Category: Gardening

I have lived all my life in rural areas in the mid-south United States. Ever since I was little, gardens, orchards, vineyards, poultry, livestock, beekeeping, hunting, fishing, and trapping have been a way of life for me. Now, that is not to say we are off the grid or don’t buy any food from the grocery store, but all this supplements the life we live. Both the family I grew up in and the family I now have are large families, by today’s standards. Like my father, I have a job in town to pay for land and a home …

There is nothing like a renewable food source, and seeds are one way to guarantee that you have a continuing supply of food. If you don’t save your seeds from year to year, you will eventually run out of stored seeds, and your garden will transform from a renewable resource to a one-harvest wonder. At the very least, seeds can make a great barter item in a post-collapse world. At first glance, saving seeds might seem obvious and easy, but there are actually many detailed questions that arise. Some include: How do you save the seeds? What do they look …

In a total grid down situation, night soil (fertilizer from human feces) will once again become a valuable trade commodity. None the less, I have estimated that a hill of corn needs about the daily output of two adults to obtain a good crop. This was based on the dried remains of one hound dog. I had to do something with the mess out in the yard, and burying it under a hill of corn grew a crop. This corn was planted on almost pure sandy ground. More of course would most likely work. NE Utah water tends to be …

Chemical free gardening for organic food and ornamentals is no harder or more expensive than conventional growing. Remineralization by adding rock powder is perhaps the most important component, bringing the soil back up to the balance of trace elements the plants require to naturally resist pests on their own. Long before there was agriculture, there were plants that managed to grow, thrive, reproduce, and survive to the end of their natural life. They lived and died, and anything that ate them lived and died, all in the same neighborhood. This pattern continued until the last hundred years or so. The …

One of the many important problems confronting people in a SHTF situation is maintaining adequate sanitation. Clean water, soap, personal hygene, toileting, and kitchen waste will all need to be addressed. I am going to describe some of the things we do on our 1/4 acre suburban homestead to control waste and feed the plants we use for food. It seems to me that having an established system in place to deal with waste before SHTF is better that trying to cobble something together when all kinds of urgent needs have to be addressed in an emergency. A good composting …

When I wrote my first article for SurvivalBlog back in July, I thought I covered about everything I knew or wanted to say about gardening.  As I have worked in my garden over the past few months, I’ve realized how much more there is to gardening and how a garden changes with the seasons.  Perhaps with the exception of August, something is happening every month in a Desert Southwest garden.  The salsa garden goes through many changes as it morphs from summer salsa garden to winter salad garden.  Each year there are new surprises in October and November as some …

Growing up in the desert southwest Grandma V always had some kind of a garden. Whether it was squash, beans, and corn in the summer, or lettuce and cabbage in the winter, there was something growing in the rocky soil. She also had a remarkable collection of aloes growing in old coffee cans around her little cottage on the ranch. It was a good time of learning from a gentle soul without feeling like being schooled. Fast forward twenty years and I’m married, living on a postage stamp size city lot and anxious to get off the industrial food merry-go-around; …