With some areas of preparedness the time to start was yesterday...like growing food.

[keepitlow]

Reality, it is near impossible for newbie to grow all or most of their own food without prior experience and help.

With some areas of preparedness the time to start was yesterday.

Take growing fruit trees for instance - they take a few years to get established and produce some meaningful fruit. But many problems can occur during that time and the trees may have to be replaced before established which will add more time to the equation.

Do you know which fruit trees are biennials? they only produce fruit every other year? But you wont know this for 4 or 5 years down the road...will you?

Even with vegetable gardening it may take 3 to 5 seasons to learn the basics and produce quality and meaningful amounts of food to 'try' and live on.

And I can tell you from experience, it is hard to live just on what you grow...especially if you live in the cold zones of the US where you have to grow in short seasons.

So, as I said, the time was yesterday to get started in some areas of prep and the longer you wait the more behind you are.

http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/09/why_a_practice_garden_by_tom_c.html

[GOLDZILLA]

I started my orchard about 10 years ago, and yes, you are right. My trees are just coming into high productive capacity. At least one dies every year, and I plant 2 new trees every year. Also got to think of diseases like mold and cedar apple rust and bugs too. My trees have never been sprayed with chemicals. The fruits are ugly, but tasty. thieves are less likely to take ugly fruit. I have a green apple tree that makes perfect apples, but that tree was stripped bare by thieves. They didn't touch the ugly fruit though.

[keepitlow]

Same deal as you with my orchard. Just not along as far as you in years and limited land.

People leave the ugly stuff alone it seems.

[GOLDZILLA]

My guess is that they are selling it. If they were really hungry, they would probably take the ugly stuff too.

[GOLDZILLA]

I have been growing food for about 12 years now, and I am still learning stuff every year. I planted 50 pounds of potatoes this year (first time trying to grow them). They are smaller than storebought, but taste so much better. I am digging them as I am eating them. I am expert at getting large tomatoes, green beans, lettuce and brussels sprouts , but corn never quite seems to grow for me. this was my best year ever for corn and most of the cobs only had two or three rows of kernels. Also have a large mature asparagus bed, and starting another (for purple). Carrots do not do well for me either.

[keepitlow]

Got nice yellow apple tree (with spots) 2 blocks from a food pantry. The poor never go for the apples. Maybe if the pantry shuts they would?

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv219/keepitlow456/DSC02545pot.jpg

Home grown KB pot vs Green Giant Store pot...radiated or embalmed with chems. I wont eat that crap.

(Both pots about 7 mo old.)