Is Recession Preparing a New Breed of Survivalist? [Survival Today

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training

I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood

http://www.littlecountryvillage.com/Cottage-Gardening/Creative_Gardening_Ideas_-_Garden_Paradise.shtml

From A Better Home and Garden

Cottage Gardening
Creative Gardening Ideas - Make Your Yard a Garden Paradise!
© Copyright by Pearl Sanborn

The cost of these projects depends on what you might already have around the house.

Use a leftover piece of firewood to make a bird house.
Slice a 2-3 inch piece off of the top - drill a hole in the center big enough for the birds to live - drill another hole in the front for the entrance - hinge the lid (2-3 inch section) on the top for easy cleaning - add perch.
Cost = free!
..........

Use a large bowl as a bird bath.
My mom uses an old wooden bowl as a bird bath in her yard & they seem to love it! Your goal is to just get some water out there for them - to bring them into your garden.
Cost = free!
..........

Make a garden arbor, or plant trellis.
Find some skinny - pole - branches that have fallen over the winter. Stick them into the ground, or into a large flower pot filled with soil. Bend them at the top so they touch. Tie them together with twine - then intertwine the loose edges. Now you can plant vines, climbing vegetables, flowers, etc.. in the flower pot - or in the ground around the branches. These are so charming!
Cost = free - $5
..........

To keep clean up a cinch after a day in the garden, place a bar of soap in an empty onion bag & tie it near the hose. This way when you’re washing your hands - soap is within reach.
Cost = $1
..........

After using your garden tools, you need to keep them clean to stay dust free. Fill a bucket with sand & some motor oil (not used) ten each time you use them, just stick them into the bucket. The sand helps to sharpen and clean the tool, while the oil keeps it from rusting.
Cost = $2
..........

For use on any skin rashes, diaper rash, insect bite, etc.. make up this inexpensive ointment.

1/4 cup vaseline
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Mix into a creamy paste.

Adjust the cornstarch to make as thick as you’d like. This makes a nice creamy paste - just as good as store bought!
Cost = free - $2!
..........

Make your home look like a gardener’s cottage!
Hang window boxes under your windows - then plant climbing vines in the back & beautiful bushy flowers in the front. As the baskets grow & fill out, train the vines to grow up & around your windows.

I saw this done last summer with morning glories & the little home looked like a story book cottage! You can make the window boxes from pallets (free), use paint that you have around the house (free), plant with seeds that you can buy 10 packs for a dollar.
Total cost for the million dollar look? With free pallets cost = .50 - $2!
..........

With the ground now thawing out & the grass still not up, this is the perfect time to look for stones. Stone walls are so beautiful & add such a statement to any yard. Just stack them up & plant bulbs, ground cover, vines, old roses, etc. in front.
Cost = free
..........

Do you have a post mailbox? Why not plant some beautiful vines around the base? There are a few homes in my area that have planted clematis & morning glories around theirs. Before the vines are in flower, the greenery is lush & after the flowers are in bloom, it looks breathtaking!
Cost = .50
..........

Instead of using those metal or plastic stakes, use a branch. It looks much more natural.
Cost = free
..........

When planting vegetables, this is an easy & efficient way to water. Clean out a milk jug - poke many holes all over the sides & bottom - then bury it along the side of your plant. To water - just fill the jug! You can also add your favorite fertilizer, or manure tea every couple
of weeks.
Cost = free
..........

Make a bird feeder from a soda bottle.
Leave the lid on - cut 2 - 4 pieces of 1 1/2 inch hose. Cut same number of openings along the bottom sides. Insert the hose pieces - fill with seed & hang (upside down).
Cost = free
..........

Make a cozy log cabin bird home from twigs! For some reason, bird houses give a picturesque look to any garden - why not have homes that are totally yours! Gather twigs from around the yard - cut to length - nail and/or hot glue them together in the shape of a log house. You could hot glue small stones on for a stone foundation, or a stone chimney.
Cost = free
..........

Make your flower pots special. Save the seed packets from your planting - paste them onto the outside of the pot - rub with stain - wipe away excess - coat with protective coating. Then plant some flowers/vegetables that match the seed packets!
Cost = .50-1.00
..........

Grow a beautiful center piece! Plant little flowers in miss matched tea cups! Then line a kitchen window sill - dinning table - or garden table with your little treasures!
Cost = free - .50
..........

For a tea set fit for a queen, slip floral pillow cases over the backs of your garden chairs & cover the table with the matching or coordinating sheet.
Cost = free - $5.00
..........

Hang an old bird cage outside in the garden - leave the door open & sprinkle seed on the bottom of the cage. A great way to use an otherwise useless piece of art ;)
Cost = free
..........

Plant a garden house for the kids. With a hoe, mark off a square. Plant Large sunflowers around the square & flowering vines such as morning glories or runner beans in between the rows. The sunflowers grow very sturdy making the “walls”, while the vines grow up the “walls” - intertwine them together at the top to make the ceiling.
Cost = .50
..........

Plant an old pair of shoes/boots & leave next to the back door - garden - entry - greenhouse - etc, as a welcome to visitors.
Cost = free

Philip Mahan demonstrates how a fish is transferred from the fry tank to the barrel.

RAISING CATFISH IN A BARREL

A biological food chain in the back yard produces fresh fish
for the table and compost for the garden.

By Philip and Joyce Mahan

After some study and experimentation, we have set up a productive food chain— table scraps to earthworms to catfish—in our back yard. The project is satisfactory in many respects, utilizing waste materials to produce fresh fish for food and at the same time yielding ample compost for a small garden. The material cost is minimal. The whole operation can be set up for less that $15.00. The equipment occupies only about 12 square feet of space, and the entire assembly can be easily moved if necessary.

The materials can be very simple: Two 55-gallon steel drums, three panes of glass 24 inches square, and a medium-sized aquarium air pump. One of the drums will serve as a tank for the fish, oxygen being supplied by the air pump; and the second drum should be cut in half to provide two bins for the worms. The panes of glass are used as covers for the worm bins and fish tank, and for ease and safety in handling can be framed with scrap lumber.

We chose catfish because they are readily available in our part of Alabama, and reach eating size in a summer. Various small members of the sunfish family, such as bluegill or bream, would also be suitable.

While we readily admit that our plan has no commercial possibilities, we know that we can produce, for our own table, tasty fresh fish that is uncontaminated and costs practically nothing, both considerations being highly relevant at this time.

Fish are usually efficient food producers; a one-pound fish yields approximately 10 ounces of food. Further efficiency is indicated by the fact that fish fed on commercial fish ration convert about 85 percent of their food to meat. While we are not prepared to compute the technical data about food conversion in fish on an earthworm diet, we can readily state that the fish relish earthworms, and do grow well on this food.

Spraying the water back into the tank aerates the water and at the same tie releases the ammonia produced by excretory matter in the water. Because the oxygen requirements of fish are quite high, the faster the circulation of the water, the faster the growth of the fish.

We decided to keep our equipment as simple and inexpensive as possible at the beginning, but to use the maximum stocking density advised, keeping 40 fish in a 55-gallon drum. Although inexpensive circulation pumps are available, we chose to use a METAFRAME HUSH II aquarium bubbler for oxygenation and a garden hose to siphon off water from the bottom of the barrel.

We take off 15 gallons of water per day, but as we run the waste water onto the worm beds and adjacent garden, the cost is negligible. Although we have creek water close at hand, we were advised to use city water to avoid the introduction of undesirable algae and fungi that might be harmful to the fish. Because city water is usually quite highly chlorinated, it is necessary to draw the water in 5-gallon buckets and let it stand for a day in the sun before emptying it into the drum to replace the water siphoned off. We have seen no evidence of oxygen starvation in the fish with this method of water circulation.

The most important variable we have found is water temperature. Catfish will feed at temperatures as low as 40 or 45 degrees, but their greatest growth is achieved at 84 degrees. We noticed a decided increase in feeding activity when we painted the barrel black and moved it into full sun. Leaving the buckets of water in the sun not only speeds chlorine dissipation, but warms the water as well. In areas where city water temperatures are close to the growth optimum, the chlorine can be removed by setting the hose nozzle at fine spray, and the barrel can then be filled directly from the water supply. Although summer growth is greatest, the project continues throughout the year. By judicious use of sun when possible, plus auxiliary heat when necessary, winter growth can be kept at a fairly high level.

When water temperatures are right, the fish will feed so enthusiastically that they may leap completely out of the barrel. For this reason the top of the barrel should be covered completely with a pane of glass which will also help in keeping the water warm. Because fish feed most eagerly in late evening and early morning, we feed them at these times of the day. As with earthworms, care must be taken not to overfeed. In warm water and bright sunlight, any uneaten worms will die and decompose rapidly, giving off gases which are poisonous to the fish.

Transferring any grown animal to a confining environment produces the equivalent of cultural shock, and is followed by a period when feeding is light and growth is slow. At this time special care must be taken not to overfeed. Unless fish can be found that have been hatched and grown in a tank, small fish should be selected to stock the barrel, as their adaptation time is proportionally shorter that that of larger fish. To eliminate as much transplanting shock as possible, we use a large wooden box, lined with two layers of polyethylene sheeting and covered with an old door, to stock with fry. By the time the fry reach fingerling size, they can be transferred to the barrel as replacements are needed, and very little shock is evident. An insect lamp over an opening in the cover of the fry tank permits the small fish to eat at night while ridding the garden of night-flying pests.

Earthworms, as any angler knows, are food for fish in their natural habitat; and most fish in captivity prefer live food to the dehydrated type. Kitchen scraps make excellent food for earthworms, and even the most careful organizer will have enough refuse to feed, quite handsomely, 5,000 to 10,000 worms.

We found that growing earthworms at home is not difficult. The basic materials are easily arranged, and the earthworms’ demands are simple. All they require are a protective container, reasonable temperature control, adequate moisture, not too much food, and a light loose bedding which is never allowed to become acid.
The 55-gallon drum to the right is for raising fingerlings to eating size. The lid of the fry tank (left) houses an insect lamp which provides food for the young fish.

The steel half drums are ideal worm bins as they are effective protection against the earthworms’ predators in addition to being quite inexpensive. They have the added advantage of being movable so that as cold weather approaches, the worms can be carried to an enclosed porch or basement to continue composting activity and fish food production throughout the winter.

Each half-drum will house between 4,000 and 6,000 worms. The two half-drums are utilized most effectively if they are alternated so that the worm population is allowed to build up in one, while the second supplies the fish food. The eggs that remain after the worms are removed will serve to start a new supply when the first drum is converted to feeding.

Worms will start breeding when they are about 90 days old. Each worm, possessing reproductive organs of both sexes, will produce an egg capsule per week, containing from three to 25 eggs apiece. The most economical way to establish worm bins for a home food-chain and composting operation is to begin with capsules. Although a little more time is required initially, there will ultimately be more worms available to work with. Under the protected conditions of a worm bin, the survival rate of young worms is very high.

The type of worm selected is not important. There are two compost-bait types raised commercially — usually known as “brown-nosed worms” and “red wrigglers.” Either type may be purchased from most dealers.

The bedding for the worm bins may be any organic material that is water-absorbent and does not pack so as to exclude oxygen and impede the worms’ movement. Leaves and old straw are good, as is aged sawdust soaked in several waters for a week or so. Ground peat moss, being odorless, is ideal if the worms are to be kept inside. Soil should never be used as it contains no nutriment and is likely to pack.

It is safe to assume that earthworms can eat any kitchen scraps except citrus rings, vinegar dressings, and bones. Though they eat almost anything given them, their intake of food, and likewise the production of compost, can be increased by frequently feeding foods that are especially tasty to them. The prime consideration is to avoid overfeeding. Although worms thrive on decaying food, they should never be given more than they can consume in 24 hours.

The dangers of acidity cannot be overemphasized. It is the only real hazard in worm raising. Acid bedding frequently destroys an entire worm farm in a few weeks. To maintain accurate control over the acidity, one should use a soil test kit or a pH test strip of the type used by industrial and medical laboratories. Tests should be made at least once a week, and the pH factor (degree of acidity) should remain between 5.5 and 6.5 on the scale. A reading of 5.0 or below means danger, and immediate steps must be taken to neutralize the bedding with an application of pure ground agricultural limestone. It is important to read the label carefully to verify that the limestone does not contain any added phosphates which also bring disaster to a worm bed.

The drums should be located in an area protected from temperature extremes. Optimum temperatures for feeding and growth are between 60 and 70 degrees, but worms will thrive in most summer climates if the beds are well shaded and the bedding is kept loose. During the summer months, the bedding must be sprinkled daily, but it should never grow soggy. The glass tops on the half drums serve to conserve moisture, but they will not prevent crawling. Worms have a tendency to roam at night during damp or rainy weather unless preventive measures are taken. A small light over the bed is an effective deterrent to their wanderings, while an equally effective measure is to cut a remnant of carpet to fit the drum exactly and lay this on top of the bedding.

The table scrap-earthworm-catfish food chain, even from its inception, was never intended to evolve into a money-making project. It was simply an effort toward a better way of life through cooperation with the forces of nature; and in this respect, our project has been a complete success in more than one way.

First of all, we have a regular supply of fresh fish at minimal cost. A seven-ounce catfish fingerling grows to 25 ounces in a summer, thus producing a pound of food in four months. In the second place, we have netted ample compost for our vegetable garden, thereby further insuring a low-cost and nutritive food supply. In addition, and perhaps this is the greatest benefit of all, we have the satisfaction of working with growing things and the gratification of knowing that we have not wasted the earth’s resources. We have made an elementary biologic principle work in our own back yard.

IF YOU’RE THINKING OF RAISING CATFISH

EDITORIAL NOTE: Because we believe many of our readers will want to raise catfish on their homesteads, we referred this article to Dr. William O. McLarney, of the New Alchemy Institute, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for review. The questions he raised were then referred to authors Philip and Joyce Mahan, whose replies appear below.

The fist were channel catfish.

Our fish were not fed exclusively on earthworms in that we started them on commercial catfish food. Because it is very difficult to teach pond-grown fish to eat in confinement, we offered them exactly the same food they had been eating in the pond. We continued these rations for about four weeks before their response was sufficiently enthusiastic to risk changing food. Then the earthworms were introduced gradually — a few at a time — until the fish accepted them. Some of the fish recognized the worms as food immediately, and within a week the water literally boiled when the worms were thrown in. We wondered, then, if they might not have started eating more readily if we had used the worms initially.

Weight of fish: We don’t have any figures at all on the weight of the fish we started with, and we didn’t weigh any before we ate them. As we stated in the article, we began with 40 fish — fingerling size. Although we arrived at this number on the basis of Auburn’s ratio of water as estimated by the fish farmer from whom we got the fingerlings. He didn’t weigh the fish and we don’t remember what that estimated weight was. We didn’t know this thing was going to work.

Earthworms: Again we have no figures on pounds of worms used. For reasons of ethics (we advertise in OGF), we didn’t mention in the article that we are in the worm business. Since we have so many worms around, it just didn’t occur to us to keep records of how many we used. We simply tossed the worms into the barrel until the fish stopped eating. We fed once a day, but we don’t think that all of the fish ate at every feeding. I would estimate an average of 75-100 worms per day. The worms were small, not weighing more than an ounce per hundred. We were careful not to feed breeders to the fish.

Table scraps: We have been feeding table scraps to earthworms for a number of years; and to date, we have not weighed a single scrap. We can, however, offer fairly precise figures on this step. Earthworms are reputed to produce their own weight in compost daily; but our experience has not indicated that they really do. A thousand worms weigh 13 or 14 ounces, but daily feeding per thousand does not approach that weight. We usually keep a container of around 2,000 composting worms in the kitchen, and I give them a couple of table spoons of selected (that is to say, soft and mushy) scraps each day. In liquid measure this amount would be only two ounces.

It never occurred to us that a nutritional deficiency might develop in fish fed only on earthworms. I doubt that either of us would have recognized malnutrition if it had occurred. As we don’t have backgrounds in biochemistry, we are not in a position to make any statements concerning the nutritive value, qualitative or quantitative, of earthworms. We did definitely notice a considerable increase in feeding activity when we started giving worms. In fact, we ate our first fish — seven of them — when they were only ten inches long because they jumped out of the barrel, and we didn’t want to put them back for fear they had been injured. We feed our tropical fish (Red Oscars) earthworms also, but we can’t continue the diet for more than two months at a time because the fish get so lively and eager for food that they leap out of the aquarium whenever we lift the cover for feeding. I would say we are inclined to agree that earthworms are a near-perfect fish food.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods007.htm

You've hit on something that's been bothering us for a long time now. Of the six of me and my siblings, two of us turned out different. Actually, we and our families are different. We've decided to live in the country because we've observed that population centers always cause the same problems and that living in the country affords us the benefits of SUSTAINABLE food! I don't want to turn this into a religious discussion, but in my house we believe that the four most important things (in order of precedence) are -

1. Trust in The Lord (no matter WHAT!).
2. Clean water.
3. Clothing/Shelter (protection from the elements).
4. Food.

The above four things are also in order of precedence and getting them out of order can cause real and big problems.

What we've observed is that too many people are too lacking in intestinal fortitude and simple skills. We've got three youngsters (all teens) here in the house and by the time they were each "about" 8 years old, they had been trained into useful skills. They could all shoot the 1911 .45ACP, as well as the AR-15... but shooting and defense is only "part" of it. We have a saying around here...and that is that EVERYTHING is liable to be categorized as FOOD. We joke by saying that if "it" stays still long enough, we'll skin it and eat it! :-) But now these guys here (and one gal!) have only increased in skill level. Between the three of them, they herd goats and sheep...which means milking the critters and making cheese...and butchering and putting up meat. They also raise chickens...from START to FINISH. Two of them are EXPERT builders. They operate chainsaws, the woodsplitter and KNOW how to maintain it all. Their Mom taught them to "correctly" grow food...and they can take it from the garden to the can! They can take game (of ANY type!) from the woods to the stove top!....and one of them is a very, VERY good cook! :-)

But we overlap with a large section of people (because of what I do professionally) and what we see in these people disturbs us. These people have no skills, they live in debt, and probably worst of all... their "backup plan" is to simply know somebody like us! I've spoken to a few of them about this and asked them why they didn't consider that we also have a "backup plan" and they always give me this bewildered look. I ask them if they honestly think we're going to be where we're at now if the proverbial doo-doo hits the fan? I can tell by the looks on their faces that they hadn't thought about this! They ask where we're going to be, but I don't tell that to anybody except a very few, and they're "like" us.

My point here is that too many people are woefully unprepared. The adults who lived through the last depression were of a heartier stock. The population centers were much less densely populated as well. Now we've got these amazing DENSE population centers jam packed full of people who's only "backup plan" is knowing people like us? Hmmmm...let's think about that for a minute! Plus, the population centers have a high ratio of not so nice people anyway. So you mix the "not so nice people" with the unprepared people (who mostly also don't believe in firearms)...and mix that with even a little bit of socio-economic collapse, and it's makes for a wicked brew indeed!

I know from talking to people now who lived through the great depression that they knew people who were unskilled and unprepared. But they agree that there are many, MANY times more today (ratio-wise) than there were the first time...and while they can't say exactly what this is going to cause, we all agree that it's NOT going to be good!...at least not in worldly terms.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods011.htm

CAMPING AND WOODCRAFT 1917
CHAPTER X : CONCENTRATED FOODS

The fiirst European settlers in this country were ignorant of the ways of the wilderness. Some of them had been old campaigners in civilized lands, but they did not know the resources of American forests, nor how to utilize them. The consequence was that many starved in a land of plenty. The survivois learned to pocket their pride and learn from the natives, who, however contemptible they might seem in other respects, were past masters of the art of going “light but right.” An almost naked savage could start out alone and cross from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, without buying or begging from anybody, and without robbing, unless from other motives than hunger. This was not merely due to the abundance of game. There were large tracts of the wilderness where game was scarce, or where it was unsafe to hunt. The Indian knew the edible plants of the forest, and how to extract good food from roots that were rank or poisonous in their natural state; but he could not depend wholly upon such fortuitous findings. His mainstay on long journeys was a small bag of parched and pulverised maize, a spoonful of which, stirred in water, and swallowed at a draught, sufficed him for a meal when nature’s storehouse failed.

Pinole.—All of our early chroniclers praised this parched meal as the most nourishing food known. In New England it went by the name of “nocake,” a corruption of tlie Indian word nookik. William Wood, who, in 1634, wrote the first topographical account of tlie Massachusetts colony, says of nocake that ‘’It is Indian corn parched in the hot ashes, the ashes being sifted from it; it is afterwards beaten to powder and put into a long leatherne bag trussed at the Indian’s backe like a knapsacke, out of which they take three spoonsful a day.” Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, said that a spoonful of nocake mixed with water made him “many a good meal.” Roger did not affirm, however, that it. made him a square meal, nor did he mention the size of his spoon.

In Virginia this preparation was knowm by another Indian name, “rockahominy” (which is not, as our dictionaries assume, a synonym for plain hominy, but a quite different thing). That most entertaining of our early woodcraftsmen, Colonel Byrd of Westover, wlio ran tlie dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728-29, speaks of it as follows:

“Rockaliominy is nothing’ but Indian corn parched without burning-, and reduced to Powder. The Fire drives out all tlie Watery Parts of tlie Corn, leaving the Strength of it behind, and this being very dry, becomes much lighter for carriage and Iess liable to be Spoilt by the Moist Air. Thus half a Dozen Pounds of this Sprightful Bread will sustain a Man for as many Months, provided he husband it well, and always spare it when he meets with Venison, which, as I said before, may be Safely eaten without any Bread at all. By what I have said a Man needs not encumber himself with more than 8 or 10 Pounds of Provision, tho’ he continue half a year in the Woods. These and his Gun will support him very well during the time, without the least danger of keeping one Single Fast.”

The Moravian missionary Heckewelder, in his History, Manners and Customs of the Indian
Nations, describes how the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, prepared and used this emergency food:

“Their Psindamooan or Tassmanane, as they call it, is the most nourishing- and durable food made out of the Indian corn. The blue sweetish kind is the grain which they prefer for that purpose. They parch it in clean hot ashes., until it bursts, it is then sifted and cleaned, and pounded in a mortar into a kind of flour, and when they wish to make it very good, they mix some sugar [i.e., maple sugar] with it. When wanted for use, they take about a tablespoonful of this flour in their mouths, then stooping to the river or brook, drink water to it. If, however, they have a cup or other small vessel at hand, they put the flour in it and mix it with water, in the proportion of one tablespoonful to a pint. At their camps they will put a small quantity in a kettle with water and let it boil down, and they will have a thick pottage. With this food the traveler and warrior will set out on long journeys and expeditions, and as a little of it will serve them for a day, they have not a heavy load of provisions to carry. Persons who are unacquainted with this diet ought to be careful not to take too much at a time, and not to suffer themselves to be tempted too far by its flavor; more than one or two spoonfuls, at most, at any one time or at one meal is dangerous; for it is apt to swell in the stomach or bowels, as when heated over a fire.”

The best of our border hunters and warriors, such as Boone and Kenton and Crockett, relied a good deal upon this Indian dietary when starting on their long hunts, or when undertaking forced marches more formidable than any that regular troops could have withstood. So did Lewis and Clark on tlieir ever-memorable expedition across the unknown West. Modern explorers who do their outfitting in London or New York, and who think it needful to command a small army of porters and gun-bearers when they go into savage lands, might do worse than read the simple annals of that trip by Lewis and Clark, if they care to learn what real pioneering was.

It is to be understood, of course, that the parched and pulverized maize was used mainly or solely as an emergency food, when no meat was to te had. Ordinarily the hunters of tliat day, white and red, when they were away from settlements or trading posts, lived on “meat straight,” helped out with nuts, roots, wild salads, and berries. Thus did Boone, the greater part of two years, on his first expedition to Kentucky; and so did the trappers of the far West in tlie days of Jim Bridger and Kit Carson.

Powdered parched corn is still the standby of native travelers in the wilds of Spanish America, and it is sometimes used by those hardy mountaineers, “our contemporary ancestors,” in the Southern Appalachians. One of my camp-mates in the Great Smoky Mountains expressed to me his surprise that any one should be ignorant of so valuable a resource of the hunter’s life. He claimed that no other food was so “good for a man’s wind” in mountain climbing.

In some parts of the South and West the pulverized parched corn is called “coal flour.” The Indians of Louisiana gave it the name of gofio. In Mexico it is known as pinole. (Spanish pronunciation, pee-nolay; English, pie-no-lee.)

Some years ago Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, author of The Still Hunter and other excellent works on field sports, published a very practical article on emergency rations in a weekly paper, from which, as it is now buried where few can consult it, I take the liberty of making the following quotation:

“La comida del desierto, the food of the desert, or pinole, as it is generally called, knocks the hind sights off all American condensed foods. It is the only form in which you can carry an equal weight and bulk of nutriment on which alone one can, if necessary, live continuously for weeks, and even months, without any disorder of stomach or bowels. . . . The principle of pinole is very simple. If you should eat a breakfast of corn-meal mush alone, and start out for a hard tramp, you will feel hungry in an hour or two, though at the table the dewrinkling of your abdomen may have reached the hurting point. But if, instead of distending the meal so much with water and heat, you had simply mixed it in cold water and drunk it, you could have taken down three times the quantity in one-tenth of the time. You would not feel the difference at your waistband, but you would feel it mightily in your legs, especially if you have a heavy rifle on your back. It works a little on the principle of dried apples, though it is quite an improvement. There is no danger of explosion; it swells to suit the demand, and not too suddenly.

Suppose, now, instead of raw corn-meal, we make it not only drinkable but positively good. This is easily done by parching to a very light brown before grinding, and grinding just fine enough to mix so as to be drinkable, but not pasty, as flour would be. Good wheat is as good as corn, and perhaps better, while the mixture is very good. Common rolled oats browned in a pan in the oven and run through a spice mill is as good and easy to make it out of as anything. A coffee mill may do if it will set fine enough. Ten per cent. of popped corn ground in with it will improve the flavor so much that your children will get away with it all if you don’t hide it. Wheat and corn are hard to grind, but the small Enterprise spice mill will do it. You may also mixm somc ground chocolate with it for flavor, which, with popped corn, makes it very fine . . . Indigestible? Your granny’s nightcap! . . You must remember that it is “werry fillin’ for the price,” and go slow with it until you have found your coeflicient. . . .

Now for the application. The Mexican rover of the desert will tie a small sack of pinole behind his saddle and start for a trip of several days. It is the lightest of food, and in the most portable shape, sandproof, bug and fly proof, and everything. Whenever he finds water he stirs a few ounces in a cup (I never weighed it, but four seem about enough at a time for an ordinary man), drinks it in five seconds, and is fed for five or six hours. If he has jerky, he chews that as he jogs along, but if he has not he will go through the longest trip and come out strong and well on pinole alone.”—Shooting and Fishing, Vol. xx, p. 248.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods012.htm

CORN AND BEANS,
THE WONDER FOODS

by Kurt Saxon

Corn and beans have been staple foods for thousands of years. Those American Indians who farmed grew corn, beans and squash as the main elements of their diets. All three are easy to grow, are very productive, filling and nutritious. In fact. one could live on these three foods, and many have had to.

While researching this article I talked to many Southerners who remembered corn and beans as their mainstays as children during the Great Depression. Cornbread and cornmeal mush and beans were always there, regardless of their poverty, and they thrived!

If you have a supply of corn and beans you’ll never hunger. Moreover, they taste good. They can also be mixed with any other food, adding bulk and flavor to the most humble meal.

To utilize corn you must buy it in 50 pound sacks for about $3.50 from your local feed and seed store. You’ll also need a Corona Grain Mill. I sell them as a convenience to my readers since I make more profit selling only two books and books are so much easier to package and mail. So this is no hard-sell. I’m doing you a favor because I want you to own a mill. The mill will be among your most important survival tools.

When you get your corn, transfer it to two liter pop bottles, plastic bags, gallon jars, etc., as weevils will come from all over to eat it.

Don’t bother trying to sprout the corn as it’s most likely hybrid and so only about one grain out of ten will sprout and the rest will only rot.

GRINDING CORN

With my Corona Grain Mill I can grind a pound of whole corn in five minutes. I put the pound in the hopper and set the screws to a very coarse grind which only cracks the kernels into five or six pieces each. Then I adjust the screws a little tighter to grind the pieces finer. Then again and again and once again. This makes grinding easy.

Since most recipes take a pound or less, grinding by the pound insures freshness. Of course, you can grind several pounds at a time but that’s work. If you set up your mill permanently in a place of its own. you can grind routinely with no thought of time consumption or hard work.

GRINDING SCREEN

A way I came up with to make the grinding easier is a box screen. This is a four-sided, bottomless box of 1 by 4 inch wood. Mine is 12 by 12 inches. I used regular nylon window screen as that’s as fine as any bread flour or corn-meal needs to be. I simply spread GOOP glue generously on the rim and pressed the screen on.

I put a section of newspapers under the grinder head and put the screen on the newspaper and under the grinder head. After each grinding stage I shook the finer meal through the screen onto the newspaper and then transferred it into a bowl. This saved sending the finer meal back through the grinder.

You can also use the screen for anything else, as the GOOP gives the screen a permanent and strong bond to the wood. CORNMEAL MUSH

Your first project should be cornmeal mush. Consider, as you read, how cheap and simple it is to make. The best way to cook cornmeal mush is in a Crock-Pot. They cost about $20.00 at Wal-Mart or most other stores. They last forever and use only about 10 cents electricity in 24 hours. They cook slowly and will not burn the contents. You can start a batch of whatever before leaving for work and when you get home you’ll have a fully-cooked hot meal waiting. The instruction booklet shows you how to do all your cooking in a Crock-Pot, cheaply and great-tasting. Get one! CROCK POT

Without a Crock-Pot you need a double boiler. Corn will stick hard over direct heat and so you must not cook it over direct heat.

A double boiler is simply two pots, the bottom one filled with water and the top holding whatever you don’t want direct heat applied to. You can get double boilers cheaply at Wal-Mart, Sears, etc.. but a Crock-Pot is best.

But say you have a Crock-Pot. Put in 5 and half cups of cold water and pour in and stir 2 cups of cornmeal and a tablespoon of salt. You can add whatever spices or herbs you like for flavor or leave it plain. Turn the Crock-Pot on high and put on the lid. Then let it cook for 3 hours.

After one hour stir it well with a table knife and scrape off any cornmeal sticking to the sides, as that’s where the heating elements usually are. Cornmeal does stick slightly in a Crock-Pot, but it’s easily scraped off.

After the second hour give it another stir and scrape and let it alone. After the third hour, scrape and stir again and pour the mush out into a greased or Teflon-coated bread baking pan.

Let it alone for a few hours or overnight. It will then be set firm and you can turn it out on a plate. Then cut off quarter-inch slices and fry it golden brown and serve it with whatever else you have. It tastes good, is nutritious and filling.

Instead of plain cornmeal mush you can make scrapple. That’s simply the mush with meat scraps chopped up and mixed with the cornmeal during the cooking.

You can’t beat the economy of cornmeal mush. At 7 cents a pound for cornmeal ground yourself, 2 cups or 10 ounces costs about 4 cents.. What you get when it sets is just over 3-1/2 pounds of food for about two cents a pound! CORNBREAD

Now for cornbread. This is delicious and Southerners love it. It’s among the simplest breads to make. It’s baked in a greased or teflon-coated pan about two inches deep and 8x10 Inches or round in an iron skillet.

It’s cut into slabs and the slabs are then cut in half and spread with margarine. Cornbread doesn’t hold as firmly as wheat or rye breads so it needs half wheat flour for the gluten to keep it from being too crumbly. Cornbread doesn’t lend itself to making sandwiches but it’s bread all the same.

A favorite dish of mine since childhood is chunks of hot cornbread covered with pinto beans and the bean soup. Delicious!

To bake it you get together 2 cups of cornmeal, I cup of wheat flour, 2 tablespoons of bacon grease, cooking oil, melted margarine, etc., 2 teaspoons of salt. I egg, 3 teaspoons of baking powder and 1-1/2 cups of water.

To make a lighter loaf, substitute commercial white flour and milk and add another egg. This may taste better to some, but I like the cruder kind just fine.

Mix the flours and add the grease or oil and mix some more. Then add the egg and salt and mix some more. Now add the water and mix until smooth.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. and add the baking powder and mix again. Then pour the batch into the baking pan and put it in the oven. Bake It for 45 minutes.

When this is baked you’ll have 1 pound 7 ounces of extremely rich bread for a total cost of just under 20 cents. It’s tasty, nutritious and very filling.

You can also make corn pancakes with this recipe. Use 2 cups of water so they’ll spread, and fry them in bacon grease, etc., in a hot skillet like regular pancakes. When the bubbles in the middle of the cakes stay open. it’s time to turn them. A couple of minutes later they’re done. These are heavier than flour pancakes. Spread them with margarine while hot and they taste great with salt and pepper or even syrup if you’re into sweets. These are the corn dodgers Rooster Cogburn carried with him as his mainstay while tracking Ruffians.

PINTO BEANS

A pound of dried pinto beans turns into 3 pounds of cooked beans. At 40 cents a pound, dried, that’s a little over 13 cents for a pound of cooked beans.

Pinto beans are best cooked in a Crock-Pot as they take quite a while and no one cares with a Crock-Pot, but in a kettle they might be forgotten and burn.

Nothing is simpler to cook than beans. If you only want beans but little or no soup, put in 6 cups of water and 2 cups of beans, plus a couple teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of pepper, chili powder or whatever seasoning suits you. Cook on high for three hours and if they mash easily they’re done.

Otherwise cook for another hour. Since a Crock-Pot doesn’t quite boil, you can’t overcook them, so an hour or more doesn’t matter. If you want bean soup, use 8 cups of water. I’d like you to make and try everything in this article. You’ll find it’s ever so easy and you’ll be surprised at how much good-tasting, nutritious and filling food you can have for so little cost.

You’ll not only learn how to cook but you’ll realize that you and yours will never go hungry, as will so many who relate to food only as it is processed and prepared by others. You’ll then wonder why anyone would be so stupid as to buy commercial “survival food” for $ thousands when you can do better for $ hundreds and learn while doing it.

I lose patience with people who see such food as dull and unappetizing. Especially women. You go to a Mexican restaurant, or Chinese, or Italian, pay an arm and a leg for admittedly delicious meals. Yet you fail to see that they are all prepared with simple, inexpensive ingredients, most of which are described in Survivor Vol. 1 or just about any good all-purpose cookbook.

Any woman who considers herself a good cook is fully capable of making any simple food taste good. If she can’t, she’d better learn.

People who are so dependent-minded that they must pay others to prepare their food are in danger of losing everything. Don’t you realize that that attitude causes the average family to spend about 30% of Its income on food when they could eat better on about 5%?

Your family could eat better and put that 25% savings to building a family business which would make you valuable to your community. You could even afford a greenhouse alongside your home. Succeeding issues will teach you to grow lots of food in a small space and make more from a few hundred square feet of land than you can at most jobs. Also, it will insure your safety, as your neighbors will fight to protect their food supply, which could be you.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods013.htm

A NEW STAPLE FOOD

(Bean and three-grain loaf at under 8 cents a pound)

The prices quoted are from 1996

by Kurt Saxon

Here’s a staple food which I concocted which anyone can make and would be a guarantee against hunger. It is a combination of one fourth each of ground pinto beans, corn, wheat and rye.

(Grind and mix one pound of each). A Corona grain mill, $50., ordered from us, will last a lifetime and be your best self-sufficiency tool now and in the event of a collapse.

At your local seed and feed store you should be able to buy untreated wheat and rye for $4.25 for 50 lb. each. Fifty lb. of whole corn is only $3.00. Prices may vary where you are but not much. My wife bought 20 lb. of pinto beans at Wal-Mart for $5.00 or 25 cents a lb. Our health food store sells 25 lb. for $15.00 or 60 cents a lb. Since the health food store is always higher five lb. bags at your grocer’s should be around 35 cents a pound.

When you consider that the three pounds of grain costs around 21 cents and 35 cents for beans, you pay about 62 cents for four pounds of meal. At 10 ounces per three pound loaf you get at least six three pound loaves or 18 pounds which amounts to about four cents a pound. Add the cost of electricity and the seasonings, this food would still cost under 8 cents a pound.

Say you ate about a pound and a half of this food each day. You would get all the protein and carbohydrates for energy, plus vitamins and minerals your body needs. You could live on it but you can eat it along with whatever other food you have. It is tasty, filling and nutritious.

Bean And Three-Grain Loaf

5½ cups water

2 cups (10 oz) meal

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. poultry seasoning

2 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. black pepper

3 tsp. onion powder

(Or use whatever flavoring you like)

This is best cooked in a one-gallon crock pot, which you should have, as it’s the cheapest on energy, costs less than $25.00 at Wal-Mart and lasts forever.

First, grind one pound each of beans, corn, wheat and rye. For fineness, screen after each grinding to save grinding the fine over and over. Build a simple wood frame, a foot square by six inches deep. Glue or staple a piece of window screen, bought at any hardware store.

As you grind each pound you’ll be left with maybe 15% husks which just won’t grind and will stay in the sieve. The corn husks you discard as they have no value. But the husks of the beans, wheat and rye are good cooked in soups. The other husks, taken in liquid by the heaping teaspoonful, will act as a better laxative than any you can buy. On the other hand, the cooked meal, itself, is excellent roughage, and will clean out your intestinal tract of all the bad bacteria and disease-causing matter and you’ll feel better and never get colon cancer. It’s a real health food.

Mix the meal and measure out two cups and mix in the seasonings. Put 5½ cups of hot water in the crock pot and dribble in the meal, stirring with a fork, as the meal has a tendency to lump.

Cook for two hours, stirring every half hour with a fork, especially at the bottom. When done, remove the crock pot and wrap a towel around it so you don’t burn yourself. Pour the contents into a greased bread baking pan. (Mine is 5½ inches wide by 9½ inches long by 2½ inches deep on the inside). This recipe makes a three-pound loaf.

Put a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the pan of hot meal or an unpleasant crust will form. Put the pan in a cool place overnight. By the next morning it will have become firm. Slide a knife around the ends and sides and turn the loaf out on a platter or such and cover it with plastic wrap. The process of preparing this food doesn’t take more than five minutes. To use it, peel back the wrap and cut it into quarter-inch slices and fry it on both sides in a hot skillet. Serve with bacon and eggs or whatever you wish for any meal. You’ll never go hungry and will save a lot of money on food.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods002.htm

THE PERFECT 3.3 CENT BREAKFAST

By Kurt Saxon

A while back some Mormons visited me and told me of a friend who had been suckered into paying $12,000 for a year’s supply of “Survival Food” for his family of five. The seller had given him a break by not charging anything for the baby.

The only good thing one can say about most commercial survival foods is that they won’t taste any worse in ten years than they do now. The worst that can be said for them, aside from their lack of nutrition from over processing, is that they cost an average of three times that of food from your local supermarket.

A year’s supply of food would be nice and you should go for it. But be practical. Buy what you normally eat and like. Learn basic food processing so you can buy foods cheaply and in bulk.

Of course, we all use canned and processed food on a regular basis and they should always be bought by the case. You should figure how much of a certain product you will buy over the next year and buy it all at once by the case from your supermarket.

The economy is obvious. First, the supermarket manager will deduct at least 5%, since his people won’t have to unpack it and put it on the shelves. Second, since food prices do nothing but rise, you will probably pay at least 25% more for the same products in a few months.

You can do even better by trading at the discount food stores like Sam’s. Their prices average 10% above dealer’s prices on most items.

Although food in cans, jars and dried packaged foods easily keep from three to five years if they are stored in a dry place, you can insure freshness by rotating. Say you bought ten cases of canned peas. Just mark the cases from 1 to 10. Use from case 1 and when that is emptied, buy another and label it 11. Then start on case 2, buy another and label it 12 and so on. That way none of the food will ever be less than fresh.

When you incorporate grains into your diet you will see your food costs plummet. Buy a hand grain grinder and bake your own bread. You will save several dollars a month. It will also taste better and be more nourishing. You can even sell it to neighbors and even to local health food stores.

Grain grinders should be steel-burred, not stone. Stone grinders are a fraud. They are touted as causing less heat than steel. But hand grinding does not create the amount of heat objected to in the commercial milling of grains. So buy the much cheaper and more durable steel-burred grinder. Atlan sells the Corona Grain Mill for $48.00 delivered in the continental United States (foreign please request additional shipping charges). It is the best for the price of any on the market and should last a lifetime.

The Survivor Vol 1 and Poor Man’s James Bond Strikes Again video tape will give you an excellent grounding on the processing of inexpensive and nutritious foods. Through them you will learn that high food costs, and especially the need for commercial survival foods, are the results of ignorance. You may soon have to abandon the luxury of such ignorance.

But now to get to the main subject; the perfect 3.3 cent breakfast. This is just one example of a food which is easy to process, nourishing, energy and health giving and costs practically nothing.

It is simply four ounces of wheat, sprouted for 48 hours, cooked overnight in your thermos and put in your blender. This makes a large bowl of breakfast cereal which tastes wonderful and will give you more energy than you can imagine.

There are several steps to processing this food but it takes only a few minutes in all as you bustle about in your daily routine.

You probably already have most of what you need but you should equip yourself with what you lack.

First, look up your local feed and seed store, even in a city, and call them. Ask if they have, or can order, 50 to 60 pounds of hard red winter wheat, untreated (treated seed is strictly for planting). There is no reason they should not be able to provide it.

It will cost between $7.00 and $8.00, depending on your location. Say it costs $8.00 for 60 pounds or 13 cents per pound. You will use 4 ounce portions. That is 4 times 60 or 240 breakfasts or 3.3 cents for each breakfast.

One thing you will need is a Stanley Aladdin narrow-mouthed thermos bottle. These cost $19.00 at Wal-Mart, are almost unbreakable and will last a lifetime. Don’t be tempted to get a wide-mouthed thermos, if you mean to cook in it. It holds 3/4 cup less than you need. Also, the cap has a wider surface, which keeps it from holding the heat of the near boiling water needed for actual cooking.

Next you need two quart jars. Mayonnaise jars or similar will do. To cover them get some nylon window screen from the hardware store and cut two six inch by six inch squares. Put four ounces of wheat in each jar. Put the screens over the jars and hold them in place with large rubber bands. Fill one jar one-third with water and set it near the sink overnight.

Next morning pour out the soak water and drink it. It is vitamin-rich and a good morning tonic. Upend the jar in the sink to drain. After the first draining, flood the wheat about every four hours before bedtime and drain it. The idea is to keep the wheat moist.

At the last flooding the first day, just before bedtime, flood the second jar and let it set overnight like the first. Next day, drink the water and treat the second as the first, flooding both every four hours or so.

On the second evening the first jar of wheat will show sprouts protruding from the ends of the grains. Now it is ready. It is part grain and part fresh vegetable. Its protein and vitamin content is higher and it is altogether a more complete food, rich and amazingly nutritious and, again, a complete meal for less than 4 cents.

Empty the sprouted grains into a two cup measure and put four more ounces of wheat in the jar, flood and set aside overnight as before. Now you have a perpetual routine taking up no real time and producing a fantastic amount of food for little cost.

With the sprouted grain in the two cup measure fill it with water to the two cup mark. Then pour it into a saucepan on the stove and add two more cups of water and a few shakes of salt to keep it from tasting flat. Heat it to a boil, which takes about five minutes.

You will need a funnel to pour the water and the grain into the thermos. Take a gallon plastic bottle; milk, bleach, vegetable oil, etc. and cut it in half. Use the top half for the funnel.

Fill your thermos with hot water to preheat it and then pour out just before filling with the grain. While the grain is still boiling, empty the pan into the funnel and so into the thermos. You will have to use a spoon to push part of the grain from the funnel into the thermos, as well as some of the grain from the pan. At any rate, do it quickly so you can cap the thermos to contain the heat.

Cap then shake the thermos and lay it on its side so its contents don’t bunch up, and leave it overnight. Next morning, pour the contents into a blender and pour out part of the liquid into a cup. Drink the liquid as it is rich in vitamins.

With just enough liquid to cover the grain, turn on the blender at low. Then increase the speed until the grain is all ground to the consistency of oatmeal. You can add cinnamon or any other flavoring if you like but you will find it has a delicious taste of its own.

You do not need much sweetener as the sprouting has created quite a bit of wheat sugar. You can add cream if you like, but I like mine plain. In fact, I just blend the wheat with all the liquid and drink it.

You will be surprised at the energy you feel even a few minutes after eating. Not only will it enable you to be more energetic and alert until lunch time but it will also be an excellent weight adjuster.

For instance, if you are overweight, that energy will make you more active and you will lose weight. If you are underweight, its carbohydrates will be burned up as energy and that same energy will activate and increase your musculature.

There is one possible drawback to this 3.3 cent breakfast. If you are active, no problem. But if you live a sedentary lifestyle and are sluggish, you may get the runs. Not chronic, just loose. However, this would only last a few days. After all, this is whole wheat, with all the bran. People have been eating roughly ground whole wheat for thousands of years. Up until about eighty years ago only the very rich ever ate white bread. Sluggish intestines were a rarity except among the wealthy.

Consequently, only the rich got colon cancer. Colon cancer is caused by the buildup of carcinogens on intestinal linings. The rough bran from whole wheat and coarsely ground corn kept the intestines of common folk free from any such buildup.

The same goes for oatmeal, which has recently been touted as the perfect bran food. It is a staple of the Scots and is high in protein. But what with the bran craze its price has risen much higher than its nutritive value.

So back to the wheat bran and its unsettling effects on the innards of sluggards. This is only temporary. Any radical, even beneficial, change in the diet will cause a reaction. The intestines are not harmed, any more than unused muscles are harmed after a first day of horseback riding. The nether quarters doth protest but they soon get used to it. No need to overdo it to bowleggedness though.

So I am not suggesting this to be your whole breakfast permanently or that you make whole wheat your staple food. What I would suggest, however, is that you challenge yourself to make it your whole breakfast for two weeks.

You will save money. You will experience fantastic energy. You will lose/gain weight. You will even get cleaned out and regular and will realize that you will never really need a laxative, even Metamucel, from then on if you eat only one serving each day. You will lower you risk of colon cancer. And you will never fear starvation as long as you have sense enough to buy whole grains in bulk.

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods008.htm

This article came from the 39th (May 1976) issue of The Mother Earth News.
One look at the prices quoted in this article, and everyone will know
that it would have to be 25 years old! —— Cary
vegies.jpg (191842 bytes)

Last spring, my wife and I were faced with a problem that I suppose most folks run into sooner or later: We wanted a garden—in fact, we desperately needed a garden—but we didn’t have any place to put one.

At the time, I had just left the Army and was out of work, so the idea of spending my hard-to-come-by cash on overpriced supermarket produce wasn’t all that attractive. Unfortunately, our landlord didn’t like the notion of us digging a vegetable patch in the backyard any better . . . and even if he had, we would’ve hesitated.

You see, we hoped to move to a small farm sometime before the end of the growing season, and we didn’t want to have to leave a still-thriving garden behind. Besides, we’d already learned from experience that “we’d have to get up early in the morning” to protect a vegetable patch from our two mixed terriers. The “devilish duo” would get under or over any kind of fence we put in their way, and proceed to mangle whatever plants they could find.

So. We used a little ingenuity and came up with a different kind of garden that was portable and pet-proof and productive all at once. In short, we grew piles of tall-topped carrots, juicy tomatoes, and a bevy of other fresh fruits and vegetables ... in baskets!

Now, I know that some dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists will turn their noses up at any garden not rooted deep in MotherEarth herself. But if your problems are similar to what ours were, or if you live in a small city apartment, or if you can’t do all the stooping and bending that ground-level planting and weeding requires . . . well, then a basket garden can be a pretty good way to go!

To start one, all you’ll need is several containers large enough to hold a sufficient amount of soil to support living vegetation. In our case, we couldn’t spend a fortune on over-sized ceramic pots, and we didn’t have any good “recyclables” (such as paint buckets or gallon-size plastic milk jugs). So we scouted a local discount store, where we discovered that ordinary clothesbaskets were just fine for our purposes (and inexpensive to boot). The bushel size cost only 57 cents apiece, and the half-bushel just 37 cents ... so we brought home three large and seventeen small baskets for a total price of just $8.00!

Next, we lined the containers with plain old “Hefty type” trash bags, and then filled the bottom of each with two inches of coarse gravel for drainage. On top of that we placed a layer of newspaper to keep the soil from washing down into the stones.

Then we added the growing medium itself. Gardening books call for a 1:1:1 ratio of peat moss, loam, and sand . . . and advise that rotted manure, leaves, grass clippings, and

other well-shredded vegetation can also be mixed in. We, however, simply used three parts slightly sandy (and rocky) soil from an empty field, combined with one part grass clippings. Judging from the way our plants thrived, I’d say just about any reasonably rich blend of natural materials that’s light and loose enough to provide good aeration will work OK.

Finally, we poked a few small holes in the base of the lined containers to allow extra drainage, and placed stakes in the baskets in which we intended to grow tomatoes and peas.

A friend of ours had access to a number of wooden pallets that some local factories wanted to dispose of ... so he gave us two of the skids, from which we constructed a platform that kept our “garden” well above the reach of canine claws, but at just the right height for easy weeding. One of the discards made an “instant tabletop”, and a few minutes’ work with a crowbar and hammer gave us enough usable lumber from the other to build supporting legs and braces. (Incidentally, homesteaders might take note of the fact that throw-away pallets are a good source of free wood for rough construction. They can be used either disassembled or as whole “prefab” sections in any number of projects.)

The final step in establishing our vegetable patch, of course, was the actual planting . . . but before jumping in “seeds first”, we referred to three books which were especially helpful:

[1] Raise Vegetables Without a Garden by Doc and Katy Abraham (Countryside Books, 1974, $2.95); [2] All About Vegetables edited by Walter Doty (regionally oriented editions, published by Chevron Chemical Company, 1973, $2.95); and [3] The Mother Earth News® Almanac (THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS®, Inc., 1973, $1.95).

This information-particularly the guides to natural pest control and companion planting in MOTHER’S Almanac helped us choose the kinds of vegetables and fruits we felt would be most productive and best suited to our own needs and tastes.

We put two large-variety tomato plants (such as “Heinz” and “Country Fair”) in each bushel basket, and found that a half-bushel container could accommodate either a pair of small tomato vines (such as Burpee’s “Early Girl”) or four good-size pepper plants. Our remaining baskets were seeded with radishes, onions, carrots, peas, miniature corn, strawberries, and cucumbers. We planted relatively early in the season, kept the containers out in the sun on warm days, and simply carried them back into the house whenever a chill threatened. (My poor ole Dad lost two successive sets of tomatoes to late frosts in his regular garden . . . but our portable vegetables stayed cozy and warm-one/ healthy—the whole time.)

Obviously, there’s much less moisture-retaining soil in a “container garden” than in a conventional plot, so we did have to give our “babies” frequent waterings. (One possible solution might be to fold the tops of the trash bag liners over the soil, punch holes in the sacks, and then let the plants grow through. We haven’t tried it yet, but suspect the plastic would act as a good water-holding, weed-stifling mulch.) We also had to add extra dirt occasionally as the original material settled . . . but aside from those two minor measures and a little careful bug-watching and -squashing, and cultivating (none of which ever required bending our backs) our food practically grew by itself!

All that summer and fall, we enjoyed a vast and abundant variety of fresh produce straight from one table (the plants’) to another (ours). And we never so much as picked up a rake the whole year!

So ... you say supermarket prices are killing your budget, but (moan, groan) you don’t have space to grow your own vegetables? Buy a bunch of baskets!

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