Plan B Forum

I like it!!!!

That's lovely, in areas where the climate and pests don't make it nearly impossible to grow plants to maturity and harvest a reasonable amount of undiseased produce. My mother has been an urban gardener for over 60 years and is about ready to cover every square inch of dirt with patio stones because the last ten years have been an exercise in frustration and disappointment. The raccoons and the rabbits and squirrels and the rats and the mice and the bugs and the lice and the fungus are making it next to impossible to get decent crops without chemicals in the three months that she can (usually) count on to be frost free.

Good for them. They have taken a different path and made it work for them. A lot of work. Hard work every day. Work with no vacations and few days off. Sweaty work under the searing hot S. Calif. Sun.


I admire them a great deal (jokes about hard work aside) in part because it is something which keeps the family together. Each child and adult has a job which they know is important to the welfare of everyone, a job which they know that if it is done well or done poorly it is of real consequence.


One plus is that they are in an exceptional climate and can grow things 12 months of the year. Pasadena is also one of the prettier areas in S. Calif. A minus is the drought which is likely to be an ongoing issue.

yrs,
rubato

Scooter wrote:That's lovely, in areas where the climate and pests don't make it nearly impossible to grow plants to maturity and harvest a reasonable amount of undiseased produce. My mother has been an urban gardener for over 60 years and is about ready to cover every square inch of dirt with patio stones because the last ten years have been an exercise in frustration and disappointment. The raccoons and the rabbits and squirrels and the rats and the mice and the bugs and the lice and the fungus are making it next to impossible to get decent crops without chemicals in the three months that she can (usually) count on to be frost free.

I think in the Canadian climate backyard hunting would be the equivalent. Sounds like she has a lot of edible game. Buy her an air rifle!


yrs,
rubato

nice that their town allows poultry and livestock.

I d love to have a few chickens and a few rabbits for food and fertilizer, not allowed here tho.

well, I might be able to keep a rabbit or two, but poultry is banned. some do have them tho, and there is at least one goat in town.

My parents kept chickens in the 50s, when they first came from Italy. But within a few years it became illegal to keep them unless zoned agricultural. They would occasionally keep live rabbits but unlike chickens, my mother was squeamish about killing them so we'd usually get them at Italian butchers who carried them.

We didn't live in a neighbourhood where Italians were very heavily concentrated, but where they were, you could tell which houses had Italian families because they had replaced their front lawns with vegetable gardens. Again, something that probably became verboten as the years went by.

My dad did make his own wine and I still do that for everyone.

This has been one the worst growing seasons on record for this area,most of the successful growers in this area use hoop houses or green houses,the rain is not reliable , a lot of days dont have an optimum amount of sun ,the soil is poor ,despite being fairly close to the Shenandoah Valley ,the farming conditions are not so optimal,my outside garden has been a disaster this year,the nights have been mostly too cool for the the veggies to thrive ,can only hope the next year is better,seems like the weather is not the same any more ,anything to that ?

Well I watched part of the video(work beckons ) a victory garden on steroids ,the dedication of these Folks is amazing, pretty cool .

Yes, this appears to be a wonderful "back to nature" endeavor but how sustainable can it be?

Three (or more) people working more than 9 to 5 with $20G a year in produce sales. And then there is the cost of feed to keep the animals healthy. Then utilities and resources. Even if the "farm" carries no mortgage I'm thinking the yearly tax bill for (almost) an acre of land in Pasadena CA would have to exceed $6G. And is it zoned residential, commercial, or agricultural? That tells me that these people would also need to have other jobs in order to have a sustainable existence.

Maybe this project is also supported by state and federal grants, and environmental and educational foundations -- I don't know. Regardless, these "urban farmers" must be exhausted, mentally and physically if things are really as they are as presented solely by this news report. I can't see how they keep it going.

As granny would say, "there's more to this than meets the eye."

There is a good reason why my extended family includes four 'family farms' with one family dependent on a full time job in town, and the other three working for cash crops and all of them buying nearly all of their eats at a grocery store just like a big city family. Two of them don't even try for home-grown tomatoes.

(((((snailgate)))))

To be truthful, the "sustenance " farms went out of vogue a good while back,like Ray mentioned ,there is a little more going on here then meets the eye,I have a feeling grant money is involved,there must be plenty of flys around that place ,not to mention the neighbors bitching about the smell ,its a wonder that Guy could get His daughter on board to work on the family farm.
People around here that put up "Hoop Houses " got a fair amount of grant money ,now I have a suspicion that these Folks dont have an idea of whom they will be raising produce for in the near future.
I dont give that much creedence to conspiracies as a whole ,but I have this nagging feeling that probably within my lifetime there is going to be a big upset in the "status quo" in the "US " and the rest of the world.Might be a good time to be "On the beach " mate .

hey scooter , kevin...

...I ve been meaning to get back to you guys....

ray, BP, I ll read your posts thoroughly the next time I m on the 'puter...

scooter, I don t know if your mom is still around, I hope so, or if she still would like a garden....

...or if you have interest in a small garden ..., but if so, maybe I have a few ideas about the creepin' crud that builds up and attacks your garden after awhile, and about dealing with it.

there is a solarization technique that may help cleanse the soil, and certain crop rotations and ways that you SHOULD NOT rotate crops that can effect certain spores and such.

solarization is simply covering the tilled crop area with a transluscent poly ethylene plastic material and allowing the sun s UV rays to sterilize the soil, probably for a year in canadia....

similar to the technique of hanging water in plastic bottles, in the sun for a day, to sterilize it, as is now being done in some desperate places in Africa, and perhaps elsewhere...

kevin....

rain barrels, man !!!! rain barrels , I say !

I have 4 set up now, and they are my gardens saving grace.

I put water cocks in the bottom of a couple of them and I just move the hose around to where I need it at the time and open the cock!

plus, I am lucky , in that I can channel some natural run off into garden.

rain barrels are really easy and inexpensive.

I did fabricate some covers for them this year, what with the zika virus and all......

...oh, and I have to agree with whomever suggested dining on wild game as a solution to the animal problem.

rabbit is yummy and wild rabbit is even tastier, if a bit tougher....

I used to trade my squirrels for shotgun shells to an old black guy, and have never actually tasted squirrel..., but he liked em.....