Facing an Economy and Economic Indicators collapse is scary, however, there are things you can do. Here are five threats you’ll face in an economic collapse to be aware of.
Do you know what could happen if an economic collapse occurs? Not everyone is fully aware of the bad things that can develop over time when an economy takes a downturn and is no longer booming and boosting like it was before.
5 Threats You’ll Face When the Economy and Economic Indicators Collapse
If you’re not sure what types of threats you’ll potentially face during an economic collapse, check out this list of the standard five threats that can happen during these difficult times. When you know what can happen, it’s easier to prepare for the worst possible scenario while hoping for the best.
1. Looters
During the first note of an economic collapse, people tend to panic. When they’re worried about the possibility of running out of essentials, such as food and water, it’s common for people to start looting. In the beginning, they’ll loot businesses to grab items that they think they’ll need to have during the economic collapse.
However, looting can take a greater turn for the worse. Unfortunately, in some situations, people start looting the homes of others, creating a dangerous situation for everyone.
Prepare for the Worst
It’s essential to have a stockpile of items for emergencies. You won’t have to worry about rushing out to the store and dealing with the looters to grab essentials for your family because you’ll already have those items at home. The only worry you’ll need to deal with is the possibility of someone attempting to break into your property to loot it.
Security Measures
Take drastic security measures to stop people from accessing your property. It’s beneficial to have strong security locks, surveillance cameras, and multiple means of protection, including firearms with plenty of ammunition. While you may have no intentions of harming anyone, you need to have a way to protect your loved ones when dealing with serious threats from potential intruders and attackers.
2. Inflation
During an economic collapse, it’s not uncommon for inflation to occur. As a result, the currency becomes useless. Even if you have plenty of paper money, it may hold absolutely no value, making it impossible for you to buy things that you truly need during a crisis. Because inflation can occur, causing the currency to become invaluable, collecting other cash alternatives is an excellent idea.
Not everyone understands how Inflation actually works – this is a great video to explain it!
Currency Will Become Worthless
This is pretty obvious when looking at and Economy and Economic Indicators failure. Investing in gold isn’t a bad idea. If you have the extra money to do so, you can begin collecting gold coins and bullion, both of which hold value in places all around the world. You may also want to think about what you can offer to others in exchange for their services.
Provide a Service Instead
If you need something from someone else, you might be able to provide a service that you’re good at doing. It’s a great way to get what you need without necessarily paying cash for those essentials. It’s a traditional form of bartering that existed long before currency ever did.
3. Food Shortage
A food shortage may occur as people begin looting and stores can no longer keep up with the demands of their customers. It’ll become increasingly challenging for stores to keep the shelves stocked as people continue to come to the stores and buy items on impulse because they’re in a panic over the situation.
When people feel that they won’t have access to food or beverages, they often rush out to buy non-perishable items and anything else they can get their hands on. Unfortunately, this leaves the shelves bare more often than not.
Know How to Prepare
Ways to protect yourself from a food shortage include growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs in a garden on your property and building a stockpile of non-perishable foods over time. You don’t need to rush out each day to buy more items for your family. Grab the items while they’re on sale and save them.
Store the Items Correctly
You can store rice, pasta, canned meats, and other items for extended periods without the food going bad. You might even want to think about canning to preserve fruits, vegetables, spreads, and meats for months or years at a time.
4. Government Shutting Down
Although it’s not as common in first-world countries, it’s a real threat for those living in third-world countries. The government shutting down is a big deal. If there isn’t enough money to go around, services that people are used to having access to all the time, such as medical care and policing, may no longer exist.
If there isn’t money to pay these people for their services, those working in different fields may no longer do their jobs, putting many lives at risk.
Prepare Where You Can
Not having police or emergency responders around is a significant problem. Without the possibility of getting caught for wrongdoing, it could lead to a major increase in crime, ultimately resulting in more lives lost. A lack of medical care could lead to widespread infections causing major health issues and possibly even death. While it’s not the kind of thing anyone wants to think about, a government shutdown could cause massive problems.
5. Service Shortages
A major economic collapse could lead to severe service shortages. It doesn’t just mean not being able to go to the store, but also many other things. You may no longer have gas to keep your home warm, electricity to keep the lights on, or running water to flush the toilet and take a bath.
A Turn for the Worst
When you don’t have water or power, things can take a drastic turn for the worse. So, what can you do to help yourself if service shortages happen? The best thing to do is to buy products that you can use during these emergencies.
For example, you may want to get a portable toilet that you can use in case of an emergency. Along with a portable toilet, you can buy a portable non-electric stovetop and dozens of candles to use if you don’t have electricity to turn on the lights.
Understanding the threats that you’ll face in an economic collapse is important. It’s not about trying to scare you but preparing you for what could potentially happen. If you know of the possible threats, you can take specific steps to protect yourself and your loved ones from experiencing turmoil amid an economic downfall.
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When you’re thinking about what types of crops to grow, check out these top five easy to grow vegetable seeds!
If you’re new to gardening, it’s a good idea to grow some of the easier crops to gain more experience over time. Some crops are naturally easier to grow because they require much less maintenance and effort but typically thrive in all different kinds of conditions.
The Top Five Easy to Grow Vegetable Seeds
If you’d like to become a better gardener in no time, check out these five easy crops to grow. It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of gardening space or not because here are the top five easy to grow vegetable seeds.
1. Green Onions
Green onions are, by far, one of the easiest crops to grow when living in the United States. It’s not uncommon for green onions to sprout out of the ground on their own. You can plant the seeds and have the opportunity to harvest the green onions in as little as 30 days! So, if you’re in a rush to see the fruits of your labor forming, growing green onions is worth it.
Give Them Space!
If you’re going to plant green onions, be sure to sow the seeds about two inches apart from one another to give these crops space to grow. You’ll need to develop a routine watering schedule to ensure that your green onions get the right amount of water.
It’s easy to get the green onions to thrive, but you need to keep the soil moist without soaking it too much. You may see results within weeks of planting the onions. Green onions are known as one of the top five easy crops to grow.
2. Lettuce
Growing lettuce is a good idea for anyone. Whether you have experience in the garden or not, you can get your lettuce to grow with ease. It’s a forgiving crop that tends to do well in all kinds of weather conditions. It only takes about a month to get lettuce to grow large enough to harvest it and use it.
Once you grow it, you can use it to make salads and wraps. You might even want to add the lettuce to sandwiches with sliced tomato, deli meat, and cheese on bread or rolls.
Ideal Spot in the Garden
Choose the ideal spot for your lettuce. You can place it in an area that gets full sun because lettuce thrives under sunlight. However, it’s not bad if the spot that you choose gets some shade. Unlike some crops, lettuce can still thrive when planted in a semi-shaded area.
Place your lettuce seeds deep within the soil and keep them more than 14 inches apart from one another. You’ll need to give the seeds space to grow and transform into large lettuce heads that you can harvest and eat.
3. Bell Peppers
Add bell peppers to your garden for a simple vegetable that doesn’t require much effort to grow. You can get your bell peppers to grow large enough to harvest within a minimum of two months, making them a fantastic crop to grow.
Harvesting Bell Peppers
Once you can harvest the bell peppers, you can rinse them with water and eat them raw or cook them. Some people like to eat them with cream cheese or ranch dip.
On the other hand, some people like to add them to a pan with butter or oil and saute them before serving them with rice, sausage, beef, or pasta. Knowing that you can do a lot with them is a good enough reason to grow them!
Choose a Sunny Spot!
If you’re going to grow bell peppers, choose a sunny spot in the garden. You’ll get these peppers to grow at a faster pace when they’re receiving plenty of sunlight each day. Be sure to use the right soil with a pH level of as low as 5.8 and as high as 6.5. Besides using the right soil, you should add fertilizer to your soil, use mulch, and make sure your bell pepper plants get about two inches of water per week.
4. Wheat
While it’s a bit tricky in the beginning, wheat is a relatively easy-to-grow crop. Once you can get it growing, you’ll get some significant yields, and that means you’ll have plenty of wheat to use for fermentation and making homemade bread. You can mill the wheat into flour before using it in different recipes to prepare muffins, pasta, homemade biscuits, and other delicious baked goods from scratch.
How Many Seeds Can I Add?
If it sounds like a good idea to you, make sure you know how to plant your wheat seeds correctly to get them to grow. You can add up to 30 seeds for each square foot of land you’re using to grow wheat. As your crops begin sprouting, pay close attention to the area.
You’ll need to remove any weeds that could get in the way of the wheat growing to its fullest potential. It’s equally as essential to provide your wheat crops with enough water.
5. Tomatoes
It’s common to find tomatoes growing in gardens of all sizes. You don’t need to have the most extensive garden to successfully get tomatoes to grow. It’s one of several reasons why new gardeners enjoy growing tomatoes so much. When your tomatoes reach their full size, you can harvest them and do so much with them. You can make tomato soup, add tomato slices to sandwiches and salads, and even use them in some of your favorite casserole recipes.
Use the Right Soil
If you’re going to grow tomatoes, use soil with a pH of up to 7.0. Make sure you’re paying attention to possible pests. Tomato hornworms are commonly found in gardens where tomatoes grow, and they can cause major destruction to these plants. You can keep them away by using natural pest control products, including other pests that tend to prey upon the hornworms. Tomatoes are known as one of the top five easy crops to grow.
Top Five Easy to Grow Vegetable Seeds
If you’d like to start gardening and enjoy planting crops that aren’t too difficult to grow and maintain, consider planting these five options. If you have a garden full of wheat, tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers, and green onions, you’ll have access to fresh ingredients that you can eat and use to prepare different meals.
The best part about growing these crops is that most of them don’t take long to reach their full potential for harvesting. What do you think are the top five easy crops to grow?
Finding a new home? Off-the-grid living is becoming more and more popular as people are looking for ways to live a simpler life. The off the grid lifestyle is not without its challenges, but many people have found that it provides them with happiness they were unable to find elsewhere.
In this article, we will discuss what you need in order to successfully make the transition from modern society into off-grid living.
All off-grid homes have certain things in common, such as solar panels or wind turbines that provide electricity without relying on fossil fuel power plants. Off-Grid Living has many challenges but can also be quite healthy and fulfilling.
Find the right land
To start with, you need land. That property you are looking for shouldn’t be too small. You will need lots of room for building a house if one isn’t present. You will also want space to build a few various workstations as well as saving a plot for farming.
Keep in mind that off-grid living requires some level of self-sufficiency – you will have to be able to grow your own food and produce your own fuel for heating, light, or machinery power in order to survive.
Finding a new home: Location – location – location
Your new home should be away from civilization. (moving too close to a city kind of forces you to be on the grid)
The best spot for electricity is near a stream. The old feed mills harnessed that power, so can you.
Some off-grid homes might not have a water connection, which means that their occupants need to carry all of the drinking and cooking water in buckets from natural sources like springs or creeks. This could be a challenge for those who are disabled or elderly because it requires physical exertion on their behalf.
Living on a beautiful piece of remote wilderness land is a dream for milions of people. But how do you make that happen? How do you find land to build your tiny house on, or your off-grid cabin?
What else do you need?
The big thing about off-grid living is that it requires some level of self-sufficiency. You will have to be able to grow your own food and produce your own fuel for transportation, heating, light, or machinery power in order to survive!
Finding a new home: Let the Sunshine in…
If you’re looking to live off of solar power, then your home should be in an area with lots of sun exposure (i.e., near the equator). North America has some great spots that are perfect for this purpose and not too far from civilization if you need supplies on occasion.
You can’t live off the grid without a plan for food. If you’re going to grow your own vegetables and fruits, then you need a spot where there’s sufficient sun exposure during all seasons of the year so that they’ll have enough light. You could also use this land as an orchard if that’s more up your alley.
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Look for fertile soil. Since there is a good chance you’ll be living off of mostly your farming, good soil that you can grow plants in is a major help. I could tell you a lot more here, but you have to decide what kind of gardening you want to do – check out Try To Garden for lots of tips and ideas.
Finding a new home: Are there trees?
Make sure that your land has plenty of trees and shade so you have a place to cool off from the sun when it gets too hot.
You will also want to harvest a few of them occasionally for firewood…which brings another challenge.
Time consuming tasks such as cutting firewood by hand which can take up to six hours a day and the knowledge to start a fire could be as challenging as you want it to be.
Gather Your Supplies
You want to make sure you have nothing electric. All of your supplies and items brought along shouldn’t use electricity for proper off-the-grid living.
A tent can be your off-the-grid home while you are building. They are inexpensive and portable, perfect for a temporary shelter that you may need to move from time to time.
Quick tip though: If you plan on living in a tent year round then it will require more insulation such as an army blanket or sleeping bag so you won’t have to freeze during the night.
Quality not Quantity
Bring quality tools. Not to knock Harbor Freight, but they are not exactly built to last. Grandpa’s gems were not all shiny and pretty but worked fantastically and held up incredibly well. You are going to want tools that are going to be able to be used for a long time.
This is especially important when you are going to be living off-grid. The average person will go through a lot of tools in their quest for survival, so don’t skimp on buying cheap ones that end up breaking and needing replacement.
Finding a new home: Roughing it
Hunting and cooking gear are key. You know how to make a fire and possibly work with a solar oven will be extremely valuable.
Buy or find some good cooking gear like pots and pans. You can also fashion them out of clay if needed, but you might want to research that a bit.
Bringing along a rifle with lots of ammo will allow you to take down large game that can feed your family for weeks.
Hunting is a great way to get food, but you have to be careful. If the area where your off-grid home is located has hunting laws that prohibit hunting, then this might not be an option for survival.
If hunting is off the table, and keeping food off of YOUR table, then look at learning how to make snares and traps!
Let’s Get Cooking
Consider Using a Solar Oven to Cook Food. Building your off-grid home in an area that has plenty of sunlight is critical if using a solar cooker! If all else fails, this could be your last resort for cooking large quantities of food over time. A solar oven can cook food fairly well without using any power or fuel source. That lets you save your wood for heat purposes.
A camping stove would work also.
There are many brands to try, but I like Solo Stove. The Solo Stove is a compact, highly efficient wood-burning stove. It can be used to cook food and boil water without the need for open fires or stoves that burn fossil fuels like propane/butane gas. Planning a Camping Trip? Shop Solo Stove’s Camp Cookware Today!
This means less weight, no smoke, and reduced fire danger for your property. And when you’re done cooking, the Solo Stove can be used as a fire-starting source for your wood stove or campfire.
It isn’t going to be easy and we JUST got started on this. If this sounds like life for you, then get off of the grid and go find your new home!
Prepper Basics for Growing Your Own Garden? Putting aside canned foods for future use is a good idea. But before that food supply runs out, you’ll need another way to take care of your family’s food needs. That’s why many preppers use gardens.
Growing your own food for your family is a great way to stretch the budget, eat wholesome foods and prepare for the future. You don’t have to have acres of land to plant and harvest the foods from a garden.
You can start a garden anywhere you live – even if you happen to live in an apartment. If you live somewhere, space is limited; you can create a garden in containers. But if you have a nice plot of land where you can plant, you need to choose the location wisely because plants have to have sunlight to survive.
Prepper Basics for Growing Your Own Garden
A garden also has to have good soil. Use organic fertilizer to enrich your soil before planting. You can have your soil tested before you start planting if you want to make sure that it’s healthy enough to sustain a garden.
Irrigation and drainage are important. You’ll want to make sure the area where you plant your garden isn’t in an area that holds standing water in heavy rainfall. If the water has difficulty running off, it can drown the plants.
Positioning is everything. Write down the foods you want to plant and how much of it you’ll need. Check out the climate zone for your area. This will help you learn what kinds of gardening foods will grow best in your area.
Will the plants get along with each other?
Make sure the plants you choose can be good neighbors. The types of food you decide to plant need to be placed in conjunction with their compatibility with other plants. Some plants will make it more difficult for other plants to survive, so separate them.
Some preppers plant a garden using seeds, while others use starter plants. If you want to be able to keep replanting your garden from seeds, then you’ll need to buy the heirloom ones since they’ll last for many replants.
What planting style?
You can plant your garden using rows, or you can use the raised bed method. There are pros and cons to each method. By simply using rows, you don’t have to create the raised beds.
But with raised beds, you can easily keep track of what food is in what location, and you won’t have to worry about one food shadowing another food. Raised beds also make it easy to harvest the foods when it’s time for them to be picked, and if something goes wrong in one raised bed, it won’t wipe out the entire garden.
Planning Your Prepper Garden According to Your Region
This is important when considering Prepper Basics for Growing Your Own Garden. Gardening is not the same in every state. If you’ve ever planted food in your garden and had it fail, you may have made the mistake of planting foods that are outside your region. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a map that can help show preppers which foods will grow the best in their region and when they should be planted.
Whether you buy seeds or plants, foods are labeled by their hardiness. Those labels are referring to the specific areas of a state where the plant will thrive. There are eleven regions divided by temperature into zones 1 through 11.
Southern states are divided by whether the area is coastal and tropical and whether they fall under the upper, lower, or middle South zone. A state can be all of one particular region or a mixture of two or three. For example, Florida’s region is entirely coastal and tropical, while South Carolina is a blend of coastal and tropical and lower and middle South.
Some states are located in the Southwestern Deserts region. California is divided into zones by whether it’s northern or southern California, and divided b coastal regions and inland valleys.
The Pacific Northwest is a region, and the Western Mountains and High Plains is another. The remaining regions are the Northern Central Midwest, the Middle Atlantic, and the New England Region.
To locate your region, look on the USDA map for your state, and it will tell you what zone you’re in. The map will also tell you when to plant your garden. When planting a survival garden, you want to plant what will grow well in your region.
Grain and corn can grow well in almost all the regions, as will beans and peas. You can grow staples such as oats and barley, as well as tomatoes. Potatoes and carrots grow easily in most regions.
Cabbage, lettuce, and squash make excellent foods for gardening as well. Broccoli and herbs should be in a survival garden, and you don’t want to forget to grow fruits for making jams and jellies and for use in pies and other desserts. Fruits from the berry family (blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries) are easily grown. Don’t forget to plant a section for herbs.
Almost everything you grow in a garden, fruits, and vegetables, can be scanned and safely stored as long as you make sure the food boils for at least 10 minutes. Foods that you can from your garden can keep for years; they’re healthier for you and will hold their fresh taste. Survivalist Seeds Are Vital to Long-Term Nutritional Needs
When there are no longer ways to purchase the foods needed for long term survival, you will have an alternative solution. The best solution is to have seeds that can be harvested from the foods grown and replanted again. These kinds of seeds can continually provide for your family year after year.
Picking the type of seeds you’ll want can be done in one of two ways. You can individually choose the seeds you want, or you can buy them in prepackaged containers. What you’ll want to look for are seeds that are clearly labeled as survival or heirloom seeds.
You want to be specific with this because these are the seeds that are packaged in a way so that their viability is guaranteed. Whichever seed choice you make, be sure that you look for ones that say they’re hermetically stored.
The way they’re packaged will keep them safe no matter when you need to open the container. They also continue to produce food gardens. You want these continually producing seeds because when there is no access to grocery stores and the types of prepackaged foods we get now if you plant seeds once and that’s it, you’ll be in trouble.
You can choose individually according to the types of seeds you get. You can buy vegetables in one group of seeds and fruits in another. You can also purchase what’s called medicinal seeds. These are seeds that will produce plants that are well known to treat specific ailments.
Some people, however, choose to create their own survivalist seed supply rather than buying them. If you decide to do this, you’ll have to follow a few rules. Don’t use wet seeds.
The seeds must be completely dry before you store them. The storage containers you use are vitally important. You have to protect the seeds from the ability to grow fungus, from marauding insects and animals, and heat.
For the best results, you’ll want to store your seeds in glass containers. You’ll want to maintain the right temperature for the seeds, and remember that some seeds can handle a colder storage temperature while others can’t.
Light and humidity will negatively impact a seed’s ability to produce a viable plant. You want to keep the seed’s temperature-controlled below 50 degrees and remember that while some seeds can last in storage for up to six years and still produce a crop, other seeds can’t. You’ll want to do a seed rotation to check and make sure that the seeds are still good before you need them.
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The Basics of Homesteading in America? The Homestead Act of 1862 promised 60 acres of land to families who stayed on the property for five years and farmed it for prosperity. Today, cities and towns are once again resurrecting homestead incentives – but for different reasons.
Instead of populating an area that’s never seen activity before, it’s now because of the need to settle places where homeowners and businesses have gone bankrupt and abandoned the location.
The Basics of Homesteading in America
In just about every state in America, you can find properties and locations that are being given away for free – as long as a few provisions are met. For example, there might be a requirement that you have a contractor within a certain amount of time to begin building on a lot.
Another incentive is the tax break you get from developing one of these properties. Some cities give a generous 70% tax break for a while. Whether it’s a home or commercial development, you might even get a higher tax break.
But not all free property is a suitable property for homesteading. As a prepper who wants to be self-reliant, you can’t just go into any area and take land and consider it worthy of raising a family.
You may want to pay for your property instead – if it has good soil, an ample water supply, and is positioned in a way that enables you to have quick access without being readily found by the masses.
Homesteading was officially repealed as a law in 1976, but you can still look for opportunities that specific places are offering for future developments. Cheap land is abundant, too – but the price isn’t the only qualifying feature.
It would be best if you prioritize your needs. If you want to focus on farming, you need to secure land with rich, fertile soil that will yield a high dose of crops to feed your family. If your primary concern is isolation, then you’ll want more land at a cheaper cost.
Land in the South will typically be less expensive than land up North – and the Southern states will have a longer growing season for those of you who want to farm and grow your crops.
Make sure you understand the tax issues for the property you’re considering purchasing. Every state has different tax requirements, so while the per-acre price might be attractive, it might end up costing more in taxes than in another area where the initial price is higher, but taxes remain low.
Homesteading Acreage Options
When you talk about how many acres are needed to get off the grid and become self-sufficient, the battle begins between those who say you only need 1 acre and those who say you need much, much more.
Both camps are correct. It all depends on how you plan to live and how self-sufficient you truly want to be. You can live on a single acre and raise animals, grow crops, and build a home.
But you have to consider many things – such as raising a dairy cow. If you want to cut costs for hay, it has to graze in a pasture. If that’s the case, then it needs plenty of room, and an acre (that houses your home, garden, and other elements) wouldn’t be quite enough.
It’s not impossible, though. If you have the means to buy feed and hay instead of allowing grazing, then you could own a dairy cow on a small property like this – but your costs and inconvenience would increase, as would your reliance on the outside world.
Raising a Homesteading Dairy Cow
Many homesteading prepper families decide to invest in a dairy cow for their property. This will provide plenty of milk for your family – and possibly extra for your pigs if you’re raising those.
You can drink the milk or create yogurt, ice cream, and other items from her milk. Each type of cow and size will produce a variable amount of milk, so you may want to find a smaller option (like a goat) if your family doesn’t use much milk.
Or, if you live in a prepper community, you could share the milk with another family – along with the responsibilities of raising it. It would be best if you milked it at the same time every day, so scheduling is essential.
Some people wonder about the safety of drinking raw milk, but you can also buy a pasteurizer for your family to use. They’re not expensive, and it will provide you with the same safety you get off the grocery shelves.
It can get expensive to raise a dairy cow if you have to buy all of your hay, but many prepper families grow their own, so that cuts down on the cost of raising your dairy cow enormously.
You can sometimes go to a dairy farm and ask if they have any lower production cows they want to get rid of. If the volume isn’t enough for a dairy farm, they’ll often sell off the cows to a family that requires a much lower milk volume.
Most families recommend that you get a Jersey dairy cow, but there are many options. You want a gentle one and won’t be hostile to you or your little ones in a farming situation.
You have to make sure that your property has room for her to graze and roam around. If you get a Brown Swiss or Dexter cow, you can allow for more grass grazing than hay feed, saving you money in the long run.
Your dairy cow will provide milk twice a day for almost a year. After about ten months, give her a break for a few months and then let her produce another calf to begin milk production again.
Keep in mind that your water supply must be significant to provide for a dairy cow’s needs. They can drink anywhere from 25-40 gallons of water each day. Make sure you have enough water for her and your own family’s needs.
Your dairy cow might produce anywhere from 2-8 gallons of milk per day, so make sure you don’t over-invest in something that’s going to make all of the milk production go to waste.
It also depends on how large your family is and how many people you have to sustain on your property. It’s going to take more of everything to support a family of five than it would a couple.
Back to the Property…
Some people want a large piece of property only for the barrier it offers not to have neighbors bumping right up against your property. This could make a difference in civil unrest or crisis when people are fighting for survival supplies.
You can’t neglect the fact that price will factor into the equation. Unless your pockets have no bottom to them, then you might have to consider how much you’ll be paying per acre – or how much money in taxes the government will require from you each year.
Some families opt to invest in large plots of land so that when their children are grown, the family can expand and build a second, third or fourth home on the property. This is what families use to do in the old days, but now they’re all spread across the country.
Some preppers will tell you that your land’s size is nowhere near as important as the quality of it. If it offers more than one entry to the property, rich soil, and a water source – that’s worth more than a larger plot.
Prepper Homesteading Basics
If you’re going to homestead, you need to know the basics. But the first thing you need to realize about homesteading is that the goal is to become self-reliant. That means you can provide and care for your family entirely with what you can grow or make yourself.
There are some skills involved with homesteading, but it’s not difficult to learn the skills. You’ll want to be prepared with food. You want to prepare with food supplies that can serve you for repeated cycles.
Gardening
So you would want to plant a garden that can be replanted again and again. You can do this using heirloom seeds. You’ll want to plant what you’ll consume throughout the year and when the growing season is over, you’ll want to make sure that you preserve some of the garden bounty to use during the months that the garden doesn’t grow.
You’ll also want to save and store the seeds from the fruits and vegetables for replanting the following gardening season. It’s also smart to learn how to construct chicken coops so that you can have the eggs that are produced.
You can also raise pigs for meat. You’ll want cows for milk (and/or meat) and goats for producing dairy to use for cheese. Some preppers that homestead also prefer to raise honeybees. Not only is the honey usable, but the bees can help pollinate the fruits and vegetables that you grow.
Water Sourcing
Water needs to be planned for when homesteading. You can’t survive without access to clean water. You need to set up rain barrels for water that your livestock can drink, and the collected rainwater can also be used to irrigate your garden. The fastest way to collect rainwater is to set a barrel up beneath a downspout.
You should have a way to purify your water and a way that you can store the water. If you bring the water to your homestead site from a creek or pond, then you’ll need a way to transport it.
Protection
Protection is paramount when you’re homesteading. You’re going to need weapons to protect yourself if someone decides to rob you or commit other crimes against you. You should be armed with both knives as well as guns. Both of these are great for protection and are handy to have around for hunting or food prep.
If you choose to have firearms, seriously think about storing them safely. I found this $100 off coupon for you though a company I really like:
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Homeschooling
Education for children is a necessity when you’re homesteading. You want to make sure you have educational supplies. You can find educational supplies at homeschool stores if you’re going to stock up in advance.
You can also order and store homeschooling supplies in advance. But education can also be taught using just the necessary tools like classic pieces of literature. Teaching things like math can be done using real-life concepts such as measuring items in a recipe or measuring wood for cutting when building something.
Studies have shown that children who are educated using real-life ideas often excel in life.
I know there are a ton of great mini lessons on my kid’s site Sarah Lyn Gay.
Homesteading Must-Haves
When you decide to go off the grid and build a family property that allows you to be self-sufficient and safe in the event of a crisis or disaster, you need to make sure it meets several requirements in addition to food and water.
A good piece of property is first and foremost on the checklist. It should be away from the city, but not too far that it becomes an inconvenience to access whenever you need to replenish your supplies.
It would be best if you had a spot that’s easy to access but is hidden from public view. You want to know where it is but not have it visible from the roadway where others might approach if there’s a disaster and they’re scouting for supplies.
A good water supply source would be a great addition if you can find one. If it’s a flowing river or stream that would offer you freshwater, you can’t beat that since water is necessary for you to survive.
Plenty of room for gardening and grazing animals is a perk. You need to figure out what kind of crops and animals you plan to raise since some will require more space than others.
Good soil goes along with that last perk. If you’re gardening, you don’t want to be reliant on a store to sell you bags of fertilizer to enrich the soil. You want to land that’s already rich in nutrients and will help your plants thrive. How to Make Effective Garden Compost is a good article to read.
A method for generating your own electricity – hydro, solar, or wind would help your family survive. The running water with a drop in elevation would be good for hydroelectricity. Plenty of sun for solar, and winds of at least 9-10 mph for wind-generated electricity.
Formidable building supplies should be brought onto the property. Concrete is a good building supply for protection from the elements. A safe room built into the property is wise for all kinds of events. You want it to withstand weather and prevent easy entry by unwanted guests.
Ample storage facilities are necessary. You need storage for items that can’t tolerate temperature swings, like your food stores and water supplies. Outdoor storage for tools, equipment, and other items are also needed.
Protection from harm needs to be on your mind. Gates built around the property will help somewhat. Locks that come with doors and fences are often flimsy, so you may want to shore those up with something stronger.
Firearms and a security system with rechargeable batteries can help protect you. Fire-resistant roofing material will help prevent your home from burning down if you’re in a wildfire situation.
Concrete homes built right into the side of a mountain offer the best form of protection for the actual shelter itself. Then the property it overlooks could meet the rest of the requirements.
Setting Up Your Survival Seed Bank? Some people avoid reading or watching the news because they don’t like what’s going on globally. But avoidance can’t stop what’s coming because you can’t control the things that affect the world’s food supply.
There’s an impending sense that a major food crisis is on the way, and the government is trying to prepare right now for that crisis.
Setting Up Your Survival Seed Bank
But if you know anything about how the world is run, then you know that if you’re not the one in charge of your family’s food supply, you and your loved ones could very well end up standing in a ration line or worse – going hungry.
Why You Need to Have a Survival Seed Bank
Far too many people have the mistaken belief that if something terrible does happen that interrupts their access to food supplies, the government will have a backup plan to save their family.
When millions upon millions of people rely on the same belief that there will be enough to go around, they’re going to end up disillusioned. There won’t be. The government isn’t going to be prepared for any major food crisis.
Why? Because they can’t stockpile enough food to feed millions of people for a long-term situation. You might think that the hope for relief from a food crisis lies at the base of Mount Plateau in the depths of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which houses the world’s biggest seed storage.
But the seeds in this vault aren’t coming to your rescue, and you won’t be able to get to those seeds. Take a look in the mirror. You’re looking at the person who’s your best chance of survival.
It’s up to you to know what to do and to be prepared for any food emergency. That means that you’re going to need to understand how you can live off the grid. When every method of getting food is suddenly stripped away from you, it can’t be the catalyst that rocks your world.
You have to have a way to replenish your food supply long term. Even if you have some canned goods socked away in the event of a flood catastrophe, having goods that will last you a few years isn’t enough.
You have to be able to bring food back in. And if there’s no way to get food from a grocery store and the government’s hands are tied, then what are you going to do? You need to be able to have a survival garden that will take care of you and your family’s nutritional needs for many years to come.
You start this by having the seeds that you need to raise a survival garden – and you need to have enough of them to plant a few acres’ worth of food. This means that you need to have the kinds of seeds that can reproduce themselves.
They’ll keep on producing for you. And you also want to look for seeds that haven’t been modified. When you plant seeds from a seed bank, you can guarantee that you’ll have food year after year – regardless of what’s going on in the rest of the world.
Using seeds from the foods you grow (and replanting those once your crops come in), you’ll ensure that your food supply will continually produce. You want to make sure that you look for seeds that offer a lot of produce return and ones that are high in nutrition and are long-lasting.
What Seeds You Need to Have in Your Survival Seed Bank
To sustain life, certain seeds are a must-have, so the seeds you buy for your survival seed bank need to have these seeds in the container. It would be best if you had a variety of beans.
Some of the better varieties are bountiful beans, October beans, and stringless black Valentine beans. Beans can produce a crop in a time frame of 47 to 90 days, depending on the type of bean seed you choose to plant.
Beans are staples that provide you with protein as well as fiber. Beans are also very sturdy crops and can produce an abundant supply of food. Because of their protein and fiber content, they can give you plenty of energy.
Corn seeds are something that you also need in your survival seed bank. Corn is a staple food that can keep your family sustained for long term food survival. You’ll want corn that can grow quickly, in less than three months.
For that, look for seeds like Reid’s Yellow Dent Corn or Stowell’s Evergreen Corn. These usually grow in twin ears with an average length of between 8-10 inches, so they’re very hearty.
Cabbage seeds – like the Copenhagen Market ones – need to be in your seed bank. These heads usually grow to be a decent size and offer gardeners a little over 3 pounds of cabbage per head. They can reach maturity in just over two months.
When considering which seeds to get for your seed bank, you want to take a look at how those foods will help you maintain good health. You’ll want to look at whether they offer anti-inflammatory properties and other benefits.
If you choose beet seeds like Detroit Dark Red Beets, these are a food loaded with anti-inflammatory assistance for you. Plus, they promote some internal organ benefits, too. These seeds can reach maturity in about two months.
Remember when your mom told you to eat your greens because they’re good for you? She was right – especially when it comes to spinach grown from Bloomsdale spinach seed.
These will grow into tasty plants that are packed with nutrients, including the A and K vitamins. Plus, they’re rich in Vitamin C and folate. These seeds produce a fast crop, and you can usually have viable plants in about six weeks.
You’ll also want to get loose leaf lettuce such as Oakleaf or Red Salad Bowl for greens. Both of these seeds can reach maturity in less than two months. Other greens you’ll want to include in your diet are Green Arrow Peas. These can be harvested in about two months and produce an abundant crop.
Cucumbers like Bushy Cucumbers are also a great addition to your survival seed bank. These can be ready for harvest in about six weeks. Carrots are also part of a healthy diet. Seeds that produce Scarlet Nantes Carrots can be ready to eat in a little over two months. This kind can usually grow carrots of about 7″ in length.
Tomatoes can be eaten fresh, canned, or juiced, and ones that come from seeds like Brandywine Tomato. Not only will you get plenty of antioxidants, but these are loaded with vitamins as well.
Squash and Eggplant also add much-needed vitamins to your diet. Look for ones like Waltham Butternut Squash and Rossa Bianca Eggplant. Don’t forget to bank plenty of fruit seeds like cantaloupes and melons and other varieties.
You’re going to want to make sure that you have a wide selection of good choices to grow, not just for the vitamin and mineral content but also for each family member’s taste and preferences.
If you’re wondering where you can get the seeds, you can find them online at specialty companies or online shops. You can find significant savings by buying the seeds in bulk, as well.
How to Store Your Survival Seed Bank
It would help if you had your survival seeds to start the garden that’s going to keep you and your family sustained for however long it takes. Right now, with food still being plentiful and most people able to get whatever they need from the grocery store, seeds aren’t considered all that valuable.
But when a crisis hits and gets food becomes a free-for-all frenzy, the seeds you have will have a high value. Think of these as your currency and amass as many of them as you possibly can because once the crisis is here, it’s too late, and there will be a run on survival seeds.
When you have these in your possession, you don’t want to go around talking about the fact that you have them. Keep your survival seed bank hidden away, out of sight from prying eyes, to keep the seeds from getting stolen.
Most survival seeds are shipped to you in packaging that makes them able to be kept viable in storage for a long time. Some of these are stored in such a way that you can even bury them to keep them safe.
Seeds need to be protected from bacteria, fungi, pests, fluctuating temperatures, and moisture. The most critical issue you need to know about storing seeds is that humidity is not your friend.
If moisture seeps into your seed storage, it can ruin it. And moisture isn’t the only culprit that can harm your seeds. If you keep the seeds stored in an area where the temperature is too high, it can cause some damage to the seeds.
You want to make sure that the moisture percentage is kept as low as possible. If you can get it to less than 4 percent, that’s considered a safe moisture percentage for the seeds.
The storage temperature needs to be kept around 40 degrees. By taking care of how you store the seeds, you can ensure their longevity. You also want to make sure that you don’t keep your seeds anywhere in the sun.
The sun’s heat can change the storage temperature, raising it above healthy seeds. If moisture and heat combined get to the seed, it kills the seed’s ability to grow plants.
When you get the seeds, if they’re not in containers that are said to be moisture-proof, then you need to be put them in ones that are. When you harvest the crops that you grow from your original survival seeds, you’ll want to save those seeds as well.
This is an essential step in banking seeds because you don’t know if you’ll have access to them anymore once your original supply has been planted. You’ll want to air dry the seeds from the crops you harvest and then securely store them in water-proof containers in a cool, dark place until it’s time for you to use them.
When and How to Use Your Survival Seed Bank
As you know, timing is everything. That includes learning when to use your survival seed bank. You don’t want to rush and use the seeds too early – but you don’t want to wait so long that you miss out on the right time.
You need to be aware of which climate zone you live in because you can’t just plant seeds and expect them to grow if the season that you’re currently in would only end up derailing your plans.
All of the seeds should be planted according to the hardiness zone of your state. This means that your area will have a certain level of temperatures that make growing a garden with your survival seeds a viable option.
Planting too soon or too late could not only diminish your crop yield, but you could end up not getting any produce at all – and you don’t want that kind of waste. Plus, counting on having a food supply and ending up not getting it could be a significant stressor for you.
Plant your garden during your climate zone using your survival seeds when you begin to notice that a food crisis is imminent. And make sure you plant it before the time is at hand to need it.
You can feasibly plant with your survival seeds and keep the garden producing for years. Remember to always aim for a garden that’s as carefree as you can make it. You’ll want to use your survival seeds to plant a garden that will sustain you and your family with as little fuss as possible.
This way, you won’t be using any physical labor or any other means, such as bringing in water or setting up a water system. You also want to make sure that you plant your seeds so that you won’t draw attention to whatever it is that you have grown.
If others see it, your garden could be a target. This means that you can forget about the kind of gardens you see that have perfectly uniform rows. Instead, plant a garden using your banked survival seeds and let nature help you grow that garden.
Nature is perfectly capable of maintaining crop growth with a minimal amount of effort from you. Layout the garden so that you’re using the ground wisely. This means that you’ll want to plant seeds where the crops can grow together in companionship.
You’ll also want to plant your seeds according to the height and sun ratio. That means that you need to plan out your garden so that each plant has access to the sun and the right amount of moisture.
Some seeds offer natural pesticide control. For example, marigold and lavender are both natural pest repellents. Put the taller plants around in a perimeter to help shade crops that need less sun than other plants.
Usually, this means you plant your bush-type crops. If you use crops that can benefit your pollination purposes, this can help your crops grow. Plants that are used for pollination purposes are seeds that produce fruit – like blueberries.
If you’re someone who doesn’t have any experience with growing food, then you’re going to want to know how to do it before the time arrives that you must have the knowledge, or else it puts your survival at risk.
Remember, in an emergency; you may not be able to log onto the Internet to find the answers you need. The best way to learn how to have a successful garden using survival seeds is by going ahead and getting some seeds and planting a garden.
This way, you’ll already know what to watch for, what didn’t work, and what does work in preparation for the time you need to have the food supply ready. You can also plant other vegetation to help you hide your crops.
