Free Republic

I’ve been missing the vast amount of information on prepping, survival, camping, simple cooking, the old ways of doing just about everything – all the things nw_arizona_granny knew so much about and shared with us, along with numerous other posters with a vast array of skills and knowledge. We have our various related-threads here, a recipe thread, a gardening thread, and even a prepper thread. They are all great and I don’t mean to take anything away from those and the hard work their owners put in. But I was missing a place to talk about ALL those things, to...

So, I'm sure at least one person here on FR has wondered what happened to me, maybe two of you. Before I really really stopped posting, many of us had discussed the possibility, and or the desire, to get out of the city to our own little homesteads and try to grow some food, for security, for peace of mind, for whatever reason.Well, my family did it.Two years ago we made the jump. We bought a place in the country, and have spent the past couple of years setting up our little homestead. We have a big garden, many chickens,...

Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15) Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years. To us, Suelo probably sounds...

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...

Please remember folks --- this article is from 2006! June is here, and along with it, summer. Gone are the soft pastels of flowering vines such as jasmine and wisteria. The bolder, brighter summer colors of orange trumpet vine and the tropical colors of mandevillas are on their way. The soft, new greens of spring have been replaced by the harder greens of maturing leaves. Crepe myrtles and gardenias and hydrangeas are showing off their colors. Now that the things we hate about warm weather are back in full force-all the mosquitoes, sand gnats, yellow flies, and various other nasty...

5 foods it's cheaper to grow If grocery prices have you thinking about cutting costs with a garden, you may be on the right track. But be careful what you plant; a garden could raise your food costs. Whether you save by gardening depends largely on where you live, what you grow and how well you resist slick gadgets and miracle solutions. If you're looking to save money rather than to start a hobby, here are five garden crops likely to give you the best return: What about tomatoes? They require moderate care and vigilance, and in short-season climates, you...

My apologies to all for the lateness of this post --- it has just been a week from you now where here. As we all morph into this holiday weekend, I would like to remind you all to take a moment to remember why this is a "holiday" weekend. Yes, we're all going to enjoy our cookouts and the 3 day weekend (well some have 3 day weekends) but I do ask that each of us take a moment and salute those for whome this weekend remembers.

Ok. I don't mean Cannabis. These days, with the rising prices everywhere, it should be noted that there are a whole lot of edible plants that grow naturally. Of course everyone is familiar with the good old dandelion, which was originally brought to America as a food crop. But there are many other plants which are at least edible, even if not delicious, so I thought I would start a thread. And while many wild plants aren't too easy on the tongue, the first one I will mention is quite good. And just about overflowing with vitamins and minerals. So......

Wow! What an arctic blast! Can you remember a colder Good Friday and Easter? It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been cold all along, but to be in the high eighties and then wham! Frostbite! And then, to add insult to injury, it stayed miserably cold with repeated heavy frosts until at least the tenth of April! Condolences to all of you who had your warm season gardens planted. The weather will swing in the opposite direction like a demented weathervane soon enough and we will be miserable with the high temperatures. Sure doesn’t look like we’re going...

May is a wondrous month, bursting with life and growth and energy, with color and scent and sound, a bittersweet taste of what the Garden of Eden must have been like before the fall from grace. Flowers are coming into their own, birds are nesting and hatching their young, puddles are full of tadpoles. Everything is celebrating the passing of winter and preparing for the long, hot summer ahead. With it’s perfect weather, May is the month to enjoy just being alive. May is time to plant the vegetables that need warmer weather. The soil temperature needs to be at...

I have had a week from Hades and will be perfectly honest with you all.........I completely and totally FORGOT about this thread yesterday. And so you all have my heartfelt apologies. My brain is pretty much just mush at the moment and so I am just going to share some of my favorite links.Edible LandscapingYou Grow GirlNational Home Gardening Club

Taking an early morning walk this time of year is a singular treat, like Dorothy stepping out of Auntie Em’s house into the color and sound of Oz. The same things that are always there, only instead of Winter‘s drabness, Spring’s full and glorious color. Each walk is accompanied by a symphony of birdsong, a riot of color bursting everywhere. Fallen jasmine blossoms scatter themselves on the ground like the famed yellow brick road, and blooming things pop up everywhere like the fabled Munchkins. And then, as if the colors and sounds aren’t enough, just to add a little spice,...

April is a debutante’s ball for green and growing things! Young foliage garbs the trees in gauzy, pastel gowns of gold and green and russet, like a watercolor by an old master. Their subtle color is a poignant reminder and a future foretaste of the fall’s bold leaves of orange and yellow and rust. The wild azaleas will be blooming soon, their delicate apple blossom pink petals shining through here and there and their honey sweet fragrance filling the air. The violets, from the large purple ones with heart shaped leaves to the tiny, almost invisible white ones with lance...

Seed swapping Q. I have a backyard vegetable/fruit/herb garden, and every year I wind up with lots of leftover seeds, more than I can possibly plant next time around, yet throwing them away seems like an awful waste. Is there any established way to share, trade, or recycle seeds? - Jacey, WY A. Absolutely. Seed-sharing has been an officially time-honored tradition since at least 1989, when Canada and Britain founded their respective “Seedy Saturday” and “Seedy Sunday” swaps. And in the US, the last Saturday in January is “National Seed Swap Day,” so start saving your seeds up for January...

Wow! February was sure a weather rollercoaster. Not just for us, but for most of the country, and indeed the world, with record snows and cold temperatures recorded in many places. So much for glo-bull warming! Face it, scientists-who-think-you-know-everything! Weather is weather, and mankind has no control over it, no influence on it whatsoever. We can record it, and complain about it, compare this year to that year. Bottom line is—the weather and the climate cycle as they will, hotter sometimes, colder sometimes. Wetter sometimes, dryer sometimes. All the hype, whichever way it goes, sounds suspiciously like a retelling of...

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in...