cold snap

food insecurity and an introduction to gardening
29 October 2025

a november government shutdown in the united states is about to leave many, many people without food. they are often in worse positions than I was when I was regularly going hungry, but it's easy to imagine the number of people here who are financially better off than I was and who are still struggling regardless. it can happen to anyone at any time. in my mid-20s, I became very food insecure at various points. I was struggling to eat enough both as a bottom-rung grocery stocker and, after recovering, again later as an IT administrator. this was a major impetus for learning to forage and garden.

gardening takes time. it doesn't pay off immediately. if you're hungry, those needs have to be met now. gardening didn't solve my immediate problems the way that shoplifting food and eating leftovers from people I barely knew did. the peas I harvested and the basil I grew did, however, supplement my diet for a week or so. foraged cherries, blackberries, and oregon grape often gave me some relief from eating only rice and beans or stolen sardines in tomato sauce on toast.

it was also the warm season in a state where you can forage edible foods year-round. now I'm in massachusetts and the temperature is dropping. the cold weather, the scarcity of edible plants in winter, and the lack of readily available places to do it mean that it may not be worth the trouble if you can conserve your energy for other things. practically, I think I have four S's to help you make it through the winter. if you haven't really felt the impact of food insecurity before, this may not help you much, although I believe it helps to be reminded of your options.

steal

forgive me if it sounds obvious, but some people do need to hear this. stop & shop, walmart, wegmans, whole foods, wherever.... as long as you're out of camera view and getting other things already and not being obvious or making a big deal about it, it'll be okay. sometimes these very same places call the cops or retain private security to guard their fucking dumpsters because they know people are starving and would push themselves that far to meet their most basic of needs. you are an animal first and foremost. remember this.

it is a skill and much of what you will learn with time is the importance of ample confidence without straying into complacency. it will always carry some risk. please be careful, but don't forget that you are the victim of the vicious, abnormal, and inhumane crimes of corporate hoarding and deprivation of resources. there is more than enough food in every region of this country to not just feed every one of us, but to do it well and comfortably.

share

resource-wise, I think cooking one serving of anything is generally more wasteful than cooking two or four. invite your friends over for dinner. communal cooking nights makes things easier. eating with others feels good and has a very strong historical precedent. work schedules can make this difficult to coordinate. you can still share with your future self by cooking enough that you'll have enough for the next day. labeling your leftovers is very helpful if you forget things easily when you open the fridge. I try to eat anything I've saved within three days.

soup

there are many kinds of soup and it often keeps well. most good soups start with onions and garlic, which tend to remain relatively affordable. becoming familiar with how to cook an onion will make your life easier, as you will be rewarded by the food you create. this is also an opportunity to start learning how to cook with ingredients you may not have much experience with. I only began cooking with kale in the past couple months.

soups go farther with simple additions like a side of bread or grains, either served on the side or added to the soup. fried or roasted vegetables make good sides and garnishes. the importance of variation cannot be understated, as monotony in your meals quickly becomes one of the very most demoralizing things about being poor and food insecure.

some people don't like soups. very many flavorful sauces follow the same principles, just with less liquid involved. you can serve many of these over various kinds of pasta, or grains like rice, barley, oats, quinoa, etc. this is still advantageous, as it's easy to make quite a lot of those, too.

sow

with all of that addressed, it's important to acknowledge that it takes a while to return to a point where you're regularly eating well. growing your own food is actually not as difficult as it might seem, provided you prepare yourself correctly. choosing the rights plants for your environment, planting crops in their appropriate seasons, fostering the right growth conditions, avoiding contamination, and preparing yourself for success and failure are major considerations.

planning & growth conditions

if we consult a planting calendar for Boston, it becomes apparent that november is too late in the season to plant anything (except garlic! we'll come back to this). what you can do at this time of year, however, is make plans and begin gathering supplies. don't break your back over this. set your goals and try to stick to them, but don't let yourself get swept up in rushing out to get your supplies now, only to put yourself in a more dire financial position. it is especially easy to lose motivation by the time the early planting season approaches.

plants need air, light, water, soil, and space in order to grow. they also need maintenance. think carefully about how you can provide these things for them. ideally, you will choose a place that is not just accessible to you, but convenient. once established, plants tend to do a good job of taking care of themselves. until then, you will need to regularly visit them to provide water, weed out competitors, check for damage, and harvest early fruits to encourage them to grow more persistently. with these things in mind, you should choose a location close to home or somewhere you're visiting often with the ability to do this work.

the location you choose may be unconventional. in fact, you may not have the luxury of living in a place with a yard or garden, and you may necessarily need to get creative to make it work. wherever you plant, be sure that you're not clearing native plants. the words "ecologically vital" may not mean much to you, but to provide you with a practical rationale for this, native plants attract pollinators, make the soil better, and fend off pests. I suggest getting familiar with some of your native plants. please familiarize yourself with invasive plants and feel free to take their space if it's suitable.

contamination

soil tests aren't affordable for everyone. if you're trying to grow food anywhere you can, it's probably not readily accessible to you. soil can be contaminated by heavy metals and the risk for children is higher, especially because urban areas tend to have higher concentrations of metals such as lead in the soil. without a soil test and/or historical knowledge of what was present at a given location, especially with the history of industry in places like Boston and Lowell, this is important to keep in mind.

to reduce the risk of contamination, something more squarely within your control is observing what areas are most and least likely to be polluted. common pollutants include runoff from roads, pesticides, and droppings from dogs. these things make crops unsafe to eat, so I would highly recommend planting anything edible away from roads and sidewalks. any area that is highly cultivated or landscaped probably uses pesticides, and while the available types pesticides are federally regulated through FIFRA, the amounts and dilutions used by myriad landscapers and groundskeepers are not. this is a risk that can be avoided by choosing a different location.

the nature of malice

the number one thing that will kill your plants is human activity. in general, people do not act maliciously towards plants, and while it's certainly possible, your plants are more likely to suffer due to ignorance, negligence, and accident. your location will ideally be separated from sidewalks, even if by a string and post fence.

don't worry too much about making your plants entirely hidden from view, if at all. if your plants are noticed, most people will think nothing of it. our society and environment have allowed us to grow accustomed to the idea of the static and unchanging landscape, even if it's a patently false illusion. unless one has unlearned that, they will likely not even notice that these plants haven't always been growing there. if they do, they will most likely only think neutrally or positively of it. people like to see green things growing and a consequence of western society, however unfortunate, is a broad disconnect between food and where it comes from, perceiving your crops as pleasant green visual noise.

some people will recognize what you're growing and will intentionally destroy your crops. some of them are the same people who would see you shot and killed for begging for money or pulling food out of a dumpster. they have hearts filled with contempt and venom, and they are, thankfully, a small minority. the number of these people will increase if you grow on other people's land without permission, but if they never notice, you may never see them. you can do a lot more at the margins of large plots than you might expect. in their greed and lust for land, they so often neglect it.

maintenance

you may need to thin your plants out as you grow, especially in small spaces. two or three hardy plants with all their growth conditions met will often provide more food than seven or eight struggling plants competing with each other for a now-cramped space. at first, you will need to plant enough seeds to increase the likelihood of early success.

it will be up to you to choose which ones live and which ones die. this sounds incredibly grave, but one of the most important things to learn is that this is a natural part of gardening. it's possible all your plants will die. once you've accepted this, you can give them the best chances of success. it will still be hard when they die, especially if you've tried everything you can think of or practically achieve. I've only been so harsh and matter of fact about this because I want to prepare you for what may lie ahead. it's really, genuinely okay to be upset. sometimes everything goes wrong even if you do every single thing right. I promise that if you keep trying, you'll become better at this.

getting results now

growing can be tough, but it is achievable. you are not somehow destined to fail, and in fact, once you start, the plants will do most of the work. the most important thing needed to survive anything is a reason to maintain your determination. determination is key, and for most people, the threat of starvation and hunger and lack just aren't enough. one of the best things to keep your spirits high is a huge fucking W.

november is past the fall planting season and before the late january indoor starting season, but you can still have some tangible successes early on. while there's good and well-reasoned advice to buy seed garlic (that is, bulbs meant for growing) to improve your chances of success, if your garlic is sprouting, it’s a good bet that sticking a clove into some soil can yield some results. the green parts, the scapes, taste great. some plants, such as celery and various alliums, can be grown back by sticking their bases in a cup of water. if you do this, make sure you change the water every few days.

you can grow herbs in surprisingly small spaces, and while it may not be the most ideal situation for them, I've had success growing chives in a small bottle of yogurt. this was also a great way to learn that chive flowers are delicious. soil needs drainage, however, and any pot or container needs a place for water to go – my yogurt bottle situation involved cutting the container in half across its midpoint, poking holes in the lid, inverting the top half, sticking it into the bottom half, and filling the top of the makeshift pot with some potting soil. make sure you actually empty the bottom half of the accumulated water now and then. my chives did become rootbound because of the small space, but they went further than I expected and gave me a lot of confidence to continue.

if you grow food and have success, tell others. I'd certainly love to hear it. so many people I've known have never once questioned the idea that you can grow things outside of a garden or a planter pot. it will normalize the belief that the land belongs to all of us and belongs none of us. one day, they may need to know that this is an option.

please stay safe and take care of each other.