How people are really living off the land

General Gardening
#61

most people eat starch that survive off their own land and hand work. Plantains, cassava, taro, potatoes, rice…

I think there is incredible value in the fruit crops we have access to today and preserving them beyond times of turmoil. roughly 60 varieties of tropical fruit you can make a meal of and about 30 in temperate climates. Veggies and greens are a big plus for colder climates. If people 100-1000 years ago could have got the variety of fruit trees we have access to today by and by mail/post lol, many would have focused more energy on fruit trees. since they did not they hunted more also. Some animal foods are have major downsides some not so many.

I think mixing animals with fruit orchards is difficult and intensive but is pretty awesome. streuobstwiese Is historically a pasture orchard in germany where cows or some ruminant would graze the grass and people harvest the fruit. gave people free time to build castles :slight_smile:

If we combine tractors and agroforestry the options get fun and easy. It is all about perspective in the end also, everyone was living off the land 200 years ago and beyond roughly and one could also argue everyone still lives off the land today. However detached they may feel and be from that reality. It just takes humans surviving 1 future major catastrophe to put that into perspective if you don’t understand me… Volcanoes, asteroids etc have done more damage to earth, plants and animals than humans have so far. So in a way we are still sustainably living in modern times.

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#62

I’m thinking if the population is too high he should volunteer to eliminate one (himself). If his theories are correct…he should go first!

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#63

One way tickets to mars w 10years indenturement don’t seem so far off and crazy. Especially as we approach 10 billion. I bet many would feel that way too.

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#64

2 Billion is too many if they’re mostly heathen.
2 Billion is too many if half of them don’t think they should have to earn their bread.
But, if they could learn to live in peace, 10 Billion should be ok on the globe at one time.

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#65

What Did the Cherokee Indians Eat?

Originally, before European contact, the Cherokee people lived throughout the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. The tribal diet commonly consisted of foods that were either gathered, grown, or hunted. The three sisters – corn, beans, and squash – were grown. Wild greens, mushrooms, ramps, nuts, and berries were collected. Deer, bears, birds, native fish, squirrels, groundhogs, and rabbits were all hunted. In the pre-contact era, many meals were one-pot stews made over an open fire.

Found this online… Cherokee were in TN and NC.

They grew what they could… foraged and hunted and fished… With their intimate knowledge of the land I am sure they did well. I think anyone that attempted to live off the land today (in any area) would have to have that intimate knowledge of the area…and do the same… make good use of everything naturally available hunting fishing trapping foraging and grow what ever you can that works best for the area and preserve it.

If you eliminate any part of that (for example trapping or fishing)… your odds for success decrease significantly.

I think there is no doubt that like the animals they feasted and fasted. Having an abundance at times and having much less than they needed at times. I have to think that mid to late winter… was tuff.

Try going outside today and forage up your lunch.

Report back what you ate ?

I have a few dandelion blosoms out there now but no greens yet. With my hunting skills… no doubt i could have a squirrel or bird in 10 minutes.

If i had my own livestock… chicken, chicken livers, eggs… mmmmmm… i could do that.

If you were truly living off the land today… i think that having your own livestock… chickens, quail, rabbits… what ever you could manage… would be ever bit as important as growing any fruits and veggies you could in your area.

Eliminate either of those… and shoot yourself in the foot.

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#66

Hey, I pay lot of money for quails here. Maybe $4.5-6 a quail. I paid for rabbit meat once in the Bay Area, they don’t seem to sell them here.
But be careful about foraging, especially if you are city folks, one family picked up Death Cap mushrooms in the Bay Area and ended up at the hospital, not sure they came out alive or not. They could destroy your kidney or liver. This is why I only buy mushrooms from the shop, they farm them, they are not growing in the wild.

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#67

@TNHunter

In the early spring they ate huge amounts of wild onions. They searched for greens as well. In the winter staying alive wasnt easy unless they had a supply of things stashed. They hunted meat daily. There were times they went without.

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#68

People have a lot of false faith in their super markets.
-3000 deaths a year in US from contaminated supermarkets foods

Imagine the amount of damage and death caused by pesticides and herbicides on food found in supermarkets…

-200k die a year globally, although most is from application i assume.

Too often do i hear such fear porn advice and bias for a supermarket solution, but imo this is just a lazy bias for a supermarket solution you are expressing. Actual advice for mushroom pickers is that they should identify a few reliable mushrooms and be aware of any toxic look alike species and not eat them if unsure at all, even better yet go to classes, tours etc. for which city people should have some access to.

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#69

Contaminated is a different issue, I’m talking about picking the right varieties of mushroom, some are deadly. Some people think death cap mushroom looks similar to something they eat in their own countries but they are not.

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#70

What hurt them was not the mushroom but ignorance. There are mushrooms that with a smidgen of familiarization are 100% safe and easy to distinguish. Heck it took me a few years of foraging before I felt confident to target my first gilled mushrooms, Cortinarius caperatus AKA Gypsy Mushroom. Funny enough the cortinarius family has plenty of poisonous and downright deadly cousins.

The other thing is that if I’m not on my regular stumping grounds I deem my mushroom identification skills suspect. Other parts of the country may have lookalike mushrooms that are not present in my area.

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#71

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Morels… oh so good.

There is a false morel look-alike… but it is easy to tell the difference. True morel has a hollow stem… False has a solid stem.

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Something about them… how they grow and blend in with the forrest floor… quite a thing of beauty.

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#72

Currently my favorite mushroom are hedgehogs. They are not as common in the rain forest I go hunting for them but then again, the area is full of an incredible variety of other fungi; king boletes, admirable boletes, small chanterelles popping through moss, oysters, milk caps, gypsies, and the list goes on and on.

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#73

@TNHunter

Found a huge flush of them on my property 3 years ago. Sometimes they show up here but most of the time they dont. Have places i hunt that always have morels Morels will be popping soon

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#74

@clarkinks … not sure if this works everywhere…but here when redbuds have bloomed and dogwoods are just starting to open a few blossoms… better be out there looking.

Usually about the first week in April here.

I have a few hot spots on my place that… like you said… when they are here… they are almost always there.

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#75

@TNHunter

The season here is all about heat and moisture. Sometimes the rains are late and we cant see them because the grass is already up.

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#76

I garden on about 1/2 acre and have had over an acre. I can produce well over 5000 pounds of food on 1/2 acre of ground. This is not a boast, it is a simple fact and easily proven. Potatoes, given appropriate culture, will produce up to 50,000 pounds per acre (average is closer to 34,000 pounds/acre), I worked for a local potato farmer as a teenager and can well remember harvesting an acre of potatoes and watching to see how many trucks (5 tons at a time) we could haul off an acre. Corn will produce 8000 pounds per acre (about 140 bushels) with commercial fertilizer when using hybrid seed. I can produce 5000 pounds/acre of most brassicas such as turnips, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Beans are relatively low producing at about 2000 pounds per acre, but make up for it with a lot of protein. Tomatoes will produce 20,000 pounds/acre though they are a lot of work to stake and train.

Somebody will argue that I’m using commercial seed. I have enough open pollinated seed in my freezer to last 5 years and can grow more seed every year that I garden. I do this as a normal routine, producing seed is part and parcel of my gardening work.

I grow things to eat and to produce seed with a diversity of plants. My typical garden is: beans, lima beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, feed corn, sweet corn, cantaloupes, carrots, cowpeas, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, onions, peanuts, peas, radishes, squash, turnips, watermelons, and don’t forget cotton which I grow for seed but also know how to turn it into thread to make clothes.

What about wild foraging? Blueberries, blackberries, pokeweed, dandelions, persimmons, walnuts, hickory nuts, and a bunch of other edibles are part of my diet. I fish and hunt though not as much as when I was younger. Deer, rabbits, squirrel, wild turkeys, geese, ducks, and other game are readily available in this area. I also have chickens and turkeys. I have 3 young roosters in a cage to be slaughtered tomorrow. How would I manage if the economy collapsed and I had to feed myself? I’d have to work at it, but I would have an abundance to eat and could provide food to others. For reference, an average person needs about a pound of food per day. I can grow 365 pounds of high quality edibles. With 1/2 acre garden, I could feed about 5 people at that rate.

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#77

Well said. I have admired a permaculture guy in Oregon who grows a lot of cannabis. He also grows 10 acres of food for organic home deliveries. Anyway, his biggest tip is to always keep a planting of potatoes. He always keeps a whole acre for just potatoes for his family and friends. Like if the world ends at least you have that to fall back on. Or a hiccup like a volcano big earthquake.

My potato stash is quite large now. And my kids love them.

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#78

I watched the video of the woman foraging for food and growing her own. I’m impressed. Tropical gardening is different than what we do here in the U.S. I’m willing to bet that nobody can name the beans that she grew. Sweet potatoes in the tropics are perennials. They dig a few to eat and leave the plants to produce more. Did you notice that 90% of the food she grew and foraged was to feed animals? She had pigs, ducks, and chickens not to mention feeding the fish in her “pond”.

Here is a good one for you. I cut poke stalks early in the spring when they are about 18 to 24 inches tall and peel the purple skin off of them, then slice them and fry like okra. They are delicious. The core of the stalk should still be solid, not chambered. Cherokee used them this way for thousands of years.

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#79

@Fusion_power

I’m glad to hear you watched that I suspect many have not seen it yet and it is worth seeing. It takes experience to recognize just how good her choices are. Have seen many youtube talents over the years but that one is the real thing.

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#80

Its not hard to learn about successful and non successful civilizations.

Most every empire that was able to grow populations enough to wage war and take others lands grew grains and crops. Those civilizations all had farmers that fed soldiers and slaves.

There are still pyramids standing today in the Americas from peoples that farmed. They expanded their empires by feeding soldiers and slaves what the farmers grew.

The peoples that built forts and castles had farmers and storehouses for grains and vegetables in order to survive and thrive.

Currently in the American Prison system… convicts are leased to farms and alot of prisons have gardens.

Hunting is a great hobby and i think its necessary in modern times. Humans have removed most all of natures predators and removed most of the wildlifes habitat. Many creatures starve or get disease or get killed on our roadways.

Deer season is a great thing for hobby hunters. They are allowed to bait the deer and use deer mating scents to kill the males as their brains are fogged with the scent of a doe in heat…

Yellowstone is a great example… where humans have tried to let nature take its course. However nearly 100 animals are killed by drivers on the roads in the park each year…

I know that alot of folks like the taste of red meat but in reality cows are similar to dogs… they are creatures that have intelligence and emotions…and are able to learn and communicate…which i think all living creatures do. We are too young in our current status of civilization to overcome the old ways of our ancestors.

Not too long ago we killed animals simply for their furs, their tusks, their feathers or the oil from their body to provide a better status in our vanity. It took many thousands of years for those creatures to populate and thrive and evolve themselves… and a small amount of time to make them almost extinct… Eating fish eggs such as caviar…or eating the fin of a shark to make you more manly are both great status symbols.

Thank goodness we have evolved enough so that science has provided us with more productive grains, vegetables and fruits… with disease resistances and better yields. Thanks to modern agricultural practices we no longer have to enslave people to do manual labor to feed the higher status peoples.

The next step in our evolution will be the removal of the enslavement of animals i think. Lots of enslaved animals and fishes are dying of diseases today…its current news. Farmed Fish, Beef and Poultry are having record deaths of diseased animals happening right now.

Someday i think we will be able to Live With The Land…not Live Off the Land.

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