possibilities and probabilities

[bookwormom]

not much talk anymore about SHTF scenarios, until the next disaster. Here are a few things to consider: Does anyone consider famine, and I mean real famine, people starving to death on a big scale, a possibility? I have mentioned it to some folks and now they do not talk to me anymore. My new garden is less than three years old. It still is in lousy shape. Of course if I had used "fertilizer" I would never have noticed just how poor and worn out the soil really is. who gives it a thought that we are eating and drinking oil? that the petrochemical industry is what keeps modern agriculture going, that our present overabundance is due to heavy applications of unnatural fertilizers. What will happen if for some reason or other farmers can not get those fertilzers? corn will be knee high and sickly yellow and bear nothing. I know, I have seen it because I keep an eye out for things like that. I have seen cornfields that were fertilized a little sloppy around the corners and that is what the corn looked like there, while the rest of the field looked just great. what will happen if for some reason the transport system fails for just a season? you can use your own imagination. How much food does our governent store? a years supply? nope.
I read the Bible sporadically but regularly, and the verse saying"...and the Earth shall not bring forth its increase..." hit me right between the eyeballs. (now if I could remember which book it was in). without fertilzer the Earth can not bring forth its increase, I would have had to starve if I had had to rely on my garden for food this past year. I hope I will get our place built up so it can support us. When I see all the people milling about, all the people in all the cars on my rare trips to the big city, it gives me the creeps. What I am wondering is, why does nobody want to consider the possibility? we are such sitting ducks, why do we think it can not happen here? Because I am afraid it will happen here.

[zebraman]

Hey Guys;This has been my #1 concern for many,many years.We All know this is coming and if you haven't been paying attention The Conglomerate "Monsanto" has been buying out Seed Companies world-wide.As soon as they buy them out they drop ALL Open Pollinated varieties and offer Hybrids Only.They just recently bought out Burpee Seeds.When this Company has the worlds supply of seeds they will be able to charge anything they want.Think Enron!
This is why I have spent the last 25 years growing and collecting open pollinated crops including grains and everything else.I also have large sealed containers of OP seeds at my disposal.
When you look at the Whole Picture All the seemingly Insane things that are going on in the world,ie.The White list,NAIS,GMO proliferation,Unchecked Immigration,Fraud on a global scale it becomes Crystal Clear.
This is only going to get worse!-

[kawalekm]

Hi Bookwormom
You've hit the nail right on the head. *Today's food production/distribution industry is the biggest, most complex in the world, but it is precariously based on cheap oil. You need lots of fuel to get the ground plowed, seed planted, and more fuel at harvet time. *Additional fuel is required to make the fertilizer to keep the plants green, and fuel again to get the food to your local store. Take away the fuel and you take away everything, and people will starve. *

I'd say, get to work on your garden NOW! *Get it up to shape and producing now. *As for using some synthetic fertilizer, I don't think it is an enherently evil thing to do if its approached correctly. *If your land is old and worn out, use the fertilizer first to build up green cover crops, clover for example. *Grow this for a season and then till in the whole cover, letting it rot in the soil. *Use just enough fertilizer to get the green cover growing so it doesn't leach into the ground water. *Focus on increasing organic matter and good drainage. *Once you've got organic matter back, you can get rid of the chemical fertilizer. *Just continue to replenish organic matter from your compost pile.

One of my answers to food production is permaculture. *I've already got about 45 trees in the ground and will eventually plant up to 100+. *I starting on traditional fruits and nuts like apples, peaches, plums, almonds, pecans, and walnuts, but I also want to experiment with more unconventional foods like jujube, mesquite, carob. *Read Bob Rodale's book "Saving Three Lives". *Although he focuses on hunger in Africa, the same principles can be applied here. *I'm trying to grow mesquite and carob here because they produce high protein pods that can be ground into meal, analgous to the "famine foods" that Rodale talks about. *I'm also planting nitrogen fixing trees like Black locust that I can copice for firewood.

It's not completely hopeless though. *Look at China. *They can feed a billion people (most of the time) with less land and less industrial support. *The difference is they have the extra labor to supply the back breaking work to replace the machines. *China with intense manual labor can almost equal American productivity on an acre by acre basis. *We can probably do it even better ourselves because America has more good farmland than China does. That's what we'll do with all the idle people you see standing around.

[bookwormom]

hi Kawa
do you find it downright scary too, that hardly anyone seems to be even interested in the topic?
thanks for all the tips and recommendations. I have been treating my garden like a sick horse since we moved here, keeping it in green manure cover crops, mulch, manure, compost, anything I can get my hands on. I also used a liquid fish fertilizer on it. Things do not go as fast as we would like. I have sowed it in buckwheat and sunflowers, beans and clover , also winter wheat. From my observation I figure we can forget raising enough food to feed everybody in the nation, no matter how much manpower there is available (and is ready and willing to do the labor). China and Europe have practiced farming techniques for many centuries , as a matter of fact millennia, that maintained soil fertility. Europe however has followed the ways of modern agriculture and what was maintained for hundreds of years has been destroyed in less than two generations. I have no idea if China is still practicing the old ways, they put everything back into the soil, every scrap of humanure. I do not know if "progress" has caught up with them in the meantime. With soil fertility destroyed and no artificial fertilizer to be had, we can dig and hoe all we want to, we will not raise anything. I am not overwhelmed by the people standing around on the corner, but by the sheer masses of city people, out of touch with the natural cycle. Actually here in the country it is not one lick better. Few folks bother to raise food and put it by. I keep an eye open for gardens and talk to people who do have one. I hear things like, you can not grow anything around here without 10-10-10.
we have planted fruit trees, berries and the like. I have ordered more trees. (We do not have enough land to grow 100s). for protein I am afraid we have to stick to beans. Actually quite a few locusts have volunteered since we moved here and I want to transplant new seedlings, as my husband keeps bees. I have never heard of coppicing them, though. It sounds like you live in a warmer part of the country, carob likes a Mediterranean climate, so doubt that it would do well here, but we have loads of oaks and last year there was an abundance of acorns. I was in no position to do anything with them though, no animals yet to feed them to and in projects up to our nostrils. For the next acorn crop I would like to be ready and prepared.
And Zebraman has a really good point about seed availability. I read an article somewhere that it is illegal to swap seeds in some areas. Have no idea if this is indeed so.

[Terri]

The government might not store a years worth of food, but private companies do. We have enough and more than enough to last for a year: Best choice, kellogs, and other companies do not INTEND to run out of raw materials! It would take TWO crop failures to make a famine!

Even then we might go a bit longer: as meat gets more expensive (As the grain the animals are fed gets more espensive) *people will eat less of it, and the corn that is currently fed to cattle can then be sold in the grocery stores.

As for farming without chemicals, I have heard that 25 bushels of grain an acre is a good yield if you use compost and cover crops. That is about 1250 pounds of grain, more or less. (Different grains have different weights per bushel).

For you folks gardening without commercial fertilizers, have you tried planting the plants further apart?

[CarolAnn]

I've been concerned about this too. This week on Wisconsin Public Radio they were discussing the fact that although there are many less farmers, and less land in farm production in the state, by using "modern farming techniques" food production has actually gone up 20% in the last 10 years.

The decreasing land in production is due to the fact that so many farmers are cashing in and breaking up their farms into 5-acre plots to sell to yuppies who want to live in the country. Why farm when you can get a half million dollars for each 5 acre plot?!

The problem is, "modern farming techniques" are based on heavy fertilization, huge machinery, and will eventually kill the soil ecology. Who will feed those yuppies when that happens? They certainly aren't going to be interested in plowing up all those huge grassy yards for gardens, and when the do, (at extreme hunger, when it's too late) they'll probably discover the soil is in pretty bad condition. The won't have the knowledge of what to do, even if they don't loose their homes because of the huge mortgages before they even think of putting some seeds in the ground.

[humbug]

I have a friend who is from the San Joaquin valley in California. This part of the country is a major food producer of fruits and vegetables for the US. We generally make a trip down to visit her mom in January every year. (Kind of a little break from winter). I am amazed at how much of this quality farmland is being sold and being replaced by subdivisions. It is as if people are not looking ahead to the future of our food supply in this country. Very unsettling. I do garden, for the most part organically. But every gardener has crop failures. Developing your own food supply should definately be the goal of every self reliant minded person. I use open pollinated seed when possible and try to save my own seed. "Climatized" seed like this will do better where you live. But it does take awhile to get your own personalized system in place.

[bookwormom]

that is nice for Kelloggs, but I am not talking about a single cropfailure, which happens here and there, but the SHTF scenario. The trucks are not running to get the food to you. Stores are empty, no deliveries.
I think I'll change my name to Cassandra.

I have been working without fertilizer for 37 years. this is the seventh garden I am nursing back to health. I hope I will get to stay with this one. I am used to superabundance with highest quality. when my daughter moved out and had to do go shopping she called home,because the quality was not what she was used to from home. she said, Momma, when you do things organically the fruits and vegetables are suppposed to be nicer and better right? she was referring to measly produce in a healthfood store and was just too astonished. why should I plant farther apart? I always planted in beds and they spilled over with good food.

[Archangel]

There is fringe survival group that was selling seeds a few years back. They believe a rough plant comes by every 10,000 years and is due. The seeds contain no hybrids and are setup for storage. I can not remember the name of the group if anyone is interest I will find it after the holidays. Michael

[AlchemyAcres]

For you folks gardening without commercial fertilizers, have you tried planting the plants further apart?

Generally, exactly the opposite....close spacing for most veggies, grains, etc......I practice a combination of French Intensive/Biointensive, Permaculture and Holistic Management.
There are 8 essential aspects to Biointensive gardening/Farming...
Double-Dug, Raised Beds
Composting
Intensive Planting
Companion Planting
Carbon Farming
Calorie Farming
The Use of Open-Pollinated Seeds
A Whole-System Farming Method

Biointensive makes it possible to grow more food using...
67% to 88% less water
50% to 100% less fertilizer
99% less energy than commercial agriculture, while using a fraction of the
resources.

Biointensive techniques can also:
Produce 2 to 6 times more food
Build the soil up to 60 times faster than in nature, if properly used
Reduce by half or more the amount of land needed

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/13/HO126062.DTL

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/2006-November/025197.html

~Martin :)



Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duit.

[kawalekm]

I remember some time ago (before Katrina) I was getting a haircut and casually stated to the stylist that I had started storing water and supplies in case of an earthquake here in Southern California. She actually got hostile! Of course I focused on this because she was standing over me with sharp objects in her hands. She was DEFINATELY a "the government will take care of us" type. To me this was very sobering. She couldn't even comprehend that it should be her own responsibility to insure her own welfare. I don't know if even recent events like Katrina could wake up people like that. I think there is something in peoples basic psycology that prevents them from coming to terms with bad news or less than obvious threats.

For me, I think one of my strengths is being able to predict the results of events based on human behavior. Katrina only illistrates what I am already expecting to happen if a larger scale event takes place. That's why I'm preparing my own retreat (vacation cabin to those with their heads in the sand). As I hinted to Bookwormom, I live in the Sierra foothills. It's about USDA zone 8, with mild, cool winter temperatures no less than 15-20 degrees F and long dry summers with about 20 weeks without rain. We have quite a large plot of land that used to be used for cattle grazing, and I am in the process of replanting trees that all produce something edible. Eventually I want the cabin to have a roof water collection/storage system, and solar panel electrical system to make our retreat as self-sufficent as possible. Except for the droughty summers, its in a very good location to be self-sufficient. The weather is warm enough for semi-tropicals like figs, pomegranate, and hopefully carob, but cold enough to get apples and pears to flower.

I try to downplay the self-sufficiency angle to the people I'm not close to. Like I mentioned, they can't handle the consequences of SHTF. I just say we're back to nature and are growing organic food. I show them my seedlings, but not all the guns. For the Greenpeace types, I describe my activities as "reclaiming old grazing land" by planting trees. They're all thrilled at that, but its surprising how few volunteers I get to come help plant trees! What I don't say though is all those trees bear something edible to serve as "famine foods" if need be. Because of our dry local I'm focusing some attention on exotics like jujube and pistashio, but am also planting mesquite and white oaks (local trees producing edible pods/acorns). One last thing to add is that most of the seed for everything I'm planting is self-harvested, rather than store-bought. It's one more act of self-relience and also saves money and gives genetic diversity!