The Seed Power Plant and The Dehydrating Meltdown

Have you ever looked at a seed of a plant as a power plant? What if it used all of its energy at once? What if your food supply depends on understanding dehydrating a little more? Well it does....

For this example of teaching, I am going to use a mature Zucchini Squash. This shows more than anything, the problems that could arise and ruin your food supply that you have dehydrated and put up for future use. After noticing a problem in my own food supply, I felt this would be more informative to express and blog about because I found little to no information about this problem.

So lets start with this photo... Here you can see fat, somewhat thick seeds at the end of my knife.

I found that seeds that are slightly thick to thick need to be removed before dehydrating. What gives? I have no formula and I can't say which vegetables need seeds removed, but Squash of all kinds that your going to dehydrate needs a little more attention than say peppers.

Seeds were design to with stand extreme conditions. Consider a plain that has burnt after a lighting strike and catches fire. Many people start field fires to control weeds, knowing that regrowth will occur again. So why would a seed that goes under stress from a dehydrator? So if the seeds are mature enough, remove them.

For this process I am removing seeds from Zucchini that I sliced on a slicer and have many pounds to get through so I can move on to other task. If I am grating Squash, I will use a ice cream scoop. Here I have sliced the Squash and have used a egg cup to cut out the centers.

Once I have cut all the centers out of the slices, ensuring a safe vac package of dehydrated Squash, I set my racks beside me, and move the slices to the cutting board.

Once I have moved them over, I cut the larger pieces in half in a crescent moon shape and place them on the drying rack as shown in the photo. With my 9 tray dehydrator full, I have processed 19 pounds of wet product or enough for 10-12 meals for four people.

Following this method might save your whole dehydrated food supply as you reduce risk of those power plants start sprouting out and rotting or souring in a airtight bag.

 Adjustable slicing allows this machine to be used for everything that you want to slice evenly and properly for OUTSTANDING end product quality when dehydrating.

People often over look this product because slicing is easy, but here the key is even thicknesses for consistency. I and several other hundreds of people found this slicer to meet our needs during harvest time, and makes great Jerky too

Seeds Are Selling Out Early This Year, Better Get Yours Today!

Did you ever think that seed sources would be running out of seeds?

I have always thought. What if this was the year that the chit hit the fan? So like always, I bought my seeds early this year. However, there are a couple GMO seeds I was interested in and tried to order them to find out they are sold out for the year already?

Sold Out Seeds


Since my last order of 34,500k seeds this year, that price has risen by $10.00 in less than a month. If you think the cost is going to go down, don't hold your breath.

The world population will rise to over 7 billion this year, and food prices will triple in the next ten years. If you shop at the store, I do shop for sale items that I can't grow myself, you have seen prices this year alone rise by 6% and the quantity is being reduced by manufacturers without raising the prices to high.

Am I suggesting a panic here? No, I am suggesting that you invest in understanding how to keep your own seeds. This simple book will help you understand how to manage your seed keeping. I do keep many of my own seeds from year to year, and allow some plants to die out to collect seeds. If your not sure how to process and store your own seeds, this is the book for you. After you read the book, understand the knowledge, you can sell the book for a few dollars less than you bought it for. That is being self sufficient!

Seed Sharing And Trading For Heirloom Seeds, Companion Planting

Do you seed trade? Since I can start my own Non-GMO seeds now, I am interested in growing more and trading. What is interesting enough is that I have wheat seeds to grow my own wheat, which is interesting to have. It has made me think of joining a seed trading sight, or maybe peeps on TEG site have this already.

I also am currently begining to read about companion planting and the benefits of doing so. This will be a new adventure for me this year, or maybe next year as I don't feel I have enough information just yet to give it a try..

Non-GMO Seeds Purchase, Long Term Seed Storage

With most of my post and projects, I want understand and learn. I don't mind failing, I like to learn from my mistakes. I don't mean that I want to fail, but when I do I want to try to understand where it all went south, and learn for the future. However I wouldn't trust my seeds in a freezer for 25 years no matter what others tell me.

So I went ahead and purchased those 34,500 seeds I wrote about last month. I want to investigate the packaging method, the seed quality as well as germination rates. I was so suprised to find corn as a Non-GMO seed in this package. I thought the last corn that was not GM was lost in the fifties, but there it is.

The silver envelope (Mylar) arrived well packaged, semi air tight, filled with seeds. I took it upon myself to open it gently and to my surprise were some little baggies, hand labeled, filled with seeds. These bags are the size of bags I would purchase MJ in back in my high school days.

As an emergency stash of seeds, safety saved for future use, was this purchase worth it? I weighted the seeds, and headed to the box store with a pen in hand. I would say for the quality, method, and shear variety, it was a good purchase to be able to put the seeds away for future use. I have removed 50% of the seeds, resealed the original bag, placed it in my root cellar.

With the seeds I kept out, I will sow half those this year, and I have resealed a smaller bag of the rest to sow in five years. I am doing this to double check the storage approach to long term seed keeping. I want to know for myself if this approach is correct. I have often read of yearly seed rotation done by the governments of the world as well as other self sufficient farmers.

It is a great idea to rotate your seeds year to year, but it is ok to also store seeds for long term for future use. Saving your seeds year to year, and rotating them ensures that the new seeds you have do have the energy to grow.

Purchasing a seed vault/packet if you live in the city is also a great idea because in a time of food crisis it becomes a tool that can help keep you alive. You can't just put seeds into the ground and hope they grow, you have to understand the plants needs such as ph of soil, light and what conditions to grow them under and how long will it take to grow them. Armed with a simple seed sprouting chart and a good guide like.
This will teach you how to not only grow plants but also companion planting, grow two different plants together to benefit each other and protect your food from animals in some cases.

Middle East And Self Sufficiency, What Is Happening? Are You Ready!!!

As many of you know, I am not at all one to start a post about the ends times of conspiracy theories or from the biblical perspective. So what is going on in the times? Has the biblical predictions from the Bible come true?  Has the Incas calendar also given us the date 21 Dec 2012 as the last days?

What ever is going to happen, is going to do just that, happen. With the world as it is today, I am not shocked by everything that is happening. However, I have always suspected that I may need my live off the land and fend for myself/family might come in handy. I always thought we would some how live a remote plane crash, living for years till discovered by a drone or something. I also thought perhaps a Mad Max type thing might happen while we were over seas or caught off guard in a distance land. So I really never thought that my skills may be needed seriously in this life time. 

So here we are today, years of learning to live, grow, harvest, fish, hunt and the skills needed to live a Swiss Family Robinson type of life style. In truth, I am not sure where all this stuff is going in the world. I really have no clue at all. I do know that I am happy with my ability to survive in many more conditions than the rest of the general world, where kids don't even know what a potato looks like or their parents don't know how to grow!!!

What are you doing to get ready for your future?

Self Sufficient In The Strangest Of Times, Growing Your Future Non-GMO Garden

I am not one that believes in the conspiracy theory, but as general rule I tend to think that a natural disaster is more likely to kill off a large number of the human race. Whether this be a biological or a weather, a time will come when you will need more than just food stores and fresh water.

There are a few things that you can do now to take care of your future, and the future of your family. In times like these, people will want to take advantage of you and perhaps kill you, or even just plunder your goods because that is all they know how to do, unlike us. There are many things we can discuss on this matter, from how to disguise your house and food storage areas, to gathering water and other items we need to live.

Today I want to talk about your future Non-GMO garden. You can first start out by purchasing a kit that has over 34,500 seeds ready to plant. Second you can store these seeds in a freezer for 25 years before you need to use them. So for 12 cents a month, $1.44 a year, you can feel safe in knowing that you have at your hands the life keeping seeds of plants that you can grow, harvest, and put up to keep you self sufficient for many years.

There are some cheaper kits are around, but I like the larger one I mentioned earlier.