Welcome to False Spring

 Last week was the solar equinox. 

Spring has "officially" begun in the Northern Hemisphere.

I celebrated the changing of the seasons by spending time outside and planting my balcony garden. I'm hoping to have some tiny tomatoes, lots of herbs, green beans, lettuce, and strawberries. I also included flowers to attract pollinators like butterflies and bees. 

And this weekend I had to bring everything in because Mother Nature decided it needed to go below freezing most of this weekend.

Thanks climate change.

Yes, changing climate is part of this annoyingly inconsistent weather patterns we've been experiencing. It's more of a thorn in my side than a tried and true problem. 

To save my garden from a late frost, all I had to do was move all of the pots inside my apartment. Sure they get less light, but they'll stay warm and eventually go back outside without any problems. It's an inconvenience to move everything, but it's not that difficult of a thing for me to do.

I have a solution for this last hold out of winter. 

But what if I couldn't move my garden? What if I had already planted it right into the ground instead of pots?

Well, a quick Google search would help me find tips to protect my garden from the late frost. There are loads of tips and tricks to protect plants from a sudden frost as it's become an issue to have a short warm spell followed by a cold snap. At worst, I have to replant my garden.

But what if it wasn't a garden? What if I had planted a whole field of crops that I depended on to harvest at the end of the season and I couldn't replant the crops? What if it wasn't just cold snaps I needed to worry about, but extreme heat or droughts? What if there was a biblical event that wiped out everything my livelihood depends on?

Why am I even thinking about these things if all I have going for me is a tiny balcony garden?

My garden is a hobby. I don't depend on it for financial needs or food. It's something nice to have that occupies my time and occasionally lets me add some extra flares to my meals. 

However, the food that I don't personally grow, I get at the store or farmer's market. If I buy my food from the store, that food might come from anywhere in the world. The food's journey from it's origin point to my dinner plate is long and has a lot of points of interest that can add to the costs I spend at checkout. These added points might be customs fees, fuel for transportation, storage costs, and enough money to pay every person who's labor went into growing, packaging, and transporting the food. Each point adds an extra layer to the price you pay at checkout...and then tax is added.

Of course, I might be able to cut out some of the costs and points of interest by getting my food directly from the farmers. Especially since each step in the process to get the food from the grocery store from other countries contributes to higher inflation. There's also less risk of food spoiling on a long journey than to buy it locally.

Except, I'm not hear to argue the virtues of where to buy your apples. 

And boy don't these apples look good!

I'm more pointing out how a cold snap might affect my ability to buy apples from my local farmer. Depending on the circumstances, the price of apples may go up, there might be shortages, or both scenarios might occur. The worst case is that there are no apples and the farm has to close down because they can't pay their bills. That adds to the overall decrease supply of apples that can be bought overall which further drives up price if demand doesn't change.

But importing food should help with supply right? Surely if we can't grow our food locally, we can still find sources to help with supply?

Yes, but there are risks. 

We've seen during the pandemic the problems associated with supply chain issues. Ports were overflowing with cargo that wasn't being unloaded because people weren't able to work. This lead to shortages at the grocery store and eventual higher prices. We're also dealing with higher fuel costs which is also going to drive up prices.

Oh, and now there's a war going on in one of the highest grain producing countries in the world.

All of these things are going to cause food shortages. Add in our good friend climate change and suddenly crops that were once easy to grow in a specific location, can't anymore. In my home state of Virginia, we've been having issues growing tomatoes since the early 2010s because of the changing climate. Will states famous for their tomatoes like New Jersey start having these same issues in the 2020s? 2030s?

The simple solution might be to have farmers change to crops that better suit the new climate.

Except that's not really that simple. We're seeing weather events that are unprecedented, heat waves and droughts that can take out the hardiest of plants - even the ones we're genetically modifying to account for these climate changes (humans have been messing with plant and animal genetics since we started farming - why do you think corn has a husk). 

If crops fail, people starve because demand for food doesn't go away. People need to eat to survive. 

This leads into many other topics (such as human migration, new diseases, and other catastrophes) that I don't have the time (or mental capacity) to get into. 

Needless to say, climate change is here. We have to adapt. I might be annoyed that I had to move all my plants inside because of a sudden cold snap (that are coming later and later into what should be considered Spring), but this annoyance is also tied to a deep fear that one day we might not be able to keep up the food supply with demand.

What will we eat then?

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Until next week.