It’s quite interesting seeing a nice summary of their experiences, and how living a truly primitive lifestyle for 13 months changed the way they think.

Would you have the skills necessary to live in this manner? Even with whatever supplies you might have on hand? What can you do to make life a little bit in this type of situation, even if it’s for only a week or two after a major earthquake? I can bet that no matter how well prepared you might be, it wouldn’t take too long for some areas to live in a near iron age state when it comes to their reliance on pre-packaged supplies from a store.

Audience Warning: some National Geographic style nudity in a couple of scenes

Click here to view the embedded video.

Benefits to raising chickens

There are a number of benefits that people interested in backyard chickens generally cite. Some of the most cited benefits are below:

Fresh Eggs

Fresh eggs have a noticeably brighter, more yellower or orange yolk. Fresh eggs have also been scientifically shown to be more nutritious and are reported to be better tasting than store bought eggs which are often several weeks old.

Research conducted by Mother Earth News compared eggs from 14 flocks across the United States. The study found that when compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, free-range eggs contained:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 3/2 more vitamin A
• Twice the omega-3 fatty acids
• Three times more vitamin E
• Seven times more beta carotene
• Four to six times more vitamin D

Pest Control

If you allow your chickens out in your yard, even occasionally you will find that they are great at helping control pest bugs and weeds. Chickens will eat most bugs and weeds such as ticks, fleas, ants, beetles, grasshoppers, fly larvae, grubs and slugs. Our chickens even once attacked a mouse that was unlucky enough to jump into the coop. Fortunately for the mouse, it managed to get out of the coop before being pecked to death. Be cautious however as many chicken breeds will also love to eat some of the plants in your garden. You don’t want to eliminate the pests at the expense of your crop.

Fertilizer

Chicken droppings are great fertilizer for your garden. They are quite ‘hot’ though and need to be processed with compost or through another process and should not be applied directly to your plants or it could ‘burn’ them. To resolve this issue, many gardeners will add the droppings in to their compost in small quantities. This enriches the compost and distributes the nitrogen evenly.

Chicken Meat

You can raise chickens for meat, but generally meat birds are different breeds from egg producing breeds. Some egg producing breeds also grow large enough and in the right areas to be useful for egg production. You also shouldn’t forget that once an egg producer stops laying, they can still provide you with meat. Even the stringiest rooster can taste great in a chicken stew or after being bottled in a mason jar.

Teaching Responsibility to Children

Raising chickens can (some would argue should) be a family affair. Chickens need to be fed and watered daily, so assigning children to do these chores can help them develop a sense of responsibility. It can also reduce the psychological separation from our food supply that exists in modern day America. Knowing where your food comes from is the first step to learning how to produce it on your own and working towards being more self reliant. Isn’t that what we are trying to do?

What you’ll need

Chickens

Perhaps it doesn’t need to be said, but obviously you will need chickens. There are a number of ways to obtain chickens. You can often source them locally (although seasonally) through IFA or other similar stores. Many people enjoy having exotic and fun looking chickens. There are many breeds available and the only way to get some of them is through mail order breeders. A simple search online will provide you with a long list of mail order chicken suppliers. Determine what breed you want then find a reputable supplier, either locally or via mail order.

When determining what breed you should get, the breed chart at BackYardChickens.com is a good place to start.

Coop

You chickens will needs someplace to stay warm and dry as well as a comfortable location to lay their eggs.

People raising backyard chicken are increasingly using Chicken Tractors, a smaller moveable coop that is great for a few chickens and is relatively inexpensive in terms of materials and construction time. Others prefer a more elaborate traditional coop some of which can be considered art (Art of the Chicken Coop: A Fun and Essential Guide to Housing Your Peeps). Another option is to allow your chickens to be completely Free Range. You will find that they will roost in the evening on railings, in trees, on fences or wherever they can get off the ground and huddle together. Here in Utah this can work well over the summer and for part of Spring and Fall. For Winter however you should have a way of keeping your chickens warm so a chicken coop or shelter of some sort will be needed. Amazon offers a number of books on building chicken coops from complete plans,  to tips and tricks, to a Dummies book on building coops.

Food and water

Most stores that sell chickens also sell chicken scratch and a supplement for egg producing chickens. Scratch is generally a mixture of corn and other grains. The egg mixture is oyster shells plus other ingredients meant to deliver calcium to ensure strong egg shells. This may also assist chickens in laying more frequently but I haven’t personally noticed a difference. If your chickens are free range, or at least let out a few hours a day you will find that the amount of food you need to provide will be reduced. They will make it up with weeds, bugs, etc. Given the relatively small size of most yards today, you will still probably want to supplement some. Observe your chickens and their laying patterns to help you decide what and how much to supplement with store bought food or vegetable based table scraps.

You should also be aware that chickens drink a lot of water. You will need to ensure that they have easy access to water year round. In the dead of winter a heat lamp is also helpful in warming the chickens and keeping the water ice free, but depending on your exposure to cold weather you may need a dedicated heated water container.

Other birds

Traditionally a number of other bird species have been raised traditionally in order to provide both meat and eggs for families. These are not as popular today for a number of reasons, both economic and practical.

Turkey – Turkeys produce about a third the number of eggs as a chicken, but have a lot more meat on them. It seems like these are more practical as meat birds. The primary value in their eggs seems to be in producing more turkeys. On a related note, most modern breeds of turkeys are produced as meat birds. They reach maturity quickly in order to harvest meat faster. This causes the turkeys to have a short natural life span. Like meat chicken breeds, when they are ready to harvest for meat, they may be too large and top heavy to walk.

Duck – Ducks can be a good addition or substitute for chickens. Depending on the breed, (Khaki Campbells for example) ducks can produce an egg a day on average, much like many chicken breeds. Duck eggs are typically the same size as a large or extra large chicken egg and are higher in fat and cholesterol, but are also rich in Omega 3 fatty acids. A downside is that ducks require a bit more space and care. You will likely need a small wading pool or tub of water for them as well.

Geese – Geese generally lay for only a portion of the year, typically from late Spring to late Summer or early Fall. They do not lay reliably like most ducks and chickens although their eggs are larger. The true value in geese is in their ability to help maintain established orchards by eating young undesired saplings and through their use as alarm animals. Many cultures have used geese in place of dogs or other animals as they will immediately alert you to intruders.

Quail – Quail produce very small eggs, often daily. These eggs are prized by chefs for their rich flavor. Caring for quail is more difficult than the aforementioned species as they are more sensitive to heat and cold and thus must usually be raised indoors.

Resources

News articles

Backyard chickens, bees cutting edge of growing local food movement

Why all the interest in raising backyard chickens?

Throwback at Trapper Creek Post on chickens

Chicken tour begins in Salt Lake on Saturday

Survival Blog – Raising Backyard Chickens

Cooped Up: Chickens Come Home to Roost for Urbanites With a Yen for Hen

Useful Links

Poultry Keeper

Country Enterprise

New Agrarian

Urban Homestead

This book also stood out to me, because I often wonder *how* my family managed to get enough food to live.  My mom’s side of the family was that oft-discussed “hearty pioneer stock”.  However I have noticed that while many farmed to live, I have a long history of blacksmiths and military.  There is no hiding that this must be because I inherited a really lousy black-thumb, they took up other trades because of this family curse. I’m one of those people who has to work really hard to make part of his garden succeed.  I enjoy blaming my heritage on this, as it cannot be some failing of my own, right?  So I felt driven to read this book, and find out how they managed to live, despite my inability to grow enough of the right foods in the wasteland of Utah.

Quick Summary:

Audience: Frustrated gardeners, those looking for more season to grow, people who feel they need to change their gardening to be more useful.

Target Location: The author speaks heavily about his experiences in the mountain west/high desert regions (specifically Utah valley). Skills discussed will make farming there much easier, and everywhere else is just easy :)

Mormons Only? No, not even close. This is mentioned specifically because of the historical hardships they encountered when arriving in Utah, and attempting to farm in what was considered a barren land. The author relies on some old family journals for historical information to help understand why certain farming techniques work, and why we shouldnt’ have forgotten them.

The Full Review:

Forgotten Skills is an encouraging read, introducing people of the mountain west to the fact that they can grow food year-round, even in our crazy climate.  The author relies heavily on pioneer journals (mostly from his family) in order to reference specific practices for growing and preserving food that are completely foreign to most people today.  Granted, experienced readers of this blog might be familiar with many specific concepts, such as: non-hybrid seeds, canning, etc; the author goes into extra depth about how these practices were used to simply stay alive in not so distant years.  Beyond some more recently popular topics, there is great encouragement into practices that can be used by people with even small yards to produce and store food year-round by simply changing certain practices in your gardening.

This book in not designed however as a be-all reference. At only 145 pages, with many great photos, you wont’ find a book that teaches every single thing you need to be independent.  However it introduces a good number of important practices, provides basic reasoning as to why it was an important skill, and provides some modern usage examples. It makes sure you know enough about what the skill is, and gives you what you need to find more information if you want. Example: After a great discussion about seed hybridization practices, and their effects, he also spends time explaining how seed banks work and how you can participate in one to get useful seeds in your garden.

Major Topics:

Here is a list of some of the major topics covered that should get the interest of our readers:

• Seeds
• Extending the harvest
• Perennial food plants
• Trees
• Cellaring
• Long Keeping Foods
• Early Veggies
• Pioneer Yeast
• Modern Ideas the Pioneers Would Have Appreciated
• Eggs
• Chickens
• Forgotten Recipes

The winner as determined by the random number generator is…

Paulfamilyinfo99!

Congratulations! Please contact us with your address information so that we can send you the DVD package. If we are not able to get in touch with the winner, we will arrange to select another winner next week.

Thank you all for reading our review. We hope that you all will become regular visitors to our site.

The host, Marjory Wildcraft is also not shy about referring the viewer to the books that they consulted when learning and direct you to them for more in depth information. This is in contrast to many other “experts” I have seen over the years who keep their information close to the vest. Marjory appears to genuinely want to provide information to help others get on the path to self sufficiency by sharing everything they can fit in to the 2 hours of video on the DVD.

DVD Section Summary

The DVD is broken down into a number of chapters that cover the 2 hours of content. I’ll include some brief information on each section.

Section 1: Overview about 4 minutes in length

Just like it says, this a basic introduction, describing the makers, their property and philosophies.

Section 2: Water about 10 minutes in length

An old saying is that without water you are nothing. Water is king, especially here in the high desert of Utah. This section explains the main sources for getting water and which ones are best for food production. Marjory and her family have tried several different ways to collect and store water, some of which worked better for them than others.

Section 3: Garden about 20 minutes in length

This is one of the longer sections of the DVD. While there is plenty of good general gardening information here but I would recommend that for anyone outside of their area of Texas you look into getting information focused on your specific are. Many of the techniques demonstrated can be used in most climates, but the plants and specific processes needed, fertilizers, local pests, etc. will need a local perspective. Your local Universities Extension program likely has an Agricultural department with this information publicly available. Here in Utah, the Utah State University Extension office is a great source.

Section 4: Rabbits about 9 minutes in length

One of the primary meat sources for the family are rabbits. This is a relatively short section explaining why the family chose rabbits, how to house them, what breeds they chose and why and mistakes that you can avoid.

Section 5: Home Butchering about 18 minutes in length

This section is not for the squeamish. It centers around in depth video instructions on killing and butchering a rabbit. Hide tanning is also mentioned, but is not well covered. After this there are still pictures of the process to butcher chickens with a brief mention of other animals like raccoons, deer, elk, etc. that could all be sources of meat.

Section 6: Poultry about 8 minutes in length

This section provides a decent introduction to chickens, their predators, and some problems to look out for. Marjory outlines what breeds they use and why. Some Polyface Farms influence can be seen here as well as they rotate the chickens through different areas to help improve and maintain soil quality and to cut down on weeds and insects.

Section 7: Dogs about 5 minutes in length

The creators of this DVD are clearly sold on the benefits of having dogs in your life, mainly to fend off unwanted animals. They make some pretty convincing arguments. A short section is included on training, but as with most topics covered here, if you want to really get started in using working dogs, further research will be required, but this touches on some of the basics so you know what you are working towards.

Section 8: Perennials: Orchards, Food Forests, and Edible Landscaping about 18 minutes in length

This section has some really useful information, but again your best bet is to consult with your local University’s extension program to apply what you see in the DVD to your area. The types of edible foods that you can grow in your climate can vary greatly from those presented in this DVD or in books on the subject so do your homework on what works where you live.

Section 9: Other Essentials about 11 minutes in length

The second to last section contains information that the DVD creators think is important but doesn’t fit well in a previous section. There is plenty of good information here and is too varied to give a brief accounting of.

Section 10: Thanks about 4 minutes in length

As you might expect, this is the section where the creators thank those who helped in producing the DVD.

Bonus Material

Throughout the DVD Marjory references different books and documents for those seeking more detailed information on a particular subject. Included with the DVD is a CD-ROM loaded with many of the referenced documents in PDF format. My copy had 65 PDF documents included ranging in subject from Solar Food Dehydration to Insecticides to Hide Tanning. While I haven’t spent a tremendous amount of time reviewing the documents, they seem to have been compiled with care to supplement the information provided in the videos for those wanting more information. Often during the course of explaining what the document covers, Marjory will give a location to download the document. This is a good resource in case the information on the CD bonus disc were to become out of date.

Closing Thoughts

This DVD provides a quick introduction into many aspects of self sufficiency. As with any brief introduction, further research will be required. Having this documented example of an integrated home/small farm food production system has the potential to save you time and money by following proven, working examples.

The information in the DVD is optimized for southern climates, particularly the makers specific region of Texas. Viewers from other regions should also find it educational and useful, that being said, this is of course an introduction into many varied concepts that relate to self sufficiency. I don’t think it can be said enough, integrating all these ideas and concepts into your life will take some hard work, research and trial and error. The results should be well worth it however.

Giveaway Information

The producers of this DVD have kindly provided us a copy of this DVD to giveaway to one of our lucky readers. To enter, post a comment about this article letting us know what you would like to learn from watching the DVD. We will select one winner at random from all the comments on Friday June 17th and send them their own copy of this preparedness DVD.

We will be selecting one winner at random from those who comment on the review post that will be published next week. Complete details on how to enter to win will be included in the review post.

In the meantime, check out this DVD preview.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are a lot of gardening books out there that are written by people who clearly know how to garden. Unfortunately, communication is not their strong point, and what should be a fountain of knowledge instead becomes a wasteland of over-edited, sometimes terse sometimes diluted text dreaming to be content. This is not one of those books. The authors know how to clearly present their material in an manner that is concise, accurate (as near as I can tell), and helpful.

Most of the first half of the book is a collection of flow charts, designed to help you quickly discover what is actually going on with your plant. Some of it is a little like a choose-your-own-adventure book. For instance, the beginning flowchart for fruit symptoms looks like this:

The whole fruit is discolored. Go to page 97,
The fruit has spots of any size. Go to page 99.
The fruit has holes, or is missing, partly eaten, or cracked. Go to page 110.
The fruit is distorted, stunted, or shriveled. Go to page 115.
The fruit is mushy, wormy, moldy or rotten. Go to page 121.

In most cases, the symptom will be accompanied by a color illustration, giving you visual cues as to what to look for. The exceptions to this are generally when a particular symptom is too broad to be accurately shown. In this case, following the problem one or two steps in will lead you to a more detailed symptom, accompanied by a drawing. As a software engineer, this is the sort of troubleshooting that I’ve become accustomed to at work, and it’s refreshing to finally find a gardening book which so articulately follows the logical line of thought that I like to work in.

After following a few steps of analysis, you will be presented with a diagnosis. For instance:

Does the fruit have white, pale green, and dark green patches? If yes, mosaic virus. For solution, see page 309; for photo, see page 380.

Part 2 of the book, “How Do I Fix It?”, is devoted to preventative measures and natural remedies. The authors of the book seem to believe that chemicals are a last resort; use them when necessary, but not until then. It is better to properly maintain your plants and keep them from causing disease, than to have to try and treat them when something goes wrong. This is especially important in cases where a particular problem has no visual symptoms until it is almost, or altogether too late.

The book seems to be compatible with most gardening styles. Whether you grow your plant in classic rows or have opted for container or Square Foot Gardening, the steps in this book seem to make sense, and are largely easy to accomplish. I was interested to discover that even companion gardening is covered, if not by name. This concept refers to putting plants together which support and protect each other, such as planting marigolds next to certain vegetables to drive away pests which love those vegetables but hate marigolds. It discusses using beneficial insects to your advantage, to drive away other, more bothersome pests.

The book is filled with illustrations, photos, diagrams, charts and altogether useful and insightful knowledge. I’ve barely put this book down since I bought it, and look forward to using it to maintain my plants this year.

For a preview of this book, click here.

To purchase this book, Click Here.

Bee Keeping is fun and relatively inexpensive.

Maple Mountain Bee Company is hosting another round of bee keeping classes over the next couple months. As you may recall, Bryan Esquivel of Maple Mountain Bees authored a guest post for us in the past about how he got started in bee keeping. You can find the article here.

These are free classes, held in Bryan’s home. If you have any questions on the schedule, please contact Bryan using the contact information below.

Beginning Class:

This class is aimed towards anyone interested in becoming a bee keeper. The first year beekeeper who is looking gain basic knowledge about bees, the problems, swarming, honey harvests etc.

Beginning Class Schedule

February 19 @ 9:00 am

February 26 @ 1:00 pm

March 5th @ 9:00 am

Advanced Class:

A more advanced class for beekeepers can attend the following classes if they wish. Some of the topics will include; swarm management/capture, disease awareness and management, looking for signs of problems, keeping your bees healthy.

Advanced Class Schedule

March 26 @ 1:00 pm

April 9 @ 9:00 am

May 7 @ 9:00 am

Each class will last approximately 3-4 hours depending on questions.

What you Should Bring:

Pen, paper, questions

Notes:

Please RSVP to Bryan to let him know how many people will be attending.

How to RSVP:

Contact Bryan Esquivel of Maple Mountain Bees with your name, phone number, email address and number of the students that will be participating. You are welcome to contact him via email, snail mail or phone.

General Contact Information:

Email:

maplemountainbees@q.com

Mailing Address:

Maple Mountain Bees
1475 North 900 West
Mapleton, Utah 84664

Phone Numbers

801-489-1286
or
801-362-1891

If there is anyone serious about getting bees please contact Maple Mountain Bees as soon as possible. They need to put a deposit down on the bees to ensure package availability for all new bee keepers.

• Some currants–doesn’t matter how many
• Sugar
• A couple of pots (to cook the berries and the jelly–you really could use the same pot)
• Strainer and/or cheesecloth/jelly bag for juicing the currants

That’s all.

To can it you’ll need jars, lids, rings, and a water bath canner.

First, pick and wash your currants.  I removed the stems, some people don’t.  If you don’t, you’ll need to skip the smashing step and go straight to the pot.

After your currants are washed, you can smash them or not.  In my brain I get more juice out of them if I smash them than if I leave them whole, so I smash them.  You can use a potato masher or run them through the pulse chop on your food processor.  I’m all for quick, so I chopped them.

Then, put the chopped currants in a pot and heat them up.  You can add just a little water if you want to thin it up a bit, but you don’t want to add too much.  If you didn’t take the stems off your currants, you’ll have whole currants plus stems in the pot heating up.

After the currants have cooked for a bit, it’s time to juice them.  You’ll need 3-4 layers of cheese cloth or a jelly bag or a tight strainer.  I didn’t have any cheesecloth handy, so I made a jelly bag from some not-so-tight weave muslin I had.  I’ll be re-making the bag to fit over my strainer and end in a point instead of a square bottom, but this one worked for this time.

Pour or scoop the cooked currants into your cheesecloth and suspend the bundle over a pot. Get creative here. I usually tie the bundle to a long dowel, but couldn’t find one this time. Prop it up on chairs or buckets–whatever you have around–and let it drip. If you want really clear jelly, don’t squeeze the bag. If you want a little more volume and don’t mind if your jelly is “cloudy”, squeeze the bag to get as much juice out as you can. I usually go for volume. Okay, I always go for volume. If you’re submitting your jelly to the state fair, go for clarity.

Once you have your juice, discard the pulp left in the cheesecloth and measure the juice. (You can stop here for the night and put the juice in the fridge and start again the next day or the day after that if it happens to be way past your bedtime by the time the currants have juiced.)

Now you’ve measured your juice, put it in a pot with an equal amount of sugar. So 2 cups of juice and 2 cups of sugar or 7 1/2 cups of juice and 7 1/2 cups of sugar. Easy, right? You don’t need to add pectin because currants already have enough pectin in them to gel.

Get your water bath canner set up with water in it and start heating it up so it will be ready to can the jelly when it’s done boiling. Put your lids in a little pot and warm them up also.

Bring the jelly to a boil and then let it boil for 15 minutes. If you want to test it before canning it, put a little on a plate and stick it in the fridge to cool off. See if it sets up. It shouldn’t have any problem, but if it doesn’t set up, boil it a little longer and test it again.

When you’re ready to can it, ladle the hot jelly into your clean hot jars, wipe the rims and apply the lids. Put them in the canner and process 10 minutes.

Pull them out and let them cool and voila! Super easy currant jelly to use on bread, breakfasts, meat, and whatever else you can dream up. Enjoy!

Courtesy Marin Magazine

If my allergies are any indication, Spring has sprung. This means it is time for Daylight Saving Time, spring cleaning, starting gardens and other activities.

What are the UtahPreppers up to?

Ekim

Besides decluttering and planning a massive garage sale, we are also finalizing plans for our garden. We have the layout designed and are rotating some crops from last year. Our garden last year was our first real attempt at gardening since moving into our house a few years ago. Thanks to the classes we took from Gordon Wells, we were able to have a *very* successful garden our first attempt. You can find some great garden reference cards based on Gordon’s classes in a previous post here.

To kick off the season, we began looking through seed catalogs in anticipation of planning the garden. Then, once our plan was in place, we ordered and have started the seeds in seed pots to sprout them indoors. We’ll be moving them outdoors a bit at a time. This weekend we’ll be roto-tilling the garden area and creating the beds per the spacing and size requirements in the documents linked to above.

We are also increasing the number of chickens that we have. Due to a number of factors, we are down to two chickens at the moment from which we are getting an average of 1 egg a day. We will be adding five more chickens to our brood. This is about one more than I would like, but if our previous luck holds, we’ll have at least one rooster in the bunch that will end up in the freezer or canning jar.

Jayce

My recent exploits have leaned mostly towards doing extra contract work, keeping the bank account to a happier level.  I have been gazing longingly at my garden, but keep getting distracted from giving it the attention it really needs.  I did begin doing basic soil amendment for the year, working in compost from last year into about half of what I need ready.  I’ll be getting a late start on some of my plants, but with the way this year has gone, it seems that it might be for the better.  I’m not doing any specifically new plants this year, just hoping to implement some of the changes in locations, last year, and hopefully making good use of some saved seeds.  My biggest hope is that some of the beds that underproduced last year will see better results with some soil changes, and rotation of a few of the plants.  Also, we think we’ll have much better results from a “cleaner” planting, making it easier to get at the food, and less will go to waste.

Beyond the garden, my wife and I are really going to be working on how some of our food and equipment is organized over the next couple of months.  We have large plans in place to sort, clean, categorize, and document things far better than the haphazard manner they are in now.

Phil801

My top priority is to finish off the huge project I started last fall.  A few of us (including Jayce and Angela) started a very aggressive project to build a massive network of sites to make prepping much easier.  So far we’ve pretty much completed our community forum, LDS Preppers and we’re nearly finished with our Preparedness Store, US Preppers (we still have about 3,000 products to get listed there).  Our Preparedness Training site, Survival Training Center, is still in the early stages and has a ways to go.  We’ll be adding about 2 dozen new classes over the next month.  We have a couple other sites that we are going to be starting on soon that provide more tools for Preppers.  We’re in the process of launching our new Prepper Newsletter that will be coming out every two weeks and providing the cheapest prices possible on lots of preparedness items (look for a post about that this week).  In all, I’m hoping that by the end of summer we’ll have our entire network of sites completed and we’ll be able to provide all of you with some very valuable resources!

We moved to a new place at the first of the year and we’re going to be putting in a new garden.  I’m going to be spraying the grass in the next couple days to get that started.  I still have a big list of projects that I thought I would get done last year but got bumped.  Hopefully I’ll be able to do some of those this summer.  We’ve got several camping plans this year and hope to use the RV we got last year for some of them.  Currently I have plans to attend Sniper School this summer, we’ll see if that pans out!  I’ve been pretty heavily involved lately in developing some new survival classes that we are planning to bring to Utah County and I’ll be spending a lot of time teaching those.

We lost about half our chickens to a variety of factors and will be looking at replacing those this year as well.  And then of course, there’s the big plan to get rich and buy 1,000 acres and build the ultimate retreat.  I’m thinkin’ that probably won’t be happening this year though :)

When things get to where I’m not spending 20 hours a day building the new network, I’ll start authoring a lot more posts here again too!

Wade

My plans are short since I am moving, but have been involved with my spring garden. My garden is fertilized, tilled, de-rocked (an annual event), and raked. I started peas and lettuce inside in February but lost them all last week unfortunately when the temperature dropped extra low. So, this past Saturday I tilled them under and started over. In their place, I cheated and planted onions, broccoli, and cauliflower that I bought from the nursery.

I also tried something new this year and planted some strawberries. Other plans include saving for a portable propane oven and building out my non-food supplies.

Angela

Gardening is always big on our spring list.  I’ve got some seeds started in peat pots to plant and will also be trying some of the seeds I collected last year along with a few new varieties of veggies.  Our snow just finished melting, so we’ve got a lot of mud.  I’ll be planting the cold crops as soon as the ground is workable.  We’ll also need to expand the drip water system to the strawberry box and squash areas of the garden to make it easier to water those, and there’s always repairs and changes to be made to the water system.

On the animal front, as of yet, there are no plans for new animals this spring.  We will be putting a nest box extension on the chicken house and painting/staining it also.  Eggs are in high production already, so we’ll be looking for someone to share them with.

I’ve also got a few purchases I’ve been saving for (sun oven, water filter, not-so-dangerous food processor) that are on tap to be purchased in the next month or so, so those should lend themselves to a good deal of testing and puttering as soon as they are in hand.

Definitely looking forward to getting outside and playing in the dirt as the weather gets better!

Connor

Wait, it’s spring already? When did that happen?

My efforts will be a carry-over from last year, since I’ve been far too busy to have the time necessary to plan any new projects. As such, we’ll be planting a variety of plants in our three planter boxes (using the Mittleider Method), rotating one of our water tanks, replenishing the supplies in our bugout bags, and getting in some more target practice to refresh my skills acquired at Front Sight.

I’ll also be setting up (for the first time) the TurtleTuff Shelter I got late last summer so I’ll know how everything works should I ever need to use it in an emergency.

Joseph

I hope to get at least one plot set up for a square foot garden in the next week or two, but my main focus lately has been on hydroponics. I built a basic indoor garden a couple of weeks ago, and as of the time of this writing, 4 out of 6 plants have sprouted. Expect at least a short post soon. While I do hope for a decent harvest from both the hydroponic and the square foot gardens, most of what I’m doing is trying new techniques to see how well they work.

It’s so difficult to find fresh lemongrass in Utah. I’ve been wanting to grow it hydroponically for years, but I don’t know that my basic setup is appropriate. I’ve read articles on growing it both conventionally and hydroponically, and am trying to put it altogether. My thoughts are that since it grows via rhizomes, growing it in a little cup probably isn’t conducive to propagation. So I’m thinking about switching from lots of little baskets to one big basket. Design details to come, assuming my wife doesn’t veto it.

Neybar

Gardening looms large in my sites.  I have 3 boxes that I’m getting ready for (using the square foot gardening technique).  I’m going to mainly grow a salsa garden, with a few beans and zucchini thrown in.  I was lucky to get the lawn mowed last year, so I’m not going to grow a huge garden.

I also need to re-visit my bug out bags and vehicles.  When I originally put my bags together I was planning for Armageddon, the problem is that my kids can’t actually carry their bags… I need to scale down a bit and rethink some things.  I also want to organize how the bags are put together so that I can rapidly scale up according to both my available retreats, and the means of getting there.  For example: weather related disaster, no vehicle = light bags, and destination is the closest church/school.