Well, food inflation is upon us. Smaller packages or less weight on content have kept the sticker price from ascending too much, but we are getting far less they we pay for. Simply increasing the grocery budget is not enough. There is only so much food, no matter HOW MUCH fiat money The Fed prints out.

Two major ways to hedge against food inflation are small scale gardening and protein production (or fish or chicken). I have listed some handy instructional websites and blogs for mostly city slickers (like me) who are new to gardening and animal husbandry and are a little intimidated by it all. These sites have helped me get started:

http://subsistencepatternfoodgarden.blogspot.com/ (Best one)

http://www.rootsimple.com/2012/01/how-to-plan-vegetable-garden.html (Planning a Vegetable Garden)

http://www.rural-revolution.com/ (General Hobby farming blog)

www.pioneerliving.net (Prepping, Outdoor, and Old-time skill, Gardening, Canning, Building)

http://www.allotment.org.uk/ (Gardening in small spaces. Based on the WW2 garden allotments in Britain. Very Useful for Urban gardeners)

Another great way to get protein is to farm fish. Aquaculture in small spaces is very do-able. These are some basic Aquaculture links:

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_pond.html

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/fish-poop-grow-plants....

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/kids/water/story1/fishwasteframe.htm

http://www.northernaquafarms.com/bookstore.html

Hope some of our members and their families find this helpful.