Category: Gardening

Letter: Advice for Rural Retirees

Dear Editor: My husband and I are older, he is 84 and I am 70.  We are very concerned about the way this country is traveling and are even more concerned if Hillary Clinton is elected.  I realize that we need to start gathering supplies and storing them.  My question is: we live in a small, rural, agricultural community. However, we live on a main road and are within 50 miles of two major cities and about 70 miles of another one.  Our economy took an unusually hard hit in 2008 and is recovering at a slower rate than many …


Letter: Misadventures of a Green Thumb

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers: I’d like to address the idea of “prepare for the unexpected” using a real life example that happened to me. I hope this humorous example leads you to take some steps, however small, to begin taking steps to fill the gaps in your preparedness planning; because for all the good intentions you may have, a totally unexpected event could take place that makes it all worthless. So for me, I have never had what had been called a “green thumb”. I never have actually had a return from my spring and summer garden that I feel was …


I Love Sharp Things, by Phil M.

In any survival situation a defective tool is pretty much worthless and will cost you dearly in frustration or even your life. I’m sure you can think of a lot of examples. Effective tools are a big part of my life and most all of them need to be sharp, and some of them very sharp, like chisels and planer blades. When I started thinking of all the tools that I keep sharp the list started running into the dozens, everything from a potato peeler to a chainsaw. A lot of you are like me in one way or another …


Letter Re: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as a Retreat Locale

James, We lived along the northern shore of the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula  (UP),  in the Marquette area.  This was way back in the late 1960s. (We left in 1972.) We spent the last two years of that living in the middle of a fairly isolated 40 acre tract about half an hour drive (summer travel) from town. The great lakes, Superior in particular, have an enormous influence on the local climate. Varying by distance and prevailing winds, you tend to have cooler summer temps as well as slightly warmer winters.  The lakes effect precipitation, most noticeably snowfall, but cloud cover …


Letter: Another View of Alaska as a Survival Location

My family and I arrived in Alaska in 1974 while I was in the U.S. Army. I was stationed at Ft. Richardson (now part of Joint Base Elmendorf/Richardson. JBER). I spent five years at Ft. Rich. A 3-year tour, with two one year extensions. In 1980 I left the Army and moved my family back to Anchorage, where I currently reside. I grew up in mid-eastern Pennsylvania and spent two summers working on dairy farms in that area. I agree with some of what S.J. had to say in regards to whites not welcome in native villages as well as …


Seed Collecting – Part 3, by Sarah Latimer

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(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.) Beans Though we try to be thorough in our pole bean picking, there always seem to be a few that hide so well that they become huge before we find them. These are perfect for using as seed. Any bean pods that are fully mature and large can be set aside in a sunny window to finish drying and then cracked open to reveal the beans inside, which are useful for next year’s planting. Just be certain that you allow the bean pods to completely dry before removing the beans, which are the …


Seed Collecting- Part 2, by Sarah Latimer

We are continuing to look at how to collect our garden seeds. I am sharing how I do it simply without the use of expensive seed cleaning screens that most people can’t afford or won’t spend the money on. There certainly are other ways to go about this, many of which I have tried myself. I am not an expert, but I am happy to share what I have learned from observing, investigating, trying, failing, and succeeding at collecting seeds from my garden and planting them in my garden to produce another year’s crop. If you are collecting seed to …


Seed Collecting- Part 1, by Sarah Latimer

The fall season has arrived and so have the cool, or downright cold, night temperatures that go with it. The garden has not only past its peaked but mostly “petered out” with relatively little left in the garden. Though you may feel inclined to clear or burn the garden and till the soil in preparation for winter snow, I encourage you to wait. There may be a treasure to be snatched from it first, if you dare engage in the adventure of seed collecting. If you have grown plants that are a heirloom variety or at least are a variety …


Guest Article: The Real Dirt About Gardening For Survival, by Melisa Mink

I know the “survival” mindset is very popular right now. There’s always a new threat of earthquakes, pandemic, flooding, wild fires, and so on. So, I would like to take a minute to pass on some truthful knowledge to the folks who are not avid gardeners but may find themselves in a disaster or other scenario where it could be a needed skill to survive. You need to be doing it now, to know how to do it later! Should a disaster, such as an earthquake or other event ever occur, your mind, body, and resources will be pushed yet …


Lay The Groundwork for the Future- Part 2, by Sarah Latimer

Building Your Garden’s Foundation Are you ready? Do you even know where you’d put a garden on your property so that it gets optimum light, water, and wind protection? Have you begun clearing and tilling the land so that it is free from rocks, debris, pests, and unwanted vegetation? Have you amended the soil so that it is not too dense with clay or too sandy, too acidic or too alkaline, too wet or too dry? If you haven’t even begun to work on a garden, the fall is the time to do it. Actually, now is a good time, …


Using Canning Jars For All Food Stores and More-Part 3, by Sarah Latimer

Managing Your Jarred Larder Moving a single jar at a time is cumbersome when managing so many. I have kept the original Ball cardboard boxes that the jars came in because they assist in moving multiple jars and placing them on shelves easily, but we are gentle with them to help them last. Occasionally they require some reinforcement with duct tape or replacement altogether; however, so far, most have held up well for a minimum of four years. Labels can easily be placed on the ends of the Ball boxes, identifying the contents and their dates, so that it is …


Using Canning Jars For All Food Stores and More – Part 2, by Sarah Latimer

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What We Store In Jars Dry, bulk goods. This category of items includes grains, dried pasta, dried potato flakes, dry beans, and rice for long-term storage. We buy these in 40- and 50-pound bags from the Mormon storehouse, Costco, and online vendors and then repackage them into the half gallon jars, which are then vacuum sealed, using our FoodSaver Jar Sealer connected to an electric vacuum pump system that Hugh installed into my kitchen. It takes less than a minute to put the lid on, vacuum seal a jar, and put the ring on. All I have to do at …


Letter: The Importance Of Food And The Ability To Grow And Process Food

Dear Hugh: The situation in Venezuela has a precedent. When the Kuomintang Army remnants fled to Taiwan in 1949, they brought tons of paper money and spent it freely, resulting in a rapid hyperinflation. During that time only food had any value and nothing else, not PMs, weapons, ammo, fine art, you name it. Now for those who have some arable land (or neighbors that do) I figure veggie seeds, fertilizer, and stabilized diesel will have considerable value in that they can be used to grow food. It is for this reason that each year we save many gallons of …


Tea for Two Hundred, This Year and Next- Part 3, by Sarah Latimer

Selecting Plants for Tea and Tea Flavoring Actual tea of the green and black variety is camellia sinensis. The tender new leaves of this plant are picked for tea. Drying and Storing Tea Ingredients Tea and tea flavorings require that we overcome the same obstacles faced in safely preserving nutrients, flavor, texture, and general health benefits of any food. The culprits are oxygen, sunlight, moisture, heat, and unwanted consumers, like insects and mice. Traditional tea, herbal tea, and flavorings must be dried, stored in containers (preferably air tight ones, under a vacuum), and in darkness (away from UV light) to …


Tea for Two Hundred, This Year and Next- Part 1, by Sarah Latimer

I grew up watching old movies. Doris Day was one of my favorite actresses. I loved her girlish bounce, playfulness, and the wink of her eye. So, I’m frequently reminiscent of her movie “Tea for Two” when I ask various members of the household if they’d like to join me in sharing some tea by asking, “Tea for two?”. I don’t really remember much about the movie since it has been such a long time since I watched it, but it became a common saying in my household, and it still is. However, we don’t just consume tea in individual …