Ramblings on early Spring, late Winter, hard frosts and food production...

Howdy Readers,

Been kinda busy at work lately so I have not had much time to blog as of late. I have my ducks (or is that chickens???) in a row for building the chicken house if it would ever stop raining. Seems like it is always raining when I get off work and about every weekend... This weekend I will hopefully be able to get started!!!

The weather and how it relates to survival and preparedness and... food production is what I wanted to type about tonight.

The last few weeks along with the rain brought some very spring like temperatures. Trees started budding, flowers were blooming. Yesterday we had a cold front come into our area with freezing temps. Basically the temps dropped to 29F with calm winds so a frost was expected.

My Stark Apple Trees (some of the best nursery stock I have dealt with so it is a great place to get your fruit trees from) had the most beautiful blooms on them and it was looking like I might get a few apples this year.

As my slight deviation for tonight, the time to plant permaculture (fruit trees/bushes, nut trees, vines etc.) was YESTERDAY!!! If you own property and have a place to plant some plant some permaculture NOW. I planted these about 2 years ago, so it takes a while and is NOT an instant fix!

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog entry... I decided to to try and cover my smallest of the fruit trees and bushes in order to try and save them. I do not know if I succeeded or not, but I HOPE I DID...

As I surveyed the yard this morning, I noticed a very light frost on the the grass... so only time will tell.

Two years ago we had a hard frost after all the apple and peach trees bloomed. The orchards all around had massive crops failures and the early varieties were non existent.

Which brings me to my point about the importance of storing food... YOU MUST STORE FOOD!!! We are not guaranteed ANY CROPS as an early frost can wipe out the fruit production for the year, a hail storm in June can wipe out your tomato vines, and a flood can wipe your corn crop before you can harvest it.

The food you store may be the only food you get if you have a crop failure. What happens if your crops fail for 2 years? Are you gonna eat???

I am not discouraging you to plant a garden or fruit trees, just saying that even with these 'renewable' preps you many not have anything to harvest due to forces beyond YOUR control. So be sure to have some food put up for those times.

Thanks for reading!

Later,
ZA