Another thing to consider during a long term incident, something that lasts more than a few months, is how are you going to feed your children? Your family and friends? You may be thinking, 'to hell with them, they should have been smarter and prepared'. But when you're doing that, think back to the good old days as the settlers started pushing across the land of ours, single wagon families.
And how many just vanished without a trace as they encountered hazards. Everything from sickness to animals to maruaders.
We survive as a race by coming together and sharing the load and burdens of providing for ourselves.
20 people can raise a barn far far faster than 20x faster than a single person can raise a barn. And with significantly less danger of injury.
The same holds true for food as well. And long term sustainable food supplies are the reason for this particular post.
What do you plan on doing when your preps run out? Whether it's 3 months or 30 months. What are your plans?
Hopefully they include seeds. A #10 can of a variety of seeds, properly stored lasts years in your refridgerator or root cellar or just buried a few feet below ground where the temperature is lower. Even on a shelf in your closet you can expect to get a few years storage.
And that can of seeds holds the potential for a year's supply of food for you and your family.
Of course it's just potential if you don't have the knowledge, skills and tools to turn that potential into food and store it for the times when there is no food growing.
We have several such cans, from different vendors as a Just In Case measure. Do you want to risk your one can of seeds being bad for some reason? Or your two cans but from the same batch?
We also have part of our stock stored in alternate locations. If forced to bug out in a hurry it might be possible to get the seeds on the way out if we cannot get the ones at our primary location.
Of course bugging out with 3 days supply of food may render having seeds a moot point. But better some chance than no chance.
Another thing you're going to want is what are called heirloom seeds. The much more common hybrids are genetically modified or GMO crops are designed to grow well and produce but the seeds you get from such plants are like a bad xerox of a xerox of a xerox. They don't breed true and the resulting generations of plants are weaker and less productive.
So make sure your seed stock includes heirlooms, not hybrids. And in most cases you're going to want only a single type of each plant. Some plants like tomatoes are naturally resistent to cross contamination but if you plant multiple types of corn next to each other, your seeds are going to quite possibly be hybrids and not in a desireable form.
Places that we've purchased seed collections from include the below. The first link is the main web site which should remain viable as long as the company exists. The second link is a direct link to their seed collection which may die over time. If you get a 404 on the second link then try the first and just search around.
Augasonfarms.com - Seed Link
beprepared.com - Seed Link
mypatriotsupply.com - Seed Link
Another thing to remember is, just how do we store our seeds once they bloom to their full potential? That there is information enough for multiple posts but short answer is, we hope you have a pressure canner and canning pot, plenty (PLENTY) of canning jars, lids and rings.
Assume at least 1 quart jar per person per day and you won't be too bad off.
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