OT...Got Garden? Daily Food Crisis in the News

All you pollyannas can just move along, nothing to see here. Everthing will be taken care of. Just a temporary glitch in the matrix.

Here is today's small sampling of "food insufficiency" stories. Billy may be right, this appears to be a possible "Perfect Storm", or the fulfillment of Dr. Kissinger's proposal.

Any of you Right or Left Coasters have anything reportable on the first article? We can no longer get Lundberg Farms rice here in our town. This has happened in the last week. Food prices are going thru the roof in a big hurry, produce from the fresh sections is outta sight. Cauliflower is 3.00 +, brocolli same, Iceberg Lettuce 1.68, and these are the common items. I picked up a bag of organic gala apples at

1.98#... twelve bucks for the small bag. Unorganic apples are 1.78#. Meat and eggs are going up weekly. Gas is at 3.35 and diesel is 4.12. Oil passed 117.50 today.

It's fast becoming a matter of backing up and remembering and doing as our parents and grands did, to a degree. We have some cush, just gotta give up some of the extraneous horsecrap, eh?

And enlarge our own growing capacity. Both my sons, *and* DILs are finally onboard and borrowing all the garden info and bookmarks I have.

Those hunnert and fitty issues of TMEN sittin' on the shelf are gonna be the new bibles in the future. ;-)

Reply to
Charlie
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Enjoy !

Bill

Reply to
Bill

For those that don't have them...

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's all there and where you get to see things like this
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'll have to fix the url)

The site is good enough to put up with page by page popover request to subscribe to the newsletter, etc.

Reply to
phorbin

I'll be stocking up on the low sodium (No salt added) canned veggies before they go any higher... Water costs for gardening eat me alive so it's not economically feasible to make it more than just a hobby. :-(

I'll be studying more of the Texas native edible plants. Zeroscape items that don't need to be babied/watered.

I'll also stock up on ammo so I can hunt my own meat...

Squirrel is tasty in season and I have a hunting license. Same for fishing wild fishies. Deer are also plentiful and I have somewhere I can hunt without having to pay a $1,000.00 hunting lease!

Might even learn to like Prairie dog.

Reply to
Omelet

I'm glad that there are still the commons (property of the people, for the people) to e used. Most of it was cut down, destroying the game and plants to be found there, the recharging the aquifers and clean water, the preservation of the top soil, and the cleaning of the air. Sounds like you have some private property lined up but this used to be every person's right before the commons were taken. The oceans are being closed as well as they are the last vestiges of the commons. Grand Banks are fished out. There will be no salmon season on the west coast as we try to save the salmon from extinction. Farmed salmon just isn't the same, nutritionally or in terms of genetic diversity. You probably saw Jerod Diamond's article. "The Worst Mistake of the Human Race".

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.pdf It argues that we never had it so good as when we were hunter gatherers.

You may want to check out xeriplants.pdf

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a mish-mash of landscaping and garden plants. Thanks to Jangchub, I'm trying to grow prickly pear cactus now:-) The county enjoyed how we conserved last year, so they raised the water rates, and now we get to do it again.

Good hunting.

Reply to
Billy

Race".www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/mistake_jared_dia...

mish-mash of landscaping and garden

ginger, basil, and dill this evening. He was swimming 15 ft. away 25 minutes before he got et.

cheers

oz, who will never run out of catfish and squirrels and am, with all your kind help, beginning to figure out some of the gardening "thang"

Reply to
MajorOz

Is Jerod Diamond the same guy who wrote a book on the topic?

Reply to
Lilah Morgan

Yes, it is private property. Unlike California, pretty much all of the land it Texas IS private property except for the few and far between State Parks, but hunting on those is regulated too.

Still plenty of places to fish here. Fishing fees run the hatcheries so waterways get restocked.

Indeed. For one thing, it limited the population to sustainable levels.

You need some spineless prickly pear pads to use as starts? There is a HUGE one just up the road from me.

Reply to
Omelet

I'll be right over;-)

Reply to
Billy

Omelet wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.giganews.com:

ooo. i could use some spineless PP pads. please? the pink ones from Jangchub are too cute to feed the torties (unless they grow really really fast). lee

Reply to
enigma

Not sure what topic you are referring to. He wrote "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed",

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"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies ",
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. Both of them cover land use issues. Both extremely informative and real page turners.

Reply to
Billy

You have my e-mail. I can mail them.

Reply to
Omelet

This e-mail works...

Reply to
Omelet

I do. Thanks

Reply to
Charlie

Same here. Started that already and need to make a run to the bookstore.

Check this article in WSJ. Food as an investment. Bottom line is, things look....not good.

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Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.

"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)

Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.

Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.

And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

These are trends that have been in place for some time.

And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.

Reply to
Charlie

Guess you know about

Don't let the prices turn you off. There is a free one which is cool.

Bill still learning. We start out putting in a zip codes and it only get more wonderful.

Reply to
Bill

That was well done. :-)

Reply to
Omelet

Just call your local extension office. Seriously.

Got that from the OWL list on Yahoogroups.

Going for it this weekend. For both dad and I, and my sister's family. Canned and dry goods.

Things that store.

Thank gods I had a tax return. Was going to use it for debt reduction but I've partially changed my mind.

This is not sustainable.

Armageddon is nigh. :-(

Reply to
Omelet

The theory that switching from our hunter/gatherer society to one of domestication was a huge mistake. Some anthropologist wrote a book on the topic, but can't remember the author or title. I have Gun, Germs, and Steel, got it at the thrift store but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Reply to
Lilah Morgan

Thanks!

Yep. Can't have too much.

Tastes pretty good out of season too, if necessary. ;-)

Good on ya! Both my boys were here this morning, I had sent them this article. They took off for the store and are beginning to build their inventory. I found buckets and gaskets lids at the lumberyard and we are going to start packing soon. The grocery in town carries dry ice, so we're set on that account.

Don't forget seeds. Heirlooms if possible. This year I intend to hit the stores at the end of the planting season and buy large quantities of seeds, hybrids and all, when they go on sale for next to nothing and pack some longterm buckets of them. Cheap insurance, one shot for the hybrids, but a seasons worth of food anyway.

Same here.

Sure isn't, but if folks think things thru, prepare to whatever degree they feel is prudent, and learn to simplify, some may make it ok. We have been discussing making the shift right now, as if things had downturned severely already, both to increase our skills and to get in the mindset of making do with less. Plus it will be healthier. And save us some cash that we can use on necessities.

It is going to be difficult... very, very difficult for many, if not most of us. You, like us, have family. This is a great benefit. Community of some sort is a necessary aspect of making it thru difficult times.

G'luck to you and all of us.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

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