I consider that question in our latest video:
It’s not that having a big, well-stocked survival pantry is a bad thing. It’s that we don’t really need it.
It’s a good idea to keep extra on hand in case of emergencies. But some of that extra could be in the ground, or in the form of storable crops that don’t requiring canning, fermentation, freezing or dehydrating to keep for many, many months.
Canning lots of produce is time-consuming. If you back up a bit and instead grow more crops that keep without help, you can eat year-round without as much effort.
At least in milder climates.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
4 comments
I agree! I have a fair amount of pantry goods and periodically check best by dates and general condition but for the most part eat from the freezer and yard. Some foraging outside my property… I’m finding I am feeding some canned goods to the chickens or bsf bucket or compost pile. Not much of that but I really prefer the fresh stuff I have growing.
Just yesterday I found the tiny ants got into my gal jar of rice and I am happy to cook em with some meat scraps for the dogs. In fact, the dogs and chix may be getting more soon as some dates are getting to 4-5 years beyond the bbd….
Lots of teeny tiny ants this summer
Thanks David, I don’t think enough people talk about planning your garden so you minimise the work you need to do to store the harvest. I found the book ‘Preserving food without freezing or canning’ to be incredibly useful. If you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend.
Thank you
This is the thing that’s present on my mind a lot lately. We’ve actually been eating out of our survival pantry a lot lately and I know I need more food in the ground. This has kind of been the dividing line for my wife and I as far as survival gardening and preparing goes. Preserving foods really is a lot of work. Pickled and fermented foods are things that I can still get my grandson interested in trying. Anything that can compete with fast food and candy.
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