Spring is just around the corner, and I urge every man to consider planting a garden. First, there is the obvious food source. A garden is a frugal investment, which can provide months of crops. The quality of food will be higher than anything you can buy in a store, and it can be produced pesticide-free. Second, gardening develops an important survival skill that is fun and rewarding. Third, you are making an important step towards self sufficiency, and lastly, you stop contributing to agribusiness profits.
Financial savings
Have you looked at the cost of organic produce lately? I’ve found that many times you can buy a small plant for the price of the fruit or leaves that are already on it. For example, herb plants such as basil, parsley, sage, etc. cost $3 at my local grocery store, whereas the cuttings of herbs in the produce section cost roughly the same. You could literally just buy the plant, use its leaves for their superior freshness as compared to the dying clippings, and toss the rest of the plant in the garbage when you are done and come out the same as buying the herb cuttings only.
If you plant, feed, and water the plant, you will have a year’s worth of fresh herbs. Likewise, last year a bell pepper seedling from WalMart cost less than two bell peppers. If you only get two peppers off the plant, you will break even, and of course your product will be fresher and natural.
Bedrock of civilization
She’s focused on the farmer
Agriculture was the first step of human civilization. Prior to developing agriculture, or literally, “tillage of the soil,” humans were hunter gatherers, dependent on finding food every day in order to survive. Just imagine how different life would be if we had to spend hours every day just to find food.
At the beginning of the 20th century, about a third of Americans worked in agriculture. Farming touched all families and was a way of life. And why shouldn’t it be? Eating well provides a foundation for developing a strong body and mind. Today around 4% of the workforce is involved in agriculture, due to factory farms, corporate farming techniques, and automation. By growing your own food, you are participating in one of the fundamental activities that fuel human civilization, and you will feel a connection to your food and your body.
Health benefits
If you are eating something from your garden, I can guarantee it is healthier than whatever your alternative meal was. Eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables will give you more energy, and studies show that a meal from unprocessed whole foods is highly beneficial. Further, many of our diets are poor in minerals, and this can be traced back to poor nutrients in soils in commercial farms. Minerals are absorbed by plants through the roots, and natural food consumption is the best way to increase your intake of vitamins and minerals.
What to plant?
My advice is to start out with something you already enjoy eating, or know you will eat. Tomatoes are a common choice, and tomato plants are among the cheapest and easiest to grow. It’s also surprisingly easy to grow lettuce, kale, arugula, cabbage, broccoli, okra, radishes, turnips, and carrots in a relatively small area.
If you have a little more space, try potatoes, onions, cucumbers, watermelons, or blueberries. I’ve found myself eating things I’ve never even bought or tried before. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a turnip, but I’ve made a delicious and easy turnip meal just by boiling them with butter, salt, and pepper, and eating a large root vegetable like turnips is an excellent source of minerals. Your local home supply store, hardware store, or even Wal Mart will have a good supply of seedlings that are popular for your area.
What do you need?
If you have an area of at least 10 square feet of ground with good direct sun, you can purchase small seed trays for planting seeds rather cheaply. I found a 6×6 starting tray at the dollar store for $4, and it’s prepackaged with soil. Just buy seeds (often less than a dollar a package, more for heirloom or organic), plant inside in a warm place, and wait.
To germinate, seeds need only heat and moisture. Germination can take from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. After you see the seedlings poke through the earth, place them in sunlight until they are a few inches high, and transfer to your garden. If this is your first time, don’t worry too much about what varieties or what type of trays you are buying—just do it. It will be a learning experience and you can move on to a more complicated garden next year.
Urban gardening
I recently stumbled across some excellent how-to videos from GrowingYourGreens. I came across his most popular video, which is how to grow 53 plants in 4 square feet with a vertical container garden. If you have limited space, check out the video for advice and info on how to turn even the tiniest of space into a gardening area. I have bookmarked the page, as it turns out they are the most popular gardening videos on Youtube. Whatever topic you’re interested in, from composting to hydroponics to seed selection, this hippie has it covered.
Part of neomasculinity is becoming self sufficient in all facets and developing important skills and valuable resources. Take the challenge and grow something this year. Some of my personal favorites are bell peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, basil, sage, mint, and the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted came out of my garden last year. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.
Read More: 10 Reasons You Should Become A Survivalist
“Human grandeur,” said Pangloss, “is very dangerous, if we believe the testimonies of almost all philosophers; for we find Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Aod; Absalom was hanged by the hair of his head, and run through with three darts; King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was slain by Baaza; King Ela by Zimri; Okosias by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehooiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity: I need not tell you what was the fate of Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard Ill, Mary Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, and the Emperor Henry IV.”
“Neither need you tell me,” said Candide, “that we must take care of our garden.”
“You are in the right,” said Pangloss; “for when man was put into the garden of Eden, it was with an intent to dress it; and this proves that man was not born to be idle.”
“Work then without disputing,” said Martin; “it is the only way to render life supportable.”
The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork: Pacquette embroidered; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to Brother Giroflee, but did some service; he was a very good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and then to say to Candide:
“There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts.”
“Excellently observed,” answered Candide; “but let us cultivate our garden.”
Going to be planting my garden this spring. Wish we would have a long enough dry spell so I could get outside and till the garden up. Once the kiddos get old enough, I’ll be teaching them about growing their own food too. Get the whole family involved.
Excellent article – I agree.
Excellent!
I am a big time hardcore gardener. We eat fresh vegetables from the garden literally year around (in Northern U.S.). Not only do I have a huge vegetable garden, but I also have 7 fruit trees, grape vines, straw/black/blue/and raspberries. Then, to top it off, we have a few laying hens so we get our own eggs.
I’m sure we save some money, but we mainly eat a lot better. I enjoy it. It is good exercise. It helps build our self reliance.
When God made man, He placed him in a garden, to tend it. God has also put the spirit of the gardener in my heart. It’s a passion for me.
How do you accommodate for the winter? Greenhouse or just freeze/can veggies during the growing season?
Winter times I have small pots indoors near my back door which gets 6+ hours of direct sunlight in the winter. They get the benefit of the indoor climate control, and the sunlight throughout the year.
I tested it with a small geranium and now the leaves are bigger than my hands.
If you want to take self-sufficiency to the next level, start collecting rain-water and set up a slow drip-line to feed into your garden too!
I saw an idea the other day I’m going to try out. Basically get some old coke cans and cut the tops off with a can opener. Leave you with a perfect potting container for kitchen window herbs….does this sound gay? I’m starting to think this conversation is getting a little too HGTV. Hah!
Definitely not gay haha. It’s called “being resourceful”! My Mom grows fresh chives up at the cottage. I tell ya, those chives in the meat marinades are godly.
I also grow hot peppers and rhubarb. Unfortunately the rhubarb may be a few years away from being optimal stalk-thickness. My first go at the hot peppers had about a 25% yield, but they were hotter than giving Satan a rimjob.
Windowsill herbs are the best. I’ve had sage and oregano growing all winter. Coke cans would work (drill some drainage holes), but you can pick up little herb sized containers and trays for just a few bucks.
I want to cross pollinate some sweet bell peppers with habaneros and give them to some friends for a nice little surprise. Who knew you could prank people while gardening?
True. I just like re-purposing things and there were a few coke cans lying around, so why not? I’m thinking of not drilling holes though and just being careful about the watering.
Give it a shot. A $3 pack of seeds of gives you multiple attempts. Even if it is just herbs, cooking somebody a dish using homegrown ingredients is the best.
Thinking of some cilantro, rosemary, and spearmint. All great for cooking.
Good choices. I grew cilantro last year and it takes off like crazy with little to no work.
We have mint that grows in the wild up at the family cottage too. Makes for decent tea if you’re into that.
I usually like to add it to black tea. Gotta keep that stuff potted up though or it grows like kudzu.
& drinking! Whenever I meet a guy who dislikes onion or tomato, I really start wondering about their character.
~YEE YEE!~
I don’t like raw tomatoes, but love salsa and the occasional pico de gallo….go figure.
Not at all man, you actually hit upon another aspect of self-sufficiency (and possibly by extension neo-masculinity)…re-purposing. By doing what you have just done, you exercise your resourcefulness and creative thinking. This is a useful skill regardless of conditions. Had you mentioned decorating said cans…well…there’s probably some HGTV “special” forum you could join.
I actually kinda like them staying unpainted. Another interesting thought would be to try planting in a glass coke bottle so you could see the roots as well. That would be a bit trickier though.
I do several things.
(1) I grow some extremely cold hardy crops like Kale, Swiss Chard, and Collard greens that can survive the winter here in zone 6-7. They don’t grow a whole lot during the really cold weather, but they are still out there. I’ve gone out and kicked the snow off and picked greens. Brassica’s (like Collards and Kale) are superfoods and are suppose to raise your testosterone level. Cilantro is surprisingly cold hardy as well.
(2) I grow a large bed of carrots during the summer/fall, and then just leave them out in the garden all winter. I throw large trashbags of leaves (in the bags) on top of their beds. This gives them about a foot or two of insulation, and the ground underneath never freezes. When I want carrots, I just go out and pull the bags off, and pull the carrots up. Then, I throw the bags back over the bed.
(3) Potato – I have a buried garbage can “root cellar” in the garden. Again, I throw trash bags of leaves on top of it for insulation. The lid of the trash can is at ground level. This keeps the temperature above freezing all winter. They last just fine until about April.
(4) Winter squash (Butternut and Kabocha mainly), plus onions, garlic, shallots, and sweet potato. These like to be stored at around 60 degrees F. I have a place in my basement (under the stairs) where I can store them all winter with no effort at all.
(5) Tomato, peach, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry. We freeze. We’ve also canned tomato, but it is a lot of work, and my wife prefers cooking with the frozen ones. She says that allows her to just use one or two instead of a whole quart jar.
(6) Grape juice – We use a steamer juicer, and can it. It is extremely easy. This year we made about 80 quarts of Concord Grape Juice.
(7) We also sometimes do some pressure canning (green beans or salsa) and hot water bath canning (pickles or tomato) but they are both a ton of work, and I don’t know if they are worth the effort.
(8) I’ve also done some lacto fermentation of Kimchi (and would like to try doing Sauerkraut and fermented dill pickles also).
(9) I hope to get a greenhouse one of these days.
(10) I’ve done some sprouting in the winter also, since I get bored without having much to do in the garden.
Well done!
That’s really cool. I wish I had the space but we just have a suburban lawn, in an old neighbourhood with lots of big trees, so we have very little direct sunlight.. Given the space limitations I grow herbs. We have basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, coriander, chives. We dry and freeze what we don’t use fresh.
Where in the NE do you live – good friend. ? Im a fellow New Englander with an equally serious passion for growing his own food. No matter where we have lived my wife and I have always worked hard to grow something that we eat.
I never liked gardening. It seemed like something for women and old people. But in recent years self-sufficiency has entered my mind and become part of my lifestyle. I still don’t garden, but I am at least vaguely curious.
Another thing I am curious about is natural medicine. I don’t know how well it works, but I do know that the reason we never hear anything positive about it is the usual social programming. Worth looking into, if nothing else out of curiosity.
There are lots of sites that sell heriloom seeds. Many of them specifically put together “medicinal herbs” seed packets. Worth looking into, if you’re curious.
Self sucienly is really hard stuff. More difficult than people think.
But having some plants is a nice add to your food basket. Herbs, for example, is a must have, and you can have them even in the kitchen (which gives it a nice scent).
Gardening is an excellent skill to have. I have the original red canna lily bulbs my grandfather replanted every season. I do the same in his honour. They grow over 6′ in height and are beautiful when they bloom.
I would say a general metric to decide what natural medicine to use is this: Use what is scientifically proven to work. Here are examples:
Colloidal Silver: Not Proven, don’t use
Cannabidiol (commonly found in cannabis): Proven, but only use if it’s legal where you live, some places it’s oddly illegal despite the fact that it doesn’t intoxicate…
Homeopathy: DISPROVEN, DO NOT USE!
Honey: Proven.
etc. I would just do good research to make sure that it’s been scientifically proven. Also, using supplementary medicine is generally NOT a replacement for general medicine, and consult your doctor.
A fantastic skill set that every man should acquire and use to his advantage, is gardening. I have always admired gardening as it allowed me to be able to do something constructive while being able to reconnect with my inner self. Contrary to popular belief as to why any “real” man would consider gardening since it was always traditionally associated as a lady’s “job”, the truth of the matter is gardening is somewhat of an important task to carry out as it can have significant and potential benefits to yourself as an individual.
From changing the soil, to cutting and trimming the shrubs and bushes, maintaining the flower beds and vegetable patches and lawn being maintained, the very fabric of gardening itself is one which is therapeutic and relaxing as it helps us to maintain our composure and keeping our human spirit strong, The essence of gardening can help us as individuals to truly reconnect with nature while allowing us as men to be able to disconnect ourselves from the daily stresses of life and the world of technology and to reconnect with nature. When a man is able to maintain his own garden, it helps to illustrate some of the strong qualities and virtues that can be affiliated with true masculinity such as structure, discipline and patience, all of which are skills and characteristics that are admired.
Gardening should be treated not just as a hobby, but as I have already mentioned, a skill set which provides high quality value in the long run. At a time when food prices are rising, the very temptation of growing your own food is worth indulging in as it will provide you with the opportunity to grow your own range of fruits and vegetables of your choosing, while allowing you to find accomplishment in your own hard work and taking pride in your own labor. The very concept of being able to grow your own food, while sharing with it with your friends and loved ones, can also help to display a high level of respect for yourself while illustrating a colorful personality and someone who has respect for not only himself, but for others and for nature itself.
Speaking of skills Good Sir, the late matriarch of the Davis clan was a sorceress conjuring up wedding dresses to school uniforms for kin and clients near and far. I still recall walking in on half naked busty women getting measured for her master pieces. Should’ve put down The Transformers and picked up the tape measure and scissor under her tutelage.
If we had and education system that still served our needs schools would have their own gardens and teach other practical skills as well as gardening but clearly this is not part of the plan in making us child wards of state..
“If we had and education system that still served out needs schools would have their own gardens and teach other practical skills”
Indeed. The last thing schools will teach is anything pragmatic that would make someone not dependent on government or corporations.
Yeah here in Welfaretario the last few years the SJW agenda of homo friendly wussification has really hurt boys and girls too. I think for a lot of boys they retreat into video games, not solely out of laziness, but because their basic instincts are under siege and this is their last safe haven which is also now under attack.
As an example here are subjects things I leanred in the early 80’s in elementary school that are now gone:
Swimming.
Shop with band saws, lathes etc
Camp craft, including building fires.
Canoing
Violent games like dodge ball
We also celebrated all holidays like Christmas and Halloween
All gone today replaced with “fags are good” type shit!
“All gone today replaced with “fags are good” type shit!”
And if the agenda continues probably see a State mandated anal penetration for all boys in grammar school in the name of “diversity” where they will be taught and have to ram a dildo up their asses, set forth by the Hilary Clintom administration. Sorry to get so 1984 on you, but things seem to be going on that direction.
Greetings, fellow OntariOWE-ian! Shout-out from the GTA.
Lets be real here. Most men do not have time or the interest in gardening. We have a finite about of time and resources. I do not have time to fuck about in the garden growing fruits and vegetables which is why I pay someone else to do it for me.
Retreat into video games? Brother I never left them.
That can work too. I’m just remarking on what little pragmatic things the schools teach these days.
Yeah but you’ve lived life and still do. I had guests stay at my house in the Fall. They have a son about 16 all he did the whole time here was play video games , talk onine with other “virtual” friends and not talk to anyone. The weather was beautiful we had a backyard BBQ. An attractive neice his age dropped by but nadda.. It was sad and I here that’s all he does..
Yeah gardening is great if you have time but I do not. There is a lot of mythology in this article. If your garden was the best place to grow food there would already be a farm there. It is not. To grow food in an urban gardening you will likely be using petroleum based fertilisers to make it work. There is no topsoil in your garden and thus it is unlikely that your food will be more nutrient dense than what you get from a farm.
It is also unlikely to be cheaper since rather than paying someone to do the work, you are now doing the work. This has a cost in time and time is money. Just because you do something yourself, doesn’t mean it is free.
As for agriculture being the back bone of civilisation, some say the opposite. Some say it led to disease, famine and war. Who can tell. What I can tell you is that it is traditionally back-breaking work.
If you enjoy gardening, by all means. But do not delude yourself into thinking it some great and wondrous alternative to simply having fresh food delivered to your door after you ordered it on your smartphone on the way back from work.
Great article. Been gardening the past few years. I did not inherit the green thumb of my mother’s farmer family, but am learning and getting better yields every year. Being in a subarctic climate isn’t helpful either. Leafy greens are the easiest to grow. Kale is a monster of a plant. Going to give it another shot this year. Looking forward to see how it goes (giving a few cannabis plants a shot too…).
It’s a great idea and I’ve been thinking about it the last two summers. I always stop, though, when I think of all the work that’s involved. Seems terribly easy to go to the grocery for my green peps, onions, shrooms, potatoes, carrots, etc…
I take the majority of you have not done any serious gardening. It’s fun and relaxing when it’s just a hobby but if you rely on it for your food, it’s back and heart breaking too.
You forgot a step – find a woman to can your food!
Seriously though, an article on canning and processing would be great. I got my wife a canner for her birthday a few years ago and I probably use it more than her. All summer long, I hit up the farmer’s market and try new recipes as well as smoking and canning salmon and fish. I have homemade dill pickles sitting in my lunch pail as I type. Last week I bought a wheel of brie and we baked and ate it with blueberry jam we harvested. I really want to invest in a sauerkraut crock, but those things are expensive.
Speaking of harvesting, don’t overlook foraging. We stock up on blueberries and raspberries every year. Last year I canned spruce tips and made dandelion capers. I got spruce pitch and made spruce oil that I use in homemade grooming products. I’m really looking forward to April to try my hand at tapping birch trees and making syrup. Got a set of 10 taps and hoses off Amazon for like $15.
That’s something that’s always intimidated me a bit; canning. I was thinking about just blanching and freezing my vegetables for the winter. Would really like to see a follow-up article about storing vegetables (canning/freezing/etc).
I was at first too. But vegetables are hard to screw up. You just have to make sure you have enough acid in them to prevent ickies from growing. Usually a little bit of cider vinegar does the trick. From there a 10 minute hot bath is all you need.
Blanching, vacuum sealing and freezing would also work. I know a lot of people who just smoke and freeze their fish that way.
Animal products are tougher because you have to pressure can them. Basically you have a very powerful bomb on your stove for an hour. I’ve gotten pretty good at salmon, but every so often I still crack a jar.
You should write an article for ROK. Include pictures so I don’t have to read! 😉
Maybe I will. I’ve written two in the past. I still consider myself a novice, but the researching would help. I just like cooking (and eating ).
Modern pressure canners aren’t really that dangerous. The rocker top pretty much eliminates the ‘explode in the kitchen’ danger.
lol
Canning really isn’t that hard. Pick up a book at the local Walmart and get to it. Just follow the recipe/times precisely and you’re golden. Easy peasy.
My canner came with a good booklet as well.
I just spent over 100 bucks on organic seeds and have a 40×10′ greenhouse thus far…
What did you build your greenhouse out of?
If you want a cheap one, you can use PVC piping and painter’s plastic. It won’t last as long though.
Yeah, I recently built my own, which is why I asked. I went with 4mil underlayment for the walls, and that “corrugated” plastic roofing panels for the roof and door. Still working out some issues, but right now I average about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than outside air temperature.
Not too shabby. If/when I make some raised gardens, I am planning on building them to where I can convert them to cold boxes to extend the growing season.
Great minds think alike. That’s my current project. Got some old windows for the tops, now I just need to build the raised portions.
The biggest pain in the ass part to me is not building the raised beds, but having to buy all the dirt to fill them in. I want 3-4 raised beds that are 4 ft x 8 ft….that’s a lotta dirt!
You could try a mixture, part garden soil, part native dirt, part leaves and natural compost. I have read a lot of stuff by people who seem to get good results from this, plus they claim that it improves the native dirt that they put in.
make sure to get the soil mix right which is a combo of compost, azomite rock dust, vermiculite, coconut coir/peat moss, and potentially some worm castings
I know a greenhouse will significantly raise the temperatures during the day, but what happens at night, if the temperature drops to say 30 degrees. Do your plants die?
A lot of it depends. There is a guy in colorado who did a video about his greenhouse where he claimed that some of his cold-weather crops survived being frozen a few times. I also have read some articles about people who will put pots of sand in the greenhouse to soak up heat and then the heat releases during the evening.
I don’t garden. I do however have an orchard.
Fruit trees produce maximal yield at minimal time investment, and unlike vegetables you can ferment apples and cherries.
Not sure if this is true, but a friend’s father quipped at Thanksgiving to me that he read a common trait among people who live near or past 100 years of age is a vegetable garden of their own.
Well, I have had a bunch of relatives who managed to make it to at least their 90s. Partly that can be attributed to fresh food, hard work, keeping check on bad habits, etc.
This reminds me… I should be getting some seeds at the grocery store.
If your soil sucks, like mine, peas and beans still grow great. In the summer I get home from work and pull a couple of snow peas and a tomato for my salad almost every night.
The local rabbits will eat any kind of lettuce down to nothing but leave herbs like basil and rosemary alone – so I grow those too.
My food eats greens so I don’t have to.
your food does not eat greens. if it did would cost about $40/lb
I guess not only living where I do, but having a large extended family (all of which are headed by men who cook, hunt, fish, and garden) is more of an advantage than I thought.
My family does tomatoes, grapes, cucumber, celery, and a few beans and has a persimmon tree. One uncle grows pigs and cattle along with potatoes, okra, pumpkins and yellow squash. His son has muscadines and blackberries and is very good with bottling fermented fruits. Another uncle does corn, peas, and green beans and the last raises chickens. Everyone has venison or wild turkey in their ice boxes. We all trade around after canning more than enough for our own homes.
Also, gardening can be a great bonding experience rather it’s family time or with a girl worth more than a fling.
Dang, you got grapes to grow? I’ve tried and failed many times with them.
Yep, they’re Concords planted around 1980.The soil is referred to as sandy loam. I just keep them watered if it doesn’t rain much and bug-sprayed if necessary.
You can start with just one vine and after awhile you can just pull a smaller vine off the main one and replant it to grow them out more.
I suspect we don’t get much sandy loam here in the landlocked state of Ohio. Although there are some wineries up near Lake Erie I think.
You wouldn’t happen to own a GoldWing there, would you GOJ?
WTF?!?
Dude, that’s Super Old Man bike. It’s your Retirement bike that you buy about 5 years before your arthritis makes you unable to ride any longer. Dang, hoss, I ain’t THAT old.
No offense. (I have no knowledge about bikes other than my dad had a 350 and 650 Honda).
I just happen to have an older relative in Ohio who likes bikes. Y’all would likely get along pretty well. Very similar humor and ideas about the world.
I figure I got about another 20 years before it’s Goldwing territory.
If he’s interested in meeting, my email is in my profile, have him drop me a line.
Probably beats what we have down here in middle TN; 2 inches of hard clay and then a slab of limestone.
Muscadines are delicious! A nice complex sweet/sour flavor that’s far superior to the normal grape. I like muscadine wine, as well. I really wish I had an acre or more so I could have a larger gardening plot…
only positives with this
Voltaire knew…..tend to your own garden.
Yeah, but he also let his woman run feral. He’s a mixed bag at best.
tis true…but we are all a bit of a mixed bag I would bet….some more mixed than others, but none of us perfect.
Well, I kind of meant philosophically as well. He did a lot to help establish and maintain the subjectivist philosophy upon which socialism found fertile ground to grow.
This is true. However, I think about philosophy much in the same way that many people think about firearms. People like Voltaire, Nietzsche, Fichte, Derrida, Foucault and many, many more all helped establish and maintain the subjectivist philosophy upon which socialism found fertile ground…but that has more to do with how it was read and by whom it was read.
Nietzsche was used as a shill for Nazis, Feminists, Socialists, Misogynists and atheists. Jewish Philosopher Martin Buber, however, thought of him as a man of great religion despite his name being synonymous with the opposite.
Much like the intentions of the person who wields the gun being far more important a factor in saving or taking a life with a gun than the gun itself, so philosophy, mishandled (which, sad to say, it is more often than not) can be the fertile ground on which horrors and atrocities grow as well as the fertile ground on which greatness stems…..one and the same philosophy can be both.
There is a quote I like…I can’t remember exactly how it goes. But in a nutshell it says that ordinary men who think their lives are totally devoid of the haughty aspirations of philosophers would find, if they looked, that their life is controlled by little else….madmen in power interpreting the whispers of the ghosts of men long dead.
as a side note, I buy heavily into that same subjectivist philosophy and feel it is just as easily used to justify traditional gender roles and free market capitalism. It’s just that the generation of d-bags who dodged Vietnam by getting PhD’s and never retired inundating the university for 3 generations with a very specific and very hippy bullshit reading of this stuff has been so incredibly dominant.
Eh, not feeling the love on the firearm analogy. Firearms all have one purpose, and that is to make the bullet exit at high speed out of the front of the barrel and strike a target that it was aimed at. Guns are all designed for one thing, to kill. Even the target shooting types, can and will kill a man and in fact have to in order to be firearms.
Philosophy is much more specific in how its used. No, I don’t think Voltaire sat down and schemed on how to bring about the destruction of civilization, but I do think he was smart enough to reason out pretty easily what happens when you remove absolute concepts of right and wrong from the moral realm. I give him credit for intelligence so I doubt he didn’t booger this out a bit on a boring Sunday afternoon.
I do think many philosophers are just used by power mongers for their own ends, no doubt about that at all. That the Nazis could even pretend to use Nietzsche is baffling to anybody, anybody, who has read him to any length, but they did. So there is that. But subjectivism is entirely set up to undermine not only any sense of right and wrong that transcends the moment, but also creates maximum doubt in the mind of even a simple practitioner to the point that we devolve into atomism. It is THE philosophical equivalent of the female world view.
Side note for me as well, I get the distinct impression that we could spend an entire weekend drinking Scotch and debating philosophy and walk away wanting more. Fun discussion(s).
Maybe right about the gun analogy. But philosophy is, after the author is dead, in a sense, a tool.
Voltaire didn’t remove absolute concepts. Nor did Heraclitus. Nor did Nietzsche. If you ask me, the absolute concepts were never there. Voltaire saw this and explained it. It was brilliant, in that day and age, to be able to understand that universal concepts simply didn’t exist they way they were thought of.
But the question is: when you point out that universal concepts are the wizard of oz what do you do with it?
When truth is broken down to what it is….a coin that may lose its embossing over time and be re-embossed with new value…that insight is one thing…how that insight is used is another.
Feminists want to use that information to say Bruce Jenner is a woman because he wants to. But that simply isn’t the only application.
By sheer force of will men have created things that are unnatural for the benefit of mankind….from dams to highrises to bridges to trains to rockets which can bring us to the moon….by sheer force men created certain (notice I say certain here…I don’t want to go full monty on this) objective truths…truths that have served us well for thousands of years, that have seen mud men become emperors, that have seen the invention of race cars and opera and nuclear fusion….the fact that they have been willed into existence by men of strong character despite being seated in a subjective foundation does not mean, to me, that they should be abandoned….Seeing the foundation ought to redouble the resolve of men to make the world right as it is only by the will of men that it ever has been in the past and it is only through the will of men that it will be in the future.
much agreed.
What a great article! I have always love cooking and always try to grow and make all of my ingredients!
Planning on starting a garden this year. Article gave me some great ideas on what to put in it in addition to a good bag or two of “moo-doo”, as my grandfather called it.
Also got a half-dozen fruit-bearing apple trees (and one pear tree) in the woods near my house (didn’t harvest ’em because I moved in just after they fell). But these aren’t the usual apple trees. They are what remains of an orchard from over 60 years ago. Even the deer have little paths through the fields and woods to them.
But what’s even weirder is smelling the deer. They smell kinda like mouse, but more subtle and with a sense of mass.
Moo-doo, hah! That’s great.
I just remembered: it’s an actual brand!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6a6102144868f89fd4bc333b0afbfe74f2a2358bd59585915de120ff4536d7f.jpg
Even better…and the bottom of the bag…. “Udderly the best.”
I like when a business has a sense of humor. Too bad that a lot of customers don’t or we might see more of it.
Vermonters know how to capitalize on what they got. Hell, there’s one town that has a celebration of Dairy Products/Farmers. Free milk and cookies, a parade, and cow plop bingo (cows get a laxative and wander on a giant bingo board painted onto main street). Then a small carnival and fireworks.
Get away from suburban Vermont and its almost like leftys don’t exist.
Cow plop bingo…I’m dying. That sounds like it’d also be a great drinking game.
Then there’s the “pooper scoopers” in their golf carts, who clean up after the livestock. They get some of the loudest applause at parades. In the past few years they’ve started spraying the affected area with a can of aerosol air freshner. The effect is rather cartoonish.
I grew up surrounded by that sort of humor. Kinda explains why I was one of the few people laughing at Alan Alda’s jokes at a lecture last year.
Has anyone tried the 3 sisters method of growing corn, green beans, and squash? If so, would like to hear your experience on it.
I’ve always wanted to try 3 sisters at once. Not sure if that counts or not.
I knew someone wouldn’t be able to resist…not surprised in the least it was you. Hah.
I’ve wanted a brunette, blonde and a redhead at once…never considered they might be sisters….but if that is the way the prevailing wind blows who am I to argue?
The funny thing is…as soon as I posted this comment I began the countdown on how long it’d take for you and GOJ to comment on it.
I like being consistent and rock solid on what expectations I fulfill.
As a Christian, I know that patriarchal polygamy (polygyny like that practiced by Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, David, Solomon, Josiah, etc.) is a legitimate practice. Still, it seems like marrying sisters isn’t. “And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.” (Leviticus 18:18 ESV)
Do you even know what we are talking about?
Mmmm, uncovering nakedness……
I’ve done the corn and beans together thing before. You have to give the corn a big head start or the beans will overtake them.
Also, I’ve heard that you have to dramatically increase plant spacing to allow enough room and light for everyone.
I look at this as a good “low input natural” way of growing these crops, but not necessarily the highest yielding under optimal growth conditions.
Since I live in a apartment I went with hydroponics and started out with a small system
and plan on doing a larger one once I get money saved up for it. The only good thing
about doing a system like this is I only have to buy plant food, rockwool and seeds.
Do salts or other things build up in the system and require being moved?
Do you have access to the roof of your apartment building? Would it be possible for you to start growing there?
It’s THIS type of article which typifies the AMAZING variety of RoK subjects and authors. Culture, history, gardening, personal finance, so on. Simply fantastic, and contradicts 100% the SJW narrative about this site’s purpose.
Shhhh….we’re really going to rape the tomatoes and oppress the corn.
You are so culturally insensitive. Do you even know if the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable? I mean, people say it is technically a fruit bur Nix v. Hedden (1893) says it has the right to be a vegetable. Keep your hetero-normative cis-vegetation away from me…I am feeling triggered.
I don’t care if the tomato is a fruit or vegetable….it still tastes the same….if you know what I mean.
honestly, I have no idea what you mean and I think I would prefer to keep it that way.
Have a good weekend brothers!
Haha. You too. Have fun sitting at Starbucks and maccing on the yoga chicks.
Ha. “Maccing”…that’s still a thing?
Who knows…did I even spell it right?
#transveggielivesmatter
Yes!!!!
If a cucumber chooses to identify as a zucchini , as members of a just and moral society must allow it and even embrace it.
Don’t even get me started on the sweet potato / yam issue. What bathroom to use?
And we shouldn’t point out that homosexuals don’t make good farmers. They’re always spilling their seed.
They tend to milk the bulls though
I love it when a chick milks my balls… oh you said bulls!
then I know in advance to stay well clear of English Bob’s Farm Fresh Dairy Products
Just look for the chick with the milk moustache…
Or that glazed look
How do you grow rapeseed?
Rapeseed (AKA Canola) is a Brassica, just like mustard, collards, kale, etc. Vegetable oil is cheap enough that I wouldn’t grow it for that purpose.
You can eat the greens however, and I’ve heard (from an African friend) that they are pretty good greens.
Vegetable oil is one of those things you should never eat.
Would’ve been hilarious if those meet-ups actually occured and the SJWs all marched in on men exchanging gardening tips.
Actually, contradicts their entire narrative as all they ever do is speak out against all things “patriarchical” or “traditional”..like growing your own food.
They’d say “why grow your own food that’s so patriachical, just go to a food bank??”
When you’re a useleess c*** or mangina that understands nothing of the world, thinking you know it all I can’t see how you’d master the natural sciences and grow your own food..
Me, been doing it for years, canning my own salsa and making my own tomtoe sauces with what I grow. Give lots to friends and familly.
This is a whole thread on ROOSH once I join..
That cute girlie from harry potter is now a third wave feminist promoting an internet pay sex site.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3465711/OMGYES-sexual-pleasure-website-loved-Emma-Watson-teaches-women-orgasm.html
I’d like to plant a seed in her garden if you know what I mean.
She’s trying really hard to make herself a plain Jane….that hair and outfit…yikes.
She does look like crap with that short haircut. Sad, since she is a reasonably attractive looking young woman.
That site has touch screen simulation. The user moves a finger around on the screen and makes the poosy respond. Its like a tutorial to make straight women comfortable with playing with another woman’s poosy, under the pretense of sex education.
lol they recommend you do this:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a6706/boyfriend-edging-rant/
20 fucking minutes as a minimum.
Wouldn’t mind using her as a backhoe so I can plow her backyard.
Depressing. In the first picture my immediate thought was that she looks unpleasant. In the second that her smile looks fake (but not as fake as the old hag at her side – she’ll get there eventually).
The pendulum will eventually swing back. The part I am most looking forward to is for all the degenerates to be abandoned and left to die.
Wonder what they mean by more “tools from the toolbox.”
Be careful with planting too large of a garden in your back yard. All that fresh produce will attract rabbits,moles, and other critters from the neighborhood to the fresh buffet. Even dogs will come and chew down on tomatoes and dig up potatoes. My grandfather had a very large garden in his backyard and was chasing away baby rabbits all the time.
A light sprinkling of kratom around the edges of the garden should keep any pests away.
what if they consume the Kratom and become giant muscular pests?
Saw a movie about that once. Bioengineered rabbits turned into the size of buildings. I was maybe seven or something and my mom thought it was too scary. It wasn’t scary. She had nightmares about it. Haven’t let her forget it even to this day.
HIDE YO KIDS! HIDE YO WIFE!! KRATOM RABBIT ATTACK!!!! https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uUjXaGd6ZfI/hqdefault.jpg
Holy shit look at the teeth on that bastard! Get out the semi auto 22 with bana clip for that one. Pellets would just piss it off!
I’ve always been interested in thus, and have done some food farming myself. Unfortunately, deerflies run the neighborhood and rabbits prowl the yard, so I’ll wait until I have my own house before I do that again.
In case anyone doesn’t know, you should rotate your crops every year (eg. legumes one year, leafy vegetables the next, and root vegetables the next; the cycle starts over again), as this not only prevents certain pest outbreaks (some pests lay their eggs in the soil around the particular crops they favor), but it prevents some nutrients from being overly depleted while others are too abundant (eg. leafy vegetables devour nitrogen, but you may leave too much phosphorus; on the other hand, fruits (eg. tomatoes, peppers, squash) devour phosphorus).
its not gardening.. its small scale yeoman farming. gardening is for women and faggots
Growing “flowers or ornamentals only” is for women and old people. Men grow food, to feed their families. I like your use of the word yeoman farming. That definitely sounds better.
I think it is also proper to use the word “husbandry” when talking about growing plants, just like we sometimes use the term “animal husbandry” for those who raise livestock.
Flowers help maximize your crops by attracting insects for pollination. I plant edible flowers and buckwheat with my veggies to help. Great feeling of providing for the family when you pop out to the garden for dinner. Just harvested my onions and sweetcorn today.
The definition of a garden from Oxford is: “A piece of ground adjoining a house, used for growing flowers, fruit, or vegetables” Why exactly is gardening homosexual?!?
I have 4 above ground planters, and a greenhouse I built from repurposed fencing.. everything I grow tastes way better than anything I’ve ever bought in a store…If anyone has the room or knows how to use space efficiently.. do this!!
If you’re planning anything other than a micro garden, do yourself a favor and get a rototiller. What would take all day by hand is done in an hour with a rototiller. The little ones with the 2 stroke weed wacker type engines work surprisingly well.
Set up an automatic drip irrigation system. It saves you time and most plants
thrive on regularity.
Unless you have a very good fence, you will need some way to reliably kill rabbits, squirrels, rats, and other pests. The little fuckers cause much destruction. I live in a city so I use a pellet gun with a built in suppressor.
When building your garden, preplan how you will protect you plants from early frosts. You want it to be quick and easy to cover them. I live in Colorado and often have outdoor plants alive well into November.
And most importantly, learn about soil PH,and get yourself a meter. This is paramount.
For pure nutrition and growing simplicity, it’s hard to beat Swiss chard.
Tillage (especially rototillers) tears up the soil too much, breaking down the organic matter, and possibly allowing soil erosion.
It’s ok if you add enough new organic matter in the form of compost or manure, but I still try to avoid it.
I do as little tillage as possible. When I do till, I do it with either a spade, or a large heavy badass manly “grape hoe”. Then you get more exercise and less soil disturbance. My garden is pretty good sized (about 2500 square foot).
I also will use a bit of Glyphosate if I feel it is necessary (shame – shame – shame on me for only being 90% organic).
I agree about the soil pH thing, the pellet gun if you can get away with it where you live, and the drip irrigation.
I didn’t know that. Thanks. Maybe I’m using more manure than I really need to.
“I also will use a bit of Glyphosate if I feel it is necessary (shame – shame – shame on me for only being 90% organic).” Oh don’t worry about that, organic is bullshit. The only health benefits from it come from that the fact that organic is almost universally local (because it has to be local): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl5GXArC134
Can you eat the rabbits after you kill them? Or are they too small?
Rabbit is very good cooked as a stew in a slow cooker. Particularly with the very vegetables the little bastid was trying to eat!
Depends where you live. They are several rabbit viruses to worry about. Most hunters don’t eat them before a hard frost kills off the sick ones.
I grow my own hot peppers. I’ve grown the local variety , cayenne pepper , habanero orange , scorpion morugo , blue filius , bird’s eye and some more i can’t remember right now. I’ve had most success with cayenne and habanero. If anyone wants to exchange tips pm me. I also grow basil and oregano and i plan to put some small tomatoes soon.
Love gardening. Have turned my entire suburban lawn over to food production. Even have chickens under my deck
I’ve been growing my own vegetables for the last decade and the enjoyment is next to none. This article was well timed as I’m starting my germination in a few days.
Unrelated, but perhaps more so, are these two articles. In one, a certain “Talia Jane”, a Yelp customer service agent, conplained in writing to Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman that she couldn’t make it in San Francisco. Two hours later, she get fired.
https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a#.wd0oj5wd5
http://www.businessinsider.com/talia-jane-fired-yelp-eat24-2-2016
Then, a Business Insider writer named Stefanie Williams, a woman of all things, puts her in her place.
http://www.businessinsider.com/stefanie-williams-response-to-yelp-employee-talia-jane-2016-2?utm_content=buffer5c01b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
If anything, this shows us a lesson: try not to depend too much on others when possible. Grow your own garden. Buy yourself a goat. Sell scrap metal. Mow lawns. If you’re into fitness or self defense, give some lessons. Whatever it takes.
Or, become a big titted 18 year old Instagram model who has Kylie Jenner as a pal and get a modeling contract.
https://www.instagram.com/jordynwoods/
Doltish move to publicly embarrass the person who is writing your paycheck. But yelp is another one of those dot bombs that might not be profitable.
Yelp is probably going to implode soon, like how Twitter is about to. Yet they are able to slave drive idiots because said idiots want the spotlight so bad. They have no sense of proaction, only reaction, and then, they don’t know what to do.
And Talia’s Instagram is set on private, and I’m not going to bother to open up an account. But a good Samaritan made an article with photos of food she took for Instagram. Sure as hell doesn’t look like rice. She sure doesn’t seem to be eating like a Jap stuck on Iwo Jima.
http://m.ranker.com/list/talia-jane-instagram-photos/ariel-kana
It looks like she has baking skills. She should have been trying to monetize that.
How does yelp make money???
Lean how to preserve your harvest as well so you can eat it in the winter. I bought a preassure canner a few years back and it’s great for preserving stuff. Get a 20 Quart pot as well and your good to mass produce your own salsa and tomatoe sauce.
Just having a garden, as well as making your own salsa. pickles, and tomotoe sauces can save a fortune in food costs and just tastes better and is healthier than any produce shipped thopusands pf miles on a truck..
Here’s a link on preassure canning:
http://www.simplycanning.com/pressure-canning.html
I have the unit on the right.. cheers..
I grow raspberries. Very easy to grow and doesn’t require much work.
check out vegan athlete as well, he’s got some good videos on gardening
I started my herb & vegetable gardens about 10 years ago and I tell you gentlemen, it is an incredibly satisfying experience on so many levels. This article really just scratches the surface. Give it a try this year even if only on a small scale, to get a little experience and to get a feel for your yard (or whatever space you have), as well as how much sun you really get–that makes a big difference in terms of your results.
If you find you dig it, next year go nuts. You can look into “square foot gardening,” for instance, where every inch of your garden is carefully planned out to maximize output and efficiency – you can even get 2 or 3 harvests per year out of some or all of your space, depending on your climate zone and the crops you choose to plant. The article here also touches on the cost of homegrown vegetables vs store bought, and that’s very true, but you’ll lose that benefit if you plant cheap shit like radishes, or things like beans that tend to have low output compared to the space they can take up. So do your math and try to grow the cash crops.
I could really prattle on & on for hours about this topic bc it is one of the more overlooked manly pursuits and I love it. But I’ll just say one last thing: it feels so damn Zen to get up in the morning an hour early, walk out through the dewey grass and slowly, quietly, intently weed your garden. It’s like an hour of a very deep and powerful form of prayer; you’re going to start your days feeling all calm and profound and Walt-Whitman-esque and by God, come Fall you’ll already be planning next year’s expansion.
Excellent advice. Fresh mint leaves are so much better than store bought ones
and here this article will spread the confusion
isnt planting a garden feminine and what women do not men?
then someone questions what about farming wasn’t that what men did?
and then someone explains men hunted and women farmed in some cultures
it doesnt matter how you put it a lot of the people here don’t understand that masculinity and femininity is not really defined either way
im starting to see that these “pro-masculinity” support is more or less “the old ways were better” a kind of “pro-masculinity-hipster” movement
Be careful about growing your cucumbers too big, otherwise your gf/wife may end up using them as a sex toy!
“Contrary to popular belief as to why any “real” man would consider gardening since it was always traditionally associated as a lady’s “job”, the truth”
That, plus as the author has already shown, having a garden requires some forethought and planning, and the willingness to get ones hands dirty. Most women are not willing to actually do the manual labor, nor do they know anything about gardening. The majority of females today only know how to spread their legs and act like spoiled children.
For those who like me don’t have a yard (I live in a city) hydroponics works well. A good hydroponic system is “when engineers garden”. It can be quite an addictive hobby. There are a number of Facebook groups dedicated to it. A few of them also include aquaponics (raising fish and veggies using the fish waste as nutrients).
If your motivation to garden is to save money, forget it -it won’t happen. You should do it, for all of the other reasons listed and more – but you will have to invest both time and money. Think of it as a hobby with outstanding benefits instead.
Seconded. In a lot of areas, fresh fruit and vegetables aren’t expensive enough that you’re going to save money with all the shit you have to put into the ground to make the stuff grow and then all the shit you have to put on the plant to keep insects and vermin from eating it all. A small herb garden can work because most herbs are largely set-and-forget, but even then you find yourself spending more than the value of the plant from a store.
Frankly I like gardening even though I have a small one out back. Anyway in addition to that one Biggy everybody should have is a Composter box to dump all those lawn clippings plus fire place ashes, coffee grounds, spoiled milk and stuff like that, makes good soil for planting and less stuff dumped into landfills.
Although I live in a flat and don’t have any space to grow fruit and vegetables myself, there are a considerable amount of apple and plum trees near me, as well as blackberries all on public land, so I just go and pick as much as I need and make it into kompot (Eastern European style) which helps to preserve the fruit without needing to freeze them while also making a really tasty juice drink.
My parents live in a large farming community and so they are surrounded by farmland full of crops, though a large company has bought out all of the farmland in the area over the last ten years. Since this has happened they only harvest about a third of all the crop before digging the rest back into the ground. As a result, we just go and take the vegetables we want before they all get wasted and left to rot away.
Okra takes a lot of space……
Really? I’ve found it takes less space than a tomato plant, and 2-3 okra plants produce decent output for me. Plus you can easily save one pod for seeds the following year. They seem to output a good volume of fruit per plant, and seem like a good “bang for your buck” plant.
We would suggest you grow your own Kratom, but Kratom can only be raised by approved Kratom specialists because it’s a highly volatile substance when grown in the wild.
Have you watched the documentary Back to Eden? It’s amazing.
Don’t forget garlic if you have the space. It’s idiot-proof…plant in November (in Texas where I am) and harvest in June…it can handle below freezing temperatures, it’s tough, you can ignore it…and the smell of fresh garlic is amazing…
Yes, and roasted garlic is incredible. While I roast it, it puts out the most amazing smell throughout the house, better than any perfume or anything you could buy, and then it has a sweet delicious taste, much different than raw garlic, which is also great. If I had more room I’d definitely plant some. Thankfully, it’s pretty cheap to buy.
A good resource is “Farmer Seed and Nursery” out of Faribault, MN. (www.FarmerSeed.com) They have a good selection and also carry fruit trees, nut trees and general plantings. Plenty of heirloom seeds and plants.
I pretty much grew up on two Iowa farms and both had half acre gardens. There is a definite difference in home grown and corporate farms. Currently looking at a property with a started half acre plot, strawberry patch and established asparagus.
I called Farmer Seed and they absolutely refused to discuss Kratom. It is a closely guarded market for mitragyna speciosa through the Thai black market. It’s easier to get opium poppies.
A great read! I bought a whole lot of seeds years ago and half way through ripping my lawn up. I never got around finishing but this year i think i will. I feel allot better eating organic even tho it cost more! The way I look at it, im investing my money into organic food hence the price will go down in time if more people purchase real food!
doing some growing on your own is okay but a lot of its cheaper in stores than you can produce it. In the north, I grow apples, plums, etc… and some other things that have a better payout annual savings. I don’t enjoy it as much as I thought but enough to take pride in. Storage, drying and freezing is where you can get ahead with the right stuff.
I love gardening, eventhough I stick to the low-manteinance plants for now. There’s nothing like sipping mint tea or using rosemary from plants you’ve grown yourself (+ they are incredibly easy to grow!). Carrots have proved trickier. Basil and chili pepper are a good choice but they attract iguanas, Tomato plants attract mice. Parsley is one of my favorites to use in the kitchen, but I didn’t like the leaves I’ve grown. I’ve just read sugar is a good gardening tip, so I’ll check it out.
Gardening is one of the most beta things a man can possibly do in this time and age.
Dont believe me? Imagine this.
Superman planting potatoes.
The Hulk watering some tomatoes.
Conan the barbarian harvesting broccoli.
How does it feel? Yep. It is THAT aweful.
Excellent article but if you live in Europe it may be the last year or two that gardening is possible if the authorities have their way. They are trying to outlaw heirloom seeds and only registered gardens are able to grow. Global elites pushing their agenda of world domination by controlling the food supply.
Can you grow steak in a garden?