Unable to prepare...

[CarmelHP]

Just don't grow strawberries, rabbits apparently love strawberries, unless you put rabbit snares next to the strawberries. Ummmmmmm, rabbit

 

[Jack Ryan]

The OP stated he doesn't have the money or space to buy and store food, in fact I believe the title of this thread is "Unable to prepare".

I was pointing out that he can in fact prepare because even a homeless crippled guy could scrape enough money together to buy a few packages of seeds and then wander around until he finds a nice secluded spot and plant a couple hundred seeds around the area.

Now if you personally think that this idea is a waste of time well then simply don't do it, but the OP was asking for suggestions about things he could do.

And guerilla gardening is one of the things he could do.

Now Jack as far as your unwarranted personal swipe at belittling my experience in this matter, you of course had absolutely no idea that I am actually very good friends with Mother Nature.

In fact I have been farming, ranching and gardening my entire life, gardening year round both indoor garden and outdoor gardens as well as taking foraging trips with my daughter to harvest both wild berries every spring and wild nuts every autumn.

So while I am not going to ask for a retraction or apology I would appreciate it if in the future you refrained from making unfounded accusations & attacks on/about people whom you obviously know nothing about.

So ya say...

 

[Richard]

So ya say...

Yes Jack so I say.

Anyway I'll use squashing your little attitude problem as an excuse to further the discussion on how folks can further advance their level of preparedness.

So here are some photos of my indoor garden setup, as you can see I used an under-utilized spare bathroom and transformed it into a year-round indoor tomato garden.

These are large Italian heirloom beefsteak tomato vines that are easily cloned & produce like crazy, the lights are a 400 watt high-pressure sodium lamp (for flowering and fruiting) & 4 x 48" 40 watt fluorescent shoplights w/both blue (for vegetative phase) & red spectrum (for flowering & fruiting phaze) lamps.

I have been using this setup for about 7 or 8 years now & it works great.

 

[4sarge]

Richard - Great Indoor Garden

I've seen similar elaborate set ups in basements, barns, and houses but they were not growing veggies

 

[Richard]

Richard - Great Indoor Garden

I've seen similar elaborate set ups in basements, barns, and houses but they were not growing veggies

Thanks Sarge, yes they are similar setups however my priorities are a bit different than say a rastafarian's.

 

[clt46910]

Clt,

You live rigth behind a wooded area with a couple hundred apples! niiiiiiiccccceeeeeeeeeeeeee! mind if me & my daughter stop by this fall with a basket or two?

Anyway yea guerilla gardening works, of course you'll lose some of the unattended garden's harvest to bugs and citters but that's just to be expected.

So sow hundreds of seeds for your guerilla garden, not just a a couple of packets of 25.

Not a problem, nobody picks them anymore, not been taken care of for years. They just grow wild...LOL I only get a few each year.

 

[Richard]

Not a problem, nobody picks them anymore, not been taken care of for years. They just grow wild...LOL I only get a few each year.

Clt,

Awesome, I'll have to make myself remember to take you up on that this fall then! hey until then do you mind if I add you as a friend?

 

[Jack Ryan]

Yes Jack so I say.

Anyway I'll use squashing your little attitude problem as an excuse to further the discussion on how folks can further advance their level of preparedness.

So here are some photos of my indoor garden setup, as you can see I used an under-utilized spare bathroom and transformed it into a year-round indoor tomato garden.

These are large Italian heirloom beefsteak tomato vines that are easily cloned & produce like crazy, the lights are a 400 watt high-pressure sodium lamp (for flowering and fruiting) & 4 x 48" 40 watt fluorescent shoplights w/both blue (for vegetative phase) & red spectrum (for flowering & fruiting phaze) lamps.

I have been using this setup for about 7 or 8 years now & it works great.

That looks just like the wilds of Hoosier National Forrest. Why didn't I think of that.

Thanks, it's going to be such useful advice.

 

[Ashkelon]

You have the rest of your life to pay debt off. Get what you NEED now, as there may not be a chance in the future. If SHTF the last thing you'll need to worry about is paying off a stundent loan. Heck, my first student loan I got I cashed the check at thre local gun store and got a HK91, yep, check was for $943.00 or something like that and I got a HK91, several mags and a few hundred rounds of ammo. ( I am showing my age here.)
As I said above, get what you NEED, not what you want. I fear SHTF may be just right around the corner.

Ha. I am glad to know I am not the only one who bought a gun with my first student loan check. Winchester pump shotgun to get ready for deer season cause I felt the student loan money and my part-time job was going to make food a little scarce. After an unsuccessful deer season, I spent the rest on whiskey and beer. Proud to say I have paid back EVERY nickel with interest and am now a free man from Sally Mae.
Seriously, cut your corners and get your gear together. You also have the best library in the State.

 

[Richard]

That looks just like the wilds of Hoosier National Forrest. Why didn't I think of that.

Thanks, it's going to be such useful advice.

Jack,

You need to reach around and pull out what ever it was that crawled up your ass, because your attitude is in need of an adjustment.

Just an FYI - I had just fired up the high pressure sodium lamp and started flowering the tomato plants when I took those photos so of course the plants were still sort of small (they were young duh!), here they after about three weeks under the HPS lamp.

 

[El Cazador]

Richard;

Nice "garden"! I need to do that, especially for the tomatoes. The wife would love grown tomatoes through the winter.

Have you thought about replacing the high pressure sodium/fluorescent combo with a couple of smaller (175w or so) metal halide lamps/fixtures? The MH lamps produce a radiant wave-length (and color rendition) closest to natural sunlight. I haven't done the calcs, but off the top of my head, you could replace your set-up with the MH lamps and save a bit on your electric bill and still cover your spectrum hues. MH ballasts run just a bit cooler than HPS ballasts, but that's just trivia, since the extra heat in the winter isn't a bad thing.

 

[Richard]

El Cazador,

Nope I haven't really thought about changing or replacing anything, but that's mostly because I've gotten really good results with my current setup.

However thanks for the heads up! I will research those metal halide lamps a little and see if by switching over to them it can lower my electric bill a little.

 

[El Cazador]

However thanks for the heads up! I will research those metal halide lamps a little and see if by switching over to them it can lower my electric bill a little.

Be aware, you'll have to replace fixture and all. HPS ballasts won't drive MH lamps. You've already got a bit invested in the HPS fixture (400w, WOW. I'll bet that's bright in that bath. Do you wear cutting torch goggles? ) I think my latest flyer from a vendor listed 175w pulse start MH fixtures at about $65/per.

Your wattage use is 400 + (4 x 40) x 125% = 700w. Running the fixtures 10hr a day= 7000 watthours, i.e., 7 kilowatt hours, or 7 Kwh. Average utility charge per Kwh in Indiana is about $.12/per Kwh base rate, so you're spending about $.84 a day, x 30 days, or $25.20 a month growing tomatoes! Sounds like me costing out my burning wood for the winter

You can use my calcs for the MH fixtures to see how long they take to pay back their initial cost, and plug in your actual numbers for costs.

By the way, I was only half kidding about the goggles. All high intensity discharge lights (HPS, LPS, MH) put off a lot of different wavelengths of radiation, and a fair number of them are not the best for soft human tissue. It is radiation, after all. If you're in a small enclosed light colored room with the lights on for a while, wear long sleeves and dark glasses

 

[tyler34]

use L.E.D grow bulbs.

LED Grow Plant Lights: Express Light Bulbs

 

[El Cazador]

use L.E.D grow bulbs.

LED Grow Plant Lights: Express Light Bulbs

That's interesting. If they work well, they are very cost efficient. I haven't done much with high output LED lighting, only exit fixture replacements.

I did like one of their "benefits" they list for using their lights:

"DISCREET - No thermal footprint - undetectable"

Gee, "undetectable"? What kind of tomatoes are they growing they need protection from FLIR cameras?

 

[mmaddox]

What is it that makes people in Indianapolis think they are going to sit up there in the city all their lives, keep the good jobs all to their self, lobby all the government lackeys day and night in Indianapolis for their benefit and then as soon as SHTF they think they will just take a little drive out to some one else's "corn field" and set up a squatters camp. Throw a little picnic.

I've said it before and I'll remind ya again here because I don't fire warning shots, the power goes out or I have any reason to think there's a remote chance S is H'ing T F and I see any one on my property after dark they are likely to be in a hole by daylight. If I already know them enough to recognise them right away they better still keep their hands where I can see them and be hailing the house when I see them, not sniffing around the barn or back of the house.

I would have to agree, one needs to use caution when a stranger in rural areas. Given the number of recent break-ins locally, it's become hazardous to drive/walk in to rural houses. We are seeing a return to the long gun hung over the door.

 

[bwframe]

What is it that makes people in Indianapolis think they are going to sit up there in the city all their lives, keep the good jobs all to their self, lobby all the government lackeys day and night in Indianapolis for their benefit and then as soon as SHTF they think they will just take a little drive out to some one else's "corn field" and set up a squatters camp. Throw a little picnic.

I've said it before and I'll remind ya again here because I don't fire warning shots, the power goes out or I have any reason to think there's a remote chance S is H'ing T F and I see any one on my property after dark they are likely to be in a hole by daylight. If I already know them enough to recognise them right away they better still keep their hands where I can see them and be hailing the house when I see them, not sniffing around the barn or back of the house.

I would have to agree, one needs to use caution when a stranger in rural areas. Given the number of recent break-ins locally, it's become hazardous to drive/walk in to rural houses. We are seeing a return to the long gun hung over the door.

Jack Ryan, is that you? Maybe multiple personalities?

Oops sorry, I get it now. That was a quote, it just didn't look like it.

 

[Richard]

Tyler,

Hey thanks! those LED lights look interesting, 45 watts instead of 400 watts? yea that'd be some really serious savings on the electricity bill, wonder how well those LEDs actually spectrum though.

I'll have to research those too while I puttering about learning about MH lamps.

El Cazador,

LOL sshhhhhh dem tomatos is secret!

Bwframe,

Yea I was wondering about that too.

 

[jamisan01]

In college and in debt by the thousands, it makes it difficult to spend a good chunk of money on supplies needed to be prepared.

Is it worth taking out a school loan currently to get more supplies? I'm tired of worrying and it's been putting a pretty heavy strain on me lately.

Any ideas would be great. I've had a hard time selling anything as people are not buying, and the items I need are the expensive ones.

I don't have anything currently, and want to put together a case that I can put in the back of my SUV to be completely prepared.

I want to do it right, and that means spending a bit of money.

Pay close attention to all the info. you've been given. I also get stressed sometimes due to the financial needs of being "fully" prepared(or what I conceive in my mind as such. To which my wants will never be satisfied, just ask my wife! LOL! ) But start a list, with the least expensive and usually over-looked items first. Ya know, first-aid kit, a case of water, a couple boxes of shells for "what-ever" fire-arm you already own etc. etc. Work your way down the list as funds allow. I don't think there is one of us out there that would say we are 100% ready. We're all in the same boat, just take it one day at a time.