Posts Tagged food

Spinach for a survival garden

History: The origin of Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is in some debate. Some researchers put the origin of Spinach around current day Iraq. While other researchers claim that Nepal is where the plant was first domesticated.

Planting: Spinach has to be replanted every year. This is also known as an annual plant. Even though Spinach may need to be replanted every year, it might survive over winter in temperate regions. Spinach germinates best if the seeds are soaked in water, or between wet rags for at least 24 hours before planting. Best results for germination may occur if the seeds are soaked for 3 – 5 days, or until the seed starts to sprout.

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Posted on July 17th, 2008 in Farming and Gardening

Preparedness planning and baby food considerations

If there is one aspect of disaster planning that is often over looked, that is baby food and baby formula. While on a recent 3 day trip to the camp, one of the first supplies to run out was my grandsons baby formula. My stepdaughter did not pack enough of the dry powdered formula to get through the 3 day stay. This was no big deal. We just drove back to town, which was about a 20 minute drive.

But, what would things had been like if we had been in a disaster area? After regional or localized disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes – the government says to be prepared for at least 72 hours, which is 3 days. During this time do not expect any help or relief services.

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Posted on July 15th, 2008 in Preparedness Articles

Long term survival plans

Do you have a long term survival plan? We are not talking 3 days, or 3 weeks, or 3 months,,, how about 3 years? If there was a total break down of society, what would you do?

My plans are like a flow chart, with a bunch of “ifs” on it. If power, no power, if long term, if short term, if food runs out before life returns back to normal, when will the local community have support from the outside world, is the disaster local, nation wide or world wide. In all there are 4 major plans – A, B, C, & D.

Food plan A – First Tier:

The first level in your survival food preps are the frozen foods in your freezer and the foods that you have to keep cold. In the event of a power outage, these are the foods that should be cooked and eaten first.

The main course for the first week or so will be meat and anything else in the freezers. The time line for this depends on the generator. If the power goes out, gas = food. For every day we can keep the food in the freezer frozen, or cold, that is an extra day we get to eat out of it. One of my investments has been a 100 quart 5 day cooler. Storing some frozen good in these high quality ice chest could extend their freshness by 5 – days This is the deep freezer. It is full of deer meat, sausage, hamburger and ribs. Each package of ribs has 3 slabs in it. The white packages are full of deer mixed with beef hamburger. Notice the tub in the top right hand corner, we will discuss that in a little bit.

If the power goes out, and the food is spoiling before we can eat it – the plan is to have a massive bar-b-q and invite all our neighbors over. The smoker is used to make whatever into jerky. I like to think I have a way to cook without power. At this family reunion, I cooked enough for 100+ people at one time.

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Posted on July 12th, 2008 in Preparedness Articles