Bravo Zulu! passed onto my list
Posted on 08/26/2013 6:20:36 AM PDT by Travis McGee
Of course, in a collapse as complete as the one you describe, the transition isn't a month, its a generation.
Sheer brilliance.
Wife has kin up in that area of Highlands,horse Cove, They have plans in place for the coming collapse or CWII. Them mountain folks are prepared ,no coming or going from that location.
Bravo Zulu! passed onto my list
Or generations, to get back to some new baseline.
Thank you, Mr. McGee. {:^)
And, thank you, Mesta Machine
Enjoyed it very much. Thanks and good job!
I guarantee you, in a SHTF situation with no food, you will find people digging up those Sunspot sunflower tubers and eating them as they ARE food and called Jerusalem artichokes. They do taste like water chestnuts and that's not a bad taste or people wouldn't eat water chestnuts. It is a nutritious food - since you know where they are, maybe you can make a business of selling them when people are starving.
As far as saving some regular potatoes for the next season, that is easier to do in states that have a genuine cold season to keep the potatoes alive/dormant. It's difficult to keep them until the next season in the south as it is warmer in the south. I grew up in real east Texas and Father could keep some under the house during the winter. Farther south makes it more difficult.
Info. on potato seed from Iowa State University:
"FROM: Iowa State University Horticulture & Home Pest News"
"OCCASIONALLY gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety ‘Yukon Gold’ produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.
The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed."
If you ever grow a potato from these seeds you have to process, let me know how that turns out.
An anti-cavalry obstacle made obsolete by barbed wire.
What you said. That’s pretty much what you encounter bushwhacking cross country in a lot of mountains I’ve been in. It ain’t a walk in the park, following a compass, that is for sure.
What you said. That’s pretty much what you encounter bushwhacking cross country in a lot of mountains I’ve been in. It ain’t a walk in the park, following a compass, that is for sure.
Exactly what I’ve heard. I sliced off a bit of one tuber and tried it. As I said, sorta like a dirty water chestnut, only drier. IIRC, the Extension even handed out recipes, but only one guy I used to know ever tried them. He said he’d boiled some and sliced and fried some others. He didn’t rave. I heard that farmers who tried to feed them to the cows weren’t successful, either. Supposedly, you could grind and dry them and use them as *flour*.
We have lots of commercial potato and other vegetable farms around here. Also a lot of Amish (who buy their seeds locally at the store). I suspect we would have access to their excess if SHTF. We have lots of seed savers, too. I save some, myself, mostly tomato and red pepper.One tomato and one red pepper provide enough seeds of that variety to plant a home garden. Everyone gardens to some extent.
My favorite SHTF gardening meme is a line in “Jericho”. They are trying to keep a school together and one of the teen boys opts out because:”I have to go home and help my mother plant beets in the bath tub.” As a container gardener, it stuck with me.
That is the potato seed pod.
“Foxfire Books” and similar printed literature would be essential to rediscover the timeless old ways to make soap, candles, butter etc.
http://www.driftlessfolkschool.org/
Teachers/students of all ages. My husband was encouraged to present some classes, but the timing has never worked out for him to do so.
You aren’t alone, yarddog.
We had a similar incident here during a power outage last winter. Genny doesn’t like the cold, battery starter low on charge, all the other chargers and batteries were low.
My husband brought the generator inside to sit by the woodstove and I can’t recall what he did with the other infrastructure. Perhaps he used one of the vehicles. He had everything up and running within a few hours, though.
We try to stay on top of things, but it is easy to forget and become lax.
Here’s a simple method:
“Potato
While usually propagated vegetatively, the potato can be grown from seeds which occasionally form on the plants. Let the seed balls mature, then squeeze the seeds into a bowl. Add water and pour off the floating debris, saving the seeds which sink to the bottom. Grow the same as tomato seedlings.
Some of the smaller nightshades, such as cherry and currant tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries etc., can be processed in a blender and treated the same as potato seeds. “
http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/9504/seeds.htm
In a SHTF scenario, it probably doesn’t matter if a saved seed breeds true or not. I have saved and planted hybrid tomato seeds and they sprout and bear. Some of the plants breed true, some don’t and bear true to the progenitors, instead.
I suspect the University/Extension article was speaking to commercial farmers. That’s a whole lot different from personal gardening. For example, I have gotten busy and just placed fresh tomato seeds on a paper towel, no fermentation, no washing. They stuck together, so I pried a few off and planted them, indoors, with bottom heat, in the late winter. They sprouted, they grew, they survived transplanting and they bloomed and set fruit. Back in the 1990s, when our local climate was warmer, I had one variety of cherry tomatoes survive a mild winter and volunteer right where I had planted them the previous year. I think the name was Tiny Millions or something like that.
The original wild fruits were managed and planted and eaten by generations of primitive people. It obviously was done in the past and can still be done, today.
Your character and I think alike; don’t rush into the crowd ever, but especially when times are abnormal. Carry optics. Use head before movement.
I think I’ve stayed in that same motel- only the one I was in was in southern VA. I bought an enormous Brit motorcycle in Knoxville and rode toward home in the DC southern suburbs until the need for meds, fatigue and thunderstorm were too much. The fatigue-selected motel was a one-off place run by Indian folks. Half the lights in the room didn’t work, no coffee for the morning, but I was in out of the rain and had a place to switch off for a few hours. Washed the meds down with a Bud and I was out.
I miss the west. Easier to disappear into the mountains and get by there.
An Abatis?
-Old blackboot Jarhead sapper history geek
Yes, becoming complacent is the easiest thing in the world.
Like binary code: one or zero. All or nothing. Pick your poison. Entertain yourself to death.
Consumer, consume thyself.
pure gold...
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