Just like before a thunderstorm

[Treetop]

There are also seeds. Its a crop that likes a rich soil, and decent water levels... otherwise very easy to grow and in most areas has few or no pests. strangely the areas we grow the most is where the pests for it live. Same for potatoes. rather odd actually, there are shorter season tobaccos, and potatoes for the south... weird how that works out...

off topic?...good word, i got a slight problem, vis-a-vis my soil tilth, it is poor up on this ridge, which was logged off a while ago. i know what i gotta do, but its a multi year thing, meaning a lot of discing, and then 2 years AT least of laying in clovers, white, red ladino, and alfalfa, buckwheat, fescue, timothy, broom, and just tilling that under. i got friends with cows, and i gotta lay MUCH manure, etc etc...before i can even think of doing anything serious, which is why i been stocking grains in buckets, stashing non hybrid seeds, AND fitting on putting a monster greenhouse in the spring just to keep my seed stock current. you know, right now, in the stores, i keep seeing cans of tomatoes, at 5 for $5, big cans...i been laying into those, stocking them...becoz you CANNOT can maters, below what they offer in cans..at least not yet. SeedSavers is a wonderful resource, for non hybrids. neil

hybrids are GREAT. all a hybrid is, is a cross of two stabilized varieties. If you save seeds the "f1" year as a breeder would call it or the hybrid year as most call it... the next year youd start seeing the diversity of all those parents in the offspring. You then save seed from only the best plants, and yo end up with a highly adapted local variety over a few years. This is a great way to go actually. I know lots of homesteaders.... most took 1015 YEARS or trying claimed locally adapted vrieties until they found a few that ACTUALLY produce well for them with their full range of methods and conditions..... Starting from hybrids or breeding yourself bypasses that.... In fact almost all older cultures grew "landraces" populations with a much wider set of phenotypes then farmers currently grow. I Strongly suggest doing this if survival ever depends on growing food. to much or to little water one year? thats ok... some of the population does btter for each set of variables... a new disease shows up? pests? this style of growing can help buffer or eliminate such issues. Lots of ways to do it. It can be as simple as picking a few varieties including hybrids to grow as if hey were one variety.

I know many sources will tell you to sta away from hybrids... I ca tell you, I dont care if they farmed for 30 years... they dont know what they are talking about. especially for someone with little experience who didnt spend a decade securing proven varieties. Even if you did the landrace method is ideal. almost all cultures grew in this way before uniformity became te rule.there is a reason for it. theres also a reason crops disease is so much more common now.

[68Camaro]

Why in god's name is greece determining if they want to be saved or not? It's like they were sent a life line, and instead they're thinking about cutting the ropes that keep them from falling? Someone please explain to me what/why would they consider such things? Massive pain now, rather than later? I truely do not understand.

You can lead a horse to water....

The Greek government doesn't want to be responsible for their decisions - they have no guts, and can't stand up to the people. So they want "the people" to make this decision for them. The result, Greece will fully default, and that ripple will go through the EU. Banks will either fail, or will require direct intervention from other governments if "too big to fail" policy reigns. Greece will get booted from the EU, or whatever is left of it. Greece will self-destruct, and it will get ugly there. More so than already.

[rsk1963]

So they want "the people" to make this decision for them.

Pawn the blame. Think the dems/gop were just doing this on our own budget. It amazes me how we (humans) never learn from past mistakes. (I know we have a short attention span anymore, but... even 2 months ago, we cant remember "all the way back then"?) The only group that acted appropriately in that mess (I know its still there, but we have some fabreeze on it right now, so it doesnt smell as badly), was the credit industry kicking us down a peg. Wonder how far the Grown ups (relative term in this mess) will kick them down?

Maybe the Mayans weren't too far off?

Thanks Camaro for the input

[blackrabbit]

The people should make the decision, follow Iceland's example and default on the debt. They will have a short period of pain but then can actually grow their economy without the burden of paying off the international banksters. Iceland did it, Greece could too.

[68Camaro]

The people should make the decision, follow Iceland's example and default on the debt. They will have a short period of pain but then can actually grow their economy without the burden of paying off the international banksters. Iceland did it, Greece could too.

The larger problem that Greece has is NOT what they owe the "banksters", but that they cannot operate/function without continuing to borrow an enormous part of their budget. They have no prayer of getting their budget in control for a decade, at least.

Is this a Greece only problem? NO. The US has been less responsible even than Greece.

Imagine the situation the US would be in if we could not continue to print money and buy our own bonds with fake inflated money, with reserve currency status. We would be in exactly the same boat inside of a month.. we would be just where Greece is. And without the money (provided to Greece by the EU banks, or to the US by virtue of printing presses), cities would burn, millions would riot, hundreds if not thousands would die, martial law would be declared, the constitution suspended, and we would become a de facto dictatorship with accounts frozen, wage and price controls in place, and worse to come.