Thread: share cropping

I posted several weeks ago about backyard farmers and sharecropping ...another way to boycott.

there are plenty of farmers that let people have vegetables just for the picking, but instead of just getting them for free, people could buy them directly from the small farmers -- canning is actually fun and you can enter your hard work in the county fair and then show off your ribbons

another way to fight back is to become sharecroppers where the farmer provides the land and the sharecroppers do all the work. My mother, brother-in-law and his friend did that one year -- my mother provided the land and the tractor and my brother-in-law and his friend did the work ... they planted and harvested 5 acres of watermelons, I couldn't believe you got so many watermelons on that small of a piece of land ...

you can also buy beef and pork directly from farmers too -- go to the local feed stores and they can tell you who sells beef and/or pork dressed out on halves or quarters, if you can use a whole beef that's great, but usually people buy a half

most neighborhoods allow chickens too, but not roosters, so you can have fresh eggs. I always said I'd never pluck another chicken, so I guess I'll have to give that up.

the American people can fight back against these meat packers and big farms that insist on illegal laborers -- if they want to play chicken, we can play along

Canning rocks!!

Originally Posted by ArticleIV

Canning rocks!!

I always enjoyed canning. One time the store had frozen vegetables for about $.25 a bag, I canned those too

Like I've said before, one of my favorite things to do was to park the truck under the pecan trees to shuck corn and give the shucks to the cows, sometimes you'd think they wanted to climb in the back of the truck!

after reading Steve's article on 'killer lettuce' I thought I would bump this up

You can freeze most vegetables and have a fresher flavor for the trouble than canning them. My father always planted a garden of about 2 acres and most of the vegetables that could be frozen were frozen.

Originally Posted by JuniusJnr

You can freeze most vegetables and have a fresher flavor for the trouble than canning them. My father always planted a garden of about 2 acres and most of the vegetables that could be frozen were frozen.

those foodsavers work great too! 2 acres is a lot of vegetables. My mother and I did several looooong rows of okra, we picked and let other people pick. I put up a lot of whole okra, cut okra and breaded okra.

A lot of people plant everything at one time, but it works much better if you plant in small crops several weeks apart, that way everything doesn't come in at one time.

but my problem is this ... I don't have a generator and I always lose food i when we have a hurricane. I was able to save some after Katrina because I took it to a friends house, but she only had a side-by-side refrigerator, so I just saved the meats.

Yes thats the beauty of canning, it will survive alot of stuff including electrical outages. I always prefer canned to frozen veggies.

However i prefer frozen canned jams to shelf jams. The lfavor was much freasher and stronger. Haven't canned in years . I miss it.

Originally Posted by Jezzabell

Yes thats the beauty of canning, it will survive alot of stuff including electrical outages. I always prefer canned to frozen veggies.

However i prefer frozen canned jams to shelf jams. The lfavor was much freasher and stronger. Haven't canned in years . I miss it.

I've never had nor heard of frozen canned jams. If I can ever get a utility building built I can get a freezer and a generator, and like I said the foodsaver works great!

Yes, there are many local businesses that butcher and usually have 1/4's or 1/2's to sell...beef and pork...wrapped and frozen to your specifications....in deer season sometimes hunters don't pick up the deer that they have left for processing. Most years we buy at least one deer just for meat variety.

Cargill and others have a lot to learn...and we can teach them. LOL

I love raising my own veggies and either canning or freezing...depends. I don't like frozen green beans....so usually can those. We raise a type of peach (Redskin) which is a wonder for any type of processing...it keeps the flavor and texture whether it's frozen or canned or pickled. Fresh peach cobblers are wonderful!! Peach butters? Yum...we prefer fruit butters to jellies and jams.

We also have places here where we can pick our own blueberries, strawberries, peaches, etc.

We're not as dependent on meat packers and canneries as they wish we are.

MJ

Wish I would have learned to do it. My mom and dad always had a garden and did their own freezing and canning. They did the half cow and half pig too. Unfortunatly the place is closed now. Alot of things I regret not learning to do. Fortunatly....I'm not dead yet...so I can learn.