As the spring equinox approaches, there are many people already out raking their yards. Others are doing spring cleaning and taking huge loads of stuff to the thrift shops and our local dump. Now that spring is almost here, what am I up to? I am assessing my food stores in all of my various locations and layers.
Yes, I know, we’re not quite at a total apocalypse yet. However, I live strategically. I’m in the north, in USDA Zone 4. Come the apocalypse, winter survival will be a real thing. It wasn’t too long ago that getting through the winter was a pretty big deal. You couldn’t go to a Big Box store fifty to seventy-five years ago and buy a pineapple for $3.
I have a friend in his eighties who grew up on a farm with nine siblings. He’s talked to me about how, by springtime, they’d be out of almost everything except potatoes. It was a lean and hungry time. His mother used to go out to forage for the earliest plants to help feed her large family.
So here we are, almost at the Spring Equinox. Where do I want to be in terms of my food stores at this time? I want to be certain that I have enough food to survive until a garden starts producing and/or food is available to forage. This is a dress rehearsal. I want to be ready for the real thing.
In an earlier article, I described my layers of food preservation for winter, if you want to get caught up before reading on, but it will all make sense without the details.
The Fridge
The extra space in my off-grid fridge that I was using to store fall vegetables is empty, but has not been for long. Just last week, I used up the last beet in one of my “everything” soups. I’m eating the last of that soup tonight. Filling up the fridge in the fall doesn’t take a lot of work. I check the root veggies every once in a while and, if they seem to be drying out, rinse them and put them back in the plastic bag, one with some ventilation.
Cool Room
The root veggies stored in my cool room are also done, but also just last week. Generally, I aim to have them finished by mid-February. The winter was a bit cooler this year, and, as a result, everything lasted just a bit longer. I pulled a viable carrot and potato from the now not-so-damp sawdust. They weren’t beautiful, but they were edible.
Remember, this is a drill: you need to know what each storage layer can do for you. I lost the other remaining carrot. Oh well.
LATE Season Extension – Community Garden
I had been picking kale out of our community garden until sometime in December. We had mulched several plants heavily with straw and covered them with large, clear plastic bins. After December, they started to look….well, wilty and unappetizing. These will be uncovered now, cut back a bit, and produce kale very early for us from the preserved rootstalk.
EARLY Season Extension – Community Garden
We have already planted an early crop in our raised bed at the community garden. The beds are a lovely two-and-a-half feet high, so they are already thawed out a good foot and a half. Still, it’s very early for us to plant in zone 4! We’re using a greenhouse row tunnel with some venting. We’re trying early radishes and baby carrots, along with some turnips (my early fave) and some beets.
It’s a bold experiment. If this is successful, we’ll get in almost a full crop before our traditional planting weekend. All of the volunteers are gardeners who have their own gardens at home. We grow to distribute to local families in need, so getting that fresh food on those tables a few months earlier means a lot.
To be honest, we aren’t sure how this will go. How will you know if you don’t try? You need to first try and then adjust everything and retry to get the expertise required to problem-solve. I don’t have any raised beds on my homestead, so this volunteer work is also giving me an opportunity to learn about their pros and cons.
The Pantry
In addition to the above ways that I preserve and store fresh root vegetables, I also maintain a substantial pantry of canned goods. I checked on that this past weekend. I am in good shape; so good, in fact, that, in the spirit of pantry rotation, I dropped off a box of cans and other items to a friend who’s going through a hard time.
My pantry stores are focused on the basics: beans, tomatoes, meat and fish, broth, a bit of canned fruit packed in water, and some coconut oil. Again, this is about survival and health. I don’t eat processed foods. I gave up all sugar and refined carbohydrates back in November and have never looked back. I feel great, and I’m building towards optimal health for the rest of my life. Learn more about why I made this choice for my brain and body health here.
In the summer, I eat fewer soups and stews and more salads. As the seasons change, I regularly check my pantry Best Before dates and try to use up my more wintry items when I see they won’t make it to the next winter season.
These are my most basic food preservation techniques. I will cover my more advanced methods in a future article.
Spring Solstice a Crucial Time to Assess Food Stores
After a long winter, there’s still snow on the ground this time of year where I live. I need to make sure I have the knowledge to prepare adequate food stores to survive a long cold winter on my own.
What is your food security challenge in your area? Do you have some food store tips you can share with us? Do you have a specific time of year when you do an inventory and assessment? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.
About Rowan
Rowan O’Malley is a fourth-generation Irish American who loves all things green: plants (especially shamrocks), trees, herbs, and weeds! She challenges herself daily to live her best life and to be as fit, healthy, and prepared as possible.
