Faith as small as a mustard seed

I'm not a naturally patient person. I try. I put forth the effort. Sometimes it involves clenching my teeth, putting on a far too large smile and faking it. But I tend to get impatient.

So when the seeds I had planted and set in the window hadn't come up after two weeks I was, shall we say, concerned. I checked out my trusty friend Google and confirmed that I had somehow screwed something up and all my seeds were dead.

And it was possible. I had kept all my seeds together in a single envelope and during a cleaning frenzy they had been placed in my large kitchen window. While perfect for seed starting the window can get very hot and given the strangely warm weather it was completely conceivable that I had fried my seeds.

I grieved. I wept. I moped.

You see, I'm a seed snob. Sure, I could buy the plants from the store but in terms of saving money there is no cheaper way to do it than by planting seeds. PLUS I have the luxury of having heirloom, non-GMO seeds growing things I just can't buy at the nursery. The nursery doesn't carry carrot plants at all but if they did they wouldn't be the sweet Chantenay Red Core kind. And while they have plenty of pepper and tomato plants they don't carry my Sweet Yellow Stuff Peppers or my Fox Cherry Tomatoes.

Too late to place another seed order, I stopped by the nursery on my way home from work one night and picked up another round of green bean and cucumber seeds and resigned myself to buying tomatoes plants in a few weeks when the weather was right.

Imagine then my surprise when I came home to find 2 possible squash/pumpkin plants growing in my front yard. And then in the raised beds I spied 3 sugar snap peas finally poking their heads out.

I could have cried.

Until that point I was pretty sure the only thing I was going to manage for the year was garlic and weeds.

Now, a few weeks later I have 5 -6 squash or pumpkin plants in my front yard (they look the same and I possibly planted both close together), 12 pea plants coming up and at least 3 cucumber plants poking their heads out of the ground. Additionally I have a melon seedling of some kind hanging out with the garlic (thanks 2 year old son) and my potatoes are finally starting to poke their eyes above the dirt.

I suppose it just goes to show. I needed only the faith in the mustard seed. Or was that faith like the mustard seed?

I'm a seed hoarder

I had actually meant to start a few seeds inside in March but it seemed that time kept getting away from me. Today, with only a few weeks to go before when I should be transplanting I took some time, pulled out my seeds, and began to plant.

I love the smell and feel of the potting soil. The colors on the seed packets are always vibrant and make me long for the sweet smell of wet earth and fresh carrots.

I realized though, when I pulled out my seed packets, that I perhaps have a problem.


Hi. My name is Lacy and I'm a seed hoarder.

Every year I buy my seeds and instead of throwing out what I don't need or better yet, passing them on to others, I put them in Zip Lock baggies, label them and put them in the garden shed.

I was surprised that packets of the same kinds of seeds seemed to purchased year after year for now three years in a row. (I'm looking at your Green Beans) Frankly, it was a little embarrassing.

I also noticed that my gardening know how and ability seem to have increased.

When I first started I just grabbed whatever seeds in the garden store looked interesting. Not sure what I was thinking when I bought jalapeno seeds. I don't even LIKE jalapenos!

Now I only purchase heirloom seeds and I think long and hard about how I want to eat what I grow. I wont plant lettuce again since my family are not big salad eaters. We love cucumbers though and I think we need a few more plants around here of those.

This year I'm trying a couple of new things. I'm going to try and grow watermelon and another kind of melon. I've added garlic.

And I threw out the old seeds. Anything from 2010 just had to go. A couple of the 2011's went too.

And I planted tomatoes. Amish Paste and Fox Cherry. I also planted mini yellow peppers. Just for fun. (And because my girls will eat them.)

I find when I do my gardening outreach it's always good to have something people can pop in their mouths right then and I hope those peppers do it for them.

Viva la Tomato!

19 Days

My approaching for preparing for TEOTWAWKI, in whatever fashion that takes, has been a two sided approach.

Buy food storage and supplies for the immediate future and learn to do on my own and reduce/reuse for later.

It was a suggestion to me when I mentioned my anxiety and the feeling of being overwhelmed that I felt when I thought about prepping and just what needed to be accomplished. It has served me well and helped to lessen my fear and anxiety about whatever is coming.

I try to spend my money and time wisely and equally on both. To that end my family budgets about $100 a month to these items. In the last 4 months I've used that money towards food storage. I buy my food storage in what some might call a haphazard fashion but I do it with meals in mind. For example one month I focused on chili and the ingredients I would need to make it. So I bought #10 cans of kidney beans, pinto beans, small red beans, black beans, tomato powder and ground beef. Now all of these ingredients can be used for other things as well so it was win win for me and my budget.

I decided to use a Food Storage Analyzer to keep track of my items and to assess the nutritional value of my food storage. (For the record I used foodstorageanalyzer.com)

After spending roughly $500 between the 4 dedicated months as well the occasional other items acquired in the last few years according to the analyzer my family of 5 (3 adult eaters and 2 child eaters) have...........wait for it.........19 days worth of food. Not even three weeks.

I'll admit that was eye opening and slightly disheartening. One the one hand, I had hoped to be better prepared by now. On the other, it just means I need to work harder and spend my money a little smarter.

Hopefully the garden produces more this year.

We have had a very mild winter which may or may not be a good thing. This weekend while Micah and I were cleaning the backyard of the dog "presents" and old leaves it dawned on my to check my garlic.

There's something I never thought I'd say. Check my garlic. Almost sounds like code for something else coming from me doesn't it?

Anyways, last fall, probably in October, I decided to expand my gardening horizons and picked up three varieties of garlic and then promptly forgot which kinds I had picked up.

In any case I planted them in my half whiskey barrels and walked away. Leaves collected in the barrel and I thought nothing of it really until Sunday.

Sunday I looked in the barrel and initially saw nothing. Which good because it's early March and the chance for snow here is pretty high. I learned that at the end of April 2 years ago when a large snow storm hit after I had transplanted all my peas and tomatoes.

Then, upon closer examination I started to notice a little green.





I've tried to cover them with some leaves but they refuse to be denied sunlight. I truly feel sick to my stomach that they are growing in so early but can hardly blame them. Today we hit 70 degrees at a time when the average temperature is around 54 degrees. So it makes sense that the garlic bulbs think they have hit the jackpot and are sprouting early.

After all, they aren't alone. I found this stowaway in my larger raised beds. This must have been a pea that dropped and hid at some point and has now decided to sprout WAY ahead of schedule.


My yard work assistants were pretty intrigued with all the green. Wilbur offered to help "pick" while Lizzie Lou just wanted to hear what all could be eaten with garlic.



I hope our lovely weather continues because I'd really like for all my plants to live. I really hope that groundhog was a liar and there is no more winter.

Just in case I think I'll pick this weed...

Holy Cow

Oh my. Apparently my last post was in AUGUST! How the time slips away....

It's rainy and wet here today, our first real indication that fall is upon us. I need to harvest my remaining items tomorrow and I think just clean out the garden and ready it for my garlic planting.

Lessons from this year ....

Tomatoes-

I need a lot more plants. I grew about 6 different plants, 1 beefsteak type, 1 cherry tomato type and 4 roma's. The space they occupied needed to larger, or they needed to be farther away from each other and I should have secured them in cages MUCH earlier. Overall I didn't get nearly as many cherry tomatoes as last year and while I got a decent amount of romas they tended to come in 2's and 3's and I never had the patience to freeze them and save them up to make sauce.

Carrots -

Did awesome. I planted two rows and have eaten several lovely orange babies already and need to harvest probably 10 more tomorrow. Overall I was pleased with the type and will buy those again next year.

Peas -

These were my struggle. Initially they experienced some pea wilt and I thought they were a goner for the year. They managed to come back and did pretty well in production, both the Sugar Snap and the Alaska Pea but overall just not in a quanity that would feed my family for even a meal. Next year I'll raise the height of the fence they grow on.

Cucumbers -

I got a few pickling cucumbers but overall just didn't pay as much attention to them as I should have. I already have a space for them picked out for next year.

Lettuce -

We don't eat lettuce. It grew but I never picked it so it was a waste. Lesson learned.

Pumpkins -

The vine has done well but while I had plenty of blossoms I still have no pumpkins. Not sure where I went wrong on that one but I think I'll attempt this again.

Zucchini -

I didn't even GROW these and I have two huge ones in my kitchen. I have no idea how to even shred the darn things nor do I have equipment to do so. Any ideas? I'd like to do something like a zucchini banana bread but the frankly pornographic size of these things is throwing me off my game.

Blueberries -

One plant died, the other has grown but produced no berries. No surprise there though as this was only it's second year.

I STILL have no gotten my cherry tree (I've decided to plant cherry instead of apple for now). My mother in law is coming to our house tomorrow I think I may try and convince her to go with me and get it. It's October for crying out loud, it's TIME.

Aside from that I'm trying to think of things to do with apples. Any ideas for canning aside from applesauce or applebutter that will expand my food know prep knowledge?

Canning Lessons

I may have mentioned this before but in the outside world I work in Human Resources. I solve problems for employees of my company. I'm good at what I do.

I also teach my co-workers proper procedures and practices. Every job I've ever had that was a team environment I have always ended up teaching and training. Which is interesting since I don't ever see myself going into training (an aspect of HR) and the thought of formal teaching makes me roll my eyes.

Recently my teaching and HR world collided with my prepping world in an interesting and mild way.

I was mentioning that I had canned the Cherry Amaretto Jam a few weeks ago and a co-worker said that sounded incredibly interesting. We talked about the process (easy) and I guess I began to get a little passionate about it because the next thing I know she's telling me she'd love to learn how to make it and I'm telling her I'd love to teach her.

Within a few days she was at my house learning to make Blueberry Jam. Well, Blueberry Grand Marnier Jam.

I find making and canning jam to be incredibly easy and so it was that Sunday. It took about 3 hours and she left with 10 half pints of blueberry deliciousness. I traded her one of her pints for one of my pints of Cherry Amaretto.

Monday we brought in bread and the new Blueberry Grand Marnier plus last years Strawberry Vanilla and Carmel Apple Butter.

Which lead to lots of oohhhs and ahhhhhs and "Ohmygoshthisissogood" mumbled around bread stuffed mouths. My ego was thoroughly stoked.

But it also led to more "I can't believe you made that" discussions in which both I and my new canning friend assured everyone that it's not as hard as it looks.

Which led to me offering to do another "Jam session". Probably later this month I'll gather strawberries from the strawberry farm and at least another 3 co-workers and we will make strawberry jam.

Well, they will. I'm considering Strawberry Margarita jam. I'm going for a boozy kind of year.

Who would have thought that last year when I make my first batch of Strawberry Vanilla Jam that a year later I'd be teaching corporate women how to make their own?

Prepping sometimes can be funny that way I guess.

White Peach Sauce & Cherry Amartetto recipes

True Texan asked for my receipe for the White Peach Sauce and the Cherry Amaretto Jam and I've been lazy to post them.


Let me first say I don't know that I personally would do the white peach sauce again. It might have just been the peaches but they were such a pain in the BUTT to peal I would be hard pressed to want to go through that again.

10 pounds of peaches, halved, peeled and chopped
3 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 cup lemon juice

Cook the peaches down in a large pot. I used my immersion blender to blend the peaches but you could use a potato masher to help them break down and release their juice. I just like smoothness of the blended peaches. Add the vanilla extract and the vanilla bean seeds and the pod so that the vanilla flavor will infuse all the peaches. Stir occasionally.

After approximately 20 minutes over medium heat, the peaches should be fairly well cooked down. Remove the vanilla bean from the pot (making sure to squeeze all the goodness from it).

Taste and add sugar to achieve your desired sweetness. I found a happy, flavorful place at 3 cups, but depending on the innate sweetness in the peaches, you might be able to stop at 2 cups. You could also add peach juice or apple juice to cut the sugar but I'm lazy and tend to just use the white sugar.

Pour peach sauce into pint jars, leaving a bit more than an inch of headspace. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each jar and stir in with a chopstick or plastic spoon. Wipe rims, apply lids and process for 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

If you want to make butter from some of the sauce, reserve 6-8 cups of sauce and cook down in a slow cooker (making sure to add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for every two cups of sauce at the beginning of cooking).

Cherry Amaretto Jam

· 8 cups cherries - pitted and stemmed (about 3 lbs - ish) Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1/2 cup amaretto Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1/2 cup water Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 1.75 oz package NO SUGAR NEEDED pectin Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 2 tablespoon lemon juice Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 tablespoon vanilla Ask a question about this ingredient.

· 1 teaspoon almond extract

Basically I pitted and chopped the cherries and threw them in a pot with the everything but the pectin. Cooked that a bit, hit it with my immersion blender (what can I say, I like my jam smooth), added the pectin and then put it in jars and processed them for 20 minutes since I live above sea level over 1000 feet.

So far, DELICIOUS.

This weekend I will be making blueberry almond butter and teaching a co-worker how to make blueberry grand marnier jam. It's beginning to feel like a lot of the stuff I can this year may include alcohol.

What does that say about my year?

Bite

Earlier this summer I thought my peas were done for. They had this weird yellow wilt going on and my research indicated that they were doomed. That was pretty depressing since the old remedy seemed to double dig and hope for the best next year.

As the summer as continued my peas have rallied and I have been able to pick a handful of pods every couple of days. Normally I stand outside and munch on either the pods whole (I have sugar snap peas in one area), or open the peas and eat them raw (and Alaskan Peas in another part of the garden).

Tuesday though my not quite 2 year old saw me open a pod and raising his hand up to me said "bite?"

So I crouched down and let him pick the small green pea out of my hand. He popped it in his mouth, looked at me and said "MMMMMM".

That right there made the entire raised bed building, filling, planting and water system insanity worth it.

Because you see, he won't eat canned peas from the tin cans found at the grocery store and who can blame him. If you ate one of those and then a fresh pea from the garden and didn't know they were related....well..you would doubt they were related frankly.

Admittedly, my garden isn't producing a majority of our food right now. It might not ever.

But my son ate 20 fresh peas from that garden and loved them.

And that was worth it to me.

Starting to see the changes

When we started gardening and changing to a more productive backyard last year I accidentally insulted my mother in law.

She was suggesting some plant for my front yard and I said, "Yes I know it'll look nice but I want my yard to actually DO something."

She kinda snapped back at me "My yard DOES something you know."

Her yards, both front and back, are indeed beautiful and she has spent YEARS perfecting them. We eloped in her backyard because it was so beautiful. They do something. They just do something DIFFERENT than what I want mine to do. They don't produce food.

Throughout this year though when we've been working on my yard or visiting and touring her backyard I've made little comments here and there and it seems like they MIGHT be finally starting to make sense.

It started when the vining clematis on her shed died. She was wondering what else to plant and I offhandedly suggested vining fruits of vegetables. I believe I suggested cucumbers. She informed me last week they've decided to take my advice but are going with peas because it's a cooler area of the yard. I smiled and offered to give her some of my seeds.

After putting in my planters a couple of weeks ago my father in law decided he wanted planters in HIS yard. They spent the entire day today getting rock and wood to build their raised beds. To be sure, theirs will be far fancier than mine; they have plans for a walking path through them, a sitting area near them and according to my father in law he printed a companion gardening plan for his beds.

My mother in law informed me that they bought heirloom seeds and plants for the beds as well today. She talked about non-GMO plants and seeds etc.

I smiled.

No need to be pushy, sometimes it's just the little suggestion and seeds in fertile soil that changes hearts.

Mothers Day Gifts - Food

This took much longer than I anticipated, so sorry for that.

Another idea for Mother's Day Gifts is food. Not just a box of chocolates though, not with a prepper's mindset!

If you're giving to a total non-prepper there is always the homemade goodies such as jams, jellies, butters etc. Or even homemade herbal tea if you're particularly talented. Actually those are great gifts for preppers too, what am I saying?

For those who are getting into the swing of food storage you could always provide a Meal in a Jar (or mylar bag) to even just the book if you're feeling uninspired.

Then of course there is always #10 cans of freeze dried or dehydrated foods either ingredients or meals.

Bon Appetite for Mother's Day!

Mothers Day Gifts - Plants

In my Mothers Day Series I will continue with the suggestion of living green things.

For the non-prepper of course there is the option of buying flowers or a potted plant.
If you're looking to turn the heart perhaps something like an Aloe plant in a nice pot would be just the thing.

With the pots for these plants you can also order a personalized one OR you can do what I did last year and paint the kids hands with outdoor paint and press them onto a terra cotta plant. That way Grandma has the grandkids (or Aunty has the nieces and nephews or Mom has the kids) AND a useful plant!

I also like the idea of a windowsill herb pot or even a larger pot with kitchen herbs for use. Consider what herbs the woman is most likely to use, assuming she cooks, and plant some of those and accompanying herbs. Recently at my local grocery store I saw pots of herbs for Italian cooking that included Basil, Oregano and Sage just to name the ones I remember.

You can also give the special mom in your life a container bush. Certain varieties of blueberry do quite well in peat moss and a pot rather than in the ground. This might be just the thing to get the gears turning about what other kinds of edibles could be grown in pots.

Finally one of my last suggestions is growing an heirloom plant from seed. There is a lot of time and energy that goes into growing heirlooms from seed and when you present the half grown seedling you can explain the reason WHY the heirloom is superior than that of the nursery plant (if you think that it is) or why you chose that particular plant to grow and give to that special "mom".

I personally am toying with the idea of giving my Mother in law one of my Amish Paste tomato babies. I've spent all sorts of time telling her why I prefer to grow them over the "regular" hybrids I can buy at the nursery but perhaps giving her one to complete and taste would bring home what I'm talking about when she thinks I'm crazy.

Starting to sweat

I'm not going to lie, I have put off posting because I was afraid I was going to only have bad news. The tomatoes I had planted were not sprouting and I wasn't sure what to do.

Last year you see, I started my seeds indoors in February because I was so excited by the idea of gardening. I just plopped whatever I found in some peat pots and soil I had lying around and boom, I had all sorts of things sprouting within days. I had peas, tomatoes, jalapenos....it was great. A little too great I think. My peas never did really handle the transition outdoors in May.

But this year it feels as though it's taken FOREVER for any sign of green. Finally, about few days ago I got a tentative sprout. And then another, and then ANOTHER. Right now I have 6 Amish Paste Tomato plant sprouts. I'm still a little anxious but am feeling like I can ALMOST start breathing again.

I've been asked why I don't just buy the starters at the nursery. I don't think there is anything wrong with starters and in fact if my raised beds end up being as big as I suspect I may just end up having to supplement with some because I don't know that I planted enough seeds.

I do like seeing something I've started reach fruition, which is one of my favorite parts of gardening. And parenting. Sure, I could just adopt a 13 year old but what fun would that be? I like to see them (both plants and children) start small, almost from nothing, and grow into something amazing.

The difference of course is that I plant to eat the fruits of my labor with tomato. Not so much with children. Hopefully. Although there are days.........

In a powered down world I'm not sure that we will have such a steady supply of starter tomatoes at the local nursery. If we can get there the cost of a food crop might just be exorbitant if we are living in a world where growing our own food is the main source of our sustenance. Heck, being able to grow and sell starters for food crops might even be a home based business for those with particularly good green thumbs.

So having some practice on the whole plant life cycle as a gardener is probably a good idea. Right now if I kill all these plants tomorrow, I can do to the nursery and try again next year. In the future...maybe not so much.

What's that? Snow on the ground? Temperature is below freezing? Bah! It's spring if I ever felt it! So you know what that means right?

It's time for your FAVORITE annual series, Lacy's Vegetablepalooza!

This year I've toned down my excitement and am eagerly awaiting my raised beds, hopefully going in at the end of the month. *fingers crossed* That means that this year I have honed my focus and know what I want to grow instead of just haphazardly planting whatever I felt like.

Since a lot of my later season plans for canning involve tomatoes it only made sense to try and grow them. To that end today I planted 6 Amish Paste tomatoes, 1 cherry tomato, 1 plain old eating tomato and a pea plant. Just for funzies.

One of the good things about my house is the southern facing garden window in the kitchen. While my own green thumb is pretty small, this window makes it seem like I'm a LOT better at gardening or growing things than I really am. Thank you ex-husband for selecting this house. At least that window.


Hopefully in the next 2 weeks I'll have some sprouts. Then I'll be on my way to tomato sauce BABY!

Coveting

This weekend my family drove 6+ hours to visit my closest relatives in Wyoming. I hadn't seen them in almost a year and it was a good visit. My own mother passed away over 5 years ago so it's nice for my Aunt to play Grandma to my kids.

My Aunt lives outside of a small town called Buffalo. Population is around 3900. She grows her own garden and my uncle hunts so that they are able to provide a large majority of their own food every year. She bakes her own bread. All of it.

She has a large wood fireplace that heats the whole house (which is three levels if you include the basement) and a cold room that I covet.

She isn't "prepping". She isn't preparing for a coming Apocalypse. She's just providing for her family and friends. I spent a good hour just lingering in her cold room, admiring her shelves, her work.

It's large enough to have a spot for her husband to make his own ammo. She has potatoes and large bags of flour. She has MASSIVE shelves that I can only dream of.

It was the food on these shelves that I admired too though. All of it is her own canned items. Hers and a few gifts she's received. She had apple butter. Applesauce. Peach jams. Raspberry jam. Pickles both small and sliced. She had beets. She had peppers. Tomato sauce. Green chili sauce (I think).

She also had dried herbs. Thyme, basil, oregano. And dried orange peel and lemon zest. It was impressive. I found myself with massive cold room envy. House envy even since her home is built in such a way (it's a backsplit I think) that not very much wood energy is required to heat it, even with 3 floors. She has a large southern facing window and it's well insulated. She has a pump that supplies the majority of their water. Did I mention the envy?

It certainly gives me something to strive for though. I like seeing it being done and having goals.

Christmas Gifts

I neglected to mention (because I didn't post at all in December) that for Christmas this year we gave canned food as gifts. Home canned food that is.

The inspiration hit me in the summer while I was going over my list of "to can" items. I thought it might be fun to can something that represented each of the members of the family and give the collection of items as gifts to family and friends.

My canned gifts were:

Lace's White Chocolate Raspberry Sauce
M's Caramel Apple Butter
K's Frog Swamp Cinnamon Apple Sauce
L's Vanilla Strawberry Jam
W's Fuzzy Butt Peach Butter
Bad Dog Peach Salsa

All of the main ingredients are Colorado grown and where I could I supplied additional items from my garden like jalapenos and onions for the salsa.

Dearest husband made labels that reflected each of us. For example L's had hearts on it, while K's had Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. W's had a pacifier that looked like a peach at the end.

We got plastic baskets from our local dollar store and wrapped them up. They were HUGE hits with all friends and family and a great ego boost for me. It's one thing to think my jam tastes good, it 's another to hear that some families ate it up before Christmas break was over.

When people asked about it (and they almost always did) I had an opportunity to share with people about eating local (since all the ingredients were as local as I could get them except of course the chocolate) and preserving our own. I got to talk about the environment, useful skills, local economics, avoiding preservatives and chemicals and health. It just LOOKED like a jar of Peach Salsa instead of charts and grafts etc.

We have already received some jars back from family with winks to "not forget them next year".

Which leaves me some creativity to think about next year.

Help me readers? You're my only hope?

Does the idea of our Canned Family sound like a winner and something I could do next year with different canned items? Ideas include:

Pears - pear chutney, pear salsa, pear butter
Peaches - spiced peaches, peach ketchup, vanilla peach sauce, peach rum sauce
Strawberries - ......after strawberry jam I'm not sure what else to do
Tomatoes - Tomato salsa, tomato sauce, marinara sauce, spaghetti sauce, whole tomatoes
Cherries - Cherry jam, Cherry pie filling

You get the idea...

The OTHER idea I had was to make "gift packs". For example:

Home canned tomato sauce, homemade (and dried) noodles, homemade bread and dried garden herbs

Home canned salsa with homemade chips and seasonings

You get the idea. Right?

So if it was you, which would you receive better? The Canned Family or the Gift Packs?

Bread

I'm such a doomer....

One half of my brain tells me to master skills, like making bread by hand. In a post SHTF/TEOTWAWKI situation I wont be buying bread at a store, I'll be making it for my hungry family. So I made bread this weekend. Sure, I'd done it before, years and years ago but it was more of a "Oh can I do that" novelty thing and not so much "Master this skill so your family doesn't starve" thing. I made two types of bread, both successful in that they were bread but one was certainly better than the other.

The other half of my brain says that while there is wheat growing in Colorado right now and even if there was what are the chances that I would be able to get my hands on it. Sure, I can store some wheat and get a grinder (and I probably will at some point) but being in the suburbs means that I don't have a LOT of space, certainly not enough to grow enough wheat for my small family of 5 let alone the people I assume will be moving this way to be with us in an extended emergency. So why bother learning to make bread if I truly don't think I'll have access to wheat in the future?

That's part of the "rub" with TEOTWAWKI - how bad does it get in your mind and what will you have access to the the future if you're right?

Planning for next year

I know that often this seems like a garden blog more a survival or preparedness blog but it's really not.

It's just that in my mind self sufficiency is the path towards survival. Sure, I buy #10 cans of food. Not often. But I save up and do occasionally buy it. I do that though with the idea in mind that if a total economic/social/energy/EMP/whatever collapse were to happen I would have that stuff for TODAY because I am new to preparedness and I am, well, not totally prepared. I would like, in the future, to someday produce enough food from my small suburban lot to at least feel like I had a handle on survival if I had to. At least in the short term until I could get to somewhere bigger.

So I garden. I plan on fruit trees and bushes. I hide herbs both kitchen and medicinal into my landscape. I am slowly growing a preparedness library and constantly testing myself to see "can I do that without electricity?"

My family is not on board. Well. They are on board with the small containers of tomatoes, of pretty flowers in the front yard (can you say chamomile?) and the canning of local produce. But they are not yet into the bigger picture of powering down, of doing by hand, of going without or making due. Not yet.

Everything is a process. Just like learning to garden, can, cook from scratch is a process. And I'm getting there.

Next year will see big changes to my back yard. Right now it's large and has some very old tall trees (I think elm but I could be making that up). It's mostly grass or dirt with some trees and bushes around the perimeter. There are lilacs, that I love and other stuff, that I don't care about.

Next year though will see actual garden beds put in with a work table and an arch to a new path. My mother in law has it all planned out. I think she knows about the survival/preparedness stuff but has never asked about it. She has, however, seen my under stairs cold storage closet and I've talked at length about how I want to produce from my land but make it beautiful (to be deceptive). There will be more tomatoes next year, more beans, more cucumbers. She has promised there will be apple trees.

So I've already started looking at seed catalogs and researching heirlooms. I've started saving money for the materials. I've started planning meals.

I'm excited to plan, that's actually my favorite part of preparedness. The planning. I like to have a list, a plan, an idea.

This winter will find me focused on cooking from scratch and local. I'll be working on my library and working on my kids, trying to power down, trying to increase their attention spans.

It's exciting for me because I feel like I'm finally making progress.

And I'm ready for green beans straight off the vine.

Applesauce

Several years ago when I was still married to my first husband I escaped to my Aunt's house in Wyoming with my then only two kids and begged her to teach me to make and can applesauce.

At the time I had a two year old who are like a bird and one of the only things she would eat was applesauce. It also seemed a LOT easier than learning how to can salsa or make jam. I was so silly back then.

Ahem.

This weekend I decided that while my dreams of planting appletrees this year did not come to fruition I would still make applesauce. And apple butter. I actually made carmel apple butter.

The apples we local, bought at the nursery down the road from us. I bought half a bushel of Jonathon and half a bushel of Jongold. Note to self: perhaps a bushel is too many apples.



That's a lot of apples in total.

I happen to own a foley mill bought at a garage sale for $1 but I also own a kitchen aid. I will admit, I tried to make the applesauce after cooking them in the foley mill first.

It was taking too long.

So I ended up using my Kitchen Aid mixer to make them into pulp and them using the mill to make it smooth and keep out the debris of apple cores and peel etc. It worked well for me.



I spent 8 hours on Saturday and another 1 on Sunday because a)my kitchen in small, b)my canner only holds 7 pints at a time and c)apple butter takes longer than I had anticipated. But in the end I ended up with the equivilent of 21 pints of applesauce and apple butter.





Feels pretty satisfying overall. But next year I'm employing child labor for the foley mill. That thing sucked the energy right out of me.

Putting together the "book"

My outlook on the whole "TEOTWAWKI/SHTF/ZOMBIESOMG" thing is mutlifaceted. And generally I don't actually include zombies in my planning. Those guys are RELENTLESS.

On the one hand I worry that I have started "too late" meaning that when everything happens, whatever 'everything' is, I wont have done "enough" to prepare. Part of that is just knowing me as a person. Follow through is sometimes a struggle for me and I tend to lose focus sometimes.

On the other hand I know that whatever happens it will be long term and things may never get back to "normal", at least not in my lifetime.

I sit down and think about what I believe is most LIKELY to happen in the near future and I try and prepare for the short term and the long term.

I suspect that peak oil/high energy cost are most likely going to be what sets our society off. I believe we have been experiencing the slow buildup to this but that at somepoint we are going to experience more rolling black outs, more energy distruptions, possibly rationing or astronomical pricing.

On top of this I see food cost continuing to rise. Climate change is causing zones to change and the US is not exactly diversifing it's crops. As it subsidizes corn and soy beans to add into processed food and allows GMO to be the norm we will begin to see the cost of other food, especially fruits and vegetables rise. Couple that with the way we continue to treat animals as "protein product" and assembly line raise them with little actual attention paid to conditions or safety and we will see health continue to decline for our population.

What I'm saying is, I don't think I'm going to wake up one morning and nothing will work ala One Second After or Dies the Fire. I think it's gradual decline like putting a frog in water on a stove and gradually turning up the heat.

I do still wanna have a back up plan for the stuff not working thing though too.

So my plan is two fold. On the one hand is the storing of food, especially food that I'm not sure I'll be able to grow or get easily as food costs rise. So I gradually store some of that and have a chart and a plan as to what I want/need to aquire and in what priortiy.

On the other hand I am working on sourcing our food locally when possible, learning to grow and garden our food as well as incorporate wild edibles when possible. It's a slow process right now.

I worry though that the time may come where I wont have access to the internet and so things that I need to know wont be available to me and I wont have it in a book.

Things like recipes for a dutch oven or using dehydrated foods. Medicinal plants, wild edibles and when to plant things are also on the top of my list. I have some canning information but would love more.

So I'm working at putting together a binder with some of that information. At least to have it on hand until I have estabilished a library or learned how to do things from memory.

So. That's my winter project.

If it were you, what things would you want to have on hand in case you didn't have access to the internet? What information would you need? What information would you want a beginner to have? What books would you want in your library?

Carrot Season

Last Thursday I FINALLY got around to harvesting my carrots. I had been waiting and waiting to pull them trying to give them every last day possible for growing. Which is really just for my selfish pleasure because I like straight out of the garden, barely cleaned from the dirt carrots.

I had WAY more carrots than I realized. Apparently all summer the jalapeno plant and the rosemary did a great job disguising my carrots so that when I went to pull them I was surprised with several more than I had planned for.

Now granted, these are short and stubby. The car keys are in the picture to give you an idea of size.

But I'm still pretty pleased with them. I grew these babies from seed and I believe they turned out great!