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Showing posts with label Urban Survival Gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Urban Survival Gardens. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Neighborhood Gardens and Survival Growing




Someone one sent me the poster (at top left above) depicting the differences in urban living between the U.S. and Switzerland. But there is a glimmer of hope for the U.S., between the bad news of drought and other natural disasters affecting our agricultural capability as well as the propensity of smaller farms to  be sold off to either larger farms or suburban development groups,...... there is a growing urban/suburban gardening/farming movement that is good for many reasons......

1 -  Growing your own vegetab;es will teach and provide growing experience to people who otherwise would not get it.  This increases these people's chances of long term surival in a decayed society if they can make it to the point where they can grow crops for survival and bartering.

2 -  The more people in the inner cities growing crops are less people that are shooting and looting.  Seriously, imagine some overall shithole like Detroit where large city blocks can be converted to urban farms and inner city youths diverted from criminal enterprises to something that actually has some value.  I know, it's a pipedream - much more money in drugs, but nonetheless one can hope.

My survival group....and again, we are a loose knit group, sharing information, support and planning, with the overall plan to consoldiate when the need arises.....anyway, my survival group took a hit the other day when we found out we are losing out most experienced and talented grower.   One of our eight families, who plan on bugging in together in one of two suburban locations, is now moving. The good news is that they will be moving to a farm located on the edge of suburban sprawl but they do have a decent moving body of water and two ponds on the property. This will be an option for Bug Out for the remaining seven families as it is within one long day's unencumbered movement via vehicles and possible movement by foot within one week. However the bad news is that the majority of our vegetable - farming growing expertise is leaving with this family. We all probably know someone who we say has a "green thumb" and their counsel is valuable to address all manner of issues relating to growing food. 

Two of our member families,...and one is me,...had started and lost iterations of vegetables already this year. The only good thing is that the year is early enough to re-plant but we move our timeline for harvest back a month.....maybe six weeks.   If this was a SHTF situation and we needed those vegetables to eat then we would be up shit creek without the proverbial paddle. But I guess that's what we stock bulk, canned and survival foods for the hard times.

In the e-mails I receive relating to growing our own food for survival, I received a tip from a reader who used a home improvment chain store gift card to purchase several rolls of various types of small mesh fencing both for his or his neighbors future growing needs or for barter.

While I have four rolls of common barb wire fencing stored away, I made a mental note to do the same as this mesh fencing is not only useful for fencing in gardens and protecting them from varments, it is useful to create obstacles that can be use to slow up or deny entry and/or force channelization for defensive purposes, or even create holding areas for livestock.

Back to growing food,...................the ability to grow your own food is going to be not only a huge asset but most likely the difference between survival or not.  The below article, entitled "America the Vulnerable - History warns we're sleepwalking towards collapse", by James H. Kunstler was published on Peal Prosperity.


Food production system in the Soviet Union had been so direly mismanaged for so long – most of the 20th century – that a whole counter-system of work-arounds had been established in the form of nearly universal household gardening. Even families who lived in the ghastly Modernist apartment slabs of Moscow had access to garden plots in the vast un-suburbanized Russian countryside, and they could get there on public trains and buses. The more privileged had dachas ranging from humble shacks to fancy villas, each with a garden. The Russian people were used to the necessity of growing their own food and had the skills for preserving it to offset the idiocy of the official distribution system in which citizens wasted whole days waiting on line for a cabbage, only to be told they had run out.

When the Soviet system collapsed, the effect on society was far less than catastrophic, perhaps even salutary, because a large cohort of people with an interest in growing food, who formerly only pretended to work in dismal bureaucratic jobs, were now available to reoccupy and reactivate the de-collectivized farming sector that had been a drag on the Russian economy for generations.  After a period of adjustment, one thing was self-evident: no more lines at the Russian grocery stores.

By contrast, in the U.S., even farmers don’t have kitchen gardens. This is not a myth. I live in an agricultural backwater of upstate New York where dairy farming modeled on industrial agri-biz reigned for decades (it’s in steep decline now), and as a rule, the farmers do not grow gardens.

When even farmers don’t grow any of their own food, you can bet that a lot of knowledge has already been lost. American supermarkets operate on a three-day resupply cycle. The system is much more fragile than most Americans probably suppose. My guess is that few even think about it. The resupply system has never failed, except briefly, in localities hit by natural disasters. However, a financial crisis could cripple the food distribution system of the entire nation. Truckers who don’t get paid won’t deliver. Trouble in the Middle East oil nations could provoke an oil crisis – something we haven’t experienced since the 1970s.  There are many ways for this complex system to fail – the point being that when it does, there will be no backup, as was the case in the former Soviet Union.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Backyard Homestead

If you are not on Organic Gardening e-mail list, then you should think about getting on it. This site occasionally offers good deals on home gardening products and information.

Organic Gardening

The last Organic Gardening flyer, advertising the Backyard Homestead book, stated that even if you live in an apartment, you can start growing at least some of the food you eat and reap with every harvest — saving money ... boosting health ... savoring irresistibly fresh flavors ... conserving energy ... and have loads of fun. And I think also learning a thing or two and be much better prepared for a Collapse where these skills will come in handy.

Not only a source for growing the vegetables and fruits, Organic Gardening's Backyard Homestead also covers keep bees, raise chickens, goats, or even cows. As well as how to cook, preserve, cure, brew, or pickle the fruits you grow.

Some of the subject material in this new book, also include: 13 container-loving plants; Best ways to water for sweeter strawberries; Why you should never soak bean seeds before planting; How to tell if a tomato plant is hungry; Why your fruit tree needs a mate and what to do without one; Complete herb-growing guide from basil to watercress; How to tell if an egg is fresh; and, Beekeeping the easy way.

Another key element of gardening is crop rotation and learning how to properly do so is a great way to get more variety and bounty out of even the smallest gardens, while keeping in more soil nutrients. But successful rotation means planting the right crops in the right order — and making sure you don't follow certain plants with their "arch enemies." Backyard Homestead covers fail-proof planting plan for crop rotations.

Free Trial issue of Organic Gardening and a Garden Planner, click here.

Home gardening in preparation for a SHTF scenario has taken on a new importance with the degradation of the U.S. farming capability. The U.S. used to feed the world. Now we would have a hard time, absent of an exports ban, to feed ourselves. Part of the problem is the high start up and maintenance costs of commercial farming. Read this post from the Greenhorns Blog.

Greenhorns Blog/high costs of farming/

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Urban Survival Food – Growing an Urban Garden

This post is a companion to the previous post on procuring and storing Vegetable and Crop Seeds for post collapse Survival Food supply. See: Stockpiling Crop Seeds

Procuring the necessary amount of non-hybrid seeds to be prepared to grow your own food source maybe the biggest end of being prepared in this aspect, however we feel that no matter what the current situation is now the potential Urban Survivalist should at least grow a small garden now in order to gain the experience that comes with trial and error.

Some of the biggest factors in an Urban Survival Garden are space and dirt in which to plant and grow. You don’t have to bring in a couple tons of topsoil in order to have a survival garden. Almost any container is suitable for certain types of vegetables.

Larger root vegetables such as potatoes will obvious need a larger container than would smaller root vegetables such as radishes.

Vine vegetables such as squash, cucumbers, watermelons and such will do fine in smaller containers.

There is a very good website for urban gardening and we have run across in past. This site used commercial bags of topsoil bought at a hardware or store such as Lowe’s or Home Depot. These Urban farmers punched drain holes in one side of the bag, then turned the bag over and created a larger window in this side to allow the planting and watering. This technique probably saves a lot of water with the plastic container containing most of it as to allow the roots to take the water in along with nutrients from the soil.

Although planting in topsoil bags is a great idea, it also is a more costly as we checked at Lowe’s recently and these bags of topsoil were selling for over $5.00 each. Most vegetables will do fine in free dirt. Our favorite is a mix of sand and horse manure that we get for free – one we shovel up in the desert or an open lot, and the other we get from a local horse trainer. With sufficient water we grew incredibly large Black Magic Squash last summer.











We use all sorts of containers,…..various sized buckets with drain holes punched in the bottom and a narrow layer of rocks to aid in drainage before we add the soil mix. We keep the soil a few inches below the top of the bucket so that water can be added without it running off the bucket.

Heavy duty trash bags or surplus military sand bags make a good container also, especially for vine vegetables and fruits as the vines will grow out and bear fruit – the container serves only to house the plant’s roots to get minerals, water and nutrients from the soil.

Practically any container that allows for root growth and drainage would work. If you are a true Urban Environment Survivalist,….that is living inside the concrete jungle,…maybe commercial bought, bagged topsoil is your only option,. If so, then maybe you can transplant the top soil to other containers in order to use only what you need for that plant(s) to thrive.

Whatever plants you decide upon planting, there are many free resources to learn how that plants or crop grow best. These sources may be any local or state agricultural extension office, as well as the abundance of on-line resources. Both these resources may not be accessible after the collapse, get the information now that you are going to need to grow crops.

There is no reason that a winter crop cannot be achieved using a green house. After a collapse, of practically any kind, procurement of needed materials such as glass and food to frame up protect the crops while allowing sunlight, may be very hard to do.