"Grocery shopping" in the back yard
I am NOT an "expert" at self-sufficiency, but I am damn serious about it. Here are a few tips I learned over the past year:
Vegetables:
Sprouting seeds - keep you in "leafy greens" all winter long.
Carrots can be "grown" well into winter. Toss a straw bale over them when the frost comes, and keep harvesting for months. I pulled a fresh carrot in January in Idaho. YUMMY!
Cold frames - simple wooden frames with plastic over them that fit over your garden rows will add weeks on both ends of your season.
Spinach will reseed itself if you let it go to seed in the fall, I am already harvesting tiny leaves of fresh spinach.
Fruits:
Dehydrated stone fruits are as sweet as candy. Dip them in a weak lemon juice solution before drying and they will retain a nicer color. You lose some nutrients, but not all. Buy good fresh fruit in season and freeze all you can. If your freezer goes out, start dehydrating it.
Starches:
Potatoes fill the belly. When your spuds start to sprout, toss them on the compost heap, If things go really badly, you will probably find some emergency 'tater rations! Rice and beans can be packed for very long term storage and can be purchased pretty cheap, but are hard to grow unless you have a serious farm.
Meat: We went with chickens. We eat all the eggs we want, and have a few months worth of meat on the drumstick... They will scavenge their own food if the day comes that I cannot get feed for them. Bunnies will run away, chickens come home to roost. Beyond that, some cured, jerked and canned meats stay in the pantry.
If you have not had a REALLY paranoid moment yet, I recommend you generate one. I actually put a weeks worth of food in a pile for my family at one point, and it was an eye opening experience.
PLEASE be aware that CANNED GOODS are suspect now. It seems that plastic lining in the new cans is leaching BPA into our food. Can your own. The horror stories have some truth, but if you are meticulously clean and follow good recipes, you will be fine.
Free Chicken Feed
Great thread! I am also already eating reseeded spinach from last years garden mmmm.
Here is a link on how to feed your chickens for free. http://www.catawbacoops.com/soldier-fly-larvae-as-a-cheap-fo...
It's on a site I believe you posted the link to on Mike Lawson's chicken thread so I am surprised you didn't see it?
Also here is a way to grow 100 pounds of potatoes in 4 square feet check it out I made two of these:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2002347126_...
And don't forget to click on page two of the picture in the right hand corner for the plans on how to make them
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Get Prepared!
Only dead fish go with the flow...
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End The Fat
70 pounds lost and counting! Get in shape for the revolution!
Get Prepared!
thanks!
We built a 'tater box this year, too. I also did one row and a pit - trying a few different things to see what works and is easiest to work with. We also have 4 straw bales we are treating and going to try some straw bale gardening.
My little garden is sprouting the cold hardy stuff - can't believe how excited I get over a couple cotyledon leaves... but I should have some company for my spinach salads within a couple weeks!
I had found other sites about feeding chickens, can't believe I missed that one. Thanks for pointing it out!
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
sweet - thank you hawkiye!
I was wondering how I was going to afford feeding my chickens - finished our coop today and will be getting them in a day or two.
I have used barrels for my spuds, this year I am doing them in ground with tons of straw over them so I can just reach in and get em whenever I want. Barrels or towers are harder to do that with I have found. (old barrels or they also sell bins...)_________________________________________
sdrawkcab gnihtyreve od deF eht & tnemrevog ehT
Cannabis - U.S. Patent #6630507
If you read the article and
If you read the article and looked at the picture those boxes make it easier to harvest then barrels or anything else you just remove the bottom layers as needed and reach in and grab the potatoes.
What will you use for nutrients if you just use straw? Potatoes grow between the seed potato and the foliage not below the seed potato. It cost me 15 dollars to build one of those boxes, simple and easy. I use one part compost, one part peat moss ( you could substitute saw dust or straw if you chop it up smaller, you can do that with a lawn mower), and a half part of vermiculite, or you could substitute pearlite or even sand.
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Get Prepared!
Only dead fish go with the flow...
-----
End The Fat
70 pounds lost and counting! Get in shape for the revolution!
Get Prepared!
hawkiye I see what you are saying about the boxes now
I am going to add compost (I have a huge compost pile) on top of the straw and spuds in layers as they grow through it. I always could grow more though, and I do like that idea! Thnx.
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sdrawkcab gnihtyreve od deF eht & tnemrevog ehT
Cannabis - U.S. Patent #6630507
A few months back - this quote from Okla city-councilman
.
Henderson urges caution on community gardens
Excerpts:
I like how he said GROCERY STORES feed the hungry !!!!
Nothing like keeping the people reliant on corporations/government/infrastructure.
This guy must keep his seat because his constituents have the slave mentality........"what's the government going to do for me".
.
www.vaclib.org
.
.
www.vaclib.org
What a tool
"We need a lot of stuff other than community gardens."
Sadly, he is correct. We need liberty, then we can grow whatever the creator put here in our garden.
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
"Growing your own food is one of the most dangerous occupations
because you are in danger of becoming free."
That's a quote from this video about a family in Los Angeles that grows most of their food in their yard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q
Thanks for all the good
Thanks for all the good info! I have a quick question, though. Does anyone know where I can buy a good dehydrator? I had one before, but the racks in it were made of plastic, which made everything I dehydrated in it have kind of a plasticy aftertaste. (yuk!) Any suggestions?
. @ @ . Power to the People!
@ O @ -----> PEOPLE
. @ @ . NOT Corporate Entities!
Ready Made Resources, the advertiser on Daily Paul
That supports this website, has a dehydrator here:
http://www.readymaderesources.com/cart/index.php?act=viewCat...
they are very easy to build
I use the heater / fan from my plastice tray one, then put several hand made screen trays over it, drape a sheet around the whole mess and dehydrate huge quantities at a time. I do live in a desert climate, though. That helps!
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
highwith: This link will help.
In fact, I like a lot of stuff this company has.
Check out their canned meats, last forever, no preservatives, and taste good.
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/dehydrators.aspx
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/
just in case
~
just in case someone here had missed your other great forum ...
Foragables
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/87033
Time to bring a gardening thread back!
Last night I harvested enough greens from my garden for dinner! I planted the spinach late last fall and it wintered over with no protection under the snow. I also had chard that wintered over with a clear plastic container over the top. Then my turnips I planted in the garden a few weeks ago needed thinned, and I put them, roots and all in the greens. Steamed them and served with butter--Yum! And I felt so resourceful!
As encouragement to first time gardeners, my peas, garlic, bunching onions and green onions from last fall survived 7 inches of SNOW a few days ago. I also have spinach, green onions, lettuce, turnips and radishes growing under a makeshift coldframe. (I covered a wood frame with plain old Bubble Wrap!)
Hidden inflation in food prices !
I recall when I worked for a candy company in the mid -'70's, our VP of industrial relations was bragging how they got consumers to pay over the psychological barrier of $1 a bag for candy. They put less candy in the same size bag and charged .99 cents.
The wife had me get Pam spray this morning at Sam's Club. The cans are now 8oz instead of 12oz, I'm guessing the price hasn't gone down since last time either.
Pretty soon the $8 Mexican watermelons at Sams this morning will cost the same as watermelons (volley-ball, size) when I was in Tokyo 2006, $35.00.
At Sam's and Costco last year I was able to buy 4 Speedo swim goggles in a blister pack for the grandkids for $15. This year three, for $15. That's 25% inflation.
BOHICA
this comment deserves its' own thread
thanks for the reminder.
i got a burrito at one of my old favorite local place last week. the price was the same but the burrito was noticibly smaller.
Yes
Its called less for more. Its a way to keep the bottom line going without hurting profits.
Less food at a higher price.
Restaurants and chains are taking food away from the consumer and footing them the same bill if not a higher one. Pretty soon that bubble will pop also. For it won't be long before people will wise up to the shenanigans going on at their favorite food stop. Its an unsustainable business model.
For step one requires the making of less.
Step two is charging more for less.
But as inflation sets in the less for more gap becomes too great and the model collapses onto itself.
I really appreciate threads like this.
Excellent information that we're all going to need.
On the subject of food being 'wasted'
I once saw a very idiosyncratic French film made by a woman in her 70's (eccentric, witty and curious) who went across the country in France with her video camera and filmed how unwanted food is 'gleaned' by the homeless and not so homeless and how there are laws in France since the middle ages that allow for 'gleaners' to come onto a farm or an orchard and pick up 'from the ground' any remnant fruits or vegetables.
Extremely interesting and creative film. Strongly recommend.
The film is called: 'Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse', 'The Gleaners and I', by Agnes Varda.
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C01E0DA173DF933A...
http://www.filmforum.org/archivedfilms/gleaners.html
Jerusalem Artichokes
A big beautiful sunflower with tasty edible roots. Spreads like crazy and you can dig them all winter. Good raw or cooked. Most plant catalogs have starters, or you can often find them growing wild. They bloom in late summer.
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Good information I found
I found this site by chance. The 1st link shows how to make a raised growing beds using rebar, wood and metal sheeting. The 2nd link shows how to make a cover for it so that you can grow in the raised beds probably all year. The site has awesome information on making all types of raised beds even out of old tires. Enjoy!
http://www.noble.org/ag/Horticulture/RaisedBedGardening/corr...
http://www.noble.org/ag/horticulture/raisedbedgardening/mini...
Instead of building up raised beds, my 'raised beds' are a
dug out walkway! Son took his small backhoe and dug a U shaped walkway. We buried metal 1 ft deep around the fence line to keep the lawn grass from encroaching, and I used 2x12 boards to hold the dirt. I can grow quite a few veggies in my 16X16 ft. 'raised bed' garden.
The reasoning behind this was---I didn't have to haul soil in to fill the beds. With the walkway 1 ft. lower than ground level and a 5 ft. tall fence, I can put bird netting over the top if I need to. I could even cover the whole garden with plastic easily if it wasn't so windy here.
good post
and good advice. I like the idea of a paranoid moment. I've had some small "oh oh's" when shopping and not finding certain things I was looking for. That in turn helped me plan better and stock more. I think I will plan a "get out of dodge" event and see how well we do at grabbing and running. We've been setting up a place in a rural setting as we are stuck in the city for the moment because of husbands job. But I've been trying to get both places ready, guess it's time to check and see how well I've been doing.
chinkadaro
Not quite what we're talking about here
But when I worked in a Chicagoland major grocery chain store bakery '60's (operating engineer) I saw them throwing bread into the dumpster as fast it came off the cooling conveyors. Being new at the time, I asked what is up with the bread ? The answer and the rationalization why, took me back. The loaves were too big and if we let them go out, the customers will complain when they are smaller (right size). I did find out it went for hog feed.
Last week I was driving behind a large ethnic super market and happened that the compacter for garbage was open and there must of been of tree full of oranges going to be compacted. My guess is they turned before people would buy them all at market price.
Capitalism is wasteful, but better than Socialism, but a waste when so many are hungry. But if you feed all the hungry without population control, you'll have more hungry. I guess famine along with the other apocalypses is mother nature's way of man recreating himself.
Break a leg.
my in laws fed hogs one year by dumpster diving at Safeway
They went back the next year and the staff was pouring bleach over everything.
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
On the news in Chicago years ago
A grocery store was giving old fruit and veggies to a farmer in the outlying suburbs who had bison and other exotic animals. It has been awhile, and if I remember right, there were problems in the beginning, but the animals won out and made the news. There are people of good will that make it all worth while.
Pouring bleach on usable food waste for pigs is sick.
I made some cold frames using bubble wrap! They worked well
untill the gopher discovered the banquet waiting him in the bubble wrap 'hotel'! He lived there until ALL my carrots and beets were gone! But I was harvesting carrots, beets, radishes, kholrabi, chard,and green onions in January here in the mountains.
I'm going to try eating
dandelions when the snow clears.Has anyone tried them?
Any good?