Sharon Astyk

Sharon Astyk is a Science Writer, Farmer, Parent of Many, writing about our weird life right now.

She is the author of four books: Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front, which explores the impact that energy depletion, climate change and our financial instability are likely to have on our future, and what we can do about it. Depletion and Abundance won a Bronze Medal at the Independent Publishers Awards. A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil co-authored with Aaron Newton, which considers what will be necessary for viable food system on a national and world scale in the coming decades, and argues that at its root, any such system needs a greater degree of participation from all of us; Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Preservation and Storage which makes the case for food storage and preservation as integral parts of an ethical, local, healthy food system and tells readers how to begin putting food by, and the newly published Making Home: Adapting our Homes and Our Lives to Settle in Place, which “shows readers how to turn the challenge of living with less into settling for more”.

gardening

Growing food is work!

Growing food is just like every other exercise – no one learns to rock climb, knit, box, embroider, run, dance, make art, build things, etc… without a LOT of time being less productive than they’d like to be to get the skill set.

July 11, 2023

Tamarillo

The Edible Houseplant Project

Thus began the edible houseplant and tropicals project. I’m hardly the only one doing things like this, but I’m determined to see what I can accomplish in particular, and how I can help others profit from it.

March 30, 2021

Society

Mama Food

Writing books and essays about food, I hear a lot of stories about what people ate growing up.

September 24, 2014

Society

Why I Won’t Do the Food Stamp Challenge

In the last few years, a number of political leaders have tried to live on a food stamps budget. A number of people have asked me to do it as well, and I’ve always refused.

November 20, 2013

Society

What’s the Connection Between Foster Care and the Ecological Stuff?

The fact that we can’t make professional institutions that duplicate the functions of family suggest that there is something about families that cannot be marketed, sold, professionalized or made into cookie cutter product…

October 30, 2013

If Climate Change and Population Growth Are Going to Push Food Prices Up by 50%, What Happens When you Add in Peak Oil?

Nearly everyone is failing to take into account the role of geology, oil and energy limits in their predictions – and we’re racing towards disaster.

April 24, 2013

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