It's a little late to start a food garden. You won't be getting any harvests for a while, and it won't be much. Best to stock up on shelf-stable goods now, and build community for mutual aid.
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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All I have is tomatoes...guess that will have to do.
Who wants a kitchen garden?
Who wants to care for a kitchen garden? It's not as simple as putting seeds into the ground and waiting until it grows. You have to dig up the site. You have to water it in a drought. You have to pull out the weed. You might even have to fight against insects, or use fertilizer. 19 out of 20 people I knew had given up on the idea of a kitchen garden.
Also, groundhogs will fuck up your garden, and they dig tunnels and climb fences. You have to basically build a big cage around your garden, floor included.
Not my garden :) groundhogs don't exist here
By design by those who refuse to escape their mysanthropic anthrocidal circular reasoning.
I read the title in the same voice as youtube's "That's how the law works."
Is this a good time to mention that animal ag is the most wasteful form of food we have? Further, consider capitalism and western rich countries. If the choice is between feedin poor people and feeding cows, what choice will the money make?
Plant a vegetable garden?WHERE?
DO YOU THINK I CAN AFFORD A YARD?
Hydroponic indoor gardening is the way. (I assume - I don't grow any food hahahahaha)
i would, but power prices are making it impossible to be a alternative
I have a copy of this little pamphlet called Fugitive Gardens, which is all about gardening in small spaces, such as a fire escape.
It's all fun and games until there's a fire.
A lot of dreamers here who never actually tried to grow something. A lot of YouTube video knowledge but no practical experience.
Its damn difficult to grow your own food. I think buying canned goods and storing them is the best option for almost everyone instead of trying to grow your own.
Growing food isn't hard but takes knowledge and time, and even then there is no way in fuck you can be self sufficient.
I agree that people should definitely keep a good store of non-perishable foods in case of hard times, but you also should try to grow food as well. I don't think anyone is trying to say it'll be easy, like anything at first it is difficult. It's definitely worth trying though, if you can and have the space. Like I said, don't go all in as your only option, keep non-perishable foods on hand, like canned goods, or dried goods. If you're able to grow your own food you get fresh fruits and veggies, and you won't use up as many canned goods.
Haha, are you speaking from your own practical experience, in which you failed and decided to buy canned food instead?
It's not easy, but it's not impossible either. It depends on your circumstances.
And there's an in between as well: grow some of your own food and buy canned foods as well. Or share a garden with people who know what they're doing.
Yeah, my peppers got too much calcium and had black ends. Cucumbers got too yellow. Cabbage worked fine, but I fucking hate cabbage. Beans were seriously lacking. Shit certainly isn't easy, and it's way to easy to think, hey, I can do this no problem!
Man your soil is farked . Start composting
Bro my cacti died. Both of them.
Cacti are more difficult than other plants to grow.
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As someone who has been trying to grow tomatoes in containers for about 10 years, I can confirm that it really is difficult. It took me about 5 years to achieve fairly consistent results and get the hang of properly amending the soil, planting correctly, watering, pruning etc. And I still have years where the production is really low, largely due to fungal diseases.
see what you should have done is just toss some rotten ones onto your driveway or behind the shed and ignored them and next year you'd have had the biggest baddest bitchingest tomato plants you'd ever seen
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I grow a lot of stuff in a relatively small space. Sometimes I have to give stuff away because it's too much for me. Maybe living in a tropical region helps? or maybe because I grow mostly native stuff that needs near to zero care.
LOL yeah. Stuff actually grows in tropical regions! :p
I'm happy for you there. (Although I imagine pest control gets interesting haha)
Southwestern U.S desert? Yeah, another story. Hydroponics are basically the best bet for your typical suburbia-dweller, I think.
Indeed, I have some trouble with pests, especially with the guava tree, but I've been using the technique of covering the young fruits in clothing bags so that pests can't access them, and it' has been effective so far. Needs a bit of work, but it's cheap and doesn't need using any chemicals. Sometimes, a naughty possum comes and takes something away, but it's not so frequent, so I let them take their share lol. I once planted a broccoli that was growing so big and nice-looking, but had it suddenly disappear, eaten by a group of caterpillars.
But I simply avoid the things that attracted pests and favor the ones that grow without much need of maintenance, like acerola, cassava, some pumpkins, passion fruits, some wild grape-like fruits, and so on. My backyard looks like an abandoned house with the wilds taking over, i admit, but well, I like it that way...
Living in a tropical region definitely helps. Up north, the selection is difficult. Where and when you plant different items is really important, since you can very easily kill the plant if you plant it too early or late
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Most chemical fertilizer is synthesised from LNG.
The two biggest exporters are Russia (sanctioned) and Qatar (all plants shut down)
Good thing my country exports 90% of its agricultural produce, so if we start getting hungry then we'll just export a bit less.
(We learned the hard way a long time ago when we ran out of potatoes.)
Ireland was exporting food during the potato famine.
Don’t assume your food won’t continue to be sold overseas if the growers/wholesalers can make more money that way.
Ireland was exporting food during the potato famine.
*Britian was exporting food from Ireland during the famine.
Regardless of nationality, don't expect your billionaire overlord to have ethics if it comes at the cost of a 0.7% income loss
What billionaire overlord? Irish agriculture is made up of over 100,000 independant family farms, and each farmers income is on average about €40-50k.
No, you have to expect your government to do that, which is why almost the entire world is not hyper capitalist choochoo trains
I mean, you exported 90% of your agricultural produce back then, too.
Grow a garden where? On what fucking land lmao
You bought land, right? Right!?
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Good thing I have a couple of acquaintances that have small farms and produce, so if shit goes downhill, I know where to offer my labor
Natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, which is then used in the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia from nitrogen in the atmosphere. Only about 6% of natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, so even if the price were to rise substantially, we could divert natural gas from other uses and have plenty for making ammonia. We also have other ways of producing hydrogen, it's just that natural gas is more established.
PEM electrolyzers paired with cheap solar in countries with high insolation can now produce hydrogen for less than the cost of natural gas, but we're only recently starting to see the construction of the large-scale green ammonia plants needed to accomplish this. Egypt is currently constructing a 100-MW green ammonia plant powered by solar energy. Even if you didn't have enough PEM eletrolyzers you could still just pass current through some salt water and produce hydrogen, albeit much less efficiently.
It's not going to be a catastrophic issue.
Adding to that, logistics are such that direct impact will be felt strongest in places like India that rely heavily on Qatari LNG to make fertilizer, but many places have other sources of both gas and fertilizer. Americas, EU, Russia and China will get by because they have their own supply and will be only affected by price increase
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You should always feel free to grow a garden, but you shouldn’t necessarily expect it to be cheaper than buying food. Especially the first year, if you don’t live in a place where you can just dig up some dirt and chunk seeds in it. Even if you do you should make sure the soil isn’t literally toxic first, especially since it’s common to have a buildup of things like lead or arsenic from now-outlawed fertilizers that can be absorbed by plants.
My grandparents planted maybe half an acre? Of crops for 10 people, and it was supplemental, not a complete replacement. It also takes a lot of work and can go to shit if the weather is bad. You can account for some of this by planting a variety of crops, trying to head off drainage and shade issues before they start, and with supplemental watering. But don’t expect everything to be super productive every year, especially in the age of climate change. My sister had some plants not put out at all last year (peppers).
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