Survival Gardening Scenario

I have a scenario for you. Somehow, it doesn't matter how, you have found conclusive evidence that there will be a catastrophic collapse of societies, governments and economies worldwide sometime between the end of October and the end of November this year. Remember, this is a fictional scenario I am giving you. There is already evidence of disruptions in the food supply for the coming months, along with sharply rising prices.The media dishes out a plethora of reasons for these problems that amount to nothing but more wasted oxygen by never ending talking heads. You have some things growing in your garden, enough that you can preserve some of it for winter. But now you realize that you need to grow food. A lot more food. As much as you possibly can, for the rest of the growing season in your area.

My questions are these. What will you grow? How will you preserve what you grow in the shadow of an impending collapse? Do you have the space, seeds, and supplies you need to do so? If not, are you still able to procure what you need?



I would really like to hear from as many people as possible. There is much we can teach each other, and I learn a lot from the differing perspectives, locations, and experience of the people that read here. So, please share your thoughts. An example. Our friend Grace down the road a ways, can grow things in her garden that we can't grow. We can grow things that she can't. I have bug problems she doesn't and she has some that I don't. It's important to know what grows well in your garden, and how to preserve the harvest of your labor. Remember, this is a collapse scenario, so you can't put it all in the freezer unless you have a reliable source of power.

The other day when I was out in the garden, I took stock of what is there. At the end of that exercise, I felt like there wasn't much in the way of food quantities. I still have places that need to be replanted and have plans for those areas. There are crops that will soon be harvested leaving more space for additional crops that will grow into the fall. And yet, even with all of that planning, I felt like there wasn't enough of a food supply to sustain Frank and I for the winter. 

When I posed this question to Frank he had a ready answer. Plant what grows here. Simple, direct and right on target. He said we know we can grow green beans. If we have enough green beans to eat everyday, great, that's what we'll eat. We also know we can grow squash, tomatoes, cowpeas, cucumbers, turnips, peppers, beets and carrots. Plant as many of all of these as you can. What we don't preserve we can give away, and many of these crops are also great for our animals.

I have written articles about the nutritional contents of some of the vegetables we grow. My purpose was to see if the things we can grow will provide the nutrition we need to remain healthy and active in a collapse situation. I have yet to go back and evaluate the information on these vegetables as a group to see if they would meet our needs or not. But in the long run, what we can grow will be what we eat.

There are many ideas and scenarios I ponder from time to time. Some realistic, some idealistic, and some just down right silly, but this one has stuck with me like it is something very important that I need to pay attention to. We have many things vying for our attention right now at our homestead and I am not spending near the time in the garden I should. It continues to beckon me with it's empty spaces. Spaces that need to be planted, for the time is near. There are many indicators that the fall of the year 2015 may be monumental in the history of our planet Earth. The world has become a much smaller place with the complexities of interwoven economies, food supplies and power struggles. The fall of the year may bring the fall of us all.

So, tell me. What would you grow and why?

Until next time - Fern

Are Insects Beneficial? They Can Be

It's time for me to share my latest bug adventure. This year I have imported bugs to our homestead. It's not like we don't have enough bugs here already. I know there are bugs that live in other places, but sometimes it seems like we have every bug known to man living on our homestead. One of the problems with that is that they want to eat our vegetables before we do. This year the bug battle is being fought in earnest.

About a month ago, I ordered 1000 green lacewing and 600 praying mantid eggs, along with enough nematodes to cover all of the garden and herb bed area. This is the first time I have ever purchased bugs of any sort. I guess I get stranger as I get older. I have bug books and get bugs in the mail. Neat, huh? Even though the cabbage worms have appeared after the first batch of lacewings were applied, I received and applied another 1000 eggs last night. I just hope they hatch and latch onto a plant so they don't get washed away in yet another bought of rain that is arriving for the 

weekend. I won't be able to see them when they hatch, according to the directions, even full grown they only reach 1/2" to 3/4" long. According to my bug book, The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control, the lacewings are effective against corn earworms, cucumber beetles, corn rootworm, and thrips. Frank just asked me, "What?" And I said, "Thrip. There are actually different kinds of thrips, and some of them kill onion plants." Yep. Stranger every day.

 
The praying mantid eggs haven't hatched yet. When I talked to the company to place the second order, they told me it could take up to six weeks. Praying mantis will eat any insect it can catch, beneficial or pest, including each other. My order came with three cases, which I would describe as cocoon type structures made from something that resembles the outside surface of a wasp nest. Two of these I placed out in the fork of a tree on the edge of the garden, the third I put in a jar with a paper towel and rubber band on top. It's sitting in the kitchen window so we can watch them hatch.

 
 

The nematodes I ordered are only viable here in the summer, since at 20* they will die. At first I wasn't going to order any because I wanted something that I could get established in a way that would be sustainable. But when I found out they are effective against many pest

insect larvae, as well as fire ant larvae and queens, I decided to give it a try. When I asked what nematodes actually are, I found the description to be rather interesting. They are a microscopic worm that parasitizes other soft bodied insects. Some of the insects nematodes are effective against are carrot rust fly, carrot weevil, cucumber beetles, cutworms, flea beetles, grasshoppers, grubs and June bugs, and strawberry root weevil.

First application, May 3rd

Nematodes live on the moisture barrier of soil particles. Interesting, huh? To 'apply' nematodes you need water. If you have one of those fertilizer sprayers that fit on the end of a garden hose, that would work. We don't have any of those, but we do have a two gallon sprayer that worked just fine. It also allowed me to apply the nematodes in very specific areas as I

May 21st

walked through the garden and herb bed. Last night I applied nematodes in these areas for a second time. We have probably lost over an inch of topsoil in parts of our garden this spring due to some torrential rainfall, and I wanted to make sure we still had a good population of nematodes. 

 Yesterday we also received 250 assassin bug eggs. We already have some assassin bugs, but last year there were very few compared to the years before, so I ordered these to boost the population. I saw an assassin bug nymph a few days ago on the comfrey, and was glad to see they have survived and are starting to emerge. I hope the new additions will increase the overall population for years to come. Assassin bugs will eat many different kinds of insect pests, including flies and caterpillars. Even though they look pretty creepy, once I figured out what they were, I encourage their residence in our garden.

 

And last, but not lest, I also received over 1000 parasitic wasp, or trichogramma eggs yesterday. A few years back I kept seeing these little, light golden wasps working over our corn crop. I couldn't figure out why they were there. I didn't think they harvested pollen, but I was stumped. Then one day I was looking in one of my bug books and ran across parasitic wasps. Wa-la! I was excited to know that the draw for the wasps was the corn earworms, of which we had few that year. Since then I haven't seen near as many parasitic wasps, just like the assassin bugs, so I ordered these to boost the population. They are effective against Colorado potato beetles, corn earworms, European corn borer, gypsy moth, Japanese beetle, leaf hoppers, leaf miners (which we have actively working now), mealy bugs, Mexican bean beetle, stink bugs, tent caterpillars, tomato hornworms, fall webworms, and whiteflies.

 

 

 











It will be very interesting to see if the introduction of these insects have an impact upon our food production in the garden this year. I will keep you updated and let you know whether this was worthwhile, or a waste of time, effort and money. I also wanted to let you know that another interesting development occurred this week. I discovered an all day class that is being offered in our area discussing beneficial insects. So I signed up. We talk about learning all the time here on the blog. This is an example of taking

advantage of what is being offered around you, whether it is a class, the chance to work with or listen to an older person with experience in what you are trying to learn, or the good old school of hard knocks with hands on trial and error. It always helps if you find what you are trying to learn fascinating. Like Frank and radio communications. He has found his calling as we approach the edge of the precipice in civilization as we know it. Me? Food. I need to know how to produce, harvest and preserve food. This role has been given to me, and so has the fascination with fulfilling this role. It is varied and includes plants and animals, wild and domestic. Again, I urge you to learn something new and useful that your family will benefit from. You just never know when you will be called to put it to use in a most important way.

Until next time - Fern

Planning the Garden & Changing the Way We Eat

These beautiful, sunny 65* January days only attribute to the spring fever I get every year about this time. Frank and I got out a vegetable list yesterday and started planning the garden for this year. Over the past two months we have made some fairly drastic changes in the way we eat. We're not calling it a diet, because this is the way we plan on eating for the rest of our lives. You see, we are both over weight, and it is way past time to do something about it. Something permanent. Not something that will last a while, help us lose a few pounds, then go back to the way we used to eat and gain it back. This is a permanent change and we are very excited about it. And from another perspective, if we truly believe that our country and world is in for a very serious collapse, which we do believe, then we need to be healthier and better able to deal with the physical challenges that will come when we are in long term survival mode. 

That being said, we have made some fairly significant changes in what we will be growing, not only for ourselves, but for our animals as well. We will not be growing potatoes, sweet potatoes or corn this year. They are very starchy and full of carbohydrates that we really do not need. There are other vegetable choices that will provide us with the energy we need, along with many other nutrients, that don't have the significant carbohydrate load. There are some vegetables that we haven't been very successful at growing, that we are going to get very serious about. Things such as cabbage, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, onions and winter squash. I have looked into buying some green lace wings and lady bugs to try and increase the predatory insect population while at the same time decreasing the cabbage worms and aphids. Since we are both home full-time now, the garden will also get more attention than it did with only few minutes during the evenings on weekdays and weekends. I'm hoping that will make a big difference.

Each year as I start to think about rotating crops in our small garden, I pull out last year's map to make sure I remember what was growing where then. Last year's map is one of the messiest ones yet, but it still contains the data I need for this year.

After Frank and I made the list of vegetables we want to grow, I went back and separated this list into early cool weather plants, and warm weather plants that won't go outside until after the last frost. Most of these will be grown as seedlings, but a few will still be directly seeded into the ground. We have found that growing seedlings, even with beets and carrots, gives them a much better survival rate than direct seeding, which is the traditional way to plant. If we give them a good start as seedlings, they survive the early spring weeds much better and we get more harvest for our efforts.

After we made our list, and lists of lists, I got out last year's map along with this document that contains companion plant data for the vegetables we grow. I have several garden books that cover this information that I was referring to over and over. So, I kept looking up the same information time and again. After a few years I put everything on this document and printed it out for my notebook, which is much quicker to reference.

I use it every year when choosing locations of vegetables. Companion planting really is effective. Before I knew beets were inhibited by pole beans, I planted two rows of beets on either side of my pole bean trellis. They all died and I didn't know why until I started incorporating companion planting into our garden design. This is another example of layers of knowledge. The more I learn, the higher our vegetable yield becomes, and the more I realize I don't know.

Armed with our list of vegetables, last year's map and my companion plant list, I am ready to map out this year's garden. Initially I do it in pencil, because I always have to move something. Either I put it too close to last year's planting, or next door to something it doesn't get along with too well. But after a little jockeying around, everything usually falls into place. I thought I had everything on this map and was satisfied with the results until I realized I had left out the tomatoes, which means I had left out some of the carrots. I have the companion planting book Carrots Love Tomatoes, and they really do. Some of the best carrots we have grown have been on either side of the tomato trellis.

Taking down trellis, end of summer 2013

Speaking of trellises. We use stock panels on t-posts. Each year at the end of the season, we take them down and stack them beside the garden. Then after we have everything tilled up for the last time and ready for planting in the spring, we install the panels and t-posts wherever we want the trellis to be for that year. There are just about as many ways to trellis tomatoes and beans as there are gardeners, and this way works very well for us. It's easy to pick from either side of the panel, and we don't have any trouble even with some of the strong winds and thunderstorms we get here sometimes. One of the trellises will initially be for the sugar snap peas. After our last average frost, which is April 1st, I will plant beans in amongst the peas to take over the trellis when the peas are finished. I did this with peas and tomatoes last year. 

Since we haven't had any luck with fall planted winter squash for the past two years, I will be planting my winter squash in the spring when I plant the yellow summer squash. We would like to get as many winter squash as possible to store for both us and the animals. The same goes for the mangel beets, which are an old time traditional animal feed.

September 2014

We planted a larger than usual patch of cowpeas, purple hull peas, last summer which actually grew pretty well even though the grass overtook most of the patch during Frank's back surgery and recovery. Many, many peas dried and went to seed in this patch, so we expect they will come up again this summer. Because of that, this will be one time that we won't rotate this crop. We make it a standard, rather strict practice not to grow the same crop in the same place two years in a row, but instead of pulling up many volunteer pea plants, this year, we will replant the peas here and let them share space with the expected volunteer plants.

July 2014

We will be growing a fair sized patch of sunflowers again this summer for the chickens, goats and pigs. (The pigs will be joining us in a few months.) The amount of sunflowers we can grow in the garden will not be enough to provide a lot of animal feed, but will be a supplement, and it's good practice. If our plans work out to get a larger area ready to plant in one of the pastures, we will grow many more sunflowers, cowpeas, maybe some field corn, beets, winter squash, turnips and carrots there. All for animal feed. That would be a dream come true. We have had plans for this pasture for many years.

This year I will plant the spinach, lettuce, celery, celeriac, leeks, collards and swiss chard in the herb bed. There is room there to do small successive plantings, and that will leave more space in the main garden for the larger vegetables. I will also work at getting more herbs established in the herb bed again this year. There are many things that are started, and some of the annuals are reseeding themselves, which is the goal. The weeds and grass had a hayday last summer during Frank's recovery as well. But there are many things still growing in amongst the weeds that we hope to give more attention to this summer.

There is much to learn, study and do to provide a good, balanced adequate diet. I continue to try to determine the nutritional content of the vegetables we are growing, to make sure we are getting what we need to be healthy, active people. Because when the time comes that we must depend upon our little patch of dirt for our sustenance, I want to be ready. I want to know how to coax that nutrition out of the ground. I want to be able to put a healthy, satisfying, life sustaining meal on the table in front of my husband. I want to live.

Until next time - Fern

Pickling Spices & the Nutrition of Yellow Squash

We like yellow, crook neck squash and grow it every summer. This year, even though I have pulled up four plants due to squash vine borers, we have an over abundance of squash. That's a good thing, until people close their doors and turn off their lights when they see you coming with yet another bag of squash to give away.

We have canned 31 pints of squash in water, along with 28 pints of squash relish. That will be more than enough for us until next summer. You can find our canning techniques for squash here and the recipe for the squash relish here. There are three differences in making squash relish this year. One, is that I used some of the peppers I dehydrated last summer, instead of fresh. I rehydrated them, then ran them through the grater with the squash and onions. Two, we put the relish in a water bath canner for 15 minutes, like we do other pickled items, which we did not do last year.

The other small difference is that I mixed up my own pickling spices. Not a very significant thing, but I got a big kick out of it. Simple, huh? Last year I found a recipe online, then ordered the individual spices in bulk from Monterey Bay Spice Company. Now, I can mix my own according to our tastes. Some of these items I will be able to grow and use my own, but things like cinnamon, cloves and allspice, I will not. Here is the recipe.

Pickling Spices

4 cinnamon sticks, well crumbled

1 - 1" piece dried gingerroot, well crumbled, or 1 tbsp. dried root pieces

2 tbsp. mustard seed

2 tsp. whole allspice berries

2 tbsp. whole black peppercorns

2 tsp. whole cloves

2 tsp. dill seeds

2 tsp. coriander seeds

8 bay leaves, crumbled medium

1 small dried hot pepper, chopped or crumbled fine, seeds and all

Isn't it pretty? I think so.

The nutritional content of squash surprised me. I figured it would be higher in starches, carbohydrates and calories. Of course, the way it is prepared, such as fried, will impact the caloric content, but overall, squash is a very nutritious vegetable. Here is the rundown. In one cup of raw yellow summer or zucchini squash you will find:

• Vitamins A, C, K
• Folate
• Choline
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Phosphorus
• Potassium
• Sodium
• Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids
• 2 g protein
• 4 g carbohydrates with include 2 g from sugars
• 20 calories

Most areas of the country can grow squash in some form or fashion. Unless you are overrun with squash bugs and vine borers, it can be quite prolific, as well, yielding many pounds of produce from one single plant. There are also many different kinds of winter squashes, that keep well without canning. We will be growing some Cushaw squash for our winter keepers and I will report on their nutritional value as well.

I am learning a lot from researching the nutritional values of the things we grow in the garden. It will help us to evaluate what we grow and determine what nutrients are missing and how we can include them. Let's face it, if brussell sprouts will provide something that is missing from your food intake, but they make you gag, it doesn't really matter, does it? Finding and growing food that will help sustain us in a healthy manner, is a great learning process. Remember, life is a journey. It is the journey we learn from, or not, the choice is ours.

Until next time - Fern

What Nutrition Is In Your Garden?

July 2013

We have learned a lot about gardening in the last five years. Now this year, we have focused our planting on vegetables that have grown well here before, that we like and that the animals like. As I was out working in the garden today a question came to mind. If we had to survive on what we are growing and preserving this summer until the harvest begins from the garden next summer, what kind of nutrition and caloric value do the vegetables we are growing have? Would it be the right combination and quantity to keep us healthy? Would it provide us with the energy and stamina we would need to not just survive but live fairly well through the winter? Hmm...the answer is, I don't know.

June 2013

The garden this summer has been simplified. I am frequently guilty of having too many things growing to do any of them very well. This year I forced myself to simplify. Some of the things we are growing are for people and animals, so I planted more than we would need. Last year we grew too many of some things, like cucumbers, and some things we didn't grow enough of, like carrots. So this year, I am trying to adjust the amount we get to better suit our needs.

July 2013

Now, out of the main crops we are growing and canning, freezing or drying for ourselves, I need to figure out how they will nourish us through the winter and spring until the next harvest is available to eat in enough quantity to sustain life. Where do I start? With a list of what is growing. Then I need to research nutrients and calories for each item. The unknown in this equation is how well these plants are going to produce and how much we will be able to preserve and store. Another unknown is the actual nutritional value of vegetables grown in our soil, so I will have to go with basic average nutritional content.

May 2014

So, going east to west across the garden, here are our current vegetables: Peppers, Carrots, Green Peas (which I picked for the first time today), Tomatoes, Okra, Yellow Crookneck Squash (which are blooming and have tiny squash on them), Purple Hull Peas, sweet Corn, Sunflower Seeds, Cucumbers, Beets, Onions, Potatoes, Green beans, Cabbage, Broccoli and Sweet potatoes. Then, for the fall garden we hope to grow: Cushaw Squash, Turnips, potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, spinach and brussel sprouts.

May 2014

Now, I have some work cut out for me. I will post the results of this research and let you know if I think our garden choices will be adequate. In my quest to simplify and produce more consistently, I hope the choices I made were good ones when it comes to nutrition. There are subtle layers involved in every type of learning situation. First I had to learn to garden. Then I had to learn to compete with bugs, birds and bunnies. Next, I had to learn how to preserve our harvest. Now, I want to be able to sustain life, not just supplement it, so I need to delve into another layer of knowledge about vegetables.

This type of learning can be applied to just about everything from radio communications to cooking to raising goats and making cheese. Everything has a basic level of knowledge and many layers beyond. Your level of expertise will depend upon how much you want to learn. Interesting, huh? Where are you on your learning scale? Where do you want to be and what are you doing to get there?

Until next time - Fern