Secret Seed Storehouse

[Article is from the Washington Post]

The secret storehouse of seeds that might save humans from the apocalypse

If you’re already familiar with the Global Seed Vault and understand the crucial role it might play in the future of humanity, you can think of Cary Fowler’s new book as a beautiful coffee-table ornament — with the bonus of lots of informative, readable text.

If you’ve never heard of the vault, “Seeds on Ice: Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault”.can be your introduction to an extraordinary, farsighted venture.

The Global Seed Vault is a vast storehouse carved out of rock and ice on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, far north of the Arctic Circle. In it are half a billion seeds from around the world.

More important, it contains the traits found within the seeds: the genes that make one crop resistant to pests or enable another survive drought. The vault is meant to safeguard humanity against losing vital food stocks to extinction, natural disaster, nuclear war or climate change.

Fowler — a native of rural Tennessee who was trained as a sociologist and has worked for decades on behalf of global biodiversity — led the initial effort to create the seed vault and clearly sees this book as a summary of his life’s work. 

Besides the science involved in selecting and preserving seeds, he gives a fascinating account of the creation of the vault itself — selecting Svalbard because it was both geologically and politically stable, and offered year-round underground permafrost that could cheaply keep the seeds frozen; and the decision to design the wedge-shaped part of the vault that protrudes above the ice sheet so that it looked sculptural, a sort of work of art.

He notes the irony of preserving the future of edible plants in a region where virtually nothing grows. The book is illustrated with hundreds of photographs of the vault and the stunning Arctic environment in which it’s located.

And that is the only way you’re likely to see the vault, except through binoculars from the airport tower at the nearby town of Longyearbyen. Security is vital to the project, and visitors (except for seed donor organizations and the occasional diplomat or benefactor) are not allowed in.

Urban Man's Comment: Everyone reading this article should have their collection of seeds. I have a robust supply of both non-hybrid and hybrid seeds. I continually buy hybrid seeds at garden and hardware stores, spending just a few bucks at a time and now I have several ammunition cans full of them.

They will be initially be what I plant at my bug in location and also used for trading material. I would continue to use hybrid seeds at other temporary locations. I am saving the non-hybrid seeds for a final location or suitable site where I can harvest the seeds from these plants - don't want to waste them don't you know.

Seeds and Growing Food Needs to Be Important to the Urban Survivor

Possibly the hardest things for Survival Preppers, especially Urban Survival preppers to get their heads around is stockpiling seeds in order to grow their own food.

I know many Survivalists who have stocked food, suitable firearms, plenty of ammunition, Bug Out Bags packed, and all the latest tactical and survival gear. More often than not the biggest deficiency in Survival plans is planning to grow your own food and to stockpile seeds to enable this.

Growing your own food is also a very good and viable way to reduce your dependency on commercial foods and this would become important during a slow gradual economic collapse, as we are in right now.

The Urban Survivor has two choices when it comes to stockpiling seeds; hybrid and non-hybrid seeds.

Non-Hybrid Seeds: Are natural, non-engineered seeds that when they grow also produce seeds that can be collected and used to grow more food. They are also referred to as Open Pollinated seeds, which generally are more robust and hardier than hybrids. It is thought that non-hybrids produce vegetables or fruits with better flavor.

Hybrid Seeds: Hybrid seeds are intentionally bred to create a better yield, better resistant to disease and drought and product a more standard fruit or vegetable with uniform color.

The Survival Planner should stock non-hybrid seeds – and a lot of them. One of the reasons to stock hybrid seeds, as well, is to be able to grow food in temporary locations that you may depart before the harvest is completed and seeds for the future can be recovered. Hybrid seed’s are cheaper and available at most any hardware or home improvement store, and, can be excellent barter material.

There will be some people that advise Survival Planners to only buy non-hybrid seeds. I think the priority should be: 1 – have seeds, hybrid or non-hybrid, 2 – have seeds both hybrid and non-hybrid, 3 – have hybrid seeds for year to year grows. Get my point?

But planning on a continuous food supply doesn’t stop with stockpiling seeds. The complete Urban Survivor should have a working knowledge about composting (creating your own fertilizer); container gardening, indoor gardening, hydroponics gardening, harvesting and preserving vegetables and fruits through canning and drying.

You should start your own garden immediately, indoors if necessary and when the frost threat and cold weather ends, plant outdoors. The experience will be invaluable, the achievement in growing your own food is substantial and the feeling that you can cut the threat of inflation and food shortages is a great feeling.

Having seeds and the ability to grow your own food IS survival!

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.