Growing your own and the oncoming food crisis

[DocLeaf]

With the rapidly declining bee populations, an oncoming food shortage is not an outlandish concept.

Bees as an indicator of ecology is a bit of a myth... most bees are farmed and worked over commercial food crops. Whereas wild wasps, hover flies, butterflies, and otehr insects are just as active.

Peace

 

[med_breeder]

Are there any members here that grow the vast majority of their own food? If so, I would love them to chime in.

 

[paladin420]

Are there any members here that grow the vast majority of their own food? If so, I would love them to chime in.

Vast majority? This winter probally two meals a week? Im hoarding the last of mother's canned green beans. Pulled snow and straw aside to have my carrots. I grow most of my own herbs ( note fuckin oregano spreads n kills like kudzu) also strawberries.

We are growers right? Just like growing our gurls,growing a garden is not as easy as we make it look. I am starting seeds now for this summer's garden. Tilling ,weedin,picken, canning or freezing ??? Work work...
We mostly harvest our own protien. We tend to fish for food not for fun. I hunt for sport,but I kill for food. If this time of suckage does happen it will take more than just a garden.....

 

[Bobby Stainless]

I have a garden every year!

Bout time to till in some compost.

 

[geopolitical]

Are there any members here that grow the vast majority of their own food? If so, I would love them to chime in.

We do, on just over 5 acres of fruit (soon to be 10), veg & hoophouse. We do a LOT of canning, drying & cool storage. I'm just now using up the last of the potatoes from last fall. Here's a tip, short daylight starts tuber formation. By exposing your young plants to short light hours, then bringing them back to normal hours you can DOUBLE your yield by increasing tuber formation 4-5 fold. Under really short hours they'll even grow tubers aerially right from leaf nodes.

We can't grow everything we want though, we trade a LOT with others around here. I grow peppers & tomatoes in winter that are "worth" a lot barter wise locally. Most of the meat & milk we couldn't produce or harvest ourselves is obtained this way.

This does take up a LOT of my time and if I wasn't retired I doubt I could produce enough for all of us. In fall the wife takes time off work just for a week of canning/drying and in the spring she takes 2 weeks off so we can get all the garden turned & ready to go.

We also do a LOT of fermented foods, it's a handy way to keep things "edible" longer term. Rice bran pickles, kimchi and sauerkraut are all very popular around here.

Oh and you get injured ALL the freaking time. Not always major stuff, but keep your iodine handy. I'm shocked most farmers make it to 50 with all their limbs attached. In 4 decades of playing farmer both on family farm and in my own back yard I've had a handful of ER visits. Don't worry though, they're WAAAY better at sewing thumbs back on these days.

Also, Weck jars are fucking amazing.

 

[med_breeder]

Thanks for Sharing geopolitical and paladin420.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I'm on a tiny plot, but I plan on cramming in as much edible crops as possible.

Regardless of what the future holds, it is always a good thing to produce food.

 

[dubwise]

I'm going to try a big garden this season. It would be great to get less dependent on somebody else. We've got chickens right now and they've been great producers, we've been trying to get some cows, but the market prices have been packed with buyers with more money.

 

[paladin420]

I'm going to try a big garden this season. It would be great to get less dependent on somebody else. We've got chickens right now and they've been great producers, we've been trying to get some cows, but the market prices have been packed with buyers with more money.

Hit up your local grain elevator or farm store. We seem to always have 'culls' for sale around here. They don't have to be prime beef,just beef..steers from dairy farms make fine hambuger.Not good steak usually.

 

[paladin420]

We do, on just over 5 acres of fruit (soon to be 10), veg & hoophouse. We do a LOT of canning, drying & cool storage. I'm just now using up the last of the potatoes from last fall. Here's a tip, short daylight starts tuber formation. By exposing your young plants to short light hours, then bringing them back to normal hours you can DOUBLE your yield by increasing tuber formation 4-5 fold. Under really short hours they'll even grow tubers aerially right from leaf nodes.

We can't grow everything we want though, we trade a LOT with others around here. I grow peppers & tomatoes in winter that are "worth" a lot barter wise locally. Most of the meat & milk we couldn't produce or harvest ourselves is obtained this way.

This does take up a LOT of my time and if I wasn't retired I doubt I could produce enough for all of us. In fall the wife takes time off work just for a week of canning/drying and in the spring she takes 2 weeks off so we can get all the garden turned & ready to go.

We also do a LOT of fermented foods, it's a handy way to keep things "edible" longer term. Rice bran pickles, kimchi and sauerkraut are all very popular around here.

Oh and you get injured ALL the freaking time. Not always major stuff, but keep your iodine handy. I'm shocked most farmers make it to 50 with all their limbs attached. In 4 decades of playing farmer both on family farm and in my own back yard I've had a handful of ER visits. Don't worry though, they're WAAAY better at sewing thumbs back on these days.

Also, Weck jars are fucking amazing.

Well put. What is a Weck jar?? If u r amazed I'm sure I need some.. gonna hav to hit the googl

 

[ocean_grown]

bump

 

[SpasticGramps]

I'm curious to see how American's react to hyperinflation. For some reason I don't think it's going to be like when the Japanese face disaster and they pull together minus the looting and predatory behavior. I reckon it's going to look like Spoiled Brats Gone Mad with lots of guns and ammo.

Police: Angry Taco Bell customer fires at officers

(AP) SAN ANTONIO - Police say a San Antonio Taco Bell customer enraged that the seven burritos he ordered had gone up in price fired an air gun at an employee and later fired an assault rifle at officers before barricading himself into a hotel room.

San Antonio police Sgt. Chris Benavides says officers used tear gas Sunday night to force the man from the hotel room after a three-hour standoff. The man is charged with three counts of attempted capital murder. Authorities have not released his name.

Brian Tillerson, a manager at the Taco Bell/KFC restaurant, told the San Antonio Express-News that the man was angry the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone from 99 cents to $1.49 each.

Police say the man fired on officers during a traffic stop after the restaurant incident.

I expect to see more of this. When people have nothing else to lose, they lose it.

 

[Sam the Caveman]

That guys reaction was totally called for, I mean, Beefy Crunch Burritos don't quite live up to the hype unless you eat 7 of them, and boy are they good, especially the 7th one.

I can see them hiking the prices 5 or 10 cents, but to go from .99 to 1.49, that's a 50% increase, its ludicrous, totally worth 3 attempted murder charges.

 

[DaPurps]

Food Crisis or not, I have my seedlings going for the garden this year.

I have going so far

Cucumbers
Peas
Tomatoes
Squash
Broccoli
Lettuce
Corn
Strawberries

Still have Carrots, Potatoes, and a few others to get going. Some of them i will buy seedlings at the store in a week or two, whats listed is whats growing inside for now.

 

[BornToBeWild]

Me too DaPurps I really enjoy veggie gardening had 72 tomato plants last year, cucumbers, sweet corn, green beans, sunflowers, and watermelons all from those cheap seed packs. I learned how to can and even winter had great food for pretty much free. Speaking of which I imagine the munchies will come on in a bit and will open up a jar of green beans and some bread and butter pickles rather than going to fast food and spend $5 or $10!

 

[DaPurps]

A food dehydrator is a good tool to have also

I start most of mine from seed also. I buy tomatoe seedlings, potatoes, asparagaus some years.

 

[SpasticGramps]

World Bank president: 'One shock away from crisis' BBC

The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is "one shock away from a full-blown crisis".

Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk "losing a generation".

He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile, G20 finance chiefs, who also met in Washington, pledged financial support to help new governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mr Zoellick said such support was vital.

"The crisis in the Middle East and North Africa underscores how we need to put the conclusions from our latest world development report into practice. The report highlighted the importance of citizen security, justice and jobs," he said.

He also called for the World Bank to act quickly to support reforms in the region.

"Waiting for the situation to stabilise will mean lost opportunities. In revolutionary moments the status quo is not a winning hand."

At the Washington meetings, turmoil in the Middle East, volatile oil prices and high unemployment were also discussed.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn raised particular concerns about high levels of unemployment among young people.

"It's probably too much to say that it's a jobless recovery, but it's certainly a recovery with not enough jobs," he said.

"Especially because of youth unemployment... there is now a risk that this will be turned into a life sentence, and that there is a possibility of a lost generation," he said.

I don't know what he's smoking. Bernanke is clear that we do not have to worry about inflation. There really isn't any inflation. Any inflation you are experiencing is simply in your head and "transitory."

Everything is fine. Bernanke has the situation under control. Just like he had the sub-prime mortgage meltdown under control. I don't know about you, but I think we are in great hands.

 

[Jeeyah]

Beefy Crunch Burritos are $1.49 now? WTF?

 

[hunt4genetics]

Beefy Crunch Burritos are $1.49 now? WTF?

Is that a good thing?

I haven't been to the bell in a while.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Some guy shot a Taco Bell clerk with an air gun and then proceeded to shoot at police with a real assault rifle because his Burrito was $1.49.

I'm going to say $1.49 isn't a good thing.

 

[jrockondamic]

There won't be a food crisis in our lifetime imo.

Unless you mean the current food crisis; ie, slowly killing us with high fructose corn syrup, Wendy's, and subsidized corn. In that sense, yes. But if you're educated and disciplined enough to live beyond that, there will be no food crisis IMHO.


Heres what I don't get. I work with a few guys, janitors basically at my hospital, who make prob. 25k a year. have shit lives. they are very obviously miserable. yet these dudes talk shit at lunch about their storage shelters and how they are prepared for their Alex Jones-level invasion crisis.

I wish I was in a position to keep it real with them. Like, mother fucker, I like you, but you're the embodiment of losers. dissapointment to your mothers no doubt. Hate your lives. Have nothing to live for in any meaningful sense. No money/joy/education/intelligence, etc. What the fuck do you want to live through a great depression for?

If I were these people I'd have decapitated myself decades ago. Yet these clowns are desperate to eat baked beans through a fucking zombie invasion or something. wtf?

shotgun. head. make it happen.