Category: Gardening

Three Letters Re: Turning One Town’s Junk Into This Man’s Treasure

James: That was an excellent article by A. Arizonan! As a former newspaper deliverer (rural route in the American Redoubt), I would like to add that there are benefits to delivering or subscribing to newspapers. As a deliverer who serviced home customers and coin-op boxes, I could amass “extra” or “unsold” paper to the tune of about 300 to 500 pounds a month. To this day I still have about 2000 pounds in storage. I’d have more but I can’t properly store any more. The added benefit of my former route was that I got to meet a lot of …


Turning One Town’s Junk Into This Man’s Treasure, by A. Arizonan

My wife and I have been hard at work obtaining supplies, developing practical skills, knitting key relationships, and generally preparing for societal disruption for about four years now. Our journey into this endeavor began after some research into the nature of the U.S. dollar (or more appropriately, Federal Reserve Notes) woke us up to the fragility of our world systems.  For this and other reasons, we have taken the message of Proverbs 22:3 to heart: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Achieving a level of satisfactory preparedness for what …


Letter Re: Making Cow Pie Fertilizer “Tea”

Letter Re: Making Cow Pie Fertilizer “Tea” I’m writing to describe how to make cow pie fertilizer “Tea.” This mild natural liquid fertilizer solution is for use on continuous production vegetable plants and ornamental’s. Use it just like you would when watering. It does not burn plants, the nutrient value is about 1-1-1. Materials: -We use a 325 gallon metal caged water tank (this tank will never again be used for potable water), sitting on a small portable trailer that can be pulled with a riding mower, tractor, or ATV, you can also use a non-toxic 55 gal. drum or …


My Road to Preparing, by New-To-Me in Nevada

We don’t have a lot of money, however with everything that is happening in the world today and all of the signs yelling in my face that I better get ready or face not being able to feed my family of 6, I started prepping.  I have taken a class at our local community college on the subject and learned a lot of very useful information.  However I didn’t stop there.  I sought out and purchased numerous books that are on the book list here at Survival Blog and did some extensive research on the subject.  Just recently I decided …


Letter Re: Experiences of a Novice Gardener

Jim: My message to J.B. is: don’t give up after just one season. I’ve been gardening since I was very little. Having a green thumb has little to do with luck or heredity but much to do with experiential knowledge of what plants like/don’t like and require to thrive. We moved to our current residence about 13 months ago. I started my new garden from scratch over existing sod- starting last June when we moved our pony to the property, even before the house was completed. I love to experiment whether it is by building a homemade incubator and trying …


Six Letters Re: Experiences of a Novice Gardener

Dear Editor: J.B.’s article his was very interesting to read and it sounded a lot like what we went through 4 years ago when my wife and I started gardening.  Many people are still stuck in that “growing in the ground in rows” mentality.  If you do not have a large amount of land (an acre or more) then you should stick to container gardening.  Our second year of gardening we started with Earthboxes and we had a very successful harvest that year and every year thereafter.  The concept is very simple to where you can even manufacture your own …


Experiences of a Novice Gardener, by J.B.

I don’t remember how I stumbled on SurvivalBlog.com.  I had a sense that things were going very wrong and I guess it was just a matter of clicking links that led me to this site.  I found a treasure trove of information on prepping, and a world of like-minded folks who shared my sense that something wicked this way comes.  SurvivalBlog helped me get organized in my thinking, and introduced me to prepping concepts I was unfamiliar with.  I have invested a lot of time and money preparing for WTSHTF.  One area I am weak in, however, is experience.  I …


Foraging: How To Make Yourself Starvation Proof, by Mike F.

The following are some reasons for learning how to identify, harvest, and prepare a few wild plants for food: Crop failures might make foods too expensive to purchase, or scarce due to lack of production (if producers can’t afford to grow it, and manufactures can’t afford to process it you probably won’t find it on a shelf)– Lack of hunting/trapping wild game- you are not always going to bag a squirrel, or catch something fishing, coming back empty handed is going to happen sometimes. Deal with it- even setting out 10 snares you ‘might’ get something, but you might not. …


Letter Re: Inexpensive Building and Gardening Techniques

I am writing this article to give suggestions and my experience of finding, buying and building my retreat so people can see that you don’t have to spend tons of money for one.  First off, let me tell you that it took over a year to find my retreat property, actively looking almost every weekend.  It included looking at more properties than I can count, and making an offer on 11 of them, before I got the price and property that I wanted.  It is a long and tedious process, but my family and I really enjoyed it.  We used …


Acquiring Hand Tools, by Calvinist Cadet in Washington

Primitive tasks require primitive tools.  When endeavoring to prepare for an extended grid-down or without rule of law scenario one would do well to have on hand a ready mix of equipment and supplies which can meet the challenges requisite to providing for basic needs.  Would-be survivalists often point to hypothetical situations when which they would gather water from some nearby source and make fire within there hastily crafted shelter beside their tilled, loamy garden bed, while butchering game, harvested casually in some illusionary, post-apocalyptic, Shangri-la. Without primitive or pioneer type tools, basic human functions can become impossible.  A simple …


Video Contest Winner: Five Edible Plants in Your Yard

The winner of the 2011 Ready Made Resources Preparedness Video Contest has been announced. The winner is: Birdbath for his video on Five Edible Plants in Your Yard. Birdbath will receive a brand new Rock Rivers Arms (RRA) Elite Comp M4 (AR-15 series compatible ) complete Barreled Upper Receiver and a Trijicon Reflex sight with a combined retail value of more than $1,400! Congratulations, Birdbath! OBTW, Birdbath also submitted another great video, on P.A.C.E. Planning.


Letter Re: Maximizing and Extending Your Tomato Harvest

Good Morning Mr. Rawles, This is not necessarily directed toward the propagation and extending of tomato harvests, but geared more toward making your tomatoes better. I have found that amending the soil (pouring a quarter to a half a cup in the hole before planting) of powdered milk has a profound effect on the growth of tomatoes. The tomatoes will grow a little shorter, significantly more stout, and have a darker green color. They even produced about the same number of flowers and tomatoes. I am sad to say that I could not do a taste test between the fruit …


Letter Re: Maximizing and Extending Your Tomato Harvest

Jim: I love to see teens experimenting!  It’s a very good thing.  Learning how to propagate plants from suckers/leaves/etc is a very useful skill. But an easier way to maximize your tomato harvest easily is to grow from seeds – I keep extra seedlings around (still have some!) to pop into any spare space that turns up. And the best way to extend your harvest is to make sure that some of your plants are indeterminate. Those of us who can tomatoes plant a lot of tomato varieties that are determinate – the bulk of the tomatoes on the plant …


Two Letters Re: How Does Your Garden Grow? (After TSHTF)

Sir: We live in a rental property that unfortunately has a lawn that was poisoned by several years of chemicals sprayed on it to kill weeds. So, we have tried to grow a few items in raised beds. One learning experience we had may keep someone else from making the same mistake. We had never heard of black walnut trees causing a toxic effect on tomatoes. They all died because we have three black walnut trees in our yard. Cabbage, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes are sensitive to the toxins plus a few fruit and field crops. We planted the tomatoes this year far away from the walnut …


Maximizing and Extending Your Tomato Harvest, by Andrew A.

I’ve always wondered why some people tend to plant all of their garden at one time. It never made sense to me. Why have 30 pounds of tomatoes come in at once, only to can it all? Sure, canning is great (in fact we just put away 14 quarts of peaches today), but fresh is better than canned, 100% of the time. And yes, I understand home canning is so you have food to eat in the winter. But why not get fresh for as long as you can? But just hold on, we’ll get back to that later on. …