Preppers

Anyone watch NGC tonight? Doomsday Preppers! IF this occured, is you garden large enough? Mine is NOT! I'm a person that believes " to each their own" and I don't think these Americans are crazed lunatics. I find them interesting.



If this is inappropriate to discussion, please forgive me and make this thread "disappear".

My parents, grandparents, and even a great-grandmother pounded into me the most valuable lesson I ever learned. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". There are several of us here on the forum that are looking into being prepared, it's one of the reasons we SFG. I'm not a doomsday prepper, but spending most of my adult life in the country had taught me to err of the safe side. By that I mean, I tend to buy in bulk, and buy more than one toothpaste, so I can buy a new tube when the first tube runs out leaving me at least 2 tubes on hand. One drunk driver hiting a pole, or a bad storm knocking down a tree can leave me powerless, and since we are on a well, with out running water.



Having said that, that is why I have a huge area for my SFG, but the heat has been high this year, so my garden is on vacation (nothing is progressing except for the Southern Peas). So, I plan to start more seeds for beans, and then cool weather crops in a week or two. I know that everything I have read says start now, but my bones are telling me to wait, it's just the begining of August, and with usig the SFG methods you can use hoop houses to extend the growing season!!! SFG is the best way to grow and stock up on foods for your family, but remember that frozen food usually only has a shelf life of 6 months (most are still good for 9-12, but check to see) and canned foods 1-2 years at the very most, so growing mass amounts of food, even in your SFG, can be a waste if you grow too much and it does not get used, and the thing about sharing food with others is if there is an ice storm and the store is empty, guess where they are going next.



So, the best plan is to take a look at what you were able to harvest this year, and if you need more for your family, add a box or two more (go slow, or do this in the fall/winter) but keep in mind to grow only what you need. Also, you may have a great year and get more than you need one year, then another year get only half of what you need. The ball canning guide is a great place to start for figuring out what you need, or you can just do some simple math, we love corn, we eat it 3 times a week for dinner and at least 3 times a week for lunch, that's 5 times a week, and we eat about 1/2 a pint each time we eat. SO, that's about 3 (maybe 4) pints times 52, and we like to occasionally eat it on the cob, so we need to freeze some that way. See where I am going.



Also remember you can rotate your crops more easily in the SFG, just pull up what is not producing, and put in something new, so when you get all the peas or beans you need, pul them up and stick in some lettuce or broccoli depending on the time of year.



Okay, I really need to stop, sorry if this was too much, but I guess this has been on my mind more than I realized. I need to re-group and plant for fall/winter, thanks for lighting a fire under me.

Thanks FV, I now know to stockpile heirloom seeds. I'm a couponer so for HBA items, I have 1-2 yrs supply on hand right now. I'm on a shopping hiatus so we have been living off the food stockpile this summer. I have that washing machine you posted about in another thread on my Amazon wishlist along with some other items for my camping needs. I also want to look into Soapwort? plant for detergent.



As for SFG, yes, I need to add about 4 more boxes and then re-eval to see if that would cover our needs ( don't think it will but $ is a factor at the moment) At the moment, green beans-carrots-peas are the big ones in need for my family. I figure 52 servings for each one, that leaves the other days for Pizza, lasagna, spagetti, etc. I plan on trying a hoop house this fall. I "under" estimated my crops so what's the saying " live and learn" and I'm really learning alot this year. LOL



Hopefully I'll master this thing called "gardening" like my parents/grandparents.

I wouldn't say I'm a prepper, as in being prepared for doomsday, but hubby and I had a long talk when we got married, and we decided that we'd like to be prepared for a mini disaster. Since we live in western NY, and winters can be long and treacherous, we decided to have at least a month's worth of food on hand at any given point. So we stock piled a bunch of canned and dried food, and switch it out whenever we buy something new.

I'd like to can my garden produce, but right now, I'm only producing enough to kind of supplement our diet. Enough peas each day for a small snack, a zucchini every few days to be cooked with dinner, enough beans to be boiled up every couple of days. Of course, once the tomatoes come in, we'll be eating a lot more produce, not to mention when we harvest the onions and carrots. I'm really uncertain if I should add more boxes to my garden or if what I have now is just enough. I guess I should wait until the end of this growing season to really decide.

madnicmom wrote:I also want to look into Soapwort? plant for detergent.

I use soap nuts (berries) for nearly everything. Cleaning counters, scrubbing floors, laundry, cleaning carpets, washing walls, windows and mirrors, bathrooms, you name it. I bought four pounds and have used one pound in the last year (we are a family of 8.) Very, very cost efficient.

I make homemade beauty products including toothpaste, shampoo, soap, deodorant etc. Our severe allergies has required this. I've laid in a huge supply of the handful of ingredients I need for these.

We have a little food set aside, maybe a month's worth. I rely mostly on my own dehydrated food I make from what I grow and farmer's market shopping. I make pemmican for protein storage. I need to put up much, much more, and stockpile some things I haven't started on yet. I also need to build a few solar and rocket cookers.

We have lived in California (earthquakes), the mountains of Oregon and Colorado (blizzards), Louisiana (hurricanes and floods), and now where we are in Tennessee we have VERY unreliable electricity. I'm not a "prepper" but I'd like to think I'm starting to become prepared.

We have had several severe financial setbacks where we lived off our stores and rebuilt them when money was better. It was great to have stores set aside instead of having to rely on charity.

I sort of stumbled backwards into being prepared just because my grocery/household budget went completely out of control and I had to find a new way to stretch the money. I became a coupon shopper, cut my monthly grocery bill from $800 to $300 and have managed to build up a stockpile of food and household supplies that will last us about 6 months if needed. My garden right now is barely supplying me with enough produce for us to eat, let alone can, but I am hoping to improve that each year....in the meantime, it is helping with the budget when I don't have to buy produce.

I don't think there is any such thing as being "too" prepared... it doesn't take a natural disaster to throw things into chaos--how about losing a job? I am hoping to be prepared enough to be self sufficient no matter what happens...

Ya know, I was listening to a show the other day and one guy wrote in and said he had started stocking up on basic items. He had bought about a weeks worth of drinking water (gallon or two here and there) and his city had a water main break and issued a boil order. He said just for fun he went to the store just to see what was going on, and as he suspected there was no water on the shelf, and they were trucking water in, every one was in a panic. With all this technology we depend on it just makes sense to honor the Boy Scouts motto and "Be Prepared".

Mamachibi, would you please share some of your recipes, we have a section here on the forum for non food things, I would love to see how you do it. We gave up cleaning with chemicals a while back, my daughter has nosebleeds from them, so any other ideas would be awesome.

I sure will, Farmer Valerie!

Thank you so much!!!! This is something near and dear to me, as I shared in my first post, my parents, grandparents and a great-grandmother (or two now that I think about it) pounded into me "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Which is what lead me to gardening, and in a round about way SFG (back pain from row gardening). So for me all of this goes hand in hand.

Mamachibi, my parents are in KY, near Murray and Paris TN. They are out in the boonies, when they bought the place they now live I was about 3 years old, and you had to pipe sunlight in because it was so thick with woods and over growth. When we got older and after dad and 2 uncles (both are 10 years older than I) helped him clear his lot with a machete and push mower, we were there every other summer camping and clearing and building. We were told not to wander off of the road because there were still moonshiners all over the place. Now where they live is kinda like a subdivision and every now and then you will see off to the side of the road an old tabacco shed or remnants of a moonshine camp. Anyway, they have the same issues with electricity, they are just so far out, and there are so many trees that could fall on power lines, and they are on a well, no trictity=no water. Not to mention the 1 road in is a very steep hill, any ice on it and it's a you know what to get up, we tried one Christmas made me very nervous.... I just aquired an extra coffee percolater pot that can be used on a stove (I keep mine in the house, not with the camping supplies-you never know) I am putting it up for my dad. When hurricane Ike blew through here (or what was left of it) we were without power for a day, no rain, just enough wind to knock a tree down on our power lines, I had my camp coffee pot on my camp stove that AM and my family was very grateful I did not have to go without my coffee. I also try to hide some paper plates and plastic silverware, just for power outages, we too are on a well and I'm not using drinking water to wash dishes, oh and I also try to keep baby wipes on hand for baths. All this just makes sense to me....