Today's Rant, Seeds

I think many people will agree with me in the thinking that although prep sites that offer seeds in packaged sets are not thinking clearly of the prepper.  The garden you could plant form these sets would be, in a perfect world, a well rounded lovely little garden of onions, tomatoes, peas, beans and corn. but in a survival world, the sets are not ideal for starting a survival garden, the first year.

My son pointed it out this way:"Lowes now sell heirloom seeds in some of their stores. These are open pollinated, non- genetically modified seeds. Why is it that they will give you 1000 carrot seeds in a packet, 100 broccoli seeds, 40 tomatoes, but only 15 cucumber seeds. Worse than that is they give you less squash seeds.

     I love his sense of comic irony and his ability to point out things we may have overlooked.  His point is not only the seeds value in number but their nutritional value.  Carrots take a long time to grow, tomatoes are delicate liking neither too much hot or too much cold, beans provide just about one meal per packet planted.  We like a big pot of beans and frankly, you have to plant a lot more space in the garden than the number of seeds in the packet.  THe survival seed packaged sets are also off skew with the number of seeds to the number of meals.  

beprepared.com 

     He pointed out to me that even though lettuce is easy to grow, can be packed in to the garden, it provides little nutrition and is basically just a filler food, to keep the tomatoes from sinking to the bottom of the salad!  So, he suggests plucking the leaves from the bottom of the plant for your BLT and saving the whole plant till the end of the season to give you seeds for next year.  Brilliant!

    You really do need to have someone in your life to bounce ideas of, when you have any kind of plan, another set of eyes, or another perspective is great for a reality check before you spend a lot of money and end up with a garden full of filler food.  

     I suppose a lot of people will put tomatoes in their garden thinking it is a good source of vitamin C.  I can't argue that, but another better source is Chili Peppers!  Also, bell peppers, dark leafy greens like kale, broccoli, and soft fruits like oranges, strawberries, kiwi and papaya.  So, you are not stuck in the packaged seed garden, collect a variety of seeds you know you can grow in your region and stock, grow and collect those seeds.  

http://www.myheirloomseeds.com/
I like the price here

     I am not saying don't buy packaged sets of seeds you know to be heritage, I am saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket.  Grow, collect and/or purchase seeds of a wide variety.  Know what grows in your area and get good at growing that.  Adjust your diet according to what you know you can provide, and stock the rest well.  

Sources for Buying Non-GMO Seedswww.urbanorganicgardener.com 

     I went to a website ages ago out of curiosity to find out how hard it is to grow rice.  I found that the year long effort to grow rice in a five gallon bucket would yield half a meal for one.  I store rice in bulk. 

      So, pick your seeds, count how many you will need, stock more than that and also, pick your battles.  Store what you truly cannot grow.  And get off the survival sites once in a while.  Those organic foodies have non GMO seed outlets too!