logo
mobile-logo
HomePosts Tagged "Gardening" (Page 2)

Food will always be king and the reason we have enjoyed the prosperity we have is because of easy access to food. In America, we waste 50% of the food we produce. That is astounding and gross. To those who survived the great depression of the 30’s the idea that any food could be wasted would be unbelievable.

So, how do we go from food being wasted to experiencing something like a global famine?

We have pressed the soil, resources, and planet itself, to a point where all are ready to break. The breadbasket of America and other massive agricultural areas are operating on soils depleted of nutrients and as the worlds, demand continues to grow there is massive pressure to achieve big yields year over year.

Let’s look at 4 factors that are going to affect a famine that starves billions.

Disease

There are some dangerous diseases affecting crops all over the world. UG99 Wheat Rust is a disease with no known cure that is affecting grain populations in America and Mexico. This disease could affect nearly 20% of all wheat crop is in danger of being infected but nearly all wheat crops could be infected by the disease.

There are other’s out there like Mad Soy Disease which is affecting soy crops in Brazil but has been isolated to the northern regions of the nation. We live in a world where people and commodities spread and diseases with them.

It would seem like its only a matter of time before big cash crops are leveled by disease

Soil Quality

The condition of the Earth’s topsoil is abysmal. It is estimated that 1/3 of all growing areas are losing topsoil faster than it can be reproduced. This means that every year farmers must pump loads of fertilizer and other nutrients into the soil in hopes that the plants will have enough to survive.

This drastically affects the quality of the produce and grains that are grown each year. Ideally, you want soil that is full of nutrition and it will impart that nutrition into your food. Instead, we are left with food that is mass produced but exponentially less nutritious than the food being produced in the past.

Before long, our foods will be more chemical and less nutrient or, worse yet, the crop yields will suffer dramatically.

This will lead to worldwide malnutrition and human disease.

Natural Disasters

We pull hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the ground to water these crops. Around the farmland, we decimate the trees and wild-lands. This land is then paved and is no longer capable of absorbing water.

Massive flooding is the outcome and it’s now affecting our growing areas. Without expansive wild areas to absorb the water from large storms, the water rushed to agricultural areas and worst of all it stays there.

The Earth’s natural disasters and our drainage limitations are putting us at a huge risk. The last bomb cyclone in Nebraska left 1,000,000 acres of land underwater and killed almost the same amount of calves.

With spring rains coming this could have lasting and devastating effects on food production. It only takes a few of these large-scale agricultural areas to be disrupted, plantings reduced or eliminated altogether, before the world has to tighten up on supply and people start going hungry.

Personal Food Security

With these three issues potentially having drastic effects on the food system, its safe to say you need a backup. In fact, you need a few. You want to buy, store and grow your way to personal food security. Of course, this is going to take planning and knowledge.

  • Gardening

Whether you go the route of building a food forest, hydroponically growing food, green housing or traditional food growing.

  • Livestock

From things as complicated and as expensive as raising cattle to simply raising chickens for eggs, you need to consider what you can do in terms of raising food-producing animals

  • Food Storage

Food storage is all about planning and rotation. In order to excel at this, you need to know the basics and remember, store what you eat!

  • Preservation

From dehydrating to canning, you will also want to know the majority of these skills and use them to both extend your harvest in the garden and build food storage

  • Foraging

There are food growing all around us, but you need to understand when and where to find them. These will be ancillary calories, but they will help.

  • Hunting

Though season dependent, hunting and trapping can both be impressive ways to put meat on the table or in the freezer.

Getting Started

There is a bit of a knowledge barrier and a lot of practice that goes into all of these. You need a trusted resource that will offer you information on these topics. You could peruse the internet and read various websites to get information on these topics.

A better move is to have a tangible resource that has all of this information in it. This puts a reference tool at your fingertips whether the lights are out or not!

Wouldn’t it be great if something like this existed? Well, you may want to look for The Doomsday Book Of Medicine. This book includes information about the above info and all the info you will need to reach a level of personal food security.

Oh yea, this is also packed with other information about prepping beyond food. You can find it all HERE.

I am not saying it’s the only resource but it’s damn sure a good one!

Conclusion

As the population grows, we are going to face a greater strain on the food system. Nature is hitting back against our modified mono-cultured crop systems and things like wheat, corn and soy production will be disrupted.

This time of excess cannot go on forever. We simply cannot pull out naturally occurring nutrients and replace them with chemicals as a long-term solution. Its time to take control of your own food production. You can do this.

With the right resource, you will find yourself escaping the coming famine and building your own personal food security. The Doomsday Book Of Medicine helps you all the way.

 

0 Comments

In America we waste 50% of the food we produce. That is astounding and gross. To those who survived the great depression of the 30’s the idea that any food

A couple of days ago, my nephew, who’s 8 years old, asked me what do I do for a living. Of course, my answer to him was that I’m a prepper and that I write about it. Cute, I know, but try explaining to a toddler what the Hell is that supposed to mean. Tried to give him the prepping talk with Smokey the Bear and Ivan the gas mask-wearing city denizen.

Dunno if I managed to get through to him – barely convinced my teen daughter and son to help me move some stuff to the family’s mountain cabin, but here’s the thing – in talking to the tyke I got around to realizing how much BS’s floating around our prepping world.

Hell, even the word itself sounds like a cheap millennial knockoff when in fact it’s something as old as time itself. Our grandparents used to call it “common-sense” or just survival. I sometimes wonder – could it be that in prepping for disaster, we actually welcome it in our lives?

Today’s topic will somewhat different. Perhaps you have friends or close acquaintances who wish to become preppers themselves. That’s great, but we really mustn’t lose track of the fact that, in most cases, prepping is far more than buying a nifty gadget or stockpiling food and water in case shit hits the proverbial fan.

The truth of the matter is, not all of us are NBPs (natural-born preppers). Sure, there is such a thing as survival instinct or, as my dad likes to call it, knowing how to guard your royal keister, but that is, more or less, case-dependent. Prepping is not. You do it around the clock, and, most importantly, you never stop.

Sure, for some, it’s a way of life, but for most of us, it’s one of those nagging thoughts nesting at the backs of our heads, keeping us awake at night: “But what if Katrina strikes again? What will happen to me or my family if North Korea declares war on the United States?” Okay, I’m going to stop right here with my end of the world train of thought.

Now, in wanting to show my fellow preppers that this lifestyle choice is no bed of roses, I’ve thought long and hard and finally managed to jot down a small list of reasons why prepping’s more challenging in reality than it is on paper. Call it my way of letting the skeletons out of the cupboard.

Yard Sales or Thrift Shops Are Not the Answer to Everything

I can give you a ton of reasons why you should check out garage sales and thrift shops more often (be sure to check out my article on SHTF items you can find at yard sales for 20 bucks or less). Most items can be repaired and reused. For instance, a while back I found this great garden solar lamp at a Montana flea market.

The owner wanted only 10 cents for it because it was broken and he couldn’t be bothered with the repairs. One new bulb later, the thing was up and running in my garden, giving off the most enchanting glow you’ll ever see. That’s my tiny slice of Heaven or hygge, as the Danish like to call it.

So, if you ever find yourself at a garage sale, spare a couple of moments and look around. You’ll never know what you’re going to find.

Unfortunately, this is where the fun part ends. With a couple of minor exceptions, prepping for every contingency is very expensive. Even if you’re not yet fully ready to drop off the grid, making your house safe, even a small one at that, can run into hundreds of bucks if not more.

Of course, smoke alarms are not that expensive but consider the rest – surveillance system, safety room, sprinkler system, which is a must for any respectable yard owner, garage, keeping your bug out vehicle up to speed, tools, keeping those food and water stocks up to speed, medical checkups, and the list goes on and on.

Prepping’s not the kind of thing you want to rush into or to do it, as the Brits like to say, half-heartedly. You either do it, or you don’t.

Many years ago, before settling down, I lived in a cramped apartment on the 12th floor of this new and shiny glass building. Rent was awfully expensive, but hey, at least I have my own place now.

So, instead of doing what’s right – setting some money aside, making an emergency food and water supply, I went ahead and bought every pack of instant noodle soup I could find. Long story short, city power grid failed one day, and I had to go without electricity for two weeks. Guess what I had to eat all this time? Noodle soup! All day, every day for two whole weeks because I was stupid enough to burn all my money on stupid things like beer and movies and computer games and another crud.

Of course, it’s way cheaper to have a pantry stocked with ready-to-eat noodle soup, but it’s not exactly healthy nor nutritious.

Another harsh reality of prepping is the need vs. afford dilemma. Any like-minded prepper will tell you that in an SHTF situation, dropping off the grid and starting anew is the best option. Regrettably with today’s real-estate market, you can’t even afford to buy a parking spot, let alone a parcel of land.

You may get lucky and find someone willing to part with such a property, but I wouldn’t bet my bottom dollar on that if I were you. Moreover, buying a piece of land means nothing if you can’t build a shack or something on it. I don’t want to sound like the lovechild of Richie-Rich or something, but I could’ve bought two new hybrid vans and refurbish my city house two times over with the money I’ve spent on my off-grid location.

More than Money

As William Ernest Henley so eloquently put it: “beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the Horror of the shade.” You know what Henley’s shade is? Loneliness. Sheer, mind-wrecking, solitude. A prepper’s life can be a lonely one, especially if he’s surrounded by ‘pals’ who gift him tinfoil hats for his birthday.

I had a rough time convincing my wife to join me on my prepping merry-go-round. Although she’s as much into prepping as most of you are, I still can’t shake the feeling that she sometimes gives me the stink eye. Can’t say I blame her considering that I spend most of my off days working on our hunting cabin garden.

Anyway, the loneliness part becomes even more apparent when you decide to drop off the grid. And it’s not just about being in a relationship or hanging out with your buds on a Saturday night. I’m talking here about the absolute lack of human contact.

Sure, every wide-eyed lad toiling for a big-shot corporation dreams of living everything behind and going to live in seclusion. It’s not like in the movies – you don’t get to discover the true meaning or purpose of life, and you don’t get to be a sultry, ax-wielding Paul Bunyan ersatz. It’s wild, hauntingly quiet, and, most importantly, not the kind of gig you would want to get yourself into unless the shit really hits the fan.

Solitude aside, piecing together such a project takes a lot of work, dedication, and energy. Of course, I’m talking about good, old manual labor. Yup, off-grid living mostly means that you will need to get off your couch and put that shoulder to the wheel if you want to build something that’s abiding.

Most of the challenges you’ll face will be mostly due to your mindset. Growing veggies may be a quaint and probably soothing endeavor for someone who never held a hoe in his hands, but it’s really not that amusing. I threw my back a couple of times before I was able to plant all of my wife’s herbs and veggies.

Sure, it’s nice to snuggle next to a cozy little fireplace, but it becomes a nightmare when you have to clean out the damn thing. One of the most nerve-wracking parts of setting up an off-grid place is how you choose to deal with things like electricity, water, heat, and, of course, the Internet.

Certainly, you need to have electricity for a couple of appliances, but you also need to think about a backup – a gas-powered generator or something (thinking on doing a piece of how I managed to whip up a water-powered generator for my hunting cabin). Everything has to be thought thoroughly. Otherwise you wind up with another house that’s just as vulnerable during an SHTF situation like any city location.

And probably, the most daunting aspect of prepping is knowing that everything you do is a gamble. There’s no guarantee for anything – nobody can tell you for certain if your crops will yield something or if the home you’ve to build won’t fall on your head in case of a disaster.

Yes, I consider myself to be a gambler of the sort, but the only difference, in this case, is that I know when to cash out. That’s probably the most important aspect – trying to do a lot of stuff at the same time can end in disaster.

A couple of years after I bought the hunting cabin, I was faced with a big dilemma. The mortgage on our city house went up big time. I was the only one who was bringing enough money into the house.

So, there I was, all alone with my thoughts, and forced into making a choice: either keep the hunting cabin and live pay-check to pay-check until I can find a better-paying job or sell the blasted thing. Naturally, I went with option A.

It’s not hard to imagine how this kind of thing ends – arguments after arguments, she threatening to give everything out for Lent and move away. Fortunately, this story had a happy end.

See, when you’re a prepper, natural disasters are only a small part of the equation. You still need to find a way to deal with your fellow man. And let me tell you, convincing someone about dropping off the grid is just as difficult as starting a fire with an ice lens.

Bottom Line

I can’t help to think that, in some regards, preppers are superheroes. Sure, we don’t have capes or X-Ray vision, but we do have this knack to counter every possible problem long before it comes into being.

In rereading T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland, I realized that A Game of Chess, the title of the poem’s second canto, is the best prepping description anyone could come up it. Most of the times, it’s exactly like that – you make a move Mother Nature, and I’ll play my gambit. Crown me not for getting to the edge of the board, but for finding the resolution to survive.

0 Comments

A couple of days ago, my nephew, who’s 8 years old, asked me what do I do for a living. Of course, my answer to him was that I’m a

As the temperatures begin to fall, now’s the perfect time to garden. Yes, you read that right. Winter gardening is feasible and simple to achieve!

In fact, most farms have their tractors running year-round. Keeping a garden in optimal shape during the winter season helps both gardeners and the surrounding environment.
If you’re not keen on the idea of sowing your land during the winter season, you might want to change your mind. Maintaining a functioning and productive garden throughout the year — winter included — gives your soil the attention it needs to flourish during the warmer spring and summer days.

How You Can Benefit From Harvesting Your Own Food

You don’t have to be a farmer to reap the benefits of harvesting your own food. In fact, any individual with a small plot of land can transform their soil into a haven full of greens and fauna. Preppers and survivalists will enjoy having easy access to fruits and vegetables they can pick straight from their garden. Plus, it saves a trip to the supermarket on extra cold days, too.

Throughout the winter season, you’re likely to find yourself wrapped up in your blanket in front of the television or computer. Gardening provides you with the incentive to get out and exercise without actually having to go to the gym. Best of all, the reward of growing your food makes the activity you put into your garden seem less like work and more like fun instead.

As the snow begins to pile up outside, you might long for warm and sun-filled days. Don’t forget to enjoy the natural world around you. Getting outdoors uplifts your mood and prevents you from feeling cabin-fever, too.

Kick Your Green-Thumb Up a Notch With a Few Simple Guidelines

Even though the temperature continues to drop, that doesn’t mean you have to wait until the summer season to enjoy a garden full of greens. In fact, there’s no better way to wrap up the year than with a few seeds sprouting outside your house that lay the foundation for the warmer days ahead.

You can transform any everyday plot of land into a thriving terrain bursting with fauna with a few of these winter gardening tips in mind.

1. Grow Winter Friendly Crops

You should never plant a vegetable or fruit that needs excessive sunlight and warmth during the winter season with the hopes that it will grow even with the proper TLC. Unfortunately, many plants must be planted within their relative season to thrive. You should use vegetable growing guidelines  as a reference for when to plant seeds for optimal results.

If you think only the best crops can grow in the summer, you’ll happily discover some of your favorite greens to enjoy throughout the winter season as well. Vegetables such as peas, garlic, and onions flourish even when planted on colder days.

2. Don’t Plant Too Early

You might be excited to plant your seeds early. In fact, it might seem that doing so allows you to enjoy your winter harvest sooner. Well, not exactly.

Planting crops too early during the fall season can actually be counter-intuitive to your desired outcome. This is especially true for crops you might plant to supplement your garden. Sowing oats earlier than necessary can result in an overgrowth of the crop which might deplete your garden’s nutrients and moisture prematurely.

For optimal results, always familiarize yourself with a crop’s planting guidelines before sowing.

3. Take Your Flora Indoors

If you’re not one for the cold and brisk air that defines the winter season, you can transfer your gardening indoors.

Many crops can benefit from the temperature-controlled conditions provided by your home. If you have supplemental UV lighting or a south-facing window, even better! When you transfer your greens and crops indoors, you can provide them extra protection against the unpredictable winter season.

Make sure to use artificial light to help your plants grow strong and healthy. Invest in lightbulbs that provide the optimal brightness for each of your plant species to help them receive the light they require.

4. Create a Mound for Added Protective

Farmers and avid gardeners alike watch the forecast with hopes of the weatherman not mentioning one dreaded word — snow. While snowfall doesn’t provide the ideal harvesting conditions, you don’t have to fear snowy conditions.

Use your garden’s surrounding leaves to create a mound on top of sturdier crops such as carrots and shallots. Even when flurries begin to trickle onto your land, the added layer of leaves offers your garden an insulated barrier against freezing conditions.

5. Enlist the Help of Machinery

While snow is a beautiful sight to see, it doesn’t last forever. When snow begins to melt, you might find yourself dealing with a watery mess in your garden. To produce the optimal results in your garden and to help your plants thrive, it’s essential to drain any excess water as it melts throughout the season.

Whenever you need a hand to help you lift massive plots or to transfer your fauna, you can turn to machinery for added assistance.

Whether you decide to make a raised bed or transfer your crops to another portion of your land, enlisting the assistance of forklifts prevents you from depleting your energy so you have more get-up-and-go power to give to your plants instead.

How You Can Become a Savvy Saver Through Gardening

Gardeners and farmers aren’t the only ones who benefit from gardening during the winter season. In fact, you can turn your plot into a haven full of savings.

Going to the supermarket can be expensive — especially during the winter season. It typically costs more to buy the very same fruit and vegetables you can purchase at a fraction of the cost in June or July. That’s because areas suffering from frost and blizzards rely more on imported crops to fulfill their vegetable and fruit demands.

You can save money by putting a little-added effort into the plot of land that lines your backyard. Not only that, but you will feel a greater sense of accomplishment knowing your food grew to perfection through the assistance of your very own hands.

Use Your Time Wisely for the Ultimate Outcome

Don’t wait until the first frost sets in to turn your soil into a lush array of veggies and greens — start your gardening today!

Familiarize yourself with the conditions and climate that defines your area. Nothing is quite as essential as planning when it comes to gardening. Plant your seeds before the first anticipated frost days to give your plants plenty of time to grow and mature.

Once you have a few of these basic and easy to follow tips in mind, you’ll find your garden full of beautiful fauna — even during the winter season.

0 Comments

As the temperatures begin to fall, now’s the perfect time to garden. Yes, you read that right. Winter gardening is feasible and simple to achieve! In fact, most farms have their

This guide will walk you through the basics of some simple ingredients you can add that will help take your compost to the next level.

But first, it’s important to eat a healthy meal before you get started. Let’s start with a healthy breakfast. Load up the coffee maker – a whole pot sounds just fine. Like tea instead? OK, make some tea then. Crack a few eggs and cook them up in any style you want, then put some whole wheat bread in the toaster. Serve that up on a paper plate, with paper napkins, since there’s no time for doing dishes – we’re composting today. Remember how your doctor always wants you eating your fruits and veggies? Go the extra mile! Peel a banana, de-stem some kale, and chop the tops off a few strawberries, put them in your blender and make a smoothie. Eat that up, and then we’ll get started.

Or have we already started? All of the items we just discussed in our healthy breakfast are also a part of a healthy compost pile. No, you don’t need to serve up those microorganisms with an omelet, but they would like those egg shells, and they’ll break down any leftover bread from your toast. In fact, if the loaf goes stale or moldy, you can throw the whole thing in your compost pile, turn it a few times, and you’ll have that to add to your garden. Coffee grounds, and the leftover coffee you didn’t drink, are also good food for them, as is tea (with or without the bag), and any leftover veggie products, like the kale stems or strawberry heads. You can add any paper goods, including your paper plate and your napkin (although you’ll want to start using the kind of paper plates that are not coated in a plasticc substance, as it will break down very slowly, if at all).

Compost is, essentially, a dirt and a fertilizer. All fertilizers in the US are rated using an NPK (nitrogen – phosphorus – potassium) scale. These are the three basic ingredients that help our plants to grow, and so it is essential that your soil has them – plants will use them up as they grow. Banana peels are extremely heavy in potassium, just as bananas themselves are full of potassium for humans. Coffee grounds contain significant amounts of nitrogen, and while egg shells are also nitrogen heavy, they contain a lot of calcium, which is as important for plants as it is for human bones. Speaking of bones, bone meal is the primary way of introducing phosphorus to your garden, although it is not recommended that you add too many to your compost, as residual meat attached to the bones will attract critters. You could add some manure to your compost, particularly horse manure, especially if you are already raising animals on your property.

Here are some additional tips for working items into your compost pile:

– My compost pile is not so much a compost “pile” as a compost bin collection. I have a pile for items that break down very slowly (woody plants, rotted planks of wood, cardboard, etc.), but my usual compost bin is a black garbage can I bought from the hardware store. With this, I don’t need to spend an hour digging in and turning my compost – I can simply ensure that the lid is on tight, turn my can sideways, and roll it around on my lawn a few times, and it will be well-mixed. The black color also ensures that my compost heats up quickly (all compost will get warm as things break down, but maintaining that heat makes it go quickly).

– Many gardeners like to sift their compost prior to using it. With a simple rectangular frame and a medium grain mesh material, you can create a sifter that will allow only the fully decomposed materials to fall out, while items that are not entirely done decomposing can be caught by the mesh and added back into your pile. Alternatively, you could just add the non-decomposed material to your garden and allow it to break down in place (there’s no magic to the pile, it just tends to be faster). The best method, in my opinion, is just to maintain multiple bins or piles, and allow the material to decompose over a longer period of time.

– When disposing of hard items, like those egg shells, if you blend them first in your blender with a little water, that will chop them up into little bits, which is ideal – the smaller the individual pieces of trash are, the faster they will decompose.

– Water, coffee, or tea is essential for a compost. It shouldn’t be drowning, but it should never be left dry. Coffee is a dessicant, so the liquid will not last long.

– If you’re tired of waiting around for your compost to decompose, and you feel like you need it quicker, bag the grass when you mow the lawn. Grass clippings make quick work of even the most durable and hardest-to-compost material. Don’t have grass? Add a bit of good garden soil, as it already contains many microorganisms, or a bit of compost from a bagged source. This will jump start your new pile. Many hardware stores offer a “quick start” powder you can add to your compost ingredients, and while it does work, it can be difficult to maintain the acceleration if your compost isn’t already balanced. Grass clippings are a much better alternative, because they are still quick, but they wear out over time instead of expiring quickly, and they’re free.

– Bugs are A-OK. Animals…not so much. Usually, animals will not be attracted to a compost pile unless there’s something in there that there probably shouldn’t be. Dairy products, like milk, eggs or cheese are fine in limited quantities, but if used in excess, will cause your compost to smell, which does tend to attract more bugs and animals. Meat products, while they will decompose and add some beneficial nutrients to soil, will attract raccoons and skunks, as well as other undesirable animals. That’s never a good idea.

– In the fall, instead of bagging the leaves that fall from the trees on your property, add them to a compost bin or pile. Leaves are slow to compost, but if added to a bin with heavy items inside, a simple rotation will break them apart. By mid-summer, these will be ready for use.

– Finally, like a balanced diet, you want a variety of items in your compost pile. Lettuces, grasses, cardboard, wood chips or shavings, sawdust, coffee grounds, dirt, fruit peels or leftovers, breads, knobby ends of zucchinis or other squashes, tomato stems, weeds, expired blossoms, and pretty much any other organic (once-living) landscape material are good additions.

2 Comments

This guide will walk you through the basics of some simple ingredients you can add that will help take your compost to the next level. But first, it’s important to eat

Whether you want to make money from your yard, save money on groceries, enjoy foods you can’t easily buy, or simply get more out of the experience of gardening, growing your own food is a great choice, and it’s easier than you might think. As long as you have a spade or fork, a rake and a hoe, and a sturdy trowel, you can make a go of it – additional tools help but aren’t essential. These handy tips will help you to get started.

Caring for the soil

All sustainable gardening begins with taking care of the soil because plants need nutrients in the growing medium almost as much as water and sunlight. Investing in fertilizer will let you enrich the soil easily but it can be expensive, so if you want to save money you can create your own compost from garden waste and leftover food scraps. If you know someone who keeps cattle or horses, there’s nothing like well-rotted dung for nourishing your plants. You can also bind nitrogen into the soil by growing peas or beans, or if you have a fish pond – or even an aquarium – you can use the nitrate-rich wastewater from that for irrigation.

Choosing the right crops

The right crops for your garden will depend on how acidic or alkaline the soil is, how much rainfall you get at different times of year, and what you actually want to eat. Don’t grow food in quantities that overwhelm you, and bear in mind that having a lot of variety in your yard reduces the risk of losing everything to pests. Choose crops that fit around one another over the course of the year, so you can be ready to plant one as soon as you harvest another. Keep moving your crops around within the yard because they will take up different nutrients from the soil, so this will help to avoid exhausting it.

Extending your growing space

Composting is a simple way to enrich your garden soil and reduce trash.

If you have limited room for growing crops in your yard, ask yourself if you’re making the most of all your options. If there are paved areas you don’t want to dig up, you can still grow things in pots on top of them. Running trellises along your walls or fences will enable you to grow things vertically. You can also bring plants indoors – south facing windows act like greenhouses and are great places to grow tomatoes or bell peppers.

Extending the season

Setting up a proper greenhouse with some heating in winter will allow you to grow food all year round. Simpler devices like cold frames can also make a big difference; you can get plants started earlier in the year. Not every crop takes a full season to grow, so with good planning you can fit in multiple harvests. Potatoes, for instance, can produce three crops a year, and you can harvest radishes monthly.

There are thousands of DIY Greenhouse plans on the internet.

Preserving your post-harvest crops

Experts predict that the world is heading for a food shortage in the years ahead so post harvest food preservation is now a vital area of scientific research. Population growth, increasing demand from emerging economies and the adverse effects of global warming will be the main causes of the problem. This might be hard to believe now with food from all over the world currently displayed for sale in supermarkets, however, the growth in crop production won’t continue forever, and waste must be reduced.

Scientists all over the world are addressing the problems of food supply sustainability with some urgency, and agriculture executives such as Jai Shroff, who is CEO of UPL Ltd, have worked hard to provide more support for small-scale farmers and gardeners. Shroff’s initiatives have seen the development of practical preservation solutions for those with limited harvesting options. The company has also developed affordable fertilizer products to fit with a sustainable approach and they are a more practical choice for growers who don’t have sufficient land to let areas lie fallow for extended periods. Shroff’s LinkedIn page states: “By providing the agriculture sector with quality seeds, plant nutrition, and post-harvest preservation products, he aims to strengthen food security in over 120 countries.”

An effectively planned kitchen garden can work well in even a small area and should produce an abundance of fruit, salad crops and vegetables.

Food security is already a worry for many of those countries that are striving to meet today’s demands, and the development of new preservation methods that will play an important role in the future is becoming essential. Until those new methods become available the conventional methods of preservation will continue to be used. Storing fruit and root vegetables in temperature-controlled conditions or freezing as soon as possible after cropping are still the favored options to prolong the life of foods and reduce waste.

Keeping a kitchen garden

An effectively planned kitchen garden can work well in even a small area and should produce an abundance of fruit, salad crops and vegetables. If you’re a keen cook you’ll need herbs as well as fruits and vegetables. Herbs can be grown in all sorts of little niches where other plants won’t fit, such as hanging baskets or well-secured mini-beds running along the tops of your walls. This will help you to use up every bit of space and will give you many more flavor options when it comes to making use of the things you grow. Just bear in mind that some – especially mint – grow like weeds, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on them (best in containers). Choosing flowering herbs is a great way to give an extra boost to everybody’s favorite garden helpers, bees.

Growing your own food requires some manual work. You’ll need to weed your yard at least weekly, turn over the soil after harvesting and pay careful attention to draining and irrigation. When you sit down to enjoy a hearty meal of home-grown food, however, that work definitely feels worthwhile.

0 Comments

Whether you want to make money from your yard, save money on groceries, enjoy foods you can’t easily buy, or simply get more out of the experience of gardening, growing

As a child I grew up in a house named The Orchard and although the land had long since been sold off several large apple trees remained which gave us a reasonable harvest each year. I have fond memories of the delicious fruit pies and crumbles my mother used to prepare. Growing fruit is one of the most efficient forms of gardening – once the trees are established you can expect an abundant supply for decades with only a little pruning and mulching to keep them happy.

Without doubt, the cheapest way to start a mini-orchard is to buy bare-rooted plants: those sold without a pot and delivered while the weather is still cold and the plants are dormant. As well as saving money, you will often find a much wider selection of varieties and sizes available as bare-rooted trees. Many wonderful types of apples, pears, plums etc can be grown by the home gardener that are never available in supermarkets and the trees can be trained to fit the area you have.

However, bare-rooted trees need to be planted correctly and given careful treatment during the first year in order to establish healthy root systems and give a reliable harvest…

Timing

The biggest stresses on a new fruit tree are usually below ground. Getting sufficient water and nutrients in the first few months after planting is essential and that’s why the timing is crucial. The number one priority is helping your new tree establish a healthy root system. The best time to plant bare-rooted trees is towards the end of winter or the first half of spring – once the ground is no longer frozen so it can be easily dug but before new growth starts.

It’s usually worth consulting a tree nursery that know your area and can advise on the window of time when they lift the young plants and deliver them and when conditions are right for your area. In the mild maritime climate where I live, trees can be planted from November onwards and this gives them a few extra weeks for the roots to establish but in harsher areas you’ll want to wait until spring. You will need to plant them quickly once they arrive – usually within a couple of days, though it’s possible to pack the roots with moist earth to extend this period if conditions outside aren’t favourable.

If you miss the ideal window of time for your area but still want to plant this year, it’s worth paying more for container-grown plants. These will already have roots that have grown into the soil around them and as long as you don’t disturb these too much when planting, they’ll be ready to draw up moisture and nutrients during warmer weather.

Location, Location, Location

Fruit trees don’t like to be moved so it is important to get the location right first time. Things to consider are:

  • Sun or Partial Shade: Nearly all fruit trees require plenty of sun but by carefully scouring catalogues you’ll find there are some less well-know varieties that are tolerant of partial shade. Don’t just consider the ground – it’s the leaves that need sun and this often opens up possibilities for otherwise unproductive areas.
  • Soil: Most fruit trees will want free-draining soil, enriched with compost. Avoid areas that regularly flood or higher ground that dries out quickly.
  • Wind and Snow: Be aware of the direction of prevailing wind and any large buildings nearby. A wall or fence may create a sheltered environment perfect for heat-loving fruits, or it could funnel icy winds during winter. Roofs can dump a ton of snow on an unsuspecting tree below, snapping its branches. Observe your garden closely to choose the best spot.
  • Other Plants: Trees are remarkably good at drawing up nutrients and water from the surrounding area. Unless you’re using raised beds, remember that a nearby fruit tree or bush may compete with your other plants.

Planting Tips

Many good fruit-tree suppliers will sell reasonably priced kits that include a stake, tie, mulch mat etc and I think it’s a false economy to skip these items.

Follow these simple steps to give your tree the best start:

  1. Dig a hole about a spade’s depth and around 3ft (1m) wide. Although it’s natural to dig a round hole, a square one is better as it encourages the roots to push out into the surrounding ground. Keep the soil you have removed in a wheelbarrow or on a large plastic sheet.
  2. Add a few inches of good garden compost and work it into the base of the hole using a garden fork. Mixing is important so that the tree’s roots don’t meet a sudden boundary between compost and regular soil. Also, mix some compost into the soil you removed.
  3. Look for the slightly darker ‘watermark’ on the tree’s trunk that indicates where the soil level was when it was first grown. Place the bare-rooted tree in the centre of the hole and a cane across the hole so you can check that this line is level with the soil around your hole as trees shouldn’t be planted deeper or shallower than they were first grown. If necessary, add or remove soil to achieve this. Most fruit trees will be grafted onto a rootstock and the join should always be above ground.
  4. Remove the tree and put in a thick wooden stake a couple of inches from the centre of the hole and on the side where the prevailing wind comes from. Hammer this firmly into the ground using a mallet.
  5. Place the tree back in the hole, position it so the trunk is close to the stake and start to shovel the soil-and-compost mixture back around the roots. Gently firm this in with your boots, being careful not to damage the roots. When it’s half full, pull the tree up an inch and then let it drop again as this helps the soil to fill in around the roots.
  6. Once all the soil has been added and firmed, use the supplied strap to fix the tree to the stake, leaving enough room for the tree trunk to grow but not so much that it wobbles about. Also add a protective tube around the trunk if animals are a problem. At this stage I also sprinkle a little seaweed meal fertilizer around and cover it with a bio-degradable hemp mat to suppress weeds.
  7. Water the soil well to stop the roots drying out and to further settle the soil around them.

The First Year for Fruit Trees

Fruit trees always seem to be such strong, healthy plants that we forget how vulnerable they are when first planted. Yet during the first year, the tree can easily die from not getting enough water or nutrients. Until the root system is at least as large as the tree it supports, it is particularly vulnerable to environmental stress.

During the first year or two, keep the tree well watered, especially during dry weather. A good soaking once or twice a week is much better than surface watering daily, though during very hot weather it can be worth doing both. It’s also vital to keep the area around the tree completely free of weeds and grass as they will compete with the young tree, which is why mulch mats are very effective.

Finally, don’t forget to remove all blossom from the tree in the first year. Although it’s tempting to let some fruit develop, doing so will again place more stress on the tree as it establishes and forgoing the first year’s fruit will result in a much healthier tree and better harvest in years to come.

0 Comments

As a child I grew up in a house named The Orchard and although the land had long since been sold off several large apple trees remained which gave us

Dwarf Trees – When Less is More

We spend a lot of time looking at annual crops and gardens, but perennials have their places. When it comes to fruit trees, we have many options in sizes. There’s little more majestic than a full-sized cherry tree, and not much will match a standard apple for yield. However, there are a lot of times when we’d be equally or better served with a smaller tree, and lots reasons to consider dwarf trees or semi-dwarf instead of a standard, even when there aren’t space constraints that affect the ability to get pollination partners. I’m starting with a primer on size and expected yields by size and species, then hitting considerations such as maintenance, resiliency, harvest size, and more.

Tree Sizes

There are some generally accepted sizes for dwarf, semi-dwarf, and standard-sized fruit trees.

A lot of fruit trees have about the same spread (circular footprint) as they do height. Dwarfs are usually 8-12’ (also regularly seen as 8-10’), semi-dwarfs tend to range 10-16’, and standard fruit varieties are usually considered to be 18-25’.

There are exceptions, such as peaches that are naturally already fairly compact at 12-15’ and cone-shaped pears with a spread of just 10-12’ but a height upwards of 20’ for mature standard varieties. Some standard trees are also just smaller, such as plums and figs.

Part of planning the size we want is planning for space around a tree or shrub where we can work. As a permaculturist, I love stacking spaces and full canopies. However, there’s not much room to maneuver underneath a dwarf or semi-dwarf tree – their canopies tend to start around thigh and shoulder height – and it’s not like all standards are roomy below the canopies. I can create a planting plan that allows me to maximize the space I have without encircling each and every single tree with a path, but somewhere through there, I do have to give myself room to harvest and rake and prune.

Dwarf and semi-dwarf trees produce the same type and size fruit as standards, just less per tree.

 

 Yield By Size

A nice lady who ran a blog once went through and compiled yield ranges from the information Stark Bros. puts out. I turned it into a single-page printable for clients (with citations). As with any, this information should be taken with a grain of salt. Climate, soils, care, and disease can all affect yield, and yield can vary greatly by variety within a species. Still, it makes a nice printable to use for a ratio comparison between dwarf, semi-dwarf and standard trees.

Be aware: Yields vary depending on soil types, nutrients, water, pests, pruning and variety of tree within each species. I halve the numbers from Harried Homemaker and Stark Bros. when presenting estimated to clients.

Remember, locally produced trees and shrubs, even grafted, will have more success than shipped-in specimens most of the time.

Specialty Types

There are all sorts of even smaller fruit trees and ways to tailor fruits to our needs. Espalier can be done against walls and fences, or grape style in the middle of a yard. Some fruits that are commonly produced on trees have a bush variety, such as the bush nectarine or some of the bush cherries. There are also potted varieties of a lot of fruits now, trees to shrubs and brambles, specimens specifically bred and designed to thrive in a container and be more compact.

Cordon or columnar fruit is available in several species, and while expensive, it can save space to increase diversity and allow homeowners variety and resilience.

Columnar or colonnade trees are extremely narrow and small. They can be potted or directly planted. Their yield suffers due to their size, but they can be excellent as canary varieties for us and they excel at providing some backup pollinators, especially for folks in small spaces or who want edible beautification. However, they are pretty darn pricey.

Container fruit needs a lot of water and nutrients over the seasons, but if we stick them on rolling casters, it lets us maneuver our fruit into protected areas. Those minis can allow us a sustainable source of things like citrus, tea, figs, and peaches. Likewise, an espalier against a wall will typically be warmer as well as easier to protect and keep damp than a freestanding tree in a yard.

Dwarf, container, trellis and espalier fruit can transform a compound into a more pleasant space, allow perennial production in urban and suburban environments, and let us take our fruit trees and shrubs with us when we move.

 

Yard-planting container-intended columnar, bush and espalier fruit has particular application not only for those who are spacially challenged in their yards but for those with compounds. There’s no reason our castle has to look industrial. In fact, back when castles were in vogue, they typically made use of every inch with plantings, which were tailored both for form and function.

Benefits of Smaller Specimens

Increases harvest season – One benefit to smaller trees is that we can spread out the harvest season. The common standard tree yields of 10-20 bushels is a lot to deal with inside the 1-3 weeks of the harvest season for each variety, and once it’s in and processed, there’s no more fresh fruit. Instead, we can tailor our home orchard for 3-6 months of fresh produce by selecting varieties from late, mid and early seasons within their species and having a couple of other species with them.

Spreads out the workload – Avoiding a single-type glut such as can come from even just 1-2 large trees (or species) by tailoring our home orchards by harvest period can let us select varieties that go straight to storage to complete the sweetening and softening process, while still having some fresh fruit now. Since summer and autumn are already hectic seasons for a lot of us and will be more so if we’re producing our own food, it’s nice to have that option. Even without storage fruit, smaller amounts harvested over 1-3 weeks per species lets us process fruit at a slower, steadier, more manageable rate.

Easier Management – The workload from processing harvest isn’t the only thing that goes down. Smaller trees allow us to work around them with less use of overhead tools. They’re easier to harvest and prune with only a step stool, and it’s easier to see what’s going on in the canopies. That alone can help us spot problems early.

Increase variety and species within a space – Instead of having three apples in standard sizes, we may be able to fit 5-9 dwarf and semi-dwarf trees, in addition to any wall-hugging espaliers and the super-compact minis or potted varieties. Sometimes that means we can get two pollinators for a primary semi-dwarf, and sometimes that means we can have a pair of small apples with a plum and a peach. Other times it means we can have a fruit tree or five, and still have sunlight and space for other perennials or an annual garden.

Smaller trees can allow us to increase variety and resilience in the same space. If one species, variety, or specimen is lost or damaged by pests or weather, others may survive.

 

Fresh eating is always healthiest, and having multiple harvest seasons from a variety of trees helps increase the periods of fresh produce, especially if we’re not gardening yet or a drought or the power/labor supply is making us choose between livestock and gardens for water. A variety in fruit types also provides a wider array of nutrients than having just 1-2 trees that produce all at once.

Increases resilience to varying weather conditions, climatic change and pests – Diversity is always a benefit in many ways, but in this case, it’s tangible. A lot of our fruit trees share pests and diseases with each other and other plants, and many require pollination.

If there are only two varieties of apple (or other species), and one is sensitive to something around us, the other has lost its pollinator. We won’t get any more fruit. If we get a semi-dwarf or a single standard for the tree we want most, then 3 smaller trees that cross pollinate, losing one of them to a pest/disease and one of them to weather (drought to storm) still leaves us with a pollinator. We still get our fruit harvest from our target tree.  If we had 5-7 smaller trees and lose 2-4, we increase our chances of good harvest in harsh conditions even further.

Graphic: Using a mix of semi-dwarf and dwarf trees can increase the total fruit yield in a space as well as create resiliency. *Yield estimates taken from Harried Homemaker Preps’ compilation of Stark Bros. estimates.

The resiliency benefits extend beyond pollination partners. An early-season fruit tree stands more chance of having late frosts and freezes or false springs kill off the buds. Summer storms, bug/pest seasons, and late storms and frosts can all become risks as well. With 3 smaller trees instead of one large tree, we can still get a harvest if one fails or if we lose a tree entirely, inside a species or by planting a variety of species.

Whether they’re small or not, having multiple varieties and species can help avoid total losses and it can help us spot problems early enough to save a harvest. Even if we don’t catch something for the first variety or species, because so many pests are common within domestic fruits, we may be able to treat later-blooming and later-fruiting specimens.

Faster Maturation – Most dwarfs and semi-dwarfs will begin production and hit average, mature rates in less time than standards. Their ultimate total yields are lower, although that can be mitigated with multiple trees.

Future Moves – Dwarf and mini fruit that can handle containers is also beneficial for those who plan to move to a new, larger space or compound. Some of us just can’t justify putting fruit into our small spaces, then leaving it. We can also go ahead and get our fruit trees the day we move, with the plan to transplant once we study and develop our plan for our homestead. That way we’re a little (or a lot) closer to our mature production rates when we hit our new locations.

Small Trees for Big Spaces

Small fruit trees can also be used as “canaries” a la mine-shaft mode, especially on large spreads. We can tuck a sampling of dwarf and super-dwarf compacts in similar light, water and soil conditions along our driveways and near our homes. Doing so lets us keep better track of flowering, health, and fruit development, especially in our busy daily lives, since we see them right there, all the time.

Dwarf and espalier fruit can be trained to hedges, serving multiple functions on our property as well as producing food.

We still need to check on orchards – especially if they’re planted in blocks of the same species or close cousins. Differing microclimates may (will) produce fluctuation even within members of the same species. The diversity of fruit species and other landscaping and gardening can protect our canaries, and lower compaction might be leading to better soil health in one spot or another. Then there are things like chickens, goats, pigs, deer and porcupines that can be affecting outlying trees but not the ones where our dogs and people run most frequently.

Still, over a few seasons, we’ll pick up on the trends and be able to use our canaries to tell us what’s going on in an orchard or even just a few trees that are out of sight-line.

Small Trees for Home Orchards

A small fruit tree isn’t always the solution. For larger families and groups, and anyone interested in silvopasture or sticking crated/kenneled livestock under trees, standard varieties may be a better choice. For those who are looking at age, physical ability, resilience, and small spaces for an edible orchard, smaller trees and container fruits may be a major boost to our capabilities. Smaller trees can also just be faster and easier to care for than large trees, and provide a variety of fruits sooner and a longer harvest period for a busy working family, which may better serve some people.

0 Comments

Dwarf Trees – When Less is More We spend a lot of time looking at annual crops and gardens, but perennials have their places. When it comes to fruit trees, we

During the difficult days of World War II, victory gardens became popular symbols of frugal living and self-reliance. As the nation’s resources became focused on the war effort, families did their part to economize by growing their own vegetables, herbs, and fruit. The victory garden has enjoyed a new lease on life in our own day. In tough economic times, it is more appealing than ever to grow your own food. It can also be an important part of a modern healthy lifestyle. Even if you’re on a tight budget, these seven tips can help you get started with a successful victory garden. You’ll be on your way to delicious home-grown food before you know it!

1. Start Small

There are many helpful and inspiring books about growing your own vegetables. The Internet is also full of useful information on gardening. It’s easy to get too enthusiastic and take on a huge garden project in your very first year. Remember to start small! You can always expand your garden gradually as you become more familiar with the details of growing your own food. Even if you only produce a few rows of potatoes or a handful of tomato plants in the first growing season, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re a real gardener. You’ll also be saving money and enjoying better nutritional value every time you eat your own home-grown produce.

2. Make the Most of the Available Space

Are you an apartment dweller? Do you live in a condominium or a small townhouse in the city? You might not have a huge backyard to devote to your victory garden. There’s no need to worry. A victory garden can be grown in a very small space. Consider getting a small plot in a shared community garden or finding a rooftop garden you can participate in. If you’re in a tiny apartment, you can still grow edibles in window boxes or similar containers. Even if you only have a small strip of outside space, you can put food plants in among the existing trees and bushes. You can go online for inspiration in designing your small urban garden.

3. Think About What You Love to Eat

A victory garden may look beautiful and be a fulfilling hobby, but the main point of these gardens is food production! When you plan your garden, think about what sort of foods you like to cook and eat. Once you’ve started growing them, they will take center stage in your kitchen during the appropriate season each year. If you don’t enjoy eating squash, then think twice about planting a whole row of it. The same goes for zucchini, which is notoriously productive in late summer. If you do a lot of creative cooking, think about adding herbs and aromatics to your victory garden to spice up your recipes. The possibilities are almost endless. Take some time to review your favorite recipes and think about what foods you’d most like to grow.

4. Work With the Weather

When you grow local food, you need to pay attention to the local climate. Try looking up your town’s USDA hardiness zone and finding out which plants are likely to thrive in your victory garden. As a gardener, you’ll be working closely with the different seasons of the year and becoming more sensitive to small changes in weather. If you live in a colder climate, you might want to boost the growing season by starting plants indoors. With the proper lights and warming areas, you can create an early spring inside your own house or shed. By the time spring has sprung outside, you’ll have healthy young plants ready to take root in the ground, providing you and your family with delicious food.

5. Take Care of the Soil

If you just dig up a patch of soil in your backyard and put in a handful of seedlings, you may end up with some vegetables in a few months, but you’re not going to get the great results you want. Every bit of time and money you invest in preparing the soil will pay back many times during the harvest season. Visit your local garden store for a full selection of compost, mulch, and organic fertilizers. Make sure the ground is thoroughly tilled and aerated. If you’re short on time or muscle power, you can rent a mechanical tiller for a weekend and get your victory garden in great shape. Be sure to pay attention to weeds and remove them promptly from your vegetable beds. When the soil is in good condition, your fruits, vegetables, and herbs will be happier and more productive.

6. Think About the Long Run

Gardening can be an exercise in patience. In our modern age, when we’re accustomed to getting instant gratification with the click of a mouse or a few words on the phone, it can be hard to wait for months to see the results of our victory garden experiments. Sometimes there are difficulties with pests, sunlight, irrigation, or other variables of outdoor life. Yields can be disappointingly tiny or overwhelmingly large. (Have you ever tried to can a hundred pounds of tomatoes in a small kitchen on a sweltering summer afternoon? At moments like those, a garden that yields just a few puny tomatoes may seem appealing!) Don’t get discouraged, and remember that gardening success happens in the long run. Your first year as a victory gardener is just the prelude to a long and happy career of growing your own food.

 

7. Enjoy the Benefits

There are many benefits of growing your own vegetables at home. You’ll start to enjoy some of them almost immediately: plenty of fresh air and exercise, an increased sensitivity to the changing seasons, and the chance to think about where your food really comes from. As soon as the crops start coming in, you’ll save money on your grocery bills each week. The best reward of all — as experienced gardeners know — is the unforgettable taste of home-grown vegetables. Once you’ve tasted a tomato picked fresh off the vine, you’ll never want to go back to grocery store tomatoes. Start a victory garden this year and enjoy the delights of the freshest food you can get!

 

0 Comments

During the difficult days of World War II, victory gardens became popular symbols of frugal living and self-reliance. As the nation’s resources became focused on the war effort, families did

Raised garden beds are one option for providing a source of fresh food to your family that are preferred by some people for a lot of very valid reasons. Some of the reasons raised beds are preferred are:

  • Less weeds
  • Better water retention in areas that have super-sandy soil
  • Better drainage in areas with clay soils
  • More growing space
  • No soil compaction from human feet
  • Warmer soil earlier in the season
  • Warmer soil for a longer season
  • Soil that has basically a neutral pH unless you add something to change it (because you’re filling it)
  • Less soil erosion (especially, if the bed is framed)

 A great visual to give you some ideas on how to create your own raised beds for your garden:

Click to Enlarge Image

Raised Garden Beds Infographic

0 Comments

Raised garden beds are one option for providing a source of fresh food to your family that are preferred by some people for a lot of very valid reasons. Some

 

The phrase “guerrilla gardening” was first used in 1973 in New York City, when Liz Christie and her Green Guerrilla group transformed an empty private lot into a vegetable and flower garden for community use. While not legal it was not challenged, and eventually became part of the NYC Parks Department.

Guerrilla gardening today can be done for either personal benefit, or as a form of activism to draw attention to urban blight. In our case, I will discuss guerrilla gardening for survival.

I got the idea for a little guerrilla gardening last year, when I read this Survival Blog post and decided to give it a try in two places – my own backyard, and an abandoned farm not too far from home.

I had never grown field corn before last year, but in the mid-West you see it grown everywhere for cattle feed. In a TEOTWAWKI situation, being able to grow corn for your family would be vital their survival. Why? Because it’s easy to grow, packed with calories, and lasts for several years once harvested.

Here’s how to test the technique in the backyard:

  • Select the area of lawn to be converted to corn field. Make sure it is fenced in, or otherwise kept clear of pets and toddlers for a few days.

Do you have the skills you need to be your own source of food if the grid goes down??

  • Chop holes in rows every 12-18”, plant a couple of corn kernels about 1” deep, and cover with the chopped dirt. Water in the seeds, and the next day spray the whole area with glyphosate (Roundup) prepared as directed on the label. The grass dies before the seeds sprout, and within ten days the corn sprouts should be poking out. Thin the ranks once they get a couple of inches tall.
  • When the corn stalks get about a foot tall, plant two climbing bean seeds (like dried pinto beans from the grocery store) a few inches away from the stalk; the bean plants’ roots fix nitrogen in the soil for the corn-stalk, and the corn stalks provide support for the bean plants so they get more sunlight. Beans and corn together provide an excellent nutritional base of carbohydrates and protein. Also, if you can plant another set of bean seeds a couple of weeks before bean harvest time in late July/early August, you may be able to get a second crop harvested by corn harvest time in October/November.

By the end of the growing season, the grass and weeds rotted away, and I had an established garden area. I tried this on my lawn last year (on about 100 sq ft), and I was able to harvest 16 pounds of field corn, and 6 pounds of pinto beans, for a total of about 35,000 calories. Since my family of four needs about 8000 calories a day, I would need about 85 of these plots to cover their needs and have seed corn/beans for the following year. That’s only about 0.2 acres – smaller than most subdivision lots! If you were able to get a second crop of beans, that would provide you with calories to spare, or some extra beans to trade to your neighbors.

This was lawn in the spring of 2014, before converting to corn last year.

Naturally, in a SHTF scenario, I would like to plant more to account for bad weather (like the monsoon season we are having in lieu of summer this year!), infestations, or thievery by two and four-footed critters.

This is where the true guerrilla gardening comes in.

There is an abandoned farm at the end of our subdivision street. The rumor is that it is owned by the subdivision’s developer, but he is in jail on drug charges for a long time, and so any further development is in limbo. Maybe you have seen a similar fallow field or empty lot around your neighborhood that you could control if things go to hell.

An abandoned farm in our neighborhood

Residents occasionally hike through some parts of the farm, so there are trails that wind around the edge of the field, but the tall grass and thorny bushes stop most people from going through it – all the better for me.

Around the first of June, I put a bag of field corn, a hedge trimmer, and a bulb planter into my backpack, and took a little hike. I selected a patch of field that was mostly tall grass for ease of planting, and got to work. Although I was nervous as hell about getting caught, I chopped the grass as low as I could in a 15’ x 15’ square, and threw the grass to the side. Then I got busy with the bulb planter, punching holes in the dense grass root systems, and pushing in the corn seeds. The next day, I packed in a small sprayer loaded with glyphosate, and sprayed the whole area. Within two weeks, I had little rows of corn seedlings.   Yay, it worked! When they got about a foot tall, I planted the bean seeds as described.

That’s the good news, but here is the bad news – within a week, I noticed that the grass next the plot was flattened, and the tops of my little corn plants were being nipped. Deer! Those little bastards found the seedlings a tasty change of diet, and are doing their best to commandeer the crop.

So here is what I have learned –

Deer like to snack on corn and beans in bed (rear left).

  • It would be too expensive to fence my little plot now (about $100), and fencing would draw unwanted attention.
  • If I were to guerrilla garden post-TEOTWAWKI, I would do it with whatever surviving neighbors I could trust. We would use fencing acquired after the disaster, and/or take turns patrolling the field until the seedlings matured and were less tasty. This would also provide us an opportunity to hunt deer drawn to the plot, and put some fresh meat on the table. I have also heard that human urine is a natural deer repellent, but I haven’t tried it yet.
  • I need to stock up now, to be prepared to implement this plan.
    • Fifty pounds of feed corn costs about $5 at a feed supply store, should germinate adequately, and covers about an acre and a half. You could trade or give some to your trusted neighbors that will be part of your guerrilla gardening group.
    • 50 pounds of dried will complement the corn, and is good for eating if gardening doesn’t work out.
    • A variety of other garden seeds – tomatoes, cabbage, and other foods that can be kept/canned.
    • About a gallon of glyphosate and a couple of sprayers.
    • A couple of bulb planters, trowels and/or shovels.
    • Adequate firearms and ammo for guarding the crop and hunting deer.

While it is a little late in the season to expect to harvest, why not try it anyway soon near you? Better to learn now what works than later!

1 Comment

  The phrase “guerrilla gardening” was first used in 1973 in New York City, when Liz Christie and her Green Guerrilla group transformed an empty private lot into a vegetable and

If we want to be successful at gardening or raising crops, and most of us do, there are some things that can make us much more efficient and successful. Explaining potential ways to maintain a seed book and field/yield notes takes a lot longer than actually doing it, happily. Both tracking seeds and their results and separating seeds in storage can help limit some of the pains and aggravations of gardening. In some cases, being able to look something up or have a backup set of seeds can have major impact on our success, which in some situations might mean the difference between thriving and barely scraping by.

Tracking Seeds & Results

Notebooks are something most gardeners would benefit from. It’s not just for big growers and stock keepers. Consider a ledger your memory – because very rarely can our minds be relied on, especially if we have multiple companies’ offerings and multiple varieties of seeds.

Ideally, we also keep notes at least during key periods of the year. How many little green things popped up out of roughly how many seeds?

I like binders so that I can add a page for each successive year after I collect seeds, and so that I can add to my radish and squash/melon collection easily. Somebody with good backing-up procedures who aren’t worried about an EMP and who have a little solar charger for a tablet might be happier just making an Excel or Access chart. I know a guy who uses copier paper and the little report folders from green-sign Dollar Stores, keeping plant classes separated a little as he expands. A woman does the same, but hers are divided into ideal planting months for her climate. Lots of ways to tailor a seed book.

Regardless of what form our ledger is in, it’s there to tell us how seeds of certain cultivars and from certain companies respond to our soil, the climate and weather, and our culture practices (growing schemes).

Specifics to track in a binder

A basic seed book contains quick-reference information about our seeds, the information provided about them that tells us how to plant them and when. We do it for each variety by each supplier and each year, and ideally also have pages for our saved seeds from them, because all romaine lettuce and roma tomato seeds are not created equal.

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

Ideally, we also keep notes at least during key periods of the year. How many little green things popped up out of roughly how many seeds? How many grew up into strong plants? What fertilizers and treatments did we put out that might be affecting them? We also track climate conditions our little darlings survived, weekly or monthly – or during an extreme event. Hot and dry? Cool? Super wet season? Lots of wind?

Include notes about biotic conditions, too. How many bees are we seeing, and compared to previous years and bumper/bummer crop years? How many vegetarian creepy crawlies? Carnivorous buggaboos? Bats? Swallows? Crows? Was there a tragedy involving a border collie and a ball (or an idiot and a truck) that *possibly* affected a variety this year?

Include our feelings after we eat the produce (which is one place a dry-erase or chalkboard in a kitchen can be huge). Did we actually like the flavor of what we grew, or are we going to stand there with our eyes clenched closed trying to remember which one of those tomatoes/squashes was soft and kind of grainy and which was the most perfect thing we’ve ever put in our mouths?

The quick-list for a seed book:

  • Seeds – cultivar, provider/manufacturer, days to harvest, spacing needs, seeding rate, planting dates, hot-cold sensitivity, drought/disease resistance
  • Germination rate
  • Plant health
  • Weather
  • Insects and animal activity
  • Amendments and treatments used
  • Yields (by cultivar and by location if micro-climates differ)
  • Taste/texture and use preferences

Ideally in a format that can be quickly and easily accessed during planning and evaluation phases before and after each year’s crop seasons.

A seed book might also contain generic information like:

It’s ideally in a format that can be quickly and easily accessed during planning and evaluation phases before and after each year’s crop seasons. Too many books and bookmarked sites, and it gets hard to have it all accessible on a kitchen table for easy consumption.

Using notes for planning & evaluation

A well-kept notebook can help us identify trends, and from that successful cultivars. It’s too easy to forget that something happened, and it’s too difficult to accurately judge productivity of peas if we’re not keeping track of harvest even just by using pint jars and baskets and colanders as our measure.

For kitchen garden and egg tracking, I find it easiest to stick a $2 Ollie’s dry erase board and a map pen by my kitchen door. That’s where stuff gets dropped, anyway. I can see it and note it immediately, while I suck down my ice water or sandwich, or when I move to dealing with it. I use a birdwatcher’s pocket notebook for large-scale crops going into drying bins, cellars, and curing sheds.

I find it easiest to stick a $2 Ollie’s dry erase board and a map pen by my kitchen door.

Then there are a few minutes then spent transferring the information to the specific seed/variety pages and to this year’s overall harvest pages later.

Seems like a lot of work?

It can be, and initial setup can take some time – a good winter or blazing-hot afternoon project. Once it becomes habit, it’s just adding tick marks on a chart of crops in rows and columns with the harvest size – individual fruit, pint, gallon, quarter-bushel – and a note that berries are getting nibbled on out there, then on with washing and sorting and processing.

Fast and easy enough, since I don’t want to waste more money on things that aren’t producing well, and I’d rather concentrate on things that we eat – especially if I’m hoping to make a dent in groceries off all this time and labor. Compared to weeding a conventional garden or suckering tomatoes, maintaining yield and field notes takes no time at all.

Our seed books also let us pre-plan our gardens without dragging all our seeds in and out of their nice, stable environment and exposing them to moisture and temperature fluctuation.

Once we have a notebook, we can also easily keep our printed/drawn garden and field plans – with notes right on them in some cases. That’s one more tool in our arsenal for future planning and identifying if and what went wrong.

If we don’t have previous years’ layouts and our yield notes, we don’t have the ability to study what went right and what went wrong, what plants followed each other and were near each other, or to act on it in the future. If we can’t identify which variety/varieties produced those bumper and bummer crops, we’re doomed to repeatedly plant the wrong one – or we might be looking for a condition that’s causing a change, rather than quickly identifying that it’s a particular seed type that’s varying plot to plot or year to year.

A good binder helps us in a lot of ways.

Segregated and Backup Seed Stocks

I separate seeds by type and season, especially if they’re being stored in a fridge or freezer. That way, when I’m frost sowing, early spring sowing, and summer sowing, I’m only exposing one set to condensation and moisture. Likewise, I separate my herbs and my longer-season carrots and rutabagas, because they’re only coming out twice, whereas my greens and radishes may come out to get planted and replanted 4-10 times a year. I don’t want to expose plants I don’t have to, and limiting their exposure to accidents can only be considered a good thing.

It’s also a time saver. I have multiple gallon Ziplocs of my “small crop” seeds and there are additional paper bags of beans, corn, some squashes, and peas. Sorting through individual packets in a box, larger bags, or bucket to grab the 5-20 packets I want for today can take longer than planting them.

Granted, inspiration can strike when a packet wings out at you, but for the most part, we want to get in and get done.

Backups are good. I also segregate by 2-3 year spans, and keep backups that are not coming out into the kitchen for pre-staging or out into the garden with me. That way grubby fingers don’t affect those backups, and if a cup of tea spills or there is a snafu involving slick, wet mud or a hose, I don’t expose every seed I have and end up needing to plant it all, now, or losing it because I can’t dry it effectively to re-store.

We backup data on our computers. We keep backups of important documents in our bags and vehicles and offsite. We keep and sometimes carry a backup firearm or an EDC kit. We have backup smoke and CO detectors. (Or we should – for all of them.) Some of us maintain studs or backup studs for livestock, or know where we can run in an emergency and secure one.

Seeds are no different. Because sometimes, seeds or whole plant strains end up wrecked.

Wrecked seeds are a bummer. Moisture or bugs get to them in storage, maybe they weren’t as dry as we thought when we bagged or jarred them and they mildewed, or they might have crossed, which we won’t know for six months or a year*.

(*The parent plant determines the shape of the fruit and the seeds inside. The pollen from a different squash variety can be hidden deep inside that seed, and it won’t show up at first. We might find out that we have weak plants early in a season, but we might not find out that we have only thin shells of “meat” or something more like a loufa or gourd until fruits grow and are harvested and cut open to consume – same deal with a lot of seeds, broccoli to corn to beans.)

We combat the chance of having seeds wrecked between harvest and planting, and the chance of a hybrid we don’t know about for a year, by keeping two or three sets of our seeds. One set we hope we’re planting out. One set we’re caching somewhere safe and holding onto for at least an extra year or two. That way if this year’s seed-saving doesn’t go so hot or if our spring planting reveals a problem with the previous autumn’s crop, we can revert back to a 2-3 year-old source that we have faith in.

Tracking and Separating Seeds

There are probably people more than capable of keeping track without a stock book or ledger for plants or livestock. Most of us can use the memory aid. Try it for a year or two, go simple with it, and if it’s not working for you, ditch it. I think a lot of gardeners will find that maintaining a seed book is helpful, even if they don’t go whole-hog with planning sheets and segregating seeds for efficiency. Maintaining backup stock to saved seeds is something I think everyone should be doing. If not for everything (I don’t backup everything) then for the best performers and severe-weather crops we count on.

0 Comments

If we want to be successful at gardening or raising crops, and most of us do, there are some things that can make us much more efficient and successful. Explaining

 

People who are interested in preparedness routinely end up looking further into the future than an event and the aftermath, and eventually end up looking at sustainability and self-sufficiency. Whether we want to augment an affordable beans and rice diet or we want to never need a supermarket again, growing food rears its head. There are lots of factors that go into gardening and crop raising. It starts with the very seeds we plant, so I’d like to look at two of the seed sources we see in the preparedness fold, and how to test seeds to find out if stored seeds are still viable.

How to Procure seeds

Seed kits and especially the long-storage seed vaults can be had good and bad, like any other one-size-fits-all gear or a multi-tool. There are some charts available that tell you how long regular ol’ seeds last, in a fridge or at a constant temperature in a closet. Various vaults and long-storage kits will provide their own estimates.

I tend to think there are a lot of people making a lot of money off fear purchases. I dislike the claims of feeding a family for one year without specifying the calorie contents possible (veggies are diet food). I feel a little better about the “Plants an Acre!” claims, although method affects that, too. I think a lot of the packaging of those kits are window dressing with little effect – and it should be noted that with a lot of kits, their “use by” date is derived from the longest lasting seeds inside. They may boost storage time some, but it may not be enough of an expansion to warrant paying for a “vault” or Mylar instead of a Ziploc freezer bag.

Nobody agrees about seed shelf life across the board, but that’s pretty common in both life and gardening specifically, and there are always exceptions. Maybe freezer, fridge, 65-75-degree shelves make a difference to other people’s spinach, but mine and a lot of my brassicas tend to hit 50% germination at 3-5 years no matter what storage location I go with, fancy kit or saved seed in a junk-mail paper packet.

There’s also the factor of climate.

Very few seed kits or vaults are tailored to Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, or the Adirondacks (some have regional planning). There are some tried and true varieties that will thrive almost anywhere if you have good garden soil – if; not intended for tilling a clay or sand yard for the first time without serious amendments – and some that are a little more lenient toward poor soils. Few kits, however, account for both the short growing season of North Dakota and the sweltering heat and humidity of South Carolina. There’s likely to be something in there that anybody can plant, but you may not be able to use everything in the kit.

Crunch numbers to see what applies to your region, what you’re growing seasons allow for, and figure out how much of the cost is seeds you can’t or are unlikely to use.

Crunch the numbers on the types of seeds you’re getting, too, and be aware that most seed kits provide way more tomatoes than I could keep up with and very, very few calorie and protein crops, so you still need additional seed stocks (deer corn and pigeon peas not crazy talk). Something like a third or half of those “More than 20K seeds!!!” may be leafy greens of some kind – not only near-nils in calories, but also with seeding rates of 3-5 seeds at 2-3” and then thinning to 6+ inches. In other words, not a lot of food value for a lot of seeds, but they go far toward ballooning numbers for advertising purposes.

I’m sure there’s a ton of examples for when buying more expensive kits meant for long-storage would be worth it. I can actually think of a couple. I can also think of a couple of little kits or bucket kits that are just nice, handy, fairly economical ways to get a start. I just want people to be aware of the limitations so those can be considered as well. It may end up that you’re better off buying the seeds you specifically want instead of a kit or vault.

I’d also like people to consider whether they can survive to the next planting, growing and harvest seasons in their regions before they delve on a long-storage seed kit – and from that, decide if they’d be better off applying their budget elsewhere.

Sale seeds may or may not be a great alternative. Grandma and great grandpa didn’t need fancy packages to keep seeds for a couple of years, but they did typically keep them cool.

Early on in the season, seeds have come right from growers and packaging plants, where they were somewhat cared for. By the end of the season and the start of next spring, seeds have spent months or a year going from blazing hot to cold on a daily basis in a lot of storefronts, or at least hitting 30-40-degree swings, with exposure to high humidity in a lot of the garden centers. Like coffee that goes in and out of a freezer, this degrades the seeds. The more extreme the conditions and fluctuations, the more at-risk the germination rate is.

I do buy the 10/$1, 4/$1 and $1 seed packs at the beginning and end of seasons, but I limit myself to $5-10. I am more likely to take advantage of end-of-season seed sales from an internet provider (that I already trust) where there is some expectation that my seeds have been stored properly over the spring and summer than I am a brick-and-mortar shop, especially the ones with seed racks right by doors where they’re getting the greatest temperature fluctuations for 6-8 months. I do buy my field-plot seeds at the end of the seasons from bulk distributors, and so far they’ve been fine for next-year planting.

If it works for you, great. If you’re buying them without doing germination tests, maybe check that out before you go whole-hog with a garden or really depend on producing food.

Use germination to test seeds

Germination testing isn’t difficult. It’s highly valuable in determining how viable your seeds are – and for how long. I will understand if somebody doesn’t want to pop a $200-$300 seed vault or set of #10 cans, but if it’s already several years old – and as good as some claim – go for it anyway. General commercial seed packets will be fine after opening as long as they stay dry. There’s no change in storage life opened or unopened for them.

To do the test, snag some plastic storage bags or bowls, paper towels or smooth dish cloths/hankies or some fast food napkins, and a dry erase marker for “good” dishes, a Sharpie for disposables or Ziploc bags. If your seeds need scarification or stratification, do it. A lot of seeds benefit from a pre-soak for 4-24 hours, even if it’s not a requirement. For a germination test, I have no problem giving everything the best chance, even if I don’t plant them as soaked seeds in real life.

For a plastic bag, mark it so you know which variety and intended planting year it’s from (or the year you saved it) as well as the date you’re starting the test and the days it should take to germinate. Dampen your napkin or paper towel, toss in your seeds, stick them somewhere warm, and cover them in dark cloth (or stick a bunch of bags in a stock pot with a good lid).

For “good” bowls, use the dry erase marker on the container or snag a disposable plastic container like a milk jug or old blinds to cut up and mark with the same information. If you’re sure it’s not going to get rattled and your seeds will stay segregated, you can line a baking sheet with a smooth towel, put a drying rack on top of it, and cover that with an additional damp towel. For bowls, damp hanky- or bandana-like cloth or paper towels go in the bottom and you cover them with another damp towel. These dry out faster than Ziplocs, so they’ll need checked twice a day or more frequently.

Keep an eye on the seeds for mildew and so that you can update your notebook with how many have sprouted and the age of the seeds tested. Eventually, you’ll develop an average for seed shelf life in your storage conditions even within general classes and types like spinach, squash, buckwheat, crowder peas, and grass grains.

Running the numbers

Sets of ten are easiest to reach a rate for without doing any math at all – add a zero, that’s your percent (8 of 10 sprout – 80% germination). Multiples of ten give a better baseline, and it’s simple conversions for them. The “real” way to figure out the rate is to divide and then multiple by 100. Say 32 of 50 sprout, then…

32/50 = 0.64, then 0.64 x 100 = 64; a 64% germination rate.

If you’re good with eyeballing estimating and relationships, just go with that. 32 of 50 is 3 of 5, 6 of 10, so 60%. It’s close enough. This is to make your life easier, not harder.

Applying the results

There are some seeds that are just finicky and some that may germinate but the survival to transplant or harvest size is a little low. If you’re hitting a 50-75% germination rate routinely, get some help to make sure there are no test problems. Mold under 7-14 days means you need to find a slightly less-warm spot and possibly reduce some of the moisture.

If the test’s fine and those are your germination rates for a specific package, you need new seed for storage. Whether it’s age, manufacturer, or storage conditions, yours don’t have too much life left to give. In most cases, it’s going to be a combination of these factors that degrades seed shelf life.

When you plant and start seeds with those germination rates, you may want to double the seeding rate, because you know half aren’t going to even sprout.

Germination testing isn’t a one-off. Doing it once and never again doesn’t work. If these are your storage seeds, you need to be testing batches every 1-2 years, because viability drops off. That said, unless they’re saved seed (which I test at harvest time) you don’t really need to do a germination test on anything intended for planting this year or last year. Unless they got soaked or baked sometime or have had a really hard life, they should be fine.

Local help helps more – generally

Two of the greatest assets for growers is the nearest county, university, or state extension office, and the local Master Gardener’s association. They’re right there. A lot of our states have a whole handful of regional variables, but most have somebody who’s familiar with them – and might have somebody right there in your backyard.

Use them. The more local the advice, especially about pests and growing season and crop varieties that thrive, the better the advice is going to be.

Do, however, beware of five monkeys in a cage – the “we’ve always” syndrome; we no longer use leaches as healers or wipe only with our left hands, and those kinds of advances apply elsewhere as well. We now have all kinds of growing methods that do not involve tilling in lime, but that remains fallback advice north, south, east and west. (If any amendment is part of your gardening plan, you’re going to want to stock up on that, too.)

Advice should be taken with a grain of salt and additional information sources should be sought out, for anything, but if you’re strolling around or looking at pictures of a highly productive garden, and you’re growing using the same methods in the same place, these people might be worth listening to – from where they get their seeds and baby trees, to how they handle them.

Additional seed tips

There’s another round of seed tips coming up, specifically dealing with tracking seed varieties and their yields, and storing seeds for convenience, efficiency and contingencies. With any luck, some of the points raised in this one will help you decide for or against certain seed sources and you’ll be able to rest more comfortably knowing the results of germination tests, as well as be able to find somebody to help if you’re having garden problems.

0 Comments

  People who are interested in preparedness routinely end up looking further into the future than an event and the aftermath, and eventually end up looking at sustainability and self-sufficiency. Whether