Rain Gutter Garden

Part of being prepared for anything that life has to throw at you is learning how to do things that will help you survive no matter what problems come along. Be it a sudden lay off, the main bread winner gets sick, rising food prices or what have you. Learning to live a self sustainable life no matter where you live can go a long way to help you get through any rough times.

Gardening and growing your own food is one way to become self sustaining. Some people would be surprised at how much food they could grow every year if only they thought out of the box. When you mention gardening to them they automatically think of a big plot of land of maybe a acre or two. Next they start thinking about all the work involved in growing a garden the way our grandmothers and great grandmothers did. Once they do that they say the heck with it because there is to much work involved.

I have had a 30 ft x 20 ft garden for quite some time and last year I decided to expand on the amount of food I could produce each year. I started by buying two drawf fruit trees. One plum and one cherry.

Cherry Tree

Plum Tree

Even though both of them bloomed this year I will not be able to harvest from them. The branches are to thin to handle the weight of the fruits this year so if any fruit does start to grow I will pick it off and discard it. Hopefully the branches will be able to support the weight of fruit next year.

Since I can not enlarge my actual garden I must find other ways to grow more food. For me going vertical  is about the only way I can enlarge my growing area. This past weekend I was able to add another 40 feet by 6 inch growing space in the form of rain gutter gardening. I bought 4-10 foot sections of vinyl rain gutter, 12 bracing brackets and 8 end caps. I also bought 4-8 foot long boards to hang the gutters on. I didn't have to use the boards but I did it so I would not have to put so many holes in the siding of my garage. 

I drill holes 6 inches apart all along the bottom of the gutters.

Then my son and his friend attached each of the boards to the side of the garage with 3 long 4 inch screws.

Then they used one inch screws to attach the gutter and brackets to the wood.

I have not had a chance to fill them with soil and plant yet because it started raining on us when we were getting the last gutter up Saturday. Yesterday was real windy and then today we work up to a heavy frost and the temp was 28 degrees. By the time I took my son to work at 6 am we had climbed up to a balmy 30 degrees. LOL

Tomorrow I will be filling these with soil and planting them since last night was suppose to be our last frost. I will take some more pictures in an few weeks after the plants start growing good. 

I also ripped out every thing I had in a flower bed I have not used in a couple of years and I am starting it over as a herb bed. Flowers are nice to look at and some of them are edible but I would rather have herbs since I use them in cooking a lot. 

Next on my to do list will be to get two more fruit trees. I want a granny smith apple and a peach tree. Then  next year more vertical gardening will be added.

Been Busy, Busy, Busy

Winter is finally over and spring is here. It's that time of year to get the yard cleaned up and get my garden ready so for the past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of time out side. After being cooped up in the house most of the winter it sure feels good to get out side and enjoy the fresh air and getting my hands into the nice moist earth. I have been pulling weeds, picking up branches that fall during the winter, trash that people throw out of their cars as they drive by, getting my garden and herb bed ready to plant and foraging for wild spring foods.

So far in the foraging department I have been picking purslane, wild onions and red bud flowers. I use the purslane in soups, stews and salads and I will be making red bud jelly with the red bud flowers. Will also be making lilac jelly in a few more days when the lilacs bloom. I am all for free food and learning to forage is helping me to feed my family better and cheaper. Plus if the time comes when the world as we know it ends and grocery stores are no longer around I will have other ways to provide for my family. :)

I have been doing some canning here and there in the last few weeks. One thing I made for the first time was Mango Chutney. I have never had any type of chutney before so I looked on line for a recipe I thought I might like. I found this one http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mango-Chutney-230708.

I followed the recipe almost to a T but I used apple cider vinegar instead of white and I didn't have any golden raisins so I used plain raisins. It turned out so good that I will be making more of this soon. Doesn't it look pretty?

I got 5 half pints out of the recipe.

Valdilia onions were on sale up here about 3 weeks ago so I bought 16 pounds of them and made most of them into caramelized onions and canned them. I have already opened one jar of them, heated them up and served over New York Strip Steak. It was so good!

To make the caramelized onions I simply sliced all the onions and put them into two crock pots with a stick of butter in each. I turned the crock pot on low and let it cook for 24 hours. I then drained off the juice and reserved it. Fill the jars with the onions and topped off with enough of the juice to one inch level, wipe the rims of the jars with vinegar, applied the two piece caps and pressure canned for 40 minutes.

Warning: This is not a USDA approved recipe so if you try it you try it at your own risk.

Because my two crock pots would only hold half of the 16 pounds of onions it took me two days to get them all canned since each batch had to cook in the crock pots for 24 hours. So here is a picture of all the canning I got done in two days. Five of the jars are mango chutney and the rest are onions. Since I am the only one that likes caramelized onions in my family these should be enough to last me a year. :)

Next it will be the red bud jelly. This will be my first time making it so I will report back as soon and I get it done. :)

Preppers - Another word to describe crazy people

When some people find out I am a prepper they look at me like I am crazy. They picture me cowering behind some door with a gun or wooden bat in my hand because I think some brain eating zombie is after me but nothing can be further from the truth. Sure preppers worry some about zombies but not the kind that are made up for movies. The zombies we fear are the ones that are made from hunger because they have no food and no access to food because of either a natural disaster or food shortages, nuclear attacks, falling over the fiscal cliff or even something like a sudden job loss. We are not crazy. We just want to make sure we can take care of our families not matter what life throws at us.

Preppers know that in the event of a huge act of Mother Nature power can be lost for days, weeks and even months. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy are prime examples of that. So are ice storms and tornado's and earthquakes. With out power wells wont work and water treatment plants will no longer be able to supply you with clean water. What fresh  and frozen meats, fish, seafood and dairy products that are in the stores will be unsafe to eat in a matter of hours. Gas pumps will not work. Electric cook stove will not work. If its very cold outside there will be no furnace working to keep you home warm. Looters will run rampant with in hours of the event. First they will go for the stores but after a few days when the stores run out they will come for you looking to get what they need. These people don't care about your needs or those of your family. They only think about their selves and some times their own family if they have one. They are all about what they can get for free or what they want or need to survive. No one else matters to them. That is why preppers prep! They want to make sure they and their families have a chance to survive no matter what has happened.

A sudden job loss can devastate a family , especially if it is the main bread winner that loses their job. The family income takes a big hit because lets face it, unemployment in most cases is not near enough to what you were bringing home to pay the bills, feed the family, buy clothes and other much needed items your family must have. And then when the medical insurance stops because you no longer work for the company you have medical bills that you have to cover out of your unemployment but even a greater strain on your budget.
So what do you do? Its either let a bill go to pay the doctor when your child is sick and needs meds that you must pay out of pocket before they can get them or pay the bill and hope the child gets better on their own.
You know you are going to let the bill or bills go in order to make sure your child gets well but that only puts you further behind and after while it seems like you are drowning in debit and will never see your head above water again. It can takes months and some times even a couple of years before you can find another job where you will make enough to catch up on your finances.

Preppers think about all these things. They know they can lose their job at any time because of the current economy or a natural disaster. They have been through or seen the effects of hurricanes, tornados, ice storms, blizzards and so on. They have seen empty stores shelves before and after such an event. They have been through long term power outages. They have seen how the looters come out and the damage they do to stores, homes and people. Preppers don't look at the world through rose colored glasses. They see the world as it is and what it can be like when things go bad.

They know not to depend on the government to help them much in times of severe need. Take a good look at what happened when Katrina and Sandy hit the USA. It took days before FEMA could get into some areas to help. People were on their own trying their best to survive. Food that had been in the stores were ruined. Water was contaminated. Bodies of humans and sea life where laying around decaying. Homes were destroyed and some people had no place to stay. Gas was unavailable so they could get out if they could even get out because some roads became impassable. Sandy happened during the fall/winter and people were with out heat in cold temperatures. And no matter how prepared FEMA is it can still take them hours if not days to respond because they need to make sure their own workers are not in danger.

Preppers are also a proud people. They don't want to depend on the government or the American taxpayer to support and provide for their families. They want to do it them selves. They are hard working people who have worked all their lives doing what they can to make sure their families are well fed, warm and protected to the best that they can possibly do for them. They live with in their means and depend on no one but them selves. They do not want to be a burden to anyone. They don't want government handouts.

So if you are a prepper stand up tall and proud because you will be able to provide for your family when things go bad for some reason. And if you are not a prepper you might want to start thinking about it. Thinks about what will happen if you have to survive after a event like Sandy. How are you going to keep your family fed, warm and safe?

And for those that think preppers are crazy well I will put it this way. I am thinking the same about you because you are willing to take a chance on your survival and that of your family if something big happens around you.

Prepping for survival in a post SHTF world

I do not hide the fact that I belief that life as we know it will soon end on earth and we will be forced to live much like our ancestors did back in the 1800's. Even Hollywood seems to think that now with the rash of survival type shows that they are coming out with. Shows like Revolution, Last Resort and of course all the end of the world movies like 2012.

Personally I am not a believer of the Mayan calendar and a lot other far fetched ideas that some people have but I do believe that because of what is going on between nations today that things will happen that will shut down the world's power grid and force us all back into a world of darkness. Money will be worthless, cars will no longer run, stores will no longer be opened. There will be no way to buy what you need nor will you have a good chance at finding it since looters will be running rampant because they did not prepare.

But there is even more good reasons to do everything you can do to prepare for survival. Mother Nature is a prime example of why it is good to always be prepared for survival. Earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, ice storms, blizzard and more can take out power for weeks, close stores and gas stations for weeks, Freeze water pipes, contaminate the local water supply, ruin crops and more. All which can result in unprepped people having next to nothing the way of resources to survive until things are back to normal. That is not something I want for my family. So I do what I can to prep for my family in hopes that they will be able to survive until the world returns to normal or a new normal sets in.

A big part of my prepping includes owning a prep/survival group so that I may gain and share knowledge with others that are like minded. We talk about everything to do with survival from learning how to cook over and open fire to how to raising our own meat animals, to gardening and perserving our harvest. If you are interested in learning more about prepping for survival or if you have knowledge that you would like to share I would like to invite you to join http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hardcorepreppers2/

Its a good group to join and you find lot of friendly people who are like minded when it comes to prepareing for a future that may be completely different than what we live in today. I hope to see you there.