Urban Survival Planning - Stockpiling Crop Seeds for Survival

A hybrid seed is basically a genetically altered seed designed to resist diseases and create more crop yield. The seeds harvested from plants and crops grown with hybrid seeds are useless and cannot be planted the following season. Therefore the Survivalist Farmer is forced to use new set of seeds for each subsequent crop.

A non hybrid seed is a seed that has not been genetically altered. There is some debate on if crops grown with non-hybrid seeds produce more of a nutrient rich or flavorful crop, but what is undeniably is that seeds collected from mature non-hybrid crops can be re-planted for a subsequent harvest.

Every Urban Survivor planning a future after the collapse would do well to stockpile a large supply of non-hybrid seeds for future farming and harvest. Maintaining a stock of these non-hybrid vegetable seeds at your Urban Survivor location, no matter how short you intend this to be, as well as in your Survival Bug Out Bag and in caches at or near your Survival Safe location should be considered.

While you can purchase non-hybrid seeds at retail locations, storage of these seeds for long term survival use is problematic. Purchasing sets of seeds in robust, vacuum packed containers is the best way to ensure you’ll have viable seeds when the time comes to plant, nourish and harvest.

We like the sets of Heirloom seeds offered by EarthWaveLiving, specifically their Garden Collection of Vegetables and Herbs including:

Asparagus, Bush Bean, Blue Pole Bean, Black Eyed Pea, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Collards, Popcorn, Eggplant, Leek, Romaine Lettuce, Buttercrunch Lettuce, Jumbo Cantaloupe, Curled Mustard, Spineless Okra, Sweet White Onion, Bunching Onion, Parsnip, Peas, Jalapenos, Red Sweet Pepper, Yellow Sweet Pepper, Pumpkin, Radish, Spinach, Summer Squash, Zucchini Squash, Winter Squash, Tomato, Giant Sunflower, Kohlrabi, Lima Beans, Cucumbers, Red cherry Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Turnip, Sweet Watermelon, Jubilee Watermelon, Chard, Snow Pea, Casaba Melon, Curled Kale, Anise, Leaf Basil, Caraway, Chamomile, Cilantro, Dill, Fenugreek, Garlic Chives, Sweet Marjoram, Peppermint, Oregano, Leaf Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Summer Savory, Spearmint, Tarragon, Thyme, Fennel, Cress, Chervil, Arugula, Lemon Mint, Hard White Winter Wheat, Hard Red Winter Wheat, Golden Dent Corn, Brussel Sprouts, Green Arrow Pea, Golden Bantam Corn, and Catnip.

We plan on several additional posts in the near term on Survival Farming both in Urban, Suburban and Rural environments.

Survival Chronicles of Jim – Chapter 10

Just when I think I’m well on my way to be being set, the Survival Cadre thought another set of Survival Circumstances to think about. The first one being Radios for Survival Group Communications after the collapse. I know they talked about it before, but it really didn’t hit me until after their last post of Survival Radios and Communications.

I can see now that even in an Urban Survival situation radio communications between members of the Survival Group, only if there are two, will be huge. They talked me through scenarios such as one person on security watch and needing to alert the others in the group without leaving his/her security post.

Another situation they talked about was when I executed my Survival Bug Out plan from my urban location to my safe location and was established at the family cabin, that I would need to be able to leave the cabin to conduct food procurement, security patrols, wood gathering, etc., and that radios were instrumental in letting others know at the cabin that I was returning so I wouldn’t get accidentally shot! Now I’m certainly for not getting accidentally shot.

They also mentioned “brevity codes”. Since the FRS/GMRS radios that I will be buying are not encrypted, anybody with another radio on the same frequency or which a scanner could pickup our radio conversations. The Survival Cadre said the shorter the communications the better, AND, that what we say over the radio had to structured so that anybody listening could not exploit it to our disadvantage.

They said not to “militarize” the communications with terms like “patrol one”, “conducting a recon”, arrived at the “LP/OP”, etc., but to use fake names and common terms like “This is Mike, Refrigerator”, which could mean “patrol one, entering immediate vicinity of the cabin”.

This is going to take some thought. I already know that I’ll need a minimum of four radios. I already have two people (my son and Neomi) that I’m planning on taking to safe location. Maybe my son’s on again – off again girlfriend as well.

I’m almost finished reading “One Second After”. Wow, what a depressing book. Well, it’s written about a depressing subject, EMP taking out electronics and putting us back into the semi-stone ages. What struck me in particular was the medical condition of one of the book’s subjects. I also have a need for day to day medications, but I’ll write about that later, once I absorb what the Survival Cadre have written about stockpiling medications as part of a general Urban Survival Preparation Plan and figure out what I am going to do about it.

Urban Survival Planning – Disease/Healthcare Medications after the Collapse

This post could alternatively be titled: Stocking Medications for the Collapse. If you are currently on any life saving or life altering prescriptions, have you thought about what you are doing to do in the event of a collapse of society as we know it and re-fills are no longer available? Part of your Urban Survival Plan has got to be preparing for this if and when catastrophe strikes.

Pharmacies will be some of the first places looted in the event of a large collapse. Some of that will of course be due to thugs looking to get a supply of over the counter stuff they can get high with and some people will be making the pilgrimage to the Walgreens, Albertsons, Wal-Marts, etc., in order to stock up on prescriptions they need to make life possible or even just bearable.

In the novel, One Second After by William Forstchen, after figuring out that the power ain’t coming back on the novel’s main character had to compete with many angry people to get an adequate stock of insulin for his young daughter.

Depending upon the time of year, storage is problematic as well, especially for medications requiring stable storage of the drug.

Disease is going to be a problem. Protocols from quarantining new people you encounter or are trying to absorb into the group; to how you handle new people or dead bodies; protocols for sanitary measures; field expedient means to initially treat injuries especially open wounds are all going to be very important. Much more important when you consider the probability of having a dwindling supply of medical material without any re-supply potential.

Animal feed stores or Veterinarian offices and supply shops may be a source of some medications, such as pain killers, muscle relaxers and anti-biotics, however if will require some training to be able to recognize what you have and convert animal units of delivery to human uses. Secondarily, the same scum bags looted Walgreens will also be at the local Vet Clinic.

We hope that you all reading this do not require a daily intake of life saving drugs like insulin for Diabetes Type I, as it will tough tot stock an adequate amount (we consider 6 months about minimum). However Diabetes II or adult on-set diabetes cam be controlled largely through nutrition.

The good thing, in a Collapse, is that there will be less junk to eat to compromise your health. The bad thing is that there will be less to eat. Most Americans can stand to lose a few pounds, but most people want a diet to be their idea.

A total change of diets may even be healthy for people suffering from high cholesterol, blood pressure and degenerative diseases that these.

Herb gardens with medicinal herbs may help alleviate a shortage of medications. The Urban Survival Seed Procurement and Stockade Plan should consider these herbs as well as regular vegetables.

The savvy Urban Survivor should also consider stocking vitamin, mineral and anti-oxidant supplements. One of the best ways to minimize health issues is to build your body’s immune systems with nutritional supplements. However not all nutritional supplements are the same. Virtually everything you buy off-the- shelf is a “food grade” product and not regulated for quality, potency – you are most likely throwing money away. Our plan is stocking six months worth of a pharmaceutical grade daily nutritional supplement. Each month that goes by we buy one month’s supply and place the new order at the back of the shelf. Same as what you should be doing with canned foods and other food stuffs in order to use the oldest item first. For more information on the supplements we recommend you can visit the following website: http://www.bobshehan.com

Again, we hope that the reader does not have a requirement to take life saving drugs each and every day. If so, the smart Urban Survivor planning for life after a collapse needs to solve the problem on how they are going to access and store these drugs.

Urban Survival Skills – Land Navigation Tips 1

Our previous map reading posts were meant as an orientation to the individual new to Urban Survival Preparation. These map reading posts were placed in the context that the most likely scenario for the Urban (and Suburban) Survivor would be to re-locate from his/her urban or suburban home, during a total collapse, and make their way to a planned safe location which would usually be a rural or semi-rural location.

Part of the planning to re-locate or Urban Survival bug out was the plan your Bug Out route using PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency) routes. One or more of these routes would be on foot hence requiring map reading and land navigation skills.

Our test case was Jim, who recently conducted a route rehearsal from his urban home to his rural Survival safe location. Jim also practiced plotting a movement of foot using a hand held compass to follow an azimuth from his known location to a planned location.

There are immediately two things that Jim (and others) should know and utilize when moving across country is how to keep track of distance traveled and how to maintain a compass azimuth bearing at night.

When measuring distance, the most common manual technique is the pace count. The Urban Survivor would measure a distance on the ground or could even use a football field and determine how many normal paces it takes to walk 100 meters or 100 yards depending on his/her preferred unit of measurement. Let’s say it took 132 paces to walk 100 yards. This could be converted to 66 left or 66 right steps. So as the Land Navigating Urban Survivor walks 66 left or right paces through the woods, he/she knows they have traveled 100 yards.

The Urban Survivor could stop, and make a tally mark on a piece of paper or can use any device, even a small mechanical counter device to keep track of how many 100 yards or 100 meter increments he/she has traveled. Then using the scale on the map, determine how far they have came from their starting point along that compass heading.

Using the pace count technique of measuring distance combined with keeping track of terrain features encounter while moving and matching them up on the map will allow the Urban Survivor to navigate effectively to his/her safe location.

When moving at night with minimal lunar illumination, the Land Navigating Urban Survivor will most likely either have to keep checking his compass, providing it has a luminous degree dial and NORTH seeking arrow in order not veer off the required compass azimuth,..this is called Dead Reckoning.

The Survivor can lined up his required compass azimuth with a identifiable star, then the Survivor can put the compass away and head towards that star knowing it is aligned with his/her required compass azimuth.

This is simply using an identifiable start as a surrogate terrain feature to bear towards. However, and this is an important however, the earth rotates so the stars will appear to rotate, so the Survivor using starts as a surrogate terrain feature to bear on a compass azimuth, needs to stop and re-shoot his compass azimuth in effect choosing another star every 15 minutes – no longer!

Bottom line – walk around at night following a compass azimuth providing you have a luminous dial on your compass with NORTH seeking arrow. Practice this, as well as bearing on a star in a practice situation rather than doing it for the first time for real.

Check out your pace count. Remember the number. It’ll come in handy for more than just navigating.