Raising your own food

[AlanM]

The best source of food in bad times, is to grow it yourself. I have collected ebooks about gardening practices from the middle 1800's. Here is a list I have which can be put on CD for anyone interested. PM me if you are interested.
American Gardener's Assistant Parts I, II, and III (1866)
Country Life (1866)
The American Gardener (1854)

[Otosan]

More important than food is water.....need a clean supply of water.
Some Y2Kers I knew caught rain water off their houses.
Some stored water, and some as lucky as I live about a mile from a lake.

[Kat Kanning]

We've been gardening with Dawn...and also Kira and I started looking into what can be foraged.

[Otosan]

I need to find all my y2k books and such,
but one good one I had was Eatable Plants of North America (I think that was the title).....showed every eatable plant in North America and how to prepare them for eating and storing.

[cathleeninnh]

Is rainwater necessarily potable? There are filtration systems that missionaries use everywhere, but it seems kind of expensive and you have to have replacement filters. During Y2k, I remember some explanation of sand/carbon filtration in a modified bucket. Sounds cheap, but effective?

Cathleen

[Lex]

Is rainwater necessarily potable? There are filtration systems that missionaries use everywhere, but it seems kind of expensive and you have to have replacement filters. During Y2k, I remember some explanation of sand/carbon filtration in a modified bucket. Sounds cheap, but effective?

I don't think sand will make nondrinkable water drinkable. But it will "clean" it so that it could go through a more specialized filter. The idea is that changing sand is cheaper than the filter. The more work you can have nature do the less your man made tools have to do. The cleaner you can get the water that hits the filter the longer the filter will last.

[AlanM]

Is rainwater necessarily potable? There are filtration systems that missionaries use everywhere, but it seems kind of expensive and you have to have replacement filters. During Y2k, I remember some explanation of sand/carbon filtration in a modified bucket. Sounds cheap, but effective?

I don't think sand will make nondrinkable water drinkable. But it will "clean" it so that it could go through a more specialized filter. The idea is that changing sand is cheaper than the filter. The more work you can have nature do the less your man made tools have to do. The cleaner you can get the water that hits the filter the longer the filter will last.

Your septic system cleans it with sand. Of course this is after it has gone through the septic tank digestive system.

[AlanM]

one good one I had was Eatable Plants of North America (I think that was the title).....showed every eatable plant in North America and how to prepare them for eating and storing.

Mine is called "Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide" by Thomas Elias & Peter Dykeman. It is divided by seasons and has pictures, shows the ranges of the various species, how to prepare, warnings about look-alike poisonous species, etc. Very comprehensive. It's a great book.

Is there an ISBN number on it?

[Lex]

Your septic system cleans it with sand. Of course this is after it has gone through the septic tank digestive system.

Septic tank doesn't really "digest" anything. It's just a big tank of stuff, with usually two chambers. "Stuff" comes into the first chamber, all the solids sink to the bottom and the liquids eventually flow into the next chamber, same thing happens here, then the liquid just pours out into the soil. There are no moving parts in a septic tank. When enough poop has sunk and accumulated at the bottom of the septic you have to have someone come and pump it out.

Which is another concern after a collapse if you plan on relying on your septic tank for more than a decade without someone pumping your stuff out (depending on how big your septic is and how many people use it, sometimes it could be a decade othertimes less or more).

I would recommend a more environmentally friendly alternative: composting toilet + grey water system for the rest or green house with plants specifically for digesting the "stuff", etc.

[Lex]

Is there an ISBN number on it?

Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide (Paperback)
by Thomas Elias, Peter Dykeman
ISBN: 0806974885
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0806974885/ref=wl_it_dp/002-4648185-9484846?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=IFY2LP11DAHJZ&v=glance&colid=V6I4GO071TAQ

[AlanM]

Your septic system cleans it with sand. Of course this is after it has gone through the septic tank digestive system.

Septic tank doesn't really "digest" anything. It's just a big tank of stuff, with usually two chambers. "Stuff" comes into the first chamber, all the solids sink to the bottom and the liquids eventually flow into the next chamber, same thing happens here, then the liquid just pours out into the soil. There are no moving parts in a septic tank. When enough poop has sunk and accumulated at the bottom of the septic you have to have someone come and pump it out.

Which is another concern after a collapse if you plan on relying on your septic tank for more than a decade without someone pumping your stuff out (depending on how big your septic is and how many people use it, sometimes it could be a decade othertimes less or more).

I would recommend a more environmentally friendly alternative: composting toilet + grey water system for the rest or green house with plants specifically for digesting the "stuff", etc.

Digest was perhaps not the correct word, but bacterial action begins to cleanse the water.

[citizen_142002]

Provided you have adequate fuel sources around, you could simply boil or distill just about any water to sanitize it.

Who needs a septic tank? Outhouses work fine for hundreds of years, just be sure to stock up on some lye.

[FrankChodorov]

you've got one of the foremost authorities on permaculture in Keene who just wrote a groundbreaking book "Edible Forest Gardens"...

http://www.chelseagreen.com/2005/items/edibleforestset

Dave Jacke is the owner of Dynamics Ecological Design Associates and a longtime permaculture teacher and designer. He lives in Keene, New Hampshire.

http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/

[KBCraig]

Outhouses work fine for hundreds of years, just be sure to stock up on some lye.

Did you perhaps mean lime, instead of lye?

[AlanM]

Outhouses work fine for hundreds of years, just be sure to stock up on some lye.

Did you perhaps mean lime, instead of lye?

I thought the lime went in the coconut, then you shake it all up.