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Post by grunt on Nov 14, 2011 20:17:42 GMT -5
You don't need to have that large an amount of ashes or diatomaceous earth with the beans (or other seeds). A handfull to a gallon of seeds would be more than enough if shaken through the mix.
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Post by spacecase0 on Nov 14, 2011 21:47:08 GMT -5
to get rid of the bugs you don't,
but to displace the oxygen you do
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 15, 2011 5:24:36 GMT -5
They do sell small packets of oxygen aborbing material, mostly iron filings in a tea bag from what I can tell. Throwing a few of those into your canning jar before you seal it up should help. My understanding of seed longevity is the lower the moisture, the lower the temperature and the less oxygen the longer the seed will stay viable. Thats the system at the National Seed Storage Lab in Ft. Collins. Very dry seed in cannisters suspended over liquid nitrogen, super dry, super cold, zero oxygen. Not achievable on a home scale, but I think you can achieve super dry and zero oxygen quite easily. Then just store it as cool as you can manage.
( Exceptions for tropical seeds like avocado that cannot be dried without killing the embryo)
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Post by davida on Nov 15, 2011 12:48:08 GMT -5
Grunt,
How do you recommend saving seeds for 2-5 years and for Doomsday (especially beans)? Thanks in advance for your reply. Trying to live your motto "Always pay it forward".
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Post by zachary on Nov 15, 2011 13:15:27 GMT -5
In the course of my filing of old articles I found another which is relevant to the thread's discussion.
"Gardening In The Rough" (from Harrowsmith magazine) is about a gardener's discovery that really sloppy planting procedures could produce decent or even excellent yields. He had some leftover pumpkin seeds which he planted in some old rotted stumps in a back field. Come the first hard frost he found numerous pumpkins which had been hidden under the rank growth. He heaved a pound of pea seed into a huge brush pile which was still too wet to burn, and harvested 15 gallons of peas. A pile of subsoil was poked with 30 holes, and in each a potato cutting was planted & covered with a handful of mulch. He got 40 pounds of spuds with no further attention.
Such 'thinking out of the box' is what kept lots of Irish alive during the period Cromwell was trying to exterminate them. They went deep into bogs - an area British troops disliked - and made a swamp version of their 'lazy beds'. Planting and harvest were the only visits made.
Every region is different, and has different possibilities. It's quite possible a wild-looking planting of peas could be overlooked. Years ago I was doing a show/tell of our garden to a young farmer who lived nearby. He knew corn and soybeans, and that was all he knew. He actually pointed to the peas and asked what they were! In a wild planting there's a good chance a vining plant would be mistaken for a worthless weed.
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Post by grunt on Nov 15, 2011 14:15:01 GMT -5
Davida = I usually give my beans a few days in the freezer, once I am sure they are dry = this usually takes care of any weevils or other nasties that might be in them. Sometimes I'm a little more paranoid, and will take them out of the freezer, let them regain room temperature for a few days, then give them another treatment. After that, room temperature or lower, in dry conditions, stored in what ever is handy. Sometimes it's baggies piled up in buckets, with a lid to keep mice out, sometimes paper bags in pails, or jars. For longer term storage I would suggest freezer, in sealed glass, if you have the room, or refrigerator in sealed glass. The sealing is to prevent over desiccation of the seeds, which will make germination difficult.
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Post by davida on Nov 15, 2011 14:40:25 GMT -5
Thank you, Dan. The second freezing is a really good idea, if in doubt.
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Post by castanea on Nov 15, 2011 23:01:55 GMT -5
We've been working on our homestead self sufficiency for the last 3 decades, not because of a sense of doomsday (although we think things can't continue with peak oil, climate disruptions, and excessive population). We've been motivated to see how much of our foodstuffs (and power, clothing, etc.) we can produce ourselves. I guess we're just the kind of people that like to create from raw materials - an example would be when we wanted to make some beer and so first we grew barley....... We do buy some bulk foods like raisins, oatmeal, and olive oil but could live without them if necessary. The challenge for growing your own food is to produce enough calories with a diversity of nutrients to stay healthy, and then eat what you grow. Look at what will grow in your area, the wild plants (native and escaped), what the indigenous people utilized, and the food ways of other cultures. The "Resilient Gardener" by Carol Deppe is a thought provoking starting point to get into the subsistence mindset. To see more about what we've been up to, you can look at our web site at www.geopathfinder.com/Nice web site |
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Post by castanea on Nov 15, 2011 23:12:40 GMT -5
>>Why a year? Because that's the maximum time frame between harvests in a temperate climate. If the problem is climate disaster--say a "Maunder Minimum" event (mini ice age--they hit surprisingly fast by the way and the effect is "cumulative"--the worst years are the ones close to the end of the phase) or an 1816 type event related to volcanic discharge, then your best bet is to switch suddenly to crops that are significantly more cold-tolerant than the ones you've been growing. You need to switch from corn and soy to rye and rutabagas. As mentioned earlier, spring-planted rye and wheat were near bumper crops in 1816 in New England when corn and potatoes failed catastrophically. The freezes were not hard enough to kill the hardy cereals, but they did kill the Hessian fly and stripe rust. Some of us have that scenario covered...motivated by precisely the fact that solar activity--in direct contradiction to NASA predictions of a super maximum in 2012 (which they've finally withdrawn)--has been unusually weak, with a total cessation of sunspots for quite a while not to long ago. Anyway, storing food is not that hard; what is hard is trying to preserve "normalcy". It's the expectation of being able to preserve the status quo that gets people killed during a crisis. Consider a typical short-term disaster, such as a fire. Consider the Beverly Hills Nightclub disaster in Ohio, or the attack on the World Trade Center. In the case f the Beverly Hills Nightclub fire, fire crews found, ah, what was left of the victims still sitting around their tables with their drinks. They made no attempt to run for it. A busboy who worked there reported that the staff were walking up and down the halls looking for someone high-ranking to take responsibility and tell them what to do. They did nothing useful. He recalled thinking to himself "Well, I'm probably going to get fired for this, but someone had better do something...", as he began herding customers out the doors. He was the only one who proactively did anything. In the world trade center, people felt the shockwave from the impact--and waited an average of 9 minutes before deciding to take action. Instead, they looked at each other, asked each other what they thought happened, but did nothing. When action was finally taken, as evidence of a life-threatening situation continued accumulating, one thing that happened was that busybodies went from floor to floor and hall to hall telling people to stay put and wait for instructions. People in wheelchairs were abandoned, and worse, those were the instructions. That is typical--they tell you to leave the folks in wheelchairs near the stairs to "wait". Instead of, say, a couple husky guys picking them up and hauling them out. Kitty Genovese was murdered in the vicinity of over 30 witnesses. Contrary to the New York Times editorial about it, they were not all "reluctant to get involved". People aren't all that cowardly--some are, but most will get angry and go after the attacker--he only had a knife--however, what some of them did do was not effective. One told the killer, Moser, to "leave that girl alone". But he didn't follow them to behind the apartment building where Moser finished her off. Genovese contributed to her own demise by running out of sight of help. What you do in that situation is look for a specific helpers and say "You there in the blue shirt, I need your help. You, in the red dress, call for help!" Otherwise, a crowd will freeze up waiting for "someone" to do something. It's the same thing in weather disasters and even financial disasters. People freeze up because the situation is outside of their "conceptual space". They simply refuse to believe their eyes, and rationalize away the situation until it is too late. Imagine a situation like the famous Stanley Millgram experiment, except instead of telling the subjects to apply an electric shock to SOMEONE ELSE, you tell them to stay in their cubicles and await further instructions while the office is burning down. Failing to do anything, hoping that non-reaction will make the situation return to "normalcy"--is what kills people. Very insightful post. I can certainly remember events I have been involved in where people completely froze. Most of these did not involve danger to a person, but the reverse, where a significant advantage accrued to whoever took action, yet few would take action. Many people seem not to take action unless they have been trained to do so, usually by military training, sports training, or a history of life situations that required taking action. |
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Post by castanea on Nov 16, 2011 0:03:37 GMT -5
my emergency seeds have all kinds of things in them including grains, especially sorghum, I would like rice seeds in it, but keep getting crop failures, so I don't have many rice seeds extra now I use canning jars that are vacuum packed, i have a pint of my flower corn I grow, and a pint of small packets of other seeds, I have made quite a few of these up now and have been giving them to friends as well I likely need to move to quart jars to fit more seeds and make a good list of what I have in there for myself I like the PVC idea and use the earth for the temperature stability, I would use 4 inch PVC and put the jars in, that way I can still vacuum pack them and have a leak proof and solid outside.. but for now the backup seeds live in the car I suppose I should have lots (like at least 1/4 pound) of things like spinach seeds and other quick growing in my backup set Don't forget seeds of those bad boys Pueraria lobata, Nicotiana tabacum and Cannabis sativa, all three very useful plants. |
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Post by castanea on Nov 16, 2011 0:22:17 GMT -5
Two hugely beneficial tree crops for survival purposes are jujube (Ziziphus jujuba or Ziziphus zizyphus) and chestnut (Castanea species). Jujube trees do well in zones 6-9 where summers are hot (sorry Atash). Chestnuts do well in zones 5-9.
Jujube trees have the advantage of being massive producers of fruits even while very young. The fruits are very tasty when fresh with very high levels of vitamin C. But the fruits also dry quickly and easily on the trees and can store for months, making them an extremely valuable survival food. The trees handle drought and heat well and require very little if any attention. The wood is extremely hard and vaulable for a variety of purproses.
Chestnuts trees produce chestnuts even when fairly young. The trees require very little attention although young trees in some areas will need supplemental irrigation. Chestnuts have a nearly complete protein, being a little low in only one essential amino acid. Although fresh chestnuts don't store for long periods without refrigeration, they can be dried easily and store very well for long periods when dried. They can be reconsituted by boiling and have been used in that fashion by Europeans and Chinese for centuries.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Nov 16, 2011 4:50:09 GMT -5
Where would one find viable chestnut seeds online? A fellow vendor was selling some chinese chestnuts but he'd had them drying in his greenhouse for a few weeks and I assumed they were no longer viable. Plus they were wormy as all get out. The few that didn't have several grubs in them were declared quite tasty by my wife who is from the Azores and knows a thing or two about eating chestnuts. I would love to have a home grown supply for her.
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Post by castanea on Nov 16, 2011 10:09:34 GMT -5
Where would one find viable chestnut seeds online? A fellow vendor was selling some chinese chestnuts but he'd had them drying in his greenhouse for a few weeks and I assumed they were no longer viable. Plus they were wormy as all get out. The few that didn't have several grubs in them were declared quite tasty by my wife who is from the Azores and knows a thing or two about eating chestnuts. I would love to have a home grown supply for her. During the season you can find them online at ebay from a wide variety of sellers, although most are Chinese chestnuts. If you live in a blight free area you can grow European chestnuts. This guy on ebay sells European chestnuts: www.ebay.com/itm/Fresh-Oregon-Chestnuts-10-pounds-includes-shipping-/260892123570?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=auc3cbe61e1b2Here are three online sellers: European marronis- www.chestnuts.us/Chinese and a few others- www.empirechestnut.com/catalog.htm#seedwww.buychestnuts.com/Cold climate chestnuts- www.badgersett.com/info/chestnuts/chestnut2.htmlMany people also sell Colossal chestnuts online. They are OK for eating but they tend to produce poor seedlings if planted. Here are some folks who sell Colossals: www.oregonchestnuts.com/id14.htmlwww.chestnutsforsale.com/Chestnuts that have been dried for more than a week are usually not viable. If a seed floats in water it is probably not viable. If you want just a few nuts for planting purposes, I can send you some. Just send me a PM and let me know what kind of climate and growing conditions you are dealing with. |
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Post by zachary on Nov 16, 2011 18:24:35 GMT -5
People interested in chestnuts ought to inquire about the ongoing breeding programs to produce blight-resistant American Chestnuts or very similar looking & tasting hybrids. A google search found this example. www.fs.fed.us/r8/chestnut/restoration.phpYes, this is surely a long-term project, but the odds of getting a winner aren't bad if you have the room to plant enough seedlings. A good many years ago I bought a small handful of hickory nuts from a member of the NNGA. They were a large and thin-shelled variety named "Stevens". Planting them under chicken wire to protect the nuts (during the first winter) from our energetic squirrels got me a dozen or so seedlings. Most of the seedlings grew up to be very average or worse, but two were unusual. One had the largest nut I've ever seen, and with such a thick shell I've never seen a worm inside any of them. (despite that, it's an easy cracker - with care the kernels will come out in halves) The main drawback is that so far it has been a shy bearer. The second tree fits my definition of a winner. Thin shelled, prolific, and the kernels pop right out as halves or even entirely intact if I'm careful. While not as big a nut as the first, it's still very large. A winner! The same luck could happen with the American Chestnuts for those with the land and lots of patience. |
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Post by spacecase0 on Nov 16, 2011 18:57:48 GMT -5
Don't forget seeds of those bad boys Pueraria lobata, Nicotiana tabacum and Cannabis sativa, all three very useful plants. I have the first 2, but have been unable to find seeds for the last one, I would like the fiber version |
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