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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Southern Gardening Update


Hannah is planting a raised-bed garden in Florida - follow along with her if you are in a similar climate!

How is your garden coming along?  Here is the most recent picture of ours.  As a recap -- I am doing a 4' x 4' raised garden bed.  We have planted strawberries, peppers, jalepenos, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe.

As you can see above, we did double up on a couple plants in each square foot.  The reason for that was that we weren't sure how each plant would do, so we wanted to "start" a couple plants in each square.  Notice that we have 2 lettuce plants in 2 of the squares (4 plants total.... the lettuce is in the center on top of the picture).  It appears that all 4 plants have done well, which is good, but they really are too close for optimal growing.  So, we will transplant two of the plants, probably to other parts of the yard to see how they do.  Hopefully they will mature quickly and we can start eating that lettuce soon.  It's starting to get quite warm here and lettuce is mostly a cooler-weather plant (which we discovered after we planted... guess we didn't read up well enough on that!).

Everything else seems to be coming along pretty well.  Our biggest concern is keeping the squirrels away... does anyone have any suggestions for that??  We have some pretty crazy squirrels in our neighborhood... one even keeps eating the wires in our neighbors car, costing them hundreds of dollars for repairs.  I'm not even sure a net would keep these guys away from our garden.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Food Storage Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we post specific items you should gather in order to supplement your emergency car kit, your three-month supply, and your longer term storage.  If you are new to our blog, don't worry!  You won't be left behind.  Just start up where we are and follow along.  You will eventually have everything completed.  Once the car kit is complete, we'll be putting together 72-hour kits again (week by week).  Once those are done, we'll gather the car kits again.  So don't worry, just jump on in and join us where we are today!  


This week for your car kit, add some bottled waters.  In the past, there has been some controversy about how to store water in your car.  Many people believe that it is unsafe to store bottle water in your car in hot weather, because the plastic could release toxins.  If you are concerned about this, rotate your water regularly.

You should have at least one water bottle per seat in your car.

How is your three-month supply coming along?  A three-month supply of food in your house can be a great blessing in many situations, and it doesn't have to be saved for emergencies only!  I love knowing that I have many meals to choose from in my pantry, even if I haven't made it to the grocery store recently.  Many days, I have good intentions of making it to the store but for one reason or another, I just don't.  Having a three-month supply meal plan puts my mind at ease!  I also like knowing that if something dire did happen in our family (a job loss, short or extended sickness, etc.), we would still be able to feed our family pretty well no matter our financial situation.

This month for our longer-term storage, we are gathering rice!!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Motivational Monday


“The world is busy with its own cares,
sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to
you. There is but one great pass-word to
success,—self-reliance.”

William George Jordan
(1864 - 1928)