Growing garlic is more than just planting it. You have to keep trimming it so the additional cloves will form. After harvesting, you need to hang it in an airy dry place to cure for about two weeks. This allows the allicin to concentrate and the papery protective skin to form around the bulb. All this to say, you're probably better off buying garlic, as it is cheap, and growing something else.
And mint. In fact, getting mint to stop growing is a bigger problem. My grandmother grew mint in her garden in a kitchen sink she buried in the ground so it wouldn't escape.
Chives grow like weeds and whenever you need some just go out in the yard with scissors and give them a haircut. They grow back in a week or two, unless they’re under a foot or two of snow 6 months of the year. Which is where my farming desires end.
You only have to cut the scapes once per season (and it doesn't cause additional cloves to form, it just makes the existing ones bigger since it's not putting energy into trying to flower). Growing hard neck garlic is easy and you get awesome garlic out of it, way better than lame ass grocery store soft neck garlic with a million cloves the size of a grain of sand (obvious hyperbole but still). Plus garlic scapes are delicious stir fried.
Heard this argument a few weeks ago which stunned me. This woman was being interviewed about her thoughts regarding nearby farm land being used to build new homes. She retorted along the lines of: "I don't see why we need all this farm land anyway, you can buy your food from the store!"
Exactly. A lot of people are completely ignorant about how the world works. They just expect everything to function, without any idea of how or why. Full blown adults.
It is a frightening realization that our world hinges on a very thin tether of human cooperation that allows us to create a civilization where food is delivered daily to everyone everywhere all the time.
As soon as that system is disrupted, or destroyed ... people automatically start starving.
If something terrible happens right now and transportation stops ... there is only enough fresh food in any town for 24 hours ... 72 hours to empty them all of everything else that is edible. What most people don't realize is that modern grocery stores are stocked just for a day or two with the expectation that deliveries will happen on a daily basis. So grocery stores don't have any extra once supplies are gone. They don't have surplus in the back to restock everything. Even as it all starts, we will probably start fighting, murdering one another for food supplies once we realize no more is coming.
It's really hard to build a civilization from nothing ... but it's far too easy to take a civilization down.
“From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.” - Will Durant
It's actually worse than that. Starvation takes a long time to happen (~3 weeks). Lack of access to water causes death and desperation in a much shorter period of time. If water pipelines and/or pumping facilities get screwed up in any way, cities will become mad max much faster and in a much more intense fashion. In a water-starved population, people are mostly composed of water...
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.
TBF, Plants are Literally an Infinite Food Hack and Life of any kind is the rarest resource in the universe, Maybe we should be ashamed at ourselves for not recognizing daily miracles.
Actual food hack: Save vegetable trimmings in a bag in the freezer. Onion skins, carrot peelings, celery bits, broccoli stems, etc. When it's full, put them in a pot and cover with water and cook at medium heat for a couple hours to make free vegetable broth.
I remember reading some kind of tip, maybe making a sauce out of onion and garlic skin, but in any case, is there any concern with mold or food safety with this method? There was some talk of it with whatever I read.
If you're freezing it all, no. It could get freezer burned but that just makes it taste off it should still be safe to eat. If you keep stuff in the fridge not freezer, or you let things sit on the counter too long between each processing step, it could go bad. That's just general food safety though not just a trimmings thing
i love it, but the "bag" to which you refer, is a plastic bag. the freezer? that you bought at a big box store? or say you bought second hand? that all requires massive amounts of infrastructure. Massive amounts of power. Massive engineering projects to bring you that power.
you're not a hippy just because you store veggies in the freezer.
With current wages and prices, life as a medieval peasant doesn't look so bad in comparison.
Imagine: fruit and veggies that actually still taste like the real thing, literally half the year off, and no mobile ads.
Ehh, I don't have time to wait around for garlic. I do however plant spring onions from the grocer in my kitchen. They grow faster than I can eat them and come back quickly with a substantial amount of neglect.
There's this Youtuber that appears on my feed and it's like he's just discovering that seeds and parts of fruits and vegetables grow more fruits and vegetables when put in dirt.