Price increases and shortages

flowerbug

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Top 5, tomatoes, green beans, purple hull peas, corn for corn meal, summer squash.

Next top 5, beans, sweet potatoes, winter squash, onions, mustard greens

i still mentally put tomatoes in the fruit category so didn't even think of it for this list...

yes, it is a major crop for us and has a huge amount of value to us when we grow it and then can the results for using over the next year or two.
 

Rhodie Ranch

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Wish I could grow onions. I noted that yellow onions have been 38 cents per lb at Wally's forever but yesterday they were at 69 cents. Could be waiting for the new harvest season, but that is still months off.

Costco has foodsaver bags on sale this month. Waaaay cheaper than the ones I bought at Wally's yesterday. Time for a return and then a buy.
 

flowerbug

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Wish I could grow onions. I noted that yellow onions have been 38 cents per lb at Wally's forever but yesterday they were at 69 cents. Could be waiting for the new harvest season, but that is still months off.

Costco has foodsaver bags on sale this month. Waaaay cheaper than the ones I bought at Wally's yesterday. Time for a return and then a buy.

we use a lot of onions here, enough that we really could never buy and store enough of them.

growing space wise they are not that bad, but they are also more finicky and heavier feeding than most of the rest of the vegetables we grow so i grow what i can here or there but in the end it's never enough to get us through a whole winter season until the new ones come in.

i content myself with at least to plant one flat of the large sweet onions and then if i can get others to seed and grow from the vagrants i have here.

also green onions and green garlic are a help but so far only the green garlic has been consistent enough that i can count on it. i'm still learning my way around green onions and trying to find a green onion as predictable and durable as the garlic.

the sad thing is that Mom won't eat leeks. i like leeks, i could eat leeks until i leak. :) she hasn't eaten any of the green garlic yet either, but i do grow that most years if i remember to get enough of it planted...
 

Pulsegleaner

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I suppose another point to consider is where you are, and (by extension) where you plan to be to set up homestead (no one ever said that, when the SHTF, you HAD to stay where you were. You could stock up for a trip to somewhere more conducive to long term survival)

I bring this up because I remember reading somewhere that there are two foods on earth that are nutritionally balanced enough to live on exclusively for life. One is eggs, and the other is.......bananas. So if you lived somewhere where bananas are growable, that would probably be near the top of the list. Probably not the modern Cavendish (since you'd be one bout of Panama Disease away from total famine) but there are other older bananas out there that are probably more amenable. And, if you can tolerate a banana with seeds, I think banana seeds last a long time. (you just have to give up eating them un-mashed, or risk cracking your teeth.

Other good examples if you are really warm

I have heard wing beans are a good choice since you can eat pretty much every part of the plant (tuber, sprouts, leaves, immature pods, and the mature seeds can be processed into something like tofu) Wing pea is supposed to be similar.
 

ducks4you

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The same 4 oz vanilla that I bought last Fall at ALDI for $1.50 is being sold TODAY for $3.50
ALSO, tt somebody who said that NOBODY is selling canning lids, while I was outside of Rural King. I found boxes of wide mouth lids with screw tops, 12 ct, so I picked up 2 boxes.
Now I have 24 More wide mouth lids, and replacement screw tops for the ones that I am recycling bc they rusted.
 

ducks4you

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There was a time when I was spending LOADS of time of Sufficient Self. Today, it seems like it is full of people that could construct one of those homes that Sears used to sell people 100 years ago!
I'm not that inclined, more "building challenged."
Still, I learned a lot there about being self sufficient. I think you save some stuff, clear out other stuff, reuse when possible, DON'T feed landfills MORE than necessary, take as much stuff to the local recycling business as I can (mostly bc they pay something, even if it amounts to pocket change,) buy a little bit here and a little bit there to store so I don't run out.
 

Rhodie Ranch

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While I might have stated that canning lids are in very short supply, and I won't buy the Big A off brand ones cus of a higher percentage of failures, one can still find them sporadically. I found and bought two cases of Ball pints with lids/rings on them at Wally's the other day. I was lucky.

Canned Cat food is at an all time shortage for 2021. Wally's barely gets any brand in, much less the large cans of Special Kitty I use for my cat (he also gets a touch of dry as a treat). I ordered some from Chewys.

Yesterday, Costco had zero cans of any brand of cat food. I'm stocking up and hitting every WM when I'm in the area of one. I'll also check Petsmart (owns Chewy) and Petco. Even Safeway shelves were kinda bare of canned cat food.

Costco also had Dawn Ultra dish soap on sale. I usually buy Palmolive, but Dawn is stronger. I now have enough for more than a year, since we do alot of dishes by hand (we are very water wise when doing dishes by hand).
 

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