People have forgotten how to take care of themselves - Ignorance

I am an avid gardener and belong to several online gardening groups.
I am absolutely shocked at the basic lack of gardening knowledge, and it is getting worse.
They really don't know where their food comes from. Don't even get me started on basic food prep.
There was some study that people really thought chocolate milk comes from brown cows. How sad is that! C'mon!

I think we have been so far removed from our natural state, how to grow, how to hunt, how to get clean water, how to tend to wounds in nature.
Yes, we live busy modern lives, but if the shtf it will really be a scene like the show the walking dead.

In my area there have been many people that have started "hobby" farms. I follow some of these people and their blogs/fb etc. I applaud them for all trying. It is interesting to see after the first year all of them, every single one talks about the struggle. People have a very romanticized view of farming and gardening. They do not realize how hard it is to feed yourself of of your own garden and how long it takes. True survival means knowing how to forage and hunt/gather, and have many years of gardening experience.

Every day I see stories about food recalls, (Romaine!!) some actually killing people. We need to get back to smaller scaled farms and home gardening, real food that actually has nutritional value. I would love to see the Victory gardens of the past be resurrected. I would love to see gardening offered in all levels of school. Almost all children love gardening and are very interested in it, it is a shame that we have taken that away from them!

a reply to: JAGStorm

The struggle is real! Two weeks after I had planted everything in my garden (and the very first day my green bean seeds were poking their heads out) a wicked hail storm demolished everything.

Still cleaning up shredded leaves, lol.

Great post!

a reply to: JAGStorm

I completely agree with you! I get called a prepper, or survivalist all the time cause i am prepared for everything. People love to poke fun. We will see who is laughing if and when the SHTF.

a reply to: JAGStorm

It's not just gardening that is neglected.
I'm amazed at how many of my daughters friends don't know how to cook or check the oil in a car or any other basic life function.
One of her friends had literally never seen an actual potato.
She has always eaten boxed ones.... Sad
Kids are sent to school for 12 years and then told they need 4 more years before they know anything.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Brown cows? Lol it's like people have never heard of trolling polls and #. Is the problem with polls and all those interviews on the street polling random people and crap. For one people love giving stupid answers to stupid questions and two, when it comes to television interviews most people are aware they are fishing for stupid people and choose to bite the stupid bullet if it means they get to be on TV as right answers never get air time.

a reply to: JAGStorm


Sadly, a lot of families don't have, or dont think they have, enough time to devote to a garden. It does take a ton of work, and it's intimidating if youre a newbie with no close friends/family to ask questions.
We live in the country, and probably 15% of homes here have a garden, but when we recently took part in a seminar to hand out seeds to new gardeners and offer help to set up, we only attracted 1 young family new to the area.

a reply to: Bluntone22

YES! Exactly! When I go to the grocery store and buy anything remotely "exotic", you know like a bell pepper, I have to tell the cashier's what it is because most of them really don't know! Many kids have not seen vegetables in their whole form.

a reply to: Puppylove


I knew a girl that thought dark meat and brown eggs came from brown chickens.
Don't underestimate people's ignorance

I can't help but agree. Self sufficiency, in general, is a "four letter word." I've even experienced some folks making fun of it!

I grew up doing farm type work. Even in the parts of my family that were city bound, I was enlisted to do forced labor ( ) in the gardens.

I always thought it was just normal until I hit that age where we (well, some of us) begin to learn that not everyone has the same experience.

I'm of the opinion that there are a lot of important, universal life lessons to be learned in the process. A big part of my adult life has been spent on building automated systems for gardening as well.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Oh I know there are ignorant people, trust me. It's just that when polling people need to account for trolling. The data for idiots is never really as bad as the polling suggests, thankfully.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: JAGStorm

It's not just gardening that is neglected.
I'm amazed at how many of my daughters friends don't know how to cook or check the oil in a car or any other basic life function.
One of her friends had literally never seen an actual potato.
She has always eaten boxed ones.... Sad
Kids are sent to school for 12 years and then told they need 4 more years before they know anything.

she needs to learn ancient history instead, what this thread about isn't important to us maintaining test scores for federal funding

a reply to: JAGStorm

In my home city, every apartment or home had a victory garden. Enough space to grow rows of lettuce, peas, carrots and other things. But modern housing estates only provide enough green space for purely ornamental purposes. There are even regulations that prevent home owners from drying their clothes outside never mind actually digging up the lawn and growing food. Some areas there are actually 10 year waiting lists to get an allotment from the council. Even then you have to worry about having your efforts vandalized.

www.independent.co.uk... 534.html

www.independent.co.uk...

a reply to: JAGStorm

Good Thread

It is interesting to see after the first year all of them, every single one talks about the struggle. People have a very romanticized view of farming and gardening.

If you start off in a methodical manner and understand there may be pests inclement weather there should be not letdown. I think they dont sacrifice some unwanted "busy ness" out of their lives to compensate for the pleasure and joy of eating home grown food. We had 5 grapevines, after 4 years 2 of them are really taking off. Previously we had normal citrus fruits, in our new house we used dwarf citrus and 3 years later we have more than we can eat. Even our pomegranate has taken off.

We have retic but the wife has left some for manual watering. She says hand watering is good meditation and for unwinding. Back to more vegie planting soon. We put off chickens for a couple of years but we will be wacking a couple on our sons new house so we can share the eggs. Yummy

to see gardening offered in all levels of school

Haven't checked lately but primary schools in our "mountain" suburbs used to have school farms. There used to be some good dedicated gardening programmes on free to air TV in Australia - now they've morphed into House and Home bullsnip.

LOL my son found a giant fig on his property so last weekend we showed him how to propagate fig from cuttings. He wants at least 1 more. Things I miss from our old house was the Peach and Chestnut. and mulberry. Looks like I might borrow some of his yard.

BTW in the last 6 mths in our region we've had a rockmelon listeria outbreak and recall. One supermarket has had a frozen pomegranate recall & suspected death and another frozen berry recall.

a reply to: JFA13

Even if the SHTF doesnt eventuate think of all the goodness you get that they miss out on.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Bluntone22

YES! Exactly! When I go to the grocery store and buy anything remotely "exotic", you know like a bell pepper, I have to tell the cashier's what it is because most of them really don't know! Many kids have not seen vegetables in their whole form.

Show 'em a picture of a durian or a jackfruit, and watch them shriek in abject terror.

a reply to: stormcell

Ikea setting the "pace"

www.gympietimes.com.au...

In years to come, we could lose one of the most important rooms in our homes. That's according to one of furniture giant Ikea's most senior Australian managers....
"In the future you may not need a kitchen because you can go to a communal area to cook and prepare your meals, or heat up your ready-made meal," she said.

Communal kitchens remind me of prison camps

"ready made meals" yep

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

you obviously missed the point, my point was that the school system is to focused on test scores for funding and not enough on basic things like growing a garden among other things

try again