I'm back!

I had left this blog on the fence post for a few while waiting for the inevitable fall of my Republic. That could be, may be getting closer, and will depend on a number of factors as we move into the summer of 2016 and beyond. Just who will be taking over the reigns of this country may prove pivotal as to what direction we will take. Personally, I don't think it will make much difference...

In the intervening time, I've sold my home and moved to a condo located in the same area. In some ways, that will pose more of a challenge and in others it will actually help me to come up with better strategies. Stay tuned!

Weather moderates in September!

While this summer was pretty much a flop – too hot and too dry for much in the way of good vegetable production, the early fall has proved to be just the opposite! Some where’s around mid August things got cooler and wetter and, can you believe it, my pepper plants that had languished all summer kicked into high gear! I’ve had a bumper and welcome crop that have become the mainstay of my salads as celery is currently at 1.89 a bunch. That’s just too expensive!

The change in the weather patterns also prompted me to plant fifteen lettuce seeds in starter trays that consisted of Little Caesar and Buttercrunch varieties on August the 15^th. Most of them germinated and were placed into tow cold frames I maintain in front of my house. My timing was good as the day after they were transplanted out, it began to drizzle for the next three days. I also went ahead and planted some Cherry Belle radish seeds in the spaces between the small lettuce plants. They should be up for harvest by the end of October when temperatures will still be moderate. The lettuce should get big enough to harvest and then will stay in good shape under glass for the balance of the winter. There’s something special about eating fresh romaine lettuce in December!

Drought strikes small gardens all across the Midwest!

Nobody knows for sure how long or how bad the drought of 2012 will get before it finally breaks. Currently, over one thousand counties across the United States are affected and have been deemed ‘natural disaster areas’. Some are saying that this should serve as a warning to us all; especially as concerns our rampant manner in which we are adding greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere. Others are saying that it’s either already too late or just nature doing her thing. Take your pick. Either way, all that I know for sure is that my small raised beds have suffered as has my pocket book in paying both for water and air conditioning.

Right now, all the raised beds can be called pretty much a total loss! Not only has the water available to them been stingy, but the heat we’ve all endured has pretty much sounded the death bell for the few straggling plants that remain. Now my focus will be on a fall crop, hoping against hope that by August of September better climates will reign supreme.

At some point it is certain we will end up paying dearly for lost crops, especially commercial plantings like corn. What had already been one of the worst years for this very important crop has now turned into a certified disaster as many farmers across the Midwest are contemplating cutting up what has grown to use as animal folder. The US has also downgraded its estimates of total tonnage and is now waiting for fall to see just how badly we have been hit. What’s for sure will be even faster rising prices for many items that contain corn and even meat and meat related products that will go up due to increases in the cost of feed.

My onion sets did not do well in 2012!

Earlier this year, I bought about fifty mixed red and white onion sets from a local store. These were planted into various sites both in formalized beds and in areas I had cleared of sod. The results in all cases were the same; very little bulb development with a good percentage going to seed.

I fault this lack of growth on a number of factors with soil quality (perhaps surprisingly) not being one of them. Three reasons I feel that good development did not take place were; 1) lack of good consistent moisture, 2) unusually hot temperatures combined with a shorter than normal spring and 3) I failed to get the sets planted the previous fall. Rather they went into the ground in the early spring and didn’t have time to develop good root systems prior to the warm spring and early summer days when they are induced to bulb up.

A representative collection of three onions pictured above tell the story pretty well. The red onion weighed in at 68 grams while the two whites averaged about 38 grams. Sizes ranged from 1 ¾ x 1 ½ inches up to 2 x 1 ¾ inches; not very large, but still usable in salads and such.

Next season, I hope to perform a field test whereby I start equal numbers of onion sets at the same time (this coming October in cold frames). Over time, factors like rainfall and average temperatures will also be recorded. I’m still not sure, at this point what varieties I’ll be experiment with.

Learning you can can – a good survival skill!

One of the old saying that have always stuck in my head was the one that states, ‘give a man a fish and feed him for one day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.’ Not sure if that is the exact quote, but the meaning is sure clear. If things get rough and food at the grocery gets scarce, having canned goods put by (and the knowledge of how to can) can make all the difference. Can-can??

To that end, I bought just a few of the bare essentials and gave canning a batch of homemade salsa a go. For this, my first ever foray into the world of canning, I decided to make something that would not be easy to screw up. After all, I reasoned, salsa is not much more than some chopped tomatoes along with a few other veggies that are mixed with seasonings. I mean how hard could it be? Hmmm?

I also picked choose to use a high acid item (like tomatoes) as it would allow me to forego the purchase of a pressure cooker in favor of a simple hot water bath – much less expensive. My total expenses for everything you see here was about $35 which ain’t too bad. And, I must admit I was a little excited to see how it would all work out! For my first effort, I elected to make just two eight ounce jars. That way if things didn’t go well, I could cut my losses.

To begin with, I secured the following list of needed ingredients to make a custom blend:

1 pound of Roma tomatoes (less water and more meat)

1 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes

1/3 cup of onion, diced

1 garlic clove, diced

¼ tsp dried oregano

1 banana pepper (about 2 tbsp)

2 tbsp of parsley (fresh)

3 pinches of black pepper

1 tsp of dried red cayenne pepper, crushed

2 tbsp of diced celery

3 ounces of tomato paste (adds extra body)

4 tbsp of lemon juice (increases the overall acidity)

1 tsp chili powder (for some added heat)

The most involved thing I had to do in making this salsa was to remove the skins from the tomatoes. This was accomplished by dunking them into boiling water for just a minute then fishing them out and placing them into a bowl of ice water. After they’ve cooled, the skin slips right off!

Next, I used a mini food processor to dice up half the tomatoes and all the celery, onion, garlic and banana pepper. (The other half of the tomatoes were roughly chopped up to give some body to the salsa). This mixture went into a pot, to which I added the rest of the ingredients. Finally, everything was heated to a very low simmer for about 30 minutes to kill any bacteria and to render the natural enzymes inoperative (prevents spoilage). This mix was then poured immediately into the canning jars that had been sitting in a bath (along with the lids and tops) for about ten minutes. After filling each jar to within a quarter inch of the top, the lids were affixed with the bands to assure a good seal and then they were lowered into the boiling water for fifteen minutes (the time will vary according to your height above sea level). Once the time was up, I removed the two jars and placed them on a rack to cool overnight. That’s it! Not very complex after all.

How did the salsa taste? Well, I had some left over which sat in the fridge overnight. I tried it the next day with some tortilla chips and was astounded at how much better it tasted than the store bought stuff! I decided to label my jars ‘Salsa mei Balza’ as eating this stuff really takes some major cojones!

Vegetable gardens in small spaces!

It’s always amazed me how easy it is to set up a miniature vegetable garden in a very small space! Just clear some ground, plants some seeds, water and let er go! Pictured here I have a good number of vegetables growing in a space that measures about 2 by 3 feet. The cucumber vine (Straight Eight) is already producing (it’s only mid June) and just off to the right I have a pole bean plant (Kentucky Wonder) loaded with plenty of great tasting beans now ready to be picked!

These small areas are in addition to my more formal raised beds that are located out back. But, since I planted these guys so close to the front door, it’s easy to grab something off the vine when I get home after a day away!

Mini harvests that match a person’s needs!

Everything here is from my garden!

One of the few talents I’ve developed with time concerns my ability to plan and plant out the right proportion of vegetables such that, during the summer months, I always have enough mature veggies each day to satisfy my needs. It’s a talent, because I also don’t have much that doesn’t get used. (Any leftovers get tossed either into a compost pile or they’re placed right back into the ground in an unused spot in the beds).

Pictured here is a day’s harvest the contained some carrots, an onion and a cucumber that will serve to make a couple of salads. I’d already harvested some lettuce which was stored in a crisper a couple of days before. I also added some raw snow peas to the mix to complete a nice set of salads. Throw on a little oil and vinegar and I’ll enjoy produce that came out of my ground and which is also very nutritious to boot!

Speaking of those snow peas, I’m letting quite a few pods mature so that I can replant them next spring and not have to worry about the cost of seed. Interestingly, I’ll also have more plants than this year and they’ll be free!

First potato harvested!

While it’s definitely on the smallish side (3” x 2”) and only about 95 grams, it still will make a nice side to my dinner this evening! It’s a Russet and was grown from some old store bought Russet’s I planted earlier this spring. Since potatoes offer up about a calorie a gram, this one will come in at about 90 calories after it is nuked in the microwave.

Potatoes grown this way are the gift that just keeps on giving! As long as the plants survive that is. I’m hoping to have a modest harvest this season and will plan to grow more next year. While I am not in a survival mode, I am getting prepared as best I can for tougher economic conditions in 2013!

Snow peas in a casual survival garden!

 Snow peas, as pictured here make a wonderful addition to any garden. They are a legume and in so being, add nitrogen to the soil that will enrich crops that come after. Each 100 gram serving yields about 40 calories of energy. Just ten plants, which were seeded in late February, have now yielded close to half a pound of edible pods in late May which makes this plant a good producer in my book! Just make sure to supply a trellis that’s at least five feet high to give them some support! Also, make sure to use heirloom seed and allow a few pods to fully mature so that you have seed to sow in fall or during the early spring!

Small, but happy surprises come from random starts!

At some point this spring, I planted just a few radish seeds from a packet that was stored in the fridge. I didn’t think they would germinate but they did. This morning, I stumbled across a good sized one along with a couple of carrots. I brought these in to have with my evening salad.

Since then, I’ve purchased more radish seed as I discovered that even though they aren’t heavy hitters when it comes to nutrition, they do grow fast and they add another dimension to the total salad concept. So, from now on, I plan to sow a few anytime I’m either harvesting or planting new starts or seeds.

Why grow your own onions!

 At first glance, you’d think that a green onion would be pretty much a zero from a nutritional standpoint and definitely not have a place in a survival garden. Well, you’d be wrong! Green onions grown from onion sets develop amazingly fast and are packed with Vitamin A. If you let one or two go to seed, you can collect those seeds late in the year to save for sowing next season. Here’s a blurb I found concerning onions on another web site:

‘Green Onions are a great source of vitamin A. Research has shown eating Onions may result in a number of health benefits, including lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Onions also contain a substance that prevents the formation of blood clots. Green Onions are also a good source of vitamin C (providing 15 percent of the daily requirement); iron (10 percent), and calcium and fiber (six percent).’

Wow! Not bad for something that grows almost as fast as a weed! I always make sure to plant fifty or so onion sets early each spring. Then, I can enjoy green onions early and big mature onions later in the summer.

Raised bed soil selection can make all the difference!

I’ve just put together a small 2 x 4 quickie survival bed and now want to get the most out of it that I can. In this bed and for the purposes of survival, it will be quality that counts over quantity. Now while I would never get very far trying to live off such a tiny space, It will still be interesting to track not only the weight of the produce obtained but also to figure out what the caloric contribution will be. In a survival situation, after all, it’s the calories your getting that count the most. Next in line, it’s the overall nutrition. You want to make sure that you’re getting all the essential amino acids you need to survive long term.

 But, before you can even think about what to plant, you’ll want to make sure that the soil you put into that growing space is all that it can be. Three very essential elements must come together for it to work properly. One, the soil must contain a good balance of minerals and organic matter or humus. That is to say, it must be able to supply your veggies with the proper mix of ions (anions and cations) that all plants need in order to be productive. Two, the soil must be porous enough to allow for excellent drainage while still being able to trap water to feed the roots. Three, the total soil mix must be in a certain range of acidity-alkalinity or pH to allow for proper ion exchange to take place. Get all three of this in the correct balance and the microbial population of you soil will increase greatly. This is a good thing as in the final analysis; it is the microbes that feed the soil which feeds your plants. Got that?

So, when your trying to figure out what to place in your raised bed it sometimes pays dividends to use pre-prepared bags of ‘soil’ made by companies like Hyponex that contain the right proportions of these three elements to get your bed off to a proper start. From that point on, all you need to do it to plant some seeds, water and weed and then harvest the bounty. Oh, and also make sure that you add compost (humus) at the end of each harvest to renew the soil. Simple is as simple does.

For this space I used 4 forty pound bags of Earthgro. Two were plain topsoil and two were a peat moss and manure mix. Total cost was about $10. End result; a great soil that feels right, is porous and ready to go!

Next post: plant selection, crop yields, companion planting and other considerations.

Jupiter Bell Peppers: Are they worth the trouble? Can they find a spot in a survalist garden?

Well, at least the little tag picture is encouraging!

While visiting a local grocery store in my town, I purchased one of those little four cell trays of vegetable plant starts that are so prevalent this time of year. The little stick informed me that these were Jupiter peppers. I’d never grown this particular variant before and was curious as to how they would turn out. 

The four little plants looked healthy. Not lanky like some of the other peppers that were offered. After I got home, I browsed the internet to see if there was any information. Surprisingly, there was not all that much. One site informed me that the mature plant was prolific and produced ‘thick walled’ fleshy plants.  Another indicated that they did ‘well’ in Missouri. Hmmm. OK, sounds good to me. I’m a game animal.

I planted two of these in a front small raised bed and two in the backyard in a much larger and more established bed. That front bed was built just a few days ago and I used a soil mix from a company called ‘Earthgro’ which is produced by the Hyponex Corporation. The forty pound bags I used are no doubt on the lower end of the scale of products they offer. (My bags of dirt cost just $2.50 each, but I will say that the feel of the soil was encouraging).  So, two plants in ‘new’ soil versus two plants in aged soil that has seen about seven years of use. This could be interesting!

At some point, most likely around August, I’ll do a post on how well these little guys turned out. Just do a search on this blog, using the word ‘Jupiter’.

Build a 2 x 4’ Quickie Raised Bed

Question: Just how hard is it to make a raised bed and how much could, say a small 2 x 4 space, actually produce?

Answer: I decided to find out and assembled the following materials together so that I might ‘throw together’ a quickie raised bed!

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Materials:

6 bags of composted manure ($2.50 for each 40 pound bag)

Bag of peat moss (leftover from last year)

Potting mix to start seeds (Miracle Grow potting mix)

4 Starting trays (from previous years)

Weed block

(2) 2x6 by 8 foot lengths of lumber

Outdoor Paint - white

16 nails

Hammer

Measuring tape

Staple gun

Saw

Garden digging tool

Assorted seeds

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Time to assemble, paint and install: 3 hours

Time to place in soil and amendments: 1 hour

Material cost: About $12

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I think most anyone can install a simple raised bed with whatever materials you might have on hand. In my case, I had a couple of eight foot lengths of 2x 6 lumber that I could use to make the containment area for the garden soil. However, almost anything (rocks, brick, etc) can work, or you can simply hill up some earth without any containment sides at all!

I began construction by taking two eight foot pieces and cutting them in half. That gave me four sections that were each about four feet long. Next, I painted each piece and then nailed everything together. I then situated the construct over an area next to my driveway after first clear off the top layer of sod. I then attached weed block across the bottom making sure to staple the cloth to the sides. This material allows water to easily drain while blocking any weeds that might want to spring up from underneath. 

So, start to finish for the construction, it was about three hours. The hardest part was clearing the sod, but once done the rest went quickly. Note that since I already had the lumber, I didn't figure this into the cost.  But, even so, this should cost all that much to throw together. 

My next post will cover some of the considerations for what kind of soil mix you might want to consider using.

Heirloom seeds are a must for survival gardens!

After visiting a new store by the name of WindRider’s located in Forsyth Missouri, I purchased a couple of packets of heirloom seeds produced by a company named Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Heirloom seeds are great in that you buy them once and then are able to use seeds from succeeding generation to grow new crops. This is a great item to have in you survival garden arsenal.

The two packets contained a bell pepper variety called ‘Pepper Ozark Giant’ and a bush bean known as ‘Contender (Buff) Valentine’. The pepper is supposed to be quite large while the bush beans that are ‘earlier’ than most others on the market. Now, while it’s a bit late to be starting peppers from seed, I’m right in the perfect window for the beans. I’ll begin the pepper seeds in a 6 cell starter tray filled with 'Miracle Gro Potting Mix' while the beans are going to go into my new 4 x 4 foot raised bed which is still under construction. (I’ll be doing a post on how to build a ‘quickie raised bed’ in a future post).  My purpose in creating the new raised bed will be to show just how much produce you can get from such a small amount of space!

Does lettuce have a place in a survival garden?

Leaf lettuce starts after one month!

During hard economic times, ANYTHING a home owner does that eases the pocketbook is a good thing. In my life, vegetable salads play a big role. Most every lunch and dinner has a salad in it somewhere. With a head if iceberg lettuce running at $1.30 and more, there's nothing wrong with planting a tray or two of lettuce starts you began yourself from seed. (The cost for seed and soil is minimal and, if you plant romaine lettuce, you're getting more nutrition to boot)!

Fresh romaine lettuce

In additional to the romaine lettuce, I also like to plant carrots, peppers ans onions. All these have a welcome spot in the salad bowel too! In addition, both the carrots and onions can spend time hanging out in the soil for long periods after they are of 'picking' size. This helps me to create salads according to my schedule and needs. That plain old romaine lettuce also contributes to the mix with about four calories per ounce! All things considered, this is a must have addition to any garden, survivalist or not!

Remember that most any piece of ground that is well drained can grow veggies. Even a small four foot square area can produce enough salad material to keep a person out of the produce isle for much of the summer! Add a little more space and some canning equipment and you can stretch a harvest on into the winter months.

What is a casual (garden) survivor anyway?

A few people have lately asked me if maybe a little senility has set into the deep and dark recesses of my mind. They wondered what I meant by the term casual survivor? Isn’t survival anything BUT casual??

OK, let me handle that first question. Yes, I may be a little senile… in which case you have to be nice to me. Second, what I meant by the term ‘casual’ was anyone who takes a ‘I’m going to be prepared for bad times, but will not be crazy about it’ attitude. The sort of people who are keenly aware that throughout history civilizations has grown big only to fall. And, as you might guess, should a big concern like the United States fall, it would do so big time! So, yes, they have the attitude that if there are things they can do to help shelter and feed themselves even in the event of a total collapse, then they’ll go for it. But understand, these people are not survival nuts who spend their time stashing guns and ammo and gas masks in the basement. Rather, they prefer to focus on doing those things that can maybe help get them through a rough spot or two. Like discovering the grocery market will have no food for a week or two or three. That’s what I mean by the casual survivor.

In this blog, I’ve tried to focus primarily on the food issue. That is, if everything goes down the crapper, you still must still eat. And, the best way to insure that is to either hoard some food or grow it. Gardening for the Casual Survivor is all about doing a little of both. In the coming weeks and months, I hope to be able to add some insights on how to grow stuff in a hurry. Included will be articles on what to grow and what not to grow. Some vegetables offer ‘nutrient dense nourishment’ while others are pretty much a waste of time. Radishes come to mind. They taste great and are easy to grow, but off very little in the way of substance.

So, in a nutshell, that is what this blog is all about. Growing and saving food in an economical and efficient manner. The casual way…

Straight Eight cucumbers are great!

If you're looking to grow a cucumber that's a heirloom, easy to grow and open pollinated, then consider trying the Straight Eight! The pictured plants were seeded on March the 15^th and already they are up and raring to go! I tried this variety over ten years ago and have been growing them ever since! This 'cuke' is perfect for slicing, make dill pickles or pickle relish that can be canned and put away at the end of the season.

Straight Eight Cucumber were first introduced by Ferry Morse back in 1935 where they received the Gold Medal Award in the All American Trials that year. It seems that farmers all across the country were impressed with these uniformly straight eight inch long wonders that were prolific on the vine and which seemed to grow where other cucumber varieties would not. I've personally found this to be true as the plants seem to tolerate a wide range of conditions that resulted in little or no production from other varieties I tried to grow at the time.

This season, with food prices on the rise, I hope to grow enough to can as part of an effort to expand my garden harvest.

Those nice lettuce suprises found in odd places!

When you’re not in a survival mode, you can still take advantage of odd spots around your property to plant out some onion sets, cucumbers or whatever you might have. In this case, I had planted some lettuce seed back late last summer in a piece of bare ground by my drive. The plants got to be just big enough to survive what turned out to be a mild winter. I did nothing to help them other than a single time in early March to remove some weeds that were threatening to choke the area.

As you can see, even one small head of romaine can provide a couple of nutritious salads in early spring! I also harvested some chives that come up every year to throw in. Now, while you could not survive on lettuce and chives, it goes to show how just a little effort can provide some ‘nice surprises that can be added to whatever you have put up over the winter. In a situation where you might have to depend on your own devices, getting some green in March could prove important!

Casual survival thoughts; Rules 1 through 3.

Apparently, just in the nick of time (it getting set to rain), I was able to get one of my two main raised beds seeded with an assortment of vegetables. And, that brings me to point number one when it comes to survival gardening.

#1 ‘Any sized prepared and planted bed is better than none at all!’

Right now I have about 32 square feet of good soil seeded with an assortment of carrots, peppers, green beans and romaine lettuce. Of these, the carrots are most likely the most nutrient rich of the group. However, the bean will also provide many of the essential amino acids needed to sustain life. If you have some rice in the pantry then you could live by eating just these two, although it would be boring to do so.

Another great addition to any survival garden would be the common potato. It’s a breeze to grow, will tolerate many soil types and you probably have a bag of them sporting in the pantry somewhere right now! The picture at right shows a four foot trench I dug. At the bottom (just under the soil) are two spuds I cut into pieces. After the spuds form plants that grow up through the soil, I’ll add a couple more inches of soil to keep the level just below the growing points. Later in the spring, I’ll allow these to grow higher before adding any more soil. By late summer, I’ll have some spuds I can dig up for the occasional meal. (As a survival measure, it’s a good idea to have some spuds in the ground or pantry in and around your house. These can easily be multiplied into a whole field of nutritious ready to eat meals should bad times come around). Now for rule number two.

#2 Plan to have at least seventy square feet of ground ready to plant per person!

Seventy square feet of space is pretty small. So, even those people living with small lots can certainly find some space in which to grow vegetables. Even if you’re the type who loves flowers, you should be able to sneak in the odd carrot or two. Nobody will notice.

Note: If you live in a large city with little to no land available for growing, you are basically screwed from the get go. Plan on being the first in a long list of causalities in the event of a complete societal collapse.

I came up with the number of seventy square feet per person as this is just enough space to grow high nutrient crops (a hundred pounds or more) to get you through the first year of surviving on your own. I’m assuming, of course that you have stockpiled food items prior to everything going south. In your pantry should be such items as powered milk, yeast, flour, canned goods, beans and pasta. All these items, when properly stored in airtight containers, can last for long periods of time. Make sure, also, to have really basic long lasting kitchen tools like iron skillets in your home in case you have to cook over a wood fire. If you haven’t already, be sure to acquire a good resource book on survival. There are many to choose from on the internet and more be written every day. (Ya think they know something you might not)?

#3 Acquire the ability to protect what’s yours!

I wanted to through this rule in early because it is an important item to consider. And, that is, no matter how well you have prepared for you and your family, it will all be for naught if someone sashays in and takes it from you because you were defenseless. Make no mistake. When a society crumbles, it doesn’t take long for people to loose the facade of civility.  Thos who have something to eat will at first be visited by neighbors who did not prepare. At that time you will probably give freely of what you have. Then, as time goes on the requests will become demands and if the man standing at you door has a gun and you don’t – you’re screwed.