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Vegetables are easily grown in container gardens. No reason the poor can't grow their own veggies.
How many "container gardens" can you grow when you live in a five-story walkup flat? Hm. I'd like to see how many tomatoes or potatoes you get out of a container garden on a windowsill that faces a brick wall ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
Well, that's assuming that people know how to grow vegetables. But let's pretend that they do, they have the room and know how for tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beans, etc, because they have the land or space in their homes to do this....
What do they do in the meantime for food since they spent their money on containers and gardening supplies and seeds or cuts of plants to get started?
And what do they do while they wait for it to grow?
And what, exactly, do you think they should grow?
Let's say that they have a 144 sq ft apartment. They have a bed, they have their clothes, they have a tv. Where should they put their containers of vegetables in their 144 sq ft apartment (oops, have to take off some of that footage for the tiny bathroom, so, let's say 100sq ft.)
And what do they do for vegetables out of season?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Very few industries do that. Overwhelmingly employers have people work the same hours for part time work.
You're either misinformed or your head is in the sand.
Quote:
Why stay in a part time job, with low pay that has changing times of employment when there are so many other jobs that don't do that?
There are a myriad of reasons why people get stuck in part-time jobs, very few of them include not wanting to move on to a better job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Why don't you look into the reason people are starving and homeless. It isn't because they are working.
You'd be surprised.
Quote:
Originally Posted by miu
Actually, it's not the expense of vegetables at the grocery stores that's the problem. IMO the issue is that in current society, everyone is too lazy to cook from scratch. Hence the popularity of fast food (McDonalds, KFC) at mealtime where the kids get chicken fingers for dinner and why the lack of healthy vegetables in our diets.
It's the expense. It's the food deserts. It's a lack of knowledge. It's the bald fact that there is a lot of substandard housing out there with no refrigerator and/or stove. But the KFC down the street (which does offer vegetables, btw) is always open, and the food is hot. Laziness may be a factor for some, but it's not the only factor.
You're just making a lot of lame excuses. Millions if not billions of poor under-educated Asians in overcrowded cities manage to do just fine. Odd that you believe Americans can't.
I'm not. Keep rolling your eyes while you read on:
My parents did grow a lot of their own vegetables to keep costs down. (It's where I got my frugal ways.)
Do you have any idea how huge that garden was? I sure do because I was forced to weed the stupid thing every summer as part of my chores. It was enormous.
They had green beans, (not in a container, those grow on vines, so tall sticks and whatever that was that my dad put together for the bean stalks to grow on), pumpkins, sunflowers, carrots, potatoes, beets (blech), peas, thirty thousand different types of squash (not really, zucchinni and acorn and some other kind...just we had a lot of damn squash for dinner for a couple of months), and some kind of berry fruit.
That garden was bigger than the foundation of many houses for decent living middle income families, let alone the size of homes for poorer families.
So, we kids weeded and watered the huge thing for our chores, plus we also had to help plant after my dad rototilled the land, make the rows, plant the seeds, and then when it came time to pick, they did the picking...because they are picky. No pun intended.
They would bring the produce inside, and I remember many, many weekends where we were not allowed into the kitchen the entire day because my mom and dad would spend the entire fricken day canning.
There was a huge pot of boiling water, jars, lids, gigantic metal tongs to pull the bottles out, and produce everywhere.
THEN, when canning was done, they stored all of their jars in the basement in a room the size of a huge closet that would make a 12 year old girl scream with joy, called "the fruit room". We had rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of canned fruit, (jarred) and canned vegetables (jarred...why don't they just call it 'jarred').
From the garden to the amount of room needed in the kitchen to the fruit room, that is a LOT of room needed. I've lived in many places that were half the size of the garden alone, and those were decent sized places.
So, sure, one could get a tomato plant and make way more tomatoes than they'll ever need (I learned when I lived in Maine and decided to try growing something for the first time ever since everyone in Maine seems to be a flipping expert on plants - down to the Latin name for them all, it's crazy, even at the pet store they know their plants), but you can't survive on a single tomato plant alone.
I know how much room it takes to grow carrots and how much a row of carrot seeds is going to yield because I am the one who had to plant and weed that damn row every year. Same with beans, same with beets, same with peas, etc.
The vegetables lasted about 5 months for a family of 5 people. The fruits were purchased from road side stands (a lot of those in WA state) and then canned for later use. So all of that room, ALL of that fricken room and it still didn't feed us the entire year.
Insinuating that someone can take care of their family's dietary needs with a container garden inside their apartment is ridiculous.
Last edited by Three Wolves In Snow; 07-03-2018 at 01:03 PM..
Hundreds of billions in welfare payments to farmers.
Why?
Because Big Ag votes GOP
And the % of family/individual owned farms in the US has been dropping since the 70s
It is harder and harder to make money as an independent farmer who can be put out of business by government regulations that larger corporations can often absorb as part of doing business
Or sometimes lobby for special exemption to avoid--pay for play basically
I'm not. Keep rolling your eyes while you read on:
My parents did grow a lot of their own vegetables to keep costs down. (It's where I got my frugal ways.)
Do you have any idea how huge that garden was? I sure do because I was forced to weed the stupid thing every summer as part of my chores. It was enormous.
They had green beans, (not in a container, those grow on vines, so tall sticks and whatever that was that my dad put together for the bean stalks to grow on), pumpkins, sunflowers, carrots, potatoes, beets (blech), peas, and some kind of berry fruit.
That garden was bigger than the foundation of many houses for decent living middle income families, let alone the size of homes for poorer families.
So, we kids weeded and watered the huge thing for our chores, plus we also had to help plant after my dad rototilled the land, make the rows, plant the seeds, and then when it came time to pick, they did the picking...because they are picky. No pun intended.
They would bring the produce inside, and I remember many, many weekends where we were not allowed into the kitchen the entire day because my mom and dad would spend the entire fricken day canning.
There was a huge pot of boiling water, jars, lids, gigantic metal tongs to pull the bottles out, and produce everywhere.
THEN, when canning was done, they stored all of their jars in the basement in a room the size of a huge closet that would make a 12 year old girl scream with joy, called "the fruit room". We had rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of canned fruit, (jarred) and canned vegetables (jarred...why don't they just call it 'jarred').
From the garden to the amount of room needed in the kitchen to the fruit room, that is a LOT of room needed. I've lived in many places that were half the size of the garden alone, and those were decent sized places.
So, sure, one could get a tomato plant and make way more tomatoes than they'll ever need (I learned when I lived in Maine and decided to try growing something for the first time ever since everyone in Maine seems to be a flipping expert on plants - down to the Latin name for them all, it's crazy, even at the pet store they know their plants), but you can't survive on a single tomato plant alone.
I know how much room it takes to grow carrots and how much a row of carrot seeds is going to yield because I am the one who had to plant and weed that damn row every year. Same with beans, same with beets, same with peas, etc.
Insinuating that someone can take care of their family's dietary needs with a container garden inside their apartment is ridiculous.
Especially when the amount of sunlight and water a real garden needs is difficult to provide in an apartment or even on a suburban lot when you have neighboring homes casting shade in yards much of the day
That poster likely never really worked in a garden or maybe ever lived in a city
Plus when you have a garden--the garden works you
People (a couple with kids) often don't have the time it would take to manage a garden when you consider time spent commuting, taking kids to after school activities, or doing other activities in their spare time
Uh most part time jobs want Saturday AND Sunday. Four jobs is unlikely due to logistics of all of them wanting those weekend hours. Possible but HIGHLY unlikely. I do two jobs, a FT 42.5 hours M-F job and a weekend evenings job 29-32 hours where my M-F hours are set but weekend hours vary. Unless someone had a once a week gig somewhere, I rather doubt the logistics of a third job. That being said. 4 jobs is HIGHLY unusual. LOTS of people do 2 jobs. Im in NJ, MANY MANY of people with "good jobs" get to work 2 jobs.
"Adding value" for a person with an IQ of 90 is problematic. That is 25% of the population.
Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm, I worked at a job by the airport managing accounts for HP, acting as a liaison between HP, our field engineers, and the customer.
Monday night I was off.
Tuesday night I worked as a bartender in a club from 7pm to closing (usually got out of there by 3am).
Wednesday night, I was off.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday NIGHT I worked as a barback in a club from 10pm to closing (usually got out of there by 3am.)
Saturday and Sunday DAY, I worked in a Deli from 10am to about 4pm.
There's your "unlikely" 4 jobs. That was in Seattle.
In Maine:
3 days a week I worked on base.
3-4 nights a week for 6 months (or "the season"), I hopped on with LLBean.
4-5 days a month I worked for the Federal Government driving all over Maine, (very good money, more than was deserved for the amount of work I had to do, but whatever, they wanted to give it to me, so I did the job and got the money)
5 days a week, for just a few hours each day, I worked for a company remotely, (meaning, I was able to do the work from my home.)
Then I got a full time job where I worked anywhere from 50-80 hours a week, depending on how much I could take. Again, a remote job working for a very well known company that every single person on this forum has heard of but I will not disclose mainly because I signed an NDA.
So, no, not "HIGHLY unlikely" or as I was accused of earlier, lying.
Well, you sure are right about that. If you starve to death, you won't get diabetes.
Congratulations. We'll be sure to nominate you for sainthood.
You don't have much freedom when you're working 4 jobs ...
Got stats?
One 100% of the people I know on it are fraudulent. Ask pertinent questions on all of your law abiding citizen friends/family that get support from Uncle Sam.
And telling authorities if falls on deaf ears.
One 100% of the people I know on it are fraudulent. Ask pertinent questions on all of your law abiding citizen friends/family that get support from Uncle Sam.
And telling authorities if falls on deaf ears.
Yawn. and the vast majority I know are not fraudulent.
And they do investigate around here. Where do you live that lets this go?
No one is being forced to work at Wal Mart. No one is being denied the ability to make themselves more marketable to employers. Upward movement in the workforce is possible if you put in the effort. I'm not calling anyone lazy. Perhaps they're just ignorant of their options. But, making yourself more valuable to an employer is always a good thing. Hell, it might just spark an idea that leads to the next huge startup company.
In this thread there is mention of overlapping food subsidies. This is a huge problem. Why do we need two agencies essentially providing similar service? Why not make a single agency responsible and cut waste and bureaucratic bloat? Seems like a win for everyone involved.
I've never understood how the Department of AGRICULTURE got the food stamp program in the 1st place.
Shouldn't the HHS be doing it?
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