Sooooo close your eyes and think through this scenario;

A major event has occurred let’s say Pandemic Virus, a popular and very possible event. You have remained isolated for the last 6 months.

Lets say you were set, canned food, freeze dried food, water and shelter. You did some copy canning which is cost effective and you they had a 3 month package of freeze dried at a good price. Water filters were stocked along with replacement filter elements.

At the end of the 6 month isolation, here is where you stand;

Water. Water is fine, you have extra filters and can make water for years, those filters store forever.

Canned food. Had it stockpiled for 60 days, that’s a lot of cans but you have exhausted it.

Freeze dried food. Now you are down with just the freeze dried left. You have that variety of meals but after 90 days, that is getting old and you stocked away that 3 month package.

But it looks like you need another 2 months to be safe, the government and Health Organizations is now saying it’s ok to go outside, but assembling in groups is not encouraged yet.

This leaves you with the decision to go to town and see IF there is any food left or……your garden. OH yea, you thought that was a waste of time. Well how’s are your thoughts on growing your own food now? I would guess just like the V8 commercial…..

So if you haven’t started a garden yet, if not, get to it! We can store massive amounts of food for the hard time but when that’s gone, we will be in deep guano my friends. Are you ready to tell your family or friends, no food today…. Not me and neither should you! So when this finally comes up, you gonna be a taker or a giver? You need to think that one through.

Now I hunt for some of my food, but if you are going to count on that, well they call if hunting instead of killing for a reason, it’s not always a producer. Now you can convince your the greatest friggin hunter on the planet but when there is so much pressure on game, it disappears every time. It happens now when hunt season begins so don’t count on that.

Simple gardens can be constructed if you have even a suburban lot. If you have an apartment, bucket gardening can produce quite a bit of food. There is a family in southern California that have a suburban lot (1/10) acre home in Pasadena and grow all the food and meat they need. Now I don’t like their attitudes toward some things but we can all learn from them and copy it. Here is the link to their site, The Dervaes Family.

If you think that “I will start a garden when I need to”, and have never gardened to really produce food, you just missed the bus. In everything we do a preppers, there is the reality of practice. You don’t see our football teams going out on game day without practice and expecting to win do you? Hell no you don’t. Not that practice makes perfect but practice shows you successes and failures and you will actually learn more from the failures. It makes a huge mark in your mind that “I won’t let that happen again”. The time to learn is NOT when you need food to survive. Not turn to your kids and explain why mommy and daddy didn’t get off their collective asses and get this done!!

So start where you are, with what you have. Go to local classes and see how to start seed, transplant and harden plants off. Learn how to take care of plants and make them work for you. We gardened in a small lot in the N.CA bay area. Now in Nevada, we built our first raised bed with straw bales using Hugelkultur. 3 more beds are planned for this spring. So if your going to do container gardening, there are tons of sources of information. One great place to start is The Square Foot Gardener, by Mel Barthalemo. This book will get you started with the why and how to grow your own.

These ideas are just the seed. You need to plant it, nurture it and grow your own. Just as prepping is personal, so is gardening. I can’t tell you how many folks I talk to that “do it this way”, not the way I was doing it…..but it works for them and that’s all that matters. We need to not depend on the grocery stores that have 3 day inventory, use of things we don’t want in our food and become as self sufficient as we can. You may choose to do some tomatoes and an herb garden, that’s fine, that’s “your way” and as long as you learn the how to, you may just make it when times get tough!