Follow the bouncing ball of consequence….
(Via Daily Mail) Vegetable rationing could last for ‘weeks’, it was warned today, after Morrisons joined Asda to became the second major supermarket to limit sales of certain items.
Perishables like tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber and broccoli have been restricted to just two or three per customer in a host of stores up and down the country.
The crisis has developed in recent weeks due to soaring energy costs which have forced British farmers to switch off greenhouses as they desperately try to make ends meet – leaving a dearth of home-grown produce. (read more)
While it is prudent to remind everyone how fortunate we are to have Florida, California and Mexico for North American vegetable supplies, ie. no dramatic supply shortages, the energy price pressure being applied by Biden policy will lead to even higher consumer prices for all row crops.
18 months ago (Oct 2021), CTH first strongly recommended restarting victory gardens at home. The same recommendation only strengthens.
I have compassion for the citizens, the government is evil and still takes orders from Brussels.
But they are limiting the sprouts.
Sprouts are on sale at my local market for $1.49/lb. today.
But don’t eat those sprouts if you are pregnant …
https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-to-avoid-during-pregnancy-a-comprehensive-guide-4942479
There was a funny story about a Canadian serviceman who got served brussels sprouts literally every day, for years, during World War II in Britain.
He finally got home to Canada, and for his welcome home dinner his mother served, yup, brussels sprouts.
My son-in-law has a similar experience with green beans during his 2 tours in Iraq. After he and my daughter started dating, she told me he liked green beans so I served green beans when she brought him home for dinner. I told him the green beans were especially for him because daughter said he liked them. Future son-in-law replied, “I told her I ate green beans everyday while I was in Iraq; not that I liked them.”
What we have here…is failure to communicate.
Lol! I heard him loud and clear. He is a great guy. He married my daughter on our front lawn less than a year later. They now have 3 beautiful daughters and a wonderful life.
I like sharing this clip of them beginning their wedding ceremony with the Pledge of Allegiance:
Ha! At least you know, think if he hadn’t said anything, poor guy would be getting green beans every time he came over.
My thought exactly
It actually became a running joke. I serve canned green beans at every holiday meal now to make fun of my initial mistake and as a salute to his service.
I remember when dating my ex, he intentionally burned his mom’s grilled cheese “because she always wants the burned ones.” He had a law degree at that point, knows law well, not women at all.
Lol!
I had this uncle, he hated olives. So, the family lore goes, at one dinner party, the hostess noticed that my uncle ate all of the olives in his salad first -well bred, he wanted to get done with them-. The hostess, noticed this and thinking he liked olives served him a bunch more.
I also like stuffed calamari. As a teenager, at a dinner party I was fed some. The hostess told me that my mother had mentioned that I loved calamari. So she served me extra. Ratz, you see, before stuffing the squid you’re supposed to pull out the cartilage inside.. she hadn’t done this. Well, I suffered the same fate as my uncle.
About half of the UK residents deserve this as they voted for it and believe the climate change crap. The UK has some nice, decent older people left but they are filled with white leftists and immigrants who support globalism etc.
Exactly. I have zero sympathy for a nation that voted itself into this mess. And the US isn’t far behind. People need to wake up from this woke nonsense. They are living a nightmare of their own creation.
Soon they will be in smart cities living in boxes
How do you know it’s not Dominion algorithms and BALLOT stuffing? There is a serious disconnect when we fail to recognize the difference between real votes and rampant election fraud.
” about half of the UK residents deserve this as dominion voted for it and believes the climate change crap” FIFY
knowing what we know now about election rigging…. how can anyone any longer with a straight face say
” they voted for it”
DID THEY REALLY?
That’s like saying 81 million people really voted for Biden.
Well Lulu no matter who we vote for over here, the blooming government always gets in!
This is just the beginning. I’m thankful for this site and for preppers everywhere who have given us the heads up on preparing for what’s coming. Never thought I’d be living in a dystopian novel.
Check out Modern Survival Blog. Great information about all aspects of survival and generally…just great living tips.
There’s been quite the uptick in home gardening and preserving – you’ll notice it if you go shopping for the things needed to do it at home.
True, this year have seen no shortages of canning lids or jars I expected that to be a problem. This is our second year with a small garden wont feed us every meal but has the sides covered. If we can get enough beans going this year we will be canning. Getting ready now to freeze the greens.
Remember freezing only works if you have electricity.
started dehydrating three years ago
Which is one reason we have a large solar system.
Buy your garden seeds now.
Focus on open pollinated seeds.
You can save seeds from your crop and plant them the next year, and they will grow true to type.
If you will be raising chickens, get them ASAP.
Get the supplies and feed for them, too.
Last year I got Austrolorps to add to my flock, including a rooster.
I may sell or barter Austrolorp chicks when SHTF.
Excellent point! We had quite a time locating canning jars and lids last season.
They are all over the place this year with a 20-25% increase in price. Recycle those jars if you can. Rings and seals also have 25% price increase.
We’re sitting pretty in California as far as access to fresh food, but the energy poverty hitting those of us on fixed income is unreal. All utilities are up across the board, but especially fuel, gas and electricity.
Yep, in honor of ‘Ol 39, we are doing it “Carter style” out west here (sweaters at all times and little to no heat). Must be something to do with that Dept. of Energy or other, once they shock you with one or two bills they have the audacity to slip in a note saying that “by the way we are petitioning with the CUPC ( The soviet style rubber stamp board stocked with Democratic appointees) to raise your rates yet again!”
And it will only get worse here in the former Golden State.
Thats for certain. My PGE bill last month was $410, it had only been over $200 once or twice in prior 4 years.
And that was with all the outages from the storms and felled trees.
We are experiencing a similar increase in electric. Our electric bill hovers near $300 for the past few months, while it used to average less than half of that. Our home is only 900 square feet and our weather is beautiful. We don’t have air conditioning. We upgraded to more energy efficient appliances a few years ago. We pay for our gas separately.
It is not about about energy; it is about political power and control.
Yep
I’m in Carmel, about 6-7 blocks from the beach. No A/C either.
The CPUC should be stated as Californian People Under Control as they only vote in favor of the utilities. Come April 1, if you have or want solar, its changing for the benefit of the utilities.
Appropriate start date. We are too old to make the investment in solar make financial sense.
I have a large solar system in Alabama, which doesn’t do net metering. In other words, I don’t put power onto the grid so I can avoid the large monthly fee that comes with it (so they can give me a little bit of that back for the power they’d buy from me). The solar system’s only purpose is to reduce how much power I pull from the grid. It’s feasible to do that only if you customize the system to provide as much power as you need (don’t overdo it, nor underdo it). It doesn’t have to be perfect. Mine produces 80% of the power we need on average throughout the year. Thus it works: my power bill in my all-electric house is now 20% what it would normally be without solar. That includes charging my EV so my wife and I have virtually free driving.
That’s the catch. If you go solar, be prepared to do it like I did. That means get an inverter with the option to not put power onto the grid. And do the financial math to make sure it’s worth it without the supposed buyback money coming in. If you have a change of heart later (i.e. your state and utility changes the rules) you can change a few options and put power onto the grid to make a little money. Just never be in a position where you have to depend on the grid buyback.
I had dinner with 2 AGW fanatics last night. When the inevitable comment was made that this unseasonably mild winter is proof of AGW, I simply replied that I’ve been saving a lot of money on it and I was very pleased. They were shocked and displeased lol
We used to joke about leaving the motor running on a junky old car up in the woods of Maine, to help get the Global Warming going.
‘Course, gas was cheap back then.
I’ve met many AGW fools… when we get to discussing the science, they invariably will mock me:
“What, what so you know about science? Are you a scientist or something?”
My reply leaves them speechless..
“Well, I am a physicist, yes, and I have worked in some contracts over at JPL and other such places. Now, should we discuss the philosophy of Western Empirical Science and how ‘Climate Change” is not Physics but Science is Political Science. Something more aligned with Classical Greek Science”.
That usually shut them down. I mean, when I bring up Kuhn and Wittgenstein their eyes go glassy, when I bring up the period of Renaissance and Newton and Leibniz, their minds start to really shut down, and when I start discussing Plato and Archimedes you can see the steam coming out of their heads.. .and asses.. and with those people you never know which is which.
But it is fun shutting them down. They are so used to spew their BS than when they are presented with the facts from someone with “credentials” they have no script to follow.
Like the poor guy who I had next to me on a 2 hour flight…. I let him go at first, he was smart, some kind of an MBA and he believed in “science”… I let him go on and on, establishing what he believed were the proper “credentials”… then, after a nice drink, I let him have it, gently, nice and just pounded with fact upon fact… the coupe de grace, of course, was using the JPL card.
Fools. They are fools.
My home has been set at 61deg.F all day … except for 1 hr. when we get home from work … all winter. Farrrrrrrr less than Jimmy Carter’s suggested 68deg. F
And last months PG&E bill was still almost $500.00! Yeah … no worries … because EVERYONE is rich in CA. Right? WRONG. We aren’t all Googleaires. Some of us work hard to barely scratch out a living.
We used to live like we were rich; we were comfortably middle class. $100 bill is the new $20.
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Obama, 1/2008
Just the visual in my head of that communist freak and his freak radical Stokely Carmichael wife makes me sick to my stomach.
They make me sick also. EVIL to the core.
I remember when he said this. I wanted to reach into the television screen and choke him. What arrogance….
“Once you understand that he’s not on our side everything he does makes sense.”
… and Gavin Newsom has made good on that promise
I was wondering how the folks in California were going to power those electric cars?
The Googlenaires can afford to both own and power EVs. The plebes, not so much. That helps open up the 101 in the morning so the commute is enjoyable for TPTB.
That’s by design, too.
“Let them eat cake.”
That simple counter-reaction is coming back, too, regardless of the desperate actions by the failed political classes and their frauds.
Every time I pull into a store or government parking lot with new fast chargers installed in the preferred parking area I think about how the primary reason for the inflation I am experiencing is due to decreased fossil fuel production, increased energy costs and increased regulations. This is a deliberate destruction of the middle class.
CA and the PUC have allowed PG&E to charge Nat. Gas at 3x the marketplace cost. Why? Because the State wants to totally eliminate Nat. gas … so they’re pricing it so high that the customers will BEG for “clean, green, renewable” electric power from wind and solar. Nevermind that will end up costing 18x as much as Nat. gas. You’re gonna BEG for it as we artificially SPIKE your energy bills.
Thanks Gavin Newsom
Thanks supermajority leftist Legislature
Thanks sold out politicized PUC
and FJB
Also thank our public schools for the climate alarmism propaganda that has replaced the 3Rs.
True, but have you seen the prices?
Within two weeks I need to set out my tomatoes, peppers and others. No pot this year.
Don’t stop with gardens. If you have the space, consider backyard chickens and rabbits too. And if you can afford to buy a few acres and raise goats or sheep, that’s even better.
I have raised a variety of livestock over the years. Boy! I sure wish I had followed the advice of a wise old gentleman who said to me, “ Never invest in anything that eats”
A few chickens for eggs and meat…..but even chickens have become very expensive to feed if you are not able to free range them. If you live near a livestock sale facility, and buy wisely, you can get animals to butcher cheaper than you can raise them .
Been raising dairy goats for 40 years now. Also ducks and geese. Never had a problem with keeping them fed and I’m not a wealthy woman.
Sunflowers are incredibly productive of nutritious seed and very easy to grow.
Buy a pack of bird seed, pick out the sunflowers and plant them, and give the rest to the chooks.
I started raising black oil sunflowers last year and hope to raise lots more this year, along with corn.
Both are good chicken feed.
I 2nd the “sunflowers are very easy to grow”>>> even up in Maine!!! with it’s very short growing season.
Didn’t even need to start the seeds indoors!
And it seems they re-seeded themselves every year after? IIRC.
And….this is not a negative, just a reminder….for every type and size of livestock you add to your preparation, the opportunities to be “gone for a couple of days” or “take a vacation” are directly impacted.
There is a very, solid, reality-based reason that actual farmers seldom have time away from the farm.
Because…when you leave, you will have to have someone come in and do for your birds/animals what you would do while you were home. And then when they they leave their advance preparations for awhile, you will be adding the chores at their house to the chores at your house, so that they CAN leave for awhile. Reality.
Sometimes when we were kids, we would actually have a long day away from the farm–driving 45 miles each way to spend the day with relatives at their farm. If it was a Sunday, we would leave by 8 am (my dad having done all the chore very early) so that we could join them in their church service. We would then have dinner with them, kids play and adults visitvisitvisit all afternoon, have a late supper of leftovers about 5-6 pm, arrive back at our farm at about 9 pm.
Our two cows would be standing at the gate near the barn, bawling their heads off, “Somebody come and milk us! This is NOT funny….” Reality.
I know what you mean. I worked on a dairy farm when I was a teen. We milked 40 Holsteins twice a day. Four AM and Four PM, day in and day out. The days were long and busy. This was back in the ’60’s.
My wife won’t let me have a cat or dog … for the same reason. Can’t imagine a chicken coop or goats
“the opportunities to be “gone for a couple of days” or “take a vacation” are directly impacted.”
YES.
I took care of the neighbors 6 chickens while they were gone on vacation.
6 chickens is the max allowed and no roosters .
It took away my freedom to spend the nights at friend’s houses if I did not feel like driving home.
Also,Took away my freedom to go drive somewhere before sunrise.
In the past, Animals have gotten inside the chicken coop and killed some of the chickens..
I would wake up in the middle of the night and worry if I closed their door.etc.
The chickens are more like pets for their 2 children , they do get a lot of eggs..
I don’t like arranging my schedule around chickens,
I like buying a Big bag of frozen chicken parts from costco.
….
Beware , a lot of work. If I did have chickens I would get some pretty ones for fly tying.
I have tied some fishing lures, with feathers I found in my yard.
Yep, you can’t do much travelling if you have livestock. All depends on what your priorities are.
I only made the point because those who have never had the responsibility, benefits, and liabilities of livestock may just see the aspect of “it’s a solution” without being aware of the things that go with it. As always, a cost/benefit analysis/eyes wide open, is useful.
Agreed. You also have to be willing to put your livestock first, especially if you keep goats, sheep, cattle or pigs. Take good care of your herd and you will be blessed.
At our local grocery store today they had fresh whole chicken on sale for 99 cents/pound. That isn’t too bad IMO.
Between my two last trips to COSTCO … chicken prices nearly DOUBLED
Kenji, sorry to hear that. They have held pretty steady where I live. We bought 4 beef tenderloin steaks today and the per pound price is the same as we were paying several years ago. Lots of things are more of course.
Goats are incredibly difficult to fence in. Sheep might be better. You might want to consider a feeder steer or two. 1 per grazing acre is fine. Top them off with grain or pellets. Always have clean cool water and a mineral block. Pay a farmer to start them for you and deliver them as healthy steers. You can get dairy steers cheaper than beef steers. Stick with smaller breeds like Jersey. Make arrangements with a slaughter house before you start to top out. Have a deal with the farmer to haul your steer to slaughter. A 1000-1200 pound steer requires skilled handling. Buy a big freezer as a good steer will yield 50%. Try to not make pets out of them as the trip to the slaughter house will be painful.
I use cattle panels for my goats with U-bolts instead of clips for the posts. I still walk the fenceline once a month just to make sure there are no weak spots but the panels and U-bolts do a good job at keeping them contained.
Nothing wrong with raising a steer or two either. My sister use to raise a few Holstein steers every year. As for big freezers, I have three. I also raise ducks and geese for eggs and meat, plus buy freezer pork and freezer beef from local farms.
The last sentence is more than mere advice.
Jeremy Clarkson has put me off sheep forever …
He needs a good dog.
Touche’. Neither his dog nor his drone had much effect on his sheep.
I watched a friend’s 40+ sheep, two geese, dog, cat and cows during their 6-week vacation while I was in high school. The cow decided to play with barbed wire, and needed shots and bandage changes. One goose wanted me dead. And her sister’s ram, a 4H project, had been bought back by her dad so he could have the pleasure of personally slaughtering it after it gained more weight. It jumped 2 fences, broke a gate and ended up in the pool, got itself out.
When Christ told Peter to “feed My sheep”, it was because they are too hopeless to feed themselves anything healthy.
Agree, but people should expect there will be a learning curve. We spent a lot of time and money on chickens and learned a few expensive lessons. I’m guessing it is the same with all the livestock.
I’m not discouraging people from following your advice, just trying to manage expectations. I recommend starting with laying hens instead of buying chicks from the feed store. Our rooster to hen ratio was unsustainable.
Of course! There is a learning curve in everything we try to do.
NOT FOR LIBERALS!
Ha!
“Our rooster to hen ratio” ?
My neighbor with chickens mentioned they had a rooster on their previous property.
They said the rooster would come up behind them and attack them.
And it took more chickens than they had to satisfy their rooster?
There were 4 roosters and 4 hens to emerge from the fluffy little chicks. The hens were too ‘bothered’ by the aggressive roosters to lay eggs. The roosters fought and crowed constantly, causing the dogs to bark, which made the roosters fight and crow even more.
After an incident too gory to describe, chaos ensued and ended badly for the roosters. The worst part was the canine ring leader, a very large male Great Pyrenees, developed blood lust, which was then shared with his 2 labradoodle pals. The dogs then eliminated a small duck population at the pond.
The good news is that the hens started producing eggs with the roosters gone. That learning curve involved a lot of children and woman folk screaming and crying.
Yup , MrsJones ,
Been There , Seen That 😐
Poor Roosters have a Bad Reputation sometimes .
And Your portrayal of *too gory to describe* is Exactly so .
Yes,but then you have to kill them and I am too soft hearted.
So you would not do well being responsible for feeding others. I’m not trying to be a smart alec here–it’s just reality.
If you have ever purchased beef or chicken at the super market, someone else has “killed them” and they did not do that because they are hard hearted. If you’ve ever eaten part of a Thanksgiving turkey, someone killed that turkey.
My parents didn’t kill a hundred chickens every year because they were hard-hearted, and my dad didn’t take out a steer with a bullet or cutting its throat because he was hard-hearted.
Again–not trying to be a smart alec. But I think that, not only have a lot of people never really believed they are going to personally die some day; think a lot of people have either forgotten or never understood where our food comes from.
“a lot of people have either forgotten or never understood where our food comes from.”
People understand where food comes from. But prefer somebody else to kill it who knows what they’re doing.
…
When I was younger a neighbor asked if I wanted one of the chickens she had just brought.
I said I’d never killed a chicken before.
She grabbed one of the chicken’s by the neck twirling around a few times and handed me a dead chicken.
I plucked and gutted it, then mounted it on a rotisserie and lit the coals .
It turned out it was an old Laying hen and I learned the meaning of a” tough old bird”.
Would it be good for chicken soup? Tacos? hmm..
I would have saved a lot of time eating at Pollo loco.
And I’m supporting a local business.
Coq au Vin… a French stew devised for cooking tough old birds.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/traditional-french-coq-au-vin-recipe
When my brother and I, about 7/9 years old, first had the responsibility of catching and killing a chicken, they were dispatched with a short-handled ax that nicely separated the head, and then the chicken literally did “run around like a chicken with its head cut off”.
It was not personal. It was not because we were hard-hearted. It was a skill to be learned so that the chicken (or whatever) had no unnecessary suffering. Stuff like this should never be done by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. We were expected to know how to do it correctly.
We didn’t have that specific job very often–the chickens were usually killed in batches of 25 or 30 when we were butchering for the year. We only had to chase down an individual chicken when Mom had miscalculated how many were still in the freezer and suddenly discovered that she had run out of frozen chickens from last year before this year’s batch was ready.
My mother-in-law would butcher a chicken as needed. I remember sitting and eating her delicious homemade chicken noodle soup — homemade noodles and all — but was grossed out when she said she’d butchered her old hen, found eggs inside the old gal’s carcass, and used them to make the noodles.
Too much information to hear while eating the old gal.
There may come a time when you can no longer afford to be soft hearted.
I realized early on that the best thing I can do for my herd is learn how to cull. That’s just a fact of life. People who are not comfortable with that reality always end up getting rid of their livestock.
I’m too “soft hearted to kill them” also but I will prepare and eat them.
In the “old days” (1950s-1960s) you bought canned vegetables for the winter or canned yourself. Fresh fruits and vegetables only available during whatever season they had. Potatoes, carrots, onions stored in the basement or root cellar. We are going to go back to that time.
This is exactly what I’m thinking. We are heading exactly in this direction.
Yes under Putin the Russian economy is going forwards while ours under Biden is going backwards (Soviet style).
You weren’t listening … our President told us that the PAIN was coming … and that if you didn’t gladly buck-up under the PAIN to save UKRAINE … then you must be a mega MAGA Putin lackey
Yeah- it’s called Neo-Feudalism.
True, but we also had a much smaller world population in the 50’s & 60’s. Remove/reduce the winter growing season, impede production with costs skyrocketing (ie: fuel & fertilizer) and mix in weather challenges and the numbers don’t work very well.
Last year a number of world leaders were advising their populations to grow gardens and stock food… but not here in the US. Most people are clueless, unfortunately.
agree with all but ‘weather challenges’
for farmers, weather is always a challenge
That’s for sure.
Yes, even though living in suburbia in the 50’s, mother had a garden, smokehouse and sulfur house to provide home-processed foods. The only thing she didn’t do was slaughter animals like she had on the farm, however we regularly went fishing. Meats were smoked, fruits were dried or canned and vegetables were canned.
After she died I couldn’t sell off her canning gear so gave it away. Oddly, that was during the last crash but I guess a lot of her generation was dying off and such things were in abundance.
I have a couple buildings in the forest that are secure and animal-resistent food is stored in them. Stuff critters can get at is stored in the house. Currently, there’s about a six month supply to provide a balanced diet. No ‘prepper’ food.
We cooperate, sharing resources in the forest. Some garden, some have animals, some hunt, some fish. I mostly fix things and barter. I dismantled the greenhouse I had in CA and need to reassemble it because OR weather is pretty cold and wet. We’re supposed to have snow later this week.
The folks in the UK have some harsh challenges ahead of them. They’ve been through a lot over the centuries so they’ll figure out a way. We will too. Let us not forget what, and who, got us here. This wasn’t ‘stuff happens’. This was stuff humans did to us, with purpose. That has consequences. First things first though. An army needs supplies and food. Adapt and overcome.
If we are lucky we’ll only be going back 60 years.
I have a hunch we’ll be going back to the Middle Ages.
Fortunately, I won’t be alive for the Middle Ages series, the next 60 years. But, sadly, my nephews will still be alive.
… but at least you were promised that you’ll like it
There is no potential for a root cellar in Florida. What did folks do to store potatoes and onions before electricity?
Well, when I added a little room onto my house, I put an old bathtub under the floor, with a hatch above. We sealed it off from the space under the floor with a wooden barrier around the edges to keep out critters. It holds a surprising amount of produce, and stays dark and cool. And it’s only a couple of feet below ground. That might even work in Florida.
Good suggestion, and an important one.
I have a closet w/ AC.
Works great.
Also have a smaller pantry w/o AC and it works OK. I open the door at nite so the house AC goes in, then close it when I get up.
This is a “post electricity” solution, obviously. (!)
You can find recipes for canning potatoes and also how to use the canned potatoes. Onions are also canned when added to other things…think of relishes, chutneys, salsas and tomato sauce.
I also discovered this past summer after hoping I wouldn’t lose the use of my good potatoe crop (or have to eat it all quickly) that simply storing 6-8 potatoes in a simple brown paper bag (think old-fashioned “lunch bags”) and storing it in a dark cupboard space (that doesn’t get over-heated, of course) keeps them perfectly fresh. I’m pretty pleased about that.
In central Oregon here, I could have gotten by with keeping them in the garage pantry where it’s between 40-50 at night, but I wanted to test how I might keep them in general.
Just remember, cool, dry and dark. I bet there are prepper websites for Floridians since your situation is unique.
A dark coolish closet will do in FL.
And if it’s got AC, all the better. Some do!
Yeap.
I have been planning to dig a root cellar.
Some vegetables like potatoes do not keep well unless in a humid environment.
Root cellars don’t require an AC outlet to plug into!
Pure evil.
My money would be on my home region of 3, with 4 as a close second
I would miss russett potatoes though.
Wisconsin is the 3rd largest potato producing state.
Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) are real tasty a a root vegetable with slightly nutty flavour..
Said to be a folk remedy for diabetes. 4-5 FT tall flower
https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke
It doesn’t grow well in Florida
I agree. In my bracket I have the order of finish: 3,4,5,2,1.
but, since it’s an individual event anything can happen.
.
Just yesterday, I was picking up a few of needed items, and used self-checkout to process my purchase.
I was buying a couple of produce items, and had to use the ‘identify by name’ procedure for them. My first item was a sweet onion, which I had on the scale. The machine asked for the quantity of onion I had . . .
Huh? I thought. I had one so pushed the ‘1’ and the price came up 99 cents. The price per pound was 99 cents — so I thought. I went on to my tomatoes, also 99 cents per pound. The machine did not like that I was spelling out ‘tomatoes’ and my light started flashing for ‘help’.
The ‘help’ gal came over and started inputting the information for my tomatoes, and again it asked for the quantity of tomatoes. I said, ‘wait a minute — I just got charged for a quantity of onion, am I going to be charged for the quantity of tomatoes rather than by the pound?’
She said that the store was now charging per quantity, not pound, for the onions, and that it is going to get a lot worse. She suggested I start familiarizing myself with the food banks in town . . .
I did get charged by pound for the tomatoes, but the quantity I bought was still recorded!
And I live in a prime agricultural land area.
Yep. 1 store local to me sells onions by the “each.”I’m buying them anywhere now because it seems that they’ve all been rotten for most of the last yr. Can’t tell till I cut them open.
I started dehydrating lots of things a couple years ago, and find that dehydrated onions and carrots are the BEST for so many things. Also lemon zest and orange zest. And they keep forever just in an air-tight jar in a dark shelf.
Thanks for the ideas, Sharon! I just bought a dehydrator.
Dehydrator stinks for electric though. We dehydrate EVERYTHING. Bill was almost double , so prepare for that. It’s worth it, but geez the power is like using a 1000w hair dryer 24/7
For the amount I’ve made for personal use, I haven’t noticed any impact on electric bill. Will keep that in mind if I increase volume substantially.
Hunger games districts would be better if they are several north south sectors so everyone gets similar growing seasons. Although I would loath being in a district with the northeast corridor.
There were 12 Districts in the Hunger Games movies so I am all for having the districts run north and south.
No one needs vegetables. Green crayons are a perfectly reasonable substitute.
LOL. What’s even funnier, your comment is followed by an ad for Intermittent Fasting.
Locusts are green. Think vegetable thoughts. 😀
Dunes2021: Just like langoustines, but with wings. And green.
The absence of food might change my mind.
Love the show ‘Alone’ where people go out into nature with a few supplies and with no neighbors and have to see who can live out on their own, alone, the longest.
Doesn’t take long for people to eat the most disgusting things and be thankful to have them.
TV. sigh.
Why didn’t they just beat up the film crew and take their food?
To me, it would be the easiest and quickest solution.
There was no film crew. Contestants were responsible for videoing their time alone.
Over the weekend I watched a show on YouTube titled “Behind the Scenes of Landon’s Finest Hotel-Inside Claridges”
Apparently this is one of Landon’s if not the worlds finest hotels. It showed all manner of their operations, etc.
What I found interesting was the Predictive Programming they did with the hotel food/dinning experience. If you don’t know about Predictive Programming it’s where forces in the media show you something and then eventually it comes true.
During this show they talked about a chef that cooks with wild edibles including bugs. The big to do was this guy making a 5 star meal with the star ingredients being special ants. They went at great lengths to show the viewer what a prized commodity the ants were and how lucky they were to be served the ant dinner. It was all take rage for the well to do elite to be dinning on ants. So I guess if the extremely wealthy enjoy eating ants for dinner then when your only option is worms or cockroaches well you should just shut up and eat I guess.
Eeeeewwww!
Just like my tea preference … I won’t eat unripened green crickets … they gotta be black and heavily sun dried. It’s the English way
My favorite kind of tea, plus nice and hot boiling water. No microwaving.
If you microwave them, their shells burst and they splatter all over the place.
Less yummy.
Remember we could not buy seeds during lockdown….. so very weird….
Because you might be outside getting vitamin D?
Which is one of the vitamins that helps fight CONTROL-A-VIRUS
Sunshine vitamin D also saves you from getting rickets, especially for the growing children.
USA government…bringing the world economy to your town…
Pellagra. We may start seeing more of this again.
And scurvy, which is making a comeback.
Reemergence of nutritional deficiencies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2567249/
Wow. That’s disgusting.
I remember pellagra being a possibility in my childhood rural Montana but there wasn’t anybody talking to the dead. There was a discoloration and slight scalyness of the skin, and either the kid’s mom would figure it out and adjust the diet, or a neighbor or relative would just point out, “Hey, Mildred, you need to give Julie some more of …………….”
It was very casual and easily dealt with. It was never disgusting. It was kind of like blood poisoning. We knew the dangers. Tried to avoid it. If it happened, we told our parents we had this funny red line on our leg or arm and off we go to the doc for appropriate treatment.
I did not know pellagra was ever as awful as described in that bit. Learn something new every day!
I ran across a copy of one of my great grandfather’s death certificate today. It gave cause of death as pellagra. His doctor probably saw a lot of pellagra since pellagra was found largely among poor Southerners.
A couple of weeks ago, I spent an hour or two on the phone with my 102 y/o aunt (not to be confused with my almost 106 y/o aunt on the other side). We discussed the family tree. She told me that this gentleman was becoming progressively senile by the time she had any memories of him. Fits with the pellagra diagnosis.
Wow, that’s devastating….such hard things people deal with sometimes.
Thanks for putting Kentucky in Zone 3. I think we have a really good chance to go all the way at the Hunger Games this year.
Lol.
I am here too.
Yeah, we got this.
This is a two-fer year for us. We get a new governor (hopefully).
We need one for sure!
Wait until people realize that Ukraine is the breadbasket to the world and its fields will be fallow this year.
Yes, even during the early years post-Communism I was impressed repeatedly by the abundance of vegetables and fruits at the farmer’s markets as well as the reasonable prices, even considering how devalued the hryvnia was at the time. Bread was also reasonable. Potatoes were a staple.
Meats and confections were pretty expensive though, not for me with western dollars, but for the locals. Same with dairy.
Vast, vast farming regions reminded me of my home state in some ways with our big corporate farms. Production on a huge scale. Don’t know if it’s still like that today though.
Is it a sign of the times that for the first time in nearly 40 years a big parcel across from my CA place had all the trees taken out and lays fallow now. It’s so odd not seeing trees any more. I haven’t been out to the big corporate farms to see what they’re up to but it’ll be interesting to see how things are going.
Dunes ,
Did You previously say they were orchard trees or a nut bearing tree ? Seems as if You said they were some type of Edible Bearing trees . I’m just curious 😊
Add in the deliberate destruction of Dutch agriculture…
The Dutch are big greenhouse growers. I wonder how their greenhouse operations are doing.
A percentage are fighting for the right to keep their greenhouses and darns
I hope they win.
I live in the SE of the US and apparently God has given us an early Spring. I suggest those in my area take advantage of it and at least grow in containers if you cannot plant a full garden.
I’m a Neanderthal in northern Minnesota.
Soonest we can safely plant in the clay rich soil is May 20. Last summer it wasn’t frost free until the first week in June. Short growing season for Neanderthals.
During the 18 years we lived in MN again (’93-’11), I teased my MN born ‘n bred husband about that growing season. Often complimented on the wonders of being able to grow ANYTHING, in SUCH rich soil–as long as it could be done in four days.
He never denied the foundational truth of what I was saying.
He also never learned the benefit of KILLING THE FIRST MOSQUITO HE SAW in the spring. Mosquitos literally had his photo in their pockets. Poor man. I explained to him (over and over) that if he would just kill the first one that came after him in late April (he was always the first in the county to be sought out by those critters)…if he would just kill the first one, that would be the end of it.
Even after we relocated to Oregon in 2011 where I was rejoicing that I can be outside, day or night, no matter the temp, in the loveliness of the evening, boy, if some mosquito didn’t come after him. I think one of their friends in MN must have circulated his change of address. I have never seen a mosquito here in the Willamette Valley.
Your husband and I must be related.
I can go out into the woods with a group of people, and without a doubt always come out with wood ticks already partially installed in my skin. Two years ago I pulled out a Deer Tick, then waited and watched for signs of disease.
My sister lived in Longview, Washington most of her adult life. Yes, it was fabulous to go out into the woods, along the shore or anywhere else and not be covered with biting bugs.
Lucky you. A snowstorm today.
When the tobacco shortage hits, nicotine-fit violent crime will skyrocket.
A new victim group! Yay! So they, too, will never be held accountable. Couldn’t hep themselves.
So what’s for Brexit? Brexit anyone?
Check out the Duran’s recent videos… to boil it down the establishment is using the Northern Ireland/Irish border to keep the UK in the single market, while also hoping to frustrate the British people into viewing Brexit as an economic mistake which can be overturned in a few years.
great channel, here it is on bitchute:
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/NmAqqO8nLvua/
I have little space to work with, but am growing a few things in large containers (mostly summer crops like tomatoes, peppers, leeks, berries). But, I recently harvested my first batch of red potatoes, grown from sprouted organic small red potatoes from my local farmers market. Boy, were they delicious… we could not believe how much better they are than ANY potato we’ve bought in years and years.
I figure every bite I can grow teaches me new skills, and will certainly be a worthwhile investment of time and labor.
We bought a made in the USA Harvest Right freeze drier (I have no monetary stake here) 18 months ago, best purchase we ever made. Freeze dried food is light to transport, no breakage worries like with canning, and lasts over 20 years with lower fat food.
Bit of an upfront cost, but we prioritized. Not missing the stupid cable TV at all.
That would be wonderful to have. They are a little spendy but very valuable at this point in time.
I know some people that share one with another family and the split the cost.
I have been looking at these for a while.
They are pricey but am seriously considering getting one.
Yes, pricey and also a small learning curve. But you will not regret it. Incredibly versatile, one can even use it to make spice & herb powders – paprika (from paprika peppers), ginger, etc.
Their technical support is wonderful.
(I have no association with the company).
President Snow sounding pretty warlike in Ukraine and Poland.
Is it too late to stop the Matrix?
Digital soldiers on the ground doing their work to wake up the masses about the Social Credit System.
WATCH:
https://rumble.com/v2adpx6-social-credit-system.html
At the Oxford protest against “15 minute cities” a young girl speaks the truth
If Greta Thunberg was honest, shed look like…..
WATCH:
https://rumble.com/v2adtge-15-minute-cities-its-a-trap.html
Call me suspicious, but wasn’t voting for Brexit supposed to produce such food shortages?
We warned you, now you get democracy, good and hard!
You say that as if though you are in a better place looking down amongst the ant mob….We got the opposite of democracy. The elections are rigged. You think Democracy gave us Branden? You think the installed PM in the UK was elected? Now we get Fascism rammed down our throats.
You won’t outflank me on the conspiracy theories, Mass.
I’m still stuck on fluoride in the water, and the balloon that came down on Roswell.
Biden the wise man has finally been proven right!
lol
Im not trying to outflank anybody.
I purchased a Big Berkey water filtration system and added the fluoride filters.
The socialist in me asks about the Duchy of Cornwall?
Another thought, all their new ‘citizens’, immigrating from countries that have diets heavy on fruits and veggies, having an impact?
District 3 gonna kick ass lol
SEC!
Check out Aero Garden!
Rationing for freaking vegetables. This is the 21st century.
I’m waiting for someone to realize that Ukraine is the breadbasket to the world. Any idea on the hectares of land that will remain fallow this year?
Around Christmas I posted two stories about the UK’s National Farmers’ Union.
1) The NFU had awarded “Farming Champion of the Year” to the Ukrainian people.
2) The NFU had issued a warning about vegetable rationing as well as impending tomato, cucumber, and pear shortages.
Here we are at the end of February, and the rationing has commenced.
The British Islands have been net food importers since the 18th century. Estimates are that the UK can only support about 1/4 of its current population through domestic food production.
It seems improbable the West would allow the UK to starve. Therefore, expect British food demands to apply upward pressure on international food supply availability and pricing much in the way Germany’s LNG demands have affected energy supplies.
If you don’t already have your seeds and trees, it is time to get busy.
Two weeks ago, I started shopping for top pick pinkeye purple hull Southern pea seeds. There were none at the local feed and seed. Their price for all of the Southern pea seeds was quoted at $6/lb.
I finally found a seed supplier 75 miles away that showed the seeds on the website and did not say “Sold Out” or “Unavailable”. The website did not have the price or a button to place an order. When I spoke with the right person, he told me that I could check back in 2-3 weeks to see if they had any in stock. When pressed further, he told me that they had those seeds under contract but the grower is in California. There have been seed crop failures in that area of California because of water shortages.
I have not called back because I found an open pollinated seed that should be very close to my first choice and pounced to place my order. Similar seeds that are available online are now priced at $10-$12 per lb. I paid $8/lb all in and have my seeds here now.
Be careful about planting outside too early. You could lose your garden.
I bought my seeds early this year. I noticed my pea packages were smaller by weight and about $1.30 more expensive.
Watch out for shrink-flation at your local garden retailer.
I already have my cool-weather vegetables started indoors under led grow lights.
4-5 weeks after germination, they go into 2.5″ pots and into the cold frame outside.
4-5 weeks after that a couple of weeks before the last frost date (frost tolerant) into the garden until harvest, to be replaced by the ones in the cold frame or just outdoors once it’s warmer overnight in 2.5″ pots waiting their turn, and so on.
Basically, at the peak season, I have three gardens growing at the same time in the June-July time frame, with seed starting in about mid-Jan and harvest into late November. December is planning.
It was frustrating in the past to have to wait until the temperature was right to start the seeds, too many or too few didn’t survive to maturity. For about 75% of their lifecycle, they were so small they didn’t make full use of the sunlight in the garden. At best one crop per year. Now I routinely produce two to three crops per year from each growing bed.
It’s all about maximizing the space and also planning on having the right plants outside in the garden for the sun and temperature conditions they do best in. The cold frame is great for plants that have grown too big for indoors, but the temperatures are still too cold at night for the garden. For some plants like corn I get started indoors and then just skip to putting them in the garden.
My climate zone is 8b, PacNW
Plant rotation is also important.
In zone 0 double-minus, it is still too early to even think about indoor gardening! I am still collecting sap from my one sugar maple tree! Have boiled about 20 litres (5 gallons) of sap down to 1/2 litre (1 pint) of maple syrup. Spring still 3 months away. Green is still a dream!
Time to go “next level”. This guy is in Maine (zone 5) growing stuff in the dead of winter. Cold tolerant crops under double layered cover:
https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/episode-1210-year-round-growing-with-eliot-coleman/
Here in zone 6c, we have lettuce and spinach that we picked and ate today that made it over winter – had a couple -7 or so nights in January and it made it.
Eliot Coleman is a what I think of as a Renaissance man. Quite an inspiration.
Thanks for the link. I experimented this year by letting some cold-tolerant plants over winter. They are doing well even though we had a couple of days with about 3 inches of snow and 20F overnight temperatures.
The PacNW is a very mild climate compared to some, not too hot/cold, not too dry/wet.
The key issue is having enough sunlight, plus the soil microbes that are also very important for plant growth and health tend to slow way down at the lower temperatures at the shallow soil depth that annuals grow at.
I would think that Northern California would be a great place for year around growing as well as Florida.
I would think that Florida would work fine for hotter weather plants in the summer and cooler plants in the winter?
Thank you for this very helpful post; am in the same climate zone. I just printed off your post to serve as an instruction guide:) (sans your screen name or any other identifying information…)
Please don’t criticize UK politicians, especially Labour and the “conservatives” who act just like Labour, who are all AWESOME!!!
/s?
No, in Britain the uniparty are LINOs and CINOs!
Yay!! District 1!!!///
I have the Mormons to the east of me and the beautiful farming area of Central California to the west of me. Now, how do we make it work when every state in District 1 is a blue-RINO state? Other than the over populated state of CA, District 1 is reasonably unpopulated. I’m trying to see the upside in the upcoming Hunger Games and how to outwit our demonic leaders. Oh boy, let’s get this party started.
Only a political class which does not fear losing re-election would govern in a way that harms their constituents. They know the system is completely rigged now, so they can force through all of their communist policies. It makes me sick!
If you are new to gardening and especially if you don’t have much room or money, consider growing herbs. You can even grow many in water in jars on the window sill.
Parsley, basil, cilantro, dill, chives, and garlic are very easy to grow. They have lots of minerals and vitamins especially if freshly picked. You can tuck them into your landscaping and not run afoul of HOAs too.
Great idea! Parsley is not just a plate garnish…it is a super food. Also suggest growing microgreens or sprouts…especially broccoli sprouts….indoors. They pack a punch of nutrition. For sprouts all you need is a glass jar, cheesecloth, elastic band to secure the cheesecloth and sprouting seeds. There are inexpensive sprouting lids that fit on Mason jars. Just be sure to buy sprouting seeds and not regular garden type seeds…the seed packet will say they’re for sprouting.
You think Chicago, Baltimore and NYC murder rate is high now. Just wait till they are all hungry.
My wife does a garden. In 2021 we had an unbelievable amount of vegetables and herbs. The tomatoes were the best we have ever eaten.
2022 the garden was still great but not as good as 2021. The bugs were relentless and they decimated the cabbages.
This year I’m going to start canning the excess if we are lucky enough to have any.
Our garden is really small and you would never believe the amount of food it produces unless you actually saw what we would eat day by day. Luckily my wife has a green thumb and she doesn’t view gardening as work she really enjoys it.
Just this past Sunday she set up an inside grow light for starting seeds.
Like the article says start a victory garden at home. It’s not as easy as it may seem and you gotta get started yesterday but get started.
The cabbage looper can really cause a problem with brassicas, especially when they are young.
The key is to use insect netting. It lets 95% of the sun and rain in but keeps the white flies out.
You are 100% right on the amount you can produce when you get everything right, but that takes a lot of experience that can only come with time. You know you are getting good at it when you need to also start figuring out how to preserve it.
For example, I had to learn how to make Sauerkraut a few years ago once I fixed the bug problem. The other thing to get good at is staggering the maturity time of various plants so they are harvested at a similar rate as your normal consumption. Plus increase the variety of plants. I have a brassicas plant zone (all need the same bug netting) but there are a number of very different vegetables within that type.
Everybody’s climate, soil, and food preferences are different, so there is just a lot of trial and error. Plus the weather can throw a curve ball. Last year we had a freak windstorm that blew most of the apple blossoms off the tree. We went from 10 grocery bags to just 2 bags of apples last year. We didn’t need to make apple sauce last year as a result but we still had about 10 jars from the year before, now gone.
Be aware that that all leftists are striving for a return to feudalism.
Most lack the self-awareness, but that is mostly the point.
Once you reject democracy and capitalism, you land on feudalism.
A few better people shall rule (also called fascism).
A few very rich people ruling a lot of poor people.
The welfare state will wither away (duh, it had to happen).
The most galling part is being lectured that nullities like Hunter Biden deserve to be favored. Teeth-grinding time.
We are blessed. Started one large garden in 1985, and have added a slightly smaller one very close to our home. Still eating onions and potatoes fresh from last season. Lots of canned, dried, and frozen veggies and fruit still in the storeroom. Bananas and oranges are about the only fruits we cannot grow/store. Truly blessed. (and I actually remember ‘Victory Gardens’, so that tells how ancient I am.
Your installed leaders will not suffer one bit. My bet is if they lose in their next election another installment will be made.
Remember, after the nuclear blast, wait 24 hours before you go out and tend to your garden.
You must be with the EPA. /s
Maybe they should buy their fresh vegetables from the Netherlands. Or better yet just eat bugs.
The folks who have contributed to making this happen need to pay a price.
Seems like the green agenda is not so green
What do they mean when they say the Brits are being forced to ‘switch of greenhouses’?
What are they switching off?
They are switching off their CO2 generators, which generate CO2 by burning natural gas.
CO2 generators? Leo, what do you mean CO2 generators?
Well, believe it or not, plants grow best at CO2 levels between 1200 and 1400 ppm…more than triple what we currently have…no joke. We are currently living in a CO2 drought.
Watch this presentation/lecture by Princeton’s William Happer…it’s about an hour long, but very entertaining and educational…
Trust me you will be astounded…
This is the baffling part to me. Why don’t people question the climate cult based on this fact alone? We need CO2 to survive.
I would guess a lot of people don’t know that we need CO2 to survive.
Sharon:
Decades ago, I abandoned the superstition that leftists care about science.
Save yourself the hard work and aggravation.
Leftist dogma will carry the day. Always.
But I admire the sad souls, on the fringes of science, like Jordan Peterson, who continue to curse the darkness.
Perhaps, after many broken lives, another enlightenment will occur to the western world.
The Hegelian superstition, that progress can only be one-way, will be broken down by a great thinker.
A huge hill to climb.
All great suggestions and little tidbits. However one thing missing is water. Sawyer products make great water purification squeeze bags that make a big difference. Very light portable and completely reliable. Veggies are good and all but if you ain’t got water to drink it won’t matter how well stocked you are.
Also as my name tag suggests learning to set a snare or two may be pretty handy to master. Especially if you like fresh rabbit or squirrel. And learning to dry meat would be a pretty marketable skill as well. Weird times for sure but not by any means insurmountable!!
Stuff like this will happen until at least 70% of the population wakes up and fights back. It is going to take a lot of hunger and little money to shock people out of the green new deal dogma.
I watched the vid from The Daily Mail. The clip started out with some wanker stating “With Climate Change…”
My sympathies grow smaller by the day.
There’s an L shape from ND straight down to TX and then across the South that:
a) has just about had enough of this and
b) contains a hell of a lot of the farmland and oil and gas that the Northeast US depends on
MTG has a solution for that.
Eggs $9 a dozen
Better to buy a pregnant chicken?
I understand the origin and philosophy of “victory gardens” (i.e., free up resources for “the front” so we can achieve victory). However, this time around I think they should be called “survival gardens”, because we are no longer striving for victory, but planning desperately to stay alive as the world crashes down around us.
Or perhaps they should be called “home farms”, because that’s what they are. And I would warn any government stooge not to come and “reapportion” my harvest to “more deserving people”. Who deserves my help is for me to choose, and no-one else.
Thank you. I have been a bit confused about why the phrase “victory garden” has been used.
The Land Was Everything: Letters From An American Farmer
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-684-84501-2
The leftists think they want to see gardens on every empty plot of land.
The intent is the opposite – to regulate the food supply for everyone.
The most effective method to fight the Power would be to supply seed to everyone.
May I suggest that nothing could be more subversive to leftist plans for control than simply feeding the poor?
I dunno how stupid English bureaucrats are compared to U.S. FEDGOV bureaucrats but they must be pretty high on the scale of intense stupidity to create starvation in the midst of plenitude.
For hundreds of years during the summer months crop circle formations have been appearing everywhere on the earth, but most especially in the British Isles. A little child knows that there is more intended by these appearances than merely curious entertainment. You’d think some of these high-dollar bureaucratic a**holes would get a clue.
Take a look, and pay special attention to the formations that appeared just prior to 9-11 in 2001. If you’ve lately had the strong impression that the human experience on planet earth is coming to a head, you are not alone:
https://temporarytemples.co.uk/crop-circles/2022-crop-circles