07-03-2008, 04:07 AM
A friend of mine wants to plant taro all over the place since she says by the time it's ready to eat there will be a lot of folks who will want to eat it. Seems like some of the best advice I've heard in awhile.
We've cut our trips to the grocery store by half if not more. No need to go to the grocery when there isn't anything we are going to be able to buy. Instead of grocery store stuff, we get stuff in bulk from a food co-op, Azure Standard, but shipping doesn't get cheap until you get together with a bunch of folks and ship it over by boat. We've also been augmenting our food supplies with garden stuff. We've been about holding even with inflation until just lately.
The one thing I've been able to grow really well has unfortunately been lima beans and until lately folks weren't interested in them but yesterday someone came and asked for some. We did start the garden last October, though, it takes awhile before you can start eating from a garden so the folks that are already not able to afford food are going to have some more tough times until their garden produces even if they go out and plant a garden today. Here is the link to the University's seed sales page. Their Home Growers Packets are only $1 and they are varieties designed for our climate. http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed/ Plant a papaya, once it starts making fruit it keeps doing it for a long time. If you want lima bean seeds, just ask, I've got plenty to share.
We haven't had a loaf of store bought bread in a really long time. It was too expensive back when it was $2 a loaf. A friend yesterday told me flour prices were way up, too, though. We will need to get some more soon, too, and will probably go into sticker shock when we see it. Might have to get a grain mill and grind those lima beans into flour. To make inexpensive bread, though, you need to buy flour in twenty or fifty pound bags and buy yeast in one or two pound packages. Buying five pounds of flour and three yeast packets at a time will not save any money on baking bread.
Folks aren't going to be able to continue to eat the way they have been. No more going to the grocery store for all your food. It will be a change in procedures as well as a change in diet.
I've been thinking of getting a milking goat to share with my neighbors. It is too much work to milk a goat twice a day but if I shared with one neighbor and one of us milked in the morning and the other in the evenings then we would both have milk and only half the work. Share it with two more people and we would only have to milk once every other day. We are also considering asking the County for some vacant land near our village to plant a community garden on. Folks are gonna want to eat whatever we produce even if it is just lima beans.
We've cut our trips to the grocery store by half if not more. No need to go to the grocery when there isn't anything we are going to be able to buy. Instead of grocery store stuff, we get stuff in bulk from a food co-op, Azure Standard, but shipping doesn't get cheap until you get together with a bunch of folks and ship it over by boat. We've also been augmenting our food supplies with garden stuff. We've been about holding even with inflation until just lately.
The one thing I've been able to grow really well has unfortunately been lima beans and until lately folks weren't interested in them but yesterday someone came and asked for some. We did start the garden last October, though, it takes awhile before you can start eating from a garden so the folks that are already not able to afford food are going to have some more tough times until their garden produces even if they go out and plant a garden today. Here is the link to the University's seed sales page. Their Home Growers Packets are only $1 and they are varieties designed for our climate. http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed/ Plant a papaya, once it starts making fruit it keeps doing it for a long time. If you want lima bean seeds, just ask, I've got plenty to share.
We haven't had a loaf of store bought bread in a really long time. It was too expensive back when it was $2 a loaf. A friend yesterday told me flour prices were way up, too, though. We will need to get some more soon, too, and will probably go into sticker shock when we see it. Might have to get a grain mill and grind those lima beans into flour. To make inexpensive bread, though, you need to buy flour in twenty or fifty pound bags and buy yeast in one or two pound packages. Buying five pounds of flour and three yeast packets at a time will not save any money on baking bread.
Folks aren't going to be able to continue to eat the way they have been. No more going to the grocery store for all your food. It will be a change in procedures as well as a change in diet.
I've been thinking of getting a milking goat to share with my neighbors. It is too much work to milk a goat twice a day but if I shared with one neighbor and one of us milked in the morning and the other in the evenings then we would both have milk and only half the work. Share it with two more people and we would only have to milk once every other day. We are also considering asking the County for some vacant land near our village to plant a community garden on. Folks are gonna want to eat whatever we produce even if it is just lima beans.
Kurt Wilson
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