Most Americans (and Westerners) have long been lulled into the safety of having a neighborhood grocery store that they could just run into to pick up a few things and seem content on the mentality that it’s always going to be there for them. I spent quite a few years working in the grocery store industry and the old way of doing things would see at least two 18 wheelers pulling into our back bay to unload our order and we would keep a decent stock in the back room. This has changed for whatever reasons because the back-room area has been severely reduced and now whatever you see on the shelves is what you get.
Officially, it’s been calculated that the average grocery store can hold somewhere between 3-4 days’ worth of groceries but after that chaos will ensue. You have to keep in mind that a large city can have multiple grocery stores so a person could theoretically drive around to other stores to get a stockpile of specific items. If you live in a small town, you may only have one or two stores and it’s usually a grocery store and a Dollar General for anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand folks.
You need to get your basic master stockpiling done which you can get from your typical neighborhood stores, but you need to understand that you will develop what’s referred to as “palate pallor” if all you eat is smooshie canned food with nothing fresh. You can additionally, develop nutrient deficiencies if you don’t get enough variety. Yes, you can stockpile multi vitamins but that will eventually expire or deteriorate, either way it’s not ideal either.
As my husband frequently reminds me, we need to have contingency plans in place to have a layer of food protection. You ideally want to start small and work your way up, so you would start out with about 3 months, and continue with adding three months’ worth until you finally obtain 12 months’ worth of food and supplies. You can then begin to think about keeping a food journal and detailing which produce you find your family using the most for a full year and then decide how to lay out a plan to produce as much of it on your own as you can.
One of the realities I discovered is that if I want carrots, it’s easier for me to just buy a large 5-lb bag of whole organic carrots versus attempting to plant them as they seem to struggle to grow in my area. Instead of using that room for carrots which take up a fair amount of room, I can grow something vertically like cucumbers or squash. It’s easier for me to pick up larger root vegetables at the store and grow my own lettuce and radishes for salads at home.
If you have an apartment or condo, you can now purchase vertical grow towers that allow you to grow upwards of 50 different plants in a small space and even have a composting system in the very middle to continuously fertilize the plants via vermicomposting. It’s not the most ideal system but if you are looking for something to add to your arsenal of preparedness, consider looking into one of these systems.
You can purchase 5-gallon buckets, drill holes in the bottom and fill with potting soil which will allow you to grow a variety of vegetables right on your patio or Florida room. Eggplants, sweet peppers, tomatoes, hot peppers, okra, squash and other bushy annuals can be grown in this way fairly easily.
Suburban & Rural Homesteading Today 