Posted on 03/23/2008 11:36:40 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick
Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies.
At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."
Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh-food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.
A year later, he says, the family still had "several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot-pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread."
[snipped]
She compares the current period of market uncertainty with that of the early- to mid-20th century when the concept of victory gardens became popular.
"A lot of companies during the world wars and the Great Depression era encouraged vegetable gardening as a way of addressing layoffs, reduced wages and such," she says. "Some companies, like U.S. Steel, made gardens available at the workplace. Railroads provided easements they'd rent to employees and others for gardening."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
When I was born we lived on a small farm in a tiny log cabin at Vida OR. After my dad's death in a motorcycle/log truck accident we moved with new stepdad to Ozan AR. The first stepdad met an untimely death there and with the second new stepdad we moved to a second log cabin in the hills out of Isom KY. At the time, still about 1962, off the grid was a way of life even for a lot of folks in the town. There was electricity but nothing else, and we did have the cabin electrified and also installed indoor plumbing. The people in town didn't even have indoor plumbing. We had chickens and hogs for our use (after the first winter when we had nothing but what could be hunted) and a milk cow plus a lot of green beans, and stepdad dug coal for a living. He also logged the property using a pair of mules.
Time and circumstances brought us back to Oregon and we spent most of my youth at places in & around Florence OR. My favorite again was the farm up the river where again we had chickens by the hundred and occasionally hand raised calves for auction.
But then and there the only work was in lumber & plywood mills and I didn't want to do that - so I came to Eugene and have worked in the heavy construction & logging equipment business for those 30 years. Presently I'm trying to put together a deal with a major parts manufacturer where I will be a North American rep in their product support operation. That’ll be a job I can do from anywhere and if & when that happens I WILL be going back to the farm somewhere. Probably in Oregon, but for sure in a more conservative area. Might then try something we never did before, organic free range chickens, if there continues to be a market for them.
Check these posts on this thread:
Post 8178:
Solar Greenhouse Resources - Horticulture Resource List
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/solar-gh.html
Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture - Non-Biomass Energy Production
Active and passive solar, and alternative energy greenhouses, solar-powered pumps, and solar-powered fences for grazing systems.
http://www.sare.org/coreinfo/energy_subA.htm
BUILD AN INTEGRAL PASSIVE SOLAR WATER HEATER
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1984-01-01/Build-an-Integral-Passive-Solar-Water-Heater.aspx
Post 8317:
Yes, make it a solar greenhouse and attach it to the house.
If it must be free standing then the minimum size is about 9x12 foot with a tall/peaked roof, or the greenhouse will heat and cool too quickly.
Sunlight and water and fun, it is easier to grow in a greenhouse, except for some plants, such as squash and cukes the will require your help to fertilize the flowers, so they will form fruit.
Many of the others will self pollinate themselves, if you give them a shake or two each day.
For solar they say a south exposure is best, but any will work, with west being the hottest.
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Post 588:
The food and heat producing Solar Greenhouse
Design construction operation
By:
Rick Fisher and Bill Yanda
ISBN 0-912528-12-5
1976 & 1977
Published by:
John Muir Publications
PO Box 613
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
And it is still for sale, and resale: [you may be able to read it on line.]
http://www.google.com/search?q=The+food+and+heat+producing+Solar+Greenhouse+Design+construction+operation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I’m not sure if Granny will be back on tonight, so if she comes on she may provide more info. Welcome to the thread and thanks for reading. Feel free to provide any recipes or other tips you may have!
Hi there, welcome to the thread. Do you use any herbs like echinacea or golden seal, or have you ever tried colloidal silver? You might Google those terms, or let me know and I will search for them for you.
I’d love to hear of any home remedies or recipes you have, or survival tips. Stay for a while and browse if you like.
10th
http://www.herbs.org/greenpapers/echinacea.html
Echinacea
Echinacea purpurea
by Evelyn Leigh, HRF Editorial Director
Echinacea, the purple coneflower, is the best known and researched herb for stimulating the immune system. Thousands of Europeans and Americans use echinacea preparations against colds and flu, minor infections, and a host of other major and minor ailments. This native American herb has an impressive record of laboratory and clinical research. Thousands of doctors currently use echinacea for treating infectious diseases.
more at the site - 10th
http://shannonclark.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/why-i-buy-local-and-organic/
Why I buy local (and organic)
Posted by shannonclark on December 27, 2008
I buy almost everything locally, mostly from small, often independent (or at least local small scale chains) stores. Most of the food I eat and cook for my friends comes from local shops and for the most part local farmer’s markets. For the most part I buy organic produce, eggs, milk and other products including meat when I can. The rest of my meat is at a minimum free range and cage free (though as I noted in earlier blog posts I was against the recently passed Proposition 2 which mandates larger cages/cage free raising of poultry in CA)...
Continues
Delicate snowflakes disappear quickly if brought indoors. To capture their sparkling essence for your holiday party, re-create them in glitter, which won't melt away, on a sheer organza tablecloth overlay.
http://www.betterworld.com/info.aspx?UserID=14262337&SessionID=WL{1jHjTjPBpjQMvmUm1
The online bookstore with a soul
Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than two million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.
We were founded in 2002 by three friends from the University of Notre Dame who started selling textbooks online to earn some money, and ended up forming a pioneering social enterprise — a business with a mission to promote literacy.
We’re not a traditional company with an add-on “cause” component. Social and environmental responsibility is at the core of our business. You could say it’s in our DNA.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/07/27/review-the-complete-tightwad-gazette/
Review: The Complete Tightwad Gazette
My first exposure to the Tightwad Gazette was on the sitting table at a friend’s house. I actually remember them having several copies of the original newsletter, and I flipped through several issues of it, utterly amazed that there was this much that could be written on how to save money. Some of them seemed massively over the top, some of them seemed like common sense (my family did them), and others seemed like clever ideas, but they were all entertaining. It’s very similar to the impression I have of it today, actually.
Promoting thrift as a viable alternative lifestyle is the proud, loud subheading on the cover of the massive Complete Tightwad Gazette. Weighing in at a hefty 972 pages, this book is a compendium of the entire six year run of The Tightwad Gazette newsletter, a publication written and distributed quarterly between 1991 and 1996. The focus of all of the material is on frugal living in some form or another.
What’s inside? Virtually every article ever published in that newsletter, organized in an almost random fashion. The book is actually just a series of articles, almost like blog postings, from a seriously frugal individual. I would roughly estimate that the book contains about 1,200 short articles on specific topics of frugality. While the original newsletters aren’t reprinted verbatim, almost all of the vital information from each one is included in this tome...
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/12/28/review-living-well-on-one-income/
Review: Living Well on One Income
Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book.
A week and a half ago, I wrote a piece about Christian themes in personal finance books. I wrote that piece mostly because I was trying to work through my feelings about this book.
Living Well on One Income by Cynthia Yates is an excellent book on how to seriously cut your income, particularly if you’re considering a family situation where only one member of the family is working. The book is absolutely loaded with great tips on this topic and I quite enjoyed reading it.
At the same time, though, the author is a Christian homeschooler that wears both beliefs on her sleeve to an extent that it often comes close to overshadowing the great tangible advice that the book contains. There are points in this book where Yates comes right up to the line of making this book about Christianity with a personal finance theme than personal finance with a Christian theme.
I have no real problem with this, actually. Yates is simply speaking from the heart here, revealing ideas she believes in to everyone. Where I become uncomfortable - and this is where I get uncomfortable quite often when reading material from Christian writers - is that theology is often very uneven ground. Different people interpret the Bible differently, and even though I define myself as a Christian, I often completely disagree with the interpretations of others, and in places throughout this book, I strongly disagreed with Cynthia Yates and her interpretations.
In short, I would have enjoyed this book quite a bit more if it were not bogged down with a lot of theology. Thus, as I discuss the book in detail below, I’m going to intentionally avoid the theology entirely and, in essence, review the book that’s under the hood here.
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via email:
*Adventure With Grandma*
I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: “There is no Santa Claus,” she jeered. “Even dummies know that!”
My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.
Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. “No Santa Claus!” she snorted. “Ridiculous! Don’t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”
“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even finished my second world-famous, cinnamon bun. “Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those d ays. “ Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s.
I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten- dollar bill, wondering wha t to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.
I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs.Pollock’s grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough, and he didn’t have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!
I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. “Yes,” I replied shyly. “It’s .... for Bobby.” The nice lady smiled at me. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.
That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, “To Bobby, From Santa Claus” on it — Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers.
Grandma parked down the street from Bobby’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk Then Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going.”
I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.
Fifty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker’s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.
I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.
He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.
Thank you for that story (an oldy but goody that I had forgotten). Copied to my email for redistribution!
Thanks twelve, and welcome to the thread if you have not seen it before. Feel free to join in!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7748271/Cancer-Free
Cancer-Free
Your Guide to Gentle, Non-toxic Healing [Second Edition]
by
Bill Henderson
...For these reasons, persons with celiac disease should learn about and properly use both probiotics and prebiotics to improve their overall health and specifically their intestinal health. This is especially important if they continue to experience fatigue, weakness, achiness, depression, foggy thinking and digestive problems while maintaining a gluten-free diet.
An intriguing book, free online:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8542577/The-Detox-Cookbook
The Detox Cookbook
Be Aware, Be Informed, Be Prepared - A Reference Manual For Emergencies
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8975837/Be-Aware-Be-Informed-Be-Prepared-A-Reference-Manual-For-Emergencies
LDS Preparedness Manual
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8482903/LDS-Preparedness-Manual
They just killed the thread.....
The below was in my freeper mail.
Thank you for answering the posters, I am done and their is no joy for me in being a freeper.
Hugs and love,
ruth
Please **quit** spamming FR with the recipes...
Simply post the links. There’s absolutely no reason to post the content if you post the link to the content.
It’s wasting FR resources...
Thanks,
AM
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