A Learning Season

With the wildfires, persistent drought, and blazing heat over much of the country, this has been a hard summer for many. The farmers in my area are really suffering. Animals are dying and many folks' crops are a total loss.

Our garden and yard are feeling the effects of the heat as well. Thankfully, we do not have to depend on our garden for our living or our survival, but it is depressing to put so much time and energy into something and not reap the rewards.

A handful of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries from our garden. 

Even though our harvest has been minimal, it has been a season of learning for me. I've gleaned some wisdom from our challenges that I'd like to share with you. Feel free to chime in with what this season may be teaching you.

• Don't have all your eggs in one basket. Diversify the crops you plant because you never know what will thrive in the unique weather and pest conditions of each year. 

Garlic did very, very well for us this year

It's too bad you can't survive on garlic alone, because we did very well with that crop this year. We have plenty to eat fresh, dehydrate, and save to use as seed garlic for next year's crop. We also got an excellent cabbage crop (I made and froze lots and lots of bierocks). Our onions and blackberries did pretty well. We haven't harvested our potatoes yet, but they look to have done well. Everything else has struggled.

Hubby Dear and I are making a list of nutritious plants that have proven to do well in adverse conditions and are going to make sure they are part of our gardening plans. Cabbage, black oil sunflowers (to press for oil or use as poultry food), and potatoes are on the list so far. 

• Diversify your preps. Don't just stock up on a year's worth of food for your family and think you're set. Learn how to produce your own food now because, as you can see from our example, there's no guarantee of success even after years of experience. 

• If you can, diversify even further and get some livestock. 

These are dummy eggs I put in the nest boxes to encourage my girls to
lay there. They should start laying soon. 

If you've never done it before, you'd be surprised how easy it is to keep chickens. If you maintain them properly, they don't have to be smelly or noisy and they truly are less work than a dog!  I can't say the same for turkeys and ducks, but they aren't too bad. If it's legal in your area, start with chickens, the "gateway poultry". 

Ducks grow fast. Our ducklings are two weeks old and will be nearly full grown in a
few short weeks. Ours are pets, but Ancona ducks are excellent
layers and table birds and are capable of subsisting primarily on forage.
      
  

Three of our 10 week old turkeys.

• Speaking of livestock, despite your best efforts, every now and then one of your animals will get killed. One day one of our chickens (the Easter Egger named Lita Ford) just disappeared. There was no sign of a struggle (feathers, blood, etc.) or a hole under the fence. She was just gone. The next day we saw four of our other chickens fly out of their run, so we now think that Lita probably flew out and was snagged by a coyote or dog. We're working on upgrading our run yet again so this won't happen. More trouble, more money. 

The day we noticed our chicken gone, there were lots of raptors in the skies above our homestead
and these big birds (I didn't think they were turkeys - buzzards, maybe?) in the pasture next door.
I didn't investigate further. :(

• Be prepared for a multiple years of hardship. Our hot and dry weather started last July. Since then, we have had unrelenting heat and drought. That's kind of nice when January feels like March, but it has real consequences. You need to have a plan to overcome it. I'm starting to think that one year of food storage isn't really enough for our family. I don't know where I'll come up with the storage space for all the food I intend to store, but I'll just have to figure it out. 

• Buy more seeds than you think you'll need. Especially when the weather is wonky, you'll need extra seed. We had to replant many of our crops and regret not buying more seed during our big seed purchase last winter. Seeds are cheap, so stock up ahead of time! 

Oh, and those cans of survival seeds? They aren't enough. Yes, I have one that is supposed to grow a huge garden of heirloom vegetables. I don't regret that purchase, but you can bet I'll be getting some backups in place. What if you had to replant your survival garden and didn't have the seeds to do it?  

• Be able to identify common garden pests and have remedies on hand ahead of time.  Plants are especially susceptible to pests when they are under stress from heat and lack of water. We have had our first encounters with squash vine borers and aphids and, thankfully, we had items stored that could treat them. I like the book Good Bug Bad Bug because it has photos of common garden insects and suggests organic treatments for each kind of pest.

• Spend time in your garden. Observe your plants carefully and act early if you notice a problem.

• You can never have enough water stored. Our rural water district is getting way too much of Hubby Dear's paycheck because we are irrigating non-stop. If we had invested in rain barrels, we could be using stored water. Even the little bits of rain we've been getting add up to a surprisingly large amount when you collect everything that falls on your roof. 

What have you learned during this season? 

My Latest Impulse Buy

I am a woman who is prone to large impulse buys. I have bought two houses and several vehicles without even so much as a night to sleep on such momentous decisions. Hubby Dear knows better than to let me loose in certain stores without supervision because I am liable to come home with extra items I just couldn't pass up.

So I guess it is not much of a surprise that I came home from my latest trip to a certain discount store with something that most definitely was not on my shopping list. At least this impulse buy cost all of $4.50!

I bought a seed starting kit.

Jiffy Pot "Professional" Greenhouse

Hubby Dear and I have discussed starting our own transplants from seed but decided to put that off for future growing seasons. For 2012, the plan was to use a combination of bought transplants and directly sowing other seeds into the garden. Then I came across an enticing display of several different kinds of seed starting kits.

The good thing about this kit is that it contained everything I needed to start 36 plants. All I had to provide was the seeds.

This kit was contains Jiffy Pots. Jiffy Pots are little compressed peat pellets that expand when hydrated.

A Jiffy Pot before hydration 

After hydration

Ready to go

It took a little over 5 cups of warm water poured into the tray to hydrate all the pots. Then we pulled the netting back from the top of the pots, fluffed up the peat a little bit, and got ready to plant our seeds.

Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cabbage and Lettuce Seed Packets

If I had been smart, I would have bought this kit a couple of weeks earlier. The cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce we planted should have been sowed then. Oh well. I figure this will still give them a head start over being directly sowed into the garden.

We placed three seeds in each pot, lightly covered them up with peat, and placed the clear plastic "greenhouse" lid over the top. The directions stated to keep the greenhouse out of direct sunlight but to leave it in a warm place until the plants germinate.

Sprouts!

Sixty hours later they were beginning to sprout! Since our house isn't super warm, I wasn't expecting the seeds to germinate so quickly.

Baby cabbages

I have to leave the greenhouse lid propped open now. Once all of the seeds have sprouted, the lid will come off for good and I'll place the seedlings where they can get some sun. This is challenging because our house doesn't really have any good south-facing windows. I figure I'll put them in an east-facing window where they can get morning sun and then try using my florescent under-the-cabinet lighting in the kitchen. After the seedlings have grown a bit, I'll select the best one in each pot and thin out the rest.

If you're like many preppers and have one of those cans of survival seeds, you should think about how you would grow your plants. You'll definitely want to grow your peppers and tomatoes from transplants because they take too long to mature when directly seeded outside. Take a look at the contents of your survival seed can and think about it now.

This is one impulse buy of mine that even Hubby Dear agrees is useful!

Hybrid, Heirloom... Huh? A Quick Run-Down of "Survival Seeds"

One of the items I had on my prepping plan for this month was to buy some survival seeds. Everyone knows that gardening is a valuable skill both pre- and post-TEOTWAWKI, but what makes a seed a "survival seed"?

If you go to your local garden center, you'll find an overwhelming array of seed packets. If you were to select a few packets, store them in a sturdy container packed with moisture absorbers, and keep them in a dry, cool place, they would stay viable for a long time. In a time of need, you could take the seeds out of storage and expect a reasonably good germination rate. Your family eats and you're the hero of the day due to your foresight. Voila! That's survival seeds.

What types of seeds should you store?

That local garden center of yours and seed company catalogs offer a stunning array of seeds complete with what I affectionately call "scientific plant people lingo".

I've read a couple of books recently that have given me a deeper understanding of the scientific plant people lingo and where our food comes from in general - Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. If you haven't read either of those two books, get thee to a library and check them out. They are fascinating and thought-provoking. You'll learn something and like it, I promise! Here's my attempt to distill the pertinent bits when it comes to survival seeds.

Heirloom - Heirloom plants are open-pollinated, which means they take care of their reproductive business without people needing to be involved. If you plant seed gathered from an heirloom plant, you can expect that the baby plant will be like the mom/dad. Many heirloom varieties have been passed down from generation to generation and are time-tested.

My Dad's favorite variety of corn, Golden Bantam, is an heirloom variety. Our local garden centers no longer carry Golden Bantam in bulk, much to his displeasure. When he asked about it at one garden center, they told Dad that "Only old farts plant Golden Bantam any more." You should've seen the scene that ensued! What the local garden centers do carry is hybrid corn.

Hybrids - When people get involved in plant reproduction, some interesting things can happen. A hybrid occurs when you cross dissimilar varieties of a plant. The good thing about hybrids is that they often have something called, remarkably enough, "hybrid vigor". Hybrids can be especially healthy, disease resistant, or have other desirable characteristics. Sounds great, right?  It is, until you try to plant the seeds harvested from a hybrid plant. The next generation will not be anything like the hybrid and will probably give you very poor results overall.

Seed companies love hybrids because you have to purchase seeds over and over again. That's fine and dandy... unless it's TEOTWAWKI and you need to save seeds from your crop in order to have something to grow next year.

Another category of seeds that I will mention briefly is genetically modified (GM) seed. These seeds can only be created in laboratories. Geneticists are able to combine genes from a wide variety of organisms - plants, animals, and even bacteria. Many people have issues with that in general, and GM seed is definitely unsuitable for survival seed. For one thing, seed companies hold patents that make it illegal to save your seed. Saving seed would probably be fruitless, anyway, because they often splice in genes that interfere with reproduction.

Are you still with me? Good.

What's the bottom line?

You can choose to store hybrids, but do not store only hybrids. The bulk of your seed storage should be heirloom varieties. That way, you can gather your own seeds and perpetuate your crops from year to year.

It goes without saying that gardening is hard work and you can't pick it up post-SHTF and expect to suceed. Start practicing now.

Our Choice for Survival Seeds:

I seriously considered building my own survival seed kit, but there are lots of companies out there that sell pre-made kits. Quick and easy? I'm all over it. I chose Everlasting Seeds, a company that sells canned, organic, heirloom seeds.

I ordered their Garden in a Can, which is a #10 can full of 79 types of seed. I was attracted by the sheer variety - it has everything from asparagus to cucumbers to wheat to catnip. Included inside each can is a garden guide that gives planting and harvesting instructions.

Garden in a Can

Contents of Garden in a Can

Everlasting Seeds accidentally sent me their Vegi-Max and Herbs in Can instead of the Garden in a Can. They quickly remedied this and sent me what I ordered, but it gave me an opportunity to check out these products as well. As much as I could check it out without opening it, anyway!

The Herbs in a Can is the size of a can of soup. It has all of the same herbs included in the Garden in a Can.

Herbs in a Can

Vegi-Max is in a #10 can. It has fewer varieties of seeds than Garden in a Can, but in greater numbers.

Vegi-Max Contents

Everlasting Seeds also carries Crops in a Can and a Medicinal Herb Garden Collection.

If I had to do it again, I would probably order the Vegi-Max instead of the Garden in a Can. In a crisis situation, it would be better to have a greater quantity of more sustaining vegetables than to have a few each of wide variety. 

According to the Everlasting Seeds website, if you store their seeds between 66-70 degrees, they will last between 5-9 years. If you refrigerate them, you extend their life to 10-15 years.

The seeds contained in the cans are fine for my particular climate. They even include my Dad's favorite Golden Bantam corn seed. If you live in, say, Texas, Maine, or Hawaii, you may need to check and see if these seeds are optimized for your climate. If not, find another purveyor or make your own can of survival seeds. Research the plants that work best for your area and store them in a ammo can or similar container. Throw in some dessicants (You can read on the Everlasting Seeds site about dessicants vs oxygen absorbers) and store it in your fridge. You've just bought your family some extra food security for the next decade.

However you decide to do it, think about storing some seed. How are you going to eat when your food storage runs out?