October Newsletter

Spiritual Goal:  Establish some fun traditions around General Conference weekend. Making it a celebration atmosphere. Read ‘Conference Reverence Tent’ in 2008 Friend if you have small children.

Physical Goal: Continue good habits/Prevent cold and flu. The lowering of the body's core temperature suppresses immunity, which allows viruses to thrive; dress in warm layers. Wash hands frequently. Don’t touch your face especially your nose. Use a neti pot and eyecup. Get adequate sleep. Get fresh air, exercise, and sunshine. Be positive. Drink plenty of water. Stay away from refined and processed foods. Use a humidifier. Clean doorknobs, light switches, bathrooms, and kitchens with 50/50 vinegar/water solution. Don't share drinking glasses, utensils, toothbrushes, etc. Stay home if you are infected. 

Financial Goal: Awareness is success. Track your expenses for 30 days to find any leaks in your budget. Plug leaks and stomp out bad habits. “Some argue that some men prosper financially who do not seek the kingdom first. This is true. But the Lord is not promising us just material wealth if we seek first the kingdom. From my own experience I know this is not the case. In the words of Henrik Ibsen: ‘Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.’ …Pay an honest tithing… Live on less than you earn… Learn to distinguish between needs and wants… Develop and live within a budget… Be honest in all your financial affairs.” N. Eldon Tanner, October 1979

Provident Living Goal: Consider home production in the form of a cottage business, doing work from home involving the whole family. Cottage industries bring fresh life to communities, strengthen families, establish a wonderful work ethic, teach the true value of time and money, develop confidence and cooperation, and instill a strong sense of self-worth. “Let us be wise stewards. Let us ponder the lessons of history and profit from the experiences of those who have not heeded the prophets. Gibbons, Toynbee, Durant, and other noted historians have analyzed the reasons for the fall of the mighty civilizations. The repetition is monotonous. In summarizing cause and effect…six common reasons why each civilization fell: They lost their religious convictions and flouted basic morality. They became obsessed with sex. They debased their money of its intrinsic value and let inflation run rampant. Honest work ceased to be a virtue. Respect for law disintegrated and violence became an accepted method of achieving individual and group desires. Finally, citizens were no longer willing to be soldiers and fight for the defense of their nation and their heritage.” J. Richard Clark, October 1980

Storage Goal: 50 cans soup, stew, chili per person, 10+ pounds sprouting seeds per person, Shaving supplies, Dish Soap “When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer…” Boyd K. Packer

Emergency Kit & Pantry Box Goals: Rotate over conference weekend. Since you are using your box and kit for several meals this month, it is perfectly acceptable to use your grocery funds to replenish your box and kit. Don’t put it off!!!

Increasing Self-Sufficiency: Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Bowditch, Abigail Adams, Steve Jobs, and many others were self-educated people that positively impacted the world. President Hinckley spoke often of the love of learning he developed in his childhood home, where he and his siblings read Harvard classics around the kitchen table. Speaking fondly of the little library room with comfortable chairs and walls lined with bookshelves crammed with hundreds of classic and technical books, magazines, atlases, scriptures, and dictionaries, he showed how his parents made it clear through action and priority that learning was desired and valued. President Hinckley urged parents to read to their children and all people to budget their time to allow a daily pattern of study in addition to scripture study. Although President Hinckley went to college, many people for one reason or another do not. However, this need not end a person’s education. Like Mr. Franklin and all the Hinckley children, anyone who can read a bit can learn anything.

“We have lived to see the second death of ancient learning. In our time something which was once the possession of all educated men has shrunk to being the technical accomplishment of a few specialists…If one were looking for a man who could not read Virgil though his father could, he might be found more easily in the twentieth century than in the fifth,” C. S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 4.

“…to produce the good man and the good citizen, though it must be remembered that we are not here using the word ‘good’ in any narrowly ethical sense. The ‘good’ man’ here remains the man of good taste and good feeling, the interesting and interested man, and almost the happy man…Vocational training, on the other hand prepares the pupil not for leisure, but for work; it aims at making not a good man but a good banker, a good electrician, a good scavenger, or a good surgeon,” C.S. Lewis, Rehabilitations and Other Essays (London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1939), 81-5.

Why not begin a program of self-education in the same place President Hinckley began by reading Fifteen Minutes a Day with The Harvard Classics? http://www.mensetmanus.net/inspiration/fifteen_minutes_a_day/

Helmets are Cooler Than Coffins

The time between July 18 and September 11 is quite difficult for me each year. I've relived the last months of my daughter's life for the past several years. Although the sadness has lessened somewhat, I miss her. Even though I know she is with God and that families are forever, I miss her dreadfully.

Katie turned 9 on July 18, 1997. Budding into young womanhood, she began to cross her long legs and fix her long brown hair. She was growing out her bangs. I began to feel that this girl needed extra time with mom, so we went shopping or driving, just the two of us. It was delightful. Ever since her birth, she seemed to be a gift from God directly to me (Of course, I love all my children, but each is unique as is my relationship with each one.) To see her stomp her little foot and say, "Leave my mommy alone," when the big girls were back-talking, would make anyone smile. It melted my heart.

No, she wasn't perfect, but to me she was my little punkin. A math genius, voracious reader, poet, artist, budding piano prodigy and a bubbly, smiley, happy girl, she left our home too soon, leaving an unfilled void. On one of our shopping trips, we bought her a new bike helmet with a pony tail port. She loved to braid her long hair in one braid hanging down her back, making helmet wearing difficult. The ponytail port was a great answer. Where we lived in the Pacific NW, helmets were required by law for every rider. If our children wanted to own a bike, they were required to wear helmets. They complied, but what I didn't know is that they didn't buckle the things, rendering them useless.

That terrible morning September 5, 1997, my friend rang the doorbell at 8:30 in the morning. She looked really funny. I quickly found out why. She had witnessed a terrible tragedy. Our Katie was lying in the street after being bumped by a truck. It didn't hit her but glanced her rear tire. She slid into the curb, hitting her temple. On impact her unbuckled helmet flew off her head.

Airlifted to the closest trauma center, she underwent brain surgery to stop the hemorrhage in her brain. They shaved off her beautiful hair, leaving a huge C-shaped incision. Her sweet little brain swelled and swelled. Little by little daily MRIs showed her brain dying. She never woke-up. She lived 6 days in the ICU, before we removed her off life support.

 Her coffin was sweetly lined with white satin. She was dressed in white with a white veil covering her huge, bald head. Delicate white roses draped the coffin. The funeral was lovely, but these things should have been for her wedding. When rain clouds burst just as we left the cemetery, I knew that Katie, my gift from God, cried for our family.

 In this ward most remember a dear young man, who had a similar accident on a skateboard. He lived, but struggled mightily for a very long time. The week of his accident a group of young men from our ward including his little brother came to ask my son to join them for nightgames. Not one of them was wearing a helmet. When I inquired why, they told me that it was safe around our neighborhood. They didn't need helmets. Yet my the young man in our ward was only a couple blocks from home in our neighborhood, when he suffered his injury. My little Katie was in view of our front door. The fact is that 75 percent of deaths among children could be prevented with a bicycle helmet.

Please, while you're buying school binders, paper, pencils, markers, and books or new Christmas bicycles and skates, buy helmets as well. Parents, require your children to wear a helmet every time he or she rides a bike, skateboard, scooter or skates! Whenever they "wheel" around, they should be safe. Tell your children the story of our beautiful Katie. When they talk about helmets being sweaty or stupid, remind them that helmets are cooler than coffins.

September Newsletter

Spiritual Goal: Increase Temple Attendance-“Those who understand the eternal blessings which come from the temple know that no sacrifice is too great, no price too heavy, no struggle too difficult in order to receive those blessings. There are never too many miles to travel, too many obstacles to overcome, or too much discomfort to endure. They understand that the saving ordinances received in the temple that permit us to someday return to our Heavenly Father in an eternal family relationship and to be endowed with blessings and power from on high are worth every sacrifice and every effort,” Thomas S Monson, April, 2011.

Physical Goal: Continue good habits. Make a concerted effort to attain and maintain a healthy weight. Drinking lots of water helps with weight loss.  “To a great extent we are physically what we eat. Most of us are acquainted with some of the prohibitions [of the word of Wisdom]...What need additional emphasis are the positive aspects--the need for vegetables, fruits, and grains, particularly wheat. In most cases, the closer these can be, when eaten, to their natural state-- without over-refinement and processing--the healthier we will be. To a significant degree, we are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth, and lacking the energy that could be ours because we overindulge in junk foods…We need a generation of young people who, as Daniel, eat in a more healthy manner than to fare on the "king's meat"--and whose countenances show it,” Ezra Taft Benson, March 1979.

Financial Goal:  Retirement savings and insurance-“God gave a natural instinct to the animals he created to preserve their surplus against a time of need. But man has developed the tendency to squander all that he harvests and to leave to chance or to others his satisfaction of future needs. This is contrary to divine law. Frugality is a principle of righteousness. Consumption should never exceed our production. Economic freedom comes from the surpluses we create…insure against our greatest potential loss…our ability to earn is our greatest asset. When the provider insures his life, he is insuring his future income for his family. As husbands, let us not force our wives into the marketplace to be both the provider and homemaker should our lives be cut short by premature adequate health insurance. Medical costs are soaring, and trying to self-insure from personal savings is very risky. During inflation, medical costs increase faster than our savings accumulate,” J. Richard Clark, October 1980

Provident Living Goal: Learn to re-upholster a simple piece of furniture. Review or get a will.

Storage Goal: 25 pounds canned or dried potatoes per person, 50 quarts tomatoes per person Read Root Cellaring by Bubel-“Home storage should consist of a year’s supply of basic food, clothing, and, where possible, fuel. After this goal is reached, emergency and expanded storage is desirable. In all of our storage, quality products, proper containers and storage facilities, proper storage temperature, and regular rotation are important considerations…there is a need for diversification in places of storage and in types of containers. Perhaps not all storage should be concentrated in one area of the house, not all should be stored in tin or plastic containers, not all in glass containers.” Barbara B. Smith, October 1976

Emergency Kit Goal: pup tents, space blanket, mini-back pack stove/fuel, personal hygiene and first aide kit for each kit

Pantry Box Goal: plastic dishpan, towel, rag, soap

Master Soup Recipe

“Learn to eat lentils and you will never have to be subservient to the king.” Diogenes

Although it is fun to try out recipes, they are actually simple guides to be twisted and tweaked by the chef. This master soup recipe will be helpful to anyone seeking to incorporate stored foods, avoid unhealthy ingredients, or elude subservience to the king. Soup is the ultimate peasant king cuisine and certainly shouldn't be reserved for winter. Simply cook it outdoors in a slow-cooker or sun oven in summer. This can be made in any amount.

Soup Base:
1-2 onions or 1-4 leeks (white and a little green parts) pureed
1-4 carrots, chopped or pureed
1-4 celery stocks, chopped or pureed

1-2 c. sliced mushrooms (optional)
1-4 garlic cloves, pressed (optional)
1 green bell pepper, chopped or pureed (optional)

The first three will become your stock. The others are optional and will take your soup in different directions.  Put them in your soup pot over the lowest possible heat and cook until the water is evaporated and the onions begin to turn golden. Or just put them in the bottom of your slow cooker. You will find it is not necessary to buy little bullion cubes, which are really balls of fat, artificial flavorings, and salt. Neither is it necessary to buy canned stocks or broths. Good results can be achieved with these nutritious and inexpensive ingredients. Onions, garlic, peppers, carrots, and celery can be grown in your own backyard for root cellaring or dehydrating. Mushrooms can be grown in the basement.

Body Vegetables:
1. Chopped root vegetables
2. Chopped winter squash
3. Tomatoes, fennel, cabbage
4. Cauliflower, broccoli

Pick one or two of the above categories. Chop several cups of these vegetables into spoon sized pieces. Your choice here will determine the theme or ethnic direction of your soup. If you choose the tomato route, you will probably also choose garlic and peppers. Now add several cups of the cleanest water you have available, distilled when possible. If you have only two people obviously the amounts of vegetables and water will be different than if you are feeding a family of eight.

Flavorings:
Here the palette is wide open. Any and all spices and herbs are available. Thyme, parsley, sage, rosemary, curry powder, red pepper flakes, paprika, chili powder, nutritional yeast, etc. Miso can be added just before serving. Start with a small amount, adding more to gain your perfect taste. Good health advice recommends low-sodium usage. If they are heavy-handed salters, slowly wean them from the habit with citrus zest, spices, and herbs. Have fun playing with this. 

Body:
Here we add soaked lentils, cooked beans and/or cooked grains to give the soup stick to your ribs potential. Precook beans and grains once a week for the fridge or freezer to add to soups and main dishes all week long. The kitchen cupboard can have dozens of varieties of beans and grains. Any amount is fine but start with 1/2 c. beans and 1/4 c. grains per person. Note: lentils go in at the beginning with the body vegetables, while cooked beans and grains are added at the end with greens. If using tomatoes, add them after the lentils are soft. Legumes will not soften properly, when cooked with salt or acid.

Greens:
At the end of cooking, add 2-3 cups finely chopped kale, bok choi, zucchini, green beans, asparagus, parsley, basil, collards, chard, napa cabbage, etc. When adding basil, use ¼-½ c. mixed with one or two of the others. 

Texture:
Some soups are pureed before or after the addition of the greens. A large pot of soup can be eaten intact for one or two meals. As interest wanes, puree it for a different presentation. 

Toppers:
This is where avocados, nuts, and seeds of all kinds come in. Use them as garnishes for added flavor and nutrition but not generally as main ingredients. Nutritional yeast tastes a bit like Parmesan cheese but is a much healthier choice for a 'cheesy' topper. Also colorful spices, minced fresh herbs, sprouts, and micro-greens look fantastic and inviting on soup.

Well there you go. Have a great time testing, twisting and tweaking with your favorite, frugal ingredients for the most satisfying, tasty bowl of soup you can imagine. Set the table nicely and nobody will ever know you are cooking for health and frugality.

Think About A Sun Oven For Preparedness

I love my Sun Oven and use it often. It is so fun to cook without paying for fuel. It's sort of like getting away with something even though it's not.

August Newsletter

Spiritual Goal: Designate one night a week as No-TV, Game/Reading Night-President Gordon B. Hinckley challenged us to create balance in life by attending to four obligations: "one's vocation, one's family, the Church, and to one's self." Speaking of the topic one's self, he advised, "I decry the great waste of time that people put into watching inane television...I believe their lives would be enriched if, instead of sitting on the sofa and watching a game that will be forgotten tomorrow, they would read and think and ponder...You need time to meditate and ponder, to think, to wonder at the great plan of happiness that the Lord has outlined for His children. You need time to read. You need to read the scriptures. You need to read good literature. You need to partake of the great culture, which is available to all of us." Hinckley, Gordon B., Resolve to Keep Balance in Your Lives, address delivered at Logan, Utah, 21 October 1997, Church News, 1 November 1997

Physical Goal: Day hike (or drive if infirm)/picnic weekly this until cold weather hits. "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms." Proverbs 31:17

Financial Goal: Commit to daily, healthy, family meals. "...save money by attaining the best health of which [you] are capable. Relief Society should provide training to promote physical well-being as the least expensive medical treatment. It doesn’t even cost you the price of aspirin. The illness you avoid costs nothing. Good health habits save money. To promote good health, women need to plan nutritious meals. Most of us could have smaller portions of food and still be healthy, but all of us should eat regular, well-balanced meals each day. Relief Society instruction should be designed to help sisters understand and practice the fundamentals of good nutrition [according to the Word of Wisdom]. We should learn to prepare economical food that will be both nourishing and appealing." Barbara Smith, April 1981

Provident Living Goal: Continue succession planting and canning. Learn to dehydrate excess fruits and veggies. “The best place to have some food set aside is within our homes, together with a little money in savings. The best welfare program is our own welfare program.” Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, November 2002

Storage Goal: 100 quarts fruits/veggies per person, OR 30 lbs. dehydrated fruits and 40 lbs. vegetables per person, Feminine supplies, camping toilet, School supplies + extras for the home. “For the moment we live in a day of peace and prosperity, but it shall not ever be thus.  Great trial lie ahead… and we must prepare ourselves temporally and spiritually…” Bruce R. McConkie

Emergency Kit Goal: 5 packets instant soup, dehydrated refried beans and instant rice per person in 5 separate quart sized, heavy duty, zip lock bags, 5 salsa packets, 5 plastic spoons (add hot water to the bag and it becomes the serving dish)

Pantry Box Goal: 1 pot and 1 sauce pan, wooden spoon, 1 bowl per person, 1 spoon per person

Increasing Self-Sufficiency: Using open-pollinated, heirloom seeds, the gardener can save seeds from year to year, a a rewarding and cost saving practice. However, hybrids are sterile or do not reproduce true to the parent plant, making hybrid seed saving a poor idea. Saving seeds from diseased plants is also folly. Successful seed saving comes from vigorous, flavorful, disease-free plants. Consider size, harvest time and other characteristics. In areas with short growing seasons, choose seeds from the plant whose fruits are the first to appear. Don't pick any fruit from this plant, but tie a piece of red yarn to its stem and cover with bird netting.

After bean, pea, onion, carrot, lettuce and other greens, corn, and herb seeds mature (pod dries out and gets brown/tan), collect the seed. Sometimes the drying process must be completed by spreading pods on a screen in a single layer in a well-ventilated dry location. Tomatoes, melons, squash, and cucumber seeds are saved by scooping the seeds out of the fruit and putting them in a small amount of warm water in a jar. After sitting for two to four days, the seeds ferment, killing viruses and separating seed from pulp. Viable seeds sink to the bottom of the jar, allowing the pulp and undeveloped seed float to the top. Compost the pulp, water, bad seed and mold. Allow good seed to dry. 

Store dried seeds in labeled envelopes in glass jars. After freezing for two days, store in the refrigerator. Although seeds may be stored for up to three years, try to plant a garden with your seeds yearly. Save out a few in case of crop failure. 

July Newsletter

Spiritual Goal: Seek out a family history specialist and learn how to use New Family Search. Spend a little or a lot of time in this pursuit depending on your time of life, but do pursue it a little bit each week.

Physical Goal: Continue...Are you getting 8 hours of sleep, drinking plenty of water, eating vegetables, counting your blessings, and adopting an optimistic attitude? All these things affect physical health and stamina. Study the Word of Wisdom and align your lifestyle to it. Make a goal to eat healthier: less sweets, more fresh fruits and veggies, less meat and animal products, more fiber, less soft drinks and juice, more water, less processed food, more home cooked meals.

Financial Goal: Make a goal to have 6 months expenses in savings for emergencies. Write out a realistic, long-term plan to make it happen.

Provident Living Goal: Your garden should be producing full tilt until first frost, where cover and winter crops will continue until next April. Continue succession planting until just before frost. Begin canning/dehydrating excess. “Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves, produce everything you need to eat, drink or wear…” President Brigham Young

Storage Goal: 2 lbs. honey and/or maple syrup per person,10- #10 cans dehydrated vegetables per person, 2 toothbrushes, floss, and paste per person, Infant supplies “[They] reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land …” 3 Nephi 4:4. Even the Nephites were commanded to have home storage, but they were to store a 7-year supply.

Emergency Kit Goal:: Paper and pencils, Mosquito repellent, $25 cash, Sleeping bags moved to easily accessible place, miniature entertainment: travel games, dolls and balls, books, cards, coloring books, crayons, butane fuel

Pantry Box Goal: indoor/outdoor butane stove

Improve Self-Sufficiency: On the southern Japanese island of Shikoku, Masanobu Fukuoka began his career as an agricultural Customs Official with degrees in microbiology and plant pathology. Because he didn’t like what he saw, he left government employment and bought a farm to raise rice, winter grain, and citrus crops, using the sustainable mulch practices. He experimented and failed and experimented again until he found success. While his yields consistently surpassed those of his neighbors for over 50 years without tilling, other labor-intensive practices, or chemical-dependent methods, Fukuoka’s system completely contradicted modern agricultural techniques, negated scientific ‘knowledge,’ and opposed traditional farming know-how.

A deep mulch system without several large shade trees takes some ingenuity. In fall traveling up and down the streets in search of bags of leaves is sort of a pain. Buying hay and straw at the feed store is pricey. Growing mulch to grow the soil, as did Masanobu Fukuoka, is the answer. Between the beginning of August and mid September in zone 6, plant hull-less oats, alfalfa, and Austrian winter peas. Since these things are planted to feed the soil and not the humans, it is good that they winter-kill in a cold climate. They leave nice mulch to rake back and plant ala Ruth Stout. Decomposing all summer, deep mulch placed last fall or spring is mostly compost. Pull back what is left of the mulch; spread seeds thickly around plants and directly on top of bare soil. Replace mulch lightly on top, fluffing it up a bit. When garden plants are spent, cut down and chop into pieces or leave them standing where they are. If you have lots of trees, mow up the leaves and spread them in between the now tallish hull-less oats, alfalfa, and Austrian winter peas. The leaves are not essential but are a nice addition. In the spring, all the now dead plants make a great mulch. Mow or cut and begin spring planting.

Another bonus of the deep mulch system is the elimination of the compost pile, with all its backbreaking work. When working in the kitchen, put scraps in a bucket under the sink. After meals add all vegetable matter to the bucket. When the day is over, head out to the garden. Move the mulch aside and put it directly on the soil. Choose a new location each day. Recover the spot with mulch. Composting right in the garden is superior to any other method. Of course, when snow and ice prohibit this, the two garbage can method is preferred. Just outside the kitchen door, place a plastic garbage can. Inside this, put an identical one drilled all over with ½ inch holes. The holes provide drainage and air circulation to eliminate anaerobic (aka smelly) decomposition. Dump your kitchen bucket in this and cover with a lid to hold in moisture. Most things from the kitchen are nitrogen rich or green layers. Since carbon or brown is important too, add shredded brown paper, dried shredded leaves, or sawdust occasionally. Yes, it is still a good idea to collect bags and bags of the neighbor’s leaves. Don’t worry about turning the layers in your two-can system. As things freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw all winter, the scraps will break down. By spring it will be pretty nice compost to use as needed.

June Newsletter

No Cannery Date Until September

Spiritual Goal: Add journaling to your daily personal devotions. "A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge; for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power...as evil spirits will have more knowledge...than men who are on the earth." Joseph Smith; "Women who can hear the voice of the Lord and who respond to these promptings become valuable instruments in His hands." M. Russel Ballard, Ensign April 2002

Financial Goal: Invest for retirement and your family’s well being after your passing. Begin saving an additional 5% or more for this purpose. "In spite of the teachings of the Church from its earliest days until today, members sometimes fall victim to many unwise and foolish financial practices. Some continue to spend, thinking that somehow the money will become available. Somehow they will survive. Far too often, the money hoped for does not appear. Remember this: debt is a form of bondage. It is a financial termite. When we make purchases on credit, they give us only an illusion of prosperity. We think we own things, but the reality is, our things own us...Never should we enter into financial bondage through consumer debt without carefully weighing the costs." Joseph B. Wirthlin, April 2004

Physical Goal: Continue walking, stretching, breathing, and strengthening your body. Add gardening. "The condition of the body limits, largely, the expression of the spirit." John A. Widtsoe, A Rational Theology, p. 17

Provident Living Goal: Learn to sew a simple skirt. If you need help, ask Ginger to teach you. On the first of June, plant tomato seedlings along a trellis. Install empty 1 gallon water bottles buried up to their shoulders between plants with a pinhole in the side facing each plant to consistently fertilize with compost tea or kelp water. Place a tall stick in each jug, its top tied with a red bow, which will aid in finding the openings to the jugs once the foliage hides them from view. Fill this once a week. Once the jugs and plants are in place, make a collar of one or two sheets of wet newspaper, place it around the stem, and cover the paper with mulch. Also, plant asparagus roots, jicama, flowers, eggplant, hot peppers, and bell pepper seedlings as well as zucchini seeds. During the second week of June, plant melon, cucumber, sweet potato, and squash seedlings. Begin harvesting spinach and lettuce, replanting in the shade.  In those places, plant bush beans. Whenever one crop reaches maturity and is harvested, add compost, sand (or top soil), peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp mixture and re-plant to that crop or a fall/winter one. Peas will be finished by June or July and are replaced by leeks. “We will see the day, when we will live on what we produce…” Marian G. Romney

Storage Goal: First Aid Kit and extra supplies, a case of candles, matches, and hurricane holders for safety

72 Hour Kit: Real backpack pack for each family member over 5. Day pack for littles

Pantry Box Goal: Rubbermaid containers with or without wheels 

Increase Self-Sufficiency: Ruth Stout’s no-work, deep-mulch potato planting technique is the ultimate goal. However, most soil is poor and unimproved, when the novice gardener begins working on it. Potatoes are heavy feeders, meaning they need good fertility and humus. The deep mulching technique grows the soil and conserves water at the same time it allows growing beautiful vegetables. However, until beautiful, fertile soil is achieved, adding compost, sand (or top soil), peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp allows for success in growing potatoes Ruth's no-work way.

What is Ruth’s way? Instead of digging trenches, Ruth learned to lay the seed pieces on top of the ground and cover them gradually with mulch. Since most gardeners haven’t spent 30 years building soil like Ruth,  it is wise to cover the seed pieces with a 2-inch mixture of compost, sand, peat moss, Azomite, alfalfa meal, and kelp the first few years. Gradually build up deep mulch over the little sprouts, as they stick up their tiny heads. It is more work than Ruth advocates, but will result in a better yield. After a few years, the compost layer will be unnecessary. Also, remember to mulch lightly instead of packing mulch densely, allowing potato plants to reach sunlight. Add the light mulch an inch or so at a time until it is about 8 inches deep.
 

Companion planting is always a good idea. Surprisingly, buckwheat is a great companion to most vegetable and berry crops, including: strawberries, broccoli, potatoes and green beans. It attracts beneficial insects, feeds the world’s honeybees, suppresses weeds, and adds nicely to a growing compost pile or mulch. Additionally, to grow indoor greens in the winter, harvest triangular buckwheat seeds. 

In addition to attracting honeybees and other pollinators, research indicates growing buckwheat deters pests. How? Adult hover fly like buckwheat nectar, but their larvae eat aphids and other small, soft-bodied insects. If your potato patch is in the middle of your garden, and you sow buckwheat seeds among them, protective effects should be enough for anything within 20 feet. With an upright, shallow rooted habit and pretty little white flowers, buckwheat plants become the perfect mulch for all vegetables. Just yank and drop, where it stands. Additionally, it looks great in a mixed flowerbed that includes strawberries. Since it can go from seed to bloom in about a month, it is good to seed it every couple of weeks. 

If the heavy mulching method isn’t desired, buckwheat is a great cover crop for smothering weeds and building the green layer in the compost pile. Although plants need about 50 different minerals, phosphorous is among the most important. Similar to beans fixing nitrogen, buckwheat is a star at taking up phosphorus from the soil and making the phosphorus more easily absorbed by other plants. Whether buckwheat is growing next to a garden plant, left to make mulch, or decomposing in the compost pile, it will send its phosphorus gift.

On June 1, plant a square foot of buckwheat in the middle of the garden and interspersed among potatoes. It will do the job whether left to seed or pull up before then. If volunteer buckwheat is found in the garden, treat the tender shoots as bonus salad vegetables before the second set of leaves form. Otherwise, it can be left as a blessed, garden guardian.  

Buy organic buckwheat seeds (unhulled) at the health food store in the sprouting seed section or from most organic gardening or seed companies.