I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 28 years, disabled daughter, adult son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!I spent the day canning and as much work as it is, I now have an additional 24 pints of potatoes on the shelves and Mom has 8 for her. It goes a lot faster when two people are doing the work, but even so we were at it for 4 hours with only a five minute break.
I hope to do 20 more pounds in a couple of days, but it depends on whether they have any at the no-spray farm or not. I am still trying to track down more green beans as I'd like to put up another 20 pounds. And I'll need to track down some sweet meat squash as I did not grow any this year, though I've got acorn squash growing. That doesn't keep for 10 months, though, just a few. Sweet meat keeps a long time.
I put in a pretty large order of freeze dried foods. I've been cooking with some of that fairly frequently, especially the chopped onions, celery, carrots, and bell peppers. I find it much easier on days that I have arthritis flare ups or exhaustion caused by the auto immune stuff, that I can still cook without having to peel and chop things, I just have to rehydrate it first.
I will probably do one more order next month when their semi-annual sale is on. That is the time to order the freeze-dried meats because the discount is substantial. They work great in chili, spaghetti, and tacos. And in soups. I like this company a lot as it is all non-GMO certified with almost everything coming from North America, most of it the US.
I'll have to put it on hold after that until DH gets another job. We should be able to pretty much weather six months without having to go to the grocery store except for greens once the garden dies.
Adding to Our Food Storage in Preparation for Job Loss
September 27th, 2017 at 04:14 am
September 28th, 2017 at 01:03 am 1506556999
September 28th, 2017 at 01:37 am 1506559070
I can get vegetables and fruits I don't grow very cheaply in season where I live. Especially ones that have not been sprayed. I live in a very hippie yuppie community, so a lot of farmers use organic practices, but don't want to shell out the money for the USDA certification. Buying them in the winter is far more expensive, although there will be good sales on apples and cabbage and squash through the winter.
When I know the source and I know that there are not additives, preservatives, artificial colors or the exact ratio of sugar or salt in something, it is better. We've had too many food allergy issues to leave that up to chance. I am also preserving at the height of freshness, as opposed to buying "fresh" veggies that have sat on a refrigerated truck for a week going across the country. Although I do still have to do that for greens once the ground freezes. And I do buy strawberries out of season on occasion because I love them.
I could buy non-organic can goods for cheaper, but not organic or no spray ones (except organic tomato sauce).
So long story short, crap garden year and couldn't plant all I wanted. LOL, I think my response here is longer than my original post.
September 28th, 2017 at 12:50 pm 1506599449
September 28th, 2017 at 07:01 pm 1506621713
There are also some limited spray farms as well. There are some orchards that only spray once, sometimes twice if bugs or worms are really bad that year, and it is early in the season. They don't spray at all during the last two months of development.
I worry about the dirty dozen fruits and veggies and some I don't worry about at all, like oranges, lemons, limes, pineapple, and bananas (though I will buy organic bananas if they are the same price, which they often are). Anything with a thick skin. I worry about hormones and excessive antibiotics and am very concerned about GMO. I don't mind hybrids, but that is breeding two varieties together to get a superior, though often sterile offspring. But GMO doesn't do like to like. It does like to unlike, inserting genes from other species into a plant or animal. That bothers me.
So I do my best to find what I can be sure of. If it came down to it, though, if we didn't have the ability to be this picky, we'd do what he had to do to eat. No artificial crap, but conventional fruit, veggies, and meats.
September 29th, 2017 at 07:16 am 1506665767
October 1st, 2017 at 10:28 pm 1506893282