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Worst Preparedness Advice EVER!!!!
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Worst Preparedness Advice EVER!!!!
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I often wonder this about myself and my “crew”. We aren’t getting any younger. Some of the kids grew up to be badasses. Special forces, state troopers etc, but none of them close. Some not even in Conus. Might not even be able to get back here if shtf. I figure the best we can do is put in the work to grow sufficient calories for everyone and make the most of what we have. If raiders show up we fight. If they are skillful or numerous and determined enough we probably won’t win, but we will do a LOT of damage.
I was talking to a guy who told me he had 3,000 rounds for each of his rifles. I asked him how many rounds he thought he would be able to fire before the bad guys got him. He looked confused. He had not thought of that. How much ammo do I want? All of it, but I don’t expect to fire 3,000 rounds in one engagement.
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I love when people ask me how much ammo they need. I say, all of it, all the time, as much as you can. Some say really? I say it’s better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it.
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So many people don’t understand that round count wins gun fights. Sure, we all think we are better than we are and we like to say that “shot placement” wins gun fights. But as a guy who has been shot at, and fired back, I can say that with the exception of the most ardent warriors on the planet, we all lose fine motor skills and all get tunnel vision during confrontations like that.
Having the ability to lay down more lead than the bad guy becomes paramount for people who aren’t used to armed conflict.
So yeah, how many rounds do you want? As @Freeman06211788 says… All of them!
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by SpagsUnfiltered.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by
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Agreed!
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https://sonsoflibertymedia.com/government-steals-paraplegic-blind-womans-home-leaves-her-homeless-for-taxes-she-already-paid-video/ I’m curious enough to poll this thread, to see how many would invite this lady inside for a bowl of stew, before stacking her up like cord wood?
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This is a very sad and disgusting story. I would hope we would all see her in need and help. I am certainly not the “shoot everyone in the face” type of prepper. Frankly, anyone who says they are the “shoot them in the face” type for every scenario is as much the enemy as the government or the Chinese or the aliens.
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Plant a garden, grow in your flower beds, front yards, back yards, pots, raised beds, JUST GROW FOOD to survive. This could be a big mistake in a SHTF scenario when people are desperate for food of any source that is easily accessible and in plain view.
I’m going to go down a slightly different approach to gardening. We all know how important our gardens are to supply a source of food/vitamins/nutrients in our diets. But in a SHTF scenario, you may encounter marauders (friend or foe) hunting for ANY food source and a garden full of produce or planted openly & visible would be an invitation to lose what you have intended for you and/or family to have as a meal.
I HIGHLY recommend starting some hidden or camouflaged sources of food that can be disguised as plants & plant them in areas away from your garden. If you have woods, plant all over your woods or other areas on your property. Scatter turnip seeds in an area where they can sporadically grow and not looks like a PLANTED row in a garden. Plant some sweet potatoes in areas and since they vine, they can climb over areas and not look like a PLANNED planted garden. THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX & BE CREATIVE with other crops that grow in your area. Some may fail but some will survive and you will have additional food sources all over your property that YOU will know is there when others not familiar with garden plants (root crops especially) won’t have a clue.
These are two sources I have going now and NO ONE even knows what they are except bushes, one with pretty flowers in late summer. I’ll explain.
I have planted Jerusalem Artichokes. This is what mine look like planted along the woodline away from my garden area. (see 1st two pic’s below). They grow tubers in the soil that can be eaten like a potato. You can see the flowers they produce so a great camouflage of a hidden food source. Being that they are INVASIVE and multiply once established you could plant these all over the place and have an infinite supply of SOME food. Really good either pan-fried or roasted. Some people claim to have digestive issues eating them so best to try them BEFORE you have to depend on them for supplemental food. I tolerate them well. Taste like a cross between a water chestnut and a potato. You can purchase them on Etsy, Amazon & other online stores/nurseries.
I’m also growing Chayote Squash. It is a PROLIFIC producer of weird-looking squash. It will vine all over the place and produce MANY MANY squashes. It has the taste & texture of a pear, which some use as a filler for pies but can also be eaten as a squash. You can buy them in your local grocery, or Walmart, & online and plant them. (See instructions at the end on how to grow. Hard to get them to actually get started and may have several FAILED attempts but I’ve gotten several to sprout & grow. They die back in the winter. Mulch the plant VERY WELL once it dies back, especially if in a cold climate to help keep the mother roots alive. They will come back year after year. Also, it can be a VERY invasive plant once established. It loves full sun so if you have an area away from your garden that you could put up some makeshift support for it to climb on (I have some growing on an old shed. Looks like a vine-covered dilapidated bldg…who would think that IT is actually food being grown on that old shed??) Some people plant them around their chicken coops. They will vine ALL OVER the coop, and provide shade for the chickens and food if they can access some that may hang down in the coop. They have LOTS of vitamins & nutritional benefits, too! See pic’s below. Plus the 3 I have sprouting now to plant. Wouldn’t let me upload all my pics but you can get an idea of what I’ve talked about above.
If you want to start a plant from store-bought chayote, look for an older one with a tough skin. Leave the fruit on the counter until a sprout emerges. Once this sprout is about 6 inches long, bury the fruit in well-drained, sandy soil at about a 45-degree angle, fat end down, sprout exposed. The roots are shallow, and the plant does best growing in a weed-free, well-mulched space, ideally at least 6 feet in diameter, slightly raised on a mound to avoid root rot.
Make sure a trellis or some other structure will provide support once the plant begins to climb. When the season is done, cut back almost to the ground, leaving short stalks to winter over & mulch heavily.
I also have plans to secure my chickens & rabbits by digging out an area UNDERGROUND and use some Polycarbonate panels (or some heavy shatterproof glass (maybe an old windshield or car windows??) for part of the roof to allow for sunshine. The earth-sheltered area will keep a consistent temperature for the chickens/rabbits (NO FREEZING WATER or HEAT EXHAUSTION) plus the soil will help muffle any sounds made by the chickens. I will vent it with some pipes to remove ammonia from the urine and figure out an air circulation system for airflow. If your property doesn’t have any slopes or hills you could always disguise the underground coop/hutch by covering it with the above-mentioned Jerusalem Artichokes or some other type of evergreen plants to grow on top. The entrance could be a hinged hatch on top or side, if you have a slope and cover it with limbs/debris or whatever. GOT TO PROTECT OUR LIVESTOCK, too. I’ll post later once I get this project figured out & completed.
Just some FOOD for thought to try to protect our food and animals.
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Food Forrest or Gorilla Gardening. ✔️
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I agree. The front of my house, as seen from the street looks like any other traditional home. All the food production is in the back and built to specifically look like a “hobby garden”. Even from the air it’s very unassuming.
But the trick is that I supplement a seriously good chuck of my family’s annual food consumption from it while keeping it looking like just something I do for fun.
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Gotta love your suggestion to grow veggies among the trees — but, hey, they need their sunshine to produce. I’ve got to use my front yard as that’s the only sunny area on my 1/2 acre. I agree with tucking veggies into regular landscape areas to help disguise them. I’ve also decided to plant as much weedy camouflage as possible so that no one knows what’s growing. Free range hens are doing a pretty good job keeping the weeds down, fertilizing, and providing entertainment as well as eggs.
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What I have noticed over the last few years of gardening, what USED to require full sun to grow now grow better in partial or filtered shade. The UV Rays/Radiation are scorching/burning up plants here in my zone 8b-coastal AL in full sun. With the weather pattern changes, whether it be naturally occurring (GSM-Grand Solar Minimum) or man-made (geoengineering/weather manipulation) we have got to adapt planting to grow our fruits & veggies accordingly.
With the extreme heat wave & drought we experienced this past summer, what survived were sheltered by other taller crops or trees. Some of my fruit trees planted in full sun that have done well the last 7 years literally burned to a crisp and not from underwatering but from the intense full sun. Had I known it was the UV Rays/Radiation that was the culprit soon enough, I could have used some shade cloth to protect my loquat trees & several blueberry bushes. I had blueberries on some bushes that looked like they had been dehydrated even with frequent watering but yet the leaves were burned to a crisp, too.
Sugar Cane produced exceptionally well in partial sun as did most all of my other veggies like tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, onions & garlic. Okra which thrives on heat & full sun did nothing until the heat wave & drought subsided. I had okra & bell peppers producing well from the end of August up until we had an unusual cold snap with a frost a couple of weeks ago. Seems our weather has been on a rollercoaster ride or mother nature has been on some kind of weird psycho drugs & don’t know whether to poop or get off the pot. I am in agreement with those that say growing in a greenhouse or high tunnel is going to be the best way to be successful gardening in the future. I’m starting on greenhouse/high tunnel #2 soon since my current greenhouse is way too small to accomodate my growing needs for self-sustainability. Greenhouse/High Tunnel #2 will also house a variety of fruit trees grown in 35 gallon tubs in the event the ones I have planted in ground don’t survive the crazy weather I see coming.
Yes, plants need sunshine for photosynthesis to occur but there will be no photosynthesis when the metals they are spraying from the sky bind up the root systems of plants/trees. They can’t absorb the nutrients needed to grow and eventually die.
Growing what we need to eat to survive isn’t what it used to be in years past. I’m having to relearn what I have done for 35 yrs gardening. You will have to adapt to changes (and that includes strange bugs/worms & other gardening pests I’ve never had to deal with before). If you don’t experiment now and find out what works best for your area, you will be scratching your head wondering why things aren’t growing or dying when growing your food to keep from starving will be imperative.
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The sun was certainly really bad this year.
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Thank you for this post. You said some really important things. I agree the less time I focus on how things are changing and more time on changing myself, the better I’m doing overall. I am new to the space so don’t know how things “are supposed to be” and only what they are. It makes it maybe easier to asses and move than someone who’s been able to rely on things being relatively predictable from year to year.
Thx again.
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You’re welcome and thank you for responding. These days there seems to be NO RIGHT OR WRONG way to garden. With all the weather & other anomalies we are facing, you have to figure out what is best for you to grow in your zone. It seems every time I THINK I have a problem solved with one growing issue something ELSE happens to throw a kink in my plans or ideas. You just keep on trying & NEVER EVER GIVE UP! Time is not on our side to at least try to figure some things out so if one thing/idea fails, put that thinking cap on and try something else. As I’ve stated in previous posts here, you can’t wait til you HAVE TO MAKE CHANGES to do something else. You may not have time.
No one knows what our future holds with all that is going on in this country and globally as well as our weather & other solar/atmospheric problems we could be facing. What used to work in the past when things were more “NORMAL” for us gardeners/homesteaders have done an about-face throwing us all into tailspins to figure out something that WILL WORK. If you want to survive you have got to adapt to many changes from what we once knew or what worked in the past. It will be difficult for those new at gardening or homesteading but YOU CAN DO IT if you have the right mindset & determination to do your best. It is a LOT OF WORK and long hours spent over & above your usual workday trying to figure things out, just jump in with both feet and GITTER DONE. Life as we once knew it is gone but times are always changing as our history has shown us. Who knows, we may go back to the pioneer days or even the stone age before we find our NEW NORMAL…if there will ever be one again.
Good Luck. There are many people on this site that have fantastic ideas they are also sharing that can spark a new idea on a big variety of topics that know whats coming.
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This reminds me of Jack Spirko’s podcast on Gray Man gardening. He reminds us that, as recorded in the book ‘Ersatz in the Confederacy’, fields of Cowpeas weren’t burned on Sherman’s March To The Sea because none of the Yankee Boys had ever seen them before. https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/24-bullet-proof-plants
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I had to laugh a little at this reference to cowpeas. My grandmother (born & raised in Georgia) told me that cow peas USED to be grown to feed cows as they were abundant and provided them with good nutrition. During the Civil War when there was very little food to eat people resorted to eating the cowpeas to survive and found they were very tasty. Thus they have since evolved into a human source of food & not so much as a source for cows to eat. (Even tho some oldtimers may still plant them for their cows as cover crops). I almost fainted at the prices of ANY cowpea seeds last spring. They started at $5 a lb, depending on the variety you wanted.
I also remember another situation when I was in a seed swap group several years ago. There was a blog I joined to swap seeds (veggie & flowers) from people all over the US. I made a swap with someone from up north and when he found out I lived in the south, he asked if I wanted a bunch of COWPEA seeds someone had recently given him. He had no clue what to do with them as he had never heard of this variety of “PEA” (He was more interested in planting what we refer to as English or Sweet Peas). I gladly took them even tho they were few in number I still planted each envelope of them and enjoyed the fruits of my labor.
If we could only turn back the hands of time (in some instances) and learn to do the things our ancestors did to feed their animals as well as themselves we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are in now with so many fingers in the pie controlling what we can or can’t grow and eat
Thank you for responding and taking me back to a stroll down memory lane with cowpeas! -
We eat black eye peas and some kind of green every New Year’s eve for good luck in the coming year. It’s a Southern thing. When Sherman was rampaging through Georgia killing the livestock and burning the crops with the intent of starving Georgia into submission, his soldiers knew that cow peas (consider the name) were animal fodder, so they didn’t burn them. That’s what the locals survived on along with mostly foraged greens until a wider diet was available.
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Yep, that is true. My ancestors lived thru that era as my maternal side of the family was all in Georgia. A lot of my family history was actually documented in the book “GONE WITH THE WIND” as the author, Margaret Mitchell was my great great Aunt.
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My ancestors were mostly all in Texas during that war. The union was mostly stopped at the border, so not much happened here. Texas was the last state to enter the Confederacy and the last to allow the union to occupy it. General Lee actually spent a lot of his career in Texas and loved Texas and Texans. He relied on the 1st and 4th Texas divisions heavily in the Army of Northern Virginia. One of his most famous quotes is “the enemy never sees the backs of my Texans”
It was during reconstruction that it all went downhill.
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(deleted because of redundancy)
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This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by packrat.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by
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About the plants needing more shade. I am in the same zone as you just a little farther north. Today I was thinking about moving my garden to a lower elevation in my yard. Last summer the heat and drought killed everything except okra. I have noticed that pecan trees in my area have produced very little if no nuts this year. But miles up the road a few trees are full and then none for another few miles. Even my garlic is not doing good this year, so yes I feel like something has changed. Not sure what changed it but I know something has.
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I hear ya with the pecans this year!! I went 2 weeks ago to pick up pecans. This couple had 10 acres of pecan trees on their property. This is an area noted for high pecan production, just south of me. She couldn’t get any pecan harvesters to come harvest them because they were losing money this year harvesting pecans that had nothing in them or were rotten. The people I picked up pecans from had a patch of trees that were loaded with good pecans, then an area that had pecans but were nothing in them, light as a feather and some trees had pecans but they were black & rotten. Most had lost all their leaves but about every 10th tree it would be putting on new green growth. Strangest thing I have EVER seen with pecan orchards. Even THEY didn’t know what the heck was going on with their trees this year. I picked up 3-five gallon buckets, which should have given me 10-12 gallon bags on a good year. I got 4 1/2 gallons. They told me I could come back and get all I wanted. I’m tempted, just to have them for hard times (I soak them in water to remove the tannins then dehydrate them & vacuum seal-Don’t trust putting too much in the freezer these days with threats of a grid down situation). They rehydrate well and taste like a roasted pecan. Lots of work but worth it to have when there may not be any to get in the future. I think they are spraying something that is killing trees & plants. I mentioned in my previous comment that I had lost fruit trees & blueberry bushes and tons of wild huckleberry bushes…burned to a crisp. One tree would be burned up and the one next to it would be okay. The leaves look like they had acid poured on them. Some were splotchy with dots, some had black runs in the leaves, like a build up of some sort of liquid that ran down the leaves & burned them up. I’ve watched my security cameras at night on several occasions. The 8 cameras have infrared night vision. I could see what looked like white dots floating down very slowly. I would go outside to look to see what it might be and could see nothing. Fog looks like white dots swirling around in all different directions. Rain looks like white streaks falling hard. You can see the fog & rain when you go out but whatever this white stuff floating down is, I have NO CLUE except whatever it is they are spraying. I have pictures that are crazy of the chemtrails we’ve been hit with the last few weeks. I’ve shown them to people and they can’t believe there is so many here. Lots of big X’s and even some that are almost black/dark gray. And yes, they spray at night. Got pictures I used night vision to capture.
Read a statement not too long ago that said they are killing us with the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and even the clothes we wear. Makes me shutter to think of all they are doing to us!
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I feel the worse prep advice is to instill a sense of prep. Or hoarding stuff. As if the more stuff you have the better your chance of survival.
Who knew when Covid-19 arrived so many panic buyers would hoard toilet paper. 😂🤣😅
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I get ya on this! Prepping to me is obtaining things to be self-sufficient & sustainable LONG TERM, not just for the moment. What some so-called preppers think is to store food, water, 2A supplies, etc., and not think about what they are going to do when it all runs out. Some buy a bunch of seeds and store them to plant when their food runs out but have never grown a garden in their life! BIG MISTAKE in todays changing times with weather, diseases, and insect problems & no fertilizer or it being unaffordable!
I prep to be able to keep growing food, and animals, have a long-term source of water (or access to it), and LEARN HOW TO DO IT ALL BEFORE YOU HAVE TO DO IT & HAVE NO CLUE WHERE TO START. I prep foods I can’t reproduce or grow successfully (in bulk) as well as comfort foods & bulk purchases of food to eat while gardens/fruit trees and animals are growing for harvest or FAILED CROPS, THEFT, etc. I have several alternative methods of growing food, just in case. I’ve learned to forage edible foods, and medicinal plants to make medicine when it isn’t available. I’ve planted perennial veggies all over my homestead in inconspicuous places to have backups to my backups for some source of food to eat. This list goes on & on.
Yes, I have toilet paper stored BUT, I also have purchased sheets at thrift stores and made reusable sources for bathroom needs. I have a septic system & can flush the toilet with water from my above-ground pool or rainwater PLUS I have a working outhouse with a septic system built from 55-gallon drums with leach lines.
Some people just don’t get prepping for long term survival…but some do! We may not have every single base covered but I’m pretty darn close!
THOSE are the people I worry about when SHTF…the mauraders that may stumble upon my place thinking they will take what they want? Some may try, some may succeed but some may come & never leave, just saying. 😉 🙃-
You covered most everything needed. I’d say you’re in pretty good shape.
Thanks for the comment, I enjoy reading your comments.
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Thank you for your kind words. I’ve been at this for 24+ yrs and by no means am I a pro but I pay attention to changing times and adjust my prepping accordingly. My brain never stops thinking of easier or better ways to do things and has gone into max overdrive these last few years just trying to stay ahead of what is being thrown at us.
As I have stated in previous comments on this and other discussions, when I began preparing for what I KNEW was eventually coming, I put my mindset back to the pioneer days when there was no electricity, no grocery or hardware stores, no running water and people had to make do with what they had or could build/make. I began searching for MANUAL TOOLS (including gardening, carpentry, kitchen gadgets, lawn equipment, etc.) that didn’t require electricity, gas or modern tech to operate. Thrift Stores, Estate Sales, junk yards and now FB Marketplace are excellent places to find what some call JUNK. I learned TRASH PICK UP DAYS for cities in my area (most were the more ritzy areas as they throw out perfectly good items when they don’t need them or the fad is gone or they remodel, etc.). I also go to Habitat for Humanity RESTORE and find contractor donations for pennies on the dollar. I had friends that worked in the logging business and had them get me huge fat lighter logs that were just being left to rot/burn to be able to start fires easier. I also had friends that worked in construction and when a job was done, they would get me permission to go help clean up as well as dumpster dive for lumber/PVC pipe/fittings. You would be blown away at the WASTE during construction. If they cut a wrong length for a board, plywood, etc., they would just throw that away and get a new piece to start over. I have lots of odd pieces of most any kind/size/type of wood/lumber that is used for repairs on animal housing, sheds or other projects on my homestead. Why cut a full length 2×4 when I just need a 2 ft piece? One mans trash is another mans treasure. I am not afraid to work to get what I want or need for free or to barter.
Yes, I have most modern farm implements, pneumatic carpentry tools, chainsaws, electric welders and a complete Industrial Grade woodworking shop BUT…they will be of no use when there is no gas/electricity to operate them. But I have all manual things to be able to keep things going when that day comes. Will just mean more physical labor on my part and I DO know how to use them all, it will just take a bit longer to get things done..
There are many other things I’m prepared for but as you have noticed, I tend to write BOOKS when I comment or reply to a discussion so I won’t go into everything I’ve done. You can go to my profile and click on my “TIMELINE” to see all the info I’ve shared on MANY topic’s. I’m by no means BRAGGING about what I have or have done. I just share my info in order to help others, especially with time being short to get things done or to help a newbie just starting out.
Sometimes someone new to the site will read what I comment on and it will help them, too. I’m all about PAYING IT FORWARD to others, even if it is info or the trials & errors I’ve learned thru the years to save them time now and I NEVER expect anything in return. What I’ve seen with the comments people make in response is payment enough for me that I’ve helped them and that alone is worth its weight in gold to me.
Got to get off here and go get things ready for a freeze AGAIN tonight. Crazy weather for coastal AL with all these freezes this year! Times are definitely changing from what we once knew as OUR NORMAL!
Be Blessed always! -
I need not read your profile to know what you’re all about.
Glad to be your neighbor.
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Hmmm, now you have me STUMPED and that rarely EVER happens to me!! LOL!! Neighbor??? There are only three people I have referenced as my neighbor on here. One is in MS, which I’ve visited and the 2nd used to live in my area but recently moved to a new homestead in my hometown area, the 3rd lives just north of me. If you are neither of those three can you enlighten me a bit more as to your identity or location to be my neighbor? In my actual physical location (very rural remote area), I have very few neighbors & none of whom are homesteaders, preppers or that would be on this site. Well, maybe one that USED to be like-minded.
I’ve noticed some people on here are changing their names or have more than one profile. Yes, I’m very astute at recognizing subtle changes here. Want to play a game of NAME THAT PERSON with 3 hints? Kind of like playing NAME THAT TUNE? Arghhh…the suspense is blowing me away! 🤨🤔 -
And on the other hand, I know we *aren’t* neighbors and I wish we were close enough that the wife and I could see you at the farmer’s market and pick your brain.
You keep up the long-form narration, I’m behind the curve of knowing what I need to know but trying to gain momentum.
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As long as this site is available you can PICK MY BRAIN any time. If I don’t have an answer or solution we could sure throw around some ideas to ponder that could possibly work. I’m here to help people as much as I possibly can to get things in order for whatever is in store for our future. At this point, with all that is going on across this country & globally, it is anyone’s guess what could happen first. Regardless, I don’t think we will ever go back to what was once our NORMAL (and that could be a good thing moving forward) but we can and WILL adapt to a NEW WAY OF LIFE and make it a BETTER NORMAL for us and the generations that follow.
We can all pray that the good Lord will hear the prayers of his children and those turning from their wicked ways to seek HIS face and HEAL THIS LAND in which we live.
Reach out to me anytime. I’m not on here all day but I do check in when I’ve got a spare minute or two & will respond.
Thank you for responding and for your kind words. They are truly appreciated!
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Worst advice about chickens:
1. That it’s ok to build open air chicken coops- meaning a predator can just walk in.
If you don’t want your chickens to be eaten by wildlife you need to have a way to protect them.
2. Heat lamps inside chicken coops
Your chickens don’t need heat in the winter and heat lamps are a huge fire hazard.
3. That it’s ok to let aggressive roosters stick around
Especially if you have small kids, I would recommend you butcher the rooster after the first time he attacks you.
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WORST ADVICE: Don’t waste your time prepping. Learn how to shoot real good like and then when it goes bad go take it from people!
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Basically the “I’ll head to the mountains” or the “I’ll just go camp by the lake”. Yeah, great…so will everyone else and good luck come winter!
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Yes, a bug out bag can give a false bit of security. When I worked in the city, I did, however, keep a backpack in the truck with essentials to help me on a walking journey home in the event some really bad stuff happened. Good to have, but not to count on for the long haul.
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I have never built a buyout bag but for all the years I worked on a military base I had a get home/ not going to go hungry bag. I figured at some point I may get stuck on base and there where no provisions made to feed thousands of civilians. I also knew several different ways to get off base without permission and had the things I needed to do that.
I still carry it when I am around town and If someday I have to shoe Leather it home.
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I have both a Bug Out Bag and an Every Day Carry bag. Both are tools that I use when needed, train with, but never rely completely on.
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I’m going to try an experiment soon to see if it will work. This may be a bit lengthy but I would like to put this out there so others can read it and maybe help me out a bit. Not sure if they call it aquaponics or hydroponics but whatever it is, I THINK it might work in a grid-down situation.
I have several small solar generators so I’m going to try to utilize one of them and set up a growing system using a heavy-duty tote. I will line the inside of the tote along the area where the plant root system will be with PVC pipe that will have misters (360*) to keep roots moist. The PVC pipe will be in a grid design to be able to mist all the roots in my grow pots. In the center of the PVC grid, I will use a T joint & a piece of PCV pipe to go down to a small-wattage fish tank pump that will pump the water thru the PVC pipes to mist plant roots. If the fish tank pump pulls too many watts, then I will use a small solar koi pond fountain that has a setting that MAY be able to hit all the roots to keep them moist.
I am going to set up the small solar generator AND solar panel to POWER the whole system using a FULL SPECTRUM grow light. The sun has FULL SPECTRUM colors so I thought a full spectrum grow light (or light bulb) would supply light (artificial sunlight) to the solar panel to charge the solar generator. The solar generator would run the grow light/light bulb and the pump to circulate the water. The grow light would serve 2 purposes. To supply light to the solar panel to keep the solar generator charged AND to help with plant growth (photosynthesis). I will put some kind of fish in the water in the bottom of the tote that will provide FERTILIZER for the plants that the water pump would circulate. I may use some kind of local/common fish like polywogs, bream or some other sunfish and could feed them worms (which I have a worm bed I use for fishing) and if times get really hard, I could eat the fish (:D) and just use some homemade rabbit poop tea to put in the water for fertilizer for the plants.
IF THIS SYSTEM/EXPERIMENT WORKS, then it will be totally self-contained and run itself via the solar generator charged by the solar panel(s) which will be powered by the Full Spectrum Grow light/Light Bulb that will also provide grow light for the plants and the Solar Generator will provide power to run the Grow light & fish tank pump that will circulate/oxygenize the water for the fish & keep the fertilized water flowing thru the PVC pipes to keep the plant roots moist.
I have 2″, 3″ & 4″ grow pots that I will cut holes in the tote lid to hold the pots. I may put several different sizes of pots in the tote lid to be able to space different size plants to utilize the entire lid. I’ve seen some pictures using the totes for growing and there is a lot of wasted space so I will utilize every inch of growing space without jeopardizing the stability of the lid from the weight of the plants I grow.
ANY ADVICE, SUGGESTIONS, OR IMPROVEMENTS FROM ANYONE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
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In case any of you question whether or not a Full Spectrum Grow light or other Grow lights will power a solar panel, here is a link you can read info to explain.
I knew that the SUN has a full spectrum array of colors as does the Full Spectrum Grow Lights so my mind went to work figuring out a system that could possibly work to grow food either off-grid, grid down situation, or hidden out of sight in a SHTF scenario.
https://solarenergyhackers.com/can-grow-lights-power-solar-panels/
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Saweet! Thank You for the input, much appreciated.
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