Sunday round up of miscellaneous stuff.. Here goes.
Gardening this weekend.
I setup a new raised bed in the backyard. This was pretty simple.
Cleared a 4 x 6 area of grass and weeds. Turned the soil.
Built out of left over bricks a 12" wall, (no cement) around the area.
Filled with 6 bags of soil from garden store.
Layered newspaper in the bottom to kill off any additional weeds.
Ready to plant with 3 tomato plants or bell pepper.
I won't put any down right now until the weather warms up. It's in the 50s today and set for the 70's this week, but who could have predicted the cold snap we had this past week?
Time: 1 hour.
Went to the garden store that same afternoon. Dwarf fruit trees and berry bushes are available. The prices were low and now is the time to stock up on these as online retailers are out of most fruit and berry plants.
Consider fruit tree availability like ammunition sales are now. They won't be available at all soon when people start getting wise to growing their own food. Sure, may will imagine that fruit tree producing 'store ready' produce in a few months, but realistically, if the tree is well taken care of, could produce some nice fruit next year or the year after.
By the way, the seed section was pretty well picked over too. More and more people are putting in food gardens this year what with the economy doing so well and prices going up.
Which brings up the next observation: Inflation.
With FedGov printing and pushing so much imaginary cash, it is having less value. Prices at Costco early yesterday morning were higher than I had seen before. Everything as two dollars more expensive than it was last October.
As debt-backed money increases, tangible goods cost more. Further, suppliers in other country, seeing our dollar decrease in value, demand more money for same goods. For instance, jasmine rice, produced in Thailand, was four dollars more expensive than the last time I shopped.
There were also several products understocked or low at Costco. This could be the beginning of shortages in the near future. Stock up now on staples like flour, honey, sugar, oil and so on.
Urban survival?
There has been a rash of stories sympathetic to this cause lately.
Urban survival means making do in the city during hard times or after the SHTF. There are a bunch of survival minded folks who believe that "peak oil", shortages, and other problems will force most of us back into cities.
The concept is that cities will become urban oasis' of like minded individual, families and quasi communes cooperating as they eek out an existence.
Homes, (buildings) will have roof top solar and rain collectors. Vacant lots will feature community gardens. Citizens will walk to work, shop and drop their kids off at nearby schools.
The problem with this scenario is lack of space.
If peek oil forces all of us into urban centers, the vacant lot will be razed for a new high rise condo to squeeze all the new citizens in.
Many jobs, such as manufacturing or retail, require more space and will compete for homes and schools for the room.
Even roof tops will be squeezed and hard pressed to provide enough power or water for all the citizens.
Further, money and power talk. That quaint neighborhood with its community gardens and proximity to shopping and jobs will be commandeered by the newly returned power elite just back from their far flung suburbs. Old residents will find themselves and their belongings thrown in the back of an open truck destined for the edges of society.
Nope, my theory is based upon the underpopulated suburb. Vast tracts of abaondoned homes and strip malls. One family home occupied out of every five or six houses. Gardens in overgrown backyards. Small scale livestock product such as goats, chickens and rabbits.
Swimming pools converted to cisterns. Solar panels and windmills generating power. Neighborhood groups organized for defense and protection while a few fortunate members work from home on hijacked Internet connections.
The key is space. Lots of room for production and food while still within an organized grid of streets and dwellings.
Now the smart, true rural prepper is laughing at my scenario right now. "The suburbs will fall to the gangbangers and welfare bums as soon as they cities are stripped clean", they say.
And they are probably right, but its my opinion and they have theirs. Regardless, I don't think the Kumbaya urban survivalist option is any better; its far worse.
Before the weekend ends, get to the garden store and do some stocking up. Spring is in the air, let's get those gardens ready!
Get your non-hybrid garden seeds here now!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
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1 comment:
I love this post! The cost of everything keps going up. A 'stealth SHTF garden' will save you money! We need to think differently about money and gardening. Sure, include a few of your most loved heirloom non-gmo plants; potatoes, peas, carrots, radishes, but intersperse them with the unknown but nutritious ones of old. Those country gardens weren't just pretty, they were edible! I’d include unusual plants, not normally known or fully realized to be edible at all, both annual and especially perennials like tradescantia, prickly pear, dandelions, Siberian pea, millet, pigweed, Good King Henry, arugula, sorrels, patient dock, purslane, wild lettuce, lovage, Golden Alexander, seakale, lupine, goldenrod, roses, lilies, chrysanthemums, hollyhocks, hostas, chicory, and my favorite: sunflowers...and start eating them NOW!. Why? We are 60 & 70 and have been at it for decades and now learning to love ‘stealth’ gardening on 1/24 acre, hiding food in plain sight, but it has become a struggle with health and mobility. We use perennials like lemon balm, onion, and garlic chives to deter bugs, plus sea kale, cardoons, hollyhocks, and sunflowers that all have edible leaves, roots, buds, flowers and seeds, the non-gardener would not know that they are 90% edible! They may steal a few heads from the sunflowers and cardoons but leave all the rest of the plants for us to eat! Good protein and caloric numbers. Potatoes, winter squash, tomatoes, and beans are great calorie annual items to plant amid roses, wisteria, and Oregon holly berries but with sunflowers, you get 745 calories in 1 cup of seeds. Sunflowers do make great micro-greens! You can eat the baby sunflower leaves as salads, older ones in stir-fry, or dried into powder for long term storage, the stems can be eaten like celery, the roots like sun-chokes (cooked like potatoes) or dried, roasted and powdered for a coffee-tea, the heads prior to blooming boiled slightly and then stir-fried or eaten like Brussels sprouts (not same flavor but yummy) or even pickled... then, of course, there are the seeds to eat raw, roasted or powdered for flour.... super versatile... and nutritious... Use last year’s ‘annual’ stocks for bean poles, trellises, fence posts, or toss into your core bed for regenerating the soil. Use the Core method in your raised beds in very early spring to dispose of food scraps, egg shells, clean up the yard by tossing in leaves, branches, and stems. Bury it all and when the last frost of winter has come and gone, plant your bed. I would give this plant a second thought ... they need next to no attention with next to no watering... using heirloom, perennial, drought tolerant plants for SHTF before (and if) it ever hits the fan! Use urine 1-10 ratio for fertilizer. Plant everything super close for deterring weeds. Plant your edibles in containers, the ground, in your house, or even in the shade. You can use an outdoor dehydrator set up to preserve them and sun ovens to prepare the meals. We invite you to visit our site for recipes and more info on annual and perennial sunflowers: http://eat-sunflowers.weebly.com.
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