Posts Tagged Gardening
Hunter Gatherer or Farmer Survivalist
What kind of long term survival plans do you have? Do you plan on bugging out to the wilderness and living a hunter gatherer lifestyle, or do you plan on living the lifestyle of a farmer gardener?
Hunter Gatherer
Our ancestors lived a hunter gatherer lifestyle for hundreds of thousands of years. For some people hunting, gathering roots, gathering berries and fishing the rivers might seem like an attractive lifestyle. I wonder if those types of people are influenced by their genes? Do the survival that plan on bugging out to the wilderness carry more the genetic code for the hunter gatherer lifestyle?
The problem with the hunter gatherer lifestyle, those types of people only plan a few days or weeks ahead of time. Tribes followed the herds along their yearly migration routes. There was little planning – follow the herd, kill something, gather roots, gather berries, catch some fish, follow the herd,,, repeat, as they were required to gather food almost daily. People learned that if they dried meat and fish, or salted the meat and fish it lasted longer. During the Lewis and Clark expedition, the explorers noted that the North American Indians dried their fish to store it during the winter. But man can not live on dried fish alone.
Farming and Gardening
It’s estimated that maybe 7,000 years ago people started adopting the farming and gardening lifestyle over the hunter gatherer lifestyle.
As communities started planting crops, we started thinking in 3 – 4 month periods. People started making calenders, counting the days of the year, planting crops, harvesting seeds, drying crops to save them over the winter, domesticating livestock,,,,,.
People started paying attention to when it was time to work the fields and plant the crops. A few months later its time to harvest the crops and put the crops up for the winter.
After people started planting crops, they found out that they had to stay in the area to take care of the fields.
Are you ready to plant a garden
Are you ready to plant a garden? If not, why not? On Tuesday October 5, 2010 by Time magazine posted an article saying that Wal-mart had to roll back its rollbacks. As a result, food prices have jumped to a 2 year high. Add to that the Russian failed fall wheat crops, that has pushed wheat to a 22 month high.
Producing your own food is one of the easiest ways to off-load some financial strain. If your having problems paying your house note, electric bill, insurance, buying clothes, internet bill, cell phone bill,,,,,,,, something has to give. If you and your family are running on a shoe string budget, sooner or later that string is going to break. When that happens, financial disaster can set in.
Raised bed gardens – do not take any special equipment – just get some landscaping timbers, or old cross ties and build some raised beds. Find someone with rabbits, get some manure, and use that instead of potting soil. Rabbit manure makes great fertilizer and it can be cheaper then potting soil.
Asian Stink bug invades North America
Not only do we have to worry about drought, the lack of honey bees, global warming, global cooling, hurricanes, earthquakes,,,,, but now the asian stink bug has invaded the northern states. The Baltimore Sun posted an article about the Asian stink bug invading the northern states. Here in Texas we have the native stink bugs. If you have a home garden and try to grown tomatoes, expect the stinkbugs to flock to your backyard by the truckload. They use a tube to suck the juices out of the tomatoes. As a result, the tomatoes will have a bruise on them. Maybe there is a difference between the Asian Stinkbug and the Texas stinkbug, but I bet they do the same thing – they destroy crops.
There have been times when I went outside to water my tomatoes, sprayed the plants down with a water hose, and stinks bugs went flying everywhere.
Three day trip to the camp
On July 30th, 2010 my family and I headed to the camp for 3 days for a little get away. One of the things that I like to do on these little “get aways” is to take notes, and figure out ways to improve – what went right, what went wrong, and what can we do differently.
One thing that I wanted to test on this trip was the Royal Berkey water filter from Directive21.com – this will be covered in another article, its just too much to go into right now.
One thing that happened, was while the guys were washing off the 4-wheelers, the water hose was left on and the well was drained. So we were without water for about 12 hours – 8pm, until a little after 8 am. By turning off the water pump, the well had time to fill back up.
The squash as a survivalist food source
The squash is one of the better choices for any garden. Its pest resistant, easy to grow, and the harvested squash can be cooked in a variety of ways. It can be fried, baked, grilled, or just eaten raw. There are several reasons why squash should be favored by survivalist – can be eaten raw,…
Planting a community garden
In these tough economic times, its important for people to come together. ne way that families can work together to safe money, is to plant a community garden.
In this example, 3 families, it breaks down to 11 people, 6 adults and 5 children are working together to plant a garden. This garden will be shared equally between everyone involved.
Planting potatoes, peas and corn
Potatoes, peas and corn – plant them in that order.
Commercial grade fertilizer has 3 numbers, such as 13-13-13. Those three numbers stand for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (also called Pot Ash).
nitrogen – large leaves, tall growth – greens, spinach, corn, okra
phosphorus – root growth – potatoes, turnips
potassium / pot ash – pod production – peas, beans, corn, okra, squash
Food sources in a post apocalyptic world
Lets discuss food sources in a post apocalyptic world. Survivalist have a wide range of ideas on how to get food in a post apocalyptic world. Some of these ideas cover everything from living a hunter-gather lifestyle, to living off of food stocks until society recovers, to farming and gardening. Lets take a look at some of these ideas and make some comparisons.
The plans that each Survivalist has will vary widely depending on actual experience and training. The plans range from the very well thought out and tested plans, to spur of the moment ideas.
Survival Garden Seeds
Every survivalist should have seeds stockpiled for a survival garden. The first questions is, why would anyone need a “survival garden?” During extended wide spread disasters, food production and shipments might get disrupted. Most grocery stores only have a few days worth of supplies in their warehouse. When the panic buying kicks in, those stocks could be wiped out in a matter of hours.
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| Planting a garden
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Survivalist seed stockpile
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Planting a community garden
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The survivalist and their garden
Its important for the survivalist to take gardening seriously. When the food stocks are gone, whatcha gonna do then? Seeds are cheap when compared to stockpiling other types of food, seeds last longer the most types of canned foods, and most seeds are reproducing. If you buy an MRE or some freeze dried food, after…
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