Want weird? Maraschino Cherry juice cannot be had locally anyplace. I had to order from (guess where?)
Sigh
Sigh
Every thing you say here is correct. However, there are other factors to consider when deciding what to plant besides the current cost of the item in the store, IMHO.When you are canning, and don't have a lot or storage space,
Or MONEY, PAY ATTENTION, PLAN what you plant.
Don't grow a lot of FOOD THAT IS ALWAYS CHEAP TO BUY CANNED!
CAN MEAT and fish above all other things.
Don't plan on canning GREENS it takes a daunting amount of fresh greens, once cooked, to fill one jar of spinach!
Don't grow too many vegetables that spoil very quickly once mature. Lots of winter squash (Acorn etc) is better than yellow squash and zucchini. Lots of cucumber canned(pickles)sweet and dill, is better than canning green beans or peas (more than you can eat fresh from your garden). They can be had already canned cheaply from generic brands. Carrots are good thing to grow and can because they KEEP in the ground orafter harvest longer than tomatoes and usually cost more to buy canned.
Rutabagas are also expensive fresh and usually unavailable canned. Generic canned tomatoes are cheap. Head Cabbage, both green and red is a wise to plant a lot of
Green bell pepper and hot peppers are wise thing to plant and dry or can. Grow your own spices is a money saver, and drying them is easy. A jar of canned minced Garlic is xheaper to buy and not worth all the effort to grow, harvest, clean and chop several hundred or more gain cloves.
There is one SIGNIFICANT advantage to home canning tomatoes and that is you DONT GET LEAKING/ exploding TOMATO CANS like you do with commercially canned tomato products in METAL CANS.Store canned tomato products may be inexpensive, but they do not have the taste of homegrown/home canned. Better than nothing for sure, but jars of your own on the shelf are golden. Same with green beans.
I am not fond of home canned carrots, but fresh from the garden they are the best.
Zucchini and summer squash can be home canned (not great but okay in soups) or dehydrated (can be added to most any casserole or soup). I love butternut squash as a keeper. However, sweet potatoes keep much longer than any squash I've ever grown.
Key is to grow and preserve what your climate allows and preserve (freeze, can, dehydrate, freeze dry, store) what your family will eat.
Here as well along with seasonal, we can as much as we can from season to season. Like you, we grow what does well here. Some things I buy from the Farmer’s market etc. And I always buy Klondike bars as treat for my spouse when on sale lol.I'm of the opinion that we should always try to grow what we eat and preserve it according to our favorite methods. It might be cheap to buy in the store right now, but who is to say that anything will be available to buy in the near future or at what cost? I buy some things that I can't grow here, or it doesn't pay me to grow, so I buy those veggies canned from the grocery store. BUT, in the future, if those veggies become unavailable, or I can't afford the price, I'll do without those.
Here as well along with seasonal, we can as much as we can from season to season. Like you, we grow what does well here. Some things I buy from the Farmer’s market etc. And I always buy Klondike bars as treat for my spouse when on sale lol.
Yep...the common ones selling candles, goat soap and jam are not any help.I sure wish we had a decent Farmer's Market in my area. The closest one to us that is any good is in Birmingham, AL. that I know of, anyway. The one we have locally, is puny. Nothing I would want to buy there.
Lucky you! The deli I buy from is 12.00 and up. Roast Beef us 16.95 and 17.95 lb.Hit the local independent grocery today.. shortening is 7.75 for a 3 lb can (down slightly), deli meat $6/lb (cheaper than buying Oscar Meyer In the packs), ricr, flour, and sugar slightly down. Beans (dried) running around $2/lb.
Went to get some zucchini plants as I forgot to start some early. Yeah, not buying them when they are $8 for a medium size plant.
Yep...the common ones selling candles, goat soap and jam are not any help.
Luckily, there is a good one here early am Saturdays in one of the small towns, (locally grown, fresh picked produce) but they are pricy on a lot of stuff.
I usually buy the 93/7 when I make spaghetti because I don't like to pour off flavor. You are right about patties and meatloaf gets too dry too with the lean.I think 80/20 works fine fir burgers. But I add a lot of ingredients to the basic burger before cooking.
Garlic grew so good in the desert back when we had a garden. I think it is much better fresh because you can plant all the gourmet varieties like the mild elephant and the purple ones and they are so fragrant when fresh.When you are canning, and don't have a lot or storage space,
Or MONEY, PAY ATTENTION, PLAN what you plant.
Don't grow a lot of FOOD THAT IS ALWAYS CHEAP TO BUY CANNED!
CAN MEAT and fish above all other things.
Don't plan on canning GREENS it takes a daunting amount of fresh greens, once cooked, to fill one jar of spinach!
Don't grow too many vegetables that spoil very quickly once mature. Lots of winter squash (Acorn etc) is better than yellow squash and zucchini. Lots of cucumber canned(pickles)sweet and dill, is better than canning green beans or peas (more than you can eat fresh from your garden). They can be had already canned cheaply from generic brands. Carrots are good thing to grow and can because they KEEP in the ground orafter harvest longer than tomatoes and usually cost more to buy canned.
Rutabagas are also expensive fresh and usually unavailable canned. Generic canned tomatoes are cheap. Head Cabbage, both green and red is a wise to plant a lot of
Green bell pepper and hot peppers are wise thing to plant and dry or can. Grow your own spices is a money saver, and drying them is easy. A jar of canned minced Garlic is xheaper to buy and not worth all the effort to grow, harvest, clean and chop several hundred or more garlic cloves.
Garlic grew so good in the desert back when we had a garden. I think it is much better fresh because you can plant all the gourmet varieties like the mild elephant and the purple ones and they are so fragrant when fresh.
This, our local farmers market sells a lot of "hand crafted" items at high prices. And what vegetables there are are not generally locally grown and at higher prices. I quit going several years ago. There is a local farmer that has a road side stand and his prices are out ragious, I don't go there either.Locally, ours is on a Saturday morning from 9am-12pm. Mostly what you mentioned, but not a lot of produce, or it's too expensive.
This, our local farmers market sells a lot of "hand crafted" items at high prices. And what vegetables there are are not generally locally grown and at higher prices. I quit going several years ago. There is a local farmer that has a road side stand and his prices are out ragious, I don't go there either.
We don't have much luck with growing in our very sandy soil. Tomatoes do well, and to some extent, sometimes, yellow squash and zucchini. Sometimes they do nothing.
We have an abundance of Farmer markets along with a few U-pick farms. We were/ have been quite insulated from the pandemic shortages as well as grocery store supply issues. We were lucky in that respect. I am getting a few more hens this year to make sure we maintain supply for us and family as a few of my girls are going to age out soon and decrease production. One of the local farms here sells eggs for $2.99 so I do have a back up if needed.I sure wish we had a decent Farmer's Market in my area. The closest one to us that is any good is in Birmingham, AL. that I know of, anyway. The one we have locally, is puny. Nothing I would want to buy there.
We were/ have been quite insulated from the pandemic shortages and well as grocery store supply issues.
Yeah alot of folks were in same boat. I was well prepared, shopped a lot of sales. All my dry goods were bought ahead of the pandemic so I paid sale for a lot of what I had on hand. We used quite a bit over the interim and I have just now started replacing some of it we have used over last 3 yrs. But those item prices are down so not going to cost an arm and leg to replace. Patience is key. The one thing though we did see a shortage on was frozen FF. The spouse likes them occasionally. While they were hit or miss in the store we could always find potatoes on sale - so I made them when he took a shine for some. It wasn’t a big deal. Surprising chicken breast remained at our regular prices of $1.79-1.99 through the entire pandemic as well. There was one exception in Feb 2022 where it went to $2.49 that month and dropped back to $1.79 the following. We are still paying the same now. Sometimes I love where we live lol.Here, too. We haven't been insulated from the increase in prices, though.
Yeah alot of folks were in same boat. I was well prepared, shopped a lot of sales. All my dry goods were bought ahead of the pandemic so I paid sale for a lot of what I had on hand. We used quite a bit over the interim and I have just now started replacing some of it we have used over last 3 yrs. But those item prices are down so not going to cost an arm and leg to replace. Patience is key. The one thing thought we did see a shortage on was frozen FF. The spouse likes them occasionally. While they were hit or miss in the store we could always find potatoes on sale - so I made them when he took a shine for some. It wasn’t a big deal. Surprising chicken breast remained at our regular prices of $1.79-1.99 through the entire pandemic as well. There was one exception in Feb 2022 where it went to $2.49 that month and dropped back to $1.79 the following. We are still paying the same now. Sometimes I love where we live lol.
80%20 and even leaner, hamburger really don't make good hamburger patties.
We use votive candles pretty regularly. I was buying a 4pk of votives from Dollar Tree for $1.00 (So 25 cents each), during late-pandemic (2021). I was getting clearance ones before the pandemic even cheaper. Decided it was time to buy another shoe-box full of votives and checked at the Dollar Tree, expecting the $1.25 price increase. However, I was not expecting that they changed from a 4pk to a 3pk for the $1.25. That is 41 cents each, or a 64% increase. On that specific item, it is about a 29% inflation rate each of the 2 years!
We've tried about every fat content ground hamburger on a flame, oven, or stove; and found that we think 80/20 makes the best burgers of all of them. Personal preference.
We have a whole large tote filled with votive candles, but we don't have much use for them right now. They are still good to have just in case. We bought our years ago while they were still really cheap.
I still swear by those Walmart single wick jar pillars. I think they are 6.98 for a 20 oz. candle. Of course, they are scented, so if you can't handle scented, you are out of luck. But a darned good, cheap sub for the expensive Yankee jar candles.
If you set the candle in front of a mirror, you greatly increase the amount of light from one candle.ONE candle for the WHOLE house for LIGHT if there is nothing else left means you need:
360 candles for a year at one candle per day
You get six months light if you burn TWO candles per day
You get 120 days if you burn 3 of the 360 candles per day
you get 90 days light if you burn 4 of the 360 candles Per day
So, how many candles have you stocked?
REMEMBER YOU NEED THEM FOR LIGHT
and candles advertised as "long burning"
HAVE TINY WICKS, so ADD virtually NO LIGHT TO ROOM!
TAPERS have bigger wicks and give off much more light!!
****************
It is ALL ABOUT THE WICK SIZE.
YOU CAN MAKE EVEN one or two A LITTLE TEA LIGHTS fry eggs ,or WARM YOU DINNER OR MAKE WATER BOIL, or perk a pot of coffee, IF YOU REPLACE THE WICK, or add to its wick
By adding (laying on top of its original wick)A SHORT 1.5 ", HALF A tightly rolled up KLEENEX or two,
TO ITS LITTLE WICK, SO YOU GET A BIG FLAME!
LOTS OF LIGHT , LOTS OF FLAME AND LOTS OF HEAT!
MAKE SURE YOU DO IT IN AN EMPTY KITCHEN SINK WHERE THE FIRE YOU MAKE CAN BE CONTROLLED!
Remember-AN UNCOVERED CONTAINER OF WATER TAKES TWICE AS LONG TO BOIL SO COVER IT!