When it first hit and peopel started panicking, I was OK for toilet paper (having gone to Costco the month before) but when the bread section was completely empty and even flour and yeast were sold out, I started working on baking sourdough bread with flour left over from Xmas baking. A few dismal failures and a lot of googling later, I'm getting pretty good at it, to the point that the only bread I've bought since March has been buns and English Muffins and stuff I haven't yet figured out how to do with sourdough. I also gave up on my new year's resolution to empty one of my chest freezers to de-ice it, since prices started going up and I wasn't sure what I'd be able ot afford later, I jumped all over anything I could get on sale (not a lot with each shopping trip because I didn't want to deny anyone else, but I bought enough extra that everyone in the house would be fine if we couldn't shop for a month is my rabbit, who is quite particular about his greens.
We don't eat out often but we did take-out a few times more than usual to try to support local businesses.
I've been gardening for a few years so I just did a few extra laps around it with the rototiller in spring and tried planting a few more things. I got my first noteworthy harvests of asparagus from the bed I started from seed and my second year growing ground cherries. The eggplants did well, I got one broccoli to finally make a grocery store worthy- head, I lost all my zucchini, pumpkin and squash plants and most of my bok choy to insects and my surviving cucumber to a toddler, but the beans, turnips, garlic, tomatoes, beets and potatoes all did pretty well, considering the dry spring, wet summer and slug infestation, my peppers didn't fare so well against the slugs. My friends' 4-year old was a wonderful help picking off the Colorado Potato Beetle larvae from my spuds and giving them a "bubble bath". And the sunchokes that I tried to relocate last year gave me a bumper crop in my garlic patch and the carrot and parsnip rows, hopefully I got it all removed to its new area this time!
When it first hit and peopel started panicking, I was OK for toilet paper (having gone to Costco the month before) but when the bread section was completely empty and even flour and yeast were sold out, I started working on baking sourdough bread with flour left over from Xmas baking. A few dismal failures and a lot of googling later, I'm getting pretty good at it, to the point that the only bread I've bought since March has been buns and English Muffins and stuff I haven't yet figured out how to do with sourdough. I also gave up on my new year's resolution to empty one of my chest freezers to de-ice it, since prices started going up and I wasn't sure what I'd be able ot afford later, I jumped all over anything I could get on sale (not a lot with each shopping trip because I didn't want to deny anyone else, but I bought enough extra that everyone in the house would be fine if we couldn't shop for a month is my rabbit, who is quite particular about his greens.
We don't eat out often but we did take-out a few times more than usual to try to support local businesses.
I've been gardening for a few years so I just did a few extra laps around it with the rototiller in spring and tried planting a few more things. I got my first noteworthy harvests of asparagus from the bed I started from seed and my second year growing ground cherries. The eggplants did well, I got one broccoli to finally make a grocery store worthy- head, I lost all my zucchini, pumpkin and squash plants and most of my bok choy to insects and my surviving cucumber to a toddler, but the beans, turnips, garlic, tomatoes, beets and potatoes all did pretty well, considering the dry spring, wet summer and slug infestation, my peppers didn't fare so well against the slugs. My friends' 4-year old was a wonderful help picking off the Colorado Potato Beetle larvae from my spuds and giving them a "bubble bath". And the sunchokes that I tried to relocate last year gave me a bumper crop in my garlic patch and the carrot and parsnip rows, hopefully I got it all removed to its new area this time!