Posted on 02/26/2018 12:12:20 PM PST by CottonBall
I’ve been missing the vast amount of information on prepping, survival, camping, simple cooking, the old ways of doing just about everything – all the things nw_arizona_granny knew so much about and shared with us, along with numerous other posters with a vast array of skills and knowledge.
We have our various related-threads here, a recipe thread, a gardening thread, and even a prepper thread. They are all great and I don’t mean to take anything away from those and the hard work their owners put in.
But I was missing a place to talk about ALL those things, to get the camaraderie that we used to have on granny’s thread.
I learned how to can on those threads! The pressure canner was not my friend, I thought, but I bought one and stared at it for a month, intimidated. Then I read the directions for another month. But with the help and encouragement of posters on granny’s threads, I jumped in and now have my very own food storage room in the basement with lovely jars of shelf-stable meats, vegetables, and fruit. When we moved, I fashioned my food storage room – and insisted upon having a basement – from what I learned on her threads. Getting started gardening was from her threads. Making my own cleaning products….the list is endless.
So I thought I would take the chance and start another comprehensive prepper thread and see how it goes. I used to have granny’s ping list since I made one of the threads for her, but alas, with numerous computer changes, I cannot find it. So please pass this onto any posters you think might be interested.
We’ll just keep it running until..whenever. Granny created a new thread at 10,000 posts or so. I do like the idea of having ONE thread to go to – because often I cannot find or keep track of the weekly threads. I won’t be posting lots of recipes or tidbits myself – to any mods concerned about the size of this thread. I’d just like a place to chat, post questions, post ideas, make new prepping friends.
Here are granny’s threads, if anyone wants to peruse them:
nw_arizona_granny’s Thread #1
Will do. I like most herbs but one, Turmeric. My bad because this would be the go to for a potent anti-inflammatory agent. Must be the reason there is no fondness to be found for Indian Cuisine. Use Thyme often and always have some on hand. This year the go to has been celery seed. When there is no celery in the house have found a bit of this sprinkled in a salad, soup, or stew does give a celery flavor with no crunch.
I agree that turmeric is pretty strong. I can handle it once in a while. But I do take turmeric capsules and that has been great for my knees. Luckily I don’t taste it at all.
Celery seed! I keep forgetting about it. I think it is vastly underutilized. It has such a delightful fresh aroma. I’m not real sure what to put it in though. i’m not real sure what to put in though. You said salads, soups, or stews – would you put it in a raw salad, like on lettuce? Or potato salad? I suppose we can go in anything and what you would normally put celery. I have to remember to use it more.
OK, New Year’s resolution added too – use more marjoram and celery seed! Coriander as well.
Just curious, did you become a vegan because of food allergies? It seems like there’s more and more food allergies going around these days. Although it sounds like you have been living this lifestyle a long time. Anyway you mentioned other allergies, or maybe it was just dislikes for strong perfumes.
I don’t mind people asking - not a vegan which means no milk products, just a “regular” vegetarian, no meat/fish/eggs. For religious reasons. :-)
I know “Junk food” vegetarians and so a vegetarian diet is not necessarily healthier than a standard diet; if a person eats natural foods without unnecessary processing and without unhealthy ingredients they’re going to be doing their mortal coil a big favor.
If people ask for recipes/nutrition info I’m happy to give it; I dislike being proselytized to and so I don’t do it to others!
Today I was going to get my “other” computer going so I would have all my files/documents with recipes, nutrition info etc handy but no...had to do extra cooking/cleaning today.
Salad = tuna fish salad, chicken salad, potato salad (which by the way, Thanks!) would imagine one might mix the seed in their dressing before the salad toss. Never attempted that, but what can it hurt? Also add a bit with the egg, flour and other ingredients when making salmon patties. And any Southerner’s dream - this is also used when making cornbread dressing to go with the turkey
Never tried the turmeric capsule but if it helps, certainly worth considering. This rainy, cold winter has really been felt in the knees this year.
Oh, ok, I know a lot of people that are religious vegetarians :)
I love the quotes on your home page:
If...if...We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
That one always has me wondering what Americans would do when they came to take our guns or round us up.
I’m afraid most would submit without a fight also.
The way people here believe the lies of the MSM, I think they would be even more docile than the Soviet citizens. At least the Russians knew they were being lied to and distrusted their government.
I am overdoing it, as always. I found about three bean varieties to order on the Schreck Website. But I’m not sure I have enough room to separate them for seed collecting. He says 25 feet for home use, 100 to 150 feet for pure seed. but I’d rather go with the farther distance if 25 feet isn’t enough, I’d really like pure seed for my own use as well. But I really don’t want them to be crossed.. So do I really need the 100 feet? I’ll have to stick with just two varieties then :-)
It depends largely on what insects you have in your area. The structure of the bean flower actually makes it hard for them to cross, but there are a few bugs that can manage it.
I’m growing for Baker Creek this year, and they only require me to separate beans by 50 feet. Given that the seeds have to pass stringent requirements for purity, I’d say their recommendation is probably good.
Again, most beans don’t cross easily, no matter how close they are.
BTTT. Thanks for doing this.
Thank you! Then I think I’ll just stick to the 50 feet and I can do three varieties :-)
What a neat job you have. I never even thought about where these companies get the seeds. So they divvy out the work to smaller-scale farmers? How many plants do you grow a season to provide seeds to them?
You’re welcome Polly! I’m hoping that as people realize this thread is always here, but it will become more active, like granny’s threads. It could also be with Trump in office people aren’t as nervous about prepping as they were then. We will see how it goes!
You’re welcome Polly! I’m hoping that as people realize this thread is always here, but it will become more active, like granny’s threads. It could also be with Trump in office people aren’t as nervous about prepping as they were then. We will see how it goes!
This is my first year as an official seed grower :) They assign contracts based on how much space each grower has available, what’s being grown in neighboring farms close enough to cross, how many years the grower has been growing for them, etc. Since it’s my first year, they gave me a fairly small contract compared to the amount of growing space I have. I haven’t counted up the seeds yet, but they want me to deliver 10 pounds of lima beans, 25 pounds of runner bean seeds, 10 pounds of sunflower seeds, 5 pounds of gourd seed, and 2 pounds of ashwaganda seed.
That is so neat! But that is a SMALL contract?! Geez, that sounds like a lot of seeds. Specially since you don’t get a lot of pounds of seeds from each plant. How do you figure out how many plants you need?
Are you going to have a garden for yourself, for produce, or just concentrate on the seeds this year?
Sounds like a pretty neat job though. Doing something you love and you know you’re good at :-)
It’s small, considering I own 1.5 tillable acres, and that’s not counting the non-tillable part :)
If I’d told them all I had was a backyard, it would have been a much smaller assignment.
I’m still calculating how much room I’ll need for the gourds and the ashwaganda, but for the beans I’ll need 1 row for the limas and 2 for the runners, assuming the rows are 50 feet long. The sunflowers will need roughly a 15x60 foot patch.
I’ll have more than enough room for my own garden, and even my own breeding projects. During the negotiation process I made sure that my breeding projects wouldn’t interfere with the seed crop, and vice-versa.
I’m excited about it! :)
A post on a recent gardening thread reminded me of something. For those of you who keep an emergency seed stash, I recommend adding a few packets of True Potato Seed (TPS).
Most potatoes are grown from spuds, not seeds. That means they produce a bigger crop, and are consistent and predictable in how they grow. But, seed potatoes don’t keep very long. If something destroys or infects your crop in a SHTF situation, you might not be able to replace it. Potatoes produce a lot of food in a relatively small space, which makes them valuable enough to want a backup plan.
TPS look like tomato seeds, and can keep for years, even decades, with proper storage. A few tablespoons of TPS will plant an entire acre. The downsides to using TPS are that the first year’s crop will usually be fairly small, and each plant will have different characteristics. Sometimes the differences are so drastic that it’s hard to believe they’re even the same species! But, when you find one you like, you can save spuds from it to replant, at which point you’re back to growing from seed potatoes.
True potato seeds are a way to rebuild your seed potato supplies, not a main crop by themselves. But, what’s prepping without a backup plan?
Potato seeds can be hard to find. Tom Wagner’s used to carry them, but I don’t see them on their website now. I did find a few here: https://www.cultivariable.com/catalog/potato/true-potato-seeds/
Starts with some simple decorative presentations, the outdoor cooking is in the middle. Schools gathered around a wood fire receiving instructin.
Starts with some simple decorative presentations, the outdoor cooking is in the middle. Schools gathered around a wood fire receiving instructin.
TY! I look forward to watching this. I’ll get to it when hubby heads out on travel on Monday. I want to learn how to cook outdoors - and without utensils sounds intriguing!
(Hope this is seen - I have had various results with the ‘all’ posting ;-)
I have a question about mint. I want to grow it this year; will start it in my Aero thingie, and then put it on the balcony.
The plan is to dry some, and chop and freeze some in ice-cube trays for use in Tabbouli - we eat a lot of quinoa tabbouli year-round.
But I don’t know what variety of seeds to buy. We’ve so far bought mint for this purpose both in the ‘clamshells’, and as plants, at the supermarket. Some of the mint we’ve gotten has had a very different flavor from other bunches. Some of it has been too ‘candy-like’, not the clear, sharp mint flavor.
Does anyone know the type/variety that is generally used in Indian/Middle Eastern cooking?
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