Gardening With a Black Thumb
Filed under: Living Off the Land, Preparedness Basics, Year Supply - Food
My mother was an expert gardener. I knew it was really spring when she headed outside with her marigolds each year. Somehow that gene-and all the other domestic ones-bypassed me and everything I tried to grow died. Eventually, my children grew a large vegetable garden under the guidance of a family friend, and I stopped worrying about it. We moved a great deal in the later years, and gardening was not a priority.
However, today, we seem more or less settled for a while and the gardeners have grown and moved on. Every year I talked about starting a garden, and this year I finally got brave enough to try. The Mormons are counseled to have a garden in order to increase their ability to be self-sufficient and it was time for me to get going on that part of the gospel.
I chose containers, in case we find ourselves moving again. I also chose plants that were already growing, to give myself a head start. I decided to start small, so I didn’t get overwhelmed. To my surprise, this is turning out to be fun. Maybe it helps to be older, or maybe it’s just that I have adapted a more relaxed attitude this year. My self-esteem is not at stake this time. If it fails, it fails.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
1. Start small. Grow just a few things the first year to see how it feels. If you like it, add more the next year. It has to be easy at first, or you won’t keep it up.
2. Plant things you really like, even if they’re not supposed to be easy. You’re more likely to enjoy caring for them. I picked the marigolds because they remind me of my mom, who died last year. The others are things I like. I just keep picturing chocolate covered strawberries as I work. Motivation is important.
3. Containers minimize the actual work. There isn’t a lot of weeding to do and my work takes just a few minutes a day, and less if it rains.
4. The plants I bought in peat pots survived the transplant process. You just put the whole pot into the larger pot with more soil (which I purchased to cut out the weeds) and that apparently helps them avoid shock. Do whatever it takes to increase your success. You can choose cheaper options after you have confidence, if you want to.
5. Put the containers where you can see them. My plants are near where I park my car, so I see them every time I come and go. I can also see them from my desk, where I work all day as a writer. It’s harder to forget about them that way. Often having a black thumb really just means being absent-minded about plants.
6. Do a fair amount of reading about gardening, but don’t try to follow every bit of advice. I read lots of things that contradicted each other. I just picked what sounded good and manageable, and tried it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try a different technique next year.
7. Don’t give up if everything doesn’t grow. I started with tulips, tomatoes, strawberries, and marigolds. The tulips died practically the minute I transplanted them and the tomato plant doesn’t look great, but the marigolds-some of which fizzled at first, but came back– and strawberries are doing beautifully, at least to my untrained eye. I choose to see that as a success. After all, even though only fifty percent of my plants are thriving, that is two more plants than I’ve ever grown before. (Really, it’s more than that, since there are two strawberry plants and eight marigolds.) It’s a start.
8. Cultivate friendships with gardeners who can advise you, preferably the kind who will cheer when you produce your first less than perfect strawberry.
9. Keep a full watering can right by the plants. The easier it is to water them, the more likely you are to do it. Often, as I’m passing by, I remember to check the moisture and can water them without having to go in and get water. If I go to get water, I tend to get distracted and never return. Buy a really cute watering can if you think it will help, but for myself, I just bought one that was huge.
10. You can’t frame your first strawberry, or even save it for long, so eat it. Take a picture first, if you’d like, but then enjoy it.
Plant a Garden
Filed under: Living Off the Land, Personal Preparedness, Preparedness Basics, Provident or Frugal Living
Michelle Obama announced this week the White House was planting a garden and growing its own food. While it will be cared for largely by the staff, a group of local school children will also be helping out, as will all members of the Obama family, including the president. This is the first full vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden and encouraged others to do so as well. The purpose of that garden was to make sure there was enough food during wartime.
Today’s garden announcement was made to encourage healthy, organic, and locally grown eating, and the garden, placed near the Obama children’s swing set, is especially meant to encourage children to eat well. However, when the country is in the midst of a recession, a garden is also a way for families to cut food costs without resorting to cheap, but unhealthy alternatives.
The Mormons have been promoting gardening for many decades. They teach their members to build a food storage against hard times, and a garden is a part of that plan, creating a renewable food source that cuts costs and provides fresh food even in difficult times. A former Mormon prophet named Spencer W. Kimball said, “We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property. Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees-plant them if your climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat them from your own yard. Even those residing in apartments … can generally grow a little food in pots and planters. Study the best methods of providing your own foods. Make your garden … neat and attractive as well as productive. If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1976, 170-71; or Ensign, May 1976, 124).
President Hinckley, having spent his childhood summers on the family farm, was a strong advocate of gardening, but other leaders have also encouraged it. Growing your own food allows you to eat a healthier diet with food grown locally and in season. After the initial start up costs, which can be small, the costs are minimal. In a time when you might be too ill or too poor to shop, it’s reassuring to have fresh food right outside your door. Even if you keep a supply of food for hard times, people in this situation often find themselves longing for fresh produce.
In addition, gardening is good for children. It teaches them hard work and responsibility, since a garden cannot be neglected. It’s meaningful teaching with very tangible results the children can actually eat.
To get children excited about the new family garden, let them participate in the planning. When my children planted their first garden, each of them chose one food to plant and care for. Because it was something they enjoyed, they were eager to take care of it and to share the harvest with their siblings and parents.
If you’re able, grow enough for yourself and a little to share with your neighbors, a food bank, or someone in need. By doing so, you increase the value of your garden. Now, you’re not only teaching hard work, responsibility, and respect for nature, you’re also teaching Christ-like service. Document the project in pictures and make a fuss over the results. When a child grows his own food, he is more likely to eat it, and there is great pride in watching everyone else enjoy the food the child grew. Follow the harvest with cooking lessons, allowing the child to create a product from seed to table.
If you’re Mormon, teach your children the song, “The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden.” If you’re not, you might substitute the words “the prophet” with the words First Lady and sing the song anyway.
Emergency Preparedness Tip – Plant a Garden
I used to think that I couldn’t grow anything. In fact, the only plant that stayed alive for me was a fern. I received that fern from a group of small children the year I did summer stock theater in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They gave me the fern as a going away present from the Primary (a children’s organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – the “Mormons”).
That fern went with me every where. I kid you not. I even took it with me to back to college. I just couldn’t kill the thing! (Not that I tried, but you know, everything else I’d grown died.)
Even when I got married and moved into my little newlywed apartment, that fern came with me. My husband learned to call it Fred. That’s right. I’d named my plant – because you see, by this time it felt like it was a part of me.
Why? Yes, you guessed it. Because it just kept on growing – even during one busy semester when I think I only watered it twice.
So when in the Mormon church I used to hear the suggestion to grow a garden as a part of personal preparedness, I had to laugh. Me? Grow a garden? Yeah, right!
I knew the importance of gardening skills. Those skills are the same part of wisdom that overall prudent living is made of. If times got hard and I had a garden to tide me over, I knew I’d appreciate it. The Lord desires our happiness, after all. Besides, the price of vegetables at the grocery store seems to do nothing but inflate.
But I never could grow a garden until I really decided to put my mind to it. That was when I realized that gardening really only takes a couple of things: seeds, earth, water, sun … and FAITH!
Faith is nothing more than being willing to take action toward a desired outcome. It’s that simple. And when we combine our faith with the power of prayer, the Lord blesses our efforts with miraculous outcomes.
Now my family has had the opportunity to eat homegrown lettuce, tomatoes, and even sipped on Chocolate Mint tea (oh, so yummy!). Not only is the food healthier, it tastes to much better.
So the moral of the story? Never say something is too hard. If the Lord’s prophet admonish wisdom in some action or another, listen and try it. With faith you can do anything – even gardening!
Ice Storms & Hypothermia
Have you lived through an ice storm? The recent ice storms in the United States remind me of when I was a kid and a storm that hit the northern mountains of Arizona.
One wouldn’t normally think of winter storms and Arizona in one breath. But I remember the blizzard that hit one Christmas time near Pinetop, Arizona. We couldn’t leave the property due to the amount of snow left by the storm. The ice cycles hanging from my grandparents’ cabin were nearly as long as I was tall.
Of course, I found the whole process fascinating. As a kid, the volumes of fallen snow were terrifically fun. But the adults of course had other thoughts on their mind. Fortunately we never lost power where we were at, but the potential had been there.
Speak to anyone who has lived through austere times (more austere than that northern Arizona blizzard) and they could speak oodles of wisdom. Their wisdom would be worth hearing. If one is not wise during winter storms, hypothermia becomes a real danger. If your body’s temperature drops 2.5 degrees below normal, shivering starts up – simply to create heat. But the shivering causes heat loss, so it becomes a vicious cycle.
At 3 degrees below normal body temp you lose finger dexterity (an important skill for lighting a match)! At 4 degrees below appropriate body temperature – frighteningly you will stop shivering. This indicates the numbing of your brain. Death is imminent within 90 minutes (resource: Reader’s Digest: Family Safety & First Aid).
The progressing danger of death due to hypothermia is very subtle, eventually leading to a strong urge to sleep (NOT a good thing to succumb to).
Again, speak to anyone who has lived through austere times and they could share oodles of wisdom to save your life. Prophets are the same way. They have been given the responsibility to teach the children of God how to avoid spiritual hypothermia leading to spiritual death.
Prophets words are found in the scriptures. They can also be found at this link which contains the last 30 years of modern day prophets’ words.
Survivors of ice storms & winter blizzards will tell you the importance of “smart thinking” to save your life, such as finding anything to insulate yourself with. They’ll advise you to protect your extremities (i.e. hands, feet, head) to keep heat from escaping your body. They’ll tell you to remain in one location so rescuers can find you.
Prophets will tell you that for spiritual protection to insulate yourself with the word of God. They’ll advise you to “protect yourself” in praying. They speak to spiritual purity – or in other words, refusing to be moved from a Christ-like life.
Whether we find ourselves in literal ice storms/blizzards or whether we are in the midst of spiritual “white outs”, if we lean on the wise advice of those who know, such as the prophets, we can be preserved through the “storm” and later find ourselves back in safety.
To explore the scriptures, feel free to visit the online scriptures. To explore the words of modern-day prophets, feel free to visit the General Conference website. This is found at the main website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).
What If Food Fails?
Today is December 17, 2007. And today the Houston Chronicle reported that for the first time ever wheat prices have now soared above ten dollars a bushel. The report expressed experts’ concern that there could be a shortage of grain in less than twelve months!
Do you have your food supply ready?
Other reports have been coming in over the past few months, and the Houston Chronicle mentioned this also, about failing wheat crops. And according to the Houston Chronicle, 90 percent of the U.S. bushels of wheat have already been sold for the year.
Do you have your food supply ready?
For years prophets from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (casually referred to as the Mormon church) have proclaimed the urgency of having a supply of goods in storage. These goods are there to support and sustain life, should there be upheaval in society or in the family‘s life.
Do you have your food supply ready?
I think so many of us think, “Well, I’ll get it ready when I have more money.” Or “I’ll get it ready when I have more time to think about it.” Or “I’ll get it ready when I have more space. We need a bigger house.”
Well, the prophets have foretold of a time when having a food storage will be the same as having the ark in Noah’s time (and we all know from the Bible what happened to those who DIDN’T get on the ark).
So I ask again, do you have your food supply ready? If this is the first you’ve heard about such a thing, I share some helpful and informative links below. But first, this …
The wheat shortage is not just impacting the United States. Many news sources have described the frightening and dreary reports of wheat viruses or funguses that have destroyed much of the world’s crops.
This isn’t a movie where we can all go home at the end of ninety minutes into reality. This wheat shortage IS our reality.
There are several very important steps you need to take today to preserve the life of your loved ones and yourself.
1. Do not go into debt.
Debt is a monster that never sleeps. Do not go into debt for food storage. Instead, stop purchasing whimsical things and use that money for wise storage items. Just don’t delay! Think: if your children were starving, would you still want that extra cell phone or large screen TV?
2. Be prudent.
Start with a one month’s supply of food you normally eat. Increase that as soon as possible to a three month’s supply of food (and toiletries, medicines, etc.) you normally use. Once that is complete, begin adding as quickly as possible long-term food items. (Wheat can store for decades in cool and proper locations, for example.)
3. Be open-minded.
Start learning to cook from scratch. It CAN be fun when you get the whole family together to learn healthy, whole food items such as granola, etc., made from long-term food storage items.
4. Take inventory monthly.
Make sure you keep a list on the fridge of items you’ve used during the month. At the end of the month, make sure to replace them.
5. Learn life-saving skills.
What if the bird-flu hit and the government enforced months-long quarantines. Do you have life-saving knowledge and skills to offer your family? If you couldn’t get to the hospital, do you know basic first-aid and illness approaches? Schedule a class today and begin learning.
There are many helpful steps you can take for your family’s benefit; these are just a few of them. And there actually isn’t a need to panic; but there IS a need to act today with regards to these things.
Again, if you don’t have a food storage system started, begin TODAY. Here are two good links to learn more:
- Provident Living website by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Beginning food storage kits
The Lord has promised us that when we are prepared, we need not fear. So let’s get busy so that our families will be fine … even if the food supply fails tomorrow (as so many news sources are beginning to report today).
When Disaster Strikes
Do you know which natural disasters can occur in your area? Do you know which could directly affect your home?
The answers to these questions might seem obvious to you, but when I first moved to my current state, I wasn’t aware of the threats to my home here. I’d never lived in a hurricane-prone state. Thus, I wasn’t aware of the importance – BEFORE buying a home – of checking to see what the “flood zones” were and what the “evacuation zones” were that could impact the house I’d fallen in love with.
I was clueless. I’d grown up in the arid southwestern portion of the United States. In fact, I remember as a child having lessons, over and over and over again in my elementary school, of what to do if lost in the desert. By the time I was ten I knew always to have a cup and Saran Wrap with me. Why? Because if stuck in the desert, I could dig a hole, place a cup in it, and then cover it with plastic wrap. Then I would place the final touches by securing the plastic wrap on all sides with little pebbles and putting a little bit of dirt in the middle of the plastic (like an inverted teepee). Why? So that the heat of the day would force condensation to build up underneath the plastic wrap. With the plastic “weighted” and thereby sunken in the middle, the condensation would roll to the center and fall off into the open-mouthed cup below. Voila! Water to drink till help arrived.
We also were taught in elementary school which of the many forms of desert cactus were edible on the inside – some even (apparently) being tasty. Fortunately I never needed to find out if these safety tips worked, because I never strayed into the desert. I didn’t want to find out!
But my point is, would a family with small children moving into the arid Southwestern portion of the U.S. know these skills? Thus, when my husband and I moved our family across the U.S. to the eastern border of the U.S., I was clueless as to these kinds of secret safety tips the eastern U.S. natives grew up with.
Thus, after buying a home in the southeast, only then did I find out about evacuation zones – so important if in case the dreaded hurricanes actually turmoiled through our area. To my relief, my home ended up being in a Zone C – could be worse, could be better. At least it wasn’t an A (means forced evacuation for ALL hurricanes).
Thus, the emergency prep tip for you today is to contact your local Red Cross or your county’s Emergency Management office to understand the natural disasters that potentially could wreak havoc with your home, your family, and your life.
When you understand the local threats, you can prepare for them. And you know what they say – knowledge is power …
… Well, “knowledge is power” only if you do something with it, but I think you know that!
While There Is Time
Living off the land. What does that phrase invoke in your mind? Just recently my daughter and I found two Little House on the Prairie books gathering dust on our bookcase. As I spotted them, I pondered how self-sufficient the early settlers of the United States were.
They knew how to grow their own food. They knew animal husbandry. They knew how to prepare for long, cold, hard winters. What skills they had that we, as modern-day folks, have lost!
One of my family‘s favorite documentaries is the PBS special, The Frontier House. It ran a number of years ago, featuring three families who had been chosen because of their willingness to homestead as families did back in the 1800s.
Everything was different for these modern-day adventures as they slipped into the clothing AND the lifestyle of their 19th century predecessors. Not only were they faced with having to cook from scratch over hot pot-bellied stoves, but they were having to figure out how much grain to plant, how to handle harvesting it, when to begin that harvest, etc.
Not only were they having to ration their food supplies, such as honey, eggs, etc., but they were having to deal with not having hot showers or face-to-face social events with thriving towns. Wal-mart withdrawals, indeed!
I’ve pondered on their skills and my lack of them. I barely know how to read a cookbook. It’s a good thing that my husband is a culinary chef and extraordinaire in the kitchen! Oh, I can cook, but if I had to be thrust back to the past, I think I’d get skinny real fast!
All this bothers me. We live in a fragile economy. Should the food go missing in the stores (think 1930s and the depression – it’s not really all that far fetched), would any of us understand gardening and the ability to grow our own foods? If a drought hit, would we be able to adjust, getting creative with crops we planted – ones that are hardy and drought resistant?
There are so many factors. These things aren’t learned over night. The daunting nature of it stares me in the face. And yet we’re told, both through Biblical prophecy and modern-day prophecy, that times will get tough before the coming of Christ.
We’re told through prophecy about future famine, of drought, and of many forms of challenge. Long-gone will be the convenience of grocery stores and “jumping in the car to go get a quart of milk.” Will I be ready? I don’t know. But I’m certainly working to learn.
There are many areas that can be studied. We’re not meant to be experts in everything. But if I learn how to forage edible plants in the wilderness, and you learn nursing skills, and another learns emergency child birth skills, and another learns to hunt – if things got really scarce and hard, just think of the community we could make.
So I ask, what things interest you? That might be the best place to start for each one of us. After all, preparedness is a lifestyle – not a one time event. And the areas that interest us most as individuals is probably where the Lord is calling us to study.
I may not yet be ready to live off the land. I kind of hope I never need to. But if that time ever came, I want to be as successful as those individuals in The Frontier House. I want to survive the experience – having turned to God for His help and having used skills I’ve begun to hone now – while there is time.