Thanks Muzhik. I'm getting the message about the value of the heritage seeds. In our climate tomatoes do best when grown under glass and I have never seen a purple tomato. I remember seeing fields of maize when I was a child but have only recently seen it sold as corn on the cob and didn't taste it until I was well into adulthood. We buy mostly tinned sweetcorn. I think the maize grown here was the type that was ground into meal. My garden isn't big enough to grow it anyway. The kind of vegetables I had in mind are the staples - root vegetables like carrots/parsnips/onions/potatoes, or greens like cabbage/ cauliflour/broccoli/brussels sprouts, most of which could be container grown if need be. Peas and string beans are also a possibility although the seed packs would need to come with instructions for dummies. What about this water purifier that CrewDog recommended - Clorox? Major disruptions in energy supplies would affect services like sewage treatment, with a possibility of untreated sewage contaminating rivers. Would Clorox eliminate that type of contamination? I'm really more concerned with preparing for a Venezualan type economic collapse, but there's no harm in having some type of water purifier because diseases like typhus or cholera could make a comeback if we had a full-on disaster. Disinfectant would be like gold dust.
Thanks, CrewDog, for the link. A quick internet search doesn't show any outlets selling Clorox here and I can't find a suitable alternative. Shops selling camping equipment might have something that would do the job. The advice on the website is to use Clorox bought within the past four months, which wouldn't be much use for long term storage. French TV did a report on Venezuela last night. They featured a lady living in an apartment with all mod cons. She had plenty of supplies that she bought in bulk last month. Water and electricity are being rationed and after five days without water her apartment was a real mess. Access to clean water is all important. I couldn't believe how many bottles of tomato ketchup she had stored for emergencies. Why would anyone stock up on ketchup? According to the same news report, the Pope has been invited to visit France. In an interview with La Croix he said that Hollande and the French Bishops had invited him but he won't go there until after the French election. Looks like the visit will be in 2017 and will include Lourdes and Marseilles. There are lots of immigrants in Marseilles. Unless the French and British governments sort out something in Calais, I wouldn't be surprised if he visited the makeshift camps there. They also mentioned a report in LeFigaro about Putin and the Russians cosying up to the Vatican to gain some international credibility. Maybe he will do France, Russia and Fatima on the same trip.
With your indulgence, I would like to purchase some of these seeds, do you happen to know any reputable brand names of companies that sell these, economically? Thank you
If you happen to live in Tucson, AZ the local library gives out several packets of seeds a month to card holders.
http://sustainableseedco.com/ Not sure if they have the exact varieties mentioned above, but they have a lot to choose from. You can also find these seed packets at your local garden store, just make sure that they are labeled "heirloom". I have also found it beneficial to print information on seed saving and storage. Even though it's fairly basic stuff, it's good information to have and keep with the seed packs.
A search for heritage seeds in Ireland threw up this website: http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/index.php Looks like they have what I want.
I grow lots of heirloom tomatoes and the great thing each year is that I always let quite a few tomatoes stay on the ground and decompose. The next spring I always have a ton of plants "volunteers" as we call them come up and then I replant them in other areas. Just did this on Sunday and replanted 8 plants and could have had more. 8 is more than enough because I get really good yields off each plant (50-60 tomatoes in some cases) Great trick. I buy a lot of my heirloom seeds from these folks. Essential items for me are tomatoes, corn, peppers, squash and beans like Kentucky Wonder pole beans! Would love to grow potatoes too but they are harder to keep in between seasons. If houses still had cold cellars it would be much easier. Broccoli and brussel sprouts are much harder and need cooler environments to start plus the bugs really get at them. Don't be afraid of the old classic pesticides. I notice the natural stuff does not work so well as say good old fashion 7 dust. In this kind of scenario we are talking about I doubt we should be really too concerned about potential long term effects of pesticide. other great things to grow are asparagus and berries but you need a good 2-3 years in the ground before you have good yields. http://www.victoryseeds.com/ This is my favorite tomato to grow because they grow so perfectly and taste great and have good yields. They were what the Heinz people created for all their bulk ketchup back in the days before hybrids: http://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_heinz-vf.html As for other good items, get a ton of bic lighters. Great asset for hard times to trade.
Oh, another trick about corn. Don't have different varieties in your garden. They will cross pollinate and the corn will have problems. Stay in the same variety like a good sweet corn. When planting don't have say 2 long rows but maybe 4 short rows. This way they pollinate easier. I have good results with this: http://www.victoryseeds.com/corn_golden-bantam-imp.html Another great and easy thing to grow with a ton of yield are soy beans. Make sure you get the better tasting edible kind and not industrial use kind. I grow these: http://www.victoryseeds.com/soybean_envy.html
Since your profile states that you live in the USA, all of these companies listed (except for the Irish branch of SeedSavers) sell to American locations. Note that most agricultural (food safety) laws prohibit selling seeds across national borders, or even bringing them into the country. This is to keep invasive species or weeds from being distributed. One that I like both because it was one of the first (if not THE first) heritage seed source and because it's local to me is Seed Savers Exchange (http://www.seedsavers.org/) You can purchase their seeds online or from their catalog. If you become a member, then you not only get a discount, you become part of the process: You buy a heritage variety, such as the Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomatoes, and grow them. In the fall, you save some of the seeds from your tomatoes and send them back to the company. This ensures that this variety and its genetic diversity get saved. This organization also has an associated livestock operation where different non-hybrid varieties of animals are raised, such as turkeys that don't have overgrown breasts, in order to preserve genetic diversity.
My apologies: are you located in France or Belgium? I don't get on this board often enough to learn the frequent posters. I was involved in the Prepper movement (disaster preparedness) here in the US for a time, and got to gather quite a bit of info on this and related subjects. For the other members located outside of North America: Clorox is a detergent bleach, sodium hypochlorite. It's sold as a liquid and in addition to whitening your sheets and your favorite orange dress, it can be used to disinfect water of unknown purity. You can check in the stores that sell laundry cleaning supplies to see what local liquid bleaches are available to you. The biggest thing you must remember (and this is important) you must use the plain, ordinary bleach. Do NOT use scented bleach or bleach with additives, not if you're going to use this to purify water. As you noted, the disinfectant properties of bleach diminish over time: between 4 and 6 months after opening the bottle you should not use that bleach any more for disinfecting. One way around this is to use a solid bleach. This, I think, will be MUCH easier to do in America than in Europe, simply because above-ground family swimming pools are more common in the US than in Europe. Still, it's worth a try. There is a product called "Pool Shock". It's a very concentrated solid bleach that is used in swimming pools as a "shock treatment" to make sure all the bacteria in the water has been killed. In America, you would find it at Wal-Mart in their pool supply section. Any place that might sell above-ground swimming pools should have it. Again, you want the product that does not have anything extra added: no color, no antifungal, no scents, nothing extra. Because it's a solid, you can keep it in a closet sealed up very well, and make only as much as you need when you need it. These products only help when you have water that is clear that may be biologically compromised. They will NOT help if you have water that has chemicals (such as petroleum products or pesticides) in it, such as might be in the river water close to you. You can't distill these products out of the water -- the steps you use to distill the water will cause those chemicals to just distill back into the water. They need to be filtered out. I don't know what water filtration systems are available in Europe. I know in America if I could afford it I would buy a Berkey water filter system. The cartridges are about $100 each and you need at least two for the smallest system they sell, but they will last for years. For my personal water filtering, I used PUR water filters. I say "used" because the water where I live is very, very good. In the city where I used to live, the water was so full of minerals (i.e., hard) you needed to put a nylon over the faucet to strain out the bigger pieces. I hope this helps.
A great way to save food is to dehydrate and vacuum seal. I slice potatoes, blanch them then dehydrate. Blanching keeps them from turning black. I have a couple dehydrators. This method will keep them for years.
YouTube has a channel called "Facts" which has a whole set of very popular videos called "Irish People Taste ..." Here is "Irish People Taste Spam": The comments section is filled with comments to the effect that, of course they hated it, you don't eat cold spam! I kind of have to agree with that one. Spam is best when it's fried, placed on bread, and topped with a fried egg. And here is one that I find just hilarious, on "Irish People Taste Test Weird American Food Inventions". Most of the food inventions they're tasting are what is called "fair food" -- things you only find (or only SHOULD find) at a county fair or a state fair; but there are some (like turducken) that are just wrong. Like one taster put it, "This is taxidermy gone wrong."
Really helpful, Muzhik, thank you. I'm in Ireland. I reckon that I can get someone to bring me some of that solid bleach from the States. He probably uses it in his own pool, and he's coming over here later this year. I live in a soft water area so never had any need of a filter. I also have a barrell collecting rainwater from the roof of my garden shed. The plan was to use the water in the garden but I never bother with it. Suppose I should clean out the barrell and keep it clean in case we ever need the water. That should be sufficient for our drinking water requirements. I had the river water in mind for baths and washing clothes. The river water would most likely contain pesticides draining into it from fields along the river bank. Would the bleach clean out any sewage contamination so we could use it for washing ourselves, our clothes, and for general house cleaning?
1. Be careful with the tinned fish. I know in America doctors recommend pregnant women not eat fish more than twice each week due to concerns about possible buildup of mercury. Rather than focusing on green vegetables (which are still necessary) plan on planting beans like navy beans or white beans. Buy up some BIG bags of rice and wrap them in plastic to keep bugs out. You can alternate eating the beans with rice and beans with the tinned sweet corn, to provide you with a complete protein. 2. As for produce, don't forget potatoes. Pound for pound they are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. In addition to peas and green beans, try to grow squash. Depending on where you live, chickens don't take up a lot of room. 3. Yes, keep the barrel clean, and try to work out some way of regularly aerating and circulating the water. That will help keep "things" from growing in there. You should still treat the water from there before drinking, either with bleach or with boiling. You can't do anything about pesticides in the river water without filtering. As for washing, if it's clear and clean and you've treated it with bleach, you should be able to use it for washing yourselves, your clothes, and cleaning around the house, but do NOT use it to clean eating utensils or brushing teeth. 4. Just for giggles, you might want to check out "Square Foot Gardening" to see if that gives you any ideas about a garden layout.
Thanks again, Muzhik. I had amended my post and removed the part about the fish and vegetables but I'm glad now that you saw it because you reminded me about the possibility of mercury in tinned fish. Potatoes are a staple in our house. I will be buying plenty of potato seeds. I'm not planning on turning my garden into a vegetable garden unless there is an emergency. I will store the seeds until they are needed. Chickens would need feeding and safeguarding from thieves and especially hungry animals. Too much trouble for me. I watched the videos in your previous post. I tasted corn dogs in America and liked them. I liked shush puppies or hush puppies (can't remember the exact name) better. I had great fun at a carnival and don't remember eating anything there that I didn't like, except maybe pretzels. Some of our favourite foods would likely turn your stomach too. I'll have a look for that Square Foot Gardening.
Do an internet search for information on "sheet composting" or "lasagna garden". You can put a garden virtually anywhere with this process and you will have a rich base for a square foot garden very quickly with no digging. Also with the big, big bonus of virtually no weeding.
Dolours, did you know that nettles make an excellent vegetable. Once they are boiled the sting goes out of them would you believe. Yes, I have tried them. The top leaves are the best, but you need gloves to pick and prepare them. And I understand dandelion can be used like a salad. Maybe some one else could tell us more.
a lot of info here, don't forget the seaweed ( dulse) http://www.scoutingireland.com/nstchat/Wild/edible.html
