Home gardening offers ways to trim grocery costs [Survival Today, an on going thread]

Dallas News.com ^ | March 14th, 2008 | DEAN FOSDICK

[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."

[LucyJo]

LOL.

Keyword “Stinkbait”...got it! I love FReepers!

Thanks. : )

[nw_arizona_granny]

I guess some of us should be in the country and not in town.

About 1991, I moved to town, I had bought a big old house for my daughter and she did not move here, so on a wild day, I decided that I would live in it.

I lasted 3 months and went back to the hills where I had a place set up...........

I wore out the carpet, looking out the windows, every time I heard a vehicle, as in the country, if I heard a car, it was coming to see me.

Not only that, but across the street, there was a house of strange folks, with a 10 year old boy, who went to school and then in the house, he was never out doors and that bothered me, I know how we played at 10 years.

A client that was putting on part of a new roof for me, watched them a couple days and agreed that something was very odd.

Client as used here was not a #9, he was one of my real estate customers, for many parcels of land over the years.

[djf]

Lotta people turn up their nose... Ewwww... eat a rat? I’d DIE FIRST!

I never ate one. But as a kid, it was totally routine to go out to the barn with the .22 and bring in half a dozen pigeons.

Wonderful eatin. Huge breasts on a pigeon. Course they were corn fed country birds.

Not sure I’d eat a city bird, more because I’d be worrying about them carrying something.

I wouldn’t have a problem eating a rat, problem is, even a big rat ain’t gonna have much meat on it’s bones.

[processing please hold]

Sounds like me and my sister!

I know we're not supposed to say this but she is my closest sister. Only 17 months separates us. Boy how she hated it when I wore her clothes. She knew they'd either get torn or dirty, most of the time both.

[processing please hold]

;-)

[nw_arizona_granny]

Good for you, I am so glad your garden is going in, sounds like wise moves you have made.

You must have about the same growing zone as we do here, cold and hot.

The old timers told me when I moved to Arizona that it would always freeze, the month that Easter was in and we had snow a week ago, an inch or so.

Maybe it is over for this winter.

[processing please hold]

I wore out the carpet, looking out the windows, every time I heard a vehicle, as in the country, if I heard a car, it was coming to see me.

Every now and then we'll get a stray vehicle, they're lost or looking for someone out here. I'll go out on the porch with my .45 chambered and behind my back. They never know it's there. I'd tote my double barrel if I could conceal it from them. LOL

[nw_arizona_granny]

For all your bars of soap, do you unwrap them and allow them to air dry?

A trick that I picked up 40 years ago.

They will last longer and not go to mush if they get wet.

When I kept house, I put the fresh bars in the linen closet, unwrapped and then moved them out for use.......

[processing please hold]

Before either myself or one of my family members starves to death, I’d cook up rat Jambalaya or Etouffee. lol

[varina davis]

Life just doesn’t seem complete without a garden. The idea of growing, harvesting and eating something you’ve grown yourself is how I wish our society could be again — agrarian.

I’m going to be making a horned owl scarecrow for the garden this year ‘cause most critters are afraid of the owl predator. It’s what the Amish and Mennonites use and they know their gardening!

Our next step is to find a local farmer so we can buy and have him raise a calf our family can share at butchering time.

[spotbust1]

I know this is off subject, but being a gardening thread I thought that some of you might find this at least interesting. If you've seen it already, sorry.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN IT ALL.....Here is breaking news that we've all been waiting to know:



Square Watermelons A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerater and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. Smart Japanese farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by inserting the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.




Are they in your local grocery store? If so, pick up one or two while they last. They are elegant to look at and they are easy to cut.

[processing please hold]

For all your bars of soap, do you unwrap them and allow them to air dry?

No, they're still the way we bought them.

They will last longer and not go to mush if they get wet.

Oh my, there's something that will take me some time, opening and airing out all of them.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Here you can’t have enough water.

After drinking and cooking, in the summer, a wet towel on your shoulders, makes you think it is cooler.

The pets will need a cool spot to lay down and cool off.

If you have food growing you will want water.

Bill always intended to buy a couple guns that would fire the NATO ammo sizes, as he said there would be lots of bullets on dead bodies, in the war zone, if we were invaded.

On your water storage, one of the good ideas that I have heard, came from a caller to the Dr. Bill Wattenberg program at kgo.com, he is a scientist and inventor, who likes good ideas.

His suggestion, install a new large hot water heater, put it in the line with your old water heater, do not connect heat to the new one and it must have faucets on both the intake and out going pipes. So you can be sure that the water does not siphon out.

The goal here is to have a water tank of fresh water at all times, in case you need it.

The fresh cold water enters the new tank, and goes out of it to the old tank and the old tank heats it and sends it on its way.

With the fresh water going through the new tank, it is always fresh.

I did not listen to Dr. Bill this past weekend, he is on Sat and Sunday evenings at 10 pm, so don’t know what he talked about.

He can be heard on replay at the kgo.com site.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Yes, you are correct.

When we are hunting for survival, no one is going to ask if it is safe to use.

LOL, as you might have guessed, I am and have always been anti teflon, if for no other reason, than the special tools they suggest for use with them, were too small for my style of cooking, I always cooked in big pans with big tools.

[Gabz]

My sister was always the clean, lady like girly girl, where I was the always the one getting in trouble rough and tumble, pants and baggy shirt type.

I was a cross between both, as is my daughter. Right now she and her friend are in the woods on the other side of the creek. For some unknown reason, and I didn't ask-sometimes I'd rather not know, my daughter put a skirt on this morning..............

[djf]

There ya go!

You know what I’m sayin. The cute little hottie types you see in the mall who’d sneer at it... tell you what, you lock them in the back somewhere for about three days, and they’d be complaining that there wasn’t enough garlic sauce on the rat!

BTW, another pointer:

Q: What do you do with the last radish in your garden? Eat it?

A: If you eat it, it will never go to seed, and it truly WILL be the LAST RADISH!

I usually let about a quarter of my stuff seed out. Haven’t had to buy seeds for years. (Actually last year I bought a packet of colored carrots. Reds and greens and purples)

[nw_arizona_granny]

Good, the kids should be involved in the planning and know what to expect.

This world is not kind to children, we say we are protecting them, but todays child knows more that I do.

After a nervous experience, with some strangers that were watching us, at an old mine we were looking over.

We worked out code words that only we and the kids knew.

Bill and I did not use our first names, ever, they simply were not us.

So, if we wanted instant attention, we decided the first name yelled out, would not alert a stranger to the fact that we were on the alert and expecting trouble.

And warn the kids to cool it, until we knew what was going on.

[processing please hold]

You ever play hop scotch in a dress? My sister could, I could never manage it without showing my underwear when I bent down to pick up my throwing piece.

I didn't ask-sometimes I'd rather not know,

I know exactly what you mean. lol

[mad_as_he$$]

Great points and I have “known” Dr. Bill for 30 years. The world would be better off if he had more influence.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Sounds good to me, thank you for the recipe, I like all squash fixed all ways.

One of my best meals, was after I baked the squash, I filled it with a stir fry that I had made and served it with rice.

Looked and tasted good.

I have not been able to grow the butternut squash here, it is too hot and the pollen drys up and blows away.

We always have a breeze.