest in the garden and wanting to help out. We dug into our home made compost that has just been decomposing over the past year.


We planted a self-fertilizing feijoa, rosemary, lavenders, geranium, clary sage, winter savory, chamomile, lemon balm. I still have a backrow space for a lemon verbena when I find one.

Earlier on in the afternoon I decided my emergency food bin was well overdue for checking for expiry dates, so after pulling out a few things and replacing them with pantry items I had on hand (and the rest added to the shopping list) I felt relieved it had been done.

Other projects I want to get into...

~ Make more ginger beer
~ Find some driftwood or similar to edge my new herb garden
~ Put the chicken tractor back onto the garden grid over winter to keep the weeds in check now that only a few beds are being used with mostly silverbeet, spinach and brassica's
~ Relocate my compost bin down to the lower garden
~ Crochet a bag (and make some crochet stitch markers)