Some recommendations for stockpiling seeds for a survival garden.

Radish – fast growing, usually ready to harvest 30 days after planting, the whole plant is edible.

Turnips and Rutabaga – large green leaves, good for feeding humans and livestock.

Yellow Squash and Zucchini – including winter and summer squash. Some types of squash can be stored for 2 – 3 months.

Beans and Peas – require little fertilizer, can be dried and stored over the winter. Have been raised by humans for thousands of years.

Potatoes and onions – easy to grow, can sometimes be stored for 6 – 7 months. Onion bulbs and potatoes stored over the winter can be used to plant next years garden.

Corn – Harvested by mankind for thousands of years. Good for feeding people and livestock.

Cucumbers – High producers, but have high nitrogen requirements.

Peppers – good source of vitamin C. Can be dried and ground into spices.

Okra – High producing plant, just a couple of rows 100 feet long can produce 2 – 5 gallons of Okra every 2 days. This plant needs a lot of water, so its not good for areas prone to drought.

Post your comments in this thread on seeds for a survival garden.

Tags: beans and peas, corn, cucumbers, okra, peppers, radish, squash, Survival Garden Seeds, turnips

Some tips on how to make sausage. James at Jasper Quality Meats and Smokehouse in Jasper, Texas agreed to do an interview and show us how to make smoked sausage.

We start off with some pork scraps and put them into a grinder that grinds it into something a pan sausage.  From there is it mixed with spices, then pushed into the sausage casing.  The sausage casing is wrapped around a bar and put into a smoke house for 12 – 16 hours, depending on the outside temperature.

Tags: home made sausage, how to make sausage, sausage, sausage making

This article on Raising Rabbits in the backyard was originally posted by dilligaf in the Preparedness General Discussion Forum.

————————————————-

For small scale farming ,even in the city, rabbits may be a good option for your homestead. For many raising our own rabbit may be a better option than raising a few chickens. They need less space overall and are definitely quieter. Rabbits are often times considered poultry in cities and ordinances rather than as “livestock”. Rabbit can not only produce meat but make wonderful pets and can provide for a side income of either selling animal meat or fur/pelt.

Here are a few fast facts and rabbit terminology .

A male rabbit is a buck

A female rabbit is a doe.

baby rabbit is a kit.

Continue Reading »

Tags: farming, livestock, rabbits, Raising Rabbits

Survival Food

Every survivalist should have seeds stockpiled for a survival garden. The first questions is, why would anyone need a “survival garden?” During extended wide spread disasters, food production and shipments might get disrupted. Most grocery stores only have a few days worth of supplies in their warehouse. When the panic buying kicks in, those stocks could be wiped out in a matter of hours.

In the days before a hurricane makes landfall, local grocery stores are cleaned out. There is no reason to think the same thing will not happen if there is an outbreak of some kind of new disease, or some kind of other world wide event.

During outbreaks of the plague in the middle ages, starvation was a serious issue.  As farmers were dying off, and the merchants died off, there was nobody to raise the food or ship it to the cities.  People who live in an urban environment, and who depend on the grocery store for their food – they especially need to take home gardening very seriously.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Farming and Gardening, home garden, stockpiling seeds, survival garden, Urban survival

Onions

Home grown onions are an easy item to grow.  Even for those gardeners that have a black thumb and kill everything they touch, onions should still be able to live through the touch of death.

The way onions grow, they have several shoots that come off the main root.  These shoots develop sugars, which then go into the bulb and help the bulb grow.  When the shoots start to die, that is a sign that the sugars are going into the root ball.

When stored properly, most onion root balls can be stored through the winter.  In early spring some types of onions will start developing shoots, which is a sign that they should be planted.

Continue Reading »

Tags: home garden, home grown onions, onions, Urban survival