Prepping « Robin Writes

How do you know how much food to grow, process, and store?

Obviously, you first count the number of people for whom you’re going to provide. Next, you find a legit website, such as the University of Missouri, and plan accordingly. You do need to make sure your source is correct; I’ve come across bloggers who recommend half of what a state extension site does, and that’s going to cause you a lot of issues when SHTF.

Of course, we’d all like to grow ALL of our own food, but sometimes this just doesn’t work out. Ask any farmer how crop predictions pan out. They’ll tell you. Some things you learn as you go, sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, you could be dealing with poor soil, bad seeds, or just garden-munching critters.

Each year, you’ll get more practice and you’ll discover new reasons for low production—so start now. It’s easier to learn and shrug it off and move along if you still have access to a grocery store or farmers’ market.

You also will need to adjust for personal preferences. For instance, on the MU site, they list a few things that we simply don’t normally eat. They also call for 8-15 tomato plants per person, which does include canning as well as eating, but we use quite a bit of tomato sauce so I adjust upwards.

Usually, I can only sauce, although I’d like to try ketchup one of these days. But with plain tomato sauce, I can then make taco sauce, barbeque sauce, spaghetti sauce, and more. I use approximately three cans or jars each month, sometimes more. The final number, more than 50 for us, can be surprising so do take advantage of existing lists and then make your own determination.

Unfortunately, I had a few issues with tomato plants this year, so I’ll have to buy some to finish the canning. Not my first choice, but we often have to adapt.

You also might be surprised at the number of ways you can process foods for storage.

I freeze zucchini and other squash, I freeze cabbage and corn; I dry onions, mushrooms, and potatoes and all of my herbs, as well as fruit, which I use in making granola or oatmeal or just for a snack.

None of these are difficult. For example, everyone always has lots of zucchini. Slice or cube, put in boiling water for a few minutes and then ice water to stop the cooking, drain and let dry, load into freezer bags. Simple. Same for cabbage.

Some things I just freeze directly, like green beans. After I pick them, I keep out a few for the next couple nights’ dinners, then wash and trim the rest and put them in a freezer bag. I just keep adding to that bag every time I pick more.

The best part is that you don’t even half to grow all this stuff if you don’t have the space or the time or energy. Just stop in your local farmers’ market and then process what you purchase. And, you can save a lot of trips to the grocery store when you’re all stocked up on the basics . . .

I met some lost tourists out in the sticks this week. I couldn’t help them much, because I wasn’t in my own neck of the woods, but I noticed one thing about the property map the guy showed me.

The acreage he was interested in buying was divided by a state highway.

I suppose that some people wouldn’t be bothered by this, but I sure would—we passed up a couple sections that had this issue, including one that was split just by a common use “road.”

Here’s the thing: if you purchase property that is split by legal right-of-way or even common use, you will forfeit at least some control of your farm.

Not only will the general public be constantly driving through, but local government can fairly easily take some of your acreage for road “improvement.” When SHTF, you could not only have hordes of folks out there, but it’s much harder to secure two pieces of land.

When we were looking, we also passed up parcels that had MOST of the land on one side or the other. In fact, if all goes well this week, we’ll be purchasing another ten acres and starting the process on a few more that will be locked by ours by the road. Because most roads don’t run in straight lines out here, the original sections can be bifurcated. A neighbors across the road owns just a few of those acres.

Besides the road issue, other characteristics are important:

A water source.

Space to grow food.

Space to raise animals.

Enough brush and trees to make the place appear unappealing and hidden.

A water source can be a well, a live creek, a river, or a pond. Wells need to be tested and the others would need purifying before you drink or cook. But do keep in mind that an existing well, assuming it’s functional, can cost a minimum of $5,000 to drill—more like $10,000 or higher, depending on the terrain and water table. This is something to consider when you’re negotiating price.

If you’re homesteading or prepping, you’ll need more space than you think to grow food. Sure, Pinterest is full of ideas to grow plants in small areas, but you will need A LOT of produce to feed your family from one harvest to the next.

For example, we use about five pounds of potatoes a week, give or take, which is a grand total of 260 pounds of potatoes per year. This year, I planted four pounds of seed potatoes and harvested fifteen pounds, in two 20-foot rows.

Now, the state extension site tells me I need eight of these 20-foot rows of potato plants for two people over a year’s time, which comes to 150 pounds. See what I mean, in past posts, about adjusting for your needs? You also, of course, need to adjust for your own particular harvest.

If I plant according to guidelines, and based on this year’s harvest, I would need to put in 33 rows of potatoes . . . obviously, I need to get better at this!

Now, you might think you only need, say, four tomato plants. You like tomatoes. You eat tomatoes. But don’t you also use tomato sauce? You need to plan for extras to make that. Or ketchup. Or sauces.

You will need space for this. Plus sun, shade, drainage, and irrigation of some sort.

If you’re raising animals for food, or for other reasons, you’ll need to check the area where you plan to live and see how many cow units each acre can support; or goats, horses, llamas, whatever. Chickens can be confined and, even when not, don’t take up a lot of room. But they can be loud and smelly, so you probably wouldn’t want them too close to your house.

If you have rough land or lack of pasture, you could seed and fence, of course, or you’ll have to feed hay and/or grain, and that can add to your monthly budget.

I can’t say this part enough: you don’t want folks driving by, or walking, and thinking, wow, that place looks great—wonder what they have hidden away? Whether it’s SHTF or not, if people have a visual and easy access to your farm or homestead, they’re much more likely to stop by and help themselves.

Fencing and security are all well and good, and there is definitely a place for those things, but if they can’t see it or easily plot a route, so much the better.

A lot of security experts will tell you to clear brush and trees and landscaping away from your house so you can see someone coming. Certainly not a bad idea, but you should also build away from the road, away from the access points to your property, and have only one obvious point of entry/exit for vehicles.

People can get there, but they can’t carry out much on foot.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have a back way out, that only you know about, or that you don’t watch for intruders on all sides. The idea is to make it more difficult for strangers to snoop around, and you better be sure your property choice reflects that.

You want to be remote, but not inaccessible. And you do not want to be obvious.

Plan to spend a lot of time searching for just the right homestead.