If you haven’t started growing your own food yet, start now. Food shortages are imminent, and it takes power away from big companies if we don’t rely on them.
First off, we need to harden people. We have gotten too soft. We have no idea how easy our lives are compared to 100 years ago. The closer you are to the earth. The happier life you live.
You are spot on SirRupert. When I go to West Virginia to visit family, I am always amazed at how very self sufficient people are. I mean, you have elderly people farming, chopping wood, hunting, fishing, raising cattle, goats and chickens. Not to mention the younger generation who follow in their footsteps. Its like stepping back in time.
It's mind blowing to see children as young as 10 years old handling rifles like it's second nature. These children learn to hunt and put food on the table. There's a lot of steps in between they must also learn. (bleeding out, skinning etc) That's their way of life. Totally normal to them. I love it.
I agree, it really is. However, knowing how to live off the land is the most natural thing in the world there. Imagine how I felt when my nephew trailed an 8 point buck for three days. (two of them in the rain) He shot it, cleaned it, supplied the family with more than enough and shared with friends and neighbors. He was only 13 years old at the time.
Expensive to set up and space- and labor-intensive. Plus I don't have that much space to place a hydroponic garden, enough that would render sufficient food for the winter. Also it takes energy (grow lights, temperature settings) to do it right.
Now if I had access to a barn or warehouse (neither of which I have) and enough capital to invest in it (which I don't) then it might be feasible. Economics plays a role in these decisions, so with cash and space, I don't have the requisite basics to start a hydroponics garden that would provide meaningful amounts of food.
You'd be better off growing potatoes inside in containers over winter. They are amazingly hard to not grow. All they need is a sunny window & water, they'll do the rest. Put containers outside after last frost March/April and harvest in 2 months. Good way to kickstart your good weather gardening.
Forgotten potatoes are perfect. Get a big pot, at least 18" across the top and at least 18" high. Fill 2/3 with good potting soil and put 1 complete potato in. Lightly water then fill remaining 1/3 with potting soil. Check moisture level, shoud feel slightly damp but not wet, nothing on your hands wet. Put in sunny area and wait. In a few weeks you'll see shoots emerging. You can slow growth but not letting them get full sun or don't worry about. If the leave begiun to die off before winter ends, dig up and see what you have. Leaves die when they are done basically. On the 3 pots I did with goldens I got 12-15 half-sized ones In 2 pots and 30 shooter marble sized ones when I dug them up. Some I replanted and they continued to grow, the rest I ate. They were delicious. I have several shooter marble sized ones from spring left that just started putting out shoots. They are 20+ weeks old and still viable! Those are going in this weekend along with some sweet potatoes.
labor wise is no worse than outdoor gardening, in fact some may argue it’s easier because no weeding. You’re correct that it’s pricey to set up though, especially the grow lights.
There are other options however. You can grow a lot of things over. winter in cold frames for example. Kale, carrots, spinach, many other cold hardy veg will do just fine in a cold frame. If you have southern facing windows in your home you’d be surprised what you can get to grow in them in containers.
The main thing though is planning and growing things in the summer that store for many months. There are varieties of onion, carrot, squash, and potatoes that will store in the ground or in a root cellar for several months. And although relying on the power grid isn’t ideal, you can get a chest freezer and stock up a LOT of veg (i currently have several pounds of frozen okra in my fridge) and don’t forget learning to can. Canned veg can last up to 2 years.
While it is the wrong time of year to start on a lot of these things, it’s never the wrong time to start learning and planning.
Just to add here a little bit, it can be expensive to set up. I just spent maybe 400 bucks to set up a system using the Kratky method, tent, LED light, medium, nutes, seeds, containers and net pots. Granted, the veggies you can grow in there are somewhat limited, but will be a good supplement to what I saved from the summer. I should mention, in that seed order are my summer seeds also and they are unusual heirloom varieties, so could have been cheaper. Check your local nurseries for leftover seeds from this year on sale.
imo $400 is extremely reasonable for all that. i’ve seen grow lights that are well over $1k by themselves (see BlackDog lights). I found out last winter that green beans do great under inexpensive “burple” lights. I have a few Vivospectra lights that cost ~$130 and beans grew to normal outdoor size under them in just the soil nutes, no additional fertilizer, i was so impressed.
Look up growing food indoors wall hydroponics ....there's too many vids on youtube to count. You only need a wall and it can be done cheap with materials you can pick up at any home depot, like plumbing pipe. I picked a really easy, cheap one to get you started on the search
We can’t do it alone. We need to work as a community. You can easily fit a 5x10 tent with lights inside and just focus on 1 plant like organic tomatoes. Then trade the tomatoes with others for whatever veggie you need. Food can easily be traded in a nationwide indoor farming economy where we all focus on at least 1 kind of veggie.
So if carrots are lacking in 1 neighborhood, I would grow carrots because I can easily trade them due to high demand and low supply. No competition.
Learn/teach yourself how to fertilize soil by planting seeds; then grow your understanding of perspective...your choice represents the seed; the reality you perceive represents the soil. Fertilize that. Use your neighborhood for growth, and the more you do this; the more help you will get. Any empty garden is only a question away from being usable for growth. Show others how to grow food or make fertilizer on a balcony.
Still one of the best & least expensive ways to put back a lot of food quickly.
I was amazed at the variations between different brands for flavor & texture. Some of the store brands (beets, carrots, tomatoes) are much better & cheaper than branded ones. I like canned beans over dried as they are easy, less prep. If I found a baked beans recipe that I liked am sure I'd change my opinion. Have yet to make anything with dried beans I wanted to eat again. Rice & pasta, about as easy as it gets. I keep them stored in tightly lidded containers otherwise bugs will love them. Same for flour. They keep a long time this way if kept away from high temps without oxygen absorbers or gamma buckets.
Look for the baked bean recipe from Durgin Park. It was one of the oldest restaurants in the US before it recently closed down. I cater and I sell them at every bbq I do, to rave reviews.
Thanks, will give that a shot. Have actually eaten at the Durgin Park at Faneuil Hall Boston years back. Don't recall having their beans though. I grew up on the west coast and there was a BBQ chain called Love's. Their baked beans were spectacular, have been looking for a replacement ever since.
I did read to freeze all beans, flour, grains for several days first ( to kill any larvae like pantry moths) then remove from freezer and store in a dark place. Freezing will help those foods stay fresher for longer!
Same thing I was thinking.
Then I considered setting up in my basement, but then my cats would destroy it, the grow lights would probably get expensive, yet my computers would help keep the temp in a decent range down there this winter, and I just overall don't have enough space down there.
I planted a garden this spring, and have every year past since I've lived here in 2013. I want to do raised beds or get plastic, because the weeds grow a lot and takeover what I planted.
As I learned as a young lad, when my parents always had a garden out back, "weeding" is a necessary activity and we kids had to do it once a week. Backbreaking work, pulling up weeds in a garden (ours was about 1/4 acre) but undesirable weeds steal nutrients from the desirable plants so they HAVE to be pulled up by the roots. Today I grow (in spring and summer) a smaller garden plot with tomatoes and other edibles, and even as small as it is, I weed once a week. It keeps me in touch with the earth and in touch with the way I was raised.
My nemesis these days is the horn worm... a.k.a. the tomato worm. It's green and hard to spot amongst the green leaves of the tomato plant... but to spot one you have to look for parts of the vine that have been stripped of leaves. Look closely on that vine or nearby and you'll find the little bugger. I always dispatch them by removing them to a spot on my driveway where they can be seen, and the birds do the rest. It's interesting to watch as the birds swoop in for the kill.
And that's been my problem. We have about 40 or so chickens, 10 peafowl, cats, and dogs, and an almost 1 year old son, and another child on the way. Plus I have my own biz. So finding time to weed my garden was hard. Our tomatoes did pretty good after I addressed blossom end rot. The horn worms I would also find them from the nubs. When I found them, I took them straight to my chickens to tear apart.
Our broccoli didn't do great. The plants got big but didn't produce a lot of heads. Our cabbage and lettuce did real well in late spring/early summer. The peppers took forever to grow and produced but the weeds took over by then and I didn't have much time or interest in maintaining it.
Same for the potatoes.
If you have the available room with proper temps you can overwinter your pepper plants for the next year and get a much earlier start. That's what I'm doing this year with my super hots. There are many videos online that will demonstrate how to prune the plant back to just a few main branches and dig the plant out of ground to pot it up for storage.
i’m hoping to try garden fabric next year and see how that does. I used mulch this year and it was definitely helpful but I still
had loads of creeping charlie and some dandelions to deal with.
This year I did raised beds with cinder blocks. Not the prettiest option but cheap and I put my herbs in the holes of the block on the perimeter. First year doing it and it worked great. Had cilantro and dill when I harvested my cucumbers and maters.
people advocate having a 50lb bag of rice on hand as a backup. but think about it this way... 1 cup of rice is 200 calories. 1 lb of rice is 2.5 cups. so that 50lb bag of rice is only 25k calories. if you're solo, and you drop to only 1500 daily calories in a food shortage, you're still only at around 16 days worth of food for a single person.
another thing to up the calorie density is olive oil or avocado oil. a single tablespoon (half oz) is 110-125 calories. you can get a 5L jug at a bunch of places, which is ~176 oz. so now you're talking roughly 40k calories in a 5L jug. now you've extended for a bit over 26 more days per person.
so if you're rationing to 1500 calories per day, a 50lb bag of rice and 5L olive oil per person will last you roughly 42 days.
you probably have some other stuff sitting around you can add to your diet from your pantry, but if shit hits the fan, you're going to burn through that all pretty fast. when actual food shortages start, if you don't know how to grow food, you're so fucked.
people are getting those hydroponic auto-growers, but many of them can't handle any real volume, and they're always for vegetables and vine fruits... caloric density is way too low in a SHTF scenario. the variety is nice, but you can replace them entirely with a multivitamin.
wheat takes 4-8 months to grow, and that's assuming you do it right the first time. and this isn't even factoring where you live, whether food is actually growable there.
the only consolation is that most americans are overweight or obese though, so with a multivitamin and water alone, most americans can literally go 4+ weeks with no actual food. if you're not a fatass, this doesn't help you.
then you have to factor in the simple fact that if shit actually hit the fan, you're going to have to fend off people in your outer circle who didn't prep, and choose carefully who is in your inner circle. if shit hits the fan, you WILL need other people, because if you're solo, all you've really done is stockpile food for the gangs/cartels that will emerge.
my stash:
100+ lbs of dry uncooked rice
15L+ of olive oil
1+ year of adult daily multivitamins
20+ lbs of unflavored whey protein isolate
portable water filtration system with extra o-rings and extra filters
small stove with tons of solid fuel
as ridiculous as this sounds, that's roughly only 4 months on ration for a single person, plus anything still in the pantry, plus any carried body fat. for the rice, olive oil, and protein, i eat those on the regular, so any time i get lower than those limits, i open the oldest one and get another.
Just to add a tiny bit here, olive oil does have a shelf life, keep using and replenish your supply to keep it fresh. Opening a bottle of rancid oil when you are counting on it will be a serious setback
Now this is an interesting concept. I would love to see more small family-run farms where I could buy or barter for their surplus produce, eggs, and meat.
The history of mankind everywhere and throughout history has been one of poverty and dealing with scarcity... it's the natural order of things. I remember growing up in rural east Tennessee with LOTS of family farms, and we had our own out behind the house where we grew corn, tomatoes, okra, and squash. What we didn't grow we could barter for with other families or supplement at the grocery store.
It has only been through cooperation with others, as in tribal societies, and then later in the 20th Century in the West, that capitalistic societies have created enough surplus to feed those who cannot (or will not) feed themselves and their families. We have become so accustomed to this surplus that we think of it as "normal." But it isn't.... what we in the West have seen, especially since the end of WWII, has been a growing welfare state that feeds people who don't produce anything.
But times do change, and I think we are in such a time of change right now. Today "farmer's markets" seem to be somewhat in the "concierge" economy and a polite fictional image of "roughing it" and paying high prices for moderate quality produce etc. There's always bound to be someone at these markets selling homemade soap, jewelry, and they in numbers about equal to actual farmers. They are "boutique" farmer's markets.
I would relish seeing actual 19th Century style farmers markets where all you see are competitively priced produce, eggs, meats, and foods essential to life. I think the last REAL farmer's market I ever saw was back in the 1960-70s.
those high prices are often (not always) reflective of the fact that many of the markets are only once a week and there are few/zero other local markets for these growers to sell at. Thus, they have to price their goods kind of high in order to just not lose money.
In my local town there is a once weekly market indoors that only runs from may to october. it’s held on county-owned property and there is zero reason it can’t be held year round AND more than once a week aside from the fact that the group that runs it doesn’t want to put in the effort to do it. The entire county is a food desert with only 1 Walmart, 1 Aldi and a smattering of dollar stores for everyone to rely on for food. I plan to make this an issue at city council meetings this winter and try to get support from locals to either force the town to expand the market or allow a second group to run an additional market in the same facility. This needs to be at least a bi weekly market that runs year round so that it is something people can actually rely on and not some bougie seasonal event meant just for fancy people. Shit makes me crazy lol.
This is a great summation of most farmers markets now a days, but I do think there are some exceptions when you go to international type farmers markets in bigger cities.
Soap, candles (especially beeswax), or sheepskin (wool) products are definitely part of the farmer's market. Chalk painted furniture, beading, & vintage clothes are not. And that's fully on the head of whomever runs the market. They do it to appeal to a bigger group that come in to stroll. Around me there are several like that and exactly as you say, expensive mediocre produce and not much of it. About half of the rest is "vintage" market rather than a farmers market. OTOH, there are 2 flea markets that have produce sellers. Their tables are piled high with great produce and usually half price of local markets. Weird dichotomy. Have never asked but I'd bet the reason they don't go to the farmers markets is the high space cost.
This is great! I met a service guy at work who also owns his own farm. I asked him about the possibility of buying beef and milk from him and was told it was illegal in my state. You could "give" it to family but you can't sell it to strangers. I had no idea this was a Thing until I talked to him 2 weeks ago. Blew my mind. How can farmers not sell their own property? (Vegetables are okay to sell, but not any meat or dairy products)
I think this is something to push for in my state now that we've gone full Rep.
Talk again to that service guy who also owns his own farm. Perhaps you can work out a trade for beef, milk, etc for something he could use. (feed for cows)
We recognize the constitution just fine in Maine, regardless of who is driving the ship. We have right to work laws, constitutional carry and legal weed, and more trees than people. If you work a job subject to public health mandates, it's because you want to. I don't believe in mandates, but I also don't have sympathy for parasitic government workers or healthcare workers who don't seek work that accommodates their beliefs. In a rural state like ours, there are plenty of options for work outside the system for those who are resourceful.
In America, we are free to accept whatever employment offers we want, and are equally free to accept whatever consequences come from not fully understanding the provisions of those offers. This is a fundamental premise of the free market.
The people did their own thing for so long they thought that's the way it was and would always be. And... stopped paying attention to what was going on in Augusta. Then there's the whole Lewiston Somali debacle.
That describes the PNW as well. Most of us are independent and just want to be left alone (think Oregon Trail pioneers), but we figured we would always have our secret slice of paradise out here and didn't pay enough attention to the political subterfuge.
This means you can own chickens without the local municipality saying you can't.
Chickens are cheap, easy to care for, and they produce a fuck ton of eggs.
Chickens are great but let me present to you: ducks.
Hear me out - ducks cost only slightly more to obtain, if you get the right breed the egg production is still quite high, ducks are MUCH hardier than chickens - they can live in rain and snow with minimal shelter and are not susceptible to disease and parasites like chickens are. Their eggs are higher in nutrition and if you’re looking to sell your eggs they fetch a MUCH higher price than chicken eggs. Feeding ducks can cost less than chickens if you have decent yard forage for them (ie bugs and grubs and worms) so if you’re growing them for meat they can often be more economical per pound of meat than chickens simply because they require less input (see initiatives in poor equatorial nations, they’re feeding entire villages on what are basically feral duck populations). Also almost no municipality has rules regarding ducks since ducks and geese often live in urban settings wild. Icing on the cake is that ducks are much easier for novice growers to deal with as they simply require less work and are generally very mild tempered. Just make sure you have enough females for your drake(s) because they are horny little shits and will literally mate a female to death if they don’t have enough other females to work with.
Correct, just keep their flight feathers trimmed. I’ve also read anecdotal evidence that often they may fly but will return if they have good forage so some duck farmers choose to leave them in their natural state so that they can escape predators if needed. In town though I’d say clipping the flight feathers is a better option.
that’s interesting, i’ve mostly found chickens to be more disgusting just bc of how nasty their poo is and the fact that they’ll cannibalize their own eggs. I think the trick with ducks and water is either a constantly circulating pool or spring fed natural pond. standing water that never gets changed out or is reliant on rain will get nasty fast. a lot of urban duck growers will just empty and refill a kiddie pool every couple days but imo that seems like a LOT of water to go through. I guess if you’re recycling the duck water into your garden though it could work. Duck poo is pretty legit fertilizer.
Yes most growers clip the flight wings. In winter all they really need is a shed like shelter. Check out Goldshaw Farms on yt, that guy raises 2-3 varieties of ducks and geese and he was the entire reason I got into it. Very informative channel. https://youtube.com/channel/UCjl3zDun9SazYI0UWWu6_1A
Also the meat you get is good. If you don't want to slaughter them yourself and get them dress out there are people that can take of that for you. My grandmother back in the day would take are of that part. Sunday chick dinner was pecking around the yard just that morning LOL!!
There are serious drawbacks (from someone who has a prejudice against chickens unless they're fully dressed out on my plate steaming hot with a pinch of rosemary and olive oil).
Chickens are expensive to keep--building a coop, feeding them. They attract snakes and predators that will not only eat your eggs but your chickens. They're messy (feathers, feed waste, droppings, feathers), and they stink.
Of course, this is coming from someone who was attacked by grandma's rooster as a child and hated the nasty little fuckers ever since, so you can take that for what it's worth. I'll just get my eggs from the farmer down the road. An omelet isn't worth putting up with those feathered demon dinos from the eighth circle of Hell
I know. Grandma kept chickens my whole childhood, and ducks (a little rich but delicious).
Best chicken I ever had was a month after the Rooster Attack. We were sitting down at grand'mas for dinner and she said, "You know where that chicken came from, don't you?" and I just looked her, confused. She pointed to the crispy leg in my hand, "That's the rooster that attacked you," and smiled. And I smiled. And I dug into that chicken with gusto and that was the best chicken I have ever had in my life :-D So yeah, chickens are amazing....on my Plate
I don't think this is quite the wind it sounds like, and while obviously I know I have a right to grow food, I voted against this. Why? The actual text being added to the constitution is:
Section 25. All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.
This defines an "unalienable right to food", includes certain activities and excludes certain things which are already illegal. It does not, however, place any limitation on the "right to food" itself. In a shortage or survival situation, can the government now say that due to everyone's unalienable right to food, my own stockpile must be shared? Or in a less extreme situation, will Mainers see raised taxes to fund more food handouts, and reduced barrier to entry for said handouts?
Perhaps someone with more experience interpreting legal text can explain why these doors are not left open, but that's my interpretation. I will also note that the wording regarding the unalienable right to food was left off of the ballot form, and only the right to farming language was present.
On a more general philosophical level, I feel that rights are indeed inherent, and that a constitution should not serve to grant rights to the people, but to limit the rights of the government.
Hm. Good point, and we know that tyrants will use language in any way that suits them. This is why I am ultimately an abolitionist in regards forcible government; there really is no way to prevent misuse of Power (the "legal" use of initiated coercion against non-aggressors) other than to stop tolerating it. Everything government touches turns to shit.
limit the rights of the government.
Consider how very small and strongly limited our government here in the US was at the start, and then consider the monster it's grown into in just a few generations. Limited government is always better than open-ended tyranny but it doesn't last long.
I see the Maine law as likely beneficial for now but you are right: like almost every law the government gives itself, this one can be used against the people.
Mainer here. The law was proposed by a R state rep in response to peculiar re-zoning strategies playing out in other states that limit what can be grown/raised on private property and commerce/fda regs limiting what can be sold and how between private citizens. It's a way for small producers to get around statutory/regulatory limitations that favor the large agribiz conglomerates whose lobbyists write them.
That said, the wording of the amendment (not law) is vague and will end up only being defined by court cases, meaning an unelected judge will decide what it means. I think the intention of the amendment is good, but the poor execution and imprecise wording will likely mean it has the opposite effect. It will end up being used as a defense for animal abuse and selling contaminated/unsafe food.
Moral: Don't let guys named Billy Bob write amendments
For those wondering, yes you can grow lots of food indoors over winter and for free. You would be surprised at how easy it is to grow some of these vegetables, like potatoes, leafy greens etc indoors. Just plant them in a large pot, put it infront of a sunny south facing window, and water them when the first inch of soil becomes dry. If you don't have a lot of sun, you can buy grow lights, and they are not expensive, about 40 dollars for a very nice clip on grow light. You can even grow citrus indoors believe it or not. All you need is lots of sun and proper watering and minor fertilizer (depending on what you grow) and you get free food year round thats not contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals. Trust me, nothing beats the feeling of growing your own food and harvesting it!
This is a great amendment. Id be all for adding this to the constitution along with livestock. Considering how Canadian and Britain weponize "Bird flu" and other regulations to prevent people from raising chickens and growing crops.
A statewide referendum asked voters if they favored an amendment to the Maine Constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.”
You are right. Thus Thoreau's "That government is best, which governs not at all."
Anything that moves this nation in the direction of freedom is a good thing, but I'm an abolitionist when it comes to forcible government. There is no other way to stop the growth and corruption of government power, because initiating coercion IS a corruption. Reforming government is much like reforming rape.
Though I’m more of a warm weather guy, I heard the Northeast is a beautiful place to live. Got tons of beautiful women there too, good for a young guy like me ;)
Am I entitled to the use of my land the way I want? I want to harvest trees but you fags want to charge me.so.much I can't make a profit. You give great tax breaks to let them die.
Thanks for the clarification, fellow Maine anon. I somehow missed the origin. And yes, it’s the technical execution of the amendment, not the spirit of it, that gave me pause. Much bigger issues to worry about, though.
What this mean: APPEAL from a decree of the District Court of three judges which permanently enjoined the Secretary of Agriculture and other appellants from enforcing certain penalties against the appellee, a farmer, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
If you haven’t started growing your own food yet, start now. Food shortages are imminent, and it takes power away from big companies if we don’t rely on them.
First off, we need to harden people. We have gotten too soft. We have no idea how easy our lives are compared to 100 years ago. The closer you are to the earth. The happier life you live.
You are spot on SirRupert. When I go to West Virginia to visit family, I am always amazed at how very self sufficient people are. I mean, you have elderly people farming, chopping wood, hunting, fishing, raising cattle, goats and chickens. Not to mention the younger generation who follow in their footsteps. Its like stepping back in time.
Excellent observation. Or stepping back into a long time established organic rhythm.
It's mind blowing to see children as young as 10 years old handling rifles like it's second nature. These children learn to hunt and put food on the table. There's a lot of steps in between they must also learn. (bleeding out, skinning etc) That's their way of life. Totally normal to them. I love it.
A little too raw for my expansive Universe.
I agree, it really is. However, knowing how to live off the land is the most natural thing in the world there. Imagine how I felt when my nephew trailed an 8 point buck for three days. (two of them in the rain) He shot it, cleaned it, supplied the family with more than enough and shared with friends and neighbors. He was only 13 years old at the time.
That is a comfort of strong DNA passed over naturally. As well as a feast to be enjoyed.
Hard to do that with winter coming on. I've stored canned goods and dry foods (rice, beans, pasta) and water for whatever is coming.
Hydroponics is year round. Indoors.
Expensive to set up and space- and labor-intensive. Plus I don't have that much space to place a hydroponic garden, enough that would render sufficient food for the winter. Also it takes energy (grow lights, temperature settings) to do it right.
Now if I had access to a barn or warehouse (neither of which I have) and enough capital to invest in it (which I don't) then it might be feasible. Economics plays a role in these decisions, so with cash and space, I don't have the requisite basics to start a hydroponics garden that would provide meaningful amounts of food.
^^^All the above.
You'd be better off growing potatoes inside in containers over winter. They are amazingly hard to not grow. All they need is a sunny window & water, they'll do the rest. Put containers outside after last frost March/April and harvest in 2 months. Good way to kickstart your good weather gardening.
Forgotten potatoes are perfect. Get a big pot, at least 18" across the top and at least 18" high. Fill 2/3 with good potting soil and put 1 complete potato in. Lightly water then fill remaining 1/3 with potting soil. Check moisture level, shoud feel slightly damp but not wet, nothing on your hands wet. Put in sunny area and wait. In a few weeks you'll see shoots emerging. You can slow growth but not letting them get full sun or don't worry about. If the leave begiun to die off before winter ends, dig up and see what you have. Leaves die when they are done basically. On the 3 pots I did with goldens I got 12-15 half-sized ones In 2 pots and 30 shooter marble sized ones when I dug them up. Some I replanted and they continued to grow, the rest I ate. They were delicious. I have several shooter marble sized ones from spring left that just started putting out shoots. They are 20+ weeks old and still viable! Those are going in this weekend along with some sweet potatoes.
You should make this it’s own post centered on survival skills and get everyone to share their useful tips. I think it would really take off!
labor wise is no worse than outdoor gardening, in fact some may argue it’s easier because no weeding. You’re correct that it’s pricey to set up though, especially the grow lights.
There are other options however. You can grow a lot of things over. winter in cold frames for example. Kale, carrots, spinach, many other cold hardy veg will do just fine in a cold frame. If you have southern facing windows in your home you’d be surprised what you can get to grow in them in containers.
The main thing though is planning and growing things in the summer that store for many months. There are varieties of onion, carrot, squash, and potatoes that will store in the ground or in a root cellar for several months. And although relying on the power grid isn’t ideal, you can get a chest freezer and stock up a LOT of veg (i currently have several pounds of frozen okra in my fridge) and don’t forget learning to can. Canned veg can last up to 2 years.
While it is the wrong time of year to start on a lot of these things, it’s never the wrong time to start learning and planning.
Just to add here a little bit, it can be expensive to set up. I just spent maybe 400 bucks to set up a system using the Kratky method, tent, LED light, medium, nutes, seeds, containers and net pots. Granted, the veggies you can grow in there are somewhat limited, but will be a good supplement to what I saved from the summer. I should mention, in that seed order are my summer seeds also and they are unusual heirloom varieties, so could have been cheaper. Check your local nurseries for leftover seeds from this year on sale.
imo $400 is extremely reasonable for all that. i’ve seen grow lights that are well over $1k by themselves (see BlackDog lights). I found out last winter that green beans do great under inexpensive “burple” lights. I have a few Vivospectra lights that cost ~$130 and beans grew to normal outdoor size under them in just the soil nutes, no additional fertilizer, i was so impressed.
Look up growing food indoors wall hydroponics ....there's too many vids on youtube to count. You only need a wall and it can be done cheap with materials you can pick up at any home depot, like plumbing pipe. I picked a really easy, cheap one to get you started on the search
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLEVQw-bHhc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UB7HEy4WJk
We can’t do it alone. We need to work as a community. You can easily fit a 5x10 tent with lights inside and just focus on 1 plant like organic tomatoes. Then trade the tomatoes with others for whatever veggie you need. Food can easily be traded in a nationwide indoor farming economy where we all focus on at least 1 kind of veggie.
So if carrots are lacking in 1 neighborhood, I would grow carrots because I can easily trade them due to high demand and low supply. No competition.
Learn/teach yourself how to fertilize soil by planting seeds; then grow your understanding of perspective...your choice represents the seed; the reality you perceive represents the soil. Fertilize that. Use your neighborhood for growth, and the more you do this; the more help you will get. Any empty garden is only a question away from being usable for growth. Show others how to grow food or make fertilizer on a balcony.
I take my chicken coop bedding and mulch my plants. No weeds plus fertilizer
Life to death to compost to life...meanwhile chickens picking everywhere.
Or if you cycle the hydroponics through a fish tank, the nutrients from the plants can feed the fish and the fish poop fertilizes the plants.
True. That is called aquaponics.
Thanks, I remembered the term after.
(Although that + it's more intricate than that is the limit of my knowledge on the subject)
Aquaponics
Thanks, I only remembered after.
I've always wanted to try it! Have you done it?
No, the prospect looked interesting but neither had the room or the money to actually set it up.
Especially that would want tanks big enough for big enough fish, etc...
Still one of the best & least expensive ways to put back a lot of food quickly.
I was amazed at the variations between different brands for flavor & texture. Some of the store brands (beets, carrots, tomatoes) are much better & cheaper than branded ones. I like canned beans over dried as they are easy, less prep. If I found a baked beans recipe that I liked am sure I'd change my opinion. Have yet to make anything with dried beans I wanted to eat again. Rice & pasta, about as easy as it gets. I keep them stored in tightly lidded containers otherwise bugs will love them. Same for flour. They keep a long time this way if kept away from high temps without oxygen absorbers or gamma buckets.
Look for the baked bean recipe from Durgin Park. It was one of the oldest restaurants in the US before it recently closed down. I cater and I sell them at every bbq I do, to rave reviews.
Thanks, will give that a shot. Have actually eaten at the Durgin Park at Faneuil Hall Boston years back. Don't recall having their beans though. I grew up on the west coast and there was a BBQ chain called Love's. Their baked beans were spectacular, have been looking for a replacement ever since.
I did read to freeze all beans, flour, grains for several days first ( to kill any larvae like pantry moths) then remove from freezer and store in a dark place. Freezing will help those foods stay fresher for longer!
Same thing I was thinking. Then I considered setting up in my basement, but then my cats would destroy it, the grow lights would probably get expensive, yet my computers would help keep the temp in a decent range down there this winter, and I just overall don't have enough space down there.
I planted a garden this spring, and have every year past since I've lived here in 2013. I want to do raised beds or get plastic, because the weeds grow a lot and takeover what I planted.
As I learned as a young lad, when my parents always had a garden out back, "weeding" is a necessary activity and we kids had to do it once a week. Backbreaking work, pulling up weeds in a garden (ours was about 1/4 acre) but undesirable weeds steal nutrients from the desirable plants so they HAVE to be pulled up by the roots. Today I grow (in spring and summer) a smaller garden plot with tomatoes and other edibles, and even as small as it is, I weed once a week. It keeps me in touch with the earth and in touch with the way I was raised.
My nemesis these days is the horn worm... a.k.a. the tomato worm. It's green and hard to spot amongst the green leaves of the tomato plant... but to spot one you have to look for parts of the vine that have been stripped of leaves. Look closely on that vine or nearby and you'll find the little bugger. I always dispatch them by removing them to a spot on my driveway where they can be seen, and the birds do the rest. It's interesting to watch as the birds swoop in for the kill.
And that's been my problem. We have about 40 or so chickens, 10 peafowl, cats, and dogs, and an almost 1 year old son, and another child on the way. Plus I have my own biz. So finding time to weed my garden was hard. Our tomatoes did pretty good after I addressed blossom end rot. The horn worms I would also find them from the nubs. When I found them, I took them straight to my chickens to tear apart.
Our broccoli didn't do great. The plants got big but didn't produce a lot of heads. Our cabbage and lettuce did real well in late spring/early summer. The peppers took forever to grow and produced but the weeds took over by then and I didn't have much time or interest in maintaining it. Same for the potatoes.
If you have the available room with proper temps you can overwinter your pepper plants for the next year and get a much earlier start. That's what I'm doing this year with my super hots. There are many videos online that will demonstrate how to prune the plant back to just a few main branches and dig the plant out of ground to pot it up for storage.
I'd never heard that. Thanks for the tip!
You should record their tiny screams of "Noooooooooooooooooo..."
Or, "HELP MEEEEE" 😁
Saw that when I was 10, had nightmares!
"HELP MEEEEE"
Early Marty McFly??? 🤔
Ha! Me too; younger than 10 actually. Spent most of the movie hiding in the lobby.
i’m hoping to try garden fabric next year and see how that does. I used mulch this year and it was definitely helpful but I still had loads of creeping charlie and some dandelions to deal with.
Old newspaper works well as a weed too.
Newpaper/ cardboard and mulch works very well.
Get 2 chickens and let them in the garden every now and again. They took care of my potato beetles and they love horn worms.
Mulch or weed barrier FTW
In Guam I learned cats are tasty and a good source of protein
don't forget the seasoning.... CATsup!
Yeah, no, none of that.
This year I did raised beds with cinder blocks. Not the prettiest option but cheap and I put my herbs in the holes of the block on the perimeter. First year doing it and it worked great. Had cilantro and dill when I harvested my cucumbers and maters.
This is a good idea and I like it. I'm assuming you used potting soil in the block holes?
Just regular old top soil and some chicken bedding mulch.
this.
people advocate having a 50lb bag of rice on hand as a backup. but think about it this way... 1 cup of rice is 200 calories. 1 lb of rice is 2.5 cups. so that 50lb bag of rice is only 25k calories. if you're solo, and you drop to only 1500 daily calories in a food shortage, you're still only at around 16 days worth of food for a single person.
another thing to up the calorie density is olive oil or avocado oil. a single tablespoon (half oz) is 110-125 calories. you can get a 5L jug at a bunch of places, which is ~176 oz. so now you're talking roughly 40k calories in a 5L jug. now you've extended for a bit over 26 more days per person.
so if you're rationing to 1500 calories per day, a 50lb bag of rice and 5L olive oil per person will last you roughly 42 days.
you probably have some other stuff sitting around you can add to your diet from your pantry, but if shit hits the fan, you're going to burn through that all pretty fast. when actual food shortages start, if you don't know how to grow food, you're so fucked.
people are getting those hydroponic auto-growers, but many of them can't handle any real volume, and they're always for vegetables and vine fruits... caloric density is way too low in a SHTF scenario. the variety is nice, but you can replace them entirely with a multivitamin.
wheat takes 4-8 months to grow, and that's assuming you do it right the first time. and this isn't even factoring where you live, whether food is actually growable there.
the only consolation is that most americans are overweight or obese though, so with a multivitamin and water alone, most americans can literally go 4+ weeks with no actual food. if you're not a fatass, this doesn't help you.
then you have to factor in the simple fact that if shit actually hit the fan, you're going to have to fend off people in your outer circle who didn't prep, and choose carefully who is in your inner circle. if shit hits the fan, you WILL need other people, because if you're solo, all you've really done is stockpile food for the gangs/cartels that will emerge.
my stash:
as ridiculous as this sounds, that's roughly only 4 months on ration for a single person, plus anything still in the pantry, plus any carried body fat. for the rice, olive oil, and protein, i eat those on the regular, so any time i get lower than those limits, i open the oldest one and get another.
Just to add a tiny bit here, olive oil does have a shelf life, keep using and replenish your supply to keep it fresh. Opening a bottle of rancid oil when you are counting on it will be a serious setback
Get into indoor growing. The tech exists for it. Hydroponics.
Its a little late to be planting anything unless its a field of wheat or barley
Now this is an interesting concept. I would love to see more small family-run farms where I could buy or barter for their surplus produce, eggs, and meat.
The history of mankind everywhere and throughout history has been one of poverty and dealing with scarcity... it's the natural order of things. I remember growing up in rural east Tennessee with LOTS of family farms, and we had our own out behind the house where we grew corn, tomatoes, okra, and squash. What we didn't grow we could barter for with other families or supplement at the grocery store.
It has only been through cooperation with others, as in tribal societies, and then later in the 20th Century in the West, that capitalistic societies have created enough surplus to feed those who cannot (or will not) feed themselves and their families. We have become so accustomed to this surplus that we think of it as "normal." But it isn't.... what we in the West have seen, especially since the end of WWII, has been a growing welfare state that feeds people who don't produce anything.
But times do change, and I think we are in such a time of change right now. Today "farmer's markets" seem to be somewhat in the "concierge" economy and a polite fictional image of "roughing it" and paying high prices for moderate quality produce etc. There's always bound to be someone at these markets selling homemade soap, jewelry, and they in numbers about equal to actual farmers. They are "boutique" farmer's markets.
I would relish seeing actual 19th Century style farmers markets where all you see are competitively priced produce, eggs, meats, and foods essential to life. I think the last REAL farmer's market I ever saw was back in the 1960-70s.
those high prices are often (not always) reflective of the fact that many of the markets are only once a week and there are few/zero other local markets for these growers to sell at. Thus, they have to price their goods kind of high in order to just not lose money.
In my local town there is a once weekly market indoors that only runs from may to october. it’s held on county-owned property and there is zero reason it can’t be held year round AND more than once a week aside from the fact that the group that runs it doesn’t want to put in the effort to do it. The entire county is a food desert with only 1 Walmart, 1 Aldi and a smattering of dollar stores for everyone to rely on for food. I plan to make this an issue at city council meetings this winter and try to get support from locals to either force the town to expand the market or allow a second group to run an additional market in the same facility. This needs to be at least a bi weekly market that runs year round so that it is something people can actually rely on and not some bougie seasonal event meant just for fancy people. Shit makes me crazy lol.
God bless you
aw thanks!! God bless you as well.
:)
Wait, so a large Stabucks & yoga pants aren't normal farming attire? The hell you say!
This is a great summation of most farmers markets now a days, but I do think there are some exceptions when you go to international type farmers markets in bigger cities.
^^^Agree 99%
Soap, candles (especially beeswax), or sheepskin (wool) products are definitely part of the farmer's market. Chalk painted furniture, beading, & vintage clothes are not. And that's fully on the head of whomever runs the market. They do it to appeal to a bigger group that come in to stroll. Around me there are several like that and exactly as you say, expensive mediocre produce and not much of it. About half of the rest is "vintage" market rather than a farmers market. OTOH, there are 2 flea markets that have produce sellers. Their tables are piled high with great produce and usually half price of local markets. Weird dichotomy. Have never asked but I'd bet the reason they don't go to the farmers markets is the high space cost.
This is great! I met a service guy at work who also owns his own farm. I asked him about the possibility of buying beef and milk from him and was told it was illegal in my state. You could "give" it to family but you can't sell it to strangers. I had no idea this was a Thing until I talked to him 2 weeks ago. Blew my mind. How can farmers not sell their own property? (Vegetables are okay to sell, but not any meat or dairy products)
I think this is something to push for in my state now that we've gone full Rep.
Who regulates meat? The FDA. This is the problem.
Talk again to that service guy who also owns his own farm. Perhaps you can work out a trade for beef, milk, etc for something he could use. (feed for cows)
If only Maine would recognize the actual Constitution.
Governor just got her booster, got a hunch the best is yet to come.
We recognize the constitution just fine in Maine, regardless of who is driving the ship. We have right to work laws, constitutional carry and legal weed, and more trees than people. If you work a job subject to public health mandates, it's because you want to. I don't believe in mandates, but I also don't have sympathy for parasitic government workers or healthcare workers who don't seek work that accommodates their beliefs. In a rural state like ours, there are plenty of options for work outside the system for those who are resourceful.
In America, we are free to accept whatever employment offers we want, and are equally free to accept whatever consequences come from not fully understanding the provisions of those offers. This is a fundamental premise of the free market.
The people did their own thing for so long they thought that's the way it was and would always be. And... stopped paying attention to what was going on in Augusta. Then there's the whole Lewiston Somali debacle.
That describes the PNW as well. Most of us are independent and just want to be left alone (think Oregon Trail pioneers), but we figured we would always have our secret slice of paradise out here and didn't pay enough attention to the political subterfuge.
I was going to say the same thing. This is HUGE. Commerce Clause has been abused as FUCK.
Wow.... we’ve let it get this bad that we have to pass state constitutional amendments to grow food? Good for Maine. Thanks for sharing this.
This means you can own chickens without the local municipality saying you can't. Chickens are cheap, easy to care for, and they produce a fuck ton of eggs.
Chickens are great but let me present to you: ducks.
Hear me out - ducks cost only slightly more to obtain, if you get the right breed the egg production is still quite high, ducks are MUCH hardier than chickens - they can live in rain and snow with minimal shelter and are not susceptible to disease and parasites like chickens are. Their eggs are higher in nutrition and if you’re looking to sell your eggs they fetch a MUCH higher price than chicken eggs. Feeding ducks can cost less than chickens if you have decent yard forage for them (ie bugs and grubs and worms) so if you’re growing them for meat they can often be more economical per pound of meat than chickens simply because they require less input (see initiatives in poor equatorial nations, they’re feeding entire villages on what are basically feral duck populations). Also almost no municipality has rules regarding ducks since ducks and geese often live in urban settings wild. Icing on the cake is that ducks are much easier for novice growers to deal with as they simply require less work and are generally very mild tempered. Just make sure you have enough females for your drake(s) because they are horny little shits and will literally mate a female to death if they don’t have enough other females to work with.
Just something to consider.
How do you keep them from flying away? Clipped wings?
Correct, just keep their flight feathers trimmed. I’ve also read anecdotal evidence that often they may fly but will return if they have good forage so some duck farmers choose to leave them in their natural state so that they can escape predators if needed. In town though I’d say clipping the flight feathers is a better option.
that’s interesting, i’ve mostly found chickens to be more disgusting just bc of how nasty their poo is and the fact that they’ll cannibalize their own eggs. I think the trick with ducks and water is either a constantly circulating pool or spring fed natural pond. standing water that never gets changed out or is reliant on rain will get nasty fast. a lot of urban duck growers will just empty and refill a kiddie pool every couple days but imo that seems like a LOT of water to go through. I guess if you’re recycling the duck water into your garden though it could work. Duck poo is pretty legit fertilizer.
do you clip their wings?
what do you do for seasons?
Yes most growers clip the flight wings. In winter all they really need is a shed like shelter. Check out Goldshaw Farms on yt, that guy raises 2-3 varieties of ducks and geese and he was the entire reason I got into it. Very informative channel. https://youtube.com/channel/UCjl3zDun9SazYI0UWWu6_1A
I'm not that knowledgeable about farming etc. but chickens seem really efficient for the amount of quality food you get.
Also the meat you get is good. If you don't want to slaughter them yourself and get them dress out there are people that can take of that for you. My grandmother back in the day would take are of that part. Sunday chick dinner was pecking around the yard just that morning LOL!!
There are serious drawbacks (from someone who has a prejudice against chickens unless they're fully dressed out on my plate steaming hot with a pinch of rosemary and olive oil).
Chickens are expensive to keep--building a coop, feeding them. They attract snakes and predators that will not only eat your eggs but your chickens. They're messy (feathers, feed waste, droppings, feathers), and they stink.
Of course, this is coming from someone who was attacked by grandma's rooster as a child and hated the nasty little fuckers ever since, so you can take that for what it's worth. I'll just get my eggs from the farmer down the road. An omelet isn't worth putting up with those feathered demon dinos from the eighth circle of Hell
And an added bonus, no refrigerator required to keep your meat fresh.
I know. Grandma kept chickens my whole childhood, and ducks (a little rich but delicious).
Best chicken I ever had was a month after the Rooster Attack. We were sitting down at grand'mas for dinner and she said, "You know where that chicken came from, don't you?" and I just looked her, confused. She pointed to the crispy leg in my hand, "That's the rooster that attacked you," and smiled. And I smiled. And I dug into that chicken with gusto and that was the best chicken I have ever had in my life :-D So yeah, chickens are amazing....on my Plate
I can see why you don't like them haha. I've been around them a bit and I can relate to what you're saying regarding the mess and smell.
I don't think this is quite the wind it sounds like, and while obviously I know I have a right to grow food, I voted against this. Why? The actual text being added to the constitution is:
This defines an "unalienable right to food", includes certain activities and excludes certain things which are already illegal. It does not, however, place any limitation on the "right to food" itself. In a shortage or survival situation, can the government now say that due to everyone's unalienable right to food, my own stockpile must be shared? Or in a less extreme situation, will Mainers see raised taxes to fund more food handouts, and reduced barrier to entry for said handouts?
Perhaps someone with more experience interpreting legal text can explain why these doors are not left open, but that's my interpretation. I will also note that the wording regarding the unalienable right to food was left off of the ballot form, and only the right to farming language was present.
On a more general philosophical level, I feel that rights are indeed inherent, and that a constitution should not serve to grant rights to the people, but to limit the rights of the government.
Hm. Good point, and we know that tyrants will use language in any way that suits them. This is why I am ultimately an abolitionist in regards forcible government; there really is no way to prevent misuse of Power (the "legal" use of initiated coercion against non-aggressors) other than to stop tolerating it. Everything government touches turns to shit.
Consider how very small and strongly limited our government here in the US was at the start, and then consider the monster it's grown into in just a few generations. Limited government is always better than open-ended tyranny but it doesn't last long.
I see the Maine law as likely beneficial for now but you are right: like almost every law the government gives itself, this one can be used against the people.
Mainer here. The law was proposed by a R state rep in response to peculiar re-zoning strategies playing out in other states that limit what can be grown/raised on private property and commerce/fda regs limiting what can be sold and how between private citizens. It's a way for small producers to get around statutory/regulatory limitations that favor the large agribiz conglomerates whose lobbyists write them.
That said, the wording of the amendment (not law) is vague and will end up only being defined by court cases, meaning an unelected judge will decide what it means. I think the intention of the amendment is good, but the poor execution and imprecise wording will likely mean it has the opposite effect. It will end up being used as a defense for animal abuse and selling contaminated/unsafe food.
Moral: Don't let guys named Billy Bob write amendments
"Theft"=Monsanto patents.
Of their own choosing…Koreans and chineese eat dog. So does this mean those immigrants to Maine have now the right to eat dog in Maine?
I don’t think they thought this through…
For those wondering, yes you can grow lots of food indoors over winter and for free. You would be surprised at how easy it is to grow some of these vegetables, like potatoes, leafy greens etc indoors. Just plant them in a large pot, put it infront of a sunny south facing window, and water them when the first inch of soil becomes dry. If you don't have a lot of sun, you can buy grow lights, and they are not expensive, about 40 dollars for a very nice clip on grow light. You can even grow citrus indoors believe it or not. All you need is lots of sun and proper watering and minor fertilizer (depending on what you grow) and you get free food year round thats not contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals. Trust me, nothing beats the feeling of growing your own food and harvesting it!
This is a great amendment. Id be all for adding this to the constitution along with livestock. Considering how Canadian and Britain weponize "Bird flu" and other regulations to prevent people from raising chickens and growing crops.
Umm, just so long as that "food" isn't human ...
I don't know anything about this issue (as it pertains to Maine in particular) but I'm inclined to think this is a good thing.
Its already in the declaration of independence and the first amendment.
(D) party As long as it's gluten free, vegetarian, Vegan, Has no peanuts, has no tree nuts, or cow products.
Ha!
what rights the government gives it can also take. rights come from God and from man by our consent only.
You are right. Thus Thoreau's "That government is best, which governs not at all."
Anything that moves this nation in the direction of freedom is a good thing, but I'm an abolitionist when it comes to forcible government. There is no other way to stop the growth and corruption of government power, because initiating coercion IS a corruption. Reforming government is much like reforming rape.
Though I’m more of a warm weather guy, I heard the Northeast is a beautiful place to live. Got tons of beautiful women there too, good for a young guy like me ;)
Thanks. I passed the idea on to my state senator.
Sounds good, but why does this have to be a law.
Am I entitled to the use of my land the way I want? I want to harvest trees but you fags want to charge me.so.much I can't make a profit. You give great tax breaks to let them die.
NICE
Thanks for the clarification, fellow Maine anon. I somehow missed the origin. And yes, it’s the technical execution of the amendment, not the spirit of it, that gave me pause. Much bigger issues to worry about, though.
Interstate Commerce Clause could not apply to someone growing food in their back yard. Although no doubt the Establishment would try.
Capturing rain in barrels is a hot button issue in many states..
infuriating. anyone stopping you from collecting RAIN needs to be dealt with.
What this mean: APPEAL from a decree of the District Court of three judges which permanently enjoined the Secretary of Agriculture and other appellants from enforcing certain penalties against the appellee, a farmer, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/
It's a start.