Imafan in Hawaii is in a situation that is not like most of us, and the "scary" is very real and I'm guessing the "we" in the last sentence refers to everybody on the Hawaiian islands (including the tourists?) Is this something that most are aware or something that is discussed among the intellectual gardening circles?
Rainbow's comment is a valid one, but it made me think about things that are hard to grow and things that we have become accustomed to having available year-around (wether tasty or not) due to importing from around the globe (well -- the other half of the hemisphere).
As a gardener and.or environment conscious and.or for healthy eating, do you tend to avoid buying out of season produce shipped from the southern/northern hemisphere and.or other side of the ocean? (Even if it might be an idealistic, unrealistic luxury for Islands like Hawaii?)
If you chose to be as self-sufficient as possible, it would be essential to stick to growing and eating seasonal fresh produce and preserving extra for off-season consumption. How would you preserve and store them?
Some things are not even possible or feasible to grow in our own garden. As a thought exercise, what would you have to cut out of your familiar.accustomed food (I'm thinking staple main grains like wheat flour for bread and pasta, or rice, would top this list) and what would be a viable alternative?
What would you consider growing and eating that you might not have considered... if you HAD to? And I want to acknowledge that there are the other, expanded homesteading/self sufficiency activities like beekeeping, poultry for eggs and.or meat and even larger livestock that you might consider but maybe restricted due to current living situation.area. Would you consider them IF there was no zoning restrictions?
Subject: Fall Gardeners Unite!
Subject: Fall Gardeners Unite!imafan26 wrote:Space is a problem for most of the stores. Almost 90% of all goods have to be brought in by ship or air. That is 9 days at sea. Shipping here can cost more than the cost of the goods. Larger stores have their own containers and they buy in bulk. Smaller retailers and farmers have to buy from the larger retailers, ship on space available or act as a coop so they can share the cost of a container. There are also minimum buys so the retailer has to buy a minimum amount to make shipping it in profitable. That means that the retailers have to have a lot of storage space. Land and storage space is a premium, so when seasonal things like Christmas comes around, they have to make room to store it in the retail space and usually that is in place of the garden and outdoor furniture. Those orders get cut because the Christmas things take up the space in the container to ship it over and the storage areas once it gets here. In the mainland some companies shut down when midsummer rolls around because they have fewer orders all over the country so sometimes there isn't anyone to order from. Some of the garden catalogs and seed houses stop taking orders around May. I tried to order some chive seeds from Territorial a few weeks ago, but they said they would not send it until January when their new seed catalog comes out, and I needed the seeds a month ago. Some of the seeds in the current catalogs were back ordered and some are finally coming in now.
Its is scary, but if there is a major disaster that makes it hard to get planes or ships in and out of Hawaii, we have less than a month of food reserves, maybe only days for some things.
...for bonus point, also think about gardening and preserving supplies that you are used to just buying -- what would.could you do if they were not readily available? What about water and electricity...?rainbowgardener wrote:Another reason you all should be growing your own. At least you have a year around growing climate.