FOOD Cost of healthy living soars in developing world - while junk food gets cheaper

Melodi

Disaster Cat
I thought this article (and topic) was worth having a tread, especially given the thread on so many US Food Stamp Recipients being obese - it seems that even in the third world highly processed junk food is now CHEAPER than healthy vegetables, fruits and meats and it isn't just Americans that are having issues with this - even the third world poor are ballooning up - Melodi
Cost of healthy living soars in developing world - while junk food gets cheaper
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodandd...oping-world-while-junk-food-gets-cheaper.html

Prices of fruit and vegetables in the developing world are soaring while junk food costs decrease, leading to concern about the health of hundreds of millions of people

mexico-obesity_3299119b.jpg

In Mexico almost 70 per cent of adults are overweight or obese Photo: Bloomberg
Harriet Alexander

By Harriet Alexander

6:30AM BST 11 May 2015

Comments45 Comments

Fruit and vegetables have almost doubled in price in parts of the developing world over the past 20 years, calling into question the idea that modern farming methods lower basic food prices for the poor.

Paradoxically, the cost of some processed foods has fallen by a fifth over the same time, prompting fears over increasing obesity.

Researchers with the Overseas Development Institute looked at relative food prices in Brazil, China, South Korea and Mexico to produce "The rising cost of a healthy diet" - the first study of its kind in emerging economies.

The report’s authors found that fruit and vegetables had risen in price by up to 91 per cent in real terms between 1990 and 2012, a bigger increase than for other any other food group. “In high income countries over the last 30 years it seems that the cost of healthy items in the diet has risen more than that of less healthy options, thereby encouraging diets that lead to excess weight,” said Steve Wiggins, one of the authors of the report.

“It seems the same may apply in emerging economies, where prices of fruit and vegetables have been rising more than most other foods, including energy-dense processed foods.”

In the United Kingdom 68 per cent of men and 61 per cent of women were classed as overweight or obese in 2008, a figure almost as high as in the US and significantly worse than in most European countries.

Mr Wiggins’s team found that in Mexico, where almost 70 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, ready meals have become cheaper and the cost of green vegetables has increased since 1990.

In Brazil, where the prevalence of overweight and obese adults has doubled since 1980, crisps, biscuits, energy bars and sugary drinks formulated to be “hyper-palatable” are much more widely eaten than previously, while in China green vegetables have also become twice as expensive over the past 20 years.

In Korea, the price of cabbage – a common ingredient of traditional dishes such as kimchi – has risen by 60 per cent.

The report does not address the question of why fruit and vegetables have become more expensive, although the authors do offer possible explanations.

Horticulture may well have a “stepped supply function,” the ODI said, so that while small quantities of fruit and vegetables can be supplied at low unit cost, once a particular volume is reached costs rapidly escalate.

It may also be that the changes in quality explain the increased relative prices. Or, it may not be a matter of cost but of increased demand from those consumers who appreciate the health benefits of fruit and vegetables.

Meanwhile, advances in manufacturing, packaging and flavouring are reducing the prices of processed foods.


In Brazil, the consumption of “ultra-processed” ready-to-eat food has risen from 80kg (176lb) a year in 1999 to 110kg a year in 2013 – equivalent in weight to each person eating an extra 140 Big Macs a year.

“In January 2014, in an attempt to curb obesity, Mexico introduced taxes on sugary drinks and energy-dense food,” said Mr Wiggins. “Everyone is watching to see what effects these taxes have, as policy-makers in rich and poor countries struggle to respond to the looming health epidemic caused by changing diets.”
 

Hfcomms

EN66iq
Great way to reduce life expectancy and increase health care costs, eh? Almost like it was by design.....
 

Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The American Cancer Society estimates that 40% of all cancers are related to obesity nowadays, and these cancers tend to be most prevalent in the poorer segments of Americans.

When you can't afford to buy nutritious food, this is the result.

Yet, there is only token (read that: easy for the MEDIA to see, photograph, and televise) efforts to teach poorer Americans how to grow their own food. Outside the city of Memphis, there is a HUGE need, and out there, the rural poor have plenty of land to do it - yet I cannot get any of the rural extension services on board to try and DO something to help these individuals learn how to grow their own organic food. It can be done using nothing but the things sent to local county landfills - autumn leaves, fresh grass clippings, selected kitchen scraps, etc. Folks just need to know HOW to do it, and be given some encouragement to do it.

Meantime, type 2 diabetes rates skyrocket around here.

As do hypertension and high cholesterol rates.


But no, they'd rather pay the sky high health care rates that these (mostly) medicaid insured patients cost the local and state economy...
 

ioujc

MARANTHA!! Even so, come LORD JESUS!!!
Barry>>>most of them will not do it. I live in rural Missouri and have tried to get others (poor folk) to raise gardens. They just won't put out the effort to get a crop. They may start it, but when the summer heat comes, they will not keep up with the weeds or watering. I have tried to show people the advantage of raised beds, but they all sort of laugh at me. But they are glad to take the green beans I take to church!! I gave away about 60 pounds of green beans last summer, some wouldn't even take them because cooking them was too much effort, much less canning them! One of the guys at church has raised pigs and tried to give them away free>>nothin' doin', People won't feed or water them so they die. How pitiful can you get!!??
 

byronandkathy2003

Veteran Member
i have a 50x80 garden and only work in it 1 hour a day weeding it with a hoe or another way to look at it is i work less in one week weeding it than i would in one day 8 hours working at a job in a factory .

and that one hour can be broken up into smaller time units and spread out over the day if one wants to do it that way..

for the $28.02 we paid for the plants we will at least get 10x or more back for that one hour a day weeding it with a hoe.

ioujc you must have some very lazy people where you live.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
We have too many roosters and have tried to give a few away for butchering, since we don't have freezer space for anymore. No one will take them. We were out of town for a week and I didn't get to the store and need something fresh, so I dug some onions and picked swiss chard and collards, only one plant of each from last winter, but it was deliscious. This is the first garden I've ever had.

Judy
 

rafter

Since 1999
Barry>>>most of them will not do it. I live in rural Missouri and have tried to get others (poor folk) to raise gardens. They just won't put out the effort to get a crop. They may start it, but when the summer heat comes, they will not keep up with the weeds or watering. I have tried to show people the advantage of raised beds, but they all sort of laugh at me. But they are glad to take the green beans I take to church!! I gave away about 60 pounds of green beans last summer, some wouldn't even take them because cooking them was too much effort, much less canning them! One of the guys at church has raised pigs and tried to give them away free>>nothin' doin', People won't feed or water them so they die. How pitiful can you get!!??

Agree. People are lazy beyond belief. I'm raising a big garden and even the neighbors joke that they will know when to come in the middle of the night to get tomatoes.
 

ioujc

MARANTHA!! Even so, come LORD JESUS!!!
You obviously don't have Devil Grass, or what is sometimes called Quack Grass where you live. I have found huge roots of this a foot down in the soil! It is horrible! I generally spend 2-3 hours a day hoeing, however this just exacerbates the issue, because when you chop the grass, it grows more! Every single piece of this grass can reproduce. If it is dried, the first rain will cause it to flourish again. I have found the only way to defeat it ,without using chemical means, which is only temporary, is to use plastic barriers on top of the grass. Even that does not work for longer than about 5 years. The grass has pointed roots which can pierce thin plastic, and most certainly grows through cardboard and paper which is allowed to decompose on top of the grass. This is an extremely rural area and unless you till the soil constantly, which again, just causes the grass to spread, you are out of luck. This is why i have gone to raised beds> several layers of thick plastic, with repairs as needed, with cardboard over that, several layers thick and then completely composted manure and sterile dirt placed in a raised bed. And you best HOPE your home-made compost has no quack grass roots, seed, or blades of grass in it!! Even the raised beds require care on a weekly basis, to keep grass from growing in it.

"Quackgrass features a seedhead forming a spike containing two rows of spikelets. Long, sharp-tipped rhizomes are also formed and are very aggressive. Quackgrass remains green year round." https://www.scottslawnservice.com/sls/templates/index.jsp?pageUrl=slsquackgrass
 

rafter

Since 1999
You obviously don't have Devil Grass, or what is sometimes called Quack Grass where you live. I have found huge roots of this a foot down in the soil! It is horrible! I generally spend 2-3 hours a day hoeing, however this just exacerbates the issue, because when you chop the grass, it grows more! Every single piece of this grass can reproduce. If it is dried, the first rain will cause it to flourish again. I have found the only way to defeat it ,without using chemical means, which is only temporary, is to use plastic barriers on top of the grass. Even that does not work for longer than about 5 years. The grass has pointed roots which can pierce thin plastic, and most certainly grows through cardboard and paper which is allowed to decompose on top of the grass. This is an extremely rural area and unless you till the soil constantly, which again, just causes the grass to spread, you are out of luck. This is why i have gone to raised beds> several layers of thick plastic, with repairs as needed, with cardboard over that, several layers thick and then completely composted manure and sterile dirt placed in a raised bed. And you best HOPE your home-made compost has no quack grass roots, seed, or blades of grass in it!! Even the raised beds require care on a weekly basis, to keep grass from growing in it.

"Quackgrass features a seedhead forming a spike containing two rows of spikelets. Long, sharp-tipped rhizomes are also formed and are very aggressive. Quackgrass remains green year round." https://www.scottslawnservice.com/sls/templates/index.jsp?pageUrl=slsquackgrass

We are lucky and have sandy loamy soil which I have some of my garden in such as strawberries, onions, greenbeans. Then I am doing straw bale gardening this year with 50 bales. I am very impressed so far and will double it next year to 100 bales. I took this picture about a week ago, and now it looks like the plants have almost doubled again.
 

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rafter

Since 1999
IMO, if there was no welfare, food stamps etc these people would know how to work...and feed themselves.
 

Hfcomms

EN66iq
How pitiful can you get!!??

This is likely to become a self-limiting problem at some point.

Very true. If a man will not work then neither let him eat. Goes hand in hand. It's just in our culture we've sort of removed that from the equation. We allow people to consume who do not produce. Obviously there are exceptions to this. The disabled, sick and infirm. And then a lot who would like to work but can't find work. But when it comes to eating if you have enough space to put a garden in and your too short on money to purchase everything at the store then it makes a lot of sense to put in your garden, get some chickens for meat and eggs, ect. One good that I'm seeing up here by me is more of the local towns and townships removing some of the zoning restrictions to people in town that want a good size garden or raise some chickens for their own personal food consumption don't have to fight city hall. Sometimes common sense does prevail.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
It's too early to grow nearly everything here, but on Sunday when I made soup, I was able to load it up with literally heaping handfuls of fresh chopped chives (growing volunteer and already near a foot high), green onions and spinach growing under a cloche on the deck. In a week or so, every gardener's friend, the rhubarb will be ready to harvest for fresh fruit pies and sauce.

It doesn't take much to have fresh food in your diet - even in May on the tundra.
 
It is all about calories consumed and keeping track of that during the day. It is also about not grazing on food as a means to pacify oneself during the day (and night). It is about shrinking your stomach so that you need less food to fill it.

People who are on welfare are by definition not working. If you are not working, you are focusing on other things, like whether you are mildly hungry (or actually thirsty) or not.

The food and its respective cost is not the problem. If people were starving that would be a problem, they are not. They are dying from inactivity and the pursuit of sloth and gluttony.
 

twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
i have a 50x80 garden and only work in it 1 hour a day weeding it with a hoe or another way to look at it is i work less in one week weeding it than i would in one day 8 hours working at a job in a factory .

My garden is about 3 times the size of your and I spend about an equal amount of time per day working it. My routine is to hit the garden about 6:30am each morning to weed and water the plants as necessary. Every week or 2 I bring the tiller out to do the rows and kill the weeds that grow there.

I've said this before but I have mixed feelings about all this talk about how expensive it is to eat healthy. I honestly think that most people are either lazy or don't know how to cook which drives them to prepackaged, prepared foods. Yes in my AO a 50lb bag of rice has gone from less then $10 to now less then $20 but that has been over several years and is still cheap for what you get -vs- a box of rice-a-roni or uncle bens which most people buy. In my mind I don't think that healthy just means organic. I think if means real, minimally processed foods. Meat from the meat department or produce or dairy. If its in a kit its going to be expensive and not very good for you.

Things, meaning food, comes in cycles. When beef prices go up eat pork or chicken, both of which can be purchased for under a buck a pound if you shop around. Veggies should also be bought in season. Tomatos in january are going to be expensive because they been trucked 1000 miles. But canned tomatoes in late fall are dirt cheap because the factories are cranking them out. How hard is it to be aware of these natural cycles and also to shop the sales.

But I agree and previous said it that most folks are lazy. I grow approximately 300 tomato plants each year. I do this because I like to can up a bunch of sauce for use throughout the year and I find it easier to only do this canning once or twice a season because it takes me about 2 days each time to do it. Thus I want a huge mess of tomatoes all ripening at once. Thus the large volume of plants. So afterwards the plants still continue to produce tomatoes, here up until mid/late October. I'll use some fresh but most at this point go to waste. I try to give them away telling folks at they can easily get several dozen tomatoes if they want to come over but most people say that their to busy and will take some if I will bring them in to them. And its not just tomatos. I have 40 blueberry plants which I have the same thing happen to. Nobody wants to do the work to get fresh food.


.
 

Parakeet

Senior Member
I keep hearing how much cheaper processed junk food is than real, whole foods are, but that is just not what I'm seeing when I look at the grocery ads. For example, just taking a quick look at our Smith's ad (a Kroger owned store), I see that 7-8 oz bag of Lay's Potato Chips is on sale for $2.50 or you could buy a 5 lb bag of russets for .89. A 16 oz box of Honey Nut Cheerios is on sale for $2.00 (when you use a coupon), but I know for a fact I can buy bulk sold oatmeal for $1.00/lb. A two liter of soda is $1.00, but water is, virtually, free. Tomatoes, lettuce and navel oranges are all on sale for .88/lb. A bag of Oreos (7-8.5 oz bag) is on sale for $2.49, but I know I can make a batch of cookies, using real, unprocessed ingredients for much cheaper than that. Even boneless, skinless, individually frozen chicken breast (which is quite an expensive way to buy it IMHO) is on sale for $2.33/lb. At a quarter pound per serving, that comes to .78/per serving. Of course whole chickens are even cheaper per serving at .99/lb.

There's no doubt that inflation has spiked the cost of food, but if I shop seasonally and am willing to put the extra prep in, it's much cheaper (and healthier) for me to buy unprocessed foods than the junk.
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Barry>>>most of them will not do it. I live in rural Missouri and have tried to get others (poor folk) to raise gardens. They just won't put out the effort to get a crop. They may start it, but when the summer heat comes, they will not keep up with the weeds or watering. I have tried to show people the advantage of raised beds, but they all sort of laugh at me. But they are glad to take the green beans I take to church!! I gave away about 60 pounds of green beans last summer, some wouldn't even take them because cooking them was too much effort, much less canning them! One of the guys at church has raised pigs and tried to give them away free>>nothin' doin', People won't feed or water them so they die. How pitiful can you get!!??

Alot of these 'poor folk' are exactly that because of their mindset and as Rafter said, they're just plain lazy.

These type of people will always be poor and so will a high percentage of the children they raise because children 'learn what they live' unless some of the lucky kids get an epiphany and 'break the chain' and live they're lives in mental freedom. V
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We are lucky and have sandy loamy soil which I have some of my garden in such as strawberries, onions, greenbeans. Then I am doing straw bale gardening this year with 50 bales. I am very impressed so far and will double it next year to 100 bales. I took this picture about a week ago, and now it looks like the plants have almost doubled again.

AWESOME!!!! V
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
Uh, the original article wasn't about how people in the US can grow gardens and how welfare people should start working; it is about how even in the THIRD WORLD, the price of good and wholesome food is going up (in some cases by 60 percent or more) but the really bad-for-people stuff keeps dropping in price. While a person living in a shack in rural Bolivia almost certainly already has a garden, a person living in the urban slums of Brazil or Mexico City probably doesn't. They don't have food stamps so that isn't an issue; but most people earn some money doing something from working in a sweat shop to peddling trinkets to tourists on the Street corner; what people don't have access to is land or often even window boxes (though sometimes they do mange to grow a bit of garlic or other small things when there is enough light).

I've seen some of these places with my own eyes and is usually isn't about lazy people taking handouts it is about desperate people trying to stretch what little money they have to buy what they can that will fill them and their children up. Suddenly that is no longer the local produce but instead the imported processed junk; that's a change and a worrying one. It has implications for everyone but while it is related to the food stamp issue (one reason I posted it) it isn't the exactly the same situation either.
 

Meemur

Voice on the Prairie / FJB!
We've discussed this before: it's generally not worth the time and effort helping people who aren't already helping themselves. For example, if a poor family has started a garden and is doing their best to care for but they lack skills or tools, I'll help. If they are just talking about it, I let them talk.

The same with giving stuff from the garden. If I know they regularly cook from scratch, I'll share my surplus. If they don't, I know it'll most likely rot.

All that said, it can be costly to eat healthfully. The trick is eating in season. That's why I can and freeze berries in June. By the middle of winter, they will be sky high, as will most produce. That's when I'm eating sprouts, winter squash, and whatever I've stored.
 

Hfcomms

EN66iq
Goes back to the old adage. If you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish he'll eat for a life time.
 

Parakeet

Senior Member
Uh, the original article wasn't about how people in the US can grow gardens and how welfare people should start working; it is about how even in the THIRD WORLD, the price of good and wholesome food is going up (in some cases by 60 percent or more) but the really bad-for-people stuff keeps dropping in price. While a person living in a shack in rural Bolivia almost certainly already has a garden, a person living in the urban slums of Brazil or Mexico City probably doesn't. They don't have food stamps so that isn't an issue; but most people earn some money doing something from working in a sweat shop to peddling trinkets to tourists on the Street corner; what people don't have access to is land or often even window boxes (though sometimes they do mange to grow a bit of garlic or other small things when there is enough light).

I've seen some of these places with my own eyes and is usually isn't about lazy people taking handouts it is about desperate people trying to stretch what little money they have to buy what they can that will fill them and their children up. Suddenly that is no longer the local produce but instead the imported processed junk; that's a change and a worrying one. It has implications for everyone but while it is related to the food stamp issue (one reason I posted it) it isn't the exactly the same situation either.

I hear what you're saying, but for me, personally, I would like to see some hard numbers that compare actual prices and supports the claim that highly processed foods, across the board, are actually cheaper to purchase than some of the less expensive but still healthy staple foods (like rice, beans, oatmeal, seasonal fruits and veg, chicken as opposed to beef, etc). Most of these articles that I have seen point out that fresh fruits and veg. are increasing in price at a higher rate than processed foods, but, at least in my area, a bag of potato chips is still, exponentially, more expensive than a bag of russet potatoes.

A couple of weeks ago I ran in to a fast food joint to pick up a couple of meals for some friends that were helping around our house. I about had sticker shock when the total for two meals came to $16.00. I know I could prepare the same burgers, handful of fries and a glass of lemonade for much less than that.

Since I am in the US, I don't have any idea how to access the specific prices of foods in the countries mentioned in the article. It may very well be that processed foods are their cheapest option, but from what I'm seeing here where I live, the easy to prepare and highly processed foods over the cheaper versions of simple, fresh, seasonal whole foods seem to be more of a preference than a necessity.
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
Parakeet I am hoping for more actual statistics/prices too; however my hunch is from the reading I've been doing that a lot of the staples have been going up fairly quickly in the third world (reasons vary by location) and people simply can't keep up - so if processed foods are being brought in that are cheaper at point of access (aka when you by them from your local street vendor or corner shop) then people are going to buy them. I am sure that some of it is a matter of access too - a large bag of bulk beans may be way cheaper in reality than a package of cookies but if a person is very hungry and there simply isn't the money for the big bag of beans (no matter the value) and the choice is a tiny portion of cooked beans from a vendor or a whole package (or box) of cookies, the cookies is probably going to win.

Again this is going to vary a lot with location, in my experience most third world people in rural areas (just like the rural Irish) have gardens, chickens, rabbits, fishing nets or whatever the local circumstances permit though how productive they can be often depends on what they have to be doing with the rest of their time. Most are various sorts of tenant farmers or share-croppers who have to spend a lot of their time dealing with the "boss mans" business and/or getting their cash crop ready. But they still almost always manage to grow something but the urban poor in many of the same countries have little or no access to growing much of anything - they may try but often they don't really even own or legally rent their tiny dwellings instead they are pretty much squatting which doesn't lend itself well to food production.

That said, I totally agree that huge amounts could be done world-wide, especially in places like the US and the UK that during the second world war grew huge amounts of the produced consumed by families at home. Part of the differences were that not only did most people still have a clue how to grow things (and if they didn't their next-door-neighbor probably did) but growing food and keeping small livestock was directly ENCOURAGED by the government and social pressures; as opposed to today where it seems like the corporate/government/industrial complex goes out of its way to make the providing of a portions of ones own food seem downright silly or even dangerous. That's because the big players don't benefit if suddenly two-thirds of the American people turned their lawns into vegetable gardens again and lobbied their cities to allow rabbit hutches, chicken coops and even the occasional goat back into the city limits.

I mean "they" don't really seem to care if what they consider to be "hobbiests" want to have a few small holdings or about trendy allotment gardens patches on large urban lots (especially if they are mostly used by a combination of elderly retirees and a few Middle Class foodies). They don't even mind the occasional school project like the blighted school in Oakland California where a local chef started a project years ago to teach kids how to grow vegetables and then use them on the school menu (these were really-really the dregs of Oakland type kids too). They don't mind as long as it is a one-off they can stand up and point to saying "see, we want people to help themselves." But I have a feeling "they" would panic at the idea of mass programs showing all little children (not just those in one inner-city school) how to grow vegetable in fruit as part of their normal class time, and let them learn to cook it for part of their lunches. They would be terrified if people started en mass, even in one State being encouraged by government, schools, churches, civic organizations and public service advertising to tear up those old, useless lawns and plant edible and usable plants, herbs and throw in a couple of hens for good measure. That is pretty much what was done during both WWI and WWII when people did garden, keep livestock, can, freeze, dry as much home produced food as possible; and the results were astounding even by today's standards.

Few urban dwellers could grow all they need, well most rural people (even small holders) have to buy somethings but this really would be the way to lower dependence which is exactly why big corporations hate it - I suspect they hate it in the third world as well.
 

ioujc

MARANTHA!! Even so, come LORD JESUS!!!
Vessie:
I keep hearing how much cheaper processed junk food is than real, whole foods are, but that is just not what I'm seeing when I look at the grocery ads. For example, just taking a quick look at our Smith's ad (a Kroger owned store), I see that 7-8 oz bag of Lay's Potato Chips is on sale for $2.50 or you could buy a 5 lb bag of russets for .89. A 16 oz box of Honey Nut Cheerios is on sale for $2.00 (when you use a coupon), but I know for a fact I can buy bulk sold oatmeal for $1.00/lb. A two liter of soda is $1.00, but water is, virtually, free. Tomatoes, lettuce and navel oranges are all on sale for .88/lb. A bag of Oreos (7-8.5 oz bag) is on sale for $2.49, but I know I can make a batch of cookies, using real, unprocessed ingredients for much cheaper than that. Even boneless, skinless, individually frozen chicken breast (which is quite an expensive way to buy it IMHO) is on sale for $2.33/lb. At a quarter pound per serving, that comes to .78/per serving. Of course whole chickens are even cheaper per serving at .99/lb.
Ah-Ha! BUT you have to COOK most of these things! And that appears to be beyond them. I don't know, I don't understand them either.

Oh, and RAFTER>>> I am MASSIVELY JEALOUS of your garden!! It is AWESOME! I have tried some small amount of straw bale gardening, but never done it on a large scale basis. I guess I will go for it this year. Got plastic, can round up some straw, and got bone meal and all the other stuff necessary. Couple of years ago a friend did this and had tomatoes "comin' out of his ears!" BTW, your garden is beautiful!
 

rafter

Since 1999
Vessie:
Ah-Ha! BUT you have to COOK most of these things! And that appears to be beyond them. I don't know, I don't understand them either.

Oh, and RAFTER>>> I am MASSIVELY JEALOUS of your garden!! It is AWESOME! I have tried some small amount of straw bale gardening, but never done it on a large scale basis. I guess I will go for it this year. Got plastic, can round up some straw, and got bone meal and all the other stuff necessary. Couple of years ago a friend did this and had tomatoes "comin' out of his ears!" BTW, your garden is beautiful!

I bought the book so I could do it exactly the right way. It took 2 weeks of conditioning with high nitrogen fertilizer and lots of water every other day back in March. I'm very impressed with it so far. The straw is becoming compost.
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I bought the book so I could do it exactly the right way. It took 2 weeks of conditioning with high nitrogen fertilizer and lots of water every other day back in March. I'm very impressed with it so far. The straw is becoming compost.

Is it this book? http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Gardening-Joel-Karsten/dp/0984544909

I just showed my sister a pic of your garden and she is In Love!!!

I clicked on the pic of the tomatoes planted in the hay bales with Impatiens planted on the side. So beautiful!

An even better flower to plant on the sides would be the Nasturtium because not only is it beautiful but you can eat it And this plant works as a 'trap crop' so any aphids and other bugs will go to the Nasturtiums instead of the tomatoes when given a choice.

I always plant Nasturtiums near my tomato and basil plants! It's a beautiful relationship they have with one another.

This year I bought the whitest nasturtiums I can (they'll have a bit of creamy yellow in most of them) but Buttercream from Renee's Garden is the whitest and looks so beautiful and ethereal in the moonlight. There actually was a true white nasturtium in the olden days that someone saved the seed from but it is lost to time.

This time, I will strive to plant them until I can save the seeds from the whitest and then when I get as true a white as I can, then I'm going to try to cross them with a certain nasturtium (I can't mention the color because this hasn't been done before) and hopefully get that color in the regular garden variety plant. V
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Rafter, I just bought the book on Amazon (link in above post) and I can't wait to try this! V
 

rafter

Since 1999
Is it this book? http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Gardening-Joel-Karsten/dp/0984544909

I just showed my sister a pic of your garden and she is In Love!!!

I clicked on the pic of the tomatoes planted in the hay bales with Impatiens planted on the side. So beautiful!

An even better flower to plant on the sides would be the Nasturtium because not only is it beautiful but you can eat it And this plant works as a 'trap crop' so any aphids and other bugs will go to the Nasturtiums instead of the tomatoes when given a choice.

I always plant Nasturtiums near my tomato and basil plants! It's a beautiful relationship they have with one another.

This year I bought the whitest nasturtiums I can (they'll have a bit of creamy yellow in most of them) but Buttercream from Renee's Garden is the whitest and looks so beautiful and ethereal in the moonlight. There actually was a true white nasturtium in the olden days that someone saved the seed from but it is lost to time.

This time, I will strive to plant them until I can save the seeds from the whitest and then when I get as true a white as I can, then I'm going to try to cross them with a certain nasturtium (I can't mention the color because this hasn't been done before) and hopefully get that color in the regular garden variety plant. V

Same author, but I bought this one: http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Ga..._sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17DCNZ928RJX4M2VT4DQ

I need to take some newer pictures...the plants almost grow while you watch. Please take some pictures of your flowers!! I'd love to see them!
 

vessie

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Same author, but I bought this one: http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Ga..._sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17DCNZ928RJX4M2VT4DQ

I need to take some newer pictures...the plants almost grow while you watch. Please take some pictures of your flowers!! I'd love to see them!

I'm going to order the book in your link and give my sister the one I ordered which I think is the older version.

Once the flowers come up, I'll take a pic for you guys.

Also, there is a nasturtium that is called "Dwarf Cherry Rose" buy Ed Hume seeds https://www.humeseeds.com/nast_dc.html and the pic on the package doesn't do it justice.

Just google dwarf cherry rose and you'll see the prettiest pinkish red you've ever seen and my cousin Chickie planted some from a pack I gave her and she said that one day when they started blooming, she smelled a floral scent wafting in from the window and she was shocked to find that it was the Dwarf Cherry Rose nasturtiums! Nasturtiums are not known for having any scent. Anywa, these would look beautiful on the sides of hay bales and draw the aphids away from your veggies! Good ole' trap crop they are! V
 
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