Food self sufficiency tips and hacks

Big fan of no talking videos. Also sped up action. Of course a little weld here and there would have cut that build time in half.

4 Likes

25 forgotten vegetables our grandparents had during the depression.

13 Likes

For those of us who don’t want to spend a half an hour. :slight_smile:

Rutabaga, mangelwurzel, salsify, winter radishes, parsnips, hambutg rooted parsley, turnips, collard greens, swiss chard, winter cabbage (Danish ballhead), navy beans, Kentucky wonder beans, ground cherries, field peas, field corn (for drying for cornmeal), storage onions (yellow globe, Australian brown), kardoons, skirret, good king henry, American groundnut, runner beans, dandelion (check variety), lamb’s quarters, and sea kale.

And Jerusalem artichokes, aka sunchokes.

mangelwurzel is Fodder beets mainly used for animal feed. They are giant beets.

8 Likes

Thanks, Sean. About 3/4 of the way through it, I thought I should have been making a list. I appreciate you doing it for me :slightly_smiling_face:

5 Likes

I copied it out of the comments. I started watching but didn’t want to spend a half hour and it got to mangelwurzel which i stopped to look them up. They are just field beets. Then I decided to just find a list. I figured someone else would rather do that too. :slight_smile:

to make this post more interesting. :slight_smile: Here is the vintage Victory Garden Leaders handbook.

Here is the Victory Garden Guide.

Oh and here is a promotional film!


4 Likes

A lot of vegetables here are actualy feed vegetables. These are bred to be huge and bulky but at a expense of being less palatable thain their “human consumption” counterparts. But in time of famine, perfect.
I always got rutabaga, turnip and a huge sunchoke plot growing beside the main crop. We eat wery litle of it, but its enaugh food to survive a winter upon in a SHTF scenario, if the scenario is not unfolded we just feed it to animals.

The video failed to mention fermented turnips, wich are a absolute delicasy and l encourage everyone to try making this simple, nutrient packed food.

6 Likes

Before potatoes, 200+ years ago when turnips was the bulk food, two ladies were working in the field chatting.
One of them suddenly said:
-This one looks just like my husband’s “equipment”!
-Oh! That big?
-No! This dirty!

8 Likes

We have grown Mangels for several years, they are excellent animal feed, and they keep well in a root cellar. they can grow to 20’’ long. We also ate them. Another good one is Tromboncino squash.

2 Likes

We have a Meat pie recipe which is an alteration of the Cornish meat pies by using rutabaga instead of turnips supposedly when the finnish were logging in the UP. (I will stand corrected.) We call them Pastys. This is one from the 1800s, and it works with any root vegetable.

If you want to up the game a bit on them, you can make pan gravy or just use ketchup.

or go all out.

You guys probably have something similar. :slight_smile:

That really isn’t surprising, prohibition of alcohol was january 1920 - december of 1933. The video is around 10 years later. There is no question there was a core of people unhappy with the law change. Not much sense in stirring the pot when you want everyone to grow food. A lesson the Democrats didn’t learn as they pushed for EV mandates.

I re-realized Victory Gardens were also part of WWI I, it was just recycled material. I now recall him telling me that Eleanor Roosevelt was getting all the credit for them.

7 Likes

You know fellows the amazing thing to me is how many here where I live will question anyone who raises chickens for eggs.
Question by even so-called-rural around me who question why anyone would want to heat with wood. When our Grid electricity is still 9 cents a kW/h.
Then every year it is the questioning of why we food garden.

I was just quoted at our Grange Executive meeting four evenings ago about the home raised eggs, “You know you can buy those at Cosco or Winco for far less than you can feed the chickens wintering over!” I’d made the mistake saying that the cheapest small pellet chicken food was at regional Bi-Mart versus any of the national big-ones like Tractor Supply.
This said as we were in a building being over 50% heated with a forced air wood burning furnace. That wood been worked up last spring and early summer by me and the other 73 year old.

Huh. The chicken free-ranged in the yards eat the bugs. So no yards chemical bugs killer needed. The chickens stir up and mix the kitchen scraps I dump in a corner of yard sink hole depression along with all of the garden and flower beds pullouts. Contributing their concentrated fertilizing manure droppings. Some mighty fine rich deep soil being made there.
We are having this season a bigger and bigger tick problems. Me with three now just out walking dogs under the trees in the last six weeks. Three of the five cats ticked. Two of the three dogs.
Yep. Time to get back into some free ranging Guinea Fowl.

You do not have to be complete circle. Just try for part segment solutions as your personal energy allows. Cheer you up. Make you feel better; and be healthier in doing something positive.
Steve unruh

5 Likes

If you have a local grain elevator, usually they have a chicken mix you can buy but you have to buy like 100lbs. because you have to buy by the bushel and corn is what 5 bucks a bushel and wheat is 5 bucks a bushel, then they will grind it up and mix it for you, and add a mineral supplement. Sometimes they even have a pellet mill to make it into pellets and dry it for you. probably 25 bucks for around 100lbs. I think they charged 1 extra dollars to crack a bushel in small quantities,and there was a ‘service fee’ per batch, but if you ordered ahead, they sometimes charged less if they could combine orders. so they would make like 100 bushel for someone and put your order in with it.

2 Likes

Ticks on humans and dogs or other animals.

You can get a pour on form of Ivermectin from Amazon or other veterinary suppliers.

We never had ticks here until about 7 years ago. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would have to believe they were air dropped on us. Now they are a problem. Heartgard brand for heart worms is ivermectin with the price jacked up about 10 times. I take ivermectin prophylacticly as it prevents “engineered viruses” from affecting me as well as for parasite elimination. We all harbor parasites whether you know it, believe it or not. Before we started using the ivermectin on our dog we had to search through her fur after every walk. If we missed any ticks and they were locked in then a dab of tea tree balm kills them and they can be pulled off with tweezers but dogs cannot ingest tea tree oil so make sure to wipe the area with alcohol if it’s somewhere the dog can reach to lick. Not usually necessary and you only need enough to just coat the tick.

8 Likes

If I -haven’t- mentioned this here. certain kinds of nematodes will attack ticks, but only when they are laying.

I wonder if there has been a natural decline in bird populations because of stray cats that is contributing as well.

1 Like

Opossums eat ticks, and their nests.

5 Likes


recently some crafting…here march is the time…but sometimes are problems with bad and cold weather what destroys the work…a plastic bag can help, fixed in way that air from the bottom can enter.
last year i observed a very good connection in the little greenhouse climate

9 Likes

I want to talk a little about worm castings because I’m not sure they are well understood by the average gardener. I know I was unaware of them until about 6 years ago when I stumbled across a youtube about them.
Unlike your typical earthworms which will penetrate deeper into the soil forming channels that allow decomposing materials from the surface to travel to what would be the root zone of most plants, Composting worms, specifically red Wigglers, work close to the surface eating primarily sources of carbon, digesting it and crapping out castings. Many videos about this process so no need to delve into the hows of setting up systems for this process but I believe that the whys are not well understood.
Plant roots do not just uptake the various nutrients they require for growth. First the soils and fertilizers my be converted by microbial activity into a source of food the plants can absorb. All compost is broken down by this microbial activity to a large extend but not at the density available in worm castings. Worm castings applied directly to the area around the roots when transplanting provides a nutrient source immediately available to the plant whereas even compost amended soil in the planting hole still requires a little time to be converted by multiplying microbes. Other than worm castings, the JADAM method recommends accessing soil from the area immediately around trees because it too will be filled with microbes breaking down the yearly leaf fall and converting it into food for the tree.
My personal method for setting transplanted seed starts is to auger out a hole about three inches in diameter, and a foot deep. Fill two thirds of the hole with compost amended with some form of slow release fertilizer, place the plant in the hole and put a couple of cups of worm castings around the root area and then finish with more compost. My current choice for fertilizer is soaking bio-char with JADAM microbial solution and mixing it in with the compost. Then I just keep feeding the diluted JADAM solution to the plant every week. Even with plants that need to be directly seeded, such as squash, I will still plant them in a base of he compost mix I make with a little worm castings right around the seed. Not sure if this does anything but doesn’t hurt either.
I should explain that I make compost with a lot of bio-char, wood ash and epsom salts added as it’s breaking down to round out the necessary micro-nutrients. Other than the Epsom salts which is a good source of magnesium, I am no longer purchasing any types of commercial fertilizers in a quest for enhanced self sufficiency.

6 Likes

Adding to Tom’s post above.

Not sure about where the red wigglers are native to world wide but around here they can be easiest found on forest floors under leaves and in manurestacks or composts if one don’t want to use money but rather use own energy to pay for them.
If someone wants to hit the ground running to start with vermicomposting you will need several hundred of them.

Technically you would only need one but then it is going to take a looong time :smile:

6 Likes

Back 15 years ago when we move on the the propery the water on the yard would not soak in to the ground. In 1980 when Mount St. Helens blew ash landed in Wenatchee area sealing the ground up. I put Nightcrawers on the yard and they took over the grass area. The water soaks in just fine now. And I have fishing bait even in the winter months. Worns are a blessing.

9 Likes

Are they acidic by chance? do you know? I have some that I took out of a bin like 2 years ago and it dried up. And it has taken a -lot- of water and like two days to soak it up. I think I have to mix them with potting soil, but I was trying to figure out if I needed to add lime.

3 Likes

I’ve never tested them for PH Sean but I do have the testing equipment I use for hydro. I’ll check some out of curiosity but I’m betting they come up neutral.

5 Likes