Link to local news bit


Now our local Fox news station is mostly just cute pics of puppies to be adopted and a bit if there was a house fire that day, but they do to some "investigation journalism" if there is something going on with the Vikings or other sports bullshit, so this is a little out of the ordinary for them to even mention.




Notice the last line in the main article (before the pics, emphasis added": "So, when you see those supermarket prices skyrocket over the summer… you can blame the lack of water in California…"




Food for thought: those with the means to produce their own food will win this one. Even though our garden was a priority this year, it will now be even more so a priority, and I will be adding more in.


 

Yep.

We try to shop around the California stuff whenever possible anyway.
we grow lettuce and tomatoes.  - my wife added broccoli and garlic this year.

We don't grow strawberries yet, but do have blackberry bushes in.

Got our orchard going.
Key limes, Persian limes, ponderosa lemons, grapefruit, oranges and starting avocados.

No scurvy at our house. :)

Wonder what their definition of "skyrocket" is.

You'll see...................

Definitely try growing your own.  I'm doing two 3x3 boxes for potatoes this year and will try growing N-D-N corn.

Overblown. Florida is still producing good crops.

I'm sure welfare folk won't notice anything, we'll just pay em more.

I'm looking to get a few chickens going next week. I need a garden :/

here in Florida, we can, and do, grow just about any vegetables.   Still, supermarket prices are impacted by California issues.  With a large country, we are used to produce from different places at different times of the year, making broccoli available year round.  Of course a shortage out of the West will have an effect on prices nationwide.

Hey the situation here in the west is no joke.... There is NO water this year. 100 yr drought on the back of a 50 yr drought.

Take a look at the daily snow pack levels. The important Number is Percent of Apr 1. Pretty much all zeros...
Cali Daily Snow Pack Levels

Can't expect to farm a desert without water, it's a no brainer. And unless you have that magical haliburton weather machine, nature does what she does best... cycles. Just got to wait it out or tell the feds to fuck off with the federally protected Delta Smelt and let the dam water flow south. Then the whole point would be moot.

What type of weather do the fruit trees like?

I would love to add some citrus trees to my property but can't seem to find anything that is recommended up in my area.

I'm in central/ south texas and have a number of apple and nut trees with a couple jujube's thrown in for good measure.  Apples did surprisingly well last year for their first fruit.  The others should fruit this year for the first time.  I won't get any citrus (neighbors have oranges) as they can be a bit problematic during freezing season.  Usually not a problem, but I'd hate to lose 5 year old trees due to a freak cold snap- this happened to a few of the neighbor's trees. His others were ok, but lost a year or two of growth :(

Grapefruit and blood oranges are pretty popular around here though.

Check and see what zone you're in and buy trees based on the zone.  So far, I've ordered from treesofantiquity.com and all the trees have been great as has the seller.

They don't seem to have a problem keeping the golf courses green in So Cal.  They've got an ocean and no desalination...but...they are building a
bullet train.

Just got me thinking:

 

I wonder if their desalination methods can also detect/remove the fallout from Fukashima?

We are planting a couple of apple trees this year. (Granny Smith and a Golden Delicious).
We don't get quite cold enough for most apple trees.

The citrus we have are hardy to 20 degrees. - This is not a problem where we are at.

The grapefruit is only hardy to 30 degrees. I love grapefruit, so I am giving it a try.
A lot of people here have had success with grapefruit,
but there was a freak cold snap several years ago (a week of sub-30 temperatures) that killed off a lot of the grapefruit trees.
I am hoping global warming will help me out on this.

ETA: You might try contacting a local nursery or college in regards to fruit trees that you can grow.

Just a cautionary tale: If you are on meds, be careful eating grapefruit.

The problem lies in the fact that a lot of those fruits and veggies really only grow well in Cali, and some of them are pretty much ONLY grown in Cali.

For instance I love almonds. Was raised on them, came from our own trees. Still eat a handful or more every day. Something like 95% of the almonds on the PLANET come from Cali.. so when those orchards die.. it will be DECADES before there are affordable almonds again. That's one, not very important nut. Like me.

A quick google search will show you that about 80% of what you get in the fruits and veggies isle at your local Piggly Wiggy comes from Cali. It's going to hurt many, bad. Yes we grow a lot of our staples.. But we don't grow a whole lot of stuff we like.. and can't. Neither can anyone who isn't in "zone perfect" like the central valley...  

I grew up in the central valley, in serious AG circumstances. Another compounding issue is, just like most of the country, Cali's central valley has lost TONS of AG land to development. So, there is even less productive ground there then there used to be. This is a personal issue for me.. My grandfathers farm, where I did a whole lot of my growing up.. is now an "interpretive center".. so "young Californians" who live in the central valley now can go and learn about the agricultural heritage of the valley, and why it was settled in the first place.

Linky

Looking through the header pictures, one shows the house itself.. upstairs window on the right was my room.. and my father's before me.. All gone from the family now because the taxes were more than my family could afford when grandpa died..

I'm thinking bad for California = Good for South Texas! Heck, even pecan prices will go up with the California nut harvest in the dump.

Not  to derail anything here but CA is  for all intents and purposes a desert (an 'arid landscape').  Re-routing water (via huge systems such as coming out of Bishop CA or the aqueduct system running through central CA is what it's all about - no initial water = no crop irrigation or domestic water for urban areas.  Simple as .......... fill in the blank ...........

probably good for Mexico as well.

the topography of the USA is changing

the weather in CA is now 500 miles south.

LA is like Mexico
SF is like LA
Portland is like SF
Vancouver Canada   is the new portland.
Alaska is now like Seattle

move north - or find a new planet.

he's just saying climate change will climate change.....right?  

and how come Boston isn't like Atlanta? Does the "topography" only shift north on the west coast?

Why do we even need farmers anymore. I just go to the store.






Bazzinga.......

California has plenty of water. It's called the Pacific Ocean.

They should build desalination plants to feed their need to wash their cars every day, have swimming pools & have green lawns in a desert area like s. CA, and then let the urbanites pay for it. Export some desal water to Las Vegas. Leave the "natural" water for the farmers & rivers/streams.

CA isn't going to get any more water from the Colorado since CO is tightening the screws on that.

My .02

Ag uses something like 80% of California's water. Desalination will have little effect on them. And moving desalinated water to Las Vegas would be stupid expensive.

As for the Colorado, check out the state of Lake Mead. This isn't because of interstate politics. It's because of drought.

That part is like generalizing that Mn, Wi, Ia, Oh, il, mo, ok, ne, ar, etc are now like Mississippi!

I will agree with you that climate "zones" as defined by us are northward moving in the northern hemisphere. Our plant hardiness zone is getting more and more 3 and less and less 2.  

I thought I was the only one who had weird weather every year.

"Damn Spring is early this year".

"Damn Spring is late this year".


I've tracked the weather daily, weekly, monthly and yearly for 10 years. I look forward and look back. I forecast what we will do next year based on historical trends. The truth is, everyone is suprsised when the weather is different, but it is different every year.

Every year someone floods, someone droughts, someone is the coldest ever, and the warmest ever. The level of national news coverage it gets varies by region.

It's a drought...it's not like we have never had one before.

I'm not doubting there's a drought & I know ag uses the majority of the water, but with a ton of people living in CA with a ton of swimming pools, golf courses, and lawns, in an ever growing population, do you want a loss of ag production that the rest of the country uses?  Plus ag needs to use their water more efficiently.

CA is one BIG cluster anyhow.  Do you have a pic of the CO river at the US border?  There's plenty of water going to the mega-cities and desalination is the only logical solution to CA's problems. Having Las Vegas green in the middle of a desert is a factor too.  NV, AZ & CA are going to fight whatever water makes it to Lake Mead.

I don't have any problems with CA getting off their high horse to sink some funds into desalination plants.. Maybe Oregon should send their water to CA. Oregon is little CA anyhow.

Another reason I'm glad I no longer live in CA and am glad I live in a state with plenty of water.  Availability of water is never a concern for me due to my location.  We have an occasional dry summer but that's normally followed by a wet year.  

If I was looking for a place to live, access to water would be high on my list.  Arizona doesn't really have any natural disasters....but they do have a lack of water.  It's something to think about when picking a place to live.  

I've never looked out my window to see NO snow pack on the Sierras in the 33 years I've lived here.  Even in the worst drought.  We are hurting here, badly.  But, the giant pipes of water being pumped into LA out of the central valley are still going strong over the grapevine.  

I took the kids up to Moaning Caverns this Monday, and had to drive over the bridge in Melones, that is a scary sight:

A lot of the issue for us here in the Central Valley is that our surface water is being appropriated by LA and the Bay area.  THere are GIANT pipes of water that flow into LA from the valley.  Pretty much the entire east bay gets it's water from the foothills in Calaveras and Amador counties.  THis is all surface water that should be flowing INTO the San Joaquin Valley, but isn't.  It is killing the water table and there is nothing that can be done about it.  Farmers aren't getting the surface water allotments they are still being forced by the .gov to pay for, so they have no choice but to use wells to pull water up for their trees.  

A lot of the mature orchards surrounding me in Rural Fresno county have been pulled out this year and replanted with young trees.  This gives the farmers a few years of breathing room with orchards that take way less water, but it sucks for production, and it only buys a few years.  

Man I hope we get a wet winter soon.  I am really concerned about my well this summer.  We have a 3000 gallon poly storage tank in our well system to help with a lower flow, and have no waterable landscaping.  I let more than half of the mature trees on my property die last summer, more will go this year.  The half acre pond in the front field hasn't had water in it since 2013.  

The effect on the landscape is becoming surreal.  The grasslands are already brown, the grazing land for cattle is already almost depleted for the year, it should be green and a foot and a half tall right now.  No one is planting any annual crops.  THere are usually 80-120 head of cattle on the 300 acres behind me at this time of year, there are only about a dozen, because there isn't enough forage for them.

ETA:  iNuhBaDNayburhood, my COUNTY outproduces your entire state for agricultural production in a typical year.  Hell, my county probably outproduces your states annual output for ag over the winter.  You guys grow huge fields of staple crops which yield a tenth of product per acre as our fields and orchards.  You can't really grow anything but grain based things in any appreciable quantity in MN, we do.  My mom actually works a farm co-op in Duluth, but grew up in the Central Valley.  I've seen both sides of the coin on ag production, the MN side and the CA side.  So, you may not be as safe and secure as you think you are in this.  Trust me, everyone in the country has skin in this game.

Agree, from a guy in MN.

 


We grow corn, soy, and some wheat and a tiny bit of misc other stuff.




How long do you think we can eat field corn and soybeans? Not long. We can transition to more meaningful crops that actually feed people, but the ethanol subsidies are strong up here, and it won't ever happen.


 

How much larger of a yield would you have if you irrigated the hell out of everything?

None?  If MN irrigated a drop of anything, they would become a single, state shaped lake.  It's the climate and soil quality that gives the advantage to the Central Valley.  The fact that we irrigate is not what makes our production so grand, though the lack of water has become a major limiting factor due to our current fuckingasstastickmegadrought.

We would be glad to take more of your money

If you can find some I would strongly suggest pink grapefruit. It's getting hard to come by in the wild and it won't be packed with extra shit like the supermarket ones. Just be sure to treat the certain issues that citrus trees have and you're good to go.

When I was little, we lived in Florida, Lehigh Acres, as I recall.

I just remember staying with my grandparents,
and eating grapefruit for breakfast picked off a tree in their backyard.
Probably one of my best memories of my grandparents.

Yes, I am aware of this.

Sucks getting old. But even when I can't eat it, I will still grow it.
Nothing smells so nice this time of year as our little citrus orchard,
The trees all have their little white flowers and the bees are doing their bee thing.

Water, like any resource, needs to be managed. A drought can hit anywhere.

Care to elaborate on how a 'resource' that comes from the sky is unsustainable?

Unless you control the weather, water from the sky in unsustainable.

But we all know there is water to be found elsewhere.

BINGO!!!!!

They ain't gonna do it until their cronies own the land...  

After the farmers and ranchers are backrupted -just like the farm stealing of the 30's -but with a new BIGGER spin.

Evil redistribution of ag land to the Leftists, at its worst....


That few even recognize is going on...

California is in a drought and my garden has been slugging under record rainfall.



Al the stray weeds and grasses that I pull are tossed in to the 50x20 chicken run.  Hens also get all the grass clippings from the front yard.

Onions on far left.  Greens, beets, mustards, lettuces. ... in the big 'bed'.

Then garlic (regrown from my own previous crop circa 2014)

Then more onions (also re-grown from 2014 stored bulbs)

Then store bought tomatoes, peppers, etc.



Chicken manure is used to fertilize the vegetables.  Other crops (summer squash) are planted around the perimeter of the coop (outside) so that their roots can get to the nitrogen rich soil under the run, enjoy the benefit from the chickens catching bugs that stray across the border and also use the chicken wire to climb (cukes)

'Downstream' of the run, where runoff takes the most nitrogen rich wash I planted watermelons, pumpkins and sweet potatoes.

We'll see how much the food prices affect us all this year.

TRG

unsustainable
Syllabification: un·sus·tain·a·ble
Pronunciation: /??ns?'stan?b?l/
Definition of unsustainable in English:
adjective
1) Not able to be maintained at the current rate or level

What are you guys talking about? If you are saying rain is unsustainable, everything is unsustainable...

iNuhBaDNayburhood was saying -> we don't irrigate, it's unsustainable -> we just rely on the rain. Well which way is it?

Brief bio: 4th Gen Cali, Father in Law was Farmer / Rancher - had some 1000 acres - dairy cows, green beans, strawberries, etc., BIL & SIL grow Thompson Seedless Grapes for market, I have a hobby ranch and grow hay (although I'm in NV my water comes from Cali -> Eastern Sierra) Not an expert by any means but I do understand something about how Cali irrigation works... It's actually a pretty well thought out and efficient system and it has a big benefit that 'relying on rain' can't provide. Snow Pack. The Sierra normally gets a lot of snow that slowly melts over the course of the year providing a fairly constant flow. The Snow Pack is a giant FREE reservoir that needs no maintenance.

Like I said, a drought can happen anywhere.

Maybe I'm reading to much between the lines but it almost seems like some of you WANT Cali farmers to fail. Guess what, all the farming counties are Red voters. It is only the big cities that are Blue...

Why? Everything is radioactive one way or another. Dilution is the solution, nothing to worry about.

There's plenty of water up north. They just don't let it flow south due to federal protections on a fucking minnow, more or less. Doesn't matter if it was the best snow pack of the millennia, if you aren't allowed to open the aqueduct, the shit is staying up north...

I love you!