/johnny
When the mess comes you can be sure the authorities will be around to those with gardens to share the booty
Not only did we save about 20% of our grocery store bill over the long run, we always had a comfortable buffer in case of severe weather interruptions.
Add skill sets. Learn from old books. Google books has lots of late 1800s early 1900s books that are free to download.
/johnny
Not sure if you referenced an article written by a professional horticulturalist or if those are your conclusions.
Perhaps if you describe your property: i.e. do you have a fenced yard which can be converted to a vegetable garden? Do your zoning laws allow chickens for eggs & meat? Would you know how to kill and pluck a chicken? Do you own a chest deep freezer? A generator? A water well and septic tank? Are you able to sell your house and move to a small farm where you could raise cattle for meat and milk, pigs and sheep? Do you know anyone who could run the farm while you continue to work? How old are your children? Don’t get hung up on organic compost. Cows & pigs do that. Also you would need land for grazing and growing hay for feed. Keep horses for transportation (cheaper than gas) and bicycles for emergencies.
Farming is not for the weak kneed.
For soil - we have found the polyculture farming - chickens+compost are the best way to keep good soil.
You can also use biomass aerators like (rinsed) coconut fiber.
And know your minerals.
invest in lead...
your neighbor has food.
t
and don’t talk about it. keep it secret.
#1 Get a drum you can store clean water in and add a small amount of bleach to it every few months to keep it from getting nasty. Get one of those pitchers with a carbon filter to pour it into when you are ready to use it.
http://www.storablefoods.com/water_storage.html
#2 Bulk bags of rice are cheap and it keeps for a long time.
#3 Also have other grains on hand along with yeast and baking powder.
#4 Store sugar, baking soda and salt in a water tight containers.
#5 Have some type of cooking device and plenty of fuel such as propane, white gas, or kerosene.
#6 Store pepper, spices, tea, coffee, koolaid and other substances that make your food more palatable in water tight containers.
#7 Keep canned meats, fish, soup, vegetables and fruits.
#9 Dehydrated foods are good, but tend to be expensive.
#11 All foods must be protected from rodents, insects and other pests.
#12 Make sure that you have some first aid supplies such as hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointments, clean dressings, and pain relievers on hand.
#13 Make sure you have some means to protect yourself and your family.
Most of these items are relatively inexpensive. You don't need to spend a lot of money on expensive “survival” stuff. You should be using these supplies on a regular basis and replenishing to keep them relatively fresh.
Gardening and other long term survival skills are good to keep up on, but seasonal. If you live in a place where you can keep some animals that is great, but remember that they could be vulnerable to other desperate people.
From what you wrote, if those are your words, you know how to grow food, so do that.
Buy extra grocery store food when you can to build up food supply.
There is plenty of info. on the web to guide you through storing food and supplies. Buy what you can on an ongoing basis.
“Hope” — I strongly urge you to abandon your very first premise: that in the event of an economic/ societal collapse that you will be able to survive in an American ‘urban’ or near-urban location. THAT is a fatal vision.
My/our opinion follows. An opinion based on reading a lot of current and historical material.
The synopsis is easy: MOVE OUT of the city, NOW!
As a husband and father of three, I / we decided long ago that we fundamentally lack the means to successfully defend in place. We live about 30 miles from Atlanta’s city center. Too close to even think of staying. We read and studied numerous texts - some more lucid than others — but in the end there are only two choices in the face of possible dystopian futures:
(1) MOVE OUT of urban areas *now* and resettle away from cities AND the arteries that interconnect them.
(2) construct, prepare and test-drive a realistic bugout plan.
IF a collapse happens, traditional and rational commerce in the city will end within day-one of general realization. At that point, the time to prepare is long gone.
(0) bugout needs to happen within 2-4 hours, and prudence requires you be armed prior even to that bugout, and probably have a ‘get home’ bag with you just to get home to initiate your bugout. Have contingency plans for your family to GO without you if you travel.
(1) travel out of the city within the first 4-24 hours will require use of alternate routes. Condition Red readiness/posture ALL the way. Split your materials between vehicles if you have more than one. That way if one is lost, you haven’t lost all of some things. ALWAYS have enough vehicle fuel on hand to make it to your bug out.
(2) travel out of the city between 24 - 48 hours will be dangerous and high risk
(3) travel out of the city after 48 hours will be a death sentence for you and a horror for your wife & daughter unless you are part of an organized convoy. And that convoy will make you trade liberty and wealth for security.
(4) no city can feed itself - you have already realized that. Neither can a city protect itself. The thin blue line is R E A L L Y thin in a collapse. There aren’t enough ethical Authorities in the USA to maintain order and anything resembling peace.
NET: get out. but if not, be ready to bugout, and have a garden now anyways. Squarefoot Gardening is my favorite. (Amazon.com sells it. Easy to do, really, just a bit pricey to get started.)
READING:
read- One Second After (Forsten) to get a rational and substantive view of what happens to modern society after a collapse. Don’t get caught up in the EMP arguments, just follow the societal piece. Place your family in that story.
read- the Enemies Foreign and Domestic trilogy by Matt Bracken (our Travis McGee).
Buy charcoal and/or briquets for cooking.
Ten large garbage cans capable of each holding 100 lbs. of charcoal/briquets can easily last a year. The ‘cans’ should be heavy-duty plastic with tight fitting lids.
I try to buy a couple or three bags of charcoal everytime I go the store. It is inexpensive. The cans, brand new, are not.
One more thing — develop technical/ mechanical skills that will be valuable for barter in a 19th century economy with 15th century politics (feudal). You and your family can survive if you and your wife, and kids can barter skills and labour for food/clothing/ shelter/ security.
And get out of the city. Now.
Ask Kartographer to add you to his Prepper ping list.
What is a good source for an air tight food storage container. And don’t say garbage con. What do you think would be best for barter - whiskey, tobacco, etc?
“One thing we did when young, and budgets were tight is to find (nonperishable) stuff you normally use, that is on sale, and buy as much as you can afford.”
That is such good advice! Save money AND prep!
You’ll be amazed how fast your food budget will shrink.
Salvage stores are great places to buy canned goods- as long as the exp date hasn’t passed they’re good to store if not acidic.
Mmm, corned/roast beef hash....
Take the chance to get out of the city whenever you get it.
And buy a case of cheap bottled water and stick it under your bed.
I live on a small sailboat... and when I’m away from all the comforts, I found one thing indispensable, an old, sturdy cast iron hibachi, if you can find one. Some of the new ones they’re making are really garbage.
I found that when I was traveling, that old hibachi bolted to my transom fulfilled all my cooking, water heating needs very well. I’m not saying it’s the ideal appliance for cooking, but it will burn anything...when I was traveling, if I saw the beach with a lot of driftwood on it, I stuffed my cockpit lockers full of wood... as long as I used sun bleached well weathered wood, I never had any problem... an added aesthetic benefit is that if it’s evening and the fire has burned down to coals, the salt in the wood makes multi colored flames, very neat.
The downside is, if the wind is blowing in the rain is falling, you need that first cup of coffee in the morning, you have to learn how to make a fire in any weather... but if you love your coffee, you learn!
For example, I live on the New Madrid fault line, and Tornado alley. These are part of the situations I have always tried to be ready for. One of your most important needs is water. Can't survive long with out it. It's more important than food. Hygiene needs to be high on list too. Dysentery is deadly.
When the market crashed, and gas prices rose, I knew from experience that food prices would follow quickly. I took some money from savings and bought a 6 month - 1 yr. supply of groceries, which I restock as sales come along. Most of the food that we eat consistently has risen about 25% per year.
Next I checked out the website for square foot gardening, and bought some seeds. Using these methods you can grow enough food and preserve it for 1 person in about 60 square feet. With row cover and plastic you can also extend your season and have fresh produce.
With rising gas prices, and Fed printing money, the food you buy today is going to be cheaper than what you buy tomorrow, so stocking up is essential. Like wise with guns and ammunition which could become unavailable under some scenarios.
To me, it is harder to survive in Urban situations. We live in a rural subdivision. Neither the subdivision nor the county has very many zoning rules or regulations. We have tolerant neighbors also.
We have our own well, collect rainwater from the roof. Have had a generator for years and lots of oil lamps and candles on hand, because we occasionally have electrical outages that last several days.
I would suggest that you look at your spending, and bills to try and have a little more money to use toward preparation. Magazines, Newspapers, Satellite tv, Redbox rentals etc. Anything that is not a necessity can be cut out.
Every dollar saved, for example, could be used to buy 2 cans of pork and beans-that’s 7 servings to eat straight out of a can if you have no way to cook stuff). In addition buy rice. Beans + Rice = complete protein. Stuff lasts forever. Quinoa is a grain that you can grow that has complete protein. Peanut Butter (another poor man's protein that you can grow). If you know you have water, then buy dried beans instead of canned beans(costs less).
I grew up with lots of people who had beans, taters, and cornbread for supper every night and they were thankful to have it. Some people I know grew up eating ketchup sandwiches and gravy made of pork fat, flour, and water with a little salt and pepper.
Just sit down and see if you can't eliminate or reduce the most costly items in your grocery list, to allow for buying extra of the less expensive things that you like and will eat. When you shop, buy one for the week, and 1 or 2 for the prep pantry. Rotate the supply. When there are sales, buy extra.
Use your imagination, and pretend that things have happened so that you no longer have any modern conveniences or that you are stranded in the backwoods or something. How would you survive? Prioritize the lists. Water, Food, Shelter, Health, and Protection.
mild vices will be as good as gold..better.
Alcohol,sugar,chocolate,tobacco...
As long as you don’t get high on your own supply..so to speak.
Check the trees growing on “public lands”, like the median strips in quiet neighborhoods. Some of them will have edible fruits or nuts. Very few municipalities spray these areas, so on the one hand you can feel smug about eating organic fruits for free. On the other hand, you will learn to slice those apples very, very thin!
I just made up a big batch of crabapple pie filling from such “free trees”. There are crabapple trees around the corner from my parents’ house that bear apples as big as the ones in the store, and almost as sweet. People driving by give me odd looks when they see me out picking, but nobody objects. I’ve gotten raspberries and hickory nuts the same way.
There are also folks who have fruit or nut trees in their yard, but who don’t want the fruit (or nuts) that they bear. If you see a tree dropping its harvest on the sidewalk, ask and see if the owner would mind you taking some. My dad got a wheelbarrow full of black walnuts that way.
Check trapping regulations in your area. I know around here you don’t need a license to trap on your own property. I used to get squirrels regularly right on the back porch. I had to stop due to a muscle problem that keeps me from being able to set the traps anymore, but my nephew has been showing an interest so I might teach him when he’s a bit older.
If you can afford to send a family member to a trapper’s safety class, do so. They often know tricks for trapping in populated areas without getting caught. They can also help you sell the furs.
Sometimes if you put word out that you’re looking for stuff to can or dehydrate, people will bring you extras out of their gardens. Or, maybe a farmer has a field that could be gleaned? Those harvesting machines miss a lot. On one forum I’m on (can’t remember if it was this one, I’m on so many of them) one person said he picked up enough potatoes to feed his family for an entire year, just by spending a couple hours gleaning the potato field after the machines were done. What’s more, he said he only went through a small part of a single row!