I'd rather make someone else do it by offering things in trade. Almost like some kind of barter system. I'll fix your garden tools and equipment just feed me plz.
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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we've got plenty of rich to eat
It's a little late to start a food garden. You won't be getting any harvests for a while, and it won't be much. Best to stock up on shelf-stable goods now, and build community for mutual aid.
It's spring in most of the northern hemisphere and therefore the next months are the best time to start a garden. Yes, chances are that you won't feed your family from it. But it's fun, it is a great way to get fresh food and if you have the option to do it, you should
Oh, yeah. Gardening is lovely, just don't expect to be able to feed yourself (or anyone else) in the immediate future by planting some tomatoes by your kitchen window, starting now. It would be a while before you could harvest, and it would be a very small yield, assuming you get a good healthy crop. A lot of people act like the average Joe or Jane could feed their household and neighbors with minimal effort and a few square feet of free space by their window, when that's just not realistic - at least, not for most people.
It totally depends on your living and garden conditions. If you have the space and the current climate for it you can totally use your garden to save money on groceries. This will not feed your whole household but can help to save some money and make everything more resilient. Plant an apple tree and you will maybe not have apples this year, but in the next year you can get your first apples. My tree is now 4 years old and is growing several kilos of apples every year and will for the next decades. Plant a cherry tree. Raspberries. Redcurrant. Other fruit trees. Those plants will grow every year and provide you with a lot of healthy food and will not take that much time to grow and cultivate. So it is a great time to start - you might get some results later this year, but next year will be great.
All I have is tomatoes...guess that will have to do.
Who wants a kitchen garden?
Who wants to care for a kitchen garden? It's not as simple as putting seeds into the ground and waiting until it grows. You have to dig up the site. You have to water it in a drought. You have to pull out the weed. You might even have to fight against insects, or use fertilizer. 19 out of 20 people I knew had given up on the idea of a kitchen garden.
I am a successful gardener.
You can't and don't want to eat 20lbs of tomato in a week. I use maybe 2-4lbs and the rest of it rots or has to be given away. I'm lucky if consume 1/4 of what I produce.
And that's how crops come in, all at the same time in abundance. It's not like you can pick 4 tomatoes each day and they just hang out for weeks on the vine. There is about a 4-6 week widow in which all the stuff you have spent 5 months growing, is edible off the vine. You start in April and then you don't really get anything until August, and then by Mid Sept, the plants stop producing and are dead by Oct.
And if you want to preserve it, that's a lot more work and you need the space and equipment to store dozens and dozens of jarred/canned veg. And at that point it's no longer a small kitchen garden.
oh and by the way if you give me that 'community sharing!' stuff. no. literally everyone's crops are also coming in at the same time. that's why you see people leaving baskets of veg on the stops all around and nobody takes it, because they already have their own from their own gardens.
That is very different from a commercial farm who is able to have dozens of rotating crops and crop varieties with the expertise to manage it and also the ability to distribute it commercially.
Then there's me who has a black hand. Damned near every plant I've intentionally tried to grow has died, including the sturdy ones.
Also, groundhogs will fuck up your garden, and they dig tunnels and climb fences. You have to basically build a big cage around your garden, floor included.
one of my friend has a pretty elaborate garden setup.
he has a groundhog execution chamber too. he has to gas and kill about 6 of them each year.
I box trap them (they love cantaloupes) and haul them off to a neighboring town. I'm not sure how humane it is since they usually tear off their claws trying to get out of the trap. And momma hog is too smart to go in the trap, so I only get the kids.
Not my garden :) groundhogs don't exist here
A lot of dreamers here who never actually tried to grow something. A lot of YouTube video knowledge but no practical experience.
Its damn difficult to grow your own food. I think buying canned goods and storing them is the best option for almost everyone instead of trying to grow your own.
Growing food isn't hard but takes knowledge and time, and even then there is no way in fuck you can be self sufficient.
I planted horseradish into the ground, neglected it, and it grew anyway.
I agree that people should definitely keep a good store of non-perishable foods in case of hard times, but you also should try to grow food as well. I don't think anyone is trying to say it'll be easy, like anything at first it is difficult. It's definitely worth trying though, if you can and have the space. Like I said, don't go all in as your only option, keep non-perishable foods on hand, like canned goods, or dried goods. If you're able to grow your own food you get fresh fruits and veggies, and you won't use up as many canned goods.
Haha, are you speaking from your own practical experience, in which you failed and decided to buy canned food instead?
It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. It depends on your circumstances.
And there's an in between as well: grow some of your own food and buy canned foods as well. Or share a garden with people who know what they're doing.
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Is this a good time to mention that animal ag is the most wasteful form of food we have? Further, consider capitalism and western rich countries. If the choice is between feedin poor people and feeding cows, what choice will the money make?
I dunno, we grow huge amounts of corn for ethanol to replace 15% of the fuel for cars... And it would be multiple times more efficient (in terms of land use) to cover that area with solar panels and phase out ICEs for EVs.
Natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, which is then used in the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia from nitrogen in the atmosphere. Only about 6% of natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, so even if the price were to rise substantially, we could divert natural gas from other uses and have plenty for making ammonia. We also have other ways of producing hydrogen, it's just that natural gas is more established.
PEM electrolyzers paired with cheap solar in countries with high insolation can now produce hydrogen for less than the cost of natural gas, but we're only recently starting to see the construction of the large-scale green ammonia plants needed to accomplish this. Egypt is currently constructing a 100-MW green ammonia plant powered by solar energy. Even if you didn't have enough PEM eletrolyzers you could still just pass current through some salt water and produce hydrogen, albeit much less efficiently.
It's not going to be a catastrophic issue.
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Most chemical fertilizer is synthesised from LNG.
The two biggest exporters are Russia (sanctioned) and Qatar (all plants shut down)
You should always feel free to grow a garden, but you shouldn’t necessarily expect it to be cheaper than buying food. Especially the first year, if you don’t live in a place where you can just dig up some dirt and chunk seeds in it. Even if you do you should make sure the soil isn’t literally toxic first, especially since it’s common to have a buildup of things like lead or arsenic from now-outlawed fertilizers that can be absorbed by plants.
My grandparents planted maybe half an acre? Of crops for 10 people, and it was supplemental, not a complete replacement. It also takes a lot of work and can go to shit if the weather is bad. You can account for some of this by planting a variety of crops, trying to head off drainage and shade issues before they start, and with supplemental watering. But don’t expect everything to be super productive every year, especially in the age of climate change. My sister had some plants not put out at all last year (peppers).
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Good thing my country exports 90% of its agricultural produce, so if we start getting hungry then we'll just export a bit less.
(We learned the hard way a long time ago when we ran out of potatoes.)
Ireland was exporting food during the potato famine.
Don’t assume your food won’t continue to be sold overseas if the growers/wholesalers can make more money that way.
Ireland was exporting food during the potato famine.
*Britian was exporting food from Ireland during the famine.
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I mean, you exported 90% of your agricultural produce back then, too.
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