Fear of Economic Collapse Prompts More Americans Toward Home Grown Food Sources

Dear Readers,

I’m back after a frustrating week as malware, trojans, and viruses rendered my laptop into a very expensive nightlight.  It wasn’t good for much else these past several days.  There was a Windows 7 anti-virus product that bypassed my firewall (of course that’s an easy feat when the virus maker is also the firewall designer) and prevented me from getting on the internet.  The only cure for it was to pay them $59.95 for their anti-virus product, which was the very thing that seemed to cause the problem in the first place.  I flat refuse to participate in extortion.  By the end, I was so frustrated with Microsoft that I was on the verge of spray painting my next blog post on the side of their corporate building.  Luckily, the trip to Seattle would have provided a cooling off period.  Virus eliminated without purchase of software.  Time to move on.

Back to the subject of America’s trend toward opting out:  In my conversations with folks of all ages and income brackets, I see a definite break down into two broad groups:  Those making more than $100,000 per year, and those earning less than that.  Those that are making less are the focus of these recent posts.  Every last person I speak with mentions some cost-cutting or money-saving endeavor they’ve employed in the last year, from coupon clipping to driving less, even supplementing their family’s food supply by one or more of the following methods:  hunting for deer or fowl or small game; starting a garden at home; or raising chickens.  Spending less, recycling and reusing things, has become a new way of life out of necessity, even for those who are not “green at heart”.   However, it is the food supply issue that I find most interesting.

What makes this startling is that the people who tell me they hunt game, grow food, and raise chickens are city dwellers, most of whom have small yards and close neighbors.  If they hunt they have to drive at least two hours to an area where they can hunt whatever game is in season.  They are proud and pleased to fill the freezer with several months’ worth of meat when they are successful.  It’s wonderful to hear the pride they feel toward their own self-sufficiency, especially when they save even more by butchering their own game, rather than paying a butcher to do it for them.

Those with no green space in which to grow vegetables will at least grow herbs in containers.  One innovative Brooklyn woman has created what she calls “Window Farms”.  It’s a brilliant solution for apartment dwellers who wish to have fresh, organic produce year round.    She made the first ones from recycled plastic bottles, plastic tubing, and a small pump.  Her website, http://www.windowfarms.org, provides photographs, descriptions, downloadable instructions and materials lists, as well as the opportunity to buy the first manufactured versions of these hydroponic growing systems when they come off the line in March.  This idea is perfect for people with no ground of their own to garden.

Another grass roots organization that started in the 70’s is the largest non-profit, non-government seed saving and sharing organization in the U.S.:  Seed Savers Exchange.  Their focus is on food-producing plants that are heirloom or open-pollinated, as opposed to hybrid plants.  Heirloom and open-pollinated plants can be reproduced if you save their seeds properly and plant them the following year, or in some cases, if you let the seeds fall to the ground and grow where they may.  Hybrids, however, do not reproduce the same plants from which their seeds come.  Some are bred not to produce seeds at all.  Anyone looking toward a more self-sufficient life would be wise to invest in a garden that does not require one to buy new seeds every year, but rather one that can reproduce itself year after year.  You can read more about Heritage Farm by visiting:  http://www.seedsavers.org.  And here is the best book I’ve found thus far on seed saving, which is also recommended by the Seed Savers organization:  Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth.  Vegetable gardeners are the intended market for this book, as opposed to say flower gardeners.
On Facebook as well around town, I see more home-owners have taken old windows and leftover wood from home renovations and re-used them to fashion cold frames where they grow lettuce and other things they’d like to eat fresh.  Cold-frames extend the growing season by a few months in some areas, allowing the gardener to begin earlier and end later.  This trend is not limited to those making less, by the way.  I’ve seen cold frames in the yards of some very expensive homes in my area.

Edible Landscaping is another trend in the U.S. in which city dwellers and suburbanites alike turn their yards into esthetically pleasing produce gardens.  The yard can be filled with gorgeous, flourishing vegetable plants like kale and lettuces and tomatoes and peppers and herbs, instead of blue fescue.  There are a few good books on the topic, such as Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy, or The Edible Front Yard by Ivette Soler.  Something I hope to do someday is covered in Landscaping With Fruit by Lee Reich.  Blueberry hedges and strawberry ground covers...yum!  Another garden style I want to try is Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway because it employs the permaculture approach and the result is a "forest garden", a natural habitat that is populated by birds and animals that balance it out and help it function.  This approach takes time but not more space than the average yard, and results in a mostly self-maintaining garden.  Any of these books will get you started, and there are myriad others to get lost in over the winter.  Let the garden planning begin!  It's so much more optimistic than paying attention to the things that we cannot control.

Organic, fresh produce (from backyard to kitchen, it’s hard to get fresher than that) is now grown by more non-rural dwellers because they have decided that they don’t want to buy from the grocery store anymore, or wait for the weekly farmer’s market.  They want the satisfaction of knowing they are saving money and eating healthy, and that the quality meets their standards.  When we grow our own produce, we get our produce when we want it, in season, without having to rely on anyone else for the funds or the food, once the seeds are purchased.  There are plenty of local seed exchanges across the country, so once you start you will have something to trade and money will be even less of an obstacle. 

Those of us who enjoy digging in the dirt as well as the satisfaction of our own harvests would do this anyway, but the growth in this trend seems motivated by an underlying “What if…?” sentiment that pervades the majority of American minds now.  What if I lose my job?  What if the stock market crashes?  What if my assets lose their value?  And The Big Question:  What if the economy crashes?  The answer these hunters and gardeners give us is this:  “I can still eat.  No matter how silly the government gets, no matter how lame Congress becomes, even if I lose my job, I will be able to feed myself and my family.” 

Thanks for checking in!

Tomorrow’s topic:  Micro Flocks, better known as Backyard Chickens.