Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
Sorry upcountry miss - I forgot to ping you to my previous replies!
New Food Crisis Looms
Alarm bells are starting to ring about another food crisis this summer. Last week’s acreage report by the USDA found that 7 million fewer acres were being planted for all crops.
April 7, 2009
By Martin Walker
UPI
WASHINGTON, April 6 (UPI) — We tend to forget that the worldwide plunge into recession last year was the result of three separate phenomena that combined to breed disaster. The financial crisis was joined by a food crisis and a fuel crisis as the prices of food and energy soared, triggering food riots across the world.
And now there are ominous signs of another food crisis in the making this year, spurred in part by the ongoing credit crunch that has made it difficult for farmers to get loans.
“I think the world would like to focus on one crisis at a time, but we really can’t afford to,” warned Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. Food supplies are tight and prices still high, she said, and more people in poor countries are unable to afford what they need because of the recession.
“These are not separate crises. The food crisis and the financial one are linking and compounding,” she noted, adding that food shortages often trigger political instability. “I’m really putting out the warning that we’re in an era now where supplies are still very tight, very low and very expensive.”
Alarm bells are starting to ring about another food crisis this summer. Last week’s acreage report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 7 million fewer acres were being planted for all crops. This came after the USDA’s January report that noted that winter wheat acreage was down 7%.
This means lower output from the United States, the world’s top food producer, at a time when world stocks are already low, and farmers are blaming the difficulty in getting credit and the high costs of key inputs like fertilizer.
Mother Nature is making things worse, with the worst drought in almost 70 years hitting northern China and devastating the winter wheat crop. More than 200 million acres in China’s top six grain-producing provinces have been hit, and yields are down by as much as 40%.
The problem is not just hitting grains. With world soybean stocks 9% lower than they were this time last year, a further drought in Latin America is a new concern. Yields in southern Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina are also running at 40% of last year’s levels. All this is triggering concern in the markets, where analysts are warning that price hikes are looming, and the speculators coming into the market could drive prices even higher.
“It’s my opinion that producers feeding livestock need to protect against a possible sharp rise in corn prices,” said Dennis Smith, a food-price specialist at Archer Financial Services. “This trade idea would also apply to a speculator looking to profit from a sharp move upward in the corn prices as well.”
Smith also factors in the prospect of biofuels distorting the markets again, as they did last year when high oil prices triggered a demand for biofuels like ethanol, which sent crop prices higher. “What happens if crude oil prices continue to move higher and ethanol margins expand?” Smith asked.
Sheeran, whose World Food Program stands between the world’s poor and starvation, said she will need about $6 billion this year for food aid, which feeds about 100 million of the world’s poorest people in 77 countries. That is slightly more than she raised last year, when food riots erupted across Asia and the Middle East. As of March, donor countries had pledged less than 10% of the sums required, or $453 million, mostly thanks to $172 million from the United States and $129 million from Japan.
The one relatively bright spot is in rice, where stocks are relatively high. But concern is rising across Asia. Arthur Yap, agriculture secretary for the Philippines, has warned the United Nations that he fears his country will not be able to secure enough food this year. And Ralph Hautman, the Asia Pacific marketing and global finance officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization, warned last week that the credit crunch is pressuring farmers to reduce the amount of land they cultivate.
“If farmers or agriculture producers have less access to credit, they are less likely to buy a lot of new seeds and fertilizers, and they’re also less likely to expand their production areas,” Hautman said. “Then there would be less agriculture production. This is the concern. The lower production of food crops caused by the lower availability of credit may lead to lower food stocks and shortages.”
This is precisely what has happened in Brazil, where farmers encouraged by last year’s high food prices borrowed money to put more acreage under cultivation and buy new farming equipment, only to face bankruptcy when the squeezed banks called in the loans and foreclosed on their farms and tractors.
Part of the problem is underproduction in some parts of the world, where for various reasons of national planning and priorities, farmers are not free to respond to market signals. This is particularly acute in Russia; analysts at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development noted that 16% of the world’s arable land is in Russia, but it produces only 6% of the world’s food because of a shortage of both public and private investment.
Fighting the Recession, Armed with Seeds
Home gardening experiences a boom as families seek to cut food costs
April 7, 2009
By By Alex Johnson
MSNBC
Hoe in hand, Kate Kinne works her field on a cold March day.
“I do seven kinds of berries,” Kinne said. “I have an apple tree, [a] fig tree, all vegetables, eggs.”
All that production notwithstanding, Kinne’s farm doesn’t stretch over acres of rolling land. In fact, it isn’t a farm at all. It’s the small backyard of her house in Portland, Ore.
Kinne is part of a growing movement of Americans who are turning to their own resources to fight the economic recession, now in its 16th month. As paychecks and job opportunities shrink in tandem with rising prices at the store, more and more households are growing their own food in their backyards, in shared community-run gardens and even on their windowsills.
Kinne estimates that her garden saves her at least a $150 a month in grocery bills. And that doesn’t include the money she saves on services from professionals whom she pays with the fresh food she grows and the labor she provides helping them plant their own gardens.
“I do a chiropractor and a massage therapist, so pretty much my whole health care is taken care of,” Kinne said.
The National Gardening Association, a nonprofit research group based in South Burlington, Vt., projects that 43 million of the nation’s 111 million households will grow at least some of their own fruits, vegetables, berries and herbs this year — a rise of more than 19 percent over last year. More than half — 54 percent — said they were looking to save on their food bills, the association said in its annual report on home and community gardening in the United States.
Seed industry bucks the tough times
“They’re calling them ‘recession gardens’ because of the economic crisis we’re in right now,” said Brad Melzor, a gardener with the Ohio State University Extension service.
The plots are explicitly modeled on the Victory Gardens many Americans planted during World War II. And the trend is showing up in sales figures for garden shops and seed suppliers.
W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the nation’s largest seed retailer, projects sales will jump by as much as 20 percent this year, which is leading to a boom in business at the local garden store.
“With the interest, we just can’t keep them on the shelf,” said Tyler Reynolds, manager of Zamzows Garden Centers in Boise, Idaho. Across the city, garden stores report a 40 percent jump in seed sales this year.
At Al’s Garden Center in Sherwood, Ore., “we planned for more, and we’re even outselling what we planned for,” said Mark Bigej, a gardening expert at the store.
“Last year, we saw a trend in the edibles,” Bigej said. “People started planting more edibles gardening themselves, and this year we’re seeing more.”
More than 80 people showed up recently for a vegetable garden class at Paulino Gardens in Denver, where seed sales have risen nearly 30 percent this year, said John Smith, the store’s garden manager.
‘You can quickly calculate the savings’
Part of the boom can be attributed to advances in seed technology that allow home gardeners to harvest a sizable yield from a very small amount of space.
The National Gardening Association said its survey, conducted in January by Harris Interactive Inc., showed that 57 percent of American home gardens were smaller than 100 square feet. It projected that the average garden could produce 300 pounds of fresh produce worth $600, a return of $530 based on an average investment of $70.
A family can plant a garden “anywhere — on an apartment terrace or in a south-facing window,” said Wendy Hanson Mazet, a master gardener with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Service.
“And you can do it in small containers,” Mazet said. “Peas don’t take up much room — you just have to give them some upward lift — and leaf lettuce is easy, too. You just clip it with a pair of scissors, and it keeps on reproducing.”
Cheryl Carson of Atlanta said she planted just 56 square feet last year and “probably [grew] 50 percent of the produce my family ate from spring until the fall.”
“I can put 16 carrots in one square foot,” Carson said. “That means a seed packet could literally last me — if I could keep them viable — 20 years. One seed packet for $2.”
Curt Holmquist of Minneapolis, Minn., also did the math, and he was sold.
“I’ve seen packages of three bell peppers for $2.69 in the store,” Holmquist said. “And we’ve had plants that produce 30 of those. So you can quite quickly calculate the savings.”
Initial investment can be costly
Experts warn, however, that maintaining a home garden isn’t as easy as it looks, and they say you shouldn’t expect to save quite as much money as the catalogs and the salesmen tout.
“There is a lot to plan for before you ever put a shovel in the ground,” said Keith Funk of Gard’n Wise Distributors Inc. in Denver, where he hosts a gardening radio show.
Productive gardening requires much more than just putting seeds in dirt, Funk said, ticking off some of the variables: “soil prep, what you need for light, what varieties to choose, how much to plant for a family of four.”
There’s also the initial investment, which can be considerable, he said.
“Especially with the cost of water and fertilizer and compost and getting everything ready to go — if you are having to buy tools and those sorts of things — it can be fairly expensive to start up with,” Funk said. “There is some money involved.”
Ken Creel, a regional master gardener program coordinator with the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, acknowledged that once you get up and going, “you may end up saving money down the road.”
In the first year, however, it’s likely that “you’re not going to save any money, and it may end up costing more,” he said.
But dedicated home gardeners say the eventual rewards are worth the trouble.
“Gardening is our passion in our family,” Michele Kommen said as she shopped at Bachman’s Floral, Gift & Garden in Richfield, Minn. “And it’s never too young to start. That’s why I’ve got the boys along with me to get some seeds.”
Vick Andrews of Boise, Idaho, grows so much of her own food that she said she could feed her family for three months just on what came out of her garden.
“I have a calm and peace, and I know if my husband lost his job or if he got sick and couldn’t provide for us, we could survive for a while,” Andrews said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30017483/
Published Apr 9 2009 by Dave Smith, http://www.OrganicToBe.org
Archived Apr 9 2009
Manure More Precious Than Gold
by Gene Logsdon
I half-jokingly suggested about a year ago that animal manure— used livestock, horse, and chicken bedding— was going to be the hottest commodity on the Chicago Board of Trade. There are indications now that such a seemingly absurd prediction might not be so absurd after all. Last year the prices of some farm fertilizers shot up to over a thousand dollars a ton. Ammonium polyphosphate is still nearly that high. Deposits of potash in Canada, a main source of our potassium fertilizers, are declining. Natural gas, from which commercial nitrogen fertilizer is manufactured, is rising in cost as other uses compete for it. Long term, there are reasons to believe that the era of abundant manufactured fertilizers is passing.
There is nothing funny about that prediction. Nor should organic farmers feel vindicated. If we run out of commercial fertilizers, there would be no way we could avoid a precipitous decline in crop yields while farmers switched to all-organic methods. It has taken us a couple hundred years to reduce the organic matter content in our soils to the low levels of today and experts say it might take at least half that long to build them back up again. Getting enough manure and other organic wastes to make up for a shortage of commercial fertilizer would be an enormous challenge requiring changes not only in agricultural attitudes but cultural attitudes as well.
It is however difficult to suppress a smile at the irony of the situation. For years shit has been seen as something so repugnant that the word itself was scrubbed from polite conversation. One of the main reasons for the ancient prejudice between urban and rural cultures was that before Fels Naptha, the odor of manure lingered on the skin and clothing of farmers. To become truly civilized came to mean escaping the barn and pretending that offal was not a part of life. Make it disappear. Flush it down the toilet.
The predominantly urban society of today has energetically (and with good reason) opposed modern gigantic animal confinement operations because of the stench of manure. The confinement operators would like to suppress or mask the smell but to make money, they must house continuing larger numbers of animals cheaply. That makes pollution problems inevitable. Larger animal factories can generate as much waste as the human sewage from a large metropolitan area but, unbelievably, they do not have to handle and treat their sewage the way municipalities do.
So the operators haven’t been able to get rid of the stuff cheaply at a fast enough pace. They offered it free to farmers. Not enough farmers were interested. They put it in huge lagoons that overflowed and polluted the landscape. They tried, and are still trying, to make fuel out of it. Not yet practical enough. They sometimes tried to leak it out unnoticed into the waterways, only to be caught and fined by the manure police.
Today, the situation has changed dramatically. With no assurance that grain prices will be high enough to cover the high prices of manufactured fertilizers, farmers are waiting in line at the animal confinement operations, willing to fork over good hard cash to get the lower-priced manure. The laugh of the day now is that maybe manure will become more profitable than the food produced, that the operations will become, in fact and not in jest, money-making manure factories which just happen to produce meat, milk, and eggs as byproducts. This seems particularly possible since some of these factories change hands about as often as partners do in a square dance.
The possibility that all of agriculture might have to rely on animal and human waste to maintain the necessary fertility to keep the world from starving is not at all something new to civilization. Only in the last century or so has it been possible to lard enough chemical nitrogen on cropland to attain record breaking yields while burning most of the organic matter out of the soil. Before this modern “progress,” human society had no other choice than to consider manure— animal and human— to be more precious than gold. At least humans did so in countries that sustained an ample food supply for very long periods of time, as China and Japan did. We all need to read again Farmers of Forty Centuries, by F.H. King, published in 1911, about oriental agriculture at that time. Manure was treated like a precious gem because it was a precious gem. Every scrap of animal waste, human waste, and plant residue was scrupulously collected, composted, and reapplied to the land. So precious was manure that Chinese farmers stored it in burglar-proof containers.
As a result, the oriental farmer for thousands of years maintained an unbelievably productive agriculture. Their little farms produced at the very least five times the amount of food per acre that American farmers were getting in 1907 when King traveled through Japan and China. Those yields still far exceed those of American agriculture even today, except where intensive, raised bed gardening is practiced here. For all practical purposes, a large part of China in 1900 was one huge intensive, raised bed garden. Indeed, the oriental farmer had no choice, because population densities were much higher than anything the United States had or has yet experienced. They either produced huge crops or starved.
Cheap, plentiful manufactured fertilizers and a seeming infinity of farmland allowed the United States over the last two centuries to become the champion wastrel of agriculture (and everything else). One can only imagine the famine and chaos that would result if we continued that kind of extravagance for forty centuries, even if we could. As sources of cheaper chemical fertilizers decline, manure will either once more become the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or population levels will dramatically decline.
~~
Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio.
Gene is author of The Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse (Culture of the Land),
The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of Farming Life, and All Flesh Is Grass: Pleasures & Promises Of Pasture Farming
OrganicToBe.org | OrganicToGo.com
Gene’s Posts
http://energybulletin.net/node/48574
>>>My husband’s boss was trying to tell us that you can create whatever you like where you live<<<
ROFL - Hmmmmm Let’s see, A tropical beach in Antarctica?
Uhhh, A low (sales,income,property,gas,franchise, etc.) tax, freedom loving, conservative thinking California?
Nahhh, He was just funnin ya..... Unless he is into Yoga or something and dreams up those things as he meditates.
>>>LOL, I never know if folks want the odd ball recipes that I dig up or not.<<<
As a favored politician would say - “You Betcha!”
Keep them coming - I glean quite a few for immediate use, keep some in mind for later use, and a few - well, artichokes may not be my favorite food, but maybe with the right recipe.........
Please keep them coming!
FLORIDA DROUGHT WATCH: Dry season remains third driest on record through end of March
Contributed by the South Florida Water Management District
Originally published 8:57 p.m., Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Updated 8:57 p.m., Wednesday, April 8, 2009
In an effort to keep the public informed about the dry conditions gripping much of the state, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is issuing the following latest conditions report.
Through the end of March, the 2008-2009 South Florida dry season remains the third driest on record dating back to 1932. The latest SFWMD reports show an average of 1.39 inches of rain fell across the 16-county region in March, which is 1.62 inches less than the historical average. The rainfall deficit for the dry season was 8.27 inches by the end of the month and has continued to increase since.
The U.S. Drought Monitor indicates much of South Florida is experiencing a severe drought. Water levels in the primary regional storage systems — the Water Conservation Areas and Lake Okeechobee — are continuing to drop as the days get longer and evaporation rates increase. The Climate Prediction Center at the National Weather Service expects drought conditions across the region to persist or intensify through May.
Until persistent rainfall arrives in the wet season, water conservation remains the best defense against drought conditions.
The SFWMD is closely monitoring water levels and is urging residents and businesses to conserve water and follow landscape irrigation restrictions to stretch available supplies. More information about irrigation limits by area is available on the District’s water restrictions Web site. For water saving tips, visit www.savewaterfl.com.
District-Wide Averages as of April 7, 2009
RAINFALL TO DATE, Jan. 2 - April 7: 2.33 inches
DEFICIT TO DATE, Jan. 2 - April 7: - 5.60 inches
DRY SEASON DEFICIT, Nov. 2, 2008 - April 7: - 8.66 inches
LAKE OKEECHOBEE: April 7, 2009: 12.04 feet NGVD, April 7, 2008: 10.35 feet NGVD
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/apr/08/drought-watch-dry-season-remains-third-driest-reco/
Home-gardening going at full tilt
By Jim Hillibish
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Apr 12, 2009 @ 12:03 AM
It has happened in recessions and depressions for hundreds of years. And it’s happening again.
When the going gets tough, the tough get growing. Area garden-center and greenhouse operators are bracing for an influx of record-breaking home gardening this season.
The industry expects double-digit growth. The nonprofit National Gardening Association forecasts at least a 19 percent growth in vegetable growing this season. That translates into about 7 million more gardens over 2008, which produced sales of $2.5 billion. The last gardening spike of this magnitude happened in the recession of 1978.
“We saw it starting last season. People wanted vegetable plants and seeds,” said Sherese Streamo, manager of Dumont Seed Co. in Canton.
She responded over the winter by building a new greenhouse for vegetables and using some space once dedicated to flowers.
“Flowers take the hit,” she said.
Folks have only so much money to spend. When they turn to vegetables, they often plant fewer flowers.
Local garden-center operators last year saw the trend building as sales to vegetable gardeners increased about 15 percent. A lot of that was in larger plants such as 2-foot tomatoes in containers.
Reedurban Nurseries in Perry Township has doubled its usual wholesale vegetable order.
“We’re excited about vegetables, but we’re seeing customers buying smaller trees to save money,” said Nadine Lawley, manager.
At Green Thumb Nursery in Jackson Township, greenhouse Manager Julie Dye expects strong sales, especially in container tomatoes.
“People in condos love these potted plants,” she said.
She says her staff is expecting a lot of questions from customers new to gardening.
Burpee, the nation’s leading seed producer, has sold out of some seeds. George Ball, CEO, reports, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The trend is getting a push from the top. The first lady apparently has read Eleanor Roosevelt’s newspaper columns. In them, she suggested war-time Americans fight fresh-food shortages with “victory gardens.”
At their peak in 1945, private gardens were supplying more than 40 percent of the food needs of the nation.
Michelle Obama and the kids recently turned sod for their garden at the White House. It will help supply their kitchen.
It came with some prompting. The White House received a petition to use a garden as an example of how ecology can be part of the recovery. Some 75,000 names were submitted by gardening-proponent groups, mostly collected on the Internet.
The new name for victory gardens is the less colorful “recession garden.”
Anyway, Americans, as they always have, are getting dirty for the cause.
Sherese said this presents new challenges.
“A lot of these are newcomers with no gardening experience,” she said.
She hires clerks experienced in gardening.
Sellers can expect a barrage of questions. We’re getting the same here at The Repository. Example from reader Arthur Hunt:
“I’m trying to remember how my grandfather grew tomatoes and onions. Can you help me?”
The trend is not limited to those with garden space. It comes alongside another big gardening expansion — container plantings.
New, bush-type vegetables, especially tomatoes and peppers, are arriving that make perfect candidates for pots on driveways, decks and balconies. Some are bred for hanging baskets.
Many fresh herbs are suitable for container growth. Place them outside in good weather and bring inside in the fall for a year-around crop. Herbs are especially cost effective as they are expensive in groceries.
Container harvests are ensured by using potting soil and keeping a close eye on the plants’ watering needs all summer. They need a lot of water because they’re growing in a small space. Daily watering is necessary in the heat of summer.
Young children will be among the gardening newcomers. They enjoy working in the dirt and its discipline. It gets them out of the house, and they will love to see and eat the results.
Gardening dollars are well spent. The National Gardening Association places the average gardening yield at $500. A Burpee study indicates $55 spent on gardening supplies can result in $1,250 worth of produce per year.
A single tomato plant costing $1.25 can produce $15 to $20 worth of fruits or more.
Still, there’s more to gardening than its pleasant effect on your grocery bill. Gardening is exercise outdoors making healthy food, two keys to improving life. It satisfies the creative urge in us, and the competitive urge too, as gardeners spar over who has the first and best ripe tomato.
Before you rush out and jump on the wheelbarrow, remember that labor is required to produce vegetables. Inexperienced gardeners often lose enthusiasm when they discover the work goes beyond planting. Many new plots will be abandoned to weeds.
The National Gardening Association says experienced gardeners spend at least five hours of work per week on weeding, cultivation and plant care.
The best scheme is to spend a few minutes each day visiting your plot, pulling weeds and, eventually, harvesting. It is important to harvest, as this stimulates the plant to produce more.
THE SEASON AHEAD
The National Gardening Association in January conducted its 2009 survey of the gardening economy, finding:
* 43 million American households will plant food gardens this season, up 19 percent over 2008.
* 21 percent of American households indicated they would start a new garden this year,
* 11 percent of current gardeners plan to expand their food production.
* 58 percent will garden to produce “better tasting food”, 54 percent “to save money”, 48 percent cite food-safety concerns.
Primary causes of the 2009 gardening increase: High food, gasoline and energy costs; concerns over food safety
http://www.cantonrep.com/business/x549602424/Home-gardening-going-at-full-tilt
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/04/residue-on-money-causes-scare-at-plainfield-bank.html
Residue On Money Causes Scare At Bank
Posted: 11 Apr 2009 08:32 PM PDT
A teller at a Plainfield National City bank branch became nauseated and dizzy this afternoon after accepting a deposit which had white powder residue on the money, causing an emergency response and closing the bank for the day.
Police said the teller vomited and was treated by paramedics, but did not need to be taken to a hospital.
The teller said she received the deposit money from a customer around 12:20 p.m. and placed the money in a drawer. Within minutes, she began feeling dizzy, according to police.
A Will County hazmat team arrived at the bank, 24821 W. 135th St., and after about three hours determined the bills were not a serious threat. The bank was closed for the day.
The money is being tested to identify the residue, authorities said.
Danged arthritis - with the passing front - slows things up considerably.<<<
Good for your canning and I do understand incoming storms and how they affect ones body, mine has been nasty for several days, we had rain today.
Seeds Sales Grow As More Resort To Gardening<<<
In that post that I had pulled, the left was discussing the new anti growing laws and how it could be fixed, LOL, none of it to apply to the home gardener, is about what they wanted.
After I posted the page I checked the other pages and I had it pulled, as it was a meeting place for anarchists, LOL, riseup or some such name.....
lOL, on the editorials, they made sense, I was not sure if they were liberals or not, seems we are all afraid of being hungry.
“These are not separate crises. The food crisis and the financial one are linking and compounding,” she noted, adding that food shortages often trigger political instability. “I’m really putting out the warning that we’re in an era now where supplies are still very tight, very low and very expensive.”<<<
When you add droughts, bugs, disease and war machines driving through your fields, you just might rise up too.
When the survivors arrive on the other side of the next 4 years, it will be in a different world than we knew 4 years ago.
Fighting the Recession, Armed with Seeds
Home gardening experiences a boom as families seek to cut food costs<<<
This is some of the best training that many of them will ever have.
It can become a lifetime hobby, when the first seed breaks the surface.
I will use the manure of most animals, but not the human sludge.
It had been touted as wonderful a couple years before I hit the Orchid world.
And people hired me to get it off, for some of them went to the hospital and got very sick, if they breathed it or got a cut exposed to it.
I was paid in cutting of the orchids, that I repotted for them and soon had a wonderful collection for a beginner, required about about 50’ x 10 or 12’ of greenhouse and a saran/shade house for housing them.
Awww, but in those days I was a hard worker, could be why that I can’t get out of my chair today.
So goes life.
Yes, to manure and if you need more, get a few rabbits and a goat.
Keep them coming - I glean quite a few for immediate use, keep some in mind for later use, and a few - well, artichokes may not be my favorite food, but maybe with the right recipe.........<<<
Will do and I support your artichokes avoidance, except that I grew them for using as dried flowers, think they are lovely.
Michelle Obama and the kids recently turned sod for their garden at the White House. It will help supply their kitchen.<<<
OK, I admit it, I cuss every time I read that line.
If so many of us had not signed the petition, there would not be a garden and it is not much of a garden, think that I read it was 10’ wide and have heard it may be up to 100’ long.
In other words, it is hidden behind the hedge.
I often wonder what it would have looked like if Laura Bush had broken the ground???
It is wonderful that so many seeds will be planted this year, one of the best things that can happen in the entire world.
Not only for the introduction to food growing, but there is so much more that they will need to learn and once they taste something out of their own gardens, they won’t ever be happy with grocery store produce again.
The Worldwatch Institute reports that a growing number of US city-dwellers are raising their own chickens, often in defiance of local ordinances.
Citing unsanctioned henhouses in Denver, Boston, and other cities, Worldwatch’s Ben Block notes that an “underground ‘urban chicken’ movement has swept across the United States in recent years,” flouting authorities’ concerns about noise, odors, and public health.
But in some cities, such as Ann Arbor, Mich., Ft. Collins, Colo., South Portland, Maine, and Madison, Wisc., owners of these clandestine coops have successfully changed the laws to allow them to keep a limited number of hens. (Roosters, whose characteristic crowing can disturb neighbors, are usually more restricted, but they’re not needed for hens to lay unfertilized eggs.)
Many large US cities, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and Seattle apparently never thought to ban the domesticated fowl within city limits. These cities have served as an incubator of sorts for the emerging movement, in which urban henkeepers post online tips on building coops, caring for the birds, and fending off raccoons and other predators.
Laws vary from city to city. The City Chicken, a popular urban chicken website, maintains a list of local laws, but it is far from comprehensive. Municode.com also keeps a list of ordinances for selected cities. In many cities, would-be chicken owners need to obtain a permit from local health or animal-welfare authorities.
The benefits of keeping hens are myriad, say proponents. According to the website BackyardChickens, considered authoritative in the online urban-chicken-enthusiast pecking order, three hens will net you, on average, two eggs a day. And the eggs are said to be tastier and more nutritious than the ones you can get at a supermarket. Hens also perform some gardening work by eating weeds and pests and depositing a high-quality fertilizer. Many also claim that the birds make great pets, but this is debatable.
Urban chicken buffs also claim that, once you’re all set up, the birds are relatively low-maintenance. The UK-based company Omlet sells popular ready-made coops starting at about $500. Their “Eglu,” which looks like a late-90s Macintosh computer, comes with a chicken run and a feeder. Chickens can be purchased separately from the company for $15 each.
Some, but not many, urban henkeepers opt to raise their chickens indoors. The birds cannot be toilet trained, but at least one company sells chicken diapers.
The blog Urban Chickens gives a rundown of the regular maintenence required to keep your chickens well-fed, comfortable, and odor-free. The blogger says his routine goes like this:
• Every day: fill the food bowl, change the water, check for eggs, add wood chips to the nesting box if needed. (takes 5 minutes)
• Twice weekly: empty the droppings out of the Eglu, very easy to do by design, thanks Omlet! (takes two minutes)
• Weekly: clean the Eglu by rinsing and scrubbing the interior parts (20 minutes)
• Semi-monthly: purchase 50-lb. bag of Layena Crumbles at the feed store (cost is $12 and is worked in with other errands)
A hen’s productivity will drop off after two or three years. After that, the hens will continue to produce high-quality eggs, but at a slower rate. Those who wish to eat their chickens (that is, people who dispute the assertion that they make great pets) should know that in many cities different laws apply for chickens raised for eggs and those raised for slaughter. For those too squeamish to do the deed themselves, some communities have mobile slaughterhouses that will come to your home and do it for you.
The rising popularity of urban chickens has many city officials brooding over public health concerns, particularly avian flu (of which there have been no reported cases in the United States). According to Worldwatch, officials have threatened to restrict poultry in cities in East Asia, Australia, and British Columbia. Worldwatch also cites an expert who advises owners to keep their coops covered to protect their chickens from wild bird dropppings, which are said to transmit the disease.
But others argue that chickens are no more likely to carry the disease than, say, pigeons, which are already common in cities. What’s more, as Worldwatch points out, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production found that factory-farmed poultry poses a greater risk for the disease than backyard chickens.
In many cities, the policies regarding domestic fowl are by no means settled. In September, the Boston Globe reported on a Lynn, Mass., man’s battle wth “loosey goosey” laws over his chicken coop. And this YouTube video, posted in July, has several Chicago officials on tape falsely telling an aspiring chicken owner that the birds are prohibited within the city.
This kind of ambiguity could mean more and more henkeepers unwittingly finding themselves on the wrong side of the law. As the urban chicken movement spreads, local authorities will have to set clearer policies to help those chicken owners get to the other side.
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/08/report-illicit-urban-chicken-movement-growing-in-us/
Tips for starting a home garden
Sunday, April 12, 2009
There are a number of considerations for first-time gardeners thinking of getting their hands dirty this spring.
Once a prospective new gardener has land to start the garden, they will want to assess their plot, said Jill Leavenworth, a Master Gardener intern from Madbury. Ideally, she said, gardeners will want a spot with at least six hours of direct sunlight, low wind exposure and well-drained, but not dry, soil.
According to the National Gardening Association, the average home gardener spends $70 per year on their garden, has a 600 square foot plot, and spends an average of five hours a week on the garden.
“The first year of gardening will always be the most expensive, and start up costs may be a couple hundred dollars,” said Charlie French of the Cooperative Extension. “But even first year gardeners may make many times their investment in profit by the end of the season if they are careful.”
While there is an assortment of tools available at any home gardening store, there are a few staples a gardener will depend on: gardening gloves, a hoe, shovel, wheelbarrow, bucket, rake, hand shovel, a soil Ph testing kit and watering cans. A sprinkler and a spool of hose also can make watering easier during dry spells.
Leavenworth recommends new gardeners call the Cooperative Extension, visit farmers’ markets, and buy books or peruse the Internet to answer all of their many questions about gardening.
“Nobody is born with a green thumb,” Leavenworth said. “Even we longtime gardeners are learning new things every day.”
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090412/GJCOMMUNITY_01/704129900
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