not to dismiss the whole thing, but if I wanted to grow my own food I'd have become a farmer, the literal point of civilisation was that everyone didnt have to grow their own food - ThreadSky

nameshiv.bsky.social • 25 days ago

not to dismiss the whole thing, but if I wanted to grow my own food I'd have become a farmer, the literal point of civilisation was that everyone didnt have to grow their own food

Reposted from Ann Aguirre

For the love of God, if I see one more ',grow your own food' hot take.

Sure, for occasional fresh herbs or a few veggies.

Nobody is growing to their entire caloric intake in an apartment or on a balcony.

Comments

shaynel.bsky.social•25 days ago

Just want to drop this in, bc there are ways to grow lots of veggies on a patio or balcony ...
https://Gardentowerproject.com

shaynel.bsky.social•25 days ago

But the quickest way is to sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box from a local farm.

mattynoshoes.bsky.social•25 days ago

I hear you, but consider: during world war 2, 40% of all American produce came from victory gardens. And home gardens are a lot easier on the environment than industrial agriculture

sardarji.bsky.social•25 days ago

Just wait until the mass deportations happen.

vmcat.bsky.social•25 days ago

it's not bad to grow what you can. many cities have community gardens. if not, start one. it's cheaper & healthier if you can grow some of your own. Also check into co-ops & food buying clubs. Buying in bulk is usually cheaper. Look for community kitchens to make & preserve your own meals. Why not?

jamescalbraith.co.uk•25 days ago

"it's cheaper & healthier if you can grow some of your own" it literally isn't. That's the point. Gardening is a fun hobby, not a replacement for professional farming.

jayethecorvid.bsky.social•25 days ago

And since you shared yours. Enjoy 42l of broad beans (1 week out of 11 they produced this year) we’ve got about 300 passionfruit waiting to be ripe right now, my onion box, and the last round of plums I divided up for the community.

jayethecorvid.bsky.social•25 days ago

I absolutely agree. I help run a community garden and grow the majority of my own veg in the very small “deck” we have out back. My garden beds are made from pallets, the beds were filled with free top soil and compost I made in a tumbler I picked up for free. I collect rain water and use

jayethecorvid.bsky.social•25 days ago

Seaweed and worm wee for my fertilizers. Seaweed as my mulch as well. It’s a free soil conditioner. When I didn’t live by the ocean we just did grass clipping and leaves. I spend maybe 45 minutes a day on my garden. I got tired of stores not having things I needed so now I grow my own.

jayethecorvid.bsky.social•25 days ago

And now I just can’t afford to stop. My groceries for the week are fish, rice, coffee, and things like flour now typically. But I also live in a semi tropical place where I can garden year round and I’m very lucky for that. 60% of the people where I live keep a veg garden as well.

robink.bsky.social•25 days ago

Civilization? That’s not what the 🍊regime has in mind

dantr0nic.bsky.social•24 days ago

srry i have to be the one to ask, and how is that working out, the civilization that is

igor-kitty.bsky.social•25 days ago

I thought abundant grocery store shelves was a good thing? Forever proving that communism f'd up?

ALL. BAD. FAITH.

hollylecraw.bsky.social•25 days ago

Years ago we had a CSA share and after experiencing the tyranny of harvest time, when the veggies wouldn't stop coming, I was like oh ok the grocery store is cool

formicadinette.bsky.social•25 days ago

You just reminded me of the week the entire CSA box was various lettuces.

hollylecraw.bsky.social•25 days ago

Also I had three little kids at the time and like I had not planned to make three gallons of marinara that night

hollylecraw.bsky.social•25 days ago

RIGHT

whaler.bsky.social•25 days ago

YES the beginning of the season was like all salad

opheliainwaders.bsky.social•25 days ago

Turns out “how many ways can you cook zucchini” is “so many, and you’ll be so f’ing sick of it regardless of your creativity.”

burritojustice.bsky.social•25 days ago

January: kale. kale. kale. kale.

hollylecraw.bsky.social•25 days ago

Haha in MA our CSA ended in early November

gencounsnews.bsky.social•24 days ago

Same in Ontario. In October and November, get ready for a million different types of turnips.

also beeeeeeeeets

ccbeta.bsky.social•25 days ago

My former CSA would throw in (mature) dandelion greens when they didn't have enough normie vegetables.

Dandelions do NOT want to be eaten.

colin.hoagie.fun•25 days ago

CSAs are ultimately just a scheme to dispose of bitter greens no one wants by baiting you with 5 tomatoes one week in August

skya.bsky.social•25 days ago

I love my garden. It's a lovely hobby and great exercise in decent weather months. Not to mention that the food from it is so much tastier than I can get at the store. I am however very clear that I am not a farmer and have neither the ability or the desire to become one.

pumpkinpal.bsky.social•25 days ago

Return to subsistence farming is rhetorically as helpful and serious as return to monkey

dahosek.bsky.social•25 days ago

MONKEY BITE YOUR FACE OFF

nameshiv.bsky.social•25 days ago

primate, tyvm

misctakes.com•25 days ago

only losers are monkeys in the time of chimpanzee

spfhockeyfan.bsky.social•25 days ago

Always here for a Beck callout

dampscribbler.bsky.social•25 days ago

constantcait.bsky.social•25 days ago

I've tried growing my own food. I spent a bunch of money on raised beds, soil and drip irrigation, and by the end of the summer, I'd grown 16 delicious cherry tomatoes and one odd-looking cucumber. Hm.

writerjencrow.bsky.social•25 days ago

I grew up on a farm. I have no desire to live that life as an adult.

gonecoastalms.bsky.social•25 days ago

My dad was a farmer. He loved it but he was a big strong guy. I’m soft and squishy. I couldn’t do it. Also the stuff you find in dirt is gross. My point is we can’t survive without community. We need to work together.

anovelbeauty.bsky.social•25 days ago

I tried REALLY hard to grow veggies successfully on my balcony…. I got enough pebble sized potatoes for a small roast, some herbs, and some lettuce leaves that made it past the sprouting and flowering stage. There just wasn’t enough sun. 🥲

lefttheprairie.bsky.social•25 days ago

Begging Americans to learn enough about agriculture to realize they don’t want to do it

mushroomsoupowl.bsky.social•25 days ago

If people don't have experience with growing food, it's a really hard learning curve.

hermes60.bsky.social•25 days ago

even IF someone has the interest & ability
many do NOT have the time or space

xoxohks.bsky.social•25 days ago

What I found totally interesting in Empire by @sathnam.bsky.social was the way slave owners wldn’t allow slaves to grow their own in case they realize any form of independence & also just wanted all labour to be for exploitation. So its deeply political- this growing your own food thing.

bippity.bsky.social•25 days ago

I tried to pocket garden. Composted, had to build a netted enclosure d/t birds and squirrels, battled hookworms/aphids/various fungus. It was soo labor intensive. A ton of cucumbers, handful of chilis, dozen tomatoes, and a lemon was my total harvest.

coquinegra.bsky.social•25 days ago

I do have a balcony garden in the mid-Atlantic most years, and I get a salad or two a year. It was 4°F 2 weeks ago...good luck feeding yourself

arqartur0.bsky.social•23 days ago

I tried the Three Sisters farming technique during Covid.
1. Bad idea in the desert
2. Pigeons LOVE corn.

renyaswitzer.bsky.social•25 days ago

I do love vegetable gardening but I'm extremely aware I live in an area with a pretty short growing season and also my backyard is just not that big.

fourtwo-ohsix.bsky.social•25 days ago

Have worked as a farmer. Hard af. Cannot overstate how happy I am to pay farm workers what they need so I don’t have to do that again

robobearart.bsky.social•25 days ago

The grow your own food thing is ai russian propaganda pushed to polarize us social/marx/capt. I think a lot of people did grow their own food and traded it. But this is a modern day -you dont need money- thing to separate the classes. (Opinion)

spiralisland.bsky.social•25 days ago

Imagine hiring a beekeeper to come pollinate your apartment crops

g-sharp-major.bsky.social•25 days ago

*chirps loudly* https://bsky.app/profile/g-sharp-major.bsky.social/post/3l6ltfi76rg2s

reverendjesus.com•25 days ago

Hey so it turns out subsistence farming fucking SUCKS

acab.dad•25 days ago

Easy for you to say, we don’t all have trucks full of rice show up in front of our houses 😂

badexampleman.bsky.social•25 days ago

I understood that reference dot gif

themilfmag.net•25 days ago

u got shown up son

dr-bread.bsky.social•25 days ago

most people dont even have time to make bread from scratch as a dietary staple.

myanaloglife.bsky.social•25 days ago

I’ve been trying for 6 years now- it’s harder and way more expensive than anyone is willing to admit.
Last year I turned the water system off in August & let the plants go. It gets so overwhelming by midsummer.

torsade.bsky.social•24 days ago

I try every year, but nature offers a lot of competitors for your harvest.

dancinghorse.bsky.social•25 days ago

I just lost it on the facething at a person who grandly declared that THEY can farm their own food and all the other idiots can starve. Not committing the sin of empathy, are they?

shiftercat.bsky.social•25 days ago

How many classic folktales featured sudden famine? You'd think people would clue in.

notaname.info•25 days ago

Shit most farmers would be pushed to "grow their own food" these days. they tend to be specialised and lack the time to grow a balanced diet ( and you know the secondary processing required to turn agricultural product into food )

humblewooper.bsky.social•25 days ago

Especially shelf stable things that can last through the part of the year when things won't grow (AKA winter), or just got planted and won't be ready to harvest for a few weeks/months.

It takes even more secondary processing to shelf-stabilize several months' worth of fresh fruits and veggies.

jasonnlewis.bsky.social•25 days ago

Exactly. Humans became who we are because we cooperate AND specialize.

A lone wolf is a dead wolf. Liddle maga dreams of GI Joe are just childhood fantasies. Kinda like their plan to get a girlfriend.

salthegeek.bsky.social•25 days ago

Come to think of it, there has to be a decent reason that faming isn't more or fully automated right? Like I get why corn is can be harvested by machine but what about other crops ?

jamescalbraith.co.uk•25 days ago

Right now a strawberry picking robot costs about $100-200k, works only with table top systems, and still needs a human to come in after and pick what's left. There are cheaper prototypes, but they will still require professional maintenance. It's much cheaper to just hire an immigrant.

salthegeek.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sorry for the late reply but, whelp. You would think that the tech capital of the world being an hour away from one of the biggest farmlands in the world there would be a bunch of start ups working on automating the whole thing.

jamescalbraith.co.uk•21 days ago

Yeah well that would require the startups to actually want to improve the world instead of just siphoning vc money. Right now most research on this is being done in Japan and Europe, in public institutes.

salthegeek.bsky.social•21 days ago

Tbf, that sounds more like the Farm lobby has stopped a lot of research into it in the US. Not worth the effort if it's just going to get blocked or labeled as "putting farmers out of work".

n0d4chi.bsky.social•25 days ago

Quick google tells me you need about 400m² per person for a vegetarian diet.
Thats surprisingly little i thought.
Though quite far away from 2m² of a balcony lol

lovinglife.bsky.social•25 days ago

But it tastes so much better when you #GrowYourOwn

popelizbet.bsky.social•25 days ago

I have a poem specifically about how my mothers green thumb is not my strong suit I can make food out of scraps and bones but growing it is not my ministry

popelizbet.bsky.social•25 days ago

I will give yhe people who are a ton of bone meal wheb it's making lots of chicken soup time I'm not a monster

wbfmorningstar.bsky.social•25 days ago

I hear you. Still, our library and community gardens are ramping up big time because Trump stealing a few dollars from programs is gonna starve some kids and break some folks who are poorer than I am. If you don't wanna grow, donate some seeds, food, or comfort. (I'll get my hands dirty for you.)

cowgirlcoder.bsky.social•25 days ago

I’m eating spaghetti right now where I milled the wheat, made the noodles tonight, and grew the tomatoes for the sauce. It’s lovely! And I TOTALLY agree with you.

Backyard gardens are lovely! And it would be totally insane to expect everyone/anyone to rely on them for basic rations.

rozennkeribin.bsky.social•25 days ago

The literal point of civilization at this point is that everyone *can't* grow their own food. We've optimized food production an insane extent and largely *converted the gains into making more people*. People that now exist, require food to continue existing & so require the optimization.

cbrbluegreengirl.directioners.social•25 days ago

We grow things that are expensive/hard to find. Kalamata olives, herbs, lemon tree, cherries, berries, rhubarb and the usual easy wins of zucchini and pumpkin. We couldn't live on what we grow

scopicengineer.bsky.social•25 days ago

I saved this Reddit post when people start talking about how easy it is to grow your own food to be self sufficient. The infographic does a good job showing the reality

far-far-away.bsky.social•25 days ago

The amount of land it would take to grow enough food - veggies & grains) to actually feed one person for year (w/o using fertilizer & pesticides) would shock people. The amount of time & effort it takes to can the veggies and grind the grain w/o modern equipment would make them wilt

mangetout.bsky.social•25 days ago

Don't you mock my protein roaches

t-racers.bsky.social•25 days ago

Good god. I have a really nice greenhouse and enough land to grow my own vegetables, lettuce, and herbs, but I can't grow 💩-- I'm only successful at feeding aphids, mites, and horn worms. I do get the occasional super small 🫑🍅🍆... but that's it. One per season.

tvt1999.bsky.social•25 days ago

People are so insistent that we should end civilization cause they think the average person will be able to be self sustaining without help.

Ya'll are just fucking nuts, tomatoes would rather die than live in my home!!!

lorennacleary.bsky.social•25 days ago

What I hate is the assumption that the poor can easily buy soil, fertilizer, lights, planters, seeds and plants and that the disabled are able to manage tilling and managing or even have plots of land for such an event or can grow enough indoors financially.

shaynel.bsky.social•25 days ago

Agreed. The Garden Towers are effective, but not cheap.

https://Gardentowerproject.com

goaskalis.bsky.social•25 days ago

Behold the lowly pencil my ass

rescuelovefoster.bsky.social•25 days ago

It's not always easy, it can be expensive to get ur soil right, water, deal w weather. I've tried, I will grow whatever feels like growing. Pineapples seem to do well, papaya, have 3 lime, 1 orange & 1 lemon tree. Aloe & an occasional green pepper. I didn't even do anything to make this grow lol

ghost-goat.bsky.social•25 days ago

Who is out there growing wheat for flour in their corner lot?
Or even potatoes?
Those things take ROOM.

I grow enough that in a survival situation we would be living the highlife but because we are not in a survival situation I still supplement from the store.

pripyat-princess.bsky.social•25 days ago

yeah i LOVE living in a studio flat where i dont have access to a garden!!

vituperativeerb.bsky.social•25 days ago

Being a subsidence farmer sucked so much people left that to go work 14 hour shifts at the Child Crushing Mills

mjfgates.bsky.social•25 days ago

Well, a lot of that was because their landlords hired thugs to burn their villages and drive them off the land. ("The Troubles" means a different thing in Scotland than it does in Ireland!) But even now that the landlords are dead, the Scots haven't chosen to go back up to the moors to raise sheep.

dhpljm266.bsky.social•25 days ago

It’s worth noting that the Highland Clearances are very much an exceptional case, whereas various systemic economic changes including enclosure are the more typical “push” to the factories’ “pull”

vituperativeerb.bsky.social•25 days ago

Also notable the trend towards urbanization in England begins in like 1600 (so before the big Inclosure Act in 1773) and accelerated even more after the Clearances end, so while those were factors you’re right this is a deeper dynamic

piskyinpresbyland.bsky.social•25 days ago

Those landlords are dead, but their descendants are very much alive and still own the land. Argyll wasn't worst by a long shot but his estate is still vast. Land reform remains sorely needed. Crofting is hard work but there are people who want to do it. The problem is rich folk buying tenancies.

vituperativeerb.bsky.social•25 days ago

They were literally giving land away in the United States and people left the farm to go work as a Testicle Mangler Operator

alewyfe.bsky.social•25 days ago

Me, a former farm kid... had to read twice to realize you meant you were leaving the farm for the Industrial Testicle Mangler Operation. "But, we've got a burdizzo at home!" (ok we didn't but my grandparents did?) I guess that's another point in the "farming, not for everyone" column...

paulmurphyetc.bsky.social•25 days ago

Which was sad because the Deere Corn and Testicle Shucker was just around the corner.

isaac32767.picknit.com•25 days ago

Historians I've read tend to point out that people didn't sign up for CCMs voluntarily. They're forced off their ancestral plots because their landlords want to convert them to more profitable ventures.

Which is not to say that "Save Feudalism from Capitalism!" is something I'd sign up for.

vituperativeerb.bsky.social•25 days ago

I do not think very many American factory workers were forced of their land that the federal government had given them for free

isaac32767.picknit.com•25 days ago

Since you referred to subsistence farmers, I assumed you were talking about the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. Because American settlers were mostly *not* subsistence farmers. And I believe most of American child labor came from immigrants.

vituperativeerb.bsky.social•25 days ago

Ok!

itssynecdoche.bsky.social•25 days ago

Ya, some of us have Teams meetings to attend all day.

cmcarr.bsky.social•25 days ago

I grew up on a farm. We had a huge garden, an orchard, a separate small field of sweet corn, dozens of chickens for eggs/meat (fried chicken didn't come from KFC) & a crew of kids to tend it all. Then there's the canning & storing a year's worth of food. All that before you get to the cooking...

orpach.bsky.social•25 days ago

I don't think any animal beats chickens in effort to food output, but they're still a lot of work to keep.

jinxleah.bsky.social•25 days ago

One of my favorite things to do is garden. I can pull pounds of veggies and herbs out of my garden weekly. Unless it's winter. Or the deer got them first. Or the rabbits. Or of there's drought. Or too much rain.

dxmnkd316.bsky.social•25 days ago

I was curious if this were even possible. I have a standard sub-1/4-acre lot in suburbia. If I converted every bit of vegetation to farming potatoes, I'd get ~400-500 2k-calorie meals per year assuming low end yields.

Anyways, fuck that. I'm not farming or eating a potato for every meal.

piskyinpresbyland.bsky.social•25 days ago

Plus, y'know, blight is a thing.

michael-w-busch.bsky.social•25 days ago

And that's why my great-great-grandpa fled Ireland.

glitterninja.bsky.social•25 days ago

My dad came from a family of farmers and got a Masters in Agriculture and still could not make enough of a living on his farm to keep at it. Farming for income or just to save money with cheaper food than the grocery store sells is really hard!

smullins3000.bsky.social•25 days ago

What's wrong with an entire society consisting of subsistence farmers? /s

shaynel.bsky.social•25 days ago

Thank you for the /s because otherwise Cambodia under Pol Pot would enter the chat.

smullins3000.bsky.social•25 days ago

That's probably on the bottom end of examples of societies with only subsistence farming. It's also more informative b/c to achieve this goal you would have to go all Pol Pot on anyone with glasses.

matthewrigdon.bsky.social•25 days ago

Merica needs to get back to basics! Work the land like Jesus did!

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