Destiny Survival

If you’re the kind who likes to build things, consider an attached solar greenhouse. It will not only allow you or the gardener in your family to start plants early and extend their growing season, but it provides a wonderful source of heat for your home as well.

Below is an excerpt from the September/October 2010 “Backwoods Home Magazine” to jump start your creativity.

A few of the companies featured here at DestinySurvival offer buckets of grain for sale as long term storage food. Miller’s Grain House offers organic grains.

But have you considered growing your own grains in your survival garden? An article called “Growing Your Own Wheat” offers a brief primer.

A reader’s recent inquiry prompted me to bring this up. He asks, . “Does anyone know about emmer wheat? Could it have survival value? Where can you obtain seeds?”

A company I’m not affiliated with, called the Sustainable Seed Company, offers emmer wheat as well as other heritage and heirloom grains. They sell in small quantities to gardeners. By the way, they offer another wheat with the unusual name of Wit Wokoring.

Emmer wheat was one of the earliest wheats grown in the Near East and was widely grown in the ancient world. It’s able to produce well in poor soils and has a high disease resistance.

A hulled wheat known as faro, emmer is experiencing a resurgence among gourmets and health conscious people. That’s because it’s nutritious and flavorful. Emmer combined with legumes makes for complete protein for vegetarians.

Wit Wokoring, originally from South Africa, is a tall wheat that’s good for organic growing. It can outgrow many weeds and is said to be easy to harvest. Reportedly it makes a good bread flour.

If you’re ready to make a place for some grain in your survival garden, below are three book suggestions to get you going. Click on any one of the images to be taken to the Amazon.com page featuring that particular book.

So what do you think? Is there survival value in growing your own grain?

The Chicken Crib and the Eglu are two small chicken coops you assemble that accommodate up to four chickens. That makes them ideal for raising chickens in your backyard.

Both are modern and stylish and are said to be user friendly and easy to clean. The Eglu comes in different colors, and there’s even a version for raising rabbits.

Both coops will cost you a few hundred dollars, but they’re durable and will long outlast wood.

I think it’s great that these two chicken coops are available. I’m glad for the resourcefulness that makes raising chickens in town easier.

Incidentally, I’m not affiliated with either of these companies, so I get nothing for mentioning them. But I wanted to let you know about them with the hope it helps you raise chickens to provide eggs and meat for your survival.

Click here for info on the Chicken Crib. Or click here for info on the Eglu. I also have links for both of these on my Links of Interest page in the Survival Gardening & Farming category.

Have you noticed how preparedness for survival is catching on? For example, the other evening at our local ham radio club meeting, there was discussion on what the club could do to assist the effort by over 150 churches who’ve formed a coalition to teach their members to be prepared for disasters.

Preparedness is becoming more mainstream all the time. Perhaps you’ve heard radio ads for long term storage food. I’ve also noticed more companies offering survival seed packages.

In fact, just yesterday I was contacted by a small company who sells non-hybrid, non-GMO Survival Vegetable Seeds. They carry a few other items I think you’ll find of interest, too. I’m flattered they thought DestinySurvival was a good place to let you know about what they have to offer.

There are two packs of Survival Vegetable Seeds. One has 27 varieties. The other has 37 varieties. All varieties are non-hybrid, non-GMO, heirloom seeds packaged in labeled paper envelopes and heat sealed in a resealable one gallon Mylar bag.

The seed envelopes are labeled with the germination rate and the date the seeds were tested. You also get planting and harvesting instructions. There’s also a step by step guide that tells you how to save seeds from what you grow. That’s important because you’ll have an ongoing supply of wholesome food from year to year.

Since the Mylar bag is resealable, you can use what you like now and add more seeds to it later. Instructions on properly resealing the bag are included.

There’s no need to fuss with making up your own survival seeds package when everything you need is already here. And you couldn’t do all this yourself for the same price.

Keeping seeds in a Mylar bag is like keeping them in a flexible can that protects them from moisture and light that shortens the life of your seeds. If you put your Survival Vegetable Seeds in the freezer, they’ll last up to 20 years.

The 27 seed variety package includes beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, carrots, beets, romaine lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, peppers, radishes, turnips, eggplant, onions and chives. Plus, there are several kinds of beans, including pinto and kidney beans and black-eyed peas. The 37 seed variety package has a few more items, but neither includes sweet corn.

The 27 seed variety pack sells for about $45 and the 37 seed variety pack is for $10 more. Both are shipped to you free. Considering everything you get, that’s a fantastic deal. That’s especially true in light of the ever increasing price of seeds.

But it gets even better. Use code DestinySurvival when you order and get 15% off anything you order.

Order your Survival Vegetable Seeds today, regardless of whether you want to save these seeds for a future time or start using them as soon as you can next spring. To order, click on the ad banner below. That takes you to the home page at BePreparedNow. Click on the image of the seed package you want, and you’ll be taken to a page with a more complete description.

Remember, use code DestinySurvival when you order and get 15% off anything you order. I don’t know how long I can make this offer to you, so now is a good time to buy. Don’t wait for rising prices or food shortages. Order today.

This week’s DestinySurvival Amazon Pick of the Week is a book that’s sure to be of interest to anyone living in a town or city. It’s Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting, by R.J. Ruppenthal, and it has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars.

This book is specifically written for city dwellers who have limited space. Ruppenthal was looking for a book like this, couldn’t find one, and wrote this one as a result.

It’s not strictly a how-to book, though there is some of that as he shares his own experiences. It’s an introduction to a number of topics and ideas, which makes it a great starting point for further research or experimentation.

Fresh Food from Small Spaces is easy to read. Chapters are short in size, but long on ideas. If you’ve been gardening a while, many of these ideas won’t be new, but I always enjoy reading someone else’s spin because it can spur the imagination to modify or improve an old idea.

Ruppenthal recommends a number of resources throughout the book, several of which I’ve mentioned here previously. For example, one of the companies he recommends is Gardener’s Supply, whose ad you’ll find on the sidebar here or in the Prep Mart.

Chapter 12 near the end shares a basic overview of preparedness. He believes an important reason to grow our own food is because of possible forthcoming energy shortages due to high costs and limited resources. I believe it’s necessary to grow our own food for other reasons, but the main one is that you’ll have food. period.

He encourages readers to grow food on the roof, in the garage, or on the patio. Grow sprouts on top of the refrigerator. Grow mushrooms in a closet. Pull out a shrub in your yard and plant a berry bush. Grow anywhere it doesn’t seem possible to grow food. Raise chickens, keep bees, and make your own yogurt. Use your imagination.

Ruppenthal discusses basics such as good soil, fertilizers and seed starting. He also covers the best containers for growing vegetables. This includes info on self-watering containers. The Earthbox gets a good recommendation, but he also gives tips on making your own self-watering containers.

Though he’s not a proponent of hydroponics due to the energy used for lighting and pumps, he doesn’t seem to recognize that self-watering containers are a method of passive hydroponics.

Rather than using a great deal of artificial lighting, Ruppenthal recommends maximizing available light, including ways to reflect light. He’s not opposed to using lighting altogether, for which I’m glad. Getting adequate light to plants, especially indoors, is always a challenge.

Ruppenthal is a big proponent of sprouting your own grains, beans, and other seeds, and he suggests how to use sprouts. In a section on making yogurt and other fermented foods, he includes a few recipes. There’s also a chapter on raising mushrooms, something at which I’ve been unsuccessful.

This is a book I highly recommend for your survival library. Even if you live in the country and have plenty of garden space, you’ll discover ideas you may not have thought of for growing indoors and in containers.

Get your copy of Fresh Food from Small Spaces by clicking on the image of the book below and ordering from the page that appears, which features this book. Plus, it would make a great gift for someone who’s in an urban area or who is new to gardening. Why not order today and explore your urban survival gardening possibilities?

I know of two heirloom seed companies that sponsor festivals to promote organic gardening and a simpler lifestyle. There may be others who do this as well. If you live within driving distance of such events, I encourage you to take the opportunity to go.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange contacted me to ask if I’d mention their annual Heritage Harvest Festival. Here’s the info they sent me.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri, holds monthly festivals. For more information, go to rareseeds.com/bakersville/festivals/.