Modern Pioneering For Everyone

Air Date:
Heard On The Larry Meiller Show

Modern pioneering isn’t just for people living off the grid. Larry Meiller visits with a woman who takes the pioneering spirit into all aspects of life.

Featured in this Show

  • Expert Offers Some 'Stealth Gardening' Tips

    Most people who plant flowers or food crops do so on their own patch of earth — whether in their yard, or as part of a community gardening effort.

    But for several decades, there has been a robust movement of people who want to reclaim under-utilized or abandoned lots. Whether the goal is beautification or a political statement about the use of resources, “guerrilla gardening” has a fascinating history.

    Georgia Pellegrini’s most recent book is “Modern Pioneering: More Than 150 Recipes, Projects, and Skills for a Self-Sufficient Life.” She said that she wanted “to show people that there are ways to get back to the land.” That can include growing potatoes in a plastic garbage bag on a fire escape, or a few seedlings planted along the curb.

    For people without any access to even a small patch of dirt of their own, she hopes that they’ll think outside the box. For her, “drive-by guerrilla gardening” can bring some life and hope to forsaken urban landscapes like “abandoned lots, or places in the cities of the world where things are just sort of neglected.”

    For Pellegrini, guerrilla gardening is a way to “have fun with nature, and accept that maybe your thyme or butterfly bush will get mowed down at some point. But you never know, you may go back to that abandoned lot and be able to pick an eggplant!”

    In “Modern Pioneering: More Than 150 Recipes, Projects, and Skills for a Self-Sufficient Life,” Pellegrini shares this “recipe” for making seed bombs to use in guerrilla gardening. Maybe a good project to take on for Earth Day.

    How To Build A Seed Bomb

    Makes 10 to 12 balls

    Seed bombs are one way to go guerrilla with the landscape around you. They consist of balls made from organic matter that have all of the ingredients that a plant needs to grow, wherever you drop it. It is a way of improving land that needs a little love, maybe a patch of grass along the sidewalk or the lot of a boring-looking office building. Carry the seed bombs around in a plastic bag in your purse and drop a bomb wherever you think it is needed.

    Or perhaps do a little drive-by bombing from your car on a Friday evening. It makes for a unique date night.

    Choose self-seeding options like herbs, arugula, lettuces, and kale, so that they flourish after the bomb has been dropped. Butterfly bushes are fun because they self-seed and don’t need to be well-cared-for. And they will attract butterflies like crazy wherever they flourish. We could all use more butterflies. Also choose beneficial plants that improve the soil by attracting good insects such as anise hyssop, fennel, clover, and calendula. Wildflowers are another beautiful option though they can be invasive, so do a little research first. Then, bomb away!

    PREP TIME: 30 minutes

    INACTIVE TIME: 48 to 72 hours

    TOTAL TIME: 48 hours, 30 minutes

    • 2½ cups dry powdered clay (purchase this from an art supply store or online in any color)
    • 1½ cups organic compost
    • ½ teaspoon seeds
    • Latex gloves, to avoid getting dry, chalky hands (optional)

    Using your hands, thoroughly mix the dry clay, compost, and seeds in a bowl. You can wear latex gloves, if desired.

    Slowly add water, working the mixture with your hands after each small addition until the mixture holds together without crumbling. It is very easy to add too much water, so go slowly. If the mixture becomes too wet, work in more compost to bring it back to a balanced consistency that can be formed into a sturdy ball.

    Pinch off small chunks of the mixture, rolling each chunk into a ball approximately 2 inches in diameter. If the surface seems to crack, wet your palms slightly to help seal the surface.

    Set the balls on pieces of cardboard and let them dry 2 to 3 days.

    Drop them wherever you want new plants to grow and let Mother Nature do her work.

  • Anyone, Anywhere Can Be A Modern Pioneer

    There are a lot of reasons to want to live in a simpler way. There is the money one will save and a desire to take care of the environment.

    There is also, according to author Georgia Pellegrini, a really strong sense of satisfaction when a person plants, makes, cooks or repurposes something and then gets use and enjoyment out of it.

    Pellegrini’s taste for simple food and outdoor adventure evolved as she grew up in the Hudson Valley in New York on the same land her great-grandfather owned and worked. She followed her passion to the French Culinary Institute, and then to work in well-respected farm to table restaurants.

    In her previous books, “Food Heroes” and “Girl Hunter,” Pellegrini made an effort to bring herself closer to the sources and preparation of her food and to highlight people who exemplified those values. In her latest book, “Modern Pioneering: More Than 150 Recipes, Projects, and Skills for a Self-Sufficient Life,” she provides ideas and instructions to bring that concept into all aspects of life.

    Modern pioneering is something that Pellegrini has been learning her whole life.

    “For me, it’s just about rolling up your sleeves and getting dirt under your fingernails,” she said, “and I was fortunate to grow up that way.”

    Pellegrini is an advocate of what she calls “manual literacy.”

    “For me, it’s giving people access to things that maybe seem daunting or inaccessible,” she said. “There are some fun, kind of ‘survival-lite’ things in the book, just to get people to think a little bit differently.”

    Few things might seem more daunting than having to get by in unexpected situations, perhaps alone.

    In “Modern Pioneering,” Pellegrini shares these instructions for “How to Create a Pocket-Size 48-Hour Survival Tool Kit”:

    A travel-sized kit that fits in a pocket, purse or glove compartment is truly useful. A recycled Altoids or tobacco tin makes the perfect container; you will be surprised to see how much someone can fit in there.

    Here are the useful things to include in the kit, available in small sizes:

    • Safety pins, for mending clothing, lost buttons, and tears in a tent or a sleeping bag
    • Thin wire, for many purposes, from fastening to hanging items in trees (it can be rolled into a small circle)
    • Button compass, a small compass for finding your way
    • Candle, the non-tallow durable kind to help you light a fire (you can cut it down to short pieces to fit)
    • Matches, the waterproof/windproof kind
    • Magnesium fire starter
    • Steel striker for starting fire
    • Magnifying glass, for starting fires and getting tinder to smoke
    • Two magnetized sewing needles, for sewing or making an emergency compass (floated in water on a leaf, the needle will face north)
    • Salt packets (essential in hot conditions, salt helps keep minerals in your body as you sweat)
    • Cayenne pepper in a plastic packet (it will help stop bleeding when applied to most wounds by equalizing the body’s blood pressure)
    • Antibiotic tablets and ointment, for when a cut is infected and medical help is far off
    • Adhesive bandages in various sizes to cover cuts and blisters
    • Water sterilizing tablets, for when you aren’t able to boil water and make it safe to drink
    • X-Acto knife blade or scalpel for cutting
    • Pencil and small paper for making notes on directions, edible plants, etc.
    • Plastic bag for transporting water from a source or collecting wild edibles
    • 2 feet of aluminum foil folded over many times into a small square, for making a cup, signaling, cooking fish, etc.
    • Wire saw, for cutting through most things (will roll into a small circle)

Episode Credits

  • Larry Meiller Host
  • Judith Siers-Poisson Producer
  • Georgia Pellegrini Guest

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