When The Trucks Stop Delivering.

I think the above link is damaged so here it is again

https://readynutrition.com/resource...delivering-the-system-will-collapse_11072015/

 

If one lives in an area that is bereft of agriculture (arable land and water supply), then disaster looms.

Los Angeles is an extreme example of a populated area wherein ALL needed materials necessary for human habitation MUST be trucked-in / piped-in. Add the little matter of being located on the junction of two continental plates, i.e. where the Earth's crust is cracked/shattered. The inhabitants of Los Angeles are doomed. How do the people do who live there conduct themselves? Daily, they flip God the bird. Do not so much as travel to that DOOMED urban sprawl. Millions await death.
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For your home fuel needs, keep wood ricked-up and 5-gallon fuel tanks topped-off (for rototiller, chain saws, and generator). If you have multiple vehicles, keep their tanks full. These tanks may just have to be tapped to provide fuel for other engines.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=syphoning+gas+out+of+car+tanks&atb=v140-1&iax=videos&ia=videos

Keep blocks of paraffin for your candles -- several pounds. Also, keep lengths of wicking. Paraffin comes in 5 lb. blocks. Matches, keep hundreds of packs, to include kitchen matches and hurricane matches.

Need I say, have several water purifiers!
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We keep 15 gallon tanks for water storage. For me, 15 gallon seems to be the "sweet spot". Over 15 gallons of water is HEAVY, >120lb (264 kilo); that is just unwieldy, especially for women.

Remember to keep rain run-off storage barrels on your property for garden usage. You can also use this for cleaning.

 

Good common sense article.

I've been reading up on how much land you need to grow all your own vegetables for a year, works out around 370Sq m (thats about 4000sf) plus more for access paths and storage etc and thats per person!

 

Gardens can be mega-productive. We've had years where we go totally burned-out on squash. We were eating fried squash, squash bread, and squash added to this and that, so we had to cut back on that veggie. But in a survival situation, you can't be picky. Grow a lot of squash and beans.

I cannot over-emphasize how monstrously important it is to dump lots and lots of composted cow and horse manure into your soil. Soil may look good, but that sure doesn't mean that it is full of nutrients. It takes heaps of manure and, for our soil, peat moss. The soil must also percolation, therefore don't forget that sand is that which you must add -- how can roots be put out into soil that is in any way like clay! Compost is important, but just cut to the chase and go with many, many wheelbarrow loads of composted manure.

Below, I include a video concerning getting the most out of one's garden. One thing the lady says that I think is somewhat wrong is that she recommends lots of salad veggies. Friends, salad veggies are also known as "weeds". Go out and forage your salads, because quite frankly, Mother Nature has already grown these for you. If you are growing your own, I recommend kale and curly mustard. Growing your own salads takes up garden space.

I'm also going to throw in the proverbial tire-garden video. Many folk grow their greens in boxes and tires are round boxes as it were.



This fellow goes to great lengths to get the most out of his tire stacks, so in preparation he adds construction ideas above and beyond just a stack of tires full of soil.

 

Runner beans in Britain

 

Gardening is a great way to supplement store bought foods, and if you are hardcore and combine with subsistence activities, you can obtain a good degree of independence. We do collect the “weeds” that grow naturally, and the young fireweeds and ferns are as good as anything you can grow. But in the northern climate with almost perpetual sun, anything green you plant grows so much quicker and larger than I was producing in the lower 48, and you can get in multiple yields. My wife has figured out how to freeze veggies for winter use for almost great tasting smoothies. Not bad, but full of good stuff.

Back to the OP, I’ve posted about the inherent weakness of JIT during times of crises, but rarely do I get any responses. By design of JIT, each point in the supply chain must be lean with tight supply chain management with rapid resupply with a robust transportation system feeding the lean nodes along the supply chain. Works smashingly and profitably well during normal times. Not so much with any critical breakdown in this complex and interdependent system. Most people, and apparently a lot of preppers, have no idea how fragile the whole system of JIT is.

 

https://www.growveg.co.uk/guides/gr...ch in the 1970s by,storage – so that's a plot

What did you grow LW? My parents were keen gardeners and grew a lot of vegetables but never set out to feed us completely from their crops. I've only been growing since the arrival of C19 but I've enjoyed it, doing much better this year and my cheap poly-tunnel has survived the gales of the last few days. I've got three varieties of tomato growing, sweet peppers, chilli's, cucumbers (one dwarf for gherkins), lots of herbs so food that can all be stored long term but not a lot of 'gut fillers' like spuds, swedes, carrots and cabbages and I'll look into that next year more. I've got spuds growing in black bin liners which worked very well last year and I'll put a late crop in end of August/early September. Fair play to my lad he's looked after things when I'm not here and he won't admit it but.......I think he enjoys it LOL.

 

I tried container farming last year. the container were black plastic about 3 gallons each. it did not do so well, The soil was a mix of black earth and compost and garden soil , so it should have done very well . the tomatoes never ripened, the zucchinis was ok, peppers very small.
This year i am going back to raised garden ,

 

I picked up twenty 30cm pots cheap as chips and I'm growing various herbs, lettuce, radishes, bush toms aubergines, peppers, carrots, cucumbers some in the polytunnel some outside, be interesting to see how they get on. My tunnel is cheap and not well put together, I'll look at something better for next year. I'm new to gardening so its a new learning curve for me.

Have you tried LED grow lights? I've got four strips coming to play with, no idea how much they help but they are low power and you could easily rig up a solar power supply as backup to mains power.