-----Original Message-----
>inteeresting to me is that if the price holds , what will happen to the
>price of California produce in the local markets which is supposedly 90 to
>95 % energy. At 3$ retail a head for lettuce a resourceful local low teck
>grower could easily compete. We had 330 years (1620 to 1950) of nearly
self
>sufficient agriculture and are known for frugality and resourcefulness.
<snip> Local production will fill in the blank only if consumers are willing
to do
without lettuce on their hamburgers or strawberries in February. Consumers
have become used to all sorts of produce year round and seem to be willing
to pay for it.
Don Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Valley Center, CA Senior Software Engineer
Internet development and software engineering
---------------------------------
Carol responds:
An alternative to doing without is to explore local year-round gardening
with cold frames, tunnels, and unheated or solar heated greenhouses. Elliot
Coleman, author of "Four Season Harvest", does this in Maine and provides
his own winter veggies plus veggies for local restaurants.
I've got lettuce right now, though my strawberries, which are not under
cover, are still dormant. I also have young carrots which have been growing
all winter in a tunnel, pac choi, radishes, cilantro, broccoli (both purple
and green), onions, leeks, mizuna, kale, Swiss chard, corn salad, arugula,
celery, lots of herbs, and a few other things that escape my memory at the
moment. And then there are tomatoes from last summer ripening on my kitchen
counter and pumpkins and squash and dried elderberries in my garage and
potatoes and onions in my basement and zucchini and elderberries in my
freezer, etc.
Carol and Brodie, who live in Portland (the left-coast one)
