Book Review: 299 Days:The Community by Glen Tate

Our story picks up, of course, where it left off in the last book, The Collapse.  The family and immediate community (hence the title) start to pull together. 

The author takes us through his vision of some occurrences in the local area.  The main group goes to "town" and split up to gather supplies, finding most things very expensive.  Fuel, groceries, household goods, are twice the normal price or more and many of the local businesses are rationing sales.  We see most people not taking the collapse seriously and not even thinking about stocking up on longer term items.  Lines are starting to be drawn as the larger area town divides itself into areas racially. 

In The Collapse we start to see some of the minor characters that lived or worked with the main character break off into multiple smaller side-stories of the main plot.  Perhaps the author will bring them back together somehow later in the story, or maybe they will remain separate and will just be used to demonstrate how other areas around our main town suffer and/or thrive in different ways.

Still no "action" in the sense of gunfights.  The author continues to feint at action like a man playing in traffic; he'll stand in the lane and jump away at the last moment before being hit by a car.  (There's my poor literary analogy for today, but reading the first few books it will make sense)

The main character begins his journey as a leader in the small town near his new home.  He and a permanent resident of that town start to form a leadership group and plan the safety of the area.

OK, enough for now.  The story is still good.  I'm still reading.

299days website

Keeping Garden Seeds Organized

I had a problem last year where the small plastic storage container I was using to keep my seed packets in allowed the seeds to spill out as they were laid down and the container was carried around.  I had to come up with something different, so here's what I did.  

It's a simple idea that I'm sure isn't unique, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.  I just use an expandable file folder and organize them mostly by alphabetizing by the seed type.  They stay organized and the open packages stay upright.  By design the file folder fits in file cabinets or is a perfect size for a bookshelf.

Drawbacks:

- as you can see, some of the letters get  much thicker than others.  The bigger seeds (corn, beans, peas) really take up space.
-once you get a larger collection of seeds, the top doesn't close as well.  If you were to have an organizer with a top and a string or latch, it would at least hold the top closed.

Hope this is of some help or, at least, gave you some sort of an idea.

Hugelkultur (sorta) Beds

In the spring of 2011 I had been hearing about the "hugelkultur" stuff for a while from Jack Spirko and Paul Wheaton so I decided to give it a go.  In the corner of my back yard I had a pile of wood that had been there for years and was now in various stages of decay, so I thought "Perfect!" I have what I need.  What did I have to lose other than a pile of rotting wood that was probably attracting carpenter ants?

Before I go into what I have done (and I am by no means an expert, this is just one man's attempt at bettering his garden), here's a quick definition:
Hugelkultur: buried wood
That's it.  You can click the link for a more thorough description and history, but "buried wood" is it.  The premise being that when you bury the wood, it rots.  As it rots away two things happen, one is the wood gets spongy and holds water, the other is that the wood itself becomes nutrients and organic matter on which the garden plants and soil critters live. 

The moisture holding ability is an asset during drought.  If it is done right, your plants can even survive hot, dry summers without the addition of manual watering.  Mind you, the vegetables will do better and thrive when well watered, but they can survive without water addition if you need to go on vacation or are trying to set up a bug out location where you can't constantly tend to its needs.

OK, so here is what I have done and what little results I can attest to so far.  I wish I could find the pictures, but as a result of my disorganized life, I can't come up with them.  If I do I'll add them in later.

#1:  Done up in the spring of 2011.  Simple, I dug a deep, round hole (4' across, 2' deep) in the middle of my garden, piled in a bunch of wood from the top of the old wood pile, then put the dirt back on.  The problem is that I have only been gardening in earnest for a few years and I don't have really good, deep soil yet.  My ground is quite sandy, so digging down a couple feet resulted in a lot of sand that ended up thinning out the topsoil when I piled it back on.  This, I believe, is what has resulted in poor performance.  The first year (2011) was not good at all.  The wood wasn't well rotted and the nutrients were scarce.  The second year (2012) was better, but still not optimal.  I have been piling on the organic matter trying to build the soil back up.  I have higher hopes for this year. 

#2: Second one done in spring of 2012.  Thinking that the wood in the first bed was too deep, I dug a shallower bed (1' deep and 2'x3' rectangle) and made a higher pile above.  I also added coconut coir to the dirt I piled back into the hole to help my sandy soil hold more moisture.  The 2012 garden didn't see much in the way of results here, either.  The wood was newer and I'm starting to get the impression that the first year or two aren't going to do well as the wood starts rotting and the nutrients and microbes return to a balance in the disturbed soil.

#3: My best hope yet done during last summer (2012).  While cleaning that back corner of my yard I came to the bottom of the wood pile.  Here lay the wood that was well on its way to being soil itself.  For this bed I dug a deep hole again (2' or so deep) that was 5' by 6' square in shape.  Trying to overcome the first year blues I mixed the well rotted wood with some newer stuff (trying to balance longevity with immediate useability).  I also lasagna style layered this in with other things.  So my bed was built with three layers, each consisting of these layers: mixed wood, a slop of kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings and dirt.  My hope is that the kitchen scraps and leaves will add the immediate nutrients after having sat for 9 months, the dirt will add some structure, and the layers will help with the mix.


Well, folks, that's my attempt.  I'll do up a report this fall on how well those beds worked this year.  Here are a few resources I have used to gain what information I have:

a Paul Wheaton video on hugelkultur

TSP episodes (audio) with hugelkultur

richsoil.com page with lots of visuals and details

Some closing thoughts:
-I don't know how long these beds last.  It seems to be a newer idea here so I have found only speculation on how long it's good before you have to "recharge" your beds with new wood.
-My wood is pretty much all pine.  It should rot faster and be useable faster, but would also be depleted faster.
-Something I didn't do, as seems to be the recommendation, was plant some sort of cover crop immediately after building the bed.  I let them sit and settle a bit.  Future beds will be immediately planted with peas (for nitrogen fixing), as well as clover or buckwheat just to get some root paths started and the soil held together.

If the SHTF and you have to survive, having this stuff already established is a better idea than trying to survive on what I have gotten as first year results.  Work out the bugs ahead of time.  Be prepared for no commercial water, or no ability to pump water and still have your food source survive.

So now... WWYD?

Book Review: 299 Days:The Collapse by Glen Tate

The Collapse is book two in the 299 Days series.  The story continues from the first book: The Preparation.

In The Collapse we see the main character (Grant) as he watches the continues to witness the collapse of society around him.  We also get snippets of local goings on from others' as we see some of the action in their third person points of view from a couple of Grant's acquaintances, including an individual who turns out to be quite disturbing.  Towards the end of the book we get some action that causes our hero to flee to his BOL (Bug Out Location).  He has to make a tough choice to do this, which I will not spoil for you.  Grant's connections through the gun shop and shooting range prove most helpful during this time of escape.

The premise and the writing style remain the same as I wrote about in the initial book review; simple and plain but engrossing.  This book, however, has less of the prepper instruction and more story building than the last.

And, again, the author's web page: 299 Days where you can again find a bonus chapter.  I have been printing the bonus chapters and using them as book marks, that way I can pass them on with the books when I finish and they land on a friend's bookshelf.

This review will be short as I don't want to give too much of the story away; but I do want to continue the reviews as I am still happy with the story.  At this point I am a couple chapters into book 3. 

Book Review: 299 Days:The Preparation by Glen Tate

The first in a ten book series being released two at a time every few months.  As I write this, the first four are out there.  The story's website: 299days.com has more detailed information about the author and how he came to write the story.

I have only read The Preparation so far.  It is 257 pages (not including the bonus chapter (see the website for details of those gems)).  The Preparation is the scene setup for the actions to come.  It focuses on the political, economic, and social circumstances that exist in these United States and the author's neighborhoods.  These circumstances lead to a partial collapse of the government and society in general. 

The author touts his story as different because in his story there is only a "partial" collapse and not a "total" collapse as most of the other novels in this genre portray.  Like the  Deep Winter series, this first book is a "how to" on prepping for disaster.  Time is spent explaining how to obtain and store food, how to open the "prepping/survivalist" conversation with others, how to find a group of like minded individuals, where to find information you might need, as well as other topics on the subject.  It's not bad, it's just that the real-life instructions are awkwardly placed.  The author pauses his story to tuck in valuable information for the reader.

The Preparation is written in third person style, but is clearly otherwise in autobiographical style with a stop at the author's childhood memories, a brief stop during his 20's, then the extended stay at current events.  The writing style is quite plain; the author doesn't have or didn't use the eloquence displayed by professional authors like King or Koonts.  (Not that I have that ability, either.  It's just an observation.) 

The Preparation doesn't contain much in the way of action, but you can tell that there will be plenty in the upcoming books.  The author admits to making this first piece the back-story to the rest of the upcoming parts.  Despite this, it's setting up a good enough story I think I'm in for the long haul.  I see myself going all ten rounds.  The message contained within is as plain as the writing style: keep an eye and ear open to what is happening, listen to that inner voice we all have, hope for the best but prep for the worst, and don't waste time... it's coming.

Easy Things to Garden

There are a lot of complex and difficult things to grow that successful gardeners are rightly proud of when they produce.  The items I want to bring forward are things that are easy to garden, that require little or no effort to grow, and that reproduce themselves easily or hang around for a long time.  Since I live in zone 5/6 (right near the line, so it changes depending upon the map you look at) that is what I know, so I will focus on there.  Some of this will carry over to other zones, some won't.

Fruit/nut trees:
- If you have the room, you just can't beat something that, once planted and matured, will produce yearly bushels of food for more than a lifetime.  Annual pruning will maximize production, but even neglected trees produce more food than can be consumed at harvest time.  Preserve or trade the surplus.  Look around your area for what is growing in neighbors yards and nearby farms.

Radishes:
- Usually the quickest producing thing in a vegetable garden.  The secret is to let some of the biggest  ones go to seed.  They will reseed themselves with no effort on your part producing you free radishes every year after that.
     - They quickly produce flowers that will bring in the bees.
     - The seed pods are edible and taste like radish when young.
     - A bonus is that the plant eating bugs in this area love the radish plant leaves to the extent that my radish plants are full of holes, but the beans, peas, tomato, lettuce, etc are left alone.

Turnips:
- The plant everyone loves to hate.  If you let a few go to seed you will get a second crop in the fall, and next year there will be more.  

Cilantro:
- A great herb that easily reseeds itself without any help, just let a few plants mature completely.

Borage:
- The honeybees around here love this stuff: hundreds of small purple flowers. Let it seed itself, as it grows the small, young leaves have a cucumber like flavor.  As the plants get bigger, chop and drop the plants in your way for instant composting mulch.  Let only a couple plants mature in an out-of-the-way spot and you are sure to have more next year.
- As a caution, this can become a weed if you let too many of them mature.  Just cut the stem at ground level (hoe, machete, clippers whatever works), let the plant lie where it falls to help suppress weeds.

Other herbs:
- Oregano and chives will come back every year, rather than reseeding themselves, so plant them in a place where you won't disturb their roots.
- New this year I tried rosemary and thyme, so we'll see how those go.

Rhubarb:
- Not much to say there, it comes back every year and you can cut off root sections to replant elsewhere to have more plants.

Berries:
- Strawberries and raspberries are doing well.  Blackberries, blueberries, etc are also said to do well in this climate, but I personally don't have any... yet.

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of things that stay or reseed themselves, but it is what I have in my garden that I don't need to plant ever again, but still reap produce yearly for only the cost of summer watering.  I encourage you to try some of these things, or, just let a few of your garden plants go to seed and see if will come back next year. 

Increasing Food Prices

A common and persistent theme over the past couple years in prepping and survival blogs has been food prices.  I have seen various numbers relating to the percentage of increase in general food prices as well as specific individual commodities, but every one of them shows "up".  And not just up, but up at a much higher rate than standard inflation should be driving it.  What effect will greatly increased food prices have on us as individuals and our society in general?

If you do an internet search for rising food prices, it seems like all of the MSM (main stream media) outlets have had an article or two on the trend.  When you read these articles you see that they are merely doing lip service in reporting the problem.  All they talk about is how it is caused by higher fuel prices and how it will affect the lower income families by forcing them to apportion a couple more percent of their income to their food budget.

If that was the only result we wouldn't be doing too badly.  But if you look deeper, you find more problems.  THIS article associates higher food prices with the outbreak of riots.  It was after reading that particular association that I really put thought into food prices.  What would that do to me, and those around me?  Could large scale riots really happen in these United States and in my hometown?  I have come to my own conclusions after thinking it over and pondering what my immediate neighbors might do if times got worse.

So the question is WWYD if prices rose enough to impact you in a negative way?  What will you do now to prepare for that seemingly inevitable occurrence?

I, personally, am slowly expanding my pantry and learning to garden.
-A pantry can be built slowly with long term storeable goods for very cheap if you buy the things on sale, or can be built quickly with a large influx of cash.  Even a full pantry is a limited option.
-Gardening is your unlimited option, but it can't be learned overnight.  There are so many local variables to be considered, it is something that must be learned over time with trial and error. 

Some of the resources I use and highly recommend for information and ideas are Jack Spirko, Marjory Wildcraft, Alexander Wolf, and John Robb. 

THIS is a decent spot to look at some historical prices of popular commodities.