Image by Howard Walsh from Pixabay

Years ago I took an Envisioning Workshop hosted by a friend. It was the first time I had seriously sat down to plan out a big project, and I instantly saw how it was a far superior way than I had experienced in professional ‘strategic planning’ workshops that my employers had paid thousands of dollars to host and for each of us to attend. Backward planning from a dream vision back to the present moment uncovered some steps that were essential for success that would have been overlooked otherwise (e.g. the training needed to complete a step could be added as a sub step and the money needed for childcare or to pay for the materials necessary to succeed at the next step were revealed through this process).

But it was missing something. The last step. The step that turned the vision into actionable reality.

After taking a couple of hours to really think through all the steps, I have to admit that I didn’t wind up doing even the first task in my plan.

And when I missed that first task, I never found the time to re-do my plan and change the timelines for everything, and the project never happened.

But over the past ten years I started taking a different approach to taking that first step that has meant I have been able to accomplish some important goals without fussing with a complicated plan or milestones that got missed.

I started to use ‘ chunking’, and let go of deadlines and milestones completely.

I have created a whole course that reimagines the ‘Envisioning’ process I learned years ago using my chunking strategy to kickstart the project, and keep everything flowing and eventually reaching the end goal.

But in this article, I’m just going to explain chunking so that you can see how it is a gamechanger that will allow you to get to the finish line instead of abandon the race along the way.

What do I mean by chunking?

I mean first looking at your calendar instead of the task at hand.

Identify the next available 15 minute amount of time when you could realistically sit down and work on a small part of your plan. The smaller the better to start off.

If you want to realize your dream, and it seems impossible to find the time necessary to do it all, just focus on the next necessary step and keep plugging away at it until that task is done.

Forget planning out dates and deadlines for each step along the way. Only take the time to book yourself for a 15 minute chunk to do a small thing towards your goal.

And the second secret to chunking is to keep at it like a beaver, planning another 15 minute block of time within48 hours – and perferably every day, or within the next 24 hours- to build momentum.

Reward yourself for keeping your appointment with yourself and putting in the time to make it happen instead of only reward yourself for completing a task.

After all, life happens and if you only get a reward for completing a task, you will most likely feel like a failure if you don’t complete it in the amount of time you imagined it would take. Missed ‘deadlines’ take an emotional toll and make it twice as hard to get back at it and keep trying until you finish that task. And then start and finish the next one.

I have found that, as a single mom, the only way I get serious work done is by booking time to do it using a co-working app like focusmate.com. It’s amazing how much more productive I am, and how much more accountable I am to myself and my projects and goals, when I see an official email confirming my time and the time of someone else to keep me company as I beaver away at my task.

Just seeing someone else in work mode, hunkering down to do some work, is enough to get me in work mode too. And if a real person is counting on me to keep them company too, I find the time to commit and stick to it. The cleaning and other daily things are easy to put to the side until my focusmate session is over, instead of giving in to temptation and putting my project work to the side.

If I book a 30 min focus mate session, but only have a plan to do 15 minutes of work on my task, then I feel like a total hero when I do a full 15 mins. And I get enough ‘noodling’ time to settle in and do that 15 minutes of task time without feeling like I am wasting valuable time.

It’s a win-win .

Let me know if this process works for you!

Originally published on Substack

https://mariannable.substack.com/p/10-no-cost-ways-to-get-free-child

While I was between homes recently, I stayed with a friend who has 3 kids. We both teach English online, so we started coordinating our schedules so one of us could teach while the other looked after the kids for 2-4 hours at a time. And so I experienced co-parenting for the first time, and I will never look back!

Image by senivpetro on Freepik

It’s been great to have even a couple of hours each day where I knew another adult was looking after my kids and I could concentrate on other things.

I never would have asked her to help me out in this way had I not been staying with her, but now that we are doing it, I wonder why it was ‘out of the question’ before. I wonder why so many of us are hesitant to ask for the help we want and need?

My friend hit the nail on the head on ay when we were talking about parenting. She feels a great deal of pressure to try to always be present for her kids. Her parents were emotionally absent and she is determined to be different.

But once she said it out loud, she realized that is un realistic. It’s impossible to be everything for your children. As they say, ‘ it takes a village to raise a child’.

Now that we are getting a break in the day from parenting, we both come back to childcare with renewed energy and much more patience.

So let go of the guilt! Plan on spending time away from your kids as a way to be an excellent parent, not just when you are desperate for a break and things have gotten out of hand emotionally with your kids.

Here are some ideas for ‘free childcare’ if you are a single parent or a parent whose spouse is too busy to spell you off during the day. And let g

1. Childcare Co-op with Other Single Moms – Form a group where you rotate watching each other’s kids. Monday you watch 4 kids while others work, Tuesday someone else takes a turn. Everyone gets free days without kids.
2. Trade Skills for Babysitting – Offer something you’re good at (haircuts, tutoring, meal prep, house cleaning) in exchange for someone watching your kids.
3. Tap Into Teen Volunteers – Contact local high schools about students needing volunteer hours for National Honor Society, college applications, or community service requirements.
4. Church Nursery Swaps – Many churches offer free childcare during services. Volunteer one service, attend another service child-free, or ask about mom’s groups with rotating childcare.
5. Family Trade-Offs – Ask relatives to watch kids in exchange for helping them with something specific (yard work on weekends, running their errands, teaching them technology).
6. YMCA Open Gym Childcare – Many Ys offer financial assistance or scholarships that include access to their childcare during open gym times. I know people who go to IKEA to pay for the childcare service while they sit in the IKEA cafe for an hour.
7. Neighbor Block Swap or ‘Momune’ co-parenting arrangements- Arrange with trusted neighbors to watch kids for short periods, alternating weeks. Even 2 hours can be transformative.
8. College Student Practicum Hours – Contact early childhood education or social work departments. Students often need practice hours and will provide free care under supervision.
9. Virtual Playdates – Set up Zoom calls where kids “play together” online with another mom’s kids. Both moms can work while kids are occupied. Works best if YOU wear th headphones instead of your child! Works especially well for ages 6+.

Note: Do not try to use your local library as a free childcare option. You can’t just drop off your kid and leave them unattended during craft time or story time. The library staff are not insured for childcare duties (nor are they trained childcare experts). I used to work in libraries and this was a big problem.

You may also be interested in my previous article about ‘Momunes’ if you want to make this kind of parenting shift on a permanent basis.

Photo credit: gardeningnoob.com

Wool Recycling in Ways you Never Thought of Before

Here’s a way to use your old wool blankets, wool stuffing from something, wool sweaters and wool socks with holes in them that I bet you never thought of: fertilize your garden!

I saw this video today by Fresh Tech, “Here Is Why Australia Buries Tons of Sheep Wool Under the Dead Soil”, and it blew my mind.

Photo credit: Fresh Tech video Youtube. “Here is Why Australia is Burying Tons of Sheep Wool Under Dead Soil”

Thinking Creatively

Due to a downturn in the wool market, Australia had tonnes of excess wool. Instead of send it to a landfill, which happens with discarded clothing, they thought about what else they could do with it.

Turns out it makes great fertilizer for soul and helps stabilize and rejuvenate depleted soil and stop desertification. The wool breaks down slowly and adds many nutrients back into the soil, without adding any harmful chemicals, as well as help retain water, much like mulch. It stops snails and some insects from crawling up stems.

They buried huge amounts of wool to bring dead soil back to life. In Mongolia they have successfully buried wool in circular patches to stop the advancing desert and prepare the soil for a massive tree planting and reforestation project.

Photo credit: Fresh Tech video Youtube. “Here is Why Australia is Burying Tons of Sheep Wool Under Dead Soil”

They buried wads of it in soil, where thru found it slowly broke down naturally.

A Pellet for Your Thoughts

They made some old wool cloth into pellets, which they buried, with the same positive results.

Photo Credit: Wool Grow Australia. https://aussiewoolpellets.com.au/

They used flat pieces of wool cloth and tacked them around young trees to protect them in areas where they wanted to protect the young roots from sand and erosion and it worked better than anything else they had tried to date.

They have also created a liquid wool fertilizer!

A Cozy Blankei

I think the most surprising example of using wool leftovers was to put it down under walking trails that had eroded and turned into watery mud paths.Apparentky they got this idea from remnants of wool found under ancient Roman roads. The wool lined paths made 10 years ago have remained intact and stabilized. I am absolutely amazed by this. I think of all the wool sweaters I have owned that got holes in them, and wonder how this material that seems so delicate could fortify roads for hundreds of years.

For those reading this who only have small garden patches, take heart. This gardener (the gardeningnoob.com) tried it out in her garden in the back yard and reported she loved using wool because it:

• protected her tiny plants

• retained moisture extremely well during a drought , wool (pictured above) retained water
• fertilized the soil slowly (she reported it took a year to break down)
• brought dead soil back to life by attracting healthy biome development
• aerated the soil (providing air and water channels deep into the soil).

I admit that at first it struck me as a huge waste to bury wool and use it as compost or fertilizer. But I’ve changed my mind. Compared to filling landfills, where nothing really breaks down once buried and the soil created is so filled with chemicals it can’t be used, burying wool in an eco friendly and productive way that rugged you immediate benefit and restores the earth is not actually a waste at all.

This catchy word describes an old concept of single Moms banding together to buy or rent a house to share for financial and emotional support reasons

What is a Mommune?

Mommunes are not a new idea, but they have been given this new name recently, a combination of ‘Moms’ and ‘communes’. The word captures the idea of living in community instead of just living as strangers under the same roof, like roommates.

‘Co-living’ is another common term for this type of lifestyle.

2. Interview

How can you start a Mommune?

The idea is that single moms choose to live together in a larger house, to cut down on living expenses and to share parenting tasks.

Sometimes, rather than share a house, a ‘Mommune’ is the term used to describe when single Moms choose to live as neighbours , or rent apartments in the same building, or find a place to live nearby each other, within easy walking distance.


How to Get Started

1. Ask Around / Advertise
Some Moms get the ball rolling by social media posts in parenting groups or by advertising in local news sources and in Facebook groups or other social media.

There is an interview process and selection process, to try to ensure a good fit amongst the parents and kids in terms of values and personalities and lifestyles. Some describe it as being like applying for a job!

Although sometimes friends simply decide to cut costs by moving into the same house, usually it doesn’t form by accident.

It is a form of intentional community. Some planning and lots of conversations will help it succeed.

3. Set ground rules and discuss how to live together and parenting approaches to resolving issues and conflicts. Set budget parameters out clearly in advance, and payment dates for bills and who will do what. You could make charts posted in a common area or inside a kitchen cupboard door to ensure transparency and fairness.

4.Establish communication routines. Some coops set out meeting times that are weekly or monthly checkins for discussing household matters.

Mommunes often set ground rules together in a formal way, and sometimes there is legal documentation about assets.

This is best discussed in the interview stage.

Reports by many indicate it’s a lifestyle and system that works really well.

One Mom described it as being in a sort of marriage without the romance. Others who are very liberal, add romance into the mix as well, living in polyamorous arrangements of all kinds.

What are the Benefits of Living in a Mommune?

From the videos posted online by people doing this to news reports about it, the following benefits were frequently mentioned:

• reduced living costs through splitting rent, internet, utilities, vehicles
• increased emotional support for parents
• increased social skills development opportunities for ‘lone kid’ families that resemble cousin or sibling relationships
• ability to learn how to be a good roommate with people who are not your immediate family
• lower expenses on household and car sharing insurance
• Increased free time as a result of taking turns doing weekly chores (e.g. yardwork,shovelling the driveway, cooking duties, housecleaning, cleaning and school commutes). This is helpful whether a single Mon works from home or has to work outside the home

A number of Moms interviewed said that while they started living in a Mommune for financial reasons, they quickly discovered that an even bigger benefit was the emotional support and comfort that can come from sharing a home with another parent.

This type of living arrangement would be particularly helpful to people who are vulnerable, as in those without strong extended family support. Many people live far from their hometown and family and financial hardship can make life extremely lonely.
When you are constantly strapped for cash and struggle to make ends meet all the time, social activities with friends and registering your child in classes and sports outside regular school activities goes out the window. When months of hardahip stretch into years, the children suffer severely in ways they can’t easily make up for later on in life.

What are the Downsides of Mommunes?

Some issues that arise are:

• personality conflicts and fights amongst the kids or pets
• value differences that make co-parenting challenging
• insurance claim issues in situations of damage or unexpected financial expenses if there is damage to something
• social stigma (people making assumptions or judgements about the situation)

Like living with roommates or living in a co-op situation, there can be personality conflicts, and disagreements about how certain tasks should be done, and problems if there is property damage.

Discussing and developing excellent communication and conflict resolution skills is essential, but not a hardship. It’s great practise for real life roommate situations.

Some Mommunes set out ‘code of ethics’ as well as legal property and asset rights. Others are more casual.

Some parents and kids might resent not hanging a house and space all to themselves, and having to share rooms, toys and furniture/entertainment devices like TVs or taking turns having access to a car.

Overall, I think the positives far outweigh any negatives.

Mommunes could be an ideal living arrangement for all ‘vulnerable’ people, not just single Moms, such as elderly people with health concerns and the need and want of company.
Multigenerational homes are another related topic.

Here are some good resources to check out for more information:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/12/realestate/single-mother-households-co-living.html

This video about a woman named Asia, a single mother of two, has captivated my imagination because she is a lot like me, and her garden is such an inviting green oasis.

She started gardening in 2020, as a hobby. In just few years (3) she has created something magnificent in the middle of a city that sustains her family most of the year.

In the video Asia walks us through her backyard garden and it looked lovely, and to may amazement, it looks like something even I could do.

I think all single moms interested in finding easy ways to provide healthy food for their families could learn a lot from her story.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get started.

Asia’s story proves that you don’t need the special seed starter trays or special soil. You don’t don’t have to buy a lot of fertilizers and chemicals if you use the principals of companion gardening to keep the insects at bay and use cloth covered hoops to protect some vulnerable plants.

She used cinderblocks that she got for free from a person giving them away on Facebook Marketplace.

She has used fabric grocery bags to grow most of her food. She now uses 60 in her yard. She likes them because she can move them around as needed and they don’t take up much space.

She built up the garden gradually, as she had time.

You can be successful quickly even if you start very small.

Asia started with one rectangle area on the ground in her backyard. She stacked a single layer of cinderblocks around a patch of ground in a rectangular shape. Then she filled the cinderblock bordered rectangle with soil. That’s it.

She uses no dig beds too. She just put cardboard boxes down on the ground and then piled compost on top then mulch (straw).

Then she starting planting things.

She used a hoop garden idea to protect some of the plants, I noticed, and they looked like hula hoops that had been cut and stuck in the holes in the cinderblocks. Then she covered the hoops with a white fabric that looked like cheesecloth. It didn’t look complicated or like a special kit that she had bought. I realized that I could probably do that too. Greenhouse kits are expensive, but this is not.

The next year she added another rectangular bed. And then she started using fabric bags to grow different plant because they are so compact and easy to move around.

She also has planted some fruit trees to start a food forest.

She uses a cattle wire fence as an arched trellis for vines.

The different types of gardening in her yard fill up the space vertically as well as horizontally, and it makes her whole backyard look cozy, like a little garden oasis.

You can learn as you go.

Asia says she has watched a lot of YouTube videos and adapted the ideas she saw to her own backyard situation.

She has a composting system and composts her kitchen scraps in a big sack with a thermometer in it.

She collects rainwater using a nifty black collapsible water barrel placed under her water spout. The top is covered and has a mesh hole, which is an ingenious design to keep the water fairly clean and pests out of it.

She has learned how to can and preserve food, and how to dehydrate herbs since her basil plant and other herbs produced so much. She has started to use a greenhouse tent with a cheap shelf from Walmart inside as a air drying rack for herbs and to start seedlings.

She showed how she makes basil tea using fresh leaves and it lookes so delicious. I had not thought of making fresh basil tea before, but why not? Basil is very good to help manage high blood pressure and smells so amazing.

She has a few chickens too.

In just four years, after watching YouTube videos and trying things, she has created a whole urban homestead for herself and her family, and is living in food abundance, supplying 90% of her family’s needs.

You can recoup your expenses within the first year.

Asia says she doesn’t need to buy any vegetables or fruit in summertime anymore. She grows and harvests enough to feed herself and her children.

Although she didn’t start out with the motivation to grow food so that she had healthier choices to feed her family, she now really appreciates knowing where her food comes from, and knowing that it has not been sprayed with chemicals or harmful pesticidess.

Most of all, she has discovered a peaceful hobby she loves. She doesn’t know why she didn’t start sooner.

Tonight, inspired by this video and how simple and easy she made it seem to start a garden, my son and I went out and collected some rocks and sand and soil in fabric grocery bags, so start our own urban farming adventure.

I have been saving seeds for a few months and we are going to try to see how to make a hoop house, just a tiny one, made of a few hula hoops cut in half, wedged into cinderblocks or bricks we round up in the neighbourhood.

Insects are a problem here in Mexico, and they have eaten all my previous attempts at growing tomatoes and sunflowers.

But we are determined to make this work. We need an extremely cost effective food security solution. I love the idea of growing in fabric bags since we don’t own this house and may have to move.

I realized that there was no benefit to waiting, and the sooner we started, the sooner we might start to enjoy our own homegrown produce.

I’ll keep you posted to show you how it goes!

I

Published on December 30,2024

I recently talked to Line Madore about a community group she is involved with in the Montreal area of the province of Quebec in Canada that is a sociable, fun and easy way to cut her grocery budget in half and get some tasty home made food.

The group is called Cuisine Collective Accueil – Le Ble de’Or. This is a group that coordinates cooking sessions among small groups of people. They get together every two or three weeks.

They use a community kitchen area, and what is made together is divided up amongst the people who helped cook it, and taken home to eat through the coming week.

There is a facilitator who coordinates everything. The group receives donations of ingredients and receives government subsidies to operate. They are provisioned with staples such as flour, rice, oil and spices.

Sometimes luxurious items are donated to them so that they don’t go to waste, such as chicken, vegetables or chocolate. They also receive canned goods.

It’s almost like a store inside the community kitchen, like a food bank.

Line loves being part of this collective kitchen. She just likes cooking in community and sharing what is made amongst all in the group. It’s a bonus that it saves her so much money.

Line shared that the people who participate in the cooking come from all walks of life. There are students, elderly people, people who live alone, and people who are struggling to feed their families in the group. They come for a variety of reasons: to get some social interaction so they don’t feel so isolated, because they want tasty homemade food,or because want to save money.

Each cooking session is 12 weeks long.

A facilitator coordinates this. A group of about 4 or 5 people come together to decide what to cook. They have five cooking books and they meet to decide what to make in advance of each session. They take 30 minutes to go through the five cook books available, and decide the menu for the upcoming cooking session in two week’s time. They always decide which entrees to make (two vegetarian and one meat meal) and a desert and they give the list to the facilitator. They facilitator is responsible for rounding up all the ingredients needed.

They meet for a few hours on a designated day to do the cooking. It usually only takes two or three hours.

They each bring their own containers, which might be plastic containers or jars. The Facilitator divides up what is made and the participants pack up what has been made and take it home.

The facilitator also announces the total cost and all the participants pay the facilitator the agreed upon amount. It is well organized and operates smoothly. The sam

photo

It turns out to be a huge cost savings. For example, in the picture you can see that on this day they made red lentil pasta sauce, peach meatballs with sundried tomatoes, pita bread with dried tomatoes, hummus and vegan brownies for a total cost of $3.95 CAD.

Here is another example of what they cooked together. One this day they made red lentil and apple salad teriyaki chicken, cheddar muffins, and kale patties for a grand total of $7.35.

Line commented that she always takes 6 portions and that this enough to feed her and her family for the better part of a week.

The food is paid for through donations of food and money, and the group is subsidized by government funding.

The collective is provisioned with staples such as flour, oil, rice, and spices. Sometimes they receive donations such as chicken, vegetables or chocolate. Sometimes it costs nothing to make the food due to the donations. They freeze ingredients or use canned goods.

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A Better Solution to Food Security

This is such an improvement over the idea of a food bank, which carries stigma and lacks the dignity and social support that this program provides. It would be so much more fun and less shameful to go for a collective cooking group rather than to a soup kitchen or food bank.

What a resourceful idea that brings people together in such a pleasant way, and that meets such a wide variety of important needs with dignity.

It’s also a very eco-friendly solution to problems of waste in our food supply systems. It reduces food waste in a community by providing a way to give leftover food or extra supplies to those that need and want it. In addition, because people bring their own containers, overpackaging of the individual portions is avoided, cutting down on packaging waste that would go to a landfill.

It also helps people learn how to cook, and learn about healthy food and safe food storage and preparation who might now have learned these skills at home or elsewhere. I remember a time when schools had Home Ec ( Home economics), where all students learn life skills such as cooking, but this has been phased out of many schools. Many families with two working parents at home many no longer cook food from scratch, relying on processed and prepared foods and take out or restaurants. Adults who missed out on learning cooking basics can learn how to make easy wholesome meals while having fun. Brilliant.

I applaud the people who thought of this idea, and who are facilitating and making it happen! What a lot of lives this program brightens and nourishes, in all ways.

This young man’s vision and practical approach to starting to grow food in his dorm room might inspire you to try growing Microgreens yourself.

photo credit: Joanna Hoang

If you think you don’t have the room to grow Microgreens, consider the example set by Owen Chase. It may just change your mind.

Owen, is a very enterprising and resourceful young man.

He wanted to grow his own food, so he thought of a great way to grow Microgreens in his college dorm room: he used the space under his bed.

He raised his bed frame up as high as it could go, and added lights from an indoor greenhouse kit he had been given. He also used the salad mix seeds that came with the kit to start growing food for himself and others.

He decided to try growing his own Microgreens because there wasn’t much happening with the campus garden over the winter term.

He used what he had learned growing up and during High School to start this mice-business.

“My Mom used to drag me out to the garden with her to plant carrots and vegetables” he explained.

During his High School years he had joined a leadership development program that happened to focus on growing food, which gave him the perfect foundation for this venture. 

“I just want to grow food to help feed people” Owen explained.

He gave away a significant amount of what he grew at first, donating trays of Microgreens to a local ‘food bank’ type of program, called “free fridges”. 

How Owen Scaled His Hobby into a Full Scale Business

Owen continued to build his skills and knowledge by taking courses in entrepreneurship. One of the courses he took included how to make a pitch deck and pitch to potential clients. At the end of the semester he entered a pitching competition at his college and won $3000. 

He then competed in a larger pitch fest with contestants from four other colleges and won again,earning another $3000.

With the money he earned, he expanded his operations, buying more shelves, trays, seeds, soil and containers.

Summer Success

How Own Scaled His Hobby into a Full Scale Business

Owen’s prize earnings set his up to sell Microgreens full time over the summer. 
He sold at weekly Farmers’ Markets with success.

By the end of the summer he started selling to local restaurants.

He also launched a home delivery service using an online subscription model.

Entrepreneur with a Big Heart

For every 100 trays Owen sells, he gives another 50 to local food programs, both on campus and in the community.

He still stays in touch with the organization that taught him gardening and entrepreneur skills during high school, and continuously donated greens to the local community food programs and to those in need of healthy food on campus.

Helping Others Achieve Food Security

Last year he also started teaching online to help others learn about healthy food and how to grow it for themselves.

He says most of the people interested in his content are young families looking for healthy and economical alternatives. 

I find Owen’s story inspirational because he was so resourceful in taking advantage of what was available around him. He used what he had learned growing up, and took advantage of the programs available to him, and turned this into something that supports himself and hundreds of others in his community.

Then he took it one step further, turning his expertise into empowerment, by helping others learn how to grow food themselves. He is now giving people a hand up, instead of just a hand out.

His farm, Just for Fun Farms has made an incredibly positive impact on his community as well as provided income and food for himself.  

What an excellent example demonstrating how Microgreens can be started as a micro business, and how tiny greens can make a huge impact on a community.

His story also proves the value of programs that incubate and support the business enterprises of our youth, and how beneficial funding young entrepreneurs can be, both for individuals and the community as a whole.

Owen’s Top Tip for New Microgreen Start Ups

If selling at Farmer’s Markets, be sure to collect the email and contact details from those who buy your greens. This is useful because it allows you to roll out a home delivery service that can continue all winter, after the summer Farmer’s Markets close down.

He didn’t think to ask for email and offer to continue delivering greens to people’s homes until the last week of two of the Farmer’s Market he was selling at, and as a result lost contact with some of the people who used to buy quite regularly from him over the summer.

Key Takeaways

This story proves that you don’t need fancy greenhouses or special growing rooms to start growing your own food. 

• It’s quite easy to grow  micro greens, which are tasty and very healthy. Some Microgreens, such as broccoli, are  40 times more nutritious than the full grown plants.

• Growing Microgreens in your home allows you to eat greens that you can trust are fresh, free of chemicals, and truly healthy for you.

• Growing under bed frames and furniture opens up new possibilities for becoming more self sufficient for those living tin small apartment spaces and homes.

• You can start with just a few trays, for a very low cost, and find many educational resources for free – talk about an easy, low barrier to entry micro business! 

• It is super eco- friendly since you can grow microgreeens to order, through subscriptions, instead of guessing how much to grow.
• it’s a valuable -and lucrative- life skill to teach kids how to garden and grow their own food when they are young
• Programs that teach youth how to grow their own food and how to start businesses are worth creating and supporting

Microgreens Offer an Excellent Alternative to Lettuce and Spinach

Visions of vivid green, and Spinach crisp and juicy microgreens sprang to mind last week after I noticed there was no lettuce or greens except avocados in the stores in Mexico where I live. Again.

It has been a particularly wet, cool and long rainy season and many veggies have not available for weeks as a result.

Another problem is that the price of fresh veggies, especially organic produce, in the big supermarkets that sell imported brands, has increased every week for two years.

I find that they are no longer affordable or worth the money: expensive, tasteless, and often half wilted before you get them home.
In Mexico I find the lettuce is usually bitter, too.

There is a fairly easy solution that beats inflation and provides a tasty alternative: microgreens.

My Microgreens Experiment

I believe we need to start growing our own microgreens and herbs at home, and start supporting local growers.

At least, this is what I am trying to do.

My Microgreens Experiment.

Since Microgreens are not common here, I am going to start growing my own.

I’ve started a batch of Microgreens in a back room for two reasons: to create an economical and fast solution to what I see as a food supply chain problem, and to have something to offer to start an eco-village community in the style of a REKO RING.

I’ll keep you posted about how it goes.

Why Aren’t Microgreens More Popular?

To be honest, I’m surprised Microgreens are not more popular and well known here in Mexico and around the world.

The idea is not new.

I first saw Microgreens growing on top of a roof of a taxi in Thailand that picked me up one day.

This became a trend after the economy crashed in Thailand in 1997 and people needed to feed their families with food they could afford.

Taxi drivers could grow and tend their vehicle rooftop gardens while driving full time 8 or more hours per day.

Having a closely supervised mini- garden on the rooftop also prevented theft of a valuable food source. People were hungry and getting desperate, so community gardens were often robbed during the day when the gardeners were working their regular jobs.

The thatch of greens on the rooftop of the car I was in was thriving under the constant care, despite the choking exhaust diesel fumes. At every stop, the driver got out and misted his greens.
I was impressed at this ingenious solution that created a quick source of affordable food during this time of skyrocketing inflation.

You can read more about this innovative idea and other ways the Thais coped with economic hardship in my previous article, here.

Microgreens are Ideal for the Subscription Business Model

The next time I saw Microgreens was during the Covid lockdowns in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, another example of a time of economic hardship.

A young man in his late twenties came around to all the ground floor apartments with patios in my apartment calling over the low fences to offer containers of his incredibly lush green broccoli, sunflower, red raddish and arugula greens.

He offered to deliver them by weekly, with your choice of greens ordered a week or so ahead of time through his Facebook page.

I thought this was brilliant. It was an incredibly helpful and convenient idea, and a wonderful way to eliminate waste and ensure his profits since he only grew what was ordered in advance.

Best of all, his microgreens tasted far better than the greens sold at the supermarket, for the same price (less, if you factor in transportation costs in terms of money and time).

Pre-ordered Microgreens could be a perfect and quick solution to our current inflation conundrum and supply chain issues worldwide.

They could create food stability and food security even for urban dwellers in tiny apartments.

What exactly are Microgreens? 

Microgreens are simply young edible plants that are harvested at a very early stage, when  they only have two leaves. This stage of development is called ‘seed leaves’ or cotyledons. They are highly nutritious, and there are many reports stating they are 40x more nutritious than fully mature plants.

The seeds are grown densely in soil in trays, using sunlight or grow lights. 

Microgreens are different from sprouts, since sprouts are grown in wet conditions, without soil, in dark conditions and harvested before the leaves can grow big.

Many plants make tasty microgreens including broccoli, sunflower, cauliflower, radish, arugula, mustard, basil, cabbage, and beet plants.  

These tiny edible plants can be harvested within 7 to 10 days after planting.

You can start a tray from seed and be eating them  a few days instead of waiting many weeks or months as you would if growing these veggies in a traditional garden.

They are highly nutritious. Microgreens are 40X more nutritious than a fully grown and mature plant. 

They are inexpensive compared to imported greens. 

You can grow a tray for less than buying imported organic greens grown far away and marked up on price by a number of middlemen.

One container of greens lasts longer than you might expect. 

I found that the Microgreens I bought that were delivered to my door the day they were harvested lasted many days longer, sometimes as much as a week longer, than the salad greens I bought at the supermarket. 

Also, a tiny container of Microgreens can last for many meals. They are grown in a way that is surprisingly dense, and this means one container is packed full of tiny plants. In my experience, a small container can last for a number of meals as additives to salads, as garnish ‘mini- salads’, as sandwich greens and ingredients for smoothies.  

While they might not fill your plate like a salad with big leafy greens does,they are just as satisfying because they pack a flavourful punch and are so nutritious.

How do Microgreens Compare to Sprouts? What’s the Difference?

Microgreens aren’t soggy like sprouts can be. Since Microgreens grow in soil and are cut like hair at harvest time, they don’t get mushy like sprouts that are immersed in water frequently and left to grow in very moist conditions.  

Microgreens aren’t as drippy and messy to deal with when cooking either. 

Microgreens are firm, springy, tender and bursting with flavour once you bite into them, like the crisp greens freshly picked from a garden.

You can grow them even in tiny apartments.

I believe that microgreens are the ultimate micro- business for those seeking alternatives to sell or trade with others.

Not only are they a way to feed yourself and your family while to bypassing paying inflated prices in stores, but they can be used as barter items with neighbours and friends, or as a side hustle to earn extra cash. 

I dream of a future where every household has a ‘green wall’ or greenhouse area that includes micro greens and herbs, in a healthy house made of Industrial Hemp.

October 31,2024

Stories of Resourcefulness

Neutrino Voltic Power Will Change How We Power Everything In Our World, and the Power Structures of the World in the Process

This is big. 

This is something you need to know about. 

This will change so many things in society,for every society around the world. 

I just saw the video that is the official release by a German company of a truly clean and limitless power source that uses neutrinos, tiny particles that stream from the sun by the trillions through you and everything in the planet. 

I first heard about the neutrino power cube when it was announced on UNN (United Network News) in a news broadcast last year. Here is the first videodescribing this new power source. 

The cube shown was not much bigger than a shoe box, and had USB ports and an internet antennae. It uses a process involving graphene to capture and neutrino kinetic energy and then converts it into electricity.

This is limitless zero emission energy. 

Finally there is news of this innovation that dropped 8 hours before writing this. in the mainstream news. 

With this one invention, the Neutrino Power Cube, everything in our society could change. Quickly. 

There will be no more need for fossil fuels and their environmentally destructive and chemically toxic processes. 

One cube can generate and provide electric power without needing to be recharged for 50 years. It contains no toxic chemicals, and so is never dangerous like lithium batteries in electric cars (although they do need a special process to be recycled).

The neutrino power cubes are waterproof and work even if deep underwater, on the bottom of the ocean, or on top of a mountain. They are portable internet routers that can connect to the Internet from anywhere. 

Imagine having one in your car. 

You wouldn’t have to fuel up for 50 years. 

We could be free to drive to places where there are currently no gas stations for hundreds or thousands of miles, without worrying about running out of fuel and not being able to get home again.

These cubes do not produce any pollution.

Engines will run cleanly and quietly without combustible fuel. 

Imagine the possibilities.

Imagine cities and freeways without stinky black clouds of pollution above them. 

A limitless zero emissions power supply would improve our lives in so many ways.

Stacking ten of theses units produces 10 kilowatts, which is enough to power everything in your house. Best if all, it would be reliable energy, because it’s not reliant on sunshine or other special conditions or resources.

Many cubes could be used to make arrays that could effectively replace our existing decrepit electrical grids in cities, countries and continents. No more rolling brownouts and blackouts in South Africa or frequent electrical power grid outages in Mexico. 

Imagine the comfort and security this innovation brings to homeowners.  

No more people freezing in winter because they can’t afford high electricity bills or oil to heat their homes. 

Imagine the changes this will bring to the transportation industry. 

We could replace how we fuel our antiquated flying tin cans, also known as planes and jets, which are currently fuelled by expensive and polluting petro chemicals. Air travel would be much cheaper if energy was freely generated, and there would be no downtime for refuelling or dangers associated with air fuel.

We could change and build new trains that are faster, more economical, and safer in case of accidents (no explosions of fuel tankers). 

These super 

 trains could span the oceans, travelling smoothly, incredible quickly and safely underground in tunnels like they have underground in the English France channel. 

Truckers will not have issues timing their trips to coincide with gas station stops and the gist of transportation g goods across land would decrease significantly. 

Driving won’t expose anyone or any animals if the environment to toxic fuel fumes.

No more driving through clouds of black exhaust left by huge trucks. 

There would be no more worries about oil and gas pipeline tanker spills polluting the ocean.

This will cause global economic and political power shifts. 

 Imagine a world where there are no more inflation hikes allegedly caused by fuel shortages.

No more using pipeline supply chain anymore. Decentralized power supplies would mean there would be no possibility of using supply chains of fuels as a basis for global conflicts or economic gain of one country at the expense of another. 

This innocuous looking innovation will usher in a world of physical, political and economic changes unlike anything we have seen before.

Life is about to get very interesting.

Will there be backlash from the existing fuel and electrical power, organizations and global elite in control of it all? Can they afford to suppress this?

The implications are profound.

This invention will cause a paradigm shift. It will need to in order to become available commercially.

No doubt the backlash from the petro chemical industry will be massive, as we have seen in the past with the suppression of industrial hemp ethanol and methanol fuels in 1942, and suppression of Tesla’s free energy.

Sources

German Free Energy Breakthrough: Neutrino Ene

This Plant Can Save the World

Suppression of Nikola Tesla, Free Energy Inventor – Excerpt from THRIVE Movie