Now that you have begun your prepping with very little money to buy the basic survival rations, let’s make your food a little more varied and palatable. You may be surprised how you can do this.
Edible Weeds
Go to the library and find a book on the edible weeds in your area. Collect them, and dry them. You can use a window screen to dry them on, after spraying it with water to remove dust and debris and allowing it to dry. Those dried weeds will add flavor and nutrition to your meals. Some, like Lambs Quarters which grows almost everywhere, are absolutely delicious and in pretty much unlimited quantities every year. To a couple cups of boiling water, you could add some dried “weeds”, a handful of rice, and some salt (or any other seasoning you have), and you have soup.
Water
Also, don’t forget to add water to your stores. Save your gallon or liter bottles and store water in them. Store purified water, if you can get it inexpensively or purify it yourself, but tap water is better than none. Water can be purified in #2 plastic bottles (like soda bottles) in the sun for several hours. Here, we have well water. What do you think happens with my well pump when the electricity goes out for an hour or a day (or two)? Yep, there’s no water. So, yes, I keep several gallons of water in the house, and more bottled water in the well house. Additionally, I managed to find one of those food grade 275 gallon totes real cheap, and we use that to store water as well.
Gardening
Prepping is as much learning new skills as it is storing food for emergencies. Gardening might be one of those new skills. Make sure you have a garden and plant it, even if it is tomato and pepper plants in 5-gallon buckets. Maybe it’s lettuce or kale in window boxes or planters on your deck. Even though I now have a very large garden, it gets bigger every year. (It grows by baby steps.) Each year I add beds to my garden, and I experiment with new types of plants to see if I can grow them. I live in the Pacific Northwest right up against the mountains, where we have a very short growing season.
Continue reading“Homesteading or Prepping with Very Little Money- Part 2, by M.C.”