Grow Your Own Food - Eat Locally

My Buff Orpington layer flock (a batch of chicks I acquired in June of 2019), along with 4 Heritage Rhode Island Reds, and 3 Barred Rocks make a total of 25 laying hens.  They are watched over by 3 Buff Orpington Roosters.  This flock is about to be joined by 19 Buff Orpington pullets and 1 cockerel from the October 2019 batch of chicks.

I’m currently getting an average of 15 eggs a day.  When the pullets begin laying eggs that will  potentially double over time.

So far I only have one egg customer and am trying to use up eggs as quickly as I can.  I also give eggs away to anyone who comes to visit.  I’m hoping to get more paying customers in order to offset the cost of grain.  I see people looking at the sign as they go by, but people have gotten into the habit of buying everything in one place, in large corporate owned warehouse or grocery stores.

That’s something we need to have a conversation about.  If you’re my age, you remember that a lot of grocery stores were owned by people who lived in the community.  Remember that?  If you don’t it’s because the mom and pop stores of yesteryear are all but extinct.  That actually came about from a corporate business practice of moving into a community and underpricing products to drive smaller businesses out.  Once they have eliminated the local competition, they can now raise prices and offer products of their choice.  Not necessarily products that people in the community want or need, or are good for the community.  People get used to the “choices” that are being “offered” to them and eventually they will buy what they are “told” to buy.  That’s why we no longer have fresh local bakeries, local butcher shops, and local grocery stores in every community.  That’s why local nurseries have mostly disappeared.  Book stores...All the local businesses that used to make up “Main Street” and “Downtown” in towns and cities, are all gone.

Okay, so what?  Where am I going with this?  This is not a nostalgic stroll down memory lane for me.  There is a point to that last paragraph.  The point is, what happens when we have a pandemic (like the one we’re facing right now) that impacts the supply chain of food?  When people panic, they hoard.  They stockpile.  And that creates a problem because suddenly food becomes scarce.

So what to do now?  Plant food.  Right now.  Plant in window boxes, on balconies, on patios, in gardens and vacant lots.  Learn to forage.  Get cities and towns to plant food plants instead of ornamentals all over the place.  Trees that bear fruit.  This is really important.  When I went into town for my usual shopping trip, I wasn’t thinking about stocking up.  But I noticed the shelves were a little barer than usual.  When I started talking to someone stocking shelves at the co-op, he told me how Corona Virus was causing interruptions in the supply chain.  I hadn’t thought about it.  My response was to buy some quick growing cold weather crop seeds.  It’s still cool here, but I could get seeds started and transplant them out.  Things that grow at this time of year will be mature in 45 days.  That’s mid to late April.  I realized that there is no time to waste here.

So I want to encourage everyone who can to grow what they can.  The smaller the space, the more intensive food production you can potentially get out of it.  No space is too small.  And we can all be a bit more creative about what we think of as a garden.

Why aren’t we growing more food locally?