Why I "Do gardening"

While any given photo may be worth 1000 words. The caption on this says volumes
"A kilogram of chicken pictured next to 14,600,000 bolivars, the equivalent of 2.22 USD, at a mini-market in Caracas"

The difference?

Our paper money (for now) is worth more than their paper money. But it is all paper, eh?

Not only is a garden a good source of nutritious food, food that you know is chemical free and clean, but it can be a real lifesaver in case all that paper goes bad.

Next summer, whenever it gets here, is the time for me to attempt no-till gardening.... Gonna be fun.

 

My summer vegetable garden is about played out with the heat.

It's time for white and red radishes

 

Is that a chicken or a turkey ? Looks like a pretty good sized chicken if it is one. What brand chicken is it ? Just asking for personal knowledge. So is that what a chicken is worth there in US dollars,,,$ 2.22 ??

 

We all tend to forget that the definition of money is "the medium of exchange" and it is only "worth" what people will exchange for it. Paper, silver, gold, sea shells, huge round rocks, etc, all are "worth" exactly what people will exchange for them and have no real "use" value. The chicken however can be traded for something else or eaten and will always have that value. Now the problem is that the chicken has to be eaten now, money is a store of value, can not be easily divided, money is and we have a whole system of coins,etc, only has value to someone who wants chicken and wants it now and has something you want now, with money you get an object that can be used to "buy" some other good that you want in the future even if the person that wants the chicken has nothing you wish to trade for in the present. In the real world, the value of the chicken without refrigeration and the value of the stack of money with no one taking it will be the same in 3 days, nothing.. In my mind and I admit I am an old fart and my thoughts have little value in today's world, 5 pounds of beans, rice, bullets, etc, set up for long term storage, are a better source of value than money. You can eat it, if things fall apart others will need to eat as well, you can sell one bullet or 1 cup of rice, etc. Need to keep "money" for the idiots who are stuck on the concept, tax collectors, power suppliers, grocery stores, etc, and most of the "real" world we live in before things collapse. Has worked for a long time in the USA, but since the "value" is only what people think it is worth, and the powers that be have both the ability to "create" it and to declare your store of value "illegal" , you can not "hoard" rice and it will be taken from you, or you "need" a license and have it "inspected" before you can trade it, we still have not been able to figure out a fool proof way of handling the problem. There are many examples of systems failing and money having no value, but there are just as many examples of storing goods failing as well, floods, fires, rioting mobs, exceeding the storage time limits, etc.
We are several thousand years into the use of this system called "money" and as I see it we still haven't gotten all the problems worked out yet. For most of us, in this real world, money works and is the accepted solution for a problem and we live with it History has shown that in the long run it doesn't work, but in the long run I will be dead and I will let those alive then worry about its failure.

 

Well, it's not only 'socialist' galloping inflation, but a good ol' fashion free market depression, that is as like to ruin one's days, weeks, months and years...the post 1929 stock market crash world depression being a case in point (made worse by trade barriers and tarrif walls, but that's a discussion for a different thread....)

There are many reasons to keep a kitchen garden at one's home.

1. Growing your own fruit and vegetables will enable basic subsistence if supply chains and distribution networks are disrupted.

2. Growing your own will enable you to conserve some money for other purposes.

3. A garden, if using heirloom, non hybrid seeds will offer some independance from seed companies if seed saving and other plant propogation methods are used.

4. Surplus produce can be preserved for conumption out of season, sold or bartered for produce you do not have in your garden.

5. Bartering / trading produce can strengthen relationships in a community / neighbourhood.

5. Donating produce can be an effective way of giving charity that doesn't adversely affect one's cash reserves.

6. Processed garden products like jellies and conserves make wonderful personal gifts.

7. Gardening is theraputic...for the body and one's psyche.

8. Gardening is a good complementary activity for keeping small livestock...(rabbits, goats, chickens (and other poultry) bees, auaculture etc.

9. if cleverly and cunningly done, a shrewd selection of plant varieties may be a hedge against theft or confiscation of food from one's pantry or other storage. Think guerilla gardening on your own property using plant varieties that may not be commonly ifentified as food...or require special processing unfamiliar to others.

10. Many weeds are edible, or can be used as cut and drop mulch to improve soil fertility.

11. Your garden may become your pharmacy should regular phamaceuticals be unavailable.

12. Keeping a garden will help other gardeners by helping to provide plants to keep pollinators going...especially throgh winter.

13. Gardenening allows some relaxing, meditative time to think, to scheme, to plan, and to plot...

14. A garden is a good place to grow, nurture and develop children...as well as plants.

15. A garden provides good cover for intelligence gathering and neighbourhood surveillance.

16. Being in the garden enables one to look at one' s property from the point of view of an infiltrator, attacker....a good way of doing a ground appreciation and wargaming 'what ifs?'. It also affords regular opportunities to check and audit camouflage, concealment and deception programs / arrangements. Also a good way of regularly checking light, reflection and smoke discipline.

17. Homestead garden is a good way of strengthening homestead defences by incorporating the garden design into the defensive design for battle. Think Hugel culture as a way of concealing anti vehicle berms...and selective plantings of plants that have a dual food / anti personnel capability.

18. The garden is a good place to cache items that might be easily discovered in one's dwelling / outbuildings.

19. The garden is a good place to absorb vitamin D, but that should be balanced against the risk of skin cancer.

20. The garden is a good place to indulge in vices such as smoking, drinking and swearing that one's significant other may not approve of.