I'm pretty glad that I live in the 21st century, because I am not good at growing things. I would have starved to death a long time ago were it not for that lucky combination of jobs-that-aren't-subsistence-agriculture and supermarkets. This doesn't mean that I don't have that genetic urge to grow things though, and I do keep trying, mostly in the hope that I'm going to find the one thing that I'm really good at by accident. Every year another quarter-acre sculpted, covered in expensive soil amendments, prodded with expensive meters, irrigated with expensive water, sprayed with expensive pesticides, and I have a series of desiccated, gopher-chewed, yellowed parasite habitats to show for it. And yet I keep trying, because I am driven to do so. It's just a part of what made my species survive to this point. I can't help it. Granted, a long time ago, I guess you just covered more acreage with more seeds, and sorted through very much the same withered crap to find a couple things to eat. I guess that's a working strategy, come to think of it…
My half-assed (as in results, not effort expended) gardening hobby has landed me into an intersection of madness. No, this isn't to do with my personal battle with futility, it instead has to do with entirely other crazy people doing entirely other crazy things. If you shop for specialty seeds, you'll find some of the better deals and weirder things available are (like all things, really) on eBay but the same also applies to Amazon and probably other sites too. Get yourself about two searches in and you're going to find a couple of stupid things immediately: Chinese magic bean scams, and NON-GMO-HEIRLOOM-BUGOUT-BAG-THE-END-IS-NIGH-SEED-BANK!$*!!NIBIRU
The Chinese magic beans scams are common on both Amazon and eBay and basically consist of things like “moon melon”, rainbow roses, black roses, and other impossible things. Moon melon claims to be blue watermelon. You'll get regular watermelon seed, and usually of low-quality. Blue-fleshed watermelon just doesn't exist. Rainbow-colored roses do exist, but it requires growing a white rose, cutting it, splitting the stem, and soaking each part of the stem in a separate dyed water. It can be done, but can't be grown naturally. And besides, propagating roses from seed is rare. This is just more of a scam and isn't a proper intersection of madness, unless you consider ignorance or failing to read the many 1-star reviews a type of madness. The outward symptoms are often the same, I guess…
The one that really fascinates me are these “seed banks.” The purpose of these things is to have seeds on hand for your garden after things have gone all Mad Max on us and they're always “NON-GMO” and “HEIRLOOM.”. My first question is why NON-GMO? Wouldn't you want the hardiest, nastiest, pest-resistant seeds on earth when global pesticide production has been halted by a series of unfortunate nuclear blasts? Heirloom is always a code for “produces interesting-looking or -tasting stuff but is too fragile and unproductive to be commercially viable.” Heirloom strains are where we started, not where we're at now. It should be worth noting at this point that they actually make these seed banks in tiny portable sizes for people to put in their “bug out bags” which are backpacks that crazy survivalists are going to take with them to die of exposure on the highway rather than shelter-in-place.
It's really odd to me how little thought went into these seed banks. It seems like if you were properly planning your apocalypse, you'd have a pile of BigAgra Roundup-Ready Kills-On-Contact “Wh3at”(TM, Pat. Pend.) and very little else. Fruits and vegetables, without the ability to can and freeze them, are next to useless in the long-term. Nice to have, but if you're trying to feed the maximum number of people, it's all about grain and few people know how to grow this, and even worse, how to deal with it using manual labor. If you want to think all Mad Max about things, the crops that are going to make you the guy wearing the best helmet/spiked shoulder pads ensemble will be things like barley and sugar beets. Boring and not-tasty stuff. Unfortunately, it doesn't sell, I guess…
In fact, let's take an example. The title of this one is “EMERGENCY SURVIVAL GARDEN VEGETABLE SEED NON-GMO HEIRLOOM SEED BANK PACK SET MRE” $14.99 with FREE shipping on eBay!
OK. What do you get?
Hope you fucking LOVE celery. Oh boy, and swiss chard! Tastes best thrown in the trash…
I'm guessing the point of this is to give you a strange hope for the future. That you, yes you, a suburbanite whose lawn is watered by a computer and otherwise maintained by an illegal immigrant, can actually put your experience in accounting to good use growing your own food! And not that boring shit that actual farmers produce by the ton like soybeans and wheat that are the backbone of your diet, but TASTY stuff that you'll want to eat!
By the way, “3,259 sold” last I checked this one…
Who is buying this stuff? We have some great intersections here: