Food Shortage

[raiquee]

So, about that food shortage..... (not that I don't think canning properly isn't important, just trying to push the thread back in the correct direction)

Me and DH are planning an orchard, we already have a garden and DH plans on expanding it next year. In spring I hope to just start with a couple cherry trees, and maybe a peach or plum tree. We already have a standard pear tree in our backyard, which I adore.

We also planted blueberries, and raspberries. Once grapes go on clearance we will be plopping them in too!

Any body planning bigger for next season? (be it garden, livestock, new house, etc?)

I also hope this winter to teach myself to make cheese. I think it's a lost art.

I won't even begin to tell you what we plan when we move into a place that allows livestock and has more acreage.

 

[patandchickens]

I would tend to doubt that most of the type folks who are on this forum would be *all* that severely affected by a food shortage such as being described here.

Those who would be hard-hit would mainly be those (admittedly, most of the North American population these days, sigh) who are used to being able to buy whatever their daily dinner whim dictates and not have to DO anything or learn to like eating what happens to be available.

Anyone comfortable with growing a reasonable amount of produce, maybe some meat animals, and eating cabbage and dried beans and basically just finding a good way to prepare whatever's around... not likely to be too much trouble. IMHO.

Pat

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Thanks for the explanation Pat. For whatever reason I seem to have a lot of interest in botulism. (Sorry to the rest of you if you feel the thread has been hijacked).

A ventilator might not be fun, but I find it refreshing to know that encountering botulism does not mean a death sentence. Plus it is my understanding that once the toxin is processed by your body, the effects will disappear and you will not be on a ventilator for the rest of your life, yes?

I read that even if you are pressure canning, you still need to heat your food before eating it to kill any potential toxins. This is because home pressure canners only reach 240 degrees F and not 250 degrees F like commercial canners, so not all of the spores are killed.

 

[Wildsky]

So, about that food shortage..... (not that I don't think canning properly isn't important, just trying to push the thread back in the correct direction)

Me and DH are planning an orchard, we already have a garden and DH plans on expanding it next year. In spring I hope to just start with a couple cherry trees, and maybe a peach or plum tree. We already have a standard pear tree in our backyard, which I adore.

We also planted blueberries, and raspberries. Once grapes go on clearance we will be plopping them in too!

Any body planning bigger for next season? (be it garden, livestock, new house, etc?)

I also hope this winter to teach myself to make cheese. I think it's a lost art.

I won't even begin to tell you what we plan when we move into a place that allows livestock and has more acreage.

We planted 1 peach, 1 apricot, 2 pears and an almond tree this year. The almond never took off, and one of the pear trees doesn't look too happy.
We already have some plum tree's, two apple trees and some black walnuts.

 

[Mackay]

We bought two apples, a plum an apricot and a cherry this spring. The only one t hat leafed out was the cherry...

I think that if there were a food shortage and I needed to produce all my food I'd be in deep doo doo.

We are just starting out this sufficient self lifestyle and we are still way behind the learning curve... all I have of a real house is a concrete foundation at this time...

The pasture is planted but no fence yet

The gardens are planted but I see now that I way undershot in size for self sufficiency

hence the food storage thing continues... and I will be foritfying my supplies big time this week.... along with lots of seed and I realized that I will never be able to make ample compost fast enough so I will be stacking some soil ammendments also.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I realized that I will never be able to make ample compost fast enough so I will be stacking some soil ammendments also.

You don't have chickens do you? After I got started with ducks I noticed I had hit the pay dirt on the compost situation.

 

[Jaxom]

I've been following along with the thread. Didn't have much to add to the pressure cooking, and botulism issues. Raiquee and Pat both make some good points though that are more geared to the theme of this thread.

Now I don't want to point fingers or have anyone thinking I'm preaching from a soap box about political issues. But let's take the aftermath of Katrina for an example. It doesn't matter who did or didn't do what afterwards when it comes to local, state, and federal handling of the disaster. IMHO all of them actued poorly. But who acted the worst? The "survivors" themselves.

Some how, over time we in north america...(canada, america, even mexico), as people have lost something. And that's a certain amount of self sufficency and pride of accomplishment. This is how our respective countries evolved. If it wasn't for those selttlers going out and carving something out of wilderness...where would we be today? But now, we all to often expect things to happen instantly, and work every time in doing so. I feel in many ways progress and advancemnts have actually caused certain amount of regression for people as a whole. Now I'm not talking about folks that come here. Obviously because you are a member here, or even for those that are lurking and don't post. You've gone at least far enough to begin to become less reliant on the status quo.

For myself, I have 3 main reason for wanting a more self suffient lifestyle. The first one is simple. I've lived in the city all my life. When I was younger, I joined Boy Scouts. This exposed me to nature. And I loved every minute of it. To the point I actually HATE where I am now. My second reason is lower living costs. Oh sure, a gallon of milk will cost about the same here as it will 200 miles from here in some small community. Unless I had the desire and/or ablities to raise my own milk cows, there's no way around some living expences, and these will be roughly the same no matter where you live. But other things like housing, are conciderably less expensive the further away from "civlization" you go. So are some taxes. This is a major advantage, I don't need a job paying $20 an hour so I can afford a 1 bedroom studio apartment. And then have to deal with trying to find parking, hoping I don't get shot by some gang-banger and all that jazz.

Before I discuss my final reason, I do want to clarify this. I'm not one of these anti goverment, everything is a conspiracy, the men in the black helicopters will get me, I need 100 guns, and be totally off the grid type of people. However.... things are bad now, we (in america) have been heading down a path that leads to destruction for some time now. Now I'm not predicting a total collapse of government and anarchy will be the rule of the land. I'm not that parinoid. But I do see a situation where things can become even worse then they are today, if certain measures are not taken by those that lead us. And can we really trust them to do so? I don't know honestly, so why take the risk?

I currently live in a county of 3 million people. Add in the next three border counties that surround chicago, and there's another 3 million people (2000 census stats) Should we end up in a depression. And that's very likely as I see it. I don't want to be living anywhere near this many people when the food drys up. I remember telling folks in several different threads in different forums here, I lived with my grand parents and great grand parents. I heard the horror stories of what happened during the great depression during the 1930's.

Now let's just say for a moment I tried to stick out here. I'd need two or three friends to live with me. I could potentially grow some nominal amounts of veggies in my dinky back yard that's 25'x25'. Where I'd need the friends is to guard those few tomato and pepper plants from the hoards of starving people that would be roaming the streets. And then there's limits to what I can or cannot do here as well.

Prime examples are...the town just east of me. You all know it as Al Capone's home town of Cicero, IL. Due to a major problem with rats, the city of Cicero has now BANNED veggie gardens city wide! Imagine that. Being told you can't even grow a tomato or green pepper plant on your own property. My own town has a ban on "farm animals". I cannot raise or own chickens, ducks, geese, or any other animals they deem as being domesticated farm animals. Oh sure I could own a large cockatu <sp> that's as big or even bigger then a chicken as a pet, but I can't even own one chicken for laying eggs.

When or how we lost these rights to be self sufficent or self reliant, I have no idea. Some how I think it's part of the governments belief that they need to protect us from our selves. And this is how we ended up with thousands of people that had no clue on how or what to do when a natural disaster like Katrina happens. We've placed way too much trust and belief in our government to take care of us.

There's also something to be said about pride in accomplishment. To be able to sit down at a diner table and think, "I raised this, I hunted this, I grew this, and I canned this" All on my own. This to me makes the meal all that more tasty. Not only because there's less presevaties or hormones that were injected into something. It's because I did it myself.

 

[Wifezilla]

Anyone comfortable with growing a reasonable amount of produce, maybe some meat animals, and eating cabbage and dried beans and basically just finding a good way to prepare whatever's around... not likely to be too much trouble. IMHO.

Agreed. Hopefully we are right!

city of Cicero has now BANNED veggie gardens city wide! Imagine that. Being told you can't even grow a tomato or green pepper plant on your own property. My own town has a ban on "farm animals". I cannot raise or own chickens, ducks, geese, or any other animals they deem as being domesticated farm animals.

Laws like this drive me crazy. You can ban all the gardens you want, but when the rats are reproducing in some bozo's junk pile in the back yard, it doesn't solve the problem.

There's also something to be said about pride in accomplishment. To be able to sit down at a diner table and think, "I raised this, I hunted this, I grew this, and I canned this" All on my own. This to me makes the meal all that more tasty. Not only because there's less presevaties or hormones that were injected into something. It's because I did it myself.

 

[lupinfarm]

I don't know about you guys, but in my immediate area pretty well everyone grows their own, be it meat, milk or produce. Even a large population of those who live in town (I'm talking a town of maybe 1500 though LOL, our entire township has 4000 people) grow their own produce.

We are definitely behind on the learning curve. I *downsized* our garden this year so I could cope better with it. Good thing is we have had a fairly okay harvest considering the weather conditions. The fruit trees have not done so well, but that is definitely a weather thing. We are lucky in that we have a large, older crabapple down the driveway to pick from in the time being.

Everyone has something to bargain with around here. My neighbour raises meat cows and his wife keeps an ENORMOUS garden (I'm talking big enough to supply at least two families on this street for an entire year). Our neighbour behind us is a Milk producer (Dairy cows) and they allll love to bargain and make deals with you! Last year we got the Meat cow neighbour to bushhog the goat pasture in exchange for him baling the alfalfa field and taking it away (actually, this was kind of 2 good things for us and 1 for him lol since we wanted the alfalfa gone as well).

 

[raiquee]

Jaxom ) That was a great post. Soapbox or not I've been a lurker on SS, but i'm on the other forums.

I'm in no situation right now to produce enough produce to last our family. No way about it. I also only live 30 minutes out from Milwaukee, WI and I agree 100% with you. If the SHTF, I don't want to be near a city. Luckily a few friends have turned towards Self sufficienty and I am happy for that. We actually had a friend move further from the city and started his own orchard in case the SHTF.

And if it doesn't? Well, who cares? I was prepared if it did, and if it didn't I still have food!

I grow more and more anxious about moving as time goes on. To get land so we can raise livestock, as I also live in an area that prohibits it.

In the mean time I am just making connections locally with friends and farms and learning how to make things like cheese and things to make myself smarter, should the SHTF.

Wildflower) Aww, I'm sorry your almond tree didn't make it, I want one when we move. How big were your trees when you purchased them?

(I'm sorry, like I said boutilsm is a very important issue, I just wanted to kind of guide the thread back towards the topic )