re: TulaneLSU's guide to eating for < $20/week

I bet its really hard for anybody to take you seriously in real life.

I would like one day to grow my own crops. What do you grow and how cost effective is it?

quote:

---

I would like one day to grow my own crops. What do you grow and how cost effective is it?

---

As I mentioned upthread, herbs are a poor dude's friend. They'll make all your bland staples into gor-may delights. Even if you have a brown thumb, you can grow perennial chives and a rosemary bush. Buy em once, you'll have 'em forever, provided you remember to water them when necessary.

Most of my garden crops aren't very cost effective, as I buy transplants & seed & compost....plus pay stupidly high rates for water. If you have a rain barrel and can cadge some free seeds and/or plants from a generous soul, backyard gardening gets a little cheaper.

Cheapest "gardening" is foraging. Learn to ID oyster mushrooms (they mostly grow on willow trees), dandelion greens, chadron (thistle), gran-a-vole seeds...find a pecan tree on public property and make like a squirrel (though it's the wrong time of year for that). Look around your neighborhood for the backyard citrus trees going unpicked; people are always happy to give away the metric tons of grapefruit produced each year.

$.29 in chicken necks will catch you a mess of crabs in brackish water; ditto for a lil bit of melt for the crawfish in fresh water. Way cheaper than the seafood market, LOL. Learn to throw a cast net and the mullet are yours for the taking.

I don't like mullet all that much. We used to catch them at the mouth of bayou St. John and fry them. Kinda like a mealy perch I thought.
Def do the crabbing but I haven't seen necks less than 89 /lb since Katrina.

Good suggestions. One day I hope to spend less than $5 / week on all my foods.

That's a brilliant idea. Thanks for thinking it.

quote:

---

One day I hope to spend less than $5 / week on all my foods.

---

You're late to the Freegan party. Plenty of dumpster diving, free foodists in NOLA....look at freecycle.org and the free section of Craigslist.

We're about to enter blackberry season...wander along any semi-abandoned railroad right of way, vacant lot, canal embankment, etc and you'll be able to pick your weight in blackberries. They freeze very well and will keep you from getting scurvy on your cheapola diet.

RE: mullet, smoking them elevates a trash fish into something actually delicious.

I spent about 47 bucks yesterday and about 40 the day before on some tomatos, squash, peppers and calcium. Sprayed it once with roundup before planting because it's too wet to disk. Probably $6 bucks worth. Will spend probably 200-218 more dollars on various other BS. More plants, gin mote (fertilizer), electricity, diesel yada yada. All in all it's probably a $350 garden. Or about a decade worth of living for you.

quote:

---

I got bit by a water moccasin bramble hunting several years ago.

---

No you didn't.

quote:

---

My burrito:

So I slow roasted that entire chicken. Picked meat off the bones -- probably got about 2 lbs or so of meat. Marinated cooked meat with a can of off brand spicy tomatoes. Have enough for about 8 meals (.50/ meal).

---

Thats a pretty boring burrito. Are you freezing all the leftover meat?

An octogenarian in Lafourche parish grows 30 acres of food for the needy. Turnips, mostly, but other stuff too. LINK