If there's an easy meat that you can grow yourself, it could be chickens. Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition
is probably the best way to get the knowledge covering how to choose a breed, chicken whispering, shelters, feeding and watering, management, eggs, breeding and butchering. Yes, there is blood involved and death. Where do you think chicken comes from anyway? Get over it. Vegetarians are telling you the truth when they tell you "meat is death" but no one is telling you that you must eat meat either.Suburban chicken raising is going to become more common as food prices go up, despite anyone's claims that they're noisy and smelly. Chickens raised in CAFOs of course will smell as well as pollute the nearby water table--but you wouldn't run a CAFO in your back yard, you would clean up after your chickens and limit the number of chickens you own. You have to remember that there was a time before the Piggly Wiggly was invented (and even patented) where you could pick out your branded and prepackaged food on your own. (As a side note, the inventor of Piggly Wiggly later attempted to invent "Amazon" with Keedoozle but was stymied by the lack of technology at the time.)
If you like to eat chickens, consider growing them yourself where you can ensure they're treated well and with respect, kind of like Avatar. But less blue.
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| On the other hand, http://redshirtknitting.com does have a blue chicken. |
Plant something once, enjoy it for years afterwards, this is what perennial plants bring to the table for your food security plan. Includes information for which perennials are good for different gardening zones. Ever wondered what was a edible perennial? Here's a short list:
All Chinese tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant and you can grow it in your greenhouse or home or outdoors in Zone-8 (cultivated in tropical and subtropical climates) regions. If you're growing it from seed, you will need to wait three years before the plant becomes hardy enough to harvest as only the two leaves on the top and buds are picked with every flush while the plant is not dormant.
If you are planting things in the open in a place like Kansas, wind is an issue. A strong gust of wind can break all of your plants in moments. While you could put up mechanical systems, it's better to grow your own. A hoop house will protect everything inside of it, but there are situations where you need to protect more than can fit inside of a hoop house.
Oh boy. Talk about a book that polarizes people. This book talks about the waste of people and industrial society and what you can do about it. Today with Japan's earthquake driven nuclear disaster that threatens to spread radioactive waste around the world, this book calls for even more attention about our desire for "boundless" resources like energy. This book may have points of view that will shock you and make you question your own existence and way of life.