It’s easy to place blame on someone or something else in regard to the lack of food security in our world. We could blame the government. We can the disease that had us locked up for two years. We can blame the war in Europe. We can blame our president or our economic system. We can blame someone else or even ourselves or we can take responsibility by responding with a solution, at least for ourselves.
I have watched hundreds of prepper videos and articles and read dozens of prepper books. Most of them give a laundry list of things that you should buy to stock up on supplies for The End of Our World as We Know It. They tell you that you need to purchase food, water, medicines, energy for cooking, heating, and lighting, and a way to protect yourself from whatever may happen when dealing with others.
I have done many of those things and have been glad that I did them. When we didn’t have electricity for over a week many years ago, I was glad that we had water and food and a wood cookstove already for that time.
When we both lost our jobs a couple years after that, we had a lot of food that lasted us until we were able to get additional help. During this time, we also had a garden, and I canned a lot of our food.
What if We have an Extended Crisis?
What happens if the power is out for a long time, and we can’t use refrigeration, or we can’t get to the grocery store, or food isn’t available at the grocery store for an extended time? Our stored foods will only run out. Then what?
Some of these prepper videos also encourage canning foods for long-term storage. I do that too. I have canned meat, vegetables, fruit, ready-to-eat meals, and even canned reconstituted dried beans so that if we were to have an extended time where we couldn’t cook.
All the above are good for a limited time, but what will we do when our stored foods, canning lids, and power are no longer available? What then? How long will the food we stored last us?
Gardening, a Perpetual Skill Set
There’s a skill set we can all learn that previous generations all knew and that was the backbone to everything that they did and that was the fact that they gardened and knew what it took to store their food over the winter. Yes, some of the food that they grew they fermented or dried to last them through the winter months, but some of that food they were able to store without any kind of refrigeration, dehydration, pickling, or any other form of mechanized processing. They grew vegetables that didn’t need any of this. They knew which foods they could store that didn’t need it! They could store these vegetables all winter without
Not only did they grow the foods that didn’t need it, but they also knew how to grow the seeds, clippings, or sprouts that they planted. They knew what each variety needed to reproduce. The propagation of beans was different than the propagation of potatoes. The propagation of potatoes is different than the propagation of carrots. The propagation of carrots is different than the propagation of squash, and the propagation of squash is different than the propagation of sweet potatoes.
Why I Wrote The Survival Garden
I wrote The Survival Garden with this concept in mind. My parents grew up during the depression and I grew up in a poor family where I learned a lot from them about what I am sharing. This book won’t tell you about all the things you can plant throughout the year, nor does it offer everything that you can store over the winter. However, in this book, I’ve included the most common vegetables that can be grown in most parts of the United States and much of the world.
Want more? Here’s a link to a sample of The Survival Garden: Plant a Garden for Food to Last All Winter that You Won’t Have to Can, Freeze or Dehydrate.
The Perpetual Homesteader 