I'm saving the seeds of every item of fruit I like and eat. I'm collecting seeds of every type of apple I can get my hands on, and every type of plum. No pear seed can escape me - I collect anything and everything that I think stands even the tiniest chance of surviving in our climate. I recently learned how to save the seeds of my tomatoes, and now I'll be saving them too. I'm growing my own herb garden from scraps and cuttings, and contemplating taking over an unused local park with nocturnal guerrilla planting activities.
You might think I'm crazy doing this, when I live in a rented apartment, and we don't know where we'll be living even a few months from now. Some people would think it was crazy to do what I do when we have no private garden.
I'll do it anyway, and I'll tell you why: because we humans are a bit dumb sometimes. We imagine that our food will always roll up to our supermarkets, that supply lines will always flow, that the shop shelves will always be full. And why not? It's always been that way.
But just imagine if the food or fuel stopped coming to your town or city. What then? How far away to the nearest farmland if you had to walk? How many thousands or millions would be walking there with you? Or if you own a small farm or a veggie plot in or near a large center of population, how long do you think it would be before hungry mothers who don't have any food for their kids came and did whatever they could to take it from you?
Not long, I'll tell you that. I'll be brutally honest and tell you that if I suddenly had to fight to feed my kids because there was no alternative, I'd do it. I'd lie, cheat, steal and probably kill to keep my kids alive. That's what motherhood means. I don't believe any parent would tell you different.
A wise person expects the best but prepares for the worst. And that's why I'm collecting seeds, growing them and planting them around town. Every food tree that grows within my city stabilises our city food supply. Every food plant provides a little more back-up - insurance against the worst that we hope will never come.
No-one expects their house to burn down to the ground, but we all get insurance. So why am I writing this, and sounding like some whacked-out crazy hippie foreteller of doom? Because I believe in insurance and back-up plans, and even though I don't believe our house will burn down we insure against it.
Because I have kids, and I think their safety and security is important.
Because I think we're foolish to put our very lives completely in the hands of a complex and delicate system of food supply that may just teeter a bit one day.
Saving seeds is easy. When you eat an apple, save the seeds. If its a cold weather, deciduous fruit (like an apple or pear), store the seeds in a Tupperware container in the fridge until you're ready to plant them. If it's a warmer-weather plant (such as an avocado or a mango) plant the seed right away. Most will come up, and don't believe that nonsense the seed multinationals tell you about seedlings being no good. It's lies - seeds and seedlings are how plants have reproduced for millions of years, and plants are expert at it.
When your seedlings are too big to keep indoors in an ex-yogurt container or similar, find somewhere suitable to plant them. There are heaps of resources on the net to tell you where that type of plant will do best - whether it likes full sun or shady places, whether it likes lots of water or dry conditions.
Some of your seedlings will fail, but some will survive. And if they didn't cost you anything, who cares?
We desperately need to bring food growing back into our communities. I'd love to see a day come soon when neighbours compete not over who has the biggest plasma TV, but who grew the biggest pumpkin, or whose home made jam is the best (Kate's is). By doing so we'll be securing the future for our kids, providing healthy free food for our families, and learning once again to appreciate the joy and hope that raising our own real food can bring.
As we continue to be inundated with bad news regarding the global food supply, the sound of nay-sayers are dimming and the number of people like Daharja - once considered to be overly concerned - are growing, as individuals look for ways to become more self-reliant instead of relying on those trucks to roll up to the supermarket week after week. Visit the Cluttercut blog to see Daharja's take on more important topics.