Bean Counting

coinstacksmall Well, we knew this shoe would drop, and it’s not the last.

Even if you’re not a Californian, it’s almost impossible to avert your eyes from the train wreck of California’s fiscal woes.

Californians soundly rejected six propositions with a host of creative tax increase strategies, but no one thought that would be the end of new streams of revenue sucking funds from our wallets to Sacramento. So, in addition to the sales tax increase, the car registration increase and the state park increases, now tax brackets will be dropping to allow more wage earners to break into the 10.55% zone and the child credit will be slashed by two-thirds, effective immediately. Sigh.

What does this have to do with vegetable gardening? Plenty, actually:

Many Californians are going to try to cope with the loss of greater portions of their funds by seeking new sources of income. Good luck with that. For one thing, unemployment here is at 11.6% Even if they do get that second job, their taxes will go still higher, so they’ll be taking a step back with every two steps forward.
Food prices will rise. I covered the reasons last week.
You can weather “poverty” very well when your tummy is full.

Produce from your own backyard is huge wealth, and not taxable. It’s exercise and nutrition, too. Considering that our health care is either going to continue to rise faster than inflation, or become less available, this is another excellent reason to grow food!

I mentioned last week that Autumn is the start of the gardening year, and the reason for that has everything to do with soil fertility. Now is the time to start new plots. Raise them if you can, as that will warm faster than at ground level, and allow more soil depth. It’s also much neater in appearance. Now fill those new plots with all the fallen leaves you can gather - a foot high is not too much. The rain and snow to come will soak them, the worms and bacteria will chew on them, and in the spring, there will be a lot more organic matter, trace elements and just plain more soil for plants to grow in. There won’t be a lot of nitrogen in this new material, and that’s by design. Nitrogen leaks out quickly, and takes oxygen with it when it’s breaking down. Over the winter, work the carbon in, and add the finished compost in the spring.

You do have a compost pile, right? This free fertilizer from grass clippings, fallen leaves, spent crops and kitchen scraps also saves money on garbage rates (which, of course, are going up).

Another interesting statistic for you Left Coasters (and others out there who love us!): As Robert P. Murphy reported for Human Events recently, “A mere 144,000 of the wealthiest Californians, out of a population of 38 million, pay half of the income taxes.” He also mentions that in 2008 alone, over a million Californians fled the state for good. What are the odds that they were all low-income?

The one thing many of us in the Land of Fruits and Nuts have going for us is that our winters are mild enough to keep crops in the ground year-round. It’s getting harder to live here, but at least we’ll eat!