Garden Rebels: 10 Ways to Sow Revolution in Your Back Yard (and Why You MUST Declare Your Independence)

(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you'll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)

Author of The Blackout Book and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted

Perhaps the next Revolutionary War will take place in a vegetable garden.

Instead of bullets, there will be seeds.  Instead of chemical warfare, there will be rainwater, carefully collected from the gutters of the house. Instead of soldiers in body armor and helmets, there will be back yard rebels, with bare feet, cut-off jean shorts, and wide-brimmed hats.  Instead of death, there will be life, sustained by a harvest of home-grown produce.  Children will be witness to these battles, but instead of being traumatized, they will be happy, grimy, and healthy, as they learn about the miracles that take place in a little plot of land or pot of dirt.

Every day, the big industries that run our nation take steps towards food totalitarianism.  They do so flying a standard of “sustainability” but what they are actually trying to sustain is NOT our natural resources, but their control.

One of the most inspiring, beautifully written articles that I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a long time is by Julian Rose, a farmer, actor, activist, and writer. He wrote an article called Civil Disobedience or Death by Design and it is a “must-read” for anyone who believes in the importance of natural food sources:

“From now on, unless we cut free of obeisance to the centralised, totalitarian regimes whose takeover of our planet is almost complete, we will have only ourselves to blame. For we are complicit in allowing ourselves to become slaves of the Corporate State and its cyborg enforcement army. That is, if we continue to remain hypnotized by their antics instead of taking our destinies into our own hands and blocking or refusing to comply with their death warrants. This ‘refusal’ is possible. But it will only have the desired effect when, and if, it is contemporaneous with the birthing of the Divine warrior who sleeps in us all. The warrior who sleeps-on, like the besotted Rip Van Winkle in the Catskill mountains.” (source)

And it isn’t just industrialism that’s causing our issues. A supply chain disruption has been apparent in the US since people first cleared the shelves in 2020 and while some things came back in stock, supplies are limited to this day.

Sustained into starvation

Does it sound dramatic to state that if things continue on their current path of “sustainability” that we are all going to die?  If you think I’m overstating this, read on.  It isn’t a stretch of the imagination to think that we are going to soon be “sustained” right into starvation via Agenda 21.

  • Collecting rainwater is highly regulated in some states.  The United Nations, waving their overworked banner of “sustainability” is scheming to take over control of every drop of water on the globe.  In some countries, people who own wells are now being taxed and billed on the water coming from those sources.  Nestle has admitted that they believe all water should be privatized so that everyone has to pay for the life-giving liquid.
  •  Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “food code”) is a global set of standards created by the CA Commission, a body established by a branch or the United Nations back in 1963. As with all globally stated agendas, however, CA’s darker purpose is shielded by the feel-good words.  As the US begins to fall in line with the “standards” laid out by CA, healthful, nutritious food will be something that can only be purchased via some kind of black market of organically produced food.
  • Regulations abound in the 1200 page Food Safety Modernization Act that has put many small farmers out of business, while leaving us reliant on irradiated, chemically treated, genetically-modified “food”.

In the face of this attack on the agrarian way of life, the single, most meaningful act of resistance that any individual can perform is to use the old methods and grow his or her own food. Big banks are betting AGAINST the consumer and investing large sums of money in Big Agri before predicted shortages raise prices even more dramatically.

It’s time to become a producer instead of a consumer.

I often write about producing instead of merely consuming and in no subject is that more important than food. Growing your own food wields many weapons.

  • You are preserving your intelligence by refusing to ingest food doused in chemicals.  The pesticides that are liberally sprayed on food crops have been proven to lop off IQ points.
  • You are nourishing your body by feeding yourself real food.  Real food, unpasteurized, un-irradiated, with all of the nutrients intact, will provide you with a strong immune system and lower your risk of many chronic diseases.  As well, you won’t be eating the toxic additives that affect your body detrimentally.
  • You are not participating in funding Big Food, Big Agri, and Big Pharma when you grow your own food. Every bite of food that is NOT purchased via the grocery store is representative of money that does NOT go into the pockets of these companies who are interested only in their bottom lines. Those industries would be delighted if everyone was completely reliant on them.
  • You are not susceptible to control mechanisms and threats.  If you are able to provide for yourself, you need to give no quarter to those who would hold the specter of hunger over your head.  You don’t have to rely on anyone else to feed your family.
  • You are creating an insurance policy against inflation and shortages. Anyone who has been inside a grocery store in the past month knows that prices have skyrocketed and many things that used to be abundant are now scarce. By growing what you can, you are reducing your grocery bills and providing your family with food even if it can’t be purchased at the store.

(Want to learn how to preserve what you grow? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to home canning.)

The ultimate act of rebellion is to feed yourself.

Consider every bite of food that you grow for your family to be an act of rebellion.

  1. If you live in the suburbs, plant every square inch of your yard.  Grow things vertically.  Use square foot gardening methods.  Make lovely beds of vegetables in the front yard.  Extend your growing seasons by using greenhouses and cold frames.  This way you can grow more than one crop per year in a limited amount of space.   Use raised bed gardening techniques like lasagna gardening to create rich soil.  If you have problems with your local government or HOA, go to the alternative media and plead your case in front of millions of readers.  We’ve got your back! Here are some tips for stealth gardening.
  2. If you live in the city or in an apartment, look into ways to adapt to your situation.  Grow a container garden on a sunny balcony, and don’t forget hanging baskets.  Grow herbs and lettuce in a bright window.  Set up a hydroponics system in a spare room (but look out for the SWAT team – they like to come after indoor tomato growers!)  Go even further and look into aquaponics. Create a little greenhouse with a grow light for year-round veggies.  Sprout seeds and legumes for a healthy addition to salads. Don’t forget community gardens either – they’re a great way to grow food and meet others with your interests. Here are some other tips for gardening without a yard.
  3. If you live in the country, go crazy.  Don’t just plant a garden – plant fields!  Grow vegetables and grains. Grow herbs, both culinary and medicinal.  Learn to forage if you have forests nearby.  Learn to use old-fashioned methods of composting, cover crops and natural amendments to create a thriving system.
  4. Raise micro-livestock.  The micro-livestock option may not work for everyone, but if you can, provide for some of your protein needs this way.  Raise chickens, small goats, and rabbits, for meat, eggs, and dairy.  If you are not a vegetarian, this is one of the most humane and ethical ways to provide these things for your family.  Be sure to care well for your animals and allow them freedom and natural food sources – this is far better than the horrible, nightmare-inducing lives that they live on factory farms.
  5. Use only heirloom seeds. We get all our seeds here. With heirloom seeds, you can save your seeds.  Learn the art of saving seeds from one season to the next.  Different seeds have different harvesting and storage requirements.
  6. Go organic.  Learn to use natural soil enhancers and non-toxic methods of getting rid of pests.  Plan it so that your garden is inviting to natural pollinators like bees and butterflies.  If you wouldn’t apply poison to your food while cooking it, don’t apply it to your food while growing it.
  7. Be prepared for some backlash.  The day may come when you face some issues from your municipal government.  Be prepared for this by understanding your local laws and doing your best to work within that framework. If you cannot work within the framework, know what your rights are and refuse to be bullied.  Call upon those in the alternative media who will sound the alarm.  Every single garden that comes under siege is worth defending. A Florida family finally won the right to garden in their front yard after years of harassment.
  8. Learn about permaculture.  Instead of buying pretty flowering plants for your yard, landscape with fruit trees (espaliering is a technique that works well in small spaces), berry bushes, and nut trees.  Permaculture can provide long-term food sources for your family.
  9. For the things you can’t grow yourself, buy local.  Especially if space is limited, you may not be able to grow every bite you eat by yourself.  For everything you can, buy local!  Buy shares in a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Visit your farmer’s market.  Shop at roadside stands.  Join a farming co-op.  Support agriculture in your region to help keep local farms in business.  (One note about farmer’s markets:  Some farmers markets allow people to sell produce that originates at the same wholesalers from which the grocery stores buy their produce.  I always try to develop a relationship with the farmers from whom I buy, and I like to know that what I’m buying actually came from their fields and not a warehouse.)
  10. Learn to preserve your food.  Again, go back to the old ways and learn to save your harvest for the winter.  Water bath canningpressure canning, dehydrating, and root cellaring are all low-tech methods of feeding your family year-round. Not only can you preserve your own harvest, but you can buy bushels of produce at the farmer’s market for a reduced price and preserve that too. Learn how to cook and preserve your fresh in-season produce here.  Learn all about food preservation in this 4-books-in-one guide. (My canning book is included.)

Be sure to check out our Agriculture Comprehensive course to learn all the things you need to know to maximize your food production. This course is designed to help you make the most of your property no matter where you live.

There is a food revolution brewing.

People who are educating themselves about Big Food, Big Agri, and the food safety sell-outs at the FDA are disgusted by what is going on. They are refusing to tolerate these attacks on our health and our lifestyles.

Firing a volley in this war doesn’t have to be bloody.  Resistance can begin as easily a planting one seed in a pot. It’s time to go to battle and declare your independence with a spade in one hand and some seeds in the other.

You may feel like your hands are tied in this country that is difficult to recognize as the one in which we grew up. But this small step can be a giant leap toward recapturing your self-reliance. What are you growing? How could you grow more? Share your thoughts in the comments.

This essay was originally published in 2013 and has been updated with current information.

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About Daisy

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, globe-trotting blogger. She publishes content about current events, preparedness, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. On her new website, The Frugalite, she shares thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books and runs a small digital publishing company. You can find her on FacebookPinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived, and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. She is widely republished across alternative media and  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses. You can find her on FacebookPinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

Leave a Reply

  • Dear Daisy,
    I cant tell you how soothing it was to find you.especially after this seed registration and control issue!
    Your blog is just what I have been looking for. the work you do is important.The way your write is perfect. to the point, yet full of imagery.
    I shared your post with my students and it felt great.
    Knowledge is power, and it is also hope.

    Thank you again.
    Catherine Johnson
    Developer of A Yogis Garden.com

  • Thank you! I am VERY awake and interested in doing anything I can to keep my babies & family safe. I am going to do my best at a garden this summer and have my grandmother teach me to can. I just wish there was a way to wake others up – they seem content in their ignorance!

  • Micro livestock—interesting. Another option is not to go so small. Check into miniature cattle. A small cow or even two could fit nicely on a small lot.
    Still get beef or milk, depending on breed.

  • Thanks Daisy…Timely article and thoughts…’Preciate the “print”
    button…Would you have time for something on bug sprays/repellents
    we can make at home ?

    • Dave, I’ve come across a few options for natural bug sprays/repellents. One of them is diatomaceous earth (make sure it’s OMRI certified) which takes care of the crawling bugs with the hard exoskeleton. You have to make sure it doesn’t get wet right away. It works within 24 hrs for most bugs. After the 24 hrs, you can water again. The one to apply to the leaves of the plants can be made with water, dish soap and hot pepper, blended and strained through cheese cloth and put into a spray bottle. This seems to work well on the flying pests like fruit flies. Make sure to use the hotter peppers. Jalapeno isn’t hot enough. Hope this helps.

  • Rather than get “lost” in the well deserved praise received at SHTF PLAN, I came to the “source”. The concept, and contribution are TOP-NOTCH. Those that truly understand your premise will benefit greatly from your contribution. But only if THEY actually apply the well outlined “you-can-do-it” message of your article.

    Same as everything else…you can read till the “last sunset”, but TAKING ACTION TODAY is the beautiful take away message and advice.

    You can, and are, leading “sheep” to water. It is up to ALL of them to drink(Work it). I think I will plant “Daisies” today in recognition of your ever growing contribution to the “awake” component of humanity you will reach. :)!

    • Thank you very sincerely, my friend. 🙂

      Daisies are the happiest flower I know!

      Daisy

  • Great post! I saw it on Survival Sherpa’s website: http://survivalsherpa.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/10-ways-to-sow-revolution-in-your-back-yard/
    But I wanted to pop on over here to the source and say thanks! I’ve been documenting my gardening endeavors this year since I have an awesome new phone that makes it easy to film and shoot and upload. Anyway, I try to recycle as much as I can to use in my garden in practical ways: milk jugs, food bags (like shredded cheese comes in), mesh onion bags, etc. Here is a video that showcases some of my recycling endeavors:
    http://youtu.be/HvvEeETOPvs

  • Love it. Thanks for mentioning rainwater.
    Trying to push this stuff, even in San Diego where we have 100% imported water is an uphill battle. Education is the key to freedom.
    Keep it up.

  • QUOTE

    Scott London: A reviewer once described your teachings as “seditious.”

    Bill Mollison: Yes, it was very perceptive. I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.

    London: When did you begin teaching permaculture?

    Mollison: In the early 1970s, it dawned on me that no one had ever applied design to agriculture. When I realized it, the hairs went up on the back of my neck. It was so strange. We’d had agriculture for 7,000 years, and we’d been losing for 7,000 years — everything was turning into desert. So I wondered, can we build systems that obey ecological principles? We know what they are, we just never apply them. Ecologists never apply good ecology to their gardens. Architects never understand the transmission of heat in buildings. And physicists live in houses with demented energy systems. It’s curious that we never apply what we know to how we actually live.

    END QUOTE

    http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html

    Awesome article…

  • Don’t forget lacto-fermentation for preserving veggies. They not only taste amazing, they have long shelf lives and even give you healthy doses of probiotics.

  • “The United Nations, waving their overworked banner of “sustainability” is scheming to take over control of every drop of water on the globe.”

    Aaaaaand… you lost me; I like to keep my cartoon villainy confined to Saturday mornings.

    • They have directly said that and have made countries sign contracts giving the UN control of the water of the country. So quite true.

    • You might want to see what Mr Nestle has been up to lately. He is not playing games. I can’t eat candy so his other endeavors don’t affect me at all. I try to avoid buying his water products as that only serves to get him to his ultimate goal…controlling as many water rights as possible.

  • I live in a mobile home and travel around since i can no longer afford to live in a house. What do you suggest as I a) don’t have room to have plants and b) there are restrictions on fruit/veggies/plants/soil going over state borders.

    • Do you stay anywhere longer than 2 months in warm weather? Grow lettuce, bush beans radishes ect in a few big pots. Set them out in the sun where you’re parked. Find a ranch that we I’ll let you raise some edibles while you’re there. I’d trade free parking for help. I’m probably not the only one who feels that way.

    • throw seeds everywhere you go wherever they might grow. if you can’t grow something for yourself then give someone else a chance to find something.

  • You forgot community gardens. I live in a very small apartment and with a community garden I can grow food, learn from the old hands and donate my extras.

    • Bridget,
      Here is some food for thought (no pun intended) .I would guess that you are in a city since you live in an apartment. When things get real dicey I would think that a community garden would be one of the first things to be ravaged and done away with. I would consider the garden only viable in “safe times” .

  • I was thinking along the same lines this morning and was researching the old Victory gardens of WW2. It was all about sustainability and survival gardening. We may all have to go back to growing victory gardens.

  • Love this, Daisy! This has been my philosophy for a while now. I usually get a few laughs from people when I say that my garden is my small way of bucking the system. Just motivates me to plant more. If every household had a small garden, it could make a huge positive impact on many of our challenges today.

  • One thing to bear in mind is that many of the seeds you buy off of racks in retail stores–if GMO–are PATENTED, and the holder of the patent can prosecute you if you save seed and plant those seeds without first paying them AGAIN. Monsanto has actual spies that sneak onto farms and harvest vegetables from those farmers that are neighbors of those who buy Monsanto patented seeds, as wind can cross pollinate the Monsanto patented with the non-Monsanto patented (think corn, tomatoes and other wind-pollinated plants) and then they prosecute the NEIGHBOR for stealing Monsanto’s intellectual property. They have drive farmers off of their land in the US and in other countries as well with fantastic fines levied against the farmers leaving them bankrupt and homeless. A good place to get heirloom seeds–and a LOT of good information relative to growing zones and length of time from planting to yield, disease resistance etc is The Seed Savers Exchange. Their color catalog is free. I’ve gotten seeds almost exclusively from them since the late 1970’s. Check them out here: https://www.seedsavers.org/

  • The article is timely and so true. I appreciate this!
    the link to farmers markets does not work, please let them know we need to
    have this information. Thanks again, Dr. Victoria

  • Funny true story: when we first moved to the warm green sunny part of North America where we live now, I called around to see if if it was legal to collect rainwater in barrels. I knew it was illegal in some places, so I just wanted to be sure. The folks here were super nice, but they seemed more and more perturbed. Finally, the last person I spoke to said to me, and I quote:

    “Sir, it rains over 80 inches a year in this part of the state. You can collect all the rainwater you like.”

    Which I went ahead and started doing. But strangely, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else in my neighborhood who also takes advantage of this free resource, or the fact that we can grow stuff year round. (Different things different times of the year, of course.) Why? Don’t they know how lucky they are? And yeah, some folks have said “that’s way too hard to do.” And they din’t mean physically, they meant it from having a “green thumb”. How is this so difficult? Fer cryin’ out loud, there’s illiterate peasants in Third World nations who can’t read or write or post on Facebook, but they can grow food.

    One of the benefits that I think people are overlooking is not just that you know where some of your food comes from, there is also a financial value to it. That fellow that wrote “Rich dad, Poor dad” explains that “an asset is something that puts money in your pocket, a liability is something that takes money out of your pocket.” Well come on now: every dollar you don’t have to spend at the grocery store is another dollar in your pocket.

    Or look at it through the tax man’s eyes. If you put in a big fancy pool in your backyard, or an extension of your house, or a big enclosed outdoor room, the tax man will say your house is now worth more, and you can bet your boots they raise your taxes. Take that money and put it in a garden to help feed your family, and they may not even notice! But tell me, which one is an actual asset, and which ones are liabilities?

    • One of our First World’s most glaring faults is a sort of snobbery that we don’t have to dirty ourselves for such menial work. This is probably the exact place where we lost our moorings as a culture. So much died with our grandparents generation — the Victory Garden Army. Not only did they raise their own fruit and vegies, they managed livestock. I miss their humble ways because they were so grateful. They were grateful because they knew exactly where the bounty comes from. Some people live like their food is the result of their purchasing power. That’s very sad and the source of our downfall.

  • Some thoughts and links:

    “Prescribing” fruits and veggies would save $100 billion in medical costs

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90323580/prescribing-fruits-and-veggies-would-save-100-billion-in-medical-costs

    One thought not mentioned in the above article is that sprouts contain several times the amount of nutrition than what remains in the mature plants ready for harvesting. In my town, the local Sprouts grocery charges about $16 per pound for broccoli sprouts, which the Peter Burke book below can teach you how to grow in dirt on the cheap at home. So for the DIY people with frugality in mind:

    Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days (2015 book by Peter Burke, on Amazon), here:

    https://www.amazon.com/Year-Round-Indoor-Salad-Gardening-Nutrient-Dense/dp/1603586156/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Year-Round+Indoor+Salad+Gardening&qid=1555274162&s=books&sr=1-1

    And Tammy Gangloff, the guiding light for https://www.dehydrate2store.com, plus a couple of her excellent how-to books on dehydrating on Amazon, makes the point that while canning preserves about 50% or so of the nutrition from fruits or vegetables, dehydration preserves about 90%. (Most, but not all, plants can be dehydrated.) That seems huge to me. Now combine that thought with dehydrating sprouts that you grew at home in a very few days — on the cheap, per Peter Burke — and you should have an outstanding winner, as well as in some cases having a far better preventative and/or remedy for some ailments for which the mainstream medical majority would rather hook you on pricey prescriptions.

    Or if frugality is not really an issue, here’s the latest startup that can supply you with the indoor vertical garden system, the plants, etc at retail:

    Zooey Deschanel’s New Startup (LettuceGrow) Makes a Smart Vegetable Garden That Fits in a Phone Booth

    https://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/lettuce-grow.html

    https://www.lettucegrow.com

    –Lewis

  • Daisy,
    Great article. Do you or anyone posting have a suggestion for keeping squirrels out of our peach trees?
    We live in a big city and cannot rid them the old fashioned way. They eat the buds and unripe fruit before we ever see it mature. Thanks!

    • Karen,
      As soon as you notice a flower has been pollinated tie one of those transparent cloth gift bags around it. You can usually buy a variety of sizes at a dollar store. Make sure it’s big enough that you can remove the mature fruit. Alternatively use a small paper bag big enough to hold the mature fruit and staple it so it doesn’t fall off.
      Paper is cheaper but it’s not re-useable and they may tear it off.

    • Honestly, I see so much overlap between the two that I don’t even make that distinction any longer. If there’s a boot on your throat, it doesn’t really matter whether the foot inside it is controlled by a CEO or a DeepState bureaucrat. You just wanna be able to breath!

  • Daisy, I’m not alternative media but if you are interested in a one hour telephone interview about the garden revolution then please write to me. This could be on any given Sunday afternoon on a 50,000 watt radio station heard in 36 states.

    Thanks,

    Christopher Moore

  • We live in a rural community that has many seniors and we grow enough to give some to our neighbors and the Senior Center. We trade food with other farmer/gardeners. We plant some crops that will succeed in a cold snap and some that will take a hot spell. We have a very short season here, so we experiment with planting crops a little earlier and a little later than the instructions would indicate. And we are prepared to cover up the crops early in the season and early in the Fall. We study and apply permaculture and regenerative principles and adjust constantly. It is fun, a pay as you go upper level degree in the University of Life. And we give thanks for every nourishing, trustworthy bite that we eat.

  • Thank you for the link to Seeds for Generations – I’m always happy to find a new source of non-GMO, and organic seeds. If someone is looking for something that this company doesn’t have, other sources are Seed Savers (seedsavers.org), Fedco Seeds (fedcoseeds.com) and High Mowing Seeds (highmowingseeds.com). I agree that it’s really important to be able to grow your own food, know how to preserve it, and know how to save the seeds.

  • Gardening is work but it is my joy. I can spend hours there. My husband n d with alzhei n ears loves sitting out in v the fresh a is and dappled shade under a fruit tree. I’ve added 3 b azelnut, an apricot, and 2 mulberry trees this year. I’m adding more I re garden beds and 50 strawberry plants. Some things will bare this year son will have to wait several years but they are an investment in the we future.
    I’m adding nearly 30 wild vegetables and medicinals. Some will go into the garden and some will be planted around the new trees.
    It will feed more than just the two of us. I have 3 sobs and their families who may enjoy food from my playground.

    • I hate auto spell trying to out guess me and spell strange things.
      My sons and their families will eat from my garden excess. A newly widowed neighbor has seeds I’ve shared, seed starter containers, and a plot of ground to grow her garden. She and the 3 young grandchildren are looking forward to working in the garden.
      I’m 74 and there are time I need help. In return I help neighbors garden, learn to can, and anything else I can do to help them become more independant. I even repair free sewing machines and pass them on while another neighbor gives free sewing lessons. I’m learning how to install myown solar panels et so we can have some electricity. We’ve been without for going on15 months.
      I really enjoy most of your artic l es. Timely and interesting.

  • I finally got some tomato plants – my area is arid and kind of hard to garden in. Once I do well with those I’m going to increase my game. Also put in some mint plants and green onions which are doing well. And I started sprouting again! Finally I have been relying more and more heavily on my local organic grocery store that does use nearby farmers. I figure if I can send some more money to them, that’ll help the cause too.

    For anybody living in the Phoenix or Tucson areas, check out Produce on Wheels Without Waste – also known as Borderlands – $12 gets you 70 pounds of rescued produce, much of it organic.

  • My fear is that, if they can enforce unconstitutional lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccines (and probably soon mandated vaccines and vaccine passports), and take away our guns — all of which they have done or are doing without much counter action on the part of the American people (with a few notable exceptions) — what will stop them from forbidding us to grow our own food and persecuting those who do?

  • You know, the PTB all over the world have overlooked one thing: None of their efforts to control will save them from dying. It will not save their children from dying, either.

    I read somewhere that fear, anger, and violence (all those evil, negative feelings and actions) stem from the fact that – at the heart of things – we are reacting to a fear of death.

    The fact that they THINK they are fooling the Grim Reaper gives me much satisfaction…imagining their surprise when faced with the fact that they are NOT immortal.

  • “Chuckle”…people replying to 7 year old comments.

    Probably should re-write this old blog post from 2013. Three out of four (likely all since it’s an old reprint) of the first bullet point links are eight years old and tough to follow to the original source to verify. EU has not banned seed saving or buying them, or cuttings, for gardeners. Gardeners can still sell these to each other. Rainwater saving is legal in all 50 states albeit with some restrictions in certain states.

    Although the premise of the article is still there, perhaps an updated version should be written.

  • There is a possible workaround for the political regions that prohibit collecting rain water. For centuries, various South American natives would collect the moisture from high humidity areas by using sheets (made of what I don’t know) hung at an angle in places where high humidity would condense and turn into water drops that could then be collected.

    During World War II the hard experience of downed pilots over ocean led to solar distilling of water via gear added to their survival kits. Later Boy Scouts were taught how to dig a hole to be covered with a clear plastic sheet. That sheet would be held in place by the weight of rocks around the hole’s periphery, but allowed to sag in the middle so that moisture collecting on the underside could drip to the center and fall into some container. Such moisture could come from dew-covered plants, rags, or whatever …placed in that hole for solar distillation.

    A fancier but non-portable DIY version of that is taught by Sharon Buydens in one of her books on Amazon. Her design looks like a pool table with a clear glass cover mounted on a slight angle so that contaminated water (even with salt) could be poured into that water-proofed table … so the sun heat could evaporate it to collect on the underside of the glass cover … and then drip over to the lower edge to be collected in a PVC tube — in enough quantities to provide for entire families.

    But the slanted pool table design is not very portable. What the military uses is. And this is the most recent commercial I’ve seen for a DIY version of that while claiming to be usable anywhere in the world. The idea is to extract water from atmospheric humidity similar to how an air conditioner system does that on a smaller scale.

    Today I’m reading that various militaries around the world have a portable system to do that same job wherever they go.

    Here’s the transcript version of the promotion for a DIY civilian equivalent:

    https://www.waterliberation4all.com/index_tsl_cb.php

    and here is one of many reviews about it that I found by using search.brave.com :

    https://www.redmond-reporter.com/national-marketplace/water-liberty-guide-reviews-will-it-really-work-as-advertised/

    A final note:

    The mention of aquaponics has much merit until the aeration pump that keeps the first alive loses power for only a few hours. At that point the fish die and you have to start the process with replacement fish all over again. In this era when a long term power outage is very possible, it may be a better idea to investigate the use of Kratky hydroponics instead — which doesn’t require electric power unless perhaps you’re using it indoors and need to power some grow-lights for part of the day — if you can’t pipe enough sunlight inside to do that same job.

    –Lewis

    • Thanks for mentioning water collection. I have been looking at options for this, including solar distillation. Our roofing material is unfortunately toxic (treated cedar shingles) so rainwater collection if out, without heavy filtration/distillation.
      There are some interesting experiments on YouTube, and even some commercial options, but I want to check out the book you referred to.

  • “Raise chickens, small goats, and rabbits, for meat, eggs, and dairy.”

    Chicken meat, goat eggs, and rabbit milk, yum!

  • I am sure Daisy re-posted this article (blast from the past) today somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and yet ironic at the same time.

    According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the cost of a cookout this weekend will cost an additional $10, or up 17% from last year.
    Last year the WH tweeted a really awful tweet that played on words, and bragging American’s would be saving $0.16 compared to 2020.
    That is right: 16cents.
    The deafening silence from the WH twitter account this year is telling.

    What is next year going to look like?
    Something tells me this article is more prudent today (and going forward) than when it was first posted.

  • LOVE this. This is exactly what is needed. There was a time our government told us to grow a Victory Garden. They are not telling us that this time. We need to get out and grow Regenerative Gardens…restoring the soil, our health, our independence and our old-fashioned skills and know-how. I think of myself as a “rebel gardener” because these days gardening for food in the suburbs is moat definitely an act of rebellion, especially if you go to the front lawn!

    • Not just in the suburbs. My city has some very strict gardening regulations and a coalition in government that would be very happy to outlaw vegetable gardening entirely. Rats, ya know. They’ve pulled some pretty nasty things too, including digging up an entire yard when they knew the homeowner would be out of town. They say go to the farmer’s market but the farmers are having plenty of trouble as well, only beginning with the hefty increase in the price of inputs. Too many regulations! I say garden anyway. Every bite I put into my mouth that I didn’t have to buy at the store helps. Digging in the soil has been a wonderful coping mechanism during uncertain times as well.

  • Here is that how-to book I mentioned for building a passive solar water distiller. Years ago I squirreled away some discarded sliding glass doors after a neighbor’s house remodeling. Just one of them would be perfect for such a passive solar distiller.

    DIY: How to Build a Solar Water Distiller: Do It Yourself – How to Purify Water Via a Non-Electric Solar Still at Home, by Sharon Buydens, (Kindle or Paperback editions)

    https://www.amazon.com/DIY-Distiller-Yourself-Purify-Non-Electric-ebook/dp/B0181Y1OLA/ref=sr_1_7

    –Lewis

  • In war torn countries, people have resorted to planting a small plant here and there in the forest, and among the weeds, to hide it from those who would take what you have. A potato here, a potato there. Some carrots here, some carrots there. A turnip here, a turnip there. The idea is to make it hard to find and hard to eliminate your whole food crop if someone decided to take it or to ruin it. Plant a garden, but plan on planting in other places too. If you goods are seized, you still have resources.

    It also helps to become very familiar with wild foods, like blackberries, cattail, birch syrup (made by boiling down sap, much like maple syrup) Acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts, chinquapin, pinion, greens like goosefoot, amaranth, nettles and plantain, mustards, and ground foods like nutsedge and ground nut.

    If you have a barn, let pigeons nest. They are good eating, and basically take care of themselves. Chickens and livestock are pretty obvious, but “wild” animals are easy to cultivate and are low on the radar. A rabbit hutch in the woods can be hidden if well protected from predators, as can quail, if need be.

  • My daughter lived in Monroe MI, and the city came by, opened the gate to the back yard, and mowed her garden because they have an ordinance against home gardens. Some places you have to use pots, and keep things on the porch. Crazy!

  • …And the time to do this is NOW! Any scale of farming or homesteading has a pretty incredible knowledge curve. You don’t choose a place to plant and tell the plant what to do. The plant tells YOU where IT wants to grow! Free-ranging chickens on your property sound quaint until you discover the hard way just.how.many coyotes live in your area! Yeah; it’s that kind of thing! Get going, folks! You’re burning daylight!

  • Quail are another great bird to grow for meat and eggs. Tiny, quiet, but have a very fast growth rate. I have grown more this year. Tomatoes, corn, a few herbs, onions, potatoes.

    Another place to get seeds, they are all heirloom, is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com). I love them. Since they don’t cater to preppers but rather to gardeners, they have really reasonable prices.

  • Bill Mollison once said…
    Scott London: A reviewer once described your teachings as “seditious.”

    Bill Mollison: Yes, it was very perceptive. I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.
    https://scott.london/interviews/mollison.html

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