Category: Gardening

Letter Re: Should I Get a Bigger Property and a Bigger Mortgage?

JWR, I currently live in a crowded subdivision in a moderately nice house that is worth $240,000. We owe approximately $120,000 on it, and have $120,000 in equity. Based on much of what I read here, we were looking for a house with some land, and recently found one for $370,000 (it’s only 2.5 acres, but that’s much more than we have now). If we buy it we will owe $370,000 -120,000 = $250,000). I currently make around $120,000 per year, in a job in the medical field that should not be too hard hit by financial crises. So what …


Letter Re: Amaranth–A Weed You Can Eat

Sir, I have been organic gardening for 50 years. At one time I had the largest organic produce gardens in northern Ohio. I’m good at it. Some years ago, some people staying with me asked if they could plant a little Amaranth in one of my gardens. They related how Amaranth may be the most consumed food in human history. It is super productive, and very nutritious. I allowed them to plant some. That was a big mistake. If you are not really careful to harvest every seed, it will spread like wildfire. Within a year or two, it will …


Two Letters Re: Amaranth–A Weed You Can Eat

James, I just wanted to let you know that this plant ([considered] a weed) is usually killed off as a pest, yet is more nutritious then wheat. It grows all over the place and if it was planted on purpose it might help a lot for people looking to survive. Deane’s site is packed full of plants worth looking in to for food! (A good source of info while the power is up! YouTube really does have everything!)’ – Fitzy in Pennsylvania   James Wesley; In response to the person setting up a Michigan retreat, I saw mention of Amaranth …


Letter Re: Perennial Food Crop, Vines, and Trees

Mr. Rawles, I have a retreat in northern lower Michigan were I have begun staging my Get Out of Dodge (G.O.O.D.) supplies. I have several containers full of non-hybrid vegetable seeds, and a large amount of staples (wheat, corn, dry beans, dry pasta, amaranth etc.) approximately an 18 month supply for four adults. My question is do you know of any plants I can put on the property that I can let grow wild to help supplement my food storage until I can get my garden planted and ready to harvest. I have planted some raspberry bushes, and blueberries that …


Letter Re: Chia Grass Sprouts are a Super Food

Mr Rawles, I don’t recall if I have ever seen a mention on the blog about this widely known (or maybe just remembered) product so I thought I would give it a mention. We have been using Chia (of “Chia Pet” fame of yesteryear, a.k.a. Salba [grain/grass seed] ) for a little over one year now and this stuff is incredibly versatile for anything food related. Ounce for ounce this stuff is far more nutritious than any other grains on the market. Here is a link to one of the places I found to purchase in bulk: Hidalgo Foods. They …


Buying Storage Food Locally–Prepare While Keeping a Low Profile

Food storage is perhaps the single most important preparedness measure that every family should take. It is insurance against any number of perils, ranging from natural disasters and disruption of transportation to something as mundane as simply being laid off from work. In part because of galloping food and fuel prices and some spot shortages at the wholesale level, demand has recently far exceeded supply for most long term food storage vendors. Many vendors now have orders backed up for as much as three months. I most strongly recommend that you get your family’s food storage squared away soon, before …


Letter Re: My Real, Live-Fire Self-Sufficiency Test

Well, I am back on the Internet for a time at least. Mind you, from the look of the soap opera world, I didn’t miss much. Grin A bit of background first for context. I am forecasting grim things for the fairly near future, particularly in financial terms. In one sense I am a type of survivalist, in that I want to prepare. Most survivalists tend to plan and prepare for a type of bunker at a fixed location to survive whatever doomsday they foresee coming. Such a plan has very distinct, real, and important advantages. However, the armed forces …


After 10 Years–Some Observations and Lessons Learned by a Y2K-Era Prepper

It was June, 1998. Y2K was a salient topic of conversation. It got my attention. When the electricity went off and there would be no water to drink, and no fuel to move food to the JIT grocery stores, I could see things getting very ugly. I had been willing to fight for this nation as a member of the US Army. Now it was time to fight for my household. I bought a Springfield Armory M1A. I bought a safe to store it in. I bought another M1A (for the spousal unit of course!) I bought ammo. Lots of …


Letter Re: Request for Investing Advice

Mr. Rawles: After reading “Patriots” last year, much like Mr. H., I was decidedly ready to act, but largely unprepared logistically. It can be overwhelming and the feeling that “I had a long way to go” was ever present (it still is and I suspect always will be as my education never ends). I’d just like to remind the author to not worry, you’ll get the stuff; you’ve already taken the first step and done something. But preparedness is more than material, the mindset is most important. Start to live right, be frugal, be healthy. Don’t be reliant on outside …


Budget Preparedness–Survival Isn’t About Stuff, It is About Skills

I often stress that a key to survival is not what you have, but rather what you know. (See my Precepts of Rawlesian Survivalist Philosophy web page.) In part, I wrote: Skills Beat Gadgets and Practicality Beats Style. The modern world is full of pundits, poseurs, and Mall Ninjas. Preparedness is not just about accumulating a pile of stuff. You need practical skills, and those only come with study, training, and practice. Any armchair survivalist can buy a set of stylish camouflage fatigues and an M4gery Carbine encrusted with umpteen accessories. Style points should not be mistaken for genuine skills …


Letter Re: Challenging Conventional Beliefs on Saving Hybrid Seeds

Hello James: Conventional wisdom holds that one should not plant seeds saved from “hybrid” plants. This wisdom is ironclad boilerplate and generally appears in paragraph 2, sentence 2 of every essay on gardening when it really counts. I want to push back on that idea. My understanding of agricultural history is that most farmers raised landraces of vegetables and animals prior to the 1600s. A landrace is a swarm of similar-but-not-identical plants or animals. There are very few exceptions, Merino sheep being one of them and asexually reproduced fruit trees being another. The introduction of “County Fairs” changed that. Suddenly, …


Letter Re: The Modern Conception of “Hard Work” Versus a Traditional Farmer’s Tasks

Sir: I recently finished trenching and running a few hundred feet of irrigation pipe on land that has been in my wife’s family for a few generations. We are the proud recipients of this small farm in the Southeast US. My Mother-In-Law was helping, and getting various tools and such out of the 100 year old barn (still standing and strong). We found an old hoe that was worn so that over half of the tine was missing. She said that her father and grandfather had used this hoe to manually weed and till every bit of the 50 acres! …


Letter Re: Will Peasant Farmers Fare Better than the Rich in TEOTWAWKI?

Hi, I’m finding SurvivalBlog very interesting in these troubling times. I came across it in the bibliography of a good novel, “Last Light”, by Alex Scarrow, which took me to Peak Oil, and then to your blog. I live in a small city in the most unknown part of Italy , a southern region called Basilicata . It’s always been a region bypassed by history and its inhabitants have known a modicum of well being only in the past 20 years. You might have heard of a book called “Christ Stopped at Eboli” by Carlo Levi. Well, that’s here. Though …


Letter Re: Potatoes as a Survival Garden Crop

Sir, It’s important to maintain a variety of root and grain crops for use as survival crops. Potatoes are easy to grow, easy to store and are nutritious enough to keep you healthy as a sole food (if you eat 2/3 of them raw). It is true potatoes have to be grown every year and that they are vulnerable to soil pathogens, but they can be grown under relatively low light, cool conditions, so why not take a small part of the harvest and raise them in a greenhouse through the winter with supplemental light. A half 55-gal. drum filled …


Letter Re: Potatoes as a Survival Garden Crop

Mr. Rawles: The problem with potatoes as a survival crop, is that they are susceptible to soil-borne diseases. Before toxic sprays, seed potatoes were grown at elevations above 800 feet, which does help. They also require a very good root cellar, in order to keep all the way through the winter, until the next planting season. Seed potatoes cannot be stored for years like grains. One [year of] crop failure, and you are done. It helps to swap all your potatoes saved for seed with another gardener, some distance from you. Look for someone with a different type of soil, …