Most here seem busy with the various activities required for stockpiling food, water, etc.

I have been wondering about the worst-case scenarios, something I do best (remember, Donna -- I am a Fellow Worrier). After the 6 months, 1 year, or whatever period of time you are stocking up for, passes and the situation has NOT improved, what will be the next step?

Should we spending a certain amount of time considering renewable sources of food?

Seeds, gardenting, the most nutrition-packed foods, the methods and recipes for producing FOOD as much as soap recipes?

Just wondering if any of you have a plan of action along these lines, beyond packing away some seeds?

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@ptd.net), September 23, 1998

Answers

I have non-hybrid seeds that will grow in a region that is the area where I would move to if I ran out of supplies. In other words, my plan is to head south and find some land in the Carolinas and do my planting there if things aren't restored in PA quickly enough. The harvest comes much earlier the further south you go, so I will time it according to when my supplies are going to run out. You would be surprised how quickly some things grow. We have a garden and it doesn't necessarily take four months to grow something.

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), September 23, 1998.

Sarah: Start planting fruits and berries and perennial vegetables. Asparagus takes a couple of years to get going but comes up in May, Strawberries come along in June, Raspberries from June through September, Apples late summer to Fall, Cherries in July, garlic in July, etc etc. This is for the Chicago area, obviously times will vary. Chickens take about 12 weeks to get to food size. It might take a little bit of optimism to plan ahead but its worth it. We got some great apples this year as well as many of the others listed. We are all organic. Use hardy varieties that do well for your area.

-- rod beary (rbeary2327@aol.com), September 23, 1998.

Think also - sprouts, which grow on your counter year round and do provide a whop full of nutrition. Gardening in a cold frame even in the winter - we have grown salad type vegetables that way all winter in Iowa. Container gardening inside with cool weather type vegetables. Wouldn't sustain us totally but would be something.

-- Melissa (financed@forbin.com), September 24, 1998.

Amy, a suggestion if you're seriously thinking about the Carolinas: check out Chatham County, NC. Lotta land, lotta woods, the Haw River, BEAUTIFUL, and not many people. I have an old high school buddy living up there near Siler City now, and he has a friend who lives with no electricity, farms his own food with a mule and a plow, the old-fashioned way. Lot of folks in that area are sort of back-to-the-land hippie type folk, really laid back...seems to be not so terribly uncommon in that neck of the woods.

Don't know if you remember hearing about Hurricane Fran in '96, but it came right through here; wind was 95 MPH right outside the window five feet from where I sit. But we didn't get the worst of it....folks farther west were harder hit. Some went without power and water for 2 weeks or so. But while the folks in Wake County (Raleigh) were tearing their hair out, so my friend Joey says, folks in Chatham County were mostly taking it all in stride.

I used to go hiking and canoeing up and down the Haw while going to college in Chapel Hill in the 70's, and the population was sparse then...it hasn't changed much.

Just a thought...

-- John Howard (pcdir@prodigy.net), September 25, 1998.