Category: Gardening

Letter Re: A Gardening Zone Mapping Tool

Sir,   I am interested in moving to the American Redoubt. As an avid gardener, I am looking for the most promising areas in terms of zone and eco-climate. While trying to find a detailed agricultural plant zone map of the United States, I stumbled upon this site: PlantMaps.com  When I checking a listing for a property, I can enter the zip code and the site provides significant climate information about that specific location including precipitation levels per month, drought index, average temps as well as a wealth of area maps.  It is easy to discern the effect of elevation …


Wildcrafting Healing, by Peggy S.

When TEOTWAWKI comes, there isn’t going to be a CVS or Walgreen’s pharmacy open and stocked for very long afterward. So, what to do when you get a nasty cut, burn or some other infection? First, as common sense tells us, wash it off with soap and water or use some stashed vodka to kill any possible germs or even the old time remedy of kerosene. The kerosene was also an old time remedy to keep fleas off your dogs, just pour a thin line of it down their backs like you do with modern flea drops. Just remember to …


Letter Re: Keeping Honey Bees for Survival

I just read the SurvivalBlog writing contest article on keeping honeybees.  It was an excellent primer for someone to read and get started working with honeybees.  I have a few tidbits of information from my experience keeping bees.  We have had bees at our home for three years now, and it’s been one of the most amazing things I have ever done.  We got started with a local supplier, and stood up two full size langstroth hives, and then brought the two “nucs” home (driving with 30,000 bees in a minivan for an hour and a half is exhilarating to say the …


Keeping Honey Bees for Survival, by Michael J.

Why Keep Honey Bees? Wandering into the woods and staying lost for months is something I love to do. I have been an Urban Guerrilla Survivalist for 24 years, and have been keeping bees for more than 10 of those years. With these experiences under my belt, I have begun to teach people how to be a survivalist, and one subject I focus on is the art of beekeeping. Before I tell you the benefits of having bees and some cheap ways to keep them, I suggest that you find a book about beekeeping to help you understand the terms …


Letter Re: Holly as a Substitute Caffeine Source

James, Many people in North America wonder how they would survive in a world without caffeine [since coffee and cocoa are both imported].  An alternative to coffee could be Yaupon holly tea.  The Yaupon holly is used as a tea by various Indian tribes, and it has been studied as a commercial herbal tea drink. According to my local colonial history book, colonists also raised Yaupon tea leaves for trade. It is related to yerba mate, a holly used to make a caffeinated tea in South America.   The Wikipedia article is rather confused on this point, but it is believed …


Off Grid Waste Management and Sanitation, by Brother A.

Recently, due to financial considerations, we decided to end our garbage collection service. It wasn’t a large expense, but our budget is tighter than ever these days and with some planning we realized that it was actually a luxury, not a necessity. Besides, those of us who are preparing for the likely future of a breakdown in society shouldn’t really expect to have convenient curb waste disposal services, now should we? How were you planning on handling that day when it comes? You have 500 trash bags and you’re just going to stack bags of trash in some out-of-the-way corner …


Letter Re: Greenhouse Heating

Dear Jim, I was very interested to read about the heated greenhouse in this article. I wondered if people have also tried insulating a greenhouse and designing it to maximize solar gain? I’ve seen a design used in the Himalayas which allows them to grow vegetables throughout the year despite -25C conditions, designed by the charity GERES. I uses a UV-resistant polythene sloping roof facing south, high-mass insulated walls to store the sun’s heat and keep it in, some internal walls painted black and others white to help the solar gain, and finally a manually controller ventilation hatch – though …


Greenhouse Heating, by Inda Woods

We now have indoor plumbing and a Wal-Mart, along with the millions of acres of wooded wonderland. Some of our forests are so dense and vast that even the DNR officers have become lost. We are alive with moose, wolf, cougar and black bear, to name a few. My husband and I are in our mid 50s and bought our 40 acres of forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 20 years ago. Can you believe it; we paid only $13,000 for our woods and small cabin? Back then, no one in his or her right mind wanted to live in this …


Self-Sufficiency Gardening in Climate Zones 8 and 9, by David G.

Unemployment is rampant. The government is bankrupt. Foreclosures are everywhere. And one day soon, you may find your local grocery store has closed and shut off your supply of Hot Pockets. Most of us have never had to grow our own food. Those that have grown their own generally do it as a hobby – or as a way to get a vine-ripened tomato without selling a kidney.. Climate zones 8 and 9 [found in much of Arizons, parts of Florida, and the regions at the north end of California’s Central Valley] are not a gardening paradise. If you go …


Lime and its Uses in Survival Scenarios

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In JWR’s book “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It” , item number 11 on the Bartering and Charity List is “50 pound sacks of lime (for outhouses”). My first thought on reading this was, “Why would I barter away my precious lime?” More than just an odor eliminator, lime is a very helpful material used for countless applications in its various forms across various industries ranging from use in the production of glass to use as a calcium supplement in Tropicana brand orange juice. My initial research was designed to discover which type of …


Letter Re: The Accidental Orchard – Persimmons and Mulberries

James Wesley: As trees go dormant, you can look for saplings to transplant and seed to germinate.  In the southern US, right now is the time to look for persimmon fruit to get seeds.  Persimmon grows on the edge of fields and as an understory tree. About the time of the first frost, the fruit loses it’s famous sour taste and becomes sweet like an apricot. At this point,the fruit is wrinkling and starting to look spoiled but it isn’t. Look for 1″ orange fruit hanging on bare branches in moist areas, roadsides, and power line easements. Animals eat the …


A Work in Progress, by Defiance

As a family, we have been practicing – and experimenting – for years.  It started with a small garden, which took the place of the kids’ swimming pool when they got older and lost interest.  Our soil is a heavy clay, so after a couple of years of wrestling with the rototiller (it always won the battle), we decided to move up.  Of course, by that I mean raised beds.  So we bought some boards, and nailed them together.  Then we ordered a truckload of top soil, and wheeled it out back one wheelbarrow load at a time.  And since …


Letter Re: Air Wells, Fog Fences, and Dew Ponds–Harvesting Atmospheric Water

Sir I am providing a link to a web page on “Air Wells”–the history of harvesting  atmospheric water, in the form of water vapor, dew ,and fog.  I know this was done in ancient times, and when I was in Europe I went on several tours of old castles, etc.  At one of these sites I saw a odd building on the grounds, and asked what that was used for.  It was used to collect water from the dew in the mornings, there was a cistern inside, and the water dripped from the tile walls and collected in the cistern.  …


Surviving TEOTWAWKI With Style, By Susan H.

If I am to survive TEOTWAWKI, then I intend to live in a style to which I’ve become accustomed.  That is, I intend to continue enjoying music, sweets, wine, cups of hot tea in the winter, stories, plays, and humor.  I plan to keep my pets around.  I hope to do so with the full participation of my family, however it evolves over time. I began working on maintaining this style almost 20 years ago, when we moved to a hobby farm in one of those “fly-over” states that has good soil and low population.  The farm is capable of …


Homestead Food Production by Mary A.

Greetings, fellow preppers!  In this article we share our experiences of the past two years to help you see the complexities of growing your family’s food.   In the long run, food production is crucial to survival.  It takes both knowledge and hands-on experience to successfully manage livestock and grow fruits and vegetables.  Currently  three of us live on our homestead full time with a possibility of about 20 folks ranging from infants to senior citizens if TEOTWAWKI occurs.  Fall is a good season to make plans and prepare for next year’ s growing season.  I think this basic information will …