What’s in the ground:

As I said, this section will probably disappear soon, as the season moves on and the soil renews itself. But I had to pat myself on the back. After a nasty little snow storm on Saturday in Philadelphia, and watching my partner’s nasturtium totally wilt, I thought my lettuce was good enough dead. But when I went to salvage yesterday, I ended up picking half a bag of lettuce greens and spinach, the cold weather making it even more delicious. Knowing that today was going to be rainy and in the fifties, I did a quick cultivation of the soil and am hoping for lettuce at least for another few weeks. I’ll keep y’all informed.

What’s going on in sustainability:

Sustainability is a funny thing. Sometimes it invokes the “urban” part of this blog as the modern green image of the progressive family using compact bulbs, driving a Prius, and shopping at the local co-op. Other times the “homestead” image invokes the simple farming family, gathering around the wood burning stove and playing old time music on hand carved instruments. The reality is that real sustainability exists at the mid point between these two images.

I use this example to explain a big issue many sustainably minded people face during the holiday season. For those of us more entrenched in the city and its traditions that are so hard to escape, we go and look for a tree to decorate our living rooms that was sustainably grown, in organic soil, and ethically sold, which there is basically no market for. So in the end, these constraints send us just down the street to the lot selling a whole forest’s worth of prematurely chopped trees.

Then there are others of us, pining for tradition who wish we could just trek out into the woods with a sleigh and an axe, chop down the tree and triumphantly return home. I actually have heard people contemplate doing this in Farimount Park, Philadelphia’s huge city park.

In reality, these two extremes are not the most sustainable solutions, and a midpoint does exist. With some forward thinking, energy and help from the internet, you can find nurseries that are selling potted evergreens, douglas firs, or any other kind of decorative. Aside from not having to deal with those flimsy stands that will always let you down (my most vivid childhood memories of christmas trees are when they fall over out of the stand and crash on the living room floor), the tree is much more happy and secure in its own soil. And you can be much more happy and secure that you are supporting sustainable farming. Instead of letting the tree adorn your living room for three weeks and then kicking it to the curb (or burning it in the city wide bonfire like in New Orleans) you can replant the tree in your yard if you have land or in a wooded spot where you’ve researched that your tree will thrive in that ecosystem. My housemate even came up with the great idea of buying a fruiting perennial tree, decorating that, and then replanting it in the yard.

Now, this may be a little more difficult in climates where the ground is already freezing. But as I read the report that this has been the warmest decade on record, the ground should be easy to dig in, and goodness knows we can use a few more trees in the ground to trap that pesky CO2. So, rather than taking another tree out of the ground, put something back in. And if you’re really festive like me, and still enjoy decorating the outside of your house, cheesy string lights are just last century. Go back two centuries and take those discarded tree branches after you prune your potted tree and string them up on your porch with a few ribbons. It’s cheap, fun and it reuses, which is the best kind of sustainable action.

So, enjoy this holiday season and I’ll be back next week with a sustainably festive tip.

Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.