I'm pretty sure the single best thing you can do for your mental health is to plant a salad garden.

Because on the one hand there's the sense of accomplishment, the nurturing of new life, all the benefits of having green things live with you, The hands-on factor that really isn't too labor-intensive, not to mention the salad.

But all of that really pales in comparison to the ability to squat down next to a plant and cram some leaves in your mouth like a dinosaur from the land before time. That shit rewires your brain. Absolutely nothing drives home the point that you are a recently domesticated animal living in the modern world than eating like a caveman.

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Gardening

Country/Rural Living:

Sewing/Mending:

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

interviews about malathion

so this is a bit of a reach, even for the very out-there calls for interviews ive put on tumblr. i don’t necessarily NEED an interviewee, but if anyone comes across this who is one of the following:

please dm me by 10/1 if you’d like to be interviewed for a piece i’m doing with modern farmer!

x

how many houseplants can you have before it's genuinely a problem? asking for a friend.

I appreciate everyone coming together and egging me on (and I do have an empty flowerpot...) but I think the funniest part of this is all the pictures of peoples' succulents. Which are lovely, don't get me wrong! Some of you have very nice set ups.

But my rubber plant is bigger than me, and my pothos' vines were over ten feet long before I trimmed them. I've got a white kalanchoe where almost every stalk is a foot long, and I just transplanted my basil and parsley to a 31" window box in anticipation of winter. We are beyond a cute collection of pots, these things will eat my whole apartment if I'm not careful.

Zucchini brownies are not a diet thing and anyone trying to sell them to you as such should not be listened to. The only recipe difference should be that there is now zucchini in the batter. Because you need to use up all of the zucchini. It is NOT a health thing it is a desperate attempt to use up all of the zucchini. From growing zucchini. Because you get So Much Zucchini when you grow it. I'm so tired of zucchini stuff getting a bad rep because diet culture picked up the many recipes of farmers trying to use up zucchini and cut all the fun stuff that hides that fact that you are eating zucchini. The difference between zucchinni brownies and normal brownies should be that zucchini brownies texture is closer to carrot cake than other brownies. Zucchini bread should be a sweet bread that you can add raisins to if you want. For fun. For flavor. Similar to bannana bread. I'm tired of baking and cooking recipes designed to use up All The Zucchini being turned into diet stuff. It's not! It should be sweet and tasty to try to hide how much zucchini gets put in so it all gets eaten because I still have 5 whole zucchini on the counter and more in the garden and it needs eaten.

hey a local town actually did this!

they planted berries, root vegetables, leafy greens, herbs, all sorts. they label each plant and the sign said "free to take, leave some for others to enjoy!"

and people did. they took a bit, but left some for others.

it also fed the homeless people living around there.

bearing in mind this is a tourist town, so i half expected to see the plants gone. but nope, there's always some left.

people aren't naturally selfish, and they will share. the initiative works

And honestly? Most people who don't need it won't bother to stop and pick fruit. It's only people who actually need it who will devote the time. People with money still have grocery stores.

[Image description: tweet by Black Botanist @CreativeTiana: transcript follows]

I was talking to someone about planting food and fruit trees in public spaces and they were like “Why so everyone can steal the food?”

And I was like “See, that’s the problem right there. Why should taking food off a public tree be stealing?”

"Urban food forest" is something I'm hearing more and more. Do some poking around, there may be an opportunity to help with or start something like this near you.

I understand that a lot of people are really into gardening but i think you should refrain from pointing at peoples houses and announcing the sexes of the bushes outside because you might accidentally get the correct ratio of men to women in that household and scare the crap out of the residents inside. Especially if you’re going to end your statement with “that’s why they’re not going to survive”

Last night i was sitting at my computer with my window open and i heard a guy on the sidewalk walk up to my yard, vaguely point at my house (it was dark) and say “oh yea there’s 3 females and one male, thats why they’re not going to survive” and then walked away and it took me walking outside with a flashlight to understand he was referring to the fact that 3/4 of my rosemary bushes have flowers and that he was not stalking my family of 3 women and 1 man and threatening us

It's just very important to me that you know prairie-style gardens exist.

Ok. Thank you. Carry on.

Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions in Gardening, 1994

OH it's a lesbian and her enormous sunflower

I thought she had her arm around the shoulders of her wife, who was dressed as a plant monster for some reason

is this what haley was talking about in stardew valley

So you want to write scifi?

You have your characters bringing along some plants to an alien planet??

Please for the love of fuck join a gods damned online gardening group and ask questions about the plants you are writing about. Even if you're just writing about them in passing and don't think it's important.

Ask if any of the people in the gardening group would check over your writing.

You would not believe how many science fiction writers think "bringing mint to an alien planet" is a totally normal casual thing to do.

Or think that it's possible to "run out of" catnip, which is a type of mint, plants.

Literally a major point of tension in Plague Ship was the fact that they "ran out" of catnip plants to sell. When neither the characters nor the author were aware of let alone concerned about the concept of genetic diversity.

Do you understand how absurd this problem is? Running out of catnip plants??? When you have endless access to soil, water, and light???

If you don't, then that is exactly why you need to do proper reasearch before randomly writing about plants in scifi settings.

If you're planning to include any real actual plants in your setting and your intention is NOT to have your characters accidentally create an ecological disaster.....

please for the love of fuck just look up gardening groups on facebook and find a nerd and ask them to give you some tips and constructive criticism for how you plan to use plants in your scifi setting.

If your characters purposefully bring any type of mint at all to plant on an alien planet they should be considered interplanetary ecological terrorists. And I'm not even joking.

And that's just talking about mint. This isn't even getting into how horrifically literally any "lets bring crops/livestock from Earth to an alien planet" should be going.

Please actually research plants before you include them in your scifi setting. No matter how casual you think the statement is. Talk to people who grow the plants. Maybe fucking grow them yourself if you have the space and are in the right climate. Do real actual reasearch. Understand the plants you are talking about before you casually throw them into your setting.

If you don't understand why bringing mint to an alien planet means you should be considered an ecological terrorist you've got no business writing about plants in scifi. Just make your characters eat synthesized nutrition goo. Please.

Current mood- the scene in Secondhand Lions where Garth says “we’re retired- gardening is what retired people do. It’s good for you. Make you live to be a hundred”. And Hub replies, “Hell with that. YOU live to be a hundred!” And throws the rake over his shoulder and stalks into the house.