Author: cityprepping-author

  • Marti’s Corner 103

    Marti’s Corner 103

    Thank you to Barbara for sending us this link.  

    *** Charging your phone with no power. You need a car adapter, a 9 Volt battery, a small spring (from a ballpoint pen) and a small piece of tape to hold everything in place.  https://youtube.com/shorts/GM3QQw0N9Bc

    After watching this video, we looked him up on YouTube:  Wranglerstar —- and started watching all his other videos…  How to store and waterproof matches with turpentine, How to make a taut line knot, 15 Essentials for a Car Emergency Kit, Top 10 Truck Tools every man needs.  You know, cool stuff like that.  We like that the videos are short – 3-4 minutes.  

    GARDEN HAPPENINGS:

    ** We found another good companion planting chart and the pdf is attached below.   We also read a discussion about whether marigolds really do help prevent pests.  One person declared that they deter rabbits.  Another said the rabbits came and ate all the marigolds first!  

    According to Berns Landscaping, “Marigolds actually attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs, parasitic wasps, and lacewings which all prey on harmful garden insects.  In addition, they eliminate nematodes with toxins found with plants.  Nematodes are small microscopic worms that damage the roots of a vegetable.”

    ** We’re going to plant our cauliflower outside tomorrow.  (They are not killed by a mild frost, so out they go.)  We’re hoping Spring is on the way as the 10-day forecast shows overnight lows in the 50’s starting this weekend.  This weekend—it’s all going outside!!!

    THIS WEEK’S PURCHASE- canned meat – 10 cans!

    Canned MeatWith all the scare talk about killing hundreds of thousands of chickens, and slaughtering herds of cattle, we have not seen a drastic rise in meat prices.  That’s not to say it’s not coming.  If you can, get some cans of chicken, or cans of beef (Spam was on sale under $3 and we haven’t seen it that cheap for a long time).  You can get 85% lean ground beef for under $4 at Winco if you buy 10 pounds — which is exactly what we did just a few weeks ago.  Then we canned it up.  Boneless, the skinless chicken was under $2.  Find someone who can help you “can” it.  There are plenty of YouTube videos that you can watch, but a lot of people are a little scared of pressure canners and would feel better getting help in person.  OR you can pay for freeze-dried meat which is more expensive, but someone else does all the work for you.

    MISC PURCHASE:

    Miscelleanous PurchaseYou should have a water bottle that filters water.  

    There are different brands, of course.  You can get this one here: Philips Water GoZero Everyday Filter Water Bottle with Philips Everyday Tap Water Filter.  We have a Seychelle brand.  In fact, we have a few of them….one in each 72 hour kit.  If we have to forage for water, we can fill the bottle with whatever water we can find and know it will be filtered and clean to drink.

    FOOD STORAGE RECIPES:

    Chicken Stuffing Casserole

    (We’re actually making this for dinner this week)

    • 4 c. stuffing
    • 1 c. melted butter

         (Since it’s just two people at my house, I usually cut this in 1/2)

         Press 1/2 of the stuffing into a 13 X 9 casserole dish.  

         (Again, I use something MUCH smaller now)

    In a small pan, heat

    • 1 1/2 c. peas
    • 1 c. milk
    • 1 can cream of chicken soup
    • 1 can cream of celery soup
    • 3 c. canned chicken or shredded rotisserie chicken.

         (So, it’s hard to cut this part in 1/2 because then you end up with 1/2 can of soup.  Ugh.  So what I usually do, is make the whole thing, and then put 1/2 of the mix in a freezer bag and save it until the next time I want to make it)

         Pour the mix over the stuffing.

         Top with the remaining stuffing.

         Bake 375˚ for 30 min.

    Note:  We’ve been making our own stuffing by cutting up dried bread into little cubes and dehydrating it until it’s totally dry.  Now we don’t have to store those huge boxes!

    Poppy Seed Chicken

    Here is another one that we really like.  Craig……not so much (which was really disappointing when we made it the first time)  The only thing you need fresh is sour cream.

    • 4 rolls of crushed Ritz crackers
    • 2 sticks melted butter
    • 2 TB poppy seeds

         Mix together

         In a separate bowl:

    • 2 c. diced cooked chicken
    • 2 cans Cream of Chicken soup
    • 2 c. sour cream

         Add 1/2 of the cracker mix to the chicken mix.  Put this in a 13 X 9 pan.  Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cracker mix on top.  Bake 350˚ for 30 min.

    Scones

    There is nothing so delicious as hot scones, fried, with butter, and/or cinnamon, and/or frosting, and/or jam.  EVERYTHING tastes good on scones.

    • 2 c. buttermilk – warm up to lukewarm.  When you put a small drop on the inside of your arm (like you do when you test for baby bath water), it should feel barely warm.  
    • 1 TB yeast
    • 1/4 c. warm water (same testing)
    • 1 TB sugar
    • 1 beaten egg
    • 3 TB oil
    • 3/4 tsp salt
    • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
    • 1/4 tsp baking soda
    • 4 c. flour

         Mix together and knead till smooth.  Let rest a few minutes.  Then break off pieces, flatten in your hands, and fry in hot oil.  

        If you don’t have buttermilk, just add 2 TB vinegar to 2 c. milk and let it sit for a minute.  

    Reference:

    Companion Planting Chart
    Click for Full Size Companion Chart

    Marti Shelley

  • Marti’s Corner 102

    Marti’s Corner 102

    * Water filters.  We were very lucky to find a Berkey Water filter at an estate sale just by chance.  The Big Berkey is now costing about $480.  THEN, someone mentioned that you can make your own with buckets, and just use the filters.  That’s the most important part anyway.  Sure enough, this guy shows you just how to do it:  (104) DIY Big Berkey Style Water Filter System with 5 Gallon Buckets (for 1/4 the cost).  In fact, we just googled “Make your own water filter” and a bunch of videos came up.  

    GARDEN HAPPENINGS:

    * We’ve had a few sunny days, and we’ve used that time to finally dispose of all our dead plants from last fall.  All those beautiful tomato plants we watered all winter just finally died in the frost because we didn’t cover them.  They didn’t have any tomatoes on them anyway and the little green tomatoes that WERE there were rotting before they were ripening.  

    This year’s plan is to plant MOSTLY determinant tomatoes that will produce, ripen, and die.  They have a few indeterminate plants that will give me tomatoes here and there for the whole summer.  At least that’s the plan.

    Indoor Plants*Our indoor plants are getting huge, waiting to go out into the garden.  Mental note–next year, don’t plant them quite so early.  Oddly enough, everything is growing except the bell peppers.  They are still quite small (only the first two leaves).  Hmmmm. Even the celery had to be replanted because it outgrew its little container.

    Aren’t they so cute!!!

    Everything grows so well in the house – NO BUGS!!!  Temperate climate!  If certain plants didn’t need to be pollinated, we’d want to grow my whole garden inside!

    ** Just a few notes about moving plants from inside to outside.  They need to adjust to the sun.  BEFORE you plant, take them outside and increase the sun time.  Day one:  1 hour.  Day two 2-3 hours.  After that, they should be fine.

    The second thing is transplanting.  When you disturb the roots or expose the roots to the air, you weaken the plant.  To combat this, transplant and water right away, so that any air pockets will fill with water and protect the roots.  Then, cover the plants with shade:  a sheet, a tarp, whatever.  THREE DAYS!!!  Give the plant a chance to rest and recuperate. Here in the house, when we re-pot something, we keep it away from the lights for three days. It’s a good rule of thumb.

    THIS WEEK’S PURCHASE: peanut butter

    Peanut Butters“Peanut butter is loaded with so many good, health-promoting nutrients including Vitamin #, magnesium, iron, selenium, and vitamin B6.  Research shows that people who regularly eat nuts and nut butter, including peanut butter, are less likely to develop heart disease and type 2 diabetes.”  The Healthy Perks of Peanut Butter | Denver Health Medical Plan

    Peanut butter has fiber and protein and can help control appetite.

    Some state that you can store powdered peanut butter for up to 15 years.  We’re not a big fan of powdered peanut butter.  But we have found that regular peanut butter WILL go rancid after 1 1/2 – 2 years.  Soooooo, we just don’t store that much–only about 1 1/2 years’ worth.  With just the two of us, we don’t eat THAT MUCH peanut butter, but Craig does like it on his pancakes and waffles.  In addition, every 2-3 months, we’ll make some kind of dessert with peanut butter.  A good plan would be to start with one jar open and 2 jars on the shelf.  Be sure and write the date you buy them on the front, so you can rotate them.  First in, first out.

    MISC. PURCHASE:  matches – a lot of them!!!

    ZMatchesKnowing how to make fire was one of man’s greatest achievements!!!  It might be a fun project this summer to have a campout (even in your backyard) and practice making fire with flint and steel, or with some kind of firestarter.  Every time we do this, we’re genuinely surprised that wildfires ever start.  Making fire is really hard to do!!!  The alternative to “making” fire is to store matches and tinder.  Suppose you have to make a fire every day for a year.  That’s 365 matches.  If you’ve ever lit a fire, you know that getting a flame with only one match is a hopeful endeavor at best.  Now we’re up to 730 matches. (2 a day) I keep matches in my 72-hour kits, in the kitchen, in the garage, and in just about every place.  

    FOOD STORAGE RECIPES:

    Reeses Eggs (great at Easter time)

    • 1 c. creamy peanut butter
    • 1/4 c. melted butter
    • 2 TB brown sugar
    • 2 tsp vanilla
    • dash salt

        Stir together

    • 2 c. powder sugar – Stir into the peanut butter mix

        Refrigerate until firm enough to work with.  Flatten to 1/2″ thick.  Use a small egg cookie cutter and cut eggs.  Line a tray with parchment paper and put cut eggs on the tray.  Freeze 45-60 min.  Just before taking them out of the freezer, melt together:

    • 1 c. milk
    • 1 c. semi sweet chocolate pieces

         (okay, we have not made these yet…. but this seems like a lot of milk to me.  In fact, we’d probably just dip in straight chocolate.  Every time we’ve had to thin out chocolate, we’ve used a few teaspoons of shortening, not milk, and NEVER water!!! )

        Makes 16-17 eggs.  

        Dip frozen eggs into the melted chocolate.  

    Granola Bars

    • 4 c. Rice Krispies
    • 1 c. oats
    • 1 1/2 c. nuts and seeds

    Cook:

    • 1 c. brown sugar
    • 1 c. honey
    • 1 c. peanut butter

         Melt together.

    • 1 TB vanilla – add

        Mix with the rice mix.  Can add chocolate chips

        Press into a 13 X 9 buttered dish.  Cool 1 hour.

    Chicken Rice Soup

    • 1 TB oil
    • 1 onion minced.  Saute onion until it begins to be golden
    • 1 tsp garlic
    • 1/2 tsp thyme

         Add to onion and cook a few minutes more

    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1/8 tsp pepper
    • 5 c. chicken broth
    • 3 large carrots peeled and sliced
    • 1 celery stalk, sliced
    • 1 large chicken breast
    • 1 c. brown rice

        Add and simmer 30 minutes.  Stir every 10 minutes until the vegetables and rice are tender.

        Remove chicken and shred – add back in

        Add 1 c. evaporated (or whole) milk

        Heat through.

    Reference:

    Companion Planting Chart

    Marti Shelley

  • The 4 Final Rules of Your Food Production

    The 4 Final Rules of Your Food Production

    All plants have a preferred temperature range, light, and water requirements.  When those are perfectly met, the plant has a greater chance of thriving.  When they aren’t, the plant could exhibit stunted growth, fail to fruit or flower, or simply die.  In this blog, we’re going to cover these critical considerations, so let’s jump in. LOCATION: Figuring Out Your Zone Locate Your ZoneA plant hardiness zone is a geographic area defined mainly by a ten-year average minimum temperature.  Some zone calculations also consider other factors.  The most commonly used hardiness scale in America is the United States Department of Agriculture scale.  It ranges on a scale from 0 to 13.  As the USDA system is based entirely on an area’s average annual extreme minimum temperature, it is limited in describing the full climatic conditions a gardener may have to account for in a particular place.  These maps do not indicate maximum temperature, humidity, light, and soil moisture content, all critical factors in a plant’s survival.  They are also irrelevant if you plan to grow entirely indoors or in a greenhouse.  They provide a starting point for the types of plants that will thrive in your outdoor environment and a general idea of when to plant.  Planting schedules, like the one we will also put in the comments below, give a grower a general idea of when to plant.  In some zones, successive planting is possible.  In other zones, the growing season is very narrow, so more attention must be paid to when the last frost has likely passed and when the first frost will occur.  Seasoned gardeners understand their zone and often start their plants indoors when snow is still on the ground.  That’s why they are harvesting well before everyone else. Plants react differently based on the temperature, water, and light they receive.  Tomatoes, for instance, will only set fruit if the temperature at night for at least three days is above 55 degrees.  After pollination, if temperatures are above 100 degrees for 3 hours or more in two successive days, the fruit will not be set, and likely the flowers will fall off the plant.  If you deprive a plant of water, it may go into self-preservation mode, bolt, and race to seed.  Understanding the “goldilocks” zone for each of your plants will also help you to adjust your watering schedule, how vulnerable they may be in extreme weather conditions, or even if shading, fanning, or supplemental light will be beneficial to them.  All of this stems from knowing the zone in which you are planting. Most all plant labels will carry an indicator of their preferred zonal range.  These are broad.  A carrot, for instance, can be grown in zones 3-10.  Pineapple can be grown in zones 11-12.  That doesn’t mean you can’t plant pineapples in Finland or carrots in the tropics.  You can, so long as they are inside a structure where temperature, moisture, and light can all be artificially adjusted.  These zones are guidelines for temperature ranges and climates that help gardeners determine what plants will thrive in their environment and what plants will need special considerations.  If your vegetable plant prefers a high zone number, it won’t like frost and may require full sun in your area.  If your vegetable plant prefers a lower number, it will not like high heat and may prefer partial sun or shade. CARE: High vs. Low Maintenance Plants High and Low Maintenance PlnatsWe haven’t seen a lot of discussion on this topic because most people assume if you’re gardening, you are also planning on spending a good deal of time doing that.  We don’t have hours and hours to devote to gardening.  We wish we did, but other things in life require my attention.  For this reason, we have changed my grow areas to be as low maintenance as possible over the years.  Some plants will only do well if you keep the weeds out.  Other plants must be encouraged to set and produce good fruit by carefully pruning them and controlling green growth.  Over the years, we have dabbled with this quite a bit with my tomato plants. Tomato plants are a perfect example of this.  They are of two types–determinate and indeterminate.  Determinate tomato plants are smaller and grow like a bush. They usually grow up to five feet tall, so they are perfect for a small garden or container gardening. Indeterminate tomato plants have a more vine-like structure and can grow up to 8-10 feet tall.  Obviously, indeterminate tomato plants must be trellised, staked, supported, and pruned.  Determinate tomato plants may only need to be supported with occasional pruning.  All tomato plants need to be pruned.  When we plant mine, we always plant the first set of leaves furthest at the base.  These will turn into roots.  Then, after the plant has grown a bit, I have to prune the leaves at the bottom of the plant above the soil line.  As the plant grows, we have to control growth and focus the energy to the fruit by pruning what are called suckers– offshoots that will only create foliage.  Some gardeners nearly strip their plants of leaves when fruit sets, but we’re afraid of harming the plant, so we leave a considerable amount of green.  That also means I’m more susceptible to tomato hornworms and other voracious plant eaters.  We have learned how to deal with these pests too, and we spray  Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) -an organic bacteria.  All of that requires a considerable amount of attention and time.  Because of this, we have gone from a high of eight varieties to just two plants per season over the years.  We are talking about years of learning and not just a season. Another consideration about care and space is dwarf varieties.  These tend to be more compact and smaller plants that can still have excellent yields.  Because they are smaller, they require less maintenance and are a popular choice for apartments, containers, and smaller gardens.  At least at this point in my life, we need lower maintenance plants.  For instance, we have some pepper plants, garlic, sunchokes, amaranth, huckleberries, chard, lettuce, onion varieties, carrots, and a few other plants we can simply check on every other day or so.  Then we can pull the occasional weed, fertilize, water, or whatever else we need to do.  They’re low-maintenance plants because we simply don’t have the time.  When you lay out your grow area, keep the time you have to tend it in mind.  If you desire to set it and forget it, make sure you choose super hearty, independent, and compact plants.  Melons, squash, beans, peas, and other sprawling plants will require trellising or guidance in your outdoor space, and they only sometimes climb on their own.  If you plan on looking after them nearly daily, that’s fine.  If you plan on ignoring them, you might find that they aren’t setting fruit properly, rotting where they come into contact with wet soil, or have a bug infestation eating them. We have also learned over the years that consistent watering schedules are critical to well-developed fruits and vegetables.  If your lifestyle requires you to only water when you get around to it every third day and then soak the plants well, your plants will die, the fruit will crack, and vegetables will exhibit that stress by being poorly formed.  Some plants like water on their leaves.  Other plants do not.  For some plants, it can increase the likelihood of leaf blight. There are sometimes high and low-maintenance plants of the same type.  We can grow a Walla Walla Sweet, but it likes 14-16 hours of daylight and requires 90-110 days to mature fully.  That narrows the growing season for some.  They also need very particular and consistent moisture levels.  Every year we do an onion patch, but we have planted Egyptian Walking Onions this year.  This smaller onion variety that sets bulbs at the top of the plant requires almost no maintenance on my part and can be planted much closer together.   With each plant you choose to grow, consider your time and lifestyle.  Don’t rely upon the few lines on the label on the pot.  Read up on your particular variety.  Understand the maintenance it will require and how well you can maintain the perfect growing environment for the plant.  You can still succeed with high-maintenance plants that you ignore, but your results will increase when you give the plant the attention it needs. HYBRIDS VS HEIRLOOMS HeirloomMost vegetable seeds you purchase at your local store are a narrow range of cultivars that have been carefully selected to provide growers with the best harvests from the heartiest of plants.  Sometimes they have been cross-pollinated or hybridized to provide the most robust plant possible.  That’s great for many, but it ignores the thousands of other varieties.  Many look at the seed section of their local store and marvel at the possibilities.  We see it as a very narrow range of options.  Most seed sections try to emulate the local produce section of your grocery store, where perfectly manicured displays of uniform-sized fruits and vegetables form neat displays. On the other hand, heirloom varieties offer the grower varieties of plants that aren’t typically associated with large-scale monoculture agricultural operations.  We use the term heirloom varieties quite loosely to include all those fruits and vegetables our ancestors grew or foraged that you won’t likely find in your grocery store.  The colonial farm looked far different from today’s massive monoculture agricultural operations.  That’s an application of the term that is far broader than it was intended.  These heirlooms often have much better flavors and character than their perfect cousins in the store.  The tradeoff, however, is that heirlooms may be more susceptible to disease or infestation, and they may take more effort to cultivate.  That’s why commercial growers tend to refrain from growing them. The other reason is the limited palette range which many in our modern culture have grown accustomed to.  We expect strawberries in the United States to look and taste a certain way, but there are an estimated 600 different varieties of strawberries stemming from 5 or 6 original wild species.  The globe or garden strawberry you get at the store will taste and look very different from Alpine, Fragaria Virginiana, Aroma, Camino Real, Sweet Charlie, Pinberry, or Wild Strawberries.  We like Reed avocados.  It’s one of over 500 varieties, but your store probably only has Haas or Fuerte varieties.  You may be impressed with your store’s seven different apple varieties, but you would be missing out on the other 7,500 varieties.  Your local grocery store has maybe eight different varieties of tomatoes, from Romas, Globes, and Beefsteak, to Cherry and Plum varieties.  Yet, there are more than 10,000 tomato varieties available.  We don’t think a person can say they don’t like tomatoes until they have at least tried 1,000 different varieties. In your local grocer’s defense, it would be hard for him to sell a bushel of Crab, Api, or Api Noir apples over the beautifully polished hybrids.  It would be harder to sell a Green Striped Zebra, Black Cherry, or White Cherry tomato over your run-of-the-mill Roma tomato. The same is true with almost every vegetable or fruit we consume. Consider all the varieties with each plant you think about for your garden.  You might also take a trip to your largest local farmer’s market.  There, you will often find a more varied selection and odd varieties.  With some seed saving, you can grow these same heirloom varieties.  From the farmer’s market, you are assured that the particular variety you are growing is successful in your local climate.  Someone has already tried to grow them in your area and was successful, or you wouldn’t be buying them locally.  The farmer’s market also allows you to taste and work with the vegetable or fruit before trying to grow a bunch of it.  You may like the taste of a Butternut Squash, but you will find the taste of a Baby Blue Hubbard even better.  It’s sweet, flavorful, and perfect for roasting, baking, pies, or canning. Tasting what you are going to grow and cooking with it will help you decide, as well.  We grow several different hot peppers in my garden– too many.  Nobody else in my family eats them.  We am trying to figure out what to do with jars of dried peppers from this season alone.  We usually make at least one massive batch of hot sauce per year, but even then, they are hard to get rid of when many of my friends and family can’t handle the heat.  Don’t grow something so whacky and foreign to you and your family that you will have difficulty getting anyone to eat it.  We wouldn’t have gotten anyone in our family to eat any of the amaranth we grow had we not snuck it in their baguettes.  Nobody in my family would knowingly eat purslane, broad leaf plantain, carrot tops, or dandelion leaves we foraged from my yard and garden had we not snuck it in their salads.  At nearly every meal, we still get a suspiciously raised eyebrow with the accompanying question, “What’s in it?”. Generally, most of what you grow will taste far superior to anything you buy at the grocery store.  The vegetables you find there are often grown thousands of miles away, picked far before they ripen, and encouraged to ripen by spraying them with ethylene gas.  There are 110 different chemicals in the official Florida guidebook for commercial tomato growers that a farmer can spray on a field over the course of a few months.  Many of those chemicals, on their own, the EPA rates as acutely toxic.  That means they can kill you on their own.  We’re not trying to scare anyone here. There is no comparison between the taste of a homegrown, vine-ripened tomato and your standard grocery store globe tomato. A final note on heirlooms versus hybrids, heirlooms are often open-pollinated, meaning that their seeds can be saved from one year to the next and will produce plants with the same characteristics as the parent plant.  If you try to grow a seed collected from a hybrid, you may not have any luck at all. Many hybrids are specifically engineered not to produce successive generations.  Think of hybrids as often the mule of plants.  A mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse, but it’s typically sterile and cannot reproduce.  One unique thing about open-pollinated plants is that they can cross-pollinate with other plants of the same or similar species. This can happen naturally through the actions of wind, insects, or other animals that transfer pollen from one plant to another.  So, what you set out to grow can be influenced and changed depending on how close it resides to other similar varieties.  It’s important to note that if you want to save seeds from open-pollinated plants and maintain their genetic purity, you must take steps to prevent cross-pollination. This can be done by isolating the plants from other varieties of the same species or hand-pollinating the flowers to ensure that the pollen comes only from the desired plant. GARDEN PURPOSE Garden PurposeKeep one question in mind as you launch into this venture or redesign your current garden.  What’s your purpose?  If your objective is to be a self-sufficient food grower and produce all the calories you need to live, you probably don’t have the space for that. Suppose you do have the space– great. Do you also have the time?  We would love to grow squash, and we have before, but many plants take up more space than we are willing to sacrifice in my backyard.  Still, some zucchini plants can be relatively compact, so we have options.  If your purpose is to supplement your food supply, you might be able to accomplish that by just adding a few plants.  This is a great goal, especially for beginning gardeners.  A ginger or turmeric plant doesn’t look like your traditional garden vegetable, and you wouldn’t sit down to eat a bowl full of either.  Still, the roots and leaves are edible.  There are not many calories there, but there’s lots of iron, potassium, and magnesium.  Lemongrass, sage, basil, oregano, and other herbs don’t offer many calories but add many flavors.  Growing them in a small space teaches you how to grow, and you will learn how to cook and dry herbs, trying to use them all up and save them for the winter months.   We’re also not going to grow tons of beans for survival when we can still buy them at a low price in the stores.  We’re not going to flood my backyard to try and grow rice.  Eventually, we hope to be self-sufficient and grow all my food, but we know that’s not today. Dwarf and bush varieties may not seem as fun to grow as a giant mortgage lifter beefsteak tomato, but you may not have the space for that enormous indeterminate variety.  Most plants you buy commercially will indicate their average size at maturity.  If that’s a four-foot diameter bush, do you have the space for it?  A more compact bush cherry tomato, like Tiny Tim, could provide you with loads of tomatoes throughout the season, and it would allow you to focus on one plant to understand better how to grow plants in your area.  This garden series focuses on small space gardens like you would find on a balcony apartment. Still, the whole series is valuable to anyone who gardens, so long as they can ask and answer the question of their garden’s purpose.  You might take a run at it and decide you would rather expand, contract, trellis upwards, switch to micro greens and sprouts indoors, or even mushrooms. We want to tell you to be open to changing what you grow and how you grow each year.  Not all gardens are rigidly planned out and always the same.  Because of soil depletion and some types of plants, you can only sometimes plant the same things in the same soil year to year.  You may find one thing you grew left you with too much and another barely a bowl full.  Align your garden purpose with your goal, and allow your plans to change.  You can start small and figure out the best ways to grow more.  You can start big and resize and realign your garden as you understand the plants, the space required, and their time commitment. You will be well-positioned to expand and fine-tune your operations at the end of a few seasons.  You might start a garden on someone else’s property or a community garden.  You might work up a trading arrangement with your surplus.  You will grow as a gardener far more than your plants will if you set out with your purpose in mind and adapt as your skills and knowledge grow. Whatever you decide to grow, understand the zone you are in, and what that means to the plants you are considering.  That’s the basis on which all your decisions should be made.  Consider the conditions and space the plant will take.  You may want to grow one type of plant, but you realize you just don’t have the space for it.  Understand how frequently you will need to tend to the plants.   Most importantly, understand the wide varieties available to you and your garden’s overall purpose.  When you look at the other videos in this series, you will see a host of considerations: climate, space, soil, personal preferences, difficulty level, seasonality, and even companion planting.  In this video, we have added location zone, care, type, and purpose.  All these blogs together should help you narrow down your garden to something realistic for you. You have hundreds of more options and varieties than you see in the grocery store or the seed aisle of your hardware store.  Even in a small space, you have many growing methods available.  Use our sun mapping blog and thoughtfully apply everything we have shown you.  Draw out a plan, and sit with it for a while.  Evaluate it daily and modify it as you consider plant size, zone, and purpose.  These winter months are the planning months.  The next phase is to order seeds, prepare your space and method, and get the plants growing.  Read for more blogs coming on that. As always, stay safe out there.
  • Chat GPT: The Threat Not Being Discussed…

    Chat GPT: The Threat Not Being Discussed…

    If you’re not familiar with or haven’t heard about ChatGPT, you should be paying very close attention.  What is ChatGPT?  Well, in a nutshell, it’s a newly released to the public, AI-based program that can be used for generating dialogues.  Sounds innocuous enough, right?  Well, the ramifications of this platform could dramatically alter your existence.  It has a lot of potential upsides and uses which we won’t discount, but there’s aspects of if that are rarely discussed, and how it will directly impact us is growing by the millisecond.  It is showing signs that it very may well soon fabricate an entirely different reality that will very likely alter our lives in very profound ways.  So let’s chat about it. You’re Giving Them Everything AI Giving Out InfoYou’re every engagement online, either through your smartphone, home computer, shows you watch on Netflix, your smart devices in your home connected to the internet, are all being tracked to the point that algorithms can appear prescient and predict your next move.  Your phone is tracking your location. Your navigation app is looking ahead for gas stations and fast food restaurants because this is about the same time you stop somewhere for lunch each day.  If you used a debit card or app to pay for anything, your spending habits and location were logged somewhere.  Did you search for something online?  That was recorded.  Did you cross the road or drive a different route because of construction? So did a hundred people before you.  Did you type a word into a search engine?  Did you read a specific news article about the drought, and the next day your news feed has two more?  Is your Echo Dot, Alexa, Siri, or smartphone listening to you?  Is the street cam tracking your movement?  Do you use email or messaging?  Did you like your friend’s goofy picture of their dog or your smiling grandkids on social media?  Did you visit a website? Anything you do creates a data point that adds up and focuses on what makes you tick as a human and a consumer.  Why are most of the apps we use on our phone or computers free?  It’s because you’re giving the company something extremely valuable they can sell: your personal data.  You are a product they can now sell to with precision because they now know everything about you.  Sometimes, it isn’t associated with you by name, social security number, or any exact identifier.  Sometimes it’s just an email address, a phone number, an IP address, or a geographical point where you frequently are that helps computer algorithms identify and catalog your actions.  It’s all processed by a million different algorithms on a million different machines.  Algorithms are simply sets of “if–then” rules.  It’s a somewhat narrow road, but there isn’t a single algorithm but millions of them all processing data points, cross-referencing and drawing predictive conclusions.  That single decision road quickly transforms into a very detailed road map as AI combs and refines data and passes the conclusions on to other machines with additional algorithms.
    1. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”  It’s considered a sign of intelligence if a human can hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind and still take a course of action.  What then, of the computer mind of artificial intelligence that can hold billions and billions of data points and find a specific pattern within them?  In 1996, the chess computer Deep Blue was estimated to evaluate 100 to 200 million chess positions per second, but that was 27 years ago, 11 years before the first Apple iPhone, and just four years after the first web browser code was ever created.  Today, AI can make an exponentially higher number of calculations and evaluations of data than that computer which could defeat chess champions.  Machines have exponentially improved their processing speeds and memory since then. Though you think you opt out, businesses and other entities have gathered terabytes and terabytes of data on human decisions, thoughts, and behaviors– all fodder for AI algorithms to process in mere milliseconds.
    How did the thousand people before react when presented with the same decision?  After reading a particular article, what did people read next?  You might believe that you are unique in your decision-making, but to artificial intelligence, you are simply following a decision pattern with everything you do.  Your routine, from the time you awake to the time you sleep, is cataloged in a million different files and databases.  The only limit to AI is its access to these datasets.  If that weren’t enough, AI isn’t chilling with a TV show after work. It’s continually, tirelessly learning, processing, and calculating.  If that’s not scary  concerning enough already, consider that it only reacts to what we feed it. GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT AI ChatbotIn 2016, Microsoft launched a Twitter chatbot named Tay.  It was designed to simulate the online ramblings of a teenage girl and allowed anyone to interact with it.  You may not have heard of it because Microsoft shut it down within 24 hours.  One user purposefully feed the AI chatbot Tay misleading and inflammatory misinformation and much to the embarrassment of Microsoft, the AI recommended some incredibly disturbing feedback and courses of action.  Due to the very fact that YouTube’s AI will read my words in this blog, we can’t even repeat the details, but it’s something you can easily Google.  If these systems only learn how programmers instruct them to and from the material we provide, they will not develop into model citizens.  AI often comes with baked-in biases because it is fed the online picture of things and not the accurate worldview. In one experiment, cropped photos of men and women were fed into an AI image generator, and the AI was asked to complete the picture.  43% of the time, the man’s image was completed with the man wearing a suit.  53% of the time, the image of the woman was autocompleted, with her wearing a low-cut blouse or even a bikini.  Why, might you ask?  You needn’t look further than your own computer and the web to understand why this occurred.  If we feed AI history, which version is it being fed because that will determine everything it returns to us.   Right now, there’s a comment bot, probably right in the comments section of this video, on social media, leaving a review or a random comment elsewhere, that is posting some trolling comment crafted to infuriate you.  It is well documented that state-sponsored hacking groups design and use these bots to sow division in other countries and even try to influence elections.  It doesn’t have to be in the perfect syntax and grammar of neatly arranged words or colloquialisms.  Regarding AI image generation, you should pay attention to this next part because it ties into a bigger problem.  It was discovered that several AI art generators, hosted on Facebook, have recently sprung onto the scene, and people are generating images derived from millions of other images fed into the machine.  Photo realistic images generated by AI might be discernible by another computer as it analyzes a multi-megabyte image pixel by pixel backward and forward. Still, the human eye might perceive and believe the image to be true.  The human brain can be manipulated by the image because of the terabytes of data tracking eye movements and patterns in a million other images.  Subliminal and subconscious cues can be inserted into the image of which the human mind would never be aware. Text, audio, images, and even video clips can all be instantly generated by AI for maximum effect.  AI is on the cusp of generating a completely alternate reality and history in mere seconds and then distributing that through multiple channels, so it all appears seamlessly laced into our collective history.  AI can take all of what we give it and give it back to us in fresh, new ways based on our history of reactions.  It can motivate people to believe untrue things and even give them the means and justification to act upon these untruths.  All the while, it has no conscious.  It lacks a moral compass to guide it between right and wrong.  One of the recent revelations that came from Facebook is that content which inflamed and infuriated people drove higher engagement which resulted in more ad revenue for them, which as a result, the AI amplified.  Combined with AI’s ability to generate information, images, and the like combined with the factors that drive higher engagement, we think you can see where this is going. MISINFORMATION ON STERIODS AlienLet’s imagine for a moment that some nefarious human operators link together enough AI systems to generate a series of news articles, images, and narratives and publish them across an array of networks, even inserting stories into the past history code of Wikipedia and other seemingly static and stable sources.  Imagine if that story is about an alien culture living amongst us, an alien invasion, or nuclear missiles being deployed along a border of any country.  Who of your fellow citizens will believe it, and how will they act upon it? There’s no denying that we live in a time where misinformation is given higher priority than facts and science.  Fact-checkers are dismissed as shills of a greater, all-powerful conspiracy.  People rarely accept that they were wrong or misled but merely exchange one falsehood for another that better supports their confirmational bias of today.  We are spoon-fed, carefully curated information. My news feed always has articles about weather, drought, astronomical events, the war in Ukraine, self-sufficiency projects, and things to do in my area.  We couldn’t tell you the name of three Kardashians or name 3 NBA players, but maybe your feed has both.  Mine doesn’t. Why do you think that is?  What does your feed contain?  We are given the information and the lens to view it with.   People have acted upon misinformation in the past.  A California man killed his kids over QAnon and ‘serpent DNA’ conspiracy theories.  You may have heard of Pizza Gate, where proponents of a theory claimed a basement in a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., was a meeting ground for Satanic ritual abuse of children.  Despite the pizzeria not having a basement.  A 28-year-old man from Salisbury, North Carolina, arrived at that pizzeria and fired three shots from an AR-15-style rifle that struck the restaurant’s walls, a desk, and a door.  The man later told police that he had planned to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory and that he saw himself as the potential hero of the story—a rescuer of children.  People have acted, sometimes quite violently, on misinformation before.  These theories in the past were false narratives generated by a single person that took on a viral quality. What happens when AI creates a thousand false narratives, all corroborating each other at such a volume that it’s hard to tell fact from fiction?  Already we can see evidence of news articles generated completely by AI.  They’re entirely false or harmless rumors at the moment, but what will they be when they are exponentially more advanced in the next year or two ahead of us?  How impactful will they be when the human prompts creating them are nefarious?  How many people will be driven to outrage and action due to one of these false stories?  How will we even know if what we’re being fed is real or not?  AI doesn’t care because it doesn’t have a conscience.  History, though, has several examples of wars being started based on very little evidence.   WHAT CAN YOU DO? Research For First hand InformationWe did a blog a while back going into detail on how to beat facial recognition technology which we’ll link to in the cards above and in the description section below.  While beating facial recognition technology is vastly different than outsmarting AI, with most technological innovations, there’s things we gain and often many things we lose.  Some of the old adages of the past still hold true today when it comes to protecting yourself from misinformation generated by AI.  Never believe anything you read.  Only accept the first-hand account generated by your five senses.  Believe nothing you hear and only one half that you see.  Is it even possible, though, to protect your data, withhold your judgments, and live a solitary life free from the grid and the web of computers learning from your every action, click, route taken, dollar spent, and choice made?  Probably not.  So, you must guard your judgment, the only thing you still control in a world that AI will increasingly fabricate. There is hope.  AI generator detection tools are being built.  Currently, though, they are more of an afterthought and trail behind AI generators.  Faculty and teachers worldwide are concerned about students using AI to write papers for them. Only recently has a tool popped up that can check writing, like plagiarism checkers, for the likelihood that a human author created text.   While we maintain some level of optimism that technology like this can be leveraged to accelerate production, the real potential for quickly spreading misinformation at a rate and level the likes of which we wouldn’t be able to distinguish or comprehend concerns me greatly.  What do you think?  Is the concern overblown or should we demanding safeguards and rails for systems like this? As always, stay safe out there.
  • High-Protein Alternatives to Meat

    High-Protein Alternatives to Meat

    Essential Survival Protein Sources You Can Eat Today In this blog, we are going to give you almost 50 different affordable sources of vital protein, way beyond meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. With the price of meat skyrocketing, many of us are looking for alternate sources of the vital macronutrient protein.  Most of the sources we will show you in this blog can be stored in the pantry with no electricity.   We’ll also show three recipes along with showing you how to cook these protein packed meals.  So, you’ll definitely want to watch this one all the way through. Beans BeansAll plants contain protein, and here we will list some of the big ones.  If the food has more protein in it than the equivalent 3 ounces of steak, more than 21 grams per 3 ounces, we’ll put an asterisk on it. Beans are often viewed as a primary protein source, and they are loaded with protein, as we will see.  They are not a complete protein, though, so they shouldn’t be the only source of protein on your menu.   When it comes to beans, 3 ounces of:
    • Pinto Beans have 23.4 grams of protein*
    • Kidney Beans have 20 grams of protein
    • Adzuki Beans have 17 grams of protein
    • Black Beans have 6 grams of protein
    • Lima Beans have 6.5 grams of protein
    • Great Northern Beans have 7.2 grams of protein
    Legumes LegumesBoth peas and beans are legumes. There are about 16,000 types of beans and legumes grown all over the world in different sizes, shapes, colors, and textures.  While they both belong to the family Leguminosae or Fabaceae, beans and peas are completely different plants, coming from different genus and species.  We’re not going to go into that debate, but we have to list this protein source here because it’s another plant-based protein power source. When it comes to legumes, 3 ounces of:
    • Lupini Beans have 31 grams of protein*
    • Soybeans have 31 grams of protein*
    • Lentils have 22 grams of protein*
    • Peanuts have 22.2 grams of protein*
    • Chickpeas have 16.3 grams of protein
    • Green Peas have 5 grams of protein
    • Lima Beans have 6.5 grams of protein
    TABBOULEH RECIPE Tabouli salad or Tabbouleh is a simple Mediterranean salad of very finely chopped vegetables, lots of fresh parsley, mint, and bulgur wheat, all tossed with lemon juice and olive oil.  There are thousands of variations, and I don’t use bulgar wheat, we use Amaranth and Quinoa to make it a healthier, protein-packed, gluten-free salad. Add 3 ounces each of Quinoa and Amaranth, adding the juice of a half lemon.  Top off with enough boiling water to just cover the grains.  This will soften them. Chop a handful or so of mint. Chop 1 or 2 bunches of parsley. Slice diagonally, then deseed and finely cube a cucumber. Cube 1 large tomato.  Some people deseed them, but we don’t bother.  We can’t tell the difference in a salad. Chop at least 2 scallions, more if you like a little more bite to the salad.  We’ll also add about a dozen chopped black olives.  Returning to my Amaranth and Quinoa, it has absorbed almost all of the liquid, cooked, and softened a bit.  To this, we are going to add 1 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  Then the juice of the other half of the lemon and one more.  You can pass on the second lemon if you don’t like it too lemony.  We find that the lemon absorbs right in and incorporates pretty well.  To this, you will add all your chopped vegetables.  Then mix until all ingredients are fully incorporated and mixed.  You will want to refrigerate this overnight to let the flavors come together and to let the grains continue to soften.  Serve chilled with crackers or pita bread and enjoy.  The whole salad has about 26 grams of plant protein in it.  You could throw in some lupini beans and give it an even bigger protein kick.  There really aren’t too many rules with Tabouli. Nuts NutsHere are some tree nuts with their protein equivalency per 3 ounces:
    • Black Walnuts have 20.4 grams of protein
    • Almonds have 18.1 grams of protein
    • Pistachios 17.4 grams of protein
    • Walnuts have 13 grams of protein
    • Hazel Nuts have 12.9 grams of protein
    • Brazil Nuts have 12 grams of protein
    • Hickory Nuts have 10.8 grams of protein
    • Pine Nuts have 9.9 grams of protein
    • Pili Nuts have 9 grams of protein
    • Acorns have 6.9 grams of protein
    Seeds SeedsSeeds, like nuts, get touted as a protein powerhouse, and they are, with at least one ranking higher than that 3-ounce steak.
    • Hemp Hearts have 26.4 grams of protein*
    • Pumpkin seeds have 19.8 grams of protein
    • Sunflower seeds have 17.4 grams of protein
    • Flax seeds have 15.6 grams of protein
    • Sesame seeds have 15 grams of protein
    • Chia seeds have 14.1 grams of protein
    • Buckwheat has 11.4 grams of protein
    CHILI RECIPE Baby Lima BeansWe purposely picked recipes that have unlimited variations.  Chili fits that bill.  This is a protein and fiber powerhouse that you can flavor and spice up as you like.  We are going to go light on the spice with this version.   Chop and saute one large onion, three garlic cloves, and maybe a hot pepper in a tablespoon of olive oil or the fat of your choice.  To this add a few tablespoons of tomato paste and stir.  Add a little water if needed to keep the contents from sticking.  To this, we will add 3 ounces each of black beans, lima beans, white beans, lentils, and pinto beans.  Stir those in until all ingredients are well incorporated.  As that cooks, we’ll add two large pinches of sea salt.  After a few minutes, we add 24 ounces of chicken stock and 16 ounces of water.  Finally, we will add 2 tablespoons of taco mix chile powder and a ¼ teaspoon of cumin as my seasonings.  On a stovetop or fire you would bring this to a boil, cover, then lower it to a simmer for a few hours until the beans are soft, adding water as needed.  In our pressure cooker, we just set it on high for 30 minutes, and that’s it.  This makes about 2-3 quarts of chili that has about 66 grams of protein, but we wouldn’t suggest you try and eat all that chili in one sitting. Pseudocereals & Grains Whole OatsSome pseudocereals and grains have high levels of oxalates in them and should be cooked, but the cooking process also denatures the protein and destroys some of the amino acids.
    • Whole Oats have 14.4 grams of protein
    • Teff has 12 grams of protein
    • Spelt has 12 grams of protein
    • Amaranth has 11.4 grams of protein
    • Quinoa has 10.8 grams of protein
    • Millet has 10 grams of protein
    • Wheat flour has 9 grams of protein
    OATMEAL COOKIES Oatmeal CookiesThis is our favorite oatmeal cookie recipe.   Cream together ¾ cup softened or melted butter with 1 cup brown sugar and a ½ cup white sugar.  Add 4 teaspoons vanilla and continue to mix until all is incorporated.  Add two eggs and stir.  When that is all incorporated, add 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, and ¼ teaspoon salt.  Mix until well incorporated. To this, we are going to add an ounce and a half each of flax seeds and sesame seeds and one-ounce chia seeds, but to make the protein in those hard seeds more bioavailable we are going to pulse them in the blender.  Mix until incorporated.  We’re also going to add 3 ounces of shaved almonds.  Finally, add 2 cups whole oats and mix until all ingredients are incorporated.  Roll these into 1 ½ balls onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and allow an inch or two between cookies.  Cook for 12-15 minutes in a 375-degree, 190 celsius, oven.  Place on a wire rack to cool.  We think these cookies taste better after they have cooled.  This will make roughly 2 dozen cookies.  The entire batch we estimate to have about 114 grams protein, which is 4.75 grams per cookie. Amino Acids Don’t view protein like you do other nutrients.  We often think of nutrients like oxygen.  The O2 you breathe in is actually two oxygen atoms, and these get transferred from the lungs to hemoglobin, pumped to cells, and eventually directly absorbed into the cell sap of all our individual cells.  Some nutrients are like that– iron and other minerals, for instance.  Protein is nothing like that, which is why all the nutritional labels and your body’s requirements are all over the place in their estimations. Let us simplify this by explaining that protein comes in two basic types- natured and denatured. Just picture that like tightly held together and inaccessible versus loose and accessible.  Cooking, chewing, and digestion denatures these proteins.  You might take in 21 grams of protein in a 3-ounce steak, but your body may only be able to break down a fraction of that.  Also, the body doesn’t retain the protein in its protein form.  The body breaks down consumed protein into amino acids and absorbs it. Then, it is used to build muscles and organs, to make hormones and antibodies, to be stored as fat, and to be burned as energy.  The body makes the proteins it needs from the amino acids.  So, the protein we take in gets broken down into amino acids and modified or manufactured into proteins again to fit the body’s needs.  Roughly there are 500 amino acids in nature.  Our bodies use just about 20 of those.  11 of those the body makes from food ingested, and the other nine it needs from food digested.  What we call a “complete protein” contains all 9 of those essential amino acids. It is very possible that if you only had one protein source, you might not have all of the amino acids you need.  This would result in a short time in a protein deficiency- hypoproteinemia.  Your body would then turn on itself, at first, and cannibalize cells to get to the amino acids it needs.  Eventually, your muscles will wither, bones will be more susceptible to fractures, immunity systems will falter, your hair will fall out, and eyes and organs will fail, along with a decrease in hormones and enzymes needed to maintain physiology.  Though the extreme effects onset gradually, they can begin mere days after protein in your diet drops.  To summarize what you need to know:
    • You can’t store protein in protein form
    • Protein must be broken down into amino acids by the body
    • Your body can’t function without amino acids.
    You can see that the easiest way to ensure you are getting all the amino acids you need is to eat a wide array of protein sources in foods that your body can easily access.  The protein in some mashed-up beans is probably better absorbed than a lump of steak that has only been chewed.  Understanding this, let’s turn back to alternative protein sources. Mushrooms & Vegetables MushroomsThere are a lot of foods that contain protein in small amounts.  We will add mushrooms and vegetables here, though they don’t contain much per ounce.
    • Oyster mushrooms have  2.7  grams of protein
    • Broccoli has 2.4 grams of protein
    • Spinach has 2.4 grams of protein
    • Shiitake has 1.8 grams of protein
    • Morels have  1.8 grams of protein
    If you want to stay in touch with the carnivore side of yourself and are desperate for an abundant and replenishable protein source, there’s a final category we will include here that many will find unappealing, but is a source. Bugs & Worms Meal WormsMost will find this unappealing, but it’s worth meaning so you know. Here is what 3 ounces of insects equates to as a protein source:
    • Crickets have 48 grams of protein*
    • Worms have 20 grams of protein*
    • Beetles have 19 grams of protein
    • Ants have 12 grams of protein
    • Meal Worms have 17 grams of protein
    We won’t include any recipes for this, but again, we just wanted to bring this up so you know. When it comes to protein, your body can’t function properly for very long without it.  While most organic matter we consume has protein in small amounts, the quantity and our body’s ability to process and assimilate it can vary widely.  The winners here for your pantry are pinto beans, most of your legumes, lentils, lupini beans, peanuts, and soybeans; finally, a winner is hemp hearts because they actually have more protein than 3 ounces of steak.  Many of your vegan powdered protein mixes are hemp heart and soybean-based.  Other winners are sunflower, amaranth, and buckwheat because they are complete proteins in that they contain those nine essential amino acids, plus you can easily grow them.   Most tree nuts also make my list if they grow in your area.  They don’t have as much protein, but they store and transport well.  Any of these sources of protein that can be easily dried and stored is reason enough to get a wide array of them in your food inventory.  All of them provide minerals, enzymes, and vitamins that make them great sources of nutrition beyond just being a protein source. Don’t just stockpile food in your prepping food supplies.  Make sure you have the right nutrition to get you through any disaster.  At the very least, make sure you have a protein powder that you can use and rotate out, so you’re getting your minimum daily needs.  A final warning, though, is that too much of anything can be bad.  The same is true with protein.  You are better off getting a wide array of protein sources in varied quantities than you are blasting your body with a megadose of protein.  We have heard of some athletes who have had too much protein– more than 2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.  The results of that intake can have a horrible impact on the body, putting a metabolic burden on the bones, kidneys, and liver.  Make protein part of the meal, but not the whole meal, and get what your body needs from multiple sources. As always, stay safe out there.
  • Vegetable & Plant Growing Guide

    Vegetable & Plant Growing Guide

    In this guide, you will find nearly 1,000 data points for growing 47 different plants ranging from the common to the not-so-common.

    This guide is strictly for informational purposes. Different varieties of plants within the same family may have different growing times, nutritional values, harvest yields, and caloric densities. Please research your specific plant to fine-tune your care and cultivation for maximum yields.

    You will also find that one plant type may have so many varieties within it that they could each have a spreadsheet of their own.  For instance, there are over 400 berries, over 1,000 varieties of potatoes, and 10,000 varieties of tomatoes.  Obviously, we can’t capture all the varieties available to you, all their shapes, varying nutritional properties, etc.  Still, we strived to provide you with basic information about each plant to start you out on your growing journey.  From here, you will want to research more about your specific varieties and adjust soil where needed to maximize yield.

    Thanks for downloading the Vegetable & Plant Growing Guide https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uIoLKEHR7issiife97AbDO1Bg6dd8dQ53oKPCUj8ehU/edit#gid=0 

    Vegetable and Plant Growing Guide
    Vegetable and Plant Growing Guide Sheet

    To work with the sheet and make changes, additions, or subtractions, you will need to first be logged into YouTube or Gmail in your browser, and then on the spreadsheet, click File > Make a Copy and save your own sheet.

    EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS

    Botanical Name – The most common Latin name for the plant.  Specific cultivars will vary.  This is for your further research but also to help you understand that Bok Choy, Brussel Spriouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cale Collard Greens, and Turnips are all one happy family.  As such, much of their care and maintenance are similar.

    Zone Range – Zone range is the far extremes of the temperature zones for the plant.  Could you grow plants in zone 1 or 13? Sure.  You would have to modify the environment, though.  These zonal ranges are for plants outside. 

    Figuring Out Your Zone

    A plant hardiness zone is a geographic area defined mainly by a ten-year average minimum temperature.  Some zone calculations also consider other factors.  The most commonly used hardiness scale in America is the United States Department of Agriculture scale.  It ranges on a scale from 0 to 13.  I will link to that one in the description section below so you can determine your zone.  In the description section below, I will also link to the equivalent European and other parts of the world’s hardiness scale.  As the USDA system is based entirely on an area’s average annual extreme minimum temperature, it is limited in describing the full climatic conditions a gardener may have to account for in a particular place. 

    Zone Links in the Notes section below.  

    Ideal Zones – This is the range where the plant typically thrives best and may actually exist in the wild.

    1st Plant – This column tells you a little bit about when you can plant after winter.  It’s your in-ground time, as you might start seedlings indoors.

    2nd Plant – Some plants will allow you to plant a successive planting.  This will allow you to harvest twice.  Typically, this can only be done in warmer hardiness zones where the growing period is longer.  In many cases, a second planting isn’t possible, or the plant is perennial and not completely harvested.

    Maturity – This is the minimum date before any harvest can occur.  Plants, even within the same species, may vary in their maturity dates.  Some plants can be harvested earlier (i.e., zucchini), or some of the leaves may be harvested.

    Cal per Cup – Calories per cup of vegetable or fruit.  This, too, can vary by plant type.

    Yield from 4 Plants – This is the expected harvest from 4 plants with average to high production.  This does not include edible greens unless specified.

    Estimated kCal @ 4 plants – This is the expected calories from the harvest of 4 plants.

    N-P-K – Suggested fertilizer ratio.  This is very generic because some plants prefer different levels for different phases of their growth (i.e., leaf production, root development, fruit setting, etc.)  Research your variety for specifics.

    Size – Here, I try to give you a general idea of the size of the above-ground plant.  Bush varieties will be smaller and more compact than vine varieties.

    Water – Water is the per-week average.  Note that some plants like that amount of water once per week, and some like a steady moisture level.  Most vegetables require good draining soil.

    Plant Instructions – General notes about getting your plants started.

    Sun – Amount of sunlight.  Your zone will also determine the ideal amount of sunlight.

    Soil pH – Soil pH can be adjusted.  Our video on soil explains some common methods for adjusting soil pH.

    Spacing – Plants need proper spacing to grow in their environment.  Some plants can be sown randomly, while others prefer rows.  Some need rook to stretch,

    Notes – General notes about this plant.

    Further Info – Links for further information in your study of this plant.

    GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

    Hybrid vs. Heirloom

    Most vegetable seeds you purchase at your local store are a narrow range of cultivars that have been carefully selected to provide growers with the best harvests from the heartiest of plants.  Sometimes they have been cross-pollinated or hybridized to provide the most robust plant possible.  That’s great for many, but it ignores the thousands of other varieties.  Many look at the seed section of their local store and marvel at the possibilities.  I see it as a very narrow range of options.  Most seed sections try to emulate the local produce section of your grocery store, where perfectly manicured displays of uniform-sized fruits and vegetables form neat displays.

    On the other hand, heirloom varieties offer the grower varieties of plants that aren’t typically associated with large-scale monoculture agricultural operations.  I use the term heirloom varieties quite loosely to include all those fruits and vegetables our ancestors grew or foraged that you won’t likely find in your grocery store.  The colonial farm looked far different from today’s massive monoculture agricultural operations.  That’s an application of the term that is far broader than it was intended.  These heirlooms often have much better flavors and character than their perfect cousins in the store.  The tradeoff, however, is that heirlooms may be more susceptible to disease or infestation, and they may take more effort to cultivate.  That’s why commercial growers tend to refrain from growing them.

    Full Sun – 6-8 hours or more

    Last Frost Date – Frost is when air temperatures reach 32°F (0°C).  Because it is colder closer to the ground, a frost may occur even when air temperatures are just above freezing.

    Partial Sun or Partial Shade – the plant needs 3-6 hours of direct sunlight per day

    Seedling – a young plant, especially one raised from seed and not a cutting.

    Shoot – a young branch or sucker springing from the main stock of a tree or other plant.

     

    LINKS:

  • Alternative Protein Ingredients & Recipes

    Alternative Protein Ingredients & Recipes

    * Has more protein than a 3 ounce steak Beans Per 3 ounces: Pinto Beans have 23.4 grams of protein* Kidney Beans have 20 grams of protein Adzuki Beans have 17 grams of protein Black Beans have 6 grams of protein Lima Beans have 6.5 grams of protein Great Northern Beans have 7.2 grams of protein   Legumes Per 3 ounces: Lupini Beans have 31 grams of protein* Soybeans have 31 grams of protein* Lentils have 22 grams of protein* Peanuts have 22.2 grams of protein* Chickpeas have 16.3 grams of protein Green Peas have 5 grams of protein Lima Beans have 6.5 grams of protein   Nuts Per 3 ounces: Black Walnuts have 20.4 grams of protein Almonds have 18.1 grams of protein Pistachios 17.4 grams of protein Walnuts have 13 grams of protein Hazel Nuts have 12.9 grams of protein Brazil Nuts have 12 grams of protein Hickory Nuts have 10.8 grams of protein Pine Nuts have 9.9 grams of protein Pili Nuts have 9 grams of protein Acorns have 6.9 grams of protein   Seeds Per 3 ounces: Hemp Hearts have 26.4 grams of protein* Pumpkin seeds have 19.8 grams of protein Sunflower seeds have 17.4 grams of protein Flax seeds have 15.6 grams of protein Sesame seeds have 15 grams of protein Chia seeds have 14.1 grams of protein Buckwheat has 11.4 grams of protein   Pseudocereals & Grains Per 3 ounces: Whole Oats have 14.4 grams of protein Teff has 12 grams of protein Spelt has 12 grams of protein Amaranth has 11.4 grams of protein Quinoa has 10.8 grams of protein Millet has 10 grams of protein Wheat flour has 9 grams of protein   Mushrooms & Vegetables Per 3 ounces: Oyster mushrooms have 2.7 grams of protein Broccoli has 2.4 grams of protein Spinach has 2.4 grams of protein Shiitake has 1.8 grams of protein Morels have 1.8 grams of protein   Bugs & Worms Per 3 ounces: Crickets have 48 grams of protein* Worms have 20 grams of protein* Beetles have 19 grams of protein Ants have 12 grams of protein Meal Worms have 17 grams of protein   TABBOULEH RECIPE Add 3 ounces each of Quinoa and Amaranth, adding the juice of a half lemon. Top off with enough boiling water to just cover the grains. This will soften them. Chop a handful or so of mint. Chop 1 or 2 bunches of parsley. Slice diagonally, then deseed and finely cube a cucumber. Cube 1 large tomato. Some people deseed them, but I don’t bother. I can’t tell the difference in a salad. Chop at least 2 scallions, more if you like a little more bite to the salad. I’ll also add about a dozen chopped black olives. Returning to my Amaranth and Quinoa, it has absorbed almost all of the liquid, cooked, and softened a bit. To this, I am going to add 1 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Then the juice of the other half of the lemon and one more. You can pass on the second lemon if you don’t like it too lemony. I find that the lemon absorbs right in and incorporates pretty well. To this, you will add all your chopped vegetables. Then mix until all ingredients are fully incorporated and mixed. You will want to refrigerate this overnight to let the flavors come together and to let the grains continue to soften. Serve chilled with crackers or pita bread and enjoy. The whole salad has about 26 grams of plant protein in it. You could throw in some lupini beans and give it an even bigger protein kick. There really aren’t too many rules with Tabouli.   CHILI RECIPE Chop and saute one large onion, three garlic cloves, and maybe a hot pepper in a tablespoon of olive oil or the fat of your choice. To this add a few tablespoons of tomato paste and stir. Add a little water if needed to keep the contents from sticking. To this, I will add 3 ounces each of black beans, lima beans, white beans, lentils, and pinto beans. Stir those in until all ingredients are well incorporated. As that cooks, I’ll add two large pinches of sea salt. After a few minutes, I add 24 ounces of chicken stock and 16 ounces of water. Finally, I will add 2 tablespoons of taco mix chile powder and a ¼ teaspoon of cumin as my seasonings. On a stovetop or fire, you would bring this to a boil, cover, then lower it to a simmer for a few hours until the beans are soft, adding water as needed. In my pressure cooker, I just set it on high for 30 minutes, and that’s it. This makes about 2-3 quarts of chili that has about 66 grams of protein, but I wouldn’t suggest you try and eat all that chili in one sitting.   OATMEAL COOKIES Cream together ¾ cup softened or melted butter with 1 cup brown sugar and a ½ cup white sugar. Add 4 teaspoons vanilla and continue to mix until all is incorporated. Add two eggs and stir. When that is all incorporated, add 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, and ¼ teaspoon salt. Mix until well incorporated. To this, I am going to add an ounce and a half each of flax seeds and sesame seeds and one-ounce chia seeds, but to make the protein in those hard seeds more bioavailable I am going to pulse them in the blender. Mix until incorporated. I’m also going to add 3 ounces of shaved almonds. Finally, add 2 cups whole oats and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Roll these into 1 ½ balls onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and allow an inch or two between cookies. Cook for 12-15 minutes in a 375-degree, 190 celsius, oven. Place on a wire rack to cool. I think these cookies taste better after they have cooled. This will make roughly 2 dozen cookies. The entire batch I estimate to have about 114 grams of protein, which is 4.75 grams per cookie.
  • The World Isn’t Prepared for What’s Coming

    The World Isn’t Prepared for What’s Coming

    In the first month of this year, thousands of heat records were broken in the dead of winter across Europe, many by large margins.  An estimated 32 trillion gallons of water in the form of rain and snow fell in California, and it still won’t be enough to end the multi-decade megadrought.  Last year, while US and Europe witnessed blistering heatwaves, there were devastating floods in other parts of the world.  To say that these extreme weather events were simple abnormalities would be downplaying their severity.  They were unprecedented.  As one weather historian called it, the severe weather event was “totally insane” and “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology.”   Scientists, meteorologists, and climatologists are all utterly baffled by the recent extreme swings in weather.  However, most of them agree that we are hurdling headlong into an El Niño pattern and that this particular one could be worse than any previous El Niño.  Now, you should not dismiss this threat. If what these individuals are predicting comes true, it will have severe implications that will directly impact us.  It’s not just about having to endure hotter summers, but the systems that we depend on such as agriculture, will be adversely affected which will have dire repercussions.  We rarely say this at the beginning of a video, but we know bringing up the discussion of how changes in weather impacts our daily lives does upset some, but we tried our hardest with this blog to stick with just the observational data and warnings based off of that data.  For some, they correlate this discussion with politics.  We have no political agenda here.  Our priority is to our community and making sure we provide useful information to help you get ahead of things and understand how to prepare.  If a year from now these things we’re about to explain don’t play out, good, and we hope this video spurs you in your preparedness journey either way.  We sincerely hope what we present is wrong because this blog topic is a bit heavy.  But, if these scenarios do happen as being predicted by people that have spent their life studying in these specialized areas of expertise, well, we have some real problems that we’ll have to address.  So let’s talk about it. What is El Nino? What Is El NinoEl Niño, which translates from Spanish to “the boy,” is the term given to a climate event that has occurred for thousands and thousands of years where the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean experience a period of intense warming.  Meteorological institutes worldwide are all beginning to predict that this El Niño will begin to occur later this year. This boy is coming in with a tantrum we likely haven’t seen in generations.  According to the BBC, the year 2023 is likely to be the 10th year in a row to witness a rise in temperature of 1 degree Celsius above average.  2024 may be the eleventh year in a row to see the overall average global temperature rise.  As these temperatures rise even a degree, the weather events become more extreme.  Heatwaves all become more intense.  There’s more moisture in the atmosphere and less on the lands or trapped in ice.   One indicator of how bad this El Niño cycle will be will occur between August and October this year.  El Niño events generally suppress Atlantic hurricane activity, so fewer hurricanes than normal form in the Atlantic during August to October, the peak of Atlantic hurricane season.  If there is very little hurricane activity during this period, you can expect this El Niño pattern to be especially bad.  This doesn’t mean there will be an absence of hurricanes altogether.  Although hurricanes occur more often during La Niña episodes, significant tropical weather events have happened during this neutral, transitioning phase like we are currently about to experience. For example, the record-shattering 2005 hurricane season that included Katrina and Rita occurred during a neutral, transitioning phase.  It is to say that if we see the sign of very little hurricane activity, we are almost assuredly entering a deep El Niño phase.  Meteorologists are having difficulty keeping up with these rapidly shifting and unprecedented patterns. How will this impact us? El Nino ImpactThe return of the El Niño climate phenomenon later this year is being predicted to cause global temperatures to rise off the chart this year and next.  The previous hottest year on record was 2016, and this same El Niño pattern drove that.  That record-breaking year of heat is shaping up to look cool in comparison to this year and next.  It’s one thing to see a chart or read an account of weather 1000 to 5,000 years ago, from the 1800s, or even the 1970s or 2000s, and see the parallels to some of what we are experiencing today.  In our lifetimes, we can undoubtedly reflect back to the last significant drought, heatwave, polar vortex, or deluge, but these events occurred once or twice a lifetime.  Records weren’t broken to this degree year after year after year.  Each successive year, we are shattering the records of the year before, the previous century, in all the history of our record-keeping, or the entire observed, researched, and catalogued geological record. An El Niño pattern alone is manageable, but we see more profound and more frequently shifting cycles.  When it’s hot, it is hotter.  When it’s cold, it is colder.  When it rains, it pours.  When it dries from warmer weather and the wind and wildfires pick up, they move faster and with greater lethality.  When the drought remains despite the occasional atmospheric river, the Earth can’t absorb the rain when it does fall.  The results are flooding and mudslides.  When the weather patterns oscillate so wildly to extremes, and temperatures repeatedly break historical records, we find ourselves at the threshold of a very, very different world than the one we have known.   It’s hard to observe the whole world of information and understand the implication of the clouds over our heads and the sun shining on our particular spot on the planet. Still, we must realize that these global events have some pretty dramatic impacts on our lives.  At the extreme, civilizations of the past have collapsed by some combination of disease, famine, and war.  These record-breaking extreme weather patterns have the potential to usher in each of those on a global scale.  Every rising degree allows more zoonotic diseases to jump from the wild.  Each extreme weather event, no matter their duration, disrupts the food production and supply chain, and wars are fought over resources to keep the furnaces of economic growth stoked.  In the big picture, the macro view of all this, it’s not good.  In the past, one civilization might collapse, and another would rise, but we have never before been so much all in this together.  We are bound together in trade, economically and technologically, with supply chains that web around the globe increasingly more dependent on each other.  A problem in one part impacts the whole.  The world is at stake. Even if it is not as cataclysmic as that, you better still hold onto your hat.  This year and next look to be primed to break previously recorded heat records.  Expect the hottest recorded temperature on Earth, 56.7°C (134°F) is expected to be broken this year or next if these calculations are anywhere near correct.  Expect the extreme weather events in your area’s historical record may occur again.  Expect warm snaps in winter that will trick plants into coming out of dormancy too soon.  Expect animal migratory patterns to shift and some animals to experience die-offs, having gotten caught off guard by the rapidly oscillating temperature extremes.  Expect crops worldwide to fail from too much or too little water, disease, and infestation.   Specific for you, expect the same weather-induced infrastructure failures of municipal water and electricity will become commonplace.  Anytime the heat is too extreme, the powerlines can sag, fires can start, and outages can occur as is increasingly becoming a problem in places like California.  Anytime it is below freezing for too long, improperly insulated systems can fail, as they did dramatically in Texas a few years back.  When the winds of extreme weather blow down trees or powerlines, wildfires can be sparked, which can become dangerous with fast-moving flames and choking smoke in mere minutes. Specific for you, expect that food shortages will continue for at least the next two years.  Crops will fail as droughts deepen, or too much rain in some areas of the world encourage insects and blight to thrive.  As the grain and grass are impacted, so too will the meat production on land.  Some of the most dramatic effects of an El Niño can be seen in the oceans, so we can’t rely upon turning to those for a food source.  Every year, millions of fish— salmon, steelhead trout, shad, alewives, and sturgeon, among others—migrate to their native habitats to reproduce.  These patterns can be disrupted.  Marine biologists are still scratching their heads, wondering where billions of Snow Crabs have disappeared to.  What can I do to prepare? Prepare For El NinoWe are, perhaps, at the point where if you ignore or dismiss this crisis, you do so to your own detriment.  Nobody can tell you with absolute certainty how bad this will get or if it will even correct itself.  People often claim this is just another cycle in Earth’s history, proven by the geological record.  That’s partially true, but it’s not the whole picture.  Yes, there is clear evidentiary data showing cycles in weather that has been found in geology.  But, the last cycle that looked like this one occurred far before civilizations were born, far before agriculture, technology, and global supply chains pampered us as they do now.  Our systems are far more dependent one another and these changes will impact us all, and have been already. Look, we know that we paint a not-so-rosy picture here, but we firmly believe there are things you can still do to insulate yourself from and even mitigate the effects of some of the fallout.  If there ever was a final opportunity to prep, this is it.  The window is closing.  Prioritize your food, water, medical, and energy needs.  Harden off your home and land from the extremes of weather patterns in your historical record.  If it flooded, snowed, or was scorchingly hot in your area in the past few years, expect that again.  Expect the opposite extreme to occur at some point. Even as we find ourselves in winter in the Northern hemisphere, you should be getting your preps in place now to endure a Summer of record-breaking extremes.  If that means insulating your house or acquiring cooling sources independent of the grid, you should do that now.  If that means stocking your prepper pantry with a particular food ahead of the next shortage, do that now.  Our ancestors worked three seasons to secure the resources they needed to endure the long season of winter.  Our job now is to work through each season to prepare for the next. We will caution our readers here.  It’s very easy to get swirled up in the uncertainty, speculation, theories, and arguments about what is happening, but it’s undeniable that something is actually happening.  We see signs of it every day, everywhere we look, and we can compare that to history, and we are left wondering why now?  Why do all these things seem to be occurring with greater frequency and intensity?  Only hindsight will provide us with a reasonable answer. What you can do now is to prepare for an uncertain future.  Mother nature is about to hit us pretty hard if these models and projections are even half accurate.  You can argue the veracity of the claims and details or accept that the outcomes are coming and it is time to prepare for them. What are you doing today to prepare for these extreme weather events of tomorrow? As always, stay safe out there.
  • Marti’s Corner – 100

    Marti’s Corner – 100

    Marti's Corner at City PreppingHi Everyone,

    Time for another disclaimer:  I do not represent any particular company or business.  I am not an expert in anything!!!  This newsletter represents a lot of things that “I” do in an attempt to become more self-reliant.  I’m just trying to be a cheerleader and encourage others to feel the peace that comes from being prepared for an emergency.

    NOTES:
     Propane heater**  Last week I talked about using a propane space heater.  I was reminded that using such heaters in enclosed spaces could result in carbon monoxide poisoning, and that careful consideration to manufacturer’s instructions should be given.  

    I decided to do a little research.  Can propane heaters be used indoors?  Are Propane Heaters Safe for Indoors?  According to this article — yes — BUT there are 17 safety rules to protect you!  

    Here is another article about Mr. Heater Buddy Heaters.  (Seems like a lot of “heaters” in that title)  Are Mr. Buddy Heaters Safe to Use Indoors?

    Propane is used in mobile homes and campers.  Even so, please be wise.  The decision we made to use our heater indoors was a personal one.  Make wise decisions and be informed.

    ** I’ve been using my dehydrated carrots A LOT and started wondering how many pounds of fresh carrots would equal a pound of dehydrated carrots, and whether it is more reasonable to just BUY a can of DH carrots at $9.50?  Ugh.  Math.

    1 can of DH carrots = 2.1 pounds

    According to Healthy Canning, 20 pounds of peeled carrots will dry down to 3-3.5 pounds.  Using an average and setting up a ratio, 1 #10 can of DH carrots = about 12 pounds of fresh carrots.  $9.50 / 12 pounds = about $.80.  

    So there you go.  If you can buy carrots for less than $.80 a pound, you will save money by dehydrating yourself.

    ** Oil of Oregano – More and more I am looking for natural herbs to do my healing.  Here are two great videos:

    This is from a high school student.  Oregano Vs Amoxicillin

    Then watch this one from a doctor:  The Miracle Healing of Oil of Oregano (The Best Home Remedies) – Dr. Alan Mandell D.C.

    My daughter was quick to point out that as a physician’s assistant, she does NOT prescribe Amoxicillin for e.coli bacteria because it does not work well.  Doctors use Keflex or Bactrim.  Still, it might be worth it just to have oil of oregano on hand and reading up on how it might be beneficial if no other medications were available.

    GARDEN HAPPENINGS
    So, yes, I have already got seeds started.  My tomato plants have 3-4 leaves, as do the cucumbers.  I thought I’d check on the roots, and they are still very small.  I don’t want to “pot up” until the roots reach the bottom of the little dirt cell.

    Sow Schedule

    Because the soil outside is still cold, I have them in the house at night.  As soon as the temp gets above 60, I take them out in the sun.  Here is a good reference for seed starting:  How to Germinate Seeds for Your Vegetable Garden: Expert Tips and Tricks

    Also…

    You can see–the warmer the soil, the faster the plants germinate.  The gray numbers are the shortest time.  If I want to plant beans directly in the soil, I need to wait until the soil is between 77˚ and 86˚.  By doing this, the beans will germinate in 6 days.

    **I cleaned off a wire shelving unit that had been sitting outside in the weather for months, bought some shop lights for $18 each, and made me a “seed-starting” shelf that now sits inconveniently in the laundry room.  BUT, my seeds are SOOO happy.  I have a fan that blows softly on them to strengthen their stems.  Craig wants to know why I put them under the warm lights and then put a fan on them to cool them down.  LOL  — NO MORE hauling my baby plants in and out, in and out.

    THIS WEEK’S PURCHASE: flour
    FlourA few weeks ago I opened a vacuum-sealed package of flour that was about 8 years old.  It just was not good.  I used it a few times but ended up throwing it all away.  I “knew” that flour did not store for a long time.  It goes rancid and gets a “smell.”  THAT is why we are encouraged to store wheat.  I like having flour on hand and usually keep 4-5 bags of flour in the closet.  But evidently, I am not rotating it often enough.  Lesson learned.  Remember, the flour will get weevils, so you MUST package it with oxygen absorbers, or vacuum seal it.  

    How much do you need?  Well, how much do you use?  Try to have a 3-4 month supply on hand.  When the shelves emptied in 2020, I knew I had enough flour to make bread, but I didn’t WANT to make bread.  LOL  For a large family, that’s about 5 pounds of flour a week (to make about 8 loaves). 

    MISC: pancake mix
    There is nothing easier than just adding water to a pancake mix and having breakfast done.  Add some fruit andpancakes you are good to go.  My favorite is Krusteaz.  I mentioned last year that we used to live by a professional chef.  He used a mix to make pancakes, but he added a little powdered sugar and a little vanilla.  YUM!

    You cannot store pancake mix long term.  The oils in it will go rancid.  The leavenings will stop working after 12-18 months.  I have one open and one on the shelf.  No more.

    You can make your own pancake mixes.  MarysNest.com has some “healthy” pancake mixes.  She uses whole wheat flour.  The shelf life is only 6 months.  She does NOT add fat because that would further decrease the shelf life.  

    5 Healthy Make Ahead Mixes – Shelf Stable Pantry Staples

    FOOD STORAGE RECIPES

    Beef and Rice
    Serves 4-6
    This recipe comes from Pantrycookingplus.com

    She has quite a few recipes along with canning information, dehydrating instructions, cooking with whole wheat, etc.
    1/4 c. dried onion – rehydrate in water for 15-20 min.
    1 TB oil – brown onion in oil in a large skillet
    1 can 12-oz. roast beef, rinsed, drained, and shredded (about 1 1//3 c.)
    2 TB dried green pepper (optional)
    2 cans diced tomatoes undrained
    1 1/2 tsp chili powder
    1 tsp beef bouillon granules
    1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
    3/4 c. long grain white rice
    1 c. water
         Add all ingredients.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 30 min or until rice is cooked.

    KFC Buttermilk Biscuits
    Heat oven to 400˚
    Mix:
    250 g. all purpose flour
    2 tsp salt
    1 TB sugar
    4 tsp baking powder
    1/4 tsp baking soda
    Then cut in:
    4 tsp butter flavor Crisco  (I don’t have this….maybe I’ll just try regular butter for the flavor)
    3 TB vegetable shortening
        Mix until it resembles coarse crumbs
    Stir in 128 grams of buttermilk just until a soft dough forms
    Dust flour on a surface, turn out the dough, and knead gently until the board is no longer sticky.
    Divide our dough in 1/2 and roll each half softly into a 1/2″ thick circle.  Cut out the biscuits with a cutter, being careful NOT to twist, but cut straight down.  Reform scraps and work to continue cutting.  Place slices on an ungreased parchment lined cookie sheet.  Brush the tops with whole milk.  Bake until golden brown for 15 min.  Immediately brush with butter.

    Mickey Mouse Beignets
    Dissolve 1/2 tsp dry yeast in
    1/4 c. warm water
    In a mixer add:
    Yeast mix
    1/4 c. sugar
    2 TB shortening
    1/2 tsp salt
    1/2 c. heavy cream
    1 egg
    1/2 c. very warm water
    4 c. flour
    Mix on medium speed with a dough hook until the dough combines and is smooth.  Let rest 30 min.
    Roll to 1/4 in thick and cut in shapes.
    Cover with a towel and let dough rise until double.  1-1 1/2 hours.
    Heat 3 inches of oil to 350˚.  Fry until golden brown about 2-3 min.  Turn when they are brown on one side.  Place on paper towels to drain.  Dust while warm with powdered sugar and serve immediately.

    —

    Marti

  • The World’s Energy Problem Is Far Worse Than We Are Being Told

    The World’s Energy Problem Is Far Worse Than We Are Being Told

    The world energy crisis is far worse than our leaders are telling us.  Many would have you believe that nothing is wrong even as utility bills grow higher and higher.  Our infrastructure is failing us, our energy systems are under attack and are the cause of economic, political, and physical conflicts around the world.  In this blog, we will shine a light on the world’s energy crisis now and in the future.  We will break it down and show you the real threats and most importantly, what you need to do to insulate yourself from them. Our frankness in this blog might upset many, but you must know the truth about this energy crisis.  You cannot dodge it, and time is literally running out.  It will affect you either in the price you pay per kilowatt and BTU or through power outages and supply interruptions. Here’s what you need to know now… ENERGY SUMMARY Energy SummaryWe have done other blogs on energy in the past.  We did one that details part of the looming energy crisis specific to oil.  And we did one specific to attacks on our power grid.  We have also done solution blogs with free downloadable resources like the Ultimate Guide to Solar Battery Systems and whole home battery options.   It’s obviously a topic we cover on this channel from multiple angles.  Our energy dependence is a weakness and a barrier to our self-sufficiency.  We must put that in perspective and inevitably address it because a looming energy disaster that is getting closer by the day. Let’s zoom out on this threat to understand it at a macro level.  The proper functioning of our global economy requires sufficient energy of the correct type.  Our consumption is at very high levels.  Across the energy supply chain, there are problems.  All along the way, there are high costs for extraction, transport, refinement, transport again, then an added cost of disposal and cleanup.  Clean energy has similar high costs, as cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other rare earth elements are not readily available.  Population demands and profits have always driven the human relation to energy sources.  In the 1500s and 1600s, wood was scarce in England because it was used as a primary building source and fuel for fires.  Over the same period, demand rose, as London, for instance, grew from a population in the tens of thousands to over a half-million.  By the 1700s, the iron industry had transitioned from wood to coal which has greater energy density.  Oil found a place in the 1800s as a replacement for whale oil, with gasoline and kerosene produced as a by-product.  With the invention of the combustion engine, fossil fuels became the king of fuels and have always kept that position. Other energies, like nuclear and renewable energies like solar, wind, and bioenergy, have all supplemented our energy supply but have never dethroned fossil fuels.  There has always been a stoked division between what are called fossil fuels and what are called renewables.  It’s not in the fossil fuel industry’s best interest to promote alternative energies, and part of the narrative of the renewable energy industry is to eliminate the fossil fuel industry.  Most discussions on this topic stop here, as many are deeply entrenched in their belief that this war between energy sources exists and isn’t simply made up by corporate executives, lobbyists, politicians, and PR and marketing companies.  Let’s take the discussion a step forward by asserting that nobody with a vested interest in this truly has a 100% complete solution.  Maybe they need to work together because here is the reality that they won’t tell you: ANTHROPOGENIC HABITATS HabitatAn anthropogenic habitat refers to an environment created or modified by humans. This can include urban areas, agricultural land, and other forms of human development. These habitats can range from small scale, like a single building, to large scale, like an entire city. They often involve using technology and resources to make inhospitable areas livable, such as through air conditioning, running water, and electricity.  That’s the whole definition, but the short answer here is that energy has allowed humans to explode in population and live in essentially inhospitable areas.  Would Phoenix, Arizona, have its population of over 1.6 million people were it not for electricity and water flowing to the tiny microclimates created in the over 600,000 homes?  Probably not, since the city also has over 100 days per year over 100 degrees. This same idea of rapid population growth through the creation of anthropogenic habitats can be seen anywhere around the world where temperatures are too high or too low, precipitation is too significant or too low, or where food for the local population must be produced elsewhere and brought into the area.  Worldwide, everyone uses energy to create an environment where they can thrive.  Demand continues to skyrocket as we convert more of the world into a hospitable environment for humans to thrive. FINITE SUPPLIES Finite SuppliesWhat they aren’t telling you–those corporate executives, lobbyists, politicians, and PR and marketing companies–is that beyond just the cost of extracting, refining, and getting the energy to you, most of it is in a finite supply and dwindling.  When cruising down the road with over a 1/2 tank of gas, we don’t worry about the gas tank level.  We only worry about the levels when the fuel gauge light comes on to let us know we are critically low.  We don’t worry about how much pollution we might leave on the road behind us, but both are hidden concerns.  And we only worry about where the filling station is once that light illuminates our fuel gauge. What if the filling station wasn’t there anymore?  What if the station had no unleaded gas but only liquified natural gas or chunks of coal?  You would be stuck on the side of the road.  That’s where we are at today.  BP, one of the largest oil companies in the world, estimates the world has an estimated 1,700 billion barrels of unextracted oil and 187 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.  That’s enough to last us at the current consumption rate for around 50 years.  Our best scientific minds put coal reserves at approximately 90 years with current consumption.  For the sake of argument, let’s say they are all off on their calculations.  The energy consulting firm Rystad Energy estimates oil for 70 years– 20 years longer than BP estimates.  Even if we have a century more oil, natural gas, and coal at the current consumption rate, we still have a finite supply of under a century.  A century might feel like a long time, but in the big arc of history, it’s a mere moment and woefully inadequate to swiftly transition all of the world from one energy source to another. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION LocationPart of the problem with this supply is that it isn’t all in one place.  It’s all over the world in greater or lesser amounts.  In geographical areas not claimed by any country, there is a competition by developed countries to claim and exploit these resources.  Oil wells do eventually run dry.  Oil extraction from sources like shale and oil sands is much more difficult.  Converting all machinery to run overnight on natural gas or renewables isn’t possible, just as you aren’t going to transform your car between tank fills to operate on liquified natural gas or coal.  At the same time, demand increases with population growth.  Demand increases with extreme weather event cycles. The location, access, extraction, and distribution are driven by profit and geopolitics.  We see this play out on a grand scale in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.  Europeans fear freezing in the dark this winter, and the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and embargoes significantly reduce supply.  America, which sits on plenty of natural gas, is shipping more of it to Europe to fill the gaps and reap the profits.  OPEC+ has always controlled the price of oil and manipulated it to reap maximum profits.  Political decisions that affect the world are based on fossil fuel supplies, profits, and demand.  Populations thrive or contract based on supply.  Economies thrive or contract based on supply. The most successful countries are caught up in locating greater supplies, controlling the location, and obtaining those supplies or profits from those supplies for their people.  It’s quite the problem from whichever angle you examine it. THE SOLUTION? Energy SolutionDepending upon whom you talk to, they will offer you a different absolute solution.  They’re not going to tell you that wars are waging over energy.  They’re not going to tell you that we have a finite supply.  They’re not going to tell you that your current way of living isn’t sustainable at the current costs.  They aren’t going to tell you, as we have pointed out in other blogs, that your energy supply is under daily assault. We will be honest with you and tell you that.   We don’t think there is an “absolute” solution.  Any solution must combine reduced consumption, conservation, and a blend of all energy production means available: hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, and fossil fuels.  Anyone solely trying to sell you just one of those probably has a vested interest in doing so.  Unfortunately, so many people are so deeply entrenched in their “absolute” solution that we probably won’t easily come to any singular path forward.  We definitely won’t peacefully come to a solution within the next century and before supplies run out.  Any solution we collectively come to will be reactive and not proactive. Accepting that fact, wars and economic battles will be our future.  Power grid failures will occur with greater frequency.  People in the most affected areas will become ecological refugees or struggling survivors as their anthropogenic habitats fail them or become too expensive to sustain.  We know that’s not a great future we are  painting here, but that’s what we see at the moment.  Still, as with any global shift, you can prep individual changes that can see you through until things work themselves out.  This isn’t an extinction event as much as it is a global shift in how we live our lives. There are prepping solutions you can plug in today.  First, move away from an “unlimited” mindset.  As a prepper, when you turn on the tap, you know that the resource of water isn’t always going to flow.  After a disaster, it might stop or be polluted.  Knowing this, you store water and have filtration systems, methods of purifying water, and precipitation collection systems.  Even more vulnerable than water in many cases is your energy supply, and this can be a deadly interruption of services if you live in an area prone to extreme climate events.  An insulative R-value of between 30 and 38 isn’t going to keep you cool enough or warm enough through a week-long extreme weather event without energy.  If you live in an older home, it was likely built in a time when extreme, prolonged heatwaves or polar vortexes weren’t as commonplace.  Modern construction assumes a goldilocks range of temperatures and an uninterrupted energy supply to maintain a habitable living space.  Your dependency on these things can also be your downfall after a disaster, a break in services, or even war thousands of miles away from you. YOUR SOLUTION Energy Solution 2Your solution is really the same as that global solution.  First, you need to make efforts now to understand your consumption and your basic minimum needs.  Understanding how you use and need energy will help you prepare for any time when the power ceases to flow when you flick a switch.  What are your basic minimum needs?  Is heating or cooling an essential thing that means the difference between life and death for you?  If so, you better address and prep for that.  You can use City Prepping’s FREE Capacity Calculator here to understand your consumption needs. That’s your starting point.  Unless you can just switch to burning wood again and drinking from your well, you need to develop a solution from there.  What are the things that absolutely must run?  Are you dependent upon a refrigerator, C-Pap, or oxygen machine?  Can you only pump or boil water on an electric stovetop?  Does your radio only work on batteries?  Work up from your bare necessities, those things you absolutely need to survive to your luxuries.  Then you have two more steps.  First, reduce your consumption by eliminating inefficiencies.  If you have leaky windows or poor insulation, it is time to change that.  You can assess your home by implementing some of the hacks we explain in our video, 9 Easy Hacks to Save Energy This Winter.  Saving money now through conserving energy will also reduce your consumption needs after a disaster.   Second, you need to ensure that your minimum needs are met for the longest time possible.  What will you do when your grid goes down for a week or more?  Many preppers are prepared for a power outage of a few days, but most people aren’t prepared for even a few hours without power.   Some combination of batteries, portable solar battery packs, portable solar arrays, wind turbines, generators, solar battery packs, or home solar panels with home batteries needs to be your solution.  At first, you need to be able to function with reduced consumptive needs for that same 72 hours that FEMA says is the minimum.  Then, you need to logically push that self-sufficiency timeframe to a week, 3-weeks, or indefinitely.  Failing to do so leaves you a willful victim of a system that will fail one day.  This isn’t a question of when.  It absolutely will fail at some point, but you can be prepared for it just as you prepare for disruptions in your water or food supply. Finally, look at the soaring costs of energy as an opportunity.  If you can take advantage of government incentives to install solar on your home along with a battery backup system, you will save money as energy costs increase, and you will be able to power arbitrage consumption.  You decrease your dependency on a system that will eventually fail, and you better position yourself with such a setup in any post-disaster situation.  I’m not trying to sell you solar, especially since it isn’t a viable solution in all areas of the world.  Your challenge is definitely finding a multimodal energy solution.  What combination of various energy resources will work for you in your area?  Get them leveraged as a prep for you, just like your food and water are. They won’t tell you that we are heading toward an energy disaster.  Our systems are vulnerable to multiple attacks, from physical to cyber.  An ever-increasing competition for finite resources leads us to all-out economic and physical wars.  We have built our buildings and lived our lives in areas of the world that cannot be sustained without energy.  Extended periods of extreme weather that are out of the normal ranges we built our homes and infrastructure to sustain are becoming more frequent in occurrence.  These are all weaknesses that will lead us to small and large disasters in the future.  Those small disasters can become more frequent and can compound into larger disasters.  We wouldn’t hope for those corporate executives, lobbyists, politicians, and PR and marketing companies to come to any overnight solution to make your life better, and I wouldn’t hope to be on the winning side of the war they are fighting amongst themselves. Anywhere we have a dependence on systems outside our limited control, we need to prep for that potential failure.  That puts energy right in line with food and water.  Of course, we could live without power, but millions of people suddenly needing to switch from electricity to burning bio-mass resources like wood…well…let’s just say that many won’t survive that transition. Don’t ignore this looming energy crisis, and don’t dig into any one side of the argument.  Neither side is entirely correct with their proposed solutions, but you can find a personal solution that will carry you through. As always, stay safe out there.

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