Severe Weather Hints

In my part of West Tennessee, we are entering our spring-time severe weather season. I've gone through our safe room to make sure all of our items are on-hand for those times when we'll have to make the dash into our safe room due to severe weather alerts:

Backup water
Battery operated weather radio
2 way radio
Small hatchet
72-hour kits nearby
Blankets and pillows nearby

One thing I always have on hand when we all head to our storm-safe room is an "Emergency Identification Card". At the beginning of each storm season (spring and fall), I take a few minutes to jot down our personal info on an index card that I then put in a ziplock bag. I include the following information on the card:

Name of each family member
Brief description (sex, height, weight, hair color, eye color and age)
Our home address and phone number
Emergency Contact Information

Whenever we head to our safe room I make sure I have this card in my pocket. Heaven forbid something terrible should happen, at least there would be a way for rescuers to hopefully help identify us.

You can also consider having "dog tags" printed up for each family member. We have these as well and have them hanging on the key rack just outside our downstairs bathroom, which serves as our safe room. Each person could put on their "dog tag" before heading in to the safe room.

We purchased ours here: 1800NameTapes

These are also handy for keeping id information in your child's backpack, sports bags, etc.

We also make sure that whenever we go to bed, everyone has a flashlight on their nightstand and sturdy shoes at the ready beside their bed. If we have to rush to our safe room during the middle of the night, everyone knows to grab their pillow, flashlight and shoes and head for safety whenever we give the alert.

On days or evenings when we have several hours of advance notice of severe weather possibilities, I take the time to go ahead and prep our safe room with some "extras" just in case we need them. I'll go ahead and put in a pair of socks and shoes for each person, make sure a cell phone and charger is there, make sure blankets and pillows are already in place, a "security" item or toy for each child, etc. It really doesn't take that much extra time to put these things in place or to put them away if we end up not needing them.

You should really practice sometime waking your children from a sound sleep to head to your safe room to see how long it takes. Believe it or not, there are lots of stories out there of children (and adults!) sleeping so soundly that they never even hear a smoke alarm go off, even when it is in the hallway just outside their rooms! It would pay to try this sometime to see how smoothly it would go for your family should an actual emergency actually occur.

Stay safe this spring season and make sure you are prepared!

Basics of Home Canning

We've been home canning on an annual basis for well over ten years now - I usually put up about a dozen cases of jars each summer. I remember learning how to can with my grandmother when I was a little girl.

If you are working hard this year on your first garden, you have probably at some point thought about ways to preserve your delicious fruits and veggies so you can enjoy them all year long.

Don't worry, home canning is really not very difficult and it is very rewarding to open that delicious jar of peach preserves or corn relish during the winter months to savor a taste of the summer garden again.

To get started, I recommend that you get a copy of the Ball Blue Book of Preserving - I have several different editions - and have never had a recipe fail.

The book goes through the basics of home canning equipment and terminology, discusses high and low acid food preserving, freezing and dehydrating. If you can only purchase one book to learn how to can, this is the one I'd recommend.

Most of the equipment you need for home canning can be picked up at fairly reasonable prices, but don't wait until the last minute or you might not get everything you need.

The search for canning jars is to a home canner what searching for fabric is to a quilter! I search garage sales, thrift stores, Freecycle and Craigslist for canning jars. They are getting difficult to find at these places in my area though.

When I have to buy new jars, I first check Big Lots or Fred's, as they have the best prices I've found in my area on new jars. I leave the big box stores and grocery stores for last, as they tend to be the most expensive places to purchase jars.

If you want a hands-on class in home canning, check with your local extension office to see if they offer one.

Whatever you do, don't let the fear of the unknown keep you from trying your hand a preserving your harvest - you'll be glad you took the step!

Garden Is Started!

Want to know how we've spent our time this past weekend? Getting our garden in place!

This year we are tire gardening so we don't have to spend agonizing time working on the incredibly hard soil here in West Tennessee.

I've blogged all about this here: Tire Gardening: Day One and here: Tire Gardening: Day Two if you'd like to take a peek!

Enjoy your week!

Gardening: Get Ready!

We're really anxious to get our spring garden in the ground, as I know many of you are as well! It could take volumes of text to go into great detail about gardening how-to, especially for those of you out there who might be doing your very first garden this year. So, I'm going to provide some links instead for great gardening resources that are already out there for you to use.

Getting the "perfect" garden spot going can take years of working the soil to get it nutrient-rich for your area of the state or country. But there are things you can do even if this is your first attempt at gardening that will make the job easier and still allow you to see some yield from your efforts.

You don't have to own a tiller, a lot of land or tons of gardening implements to get started. We've done traditional garden plots, square foot gardening, raised bed gardening, container gardening and had good yields and bad in all of them. Some of it is beyond our control - like drought, but usually just a little hard work and TLC will yield a nice little bounty for you and/or your family.

Here are a few to get you started:

Know your climate zone: Tennessee hardiness zones range from 6a to 7b. Knowing your hardiness zone will help you determine which plants will grow in your area during what times of the year. Here's the USDA Hardiness Zone Map for TN -(update: this one is interactive for your location using Google Maps, thanks to a great comment left on this post)!

Know your frost-free date: The frost-free date for my area of West TN is April 8th-15th. That is the date that it is considered "safe" to plant outdoors without having to fear a frost will come in and kill tender young plants. The past 2 years running, we've had a hard frost / freeze around April 13th - so it pays to know this information. Here's a handy little chart from Victory Seed Company for the First and Last Freeze Dates for TN.

Know what you'll eat: It really doesn't do much good to plant a whole slew of squash or zucchini if no one in your family will eat them. So take some time first to decide what you want to eat and how you want to use it. Are you going to freeze any of your harvest? Are you going to home can any of your harvest? Are you going to dehydrate any of your harvest? Do you want to have enough to eat fresh plus plenty to put away for the winter? Do you want to grow extra to trade for other fruits or veggies you don't have the ability to plant? Do you want to grow extra for extended family members? Spend a little time thinking this through so you can take the next step and determine how much you need to plant based on how much you'd like to yield.



Some links relevant to the above:
If you want to home can, freeze or dehydrate and never have - I recommend this book as a complete guide to get you started. It covers everything you need to know about canning, freezing, dehydrating and includes fabulous recipes. I use this every year and have never had a recipe fail. Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving.

Know how much you need to plant: Once you know what you want to plant and what you want to do with your harvest, you can determine how many seeds / starter plants you'll need to reach your yield. Much will depend on your gardening method. You can get more plants in a smaller area if you use the square foot gardening method; you'll need a lot more room if you are using traditional row gardening, so take all of that into consideration. Here are some handy calculators:

Backwoods Home - you can go to the link, type in "gardening" in the search box and read many articles about gardening basics.

How to Plan a Farm and Garden to Feed a Family

About.com: How Much To Plant

Virginia Cooperative Extension - has a handy chart, but you'll need to use the TN planting dates if you are in TN instead of the ones on that website.

What kind of seeds? Most people trying to become more self-sufficient and grow a substantial garden to supplement or completely provide for their family's food needs will work hard to use only heirloom seeds. Heirloom seeds gathered from this year's harvest can be saved and used to plant next year's harvest and will produce a plant like the parent plant. With hybrid seeds (like most you buy from any "local" stores or nurseries) the seeds from your harvest cannot be saved and used for future planting, requiring that you constantly buy new seeds. Yes, heirloom seeds might be a bit more expensive on the front-end, but once you learn the easy art of seed-saving, you'll always have the seeds you need right at hand! Here are some links - do your research and make your own decision on the company you think best deserves your business and is most dependable:

Bountiful Gardens - we've purchased lots of seeds from this site and they've always been dependable.

Marianna's Heirloom Seeds - right here in TN

New Hope Seed Company - another right here in TN

GetSeeds.net

Heirloom Seeds

Seeds of Change

SeedSavers.org

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Amishland Heirloom Seeds

Keeping it going: Once you get everything planted, you'll need to take steps to make sure your plants thrive. Watering guidelines, using mulch, natural fertilizer, weeding, bug control, composting and knowing how to start companion and rotational gardening will help you get the most from your vegetable garden for your entire growing season and those to come. More links:

National Plant Board List of Noxious Weeds

Guide to Selecting A Garden Mulch

Environmentally Responsible Gardening Products

Chemical-free pest control and garden fertilizing - Jerry Baker, Master Gardener

Dave's Garden - gardening tips

Neptune Harvest - all natural organic fertilizer

How To Compost

Compost Master

Conserving Water In The Vegetable Garden

Organic Garden Pest Control

Attracting Beneficial Insects to Your Garden

Natural Garden Pest Control

Beneficial Nematodes

Rotational Gardening

Crop Rotation

Companion Planting - Secrets of Organic Gardening

Carrots Love Tomatoes - companion planting book

Companion Planting - So Happy Together

Okay - time to get started! We're working this weekend planning out our first rotation of gardening that will start this week and the rotations that will follow throughout the summer and into fall. Our primary method of gardening this year will be tire gardening - and we'll show you how we're doing it every step of the way.

I'd love to hear your comments or share with me other links that gardeners here in TN might find useful!

Giveaway Winners!

Well, better late than never posting the winners! A bunch of family responsibilities took my time away from blogging this weekend - sorry for the delay posting who won the Yoplait Giveaway!

Without any further delay the winners are (as chosen by a random number generator):

TINA - lowrytx [at] gmail [dot] com

TGIBBS - tammiegibbs [at] bellsouth [dot] net

JACQUELINE - jacquelinelivingoutloud [at] gmail [dot] com

CONGRATULATIONS ALL!

I'm off to email you each directly - please respond by Wednesday, March 4th to the email so I can notify the sponsor to get your winning package out to you!

Thanks for playing!