Seed and Gardening

Seed and Gardening.... This is really an important subject. First lets talk about seed.

Seed use to be a simple thing. You would put a seed into the ground and pretty soon a plant would grow and not long after that, the associated fruit would come onto the plant.

Well, wouldn't you know it, in our complex and overly complicated world of today seed is not longer that simple. Call me suspicious, jaded or cynical but it is my opinion that over many years large corporations involved in agriculture such as Monsanto have researched and ultimately manipulated seed at the genetic level. My doing so, Monsanto and others have actually changed the molecular structure of seed today rendering a potentially disasterous result.

The way seed worked in mother nature was that any seed would produce a fruit and then that fruit would reproduce by creating it's own seed for future plantings. An example will help. If I plant an apple tree seed, an apple tree will sprout, grow and one day produce apples. Those apples will have new apple seed in them. If I take some of those apple seed and dry them out and plant them, then new apple trees will come up keeping the cycle going.

Modern seed companies have severed that operation! Seed companies have genetically altered and manipulated seed so that they want reproduce. These new seeds are called hybrid seeds. Let's take cotton for example. If I am a cotton farmer and I buy this years spring planting of cotton seed, prepare my fields for planting and plant all my acres of cotton, then the cotton plants sprout, grow and produce.... in the fall I will be picking cotton. In that cotton, their will be new cotton seeds but during the growing of this cotton crop, the cotton plants did not genetically reporduce and consequently, the seeds are no good. The seed from this hybrid cotton, if planted, would not germinate, sprout and grow new plants!

Now I have gone through all of that to say and explain that now days when buying seed, we have to make sure we are buying none hybrid seed. We must make sure we are planting seed that HAVE NOT BEEN GENETICALLY MODIFIED! This is so very vital. At the time of this writing, it is only speculation that our world will ever reach the point we are predicting which would be an "Armageddon" level of existance. Should we find ourselves at that place some day, we will be beyond a point in time we can go somewhere and get seed. If what we plant does not produce our following years crops, then our existance will still be in jeopardy as we want be able to plant or produce our 2nd years food. And then the 3rd, 4th and so on until we rebuild our blessed country.

Next subject is "GARDENING".

Food

So what is their to say about food? I seriously doubt I have to convince anyone that food only not number one because of the importance of water. We simply want live very long without each of these.

Our grandparents and forefathers were masters at preserving and storing food. In their day, they had to constantly for survival. Those days have been over for several decades now and consequently, we all (me included) have grown to taking food and water very much for granted. I may be luckier than most as I at least grew up on a large farm with very active grandparents and not only did I get to eat the delicious preserved farm bounty but got to witness the preservation of many foods. In other words, I grew up watching my grandparents can vegtables and put up jars of jellies in addition to loading up a deep freezer. My grandparents could have probably survived a year at any time on the food in their house.

So what do we do? Let's begin with the obvious. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to buy bags of rice and dried beans. These are easy to purchase (cheap) and easily stored. They also have a long shelf life. So I would recommend every grocery day buying a couple bags of rice and a few bags of dried beans. It can be tempting to buy large, bulk quantities and if you so choose, that will be fine but practicality of usability might make smaller quantities more appropriate. For myself, I have put back bags the size I would use for a single meal, for a few people.

After this comes canned goods. It would be tempting right here to try and convince the reader to learn to can vegetables, go to the store and buy mason jars, go to the farmers market and buy large quantities of produce and get to canning. If you are so inclined, dont let me hold you back. However, if you are like me and always seeking and easiter, softer way... Then buying cans of green beans, black eye peas, english peas, carrots, potatos, and then like makes a lot of sense. You can put a lot of these up and they have a very long shelf life.

What about meat? Whether you like it or not, it may pay off to put back lots of cans of spam, vienna sausages, canned chicken, canned ham, potted meat, things like that. Also, you may want to put back a lot of cans of chili, stew, and even spagetti. Think long term through many meals. Your going to get tired of eating any one thing. Add as much variety here as you possibly can.

Next comes dried milk. Get boxes of dried milk and put back. Sugar, salt and pepper. Learn how to bake bread and put back some flour, corn meal, etc. These items can be likely to attract bugs so think about containers that are air tight and sealed. Think non perishables and long term storage. In all these items, over the months ahead you can rotate your oldest stuff with fresh bought items and occasionally use some of your stock. This alone will give you ideas of what you might need should we get into those days, which I am almost positive we are.

If you have a basement or back porch and space for a freezer, it may be one of the best purchases you can make. Don't overstock a freezer, should we have a catastrophy we will probably not have electricity either but from the point of electrical power loss for several days, what had been frozen will still be good and you could get your first week or so with "fresh from the freezer" items!

Use your time well right now. Search the internet and learn how to can, put up jellies, cheese, bake bread. Our next subject will be seed and gardening! This will be a vital subject and complicated so get a pen and paper.

Food and Water

The first item on anyones list when discussing survivalist or preparedness items would be food and water. Water especially is an item that seems so common and practical that one would almost take the importance of water for granted and skip discussing it. But that alone is enough that we should find ourselves shouting to everyone we can get to listen the absolute critical nature of water treatment and storage. It seems ridiculous to have to tell anyone but trust me, in the world we live in today we can not take a single thing for granted on these life saving vital issues. In all of these blog topics think of the Japanese earthquakes or even Katrina and please realize that immediately after a crisis, human beings will begin needing water within four hours. A human being going 24 hours without water will feel the affects and ones life is threatened within three days without water! I can not tell you how important a good, reliable supply of clean drinking water is. Water is the difference between life and death. It is just that simple!

One can not assume their will be an ample supply of clean drinking water. If you really need confirmation of this, then please find a Japanese or yet a Katrina victim and ask them. Four hours from a crisis and a human being will be wanting a drink of clean, fresh water. And that is the point, in a crisis most water supplies are contaminated from the surrounding environment. For instance, gas lines can be broken allowing petroleum products enter into drinking supplies. Lakes and streams can not be counted on as a clean, continuous source of water. If your fortunate enough to be located where there are some ground "springs" of water, then count your blessings and say a prayer of gratitude. You are indeed lucky but their is over three hundred million people in the United States and almost every one of them will not be next to a clean supply of water.

Stock all the cases of bottled water you can in a cool, dry place such as a basement or spare bedroom. I personally have accumulated 100 cases of bottled water and bedrooms have cases of bottled water stacked floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Every grocery day I add one more case of bottled water to this collection and plan to do so forever!

It is also important to know how to purify or "clean" water and yes their are some things you can do if you are "prepared"! In your preparedness checklist you want to have a few bottles of standard, household bleach or just Clorox. A single drop of household bleach will add enough chlorine to a gallons of water to kill all the bacteria in that water. This is a must have for all drinking water in a crisis that is not bottled!

Also, it can be handy to know of some easy ways of collecting water. Roof rain water is a good source of a water supply after and during a crisis. You may need to find some collection piping such as gutters to help facilitate the collection of water. Next, find some clean containers to collect the water. Clean five gallon buckets will be a good size so as not to be to heavy. Once you collect and store buckets of water in this fashion, you will need to find something that can seal the top of the containers. This water will need the addition of the bleach discussed earlier.

It's a good thing that subject (water) was so simple and "taken for granted". Next blog we will begin discussing food which will be even more involved than water.

Survivalist or Preparedness Commentary

One can not turn on a TV or radio today without hearing someone shouting "be prepared" or "get ready". So.... just what on earth are they talking about any way? Get ready for what?

Like so many other things in life, this concept of survivalist or preparedness lye's along degrees from mild to extreme. The extremist would have you bricking up the doors and windows of your home vowing never to come out again. On the flip side of the extremist would be someone labeled something more like "asleep" or "sheeple". This would be someone paying absolutely no attention to politics or current events at all.

Most of the population is probably somewhere in between these two extremes. So... for them, what does the term "survivalist" or "preparedness" mean? Again, an extreme view could be something more like Hollywood movies and a post apocalyptic world where their is absolutely no clean water, food or gas.

No matter your views on this subject, a simple question to ask oneself these days might be "How could the earthquake riddled Japanese have benefited by being prepared"? And what about Louisiana and Katrina? How about Tuscaloosa Alabama and the tornado's? Or even Mississippi and floods? Now your getting the picture of at least some type of moderate "preparedness" in today's world. And in light of all these aforementioned disasters, preparedness is a very good idea.

This is what this blog is going to be all about; Survivalist or Preparedness topics, tips, hints, suggestions, ideas, or just in general.... "What's going on"? Over time we are going to discuss and list details of gardening, how to tips and techniques. This will include how and where to buy seeds, what kind of seeds to buy, how to plant seeds. What would it take for you to actually be able to grow enough dependable food to actually live on? Things like that and by the way, my qualifications for this subject run quite deep as I am an expert. I was raised on a cotton farm in central Alabama and raised by a grandfather that saw the great depression, two world wars and lived to be 101 years of age. I had the best instructor for this imaginable and know how to grow anything that comes from the ground. So get ready for first hand expert advice you can depend on.

But how would someone start with this concept, survivalist? Again.... thinking of Japan, earth quakes and tsunamis, just think about what you would need within the first four hours of such a disaster. Wouldn't you rather quickly need a drink of water? That was an easy one, water! Yeppers, water is probably the primary thing to stock up heavily on. I personally have 100 cases of bottled water and purchase an additional case every two weeks. I don't plan to ever stop this, ever for any reason! Perhaps this will give you an idea of where you to need to be in regards to "preparedness" in today's world.

Over time...... were going to go through a long list of "preparedness" topics. Food, medical supplies, fuel, first aid, yadda, yadda, yadda...... It will be a very long list. Grab your pen and paper and come join me. This is going to be detailed, precise and from an expert that has in fact survived on this advice and again, you can depend on.