#solarpunkactionweek

[acornflour]

:) sidewalk chalk is fun. making some stickers with packing tape, printed designs, and wax paper tonight: I'll let you guys know how it goes!

[practicalsolarpunk]

Solarpunk Action Week is here!! This week I will be:

Putting up a clothesline, so I can stop using my dryer at least most of the time.

Continuing to work on my garden - I’ve got seedlings sprouting, garlic and onions that need weeding, potatoes to plant, and a fence to put up.  Lots to do!

Mending, hopefully getting a few pairs of pants patched up and usable again, perhaps working on darning some socks if I get really ambitious.

Making paper out of yucca, if I have time - the garden is more of a priority at the moment.

What are all of you doing??

- Mod S

[solarpunkdyke]

SPAW Day 1

Seed Bombs

My fiance and I have been saving paper scraps and junk mail for a month or two now, and yesterday we turned some of it into a slurry and made seed bombs!

They're filled with a native wildflower mix to attract local pollinators, and we'll be tossing them around a few select locations around town.

We also have plenty of paper and seeds left, so we may make some more, or use the paper for other projects (like making sheets of paper) and scatter the seeds as-is, if we can find a good place for them to grow.

[anarchopuppy]

It's @solarpunkactionweek! Here's what I've been up to this week:

On Tuesday I helped carry boxes out to cars for Birmingham Mutual Aid's weekly food box distro. I forgot to take a picture so here's one from a couple weeks ago (neither of these people are me):

Gardening work has been ongoing throughout the week, which has included pulling out a huge 5-gallon load of compost (pictured below) and harvesting + pulling up our winter garden (including tons of arugula which went into a salad tonight!). The rest of the week will involve spreading this beautiful compost, filling the composter with leaves, and direct sowing our summer plants. We're trying chaos gardening for the first time this year!

And today I went on a run to 7 different little free libraries in my city and distributed this stack of anarchist literature that I got from the Birmingham Free Store, throwing up radical stickers all along the way (mostly the custom Birmingham Mutual Aid stickers I got printed from stickerguy a while back)

Tomorrow and Saturday I'll be volunteering at the Free Store for around 5 hours each day, but other than that and the gardening I don't have anything else planned for this week. It turned out to be an unideal time for the plans I wanted to kick off (the mutual aid supply drive and people's park workday), but those are still in the cards, just for a little later on

And of course this whole time I've been moderating the SPAW blog and continuing to compile resources and education on my main like always ✊💕

[oddly-okay]

Day two of solarpunk action week and I tried to edit my dandelion pesto vidya but it turns out I'm lazy so I did this instead. I am very caffeine so please excuse my handwriting.

Image ID

A painting of dandelions on a white background next to black text that reads "Dandelion greens are edible but so are their flowers! Blossoms are sweetest when young but always pretty."

End ID

[lichenobserver]

here's my project for SPAW; built and delivered a pallet bench to make a nearby bus stop more useable! did some trash pickup too. i want to do this for a few other stops around my immediate area eventually, as i get my hands on more pallets, but this was what i got done in the Week proper. <3

[facegodandwalkbackwards]

Got some native pollinator favorites growing alongside some food! Heirloom carrots and turnips and, as a fun experiment, some sugar beets!

So excited for when our flowers start blooming!

Oh, and there's a few green onions I replanted and a leek, and also what will eventually be a dewberry bush for my mom and dad!

@solarpunkactionweek How'd we do for a first try?

[fennopunk]

I am so damn glad I gave myself permission to not be productive this Solarpunk Action Week. SPAW has generally been important week for me and I spend months planning for it, but I also know that I may have a bad week just then and promising to do something and then not being able to is excruciating, even if others understand and are supportive.

I've had a bad week. Not awful, thankfully, but I've slept poorly since my sleep medication doesn't work for me anymore, so I've been groggy and haven't had the energy or focus to do much.

I've done little tho, and that's a win and enough.

I sneaked into my brother's apartment when he was at work, in the guise of getting a bottle of May Day Mead he made. He has started to make that every year in large enough quantities that he can share with rest of the family and I really did get a bottle. But I also left potted cuttings of rhaphidophora tetrasperma, because my brother has started to show interest in plants (it took just 34 years of professional-gardener-as-grandparent and mom-and-little-sibling-love-plants levels of exposure) and he recently had birthday, so I gave my tetrasperma a haircut :D The absent mind is also a family trait, so just in case I stuck a water bottle on the planter, because the cuttings require constant moisture, and I don't trust my brother to remember water it often enough.

The strawberry is slowly but surely growing too and I have been giving geraniums some outdoors time. It's still bit too chilly to have them outside full-time, but I try to ease them up little by little.

There's couple more days to go. Let's see if I have more spoons for them.

[queer-ecopunk]

Time to move some beans outside! Hopefully they do as well as the peas.

Hope everyone has had a good solarpunk action week. Keep up the good work you started and good luck to all future projects!

[acornflour]

Urban Gardening 101: Heirloom Seeds

Topic: Heirloom seeds, their history, benefits, and reasons to plant them! 

Tl;Dr at the end! 

~~~~~~~

So, heirloom seeds. What are they? In short, heirloom seeds are very old seed varieties that have been passed down through generations. But what does that mean, really? Well, these are plants, veggies, and fruits that have been preserved via open pollination! All heirloom plants preserve the original traits from one generation to the next. This opens the door for a lot of benefits, and heirloom seeds preserve a really important part of history! Most heirloom seed varieties are over 50 years old, passed down from the original parent plants; however, some organizations require that the variety predate World War II. Moreover, heirloom seeds must be entirely true to the first plant: they cannot be hybrids, nor can they be genetically modified. So, let’s get into the benefits! 

Cost

Oh, money. Capitalism is truly unyielding, isn’t it? Fortunately, heirloom seeds save a lot of money in multiple ways! First and foremost, heirlooms tend to be cheaper than hybrids or GMO seeds. Additionally, heirlooms are open-pollinated! This provides a huge range of benefits. For one, open-pollination means that the plant is able to create its own seeds that will be viable for another planting next year. Most hybrid and GMO seeds that are harvested won't always grow, which is an unexpected problem a lot of new gardeners encounter. At the very least, they won't grow up to be like the parent plant, if it grows at all. Thus, one has to continuously buy more seeds if one opts to buy GMO or hybrid. Another benefit of open pollination is disease and pest resistance! Locally adapted heirlooms in particular evolve with the environment, creating a stronger and hardier plant. You'll make your own over the years as you harvest the best seed from your plant and continue to grow it. And hey, it's pretty awesome watching nature in action! Come on, you're making your own locally adapted plants! You're gonna tell me that's not cool as hell?

Nutrition and Taste

Modern fruits and veggies that you see in your big-name grocery aren't meant to taste good or nourish you well: they're meant to be shipped. And anyone who grows heirlooms can tell the difference by taste alone - nevermind the nutrients! Heirloom vegetables have been saved for decades - in some cases even centuries - because they are the outstandingly good in home and small market gardens. Shipping isn't a concern with small growers (I mean really, how many farmer's market growers travel across however-many states and sit in a grocery store for a week? None.), which allows taste and nutritional content to take the front seat. And by god, it certainly does! A lot of modern hybrids have unfortunately sacrificed taste and nutrition in favor of yield and ease of shipping. Honestly, a lot of heirloom lovers love heirlooms for their taste alone, and who can blame them?

Steady Supply

Alright, you're probably looking at this bullet point and going "what the fuck does this mean." I promise, I'm gonna explain it. This bullet can be a pro to some people, and a con to others. Heirlooms don't produce their entire harvestable crop all at once, essentially. Instead of picking everything all at the same time, you're actually gonna gradually pick/harvest it. Essentially, you're gonna have a steady supply of produce! Some people prefer to harvest everything in one swoop, others prefer to do it gradually. Neither is better as everyone has different needs, but it's worth mentioning!

History

A smaller, but beloved, point that naturally comes up with heirlooms. By planting heirlooms, you're preserving an important part of history. And isn't it nice, knowing that you're eating the same thing your Ancestors once did? That's a capital A, baby!

If anyone has anything to add, please add on!! I'd love to hear your thoughts!!

Tl;Dr: Heirloom plants have better taste and nutritional content, are more disease & pest resistant, and preserve an important part of history. They're also more cost effective, both in the immediate and long-term, and provide a steady supply of produce instead of a large crop that goes to waste if not used or canned.

[grungepoetica]

I finally got off my ass and ordered some seeds to start gardening! It's not much -- just chamomile, dill, and bush beans -- but all I have is an apartment rooftop and I have to start somewhere, lol.

Hopefully it'll go well and I'll expand things into a larger veggie & herb garden by the time Solarpunk Action Week comes around again. Being a tiny bit more self-sustaining and detaching myself from capitalist agriculture is important, ya know? ^_^

[solarpunkdyke]

SPAW Day 4

Veggie Scraps and Planting Seeds

I like to save the scraps from fruits and vegetables in our kitchen and boil them in water to make a sort of broth, which I then use to water my plants once every week or two. I call it Terrible Soup. 😅

Yesterday I made three jars of it!

My fiance and I also took a walk to the library and brought along the seed bombs we'd made, plus the bag of leftover wildflower seed, and scattered them around town.

[lady-book-trash]

the apples are coming...

hello friends! today is a bit dreary here but enjoy these images of my apple tree! thanks to my plant ID app, we now know these are Paradise Apples. funkee.

for the last day of #Solarpunkactionweek I went around my property and discovered pretty much Every Plant Life's name. weeds, vines, trees, even grasses. it was epic.

[oddly-okay]

Solarpunk action week day five(?) I'm gonna move these marigolds I planted in a mixed box since the Bachelor's buttons took off so well so early

Colors from the sprouts pic:

Blue: Lupine

Pink: Pansy

Orange: Marigold

Red: Bachelor buttons

[doinsomethingdaily]

For last solarpunk action week I had these tomatoes set aside to give away to neighbores. I had let them grow till they were about 15 cm and then I just put them out front with a sign that people could take them.

Great success!

All of them have new homes. I hope they will grow delicious tomatoes for their new owners.

I was lightly nervous about this action but it warms my heart knowing people will try to grow some tomatoes somewhere...

[metawish]

HAPPY SOLARPUNK ACTION WEEK YA'LL! I finally participated after seeing two of the weeks happen. This year, I start with finishing a year long waitlist project: bowl covers.

Hopefully tomorrow when I walk my dog I can do some light detrashing around the block and finishing up the garden prep/plant tomatos. We had two frosts happen so I'm a lil hesitant to plant but we have 100 tomato plants and only a small raised bed for them and various other plants.

Might try to clean my balcony (and the house) since I want to save seeds and can't let them cross pollinate, so my screened porch would be perfect to have a mini garden for special seed saving!

Other potential projects include planting tomatos around town and trying to finish setting up my home server!