Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? Happy new year! How was your holiday season? It is a somewhat strange feeling that it is a new year, already!? Well, I feel like that every January. It is all good. I like every season, and anticipating spring is exciting for many reasons, the days are getting longer, we are moving to a new house, it’s almost time to start gardening again.
Speaking of gardening, as I was taking a walk earlier today enjoying the snow slowly falling on my face I started to think about what seeds to plant in my garden, and when I need to start. Very logical when one is walking in the snow, right? Anyhow, I decided that I’m going to be brave and not start any seeds until we moved into the new place March 1st. It’s going to be high time to start some seeds indoors right around that time. I am going to plant lots of beets, carrots, green onions, squash, beans and strawberries this year.
I applied to participate in a citizen science project initiated by CSA testing an innovative decentralised approach to seed conservation, multiplication and sharing in order to conserve agro-biodiversity. The project I applied to be a part of is a three year project about promoting genetic diversity of legumes in Europe. If I’m selected I plant five varieties of beans (that I get sent to me,) plant/nurture/harvest/save seeds for seed exchange/try the beans in different recipes all while I’m recording everything with photos/videos/and text via an app on my phone.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrated approach to managing landscapes—cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries—that addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and accelerating climate change. CSA aims to simultaneously achieve three outcomes:
1. Increased productivity: Produce more and better food to improve nutrition security and boost incomes, especially of 75 percent of the world’s poor who live in rural areas and mainly rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.
2. Enhanced resilience: Reduce vulnerability to drought, pests, diseases and other climate-related risks and shocks; and improve capacity to adapt and grow in the face of longer-term stresses like shortened seasons and erratic weather patterns.
3. Reduced emissions: Pursue lower emissions for each calorie or kilo of food produced, avoid deforestation from agriculture and identify ways to absorb carbon out of the atmosphere.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climate-smart-agriculture
I really hope I’m selected to participate in this project, but even if I’m not I’m growing a few different varieties of beans this year. I am also very excited to see how all the perennials I planted last year will produce this year; rhubarb, Jerusalem artichoke, red currant, black currant, gooseberry, raspberry, and chive. A new year and a new gardening season is always exciting! Do you have any gardening plans for this upcoming season? If you do, please share! I LOVE hearing about gardening plan 🙂
We are enjoying a three day weekend this weekend. I’ve been doing some baking (the photo above showed some bread I baked yesterday morning,) some reading (mostly for school see the photo below,) and I’ve enjoyed some wonderful relaxing times with my daughter. We’ve been starting to organise things a little bit as a preparation for the upcoming move. I don’t like postponing things to the last minute, it feels better to do a little bit at a time.
Have a wonderful rest of your weekend! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
Love,
Maria
GreenDreams 