(Continued from Part 5.)
3.4 – Seeds From Stores
Stores have seeds in the dry goods aisle, produce section, and on garden seed displays. If it is safe to do so, honestly acquire additional seeds and/or encourage local leaders to protect them for the community’s future use early in a T2E. I don’t believe that evil means can ever produce good ends. The teachings of Jesus Christ clearly don’t give me that option if I honestly want to be His disciple. A crisis is not a time to find exceptions but to find courage, creativity and faith to see who we really are. In a T2E there will be many temptations to let might, opportunity, or crowd behavior justify looting from businesses or homes. I invite us to resist these temptations. We can’t become the things we hate to stop the things we hate. Now is the time to decide where our lines are and how well will respond in the future. Our preparations today can help us avoid panic, danger, and moral temptations at stores in the middle of a T2E.
3.5 – Use Plant Cuttings as a Rapid Plant Multiplier
One of the amazing things about most plants is that they can be grown in two ways. From seed, the most common method, and also from cuttings. A cutting is usually a removed branch from the parent plant’s main stem. For example. tomatoes will often grow a sucker branch at a fork in branches on the plant. In most years I will remove of some of these suckers and place them in water for a week or two until they root and then plant them as large starts for family and friends or in my own garden. I could easily product a dozen or more of these plant clones from one health tomato plant as it matures. This force multiplier could be very valuable during an emergency where seeds are no longer easy to acquire at a hardware stores or on the internet. Another plus is that a cutting will reach maturity much faster than a seed started at the same time we start a cutting. If we are ever in an emergency race to prevent starvation, any method that shortens a growing cycle is essential.
Another factor to save time in growing crops to produce cuttings would be to grow them indoors if the weather is too cold or too hot. This will produce mature crops that can be used for cuttings sooner. If we only have a few seed of an important crop, cuttings can be a way to expand our supply for more food and seeds to reduce this plants scarcity in our future seed banks. Here is a list of crops that can be cloned from cuttings. Tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, summer squash, cucumber, most herbs, beans, peas, melons, pumpkins, cowpeas, eggplant, berries, peanuts, and winter squash. A great website with specific details on growing plants from cuttings is Garden Know How.
Other vegetables can also be grown from scraps. Carrots and beets can’t regrow the root portions but the tops can be regrown after the majority of the root is removed. This would be an extra source of greens. Onions and celery can regrow whole new plants if we save the bottom where the roots grow. Greens and lettuce can have the leaves cut back multiple times and the leaves will regrow for the next salad or cooked greens. Potatoes are almost wholly grown with the cutting method versus a seeds method. Planting a small potato or just a portion of a potatoes with at least one eye is a cutting even if we often call small potatoes “seed potatoes.” This is the typical way to reproduce our favorite type of potatoes. Additionally, once a potato plant is branching out cuttings can also be taken from the plant and rooted to grow more potatoes. This is the reason why some people will repeatedly bury a potato plant’s leaves to stimulate extra root growth and a larger potato yield per plant.
Potatoes can flower and produce true seeds but these seeds will produce a random new potato that may or may not have the characteristic we want. The final plant I will mention is the sweet potato. This is another plant that is grown from cuttings. If a sweet potato is planted it will grow lots of vines. Cuttings from these vines are called slips and they can be rooted and used for growing a crop of sweet potatoes. When people order sweet potatoes starts they are normally sent slips to their homes.
3.6 – When To Grow and Emergency Greenhouses
The average growing season in the US is 170 days or 47% of the year, with a range of 90 days to nearly 365 days depending on where we live. If a T2E ensues, its timing relative to the local growing season can make this emergency easier or harder to survive. If it hits in early fall this would be the worst-case scenario because in areas with shorter growing seasons this could mean 9 to 12 months to reach the next harvest. It is likely that the US food distribution system will break in a T2E and not having a resupply of food for 9 to 12 months will decimate most communities. The 3 semi-possible solutions for a community to survive this problem would be first to prevent the food distribution system from breaking in the first place (Level of control – national/state government). I don’t count on state or federal leadership to build countermeasures for this issue anytime soon.
Second, would be to store enough food and seed locally to help a community to reach its next harvest time (Level of control – local government, wealthy citizens, or a very prepared community). I am also not optimistic about this solution happening in most places. Third, we could extend the growing season as much as possible with a massive emergency greenhouses building project, if we have sufficient foraging options in the area as a calorie bridge, and have sufficient amounts of seeds to grow crops to feed the community for the next year (local community project or large enough group of prepared individuals). I hope if a T2E strikes it happens in March or April to put us very close to the next growing season but if not, emergency greenhouses are the only option I can think of that we could control after the event. What follows are the main value greenhouses can provide and my best ideas of how to construct a lot of greenhouses quickly with everyday resources.
3.61 – The Best Ways To Use A Greenhouse In An Emergency
A greenhouse, even lots of them will not have large enough acreage to grow all of the crops most communities will need from seed to food. What they can do with their available space is to grow some early food as an additional calorie bridge and also start a ton of seedlings to expand the growing season and maybe even allow us to have time for an extra crop planting that year. I will share a couple of examples to illustrate this.
Expanding the Growing Season Example:
If an areas last frost date is April 15th it is normally safe to start plants outside on April 16th. If we plant seeds in the ground on the 16th our crop will have to go through its full growth cycle outside. Let’s take a winter squash like butternut squash as our example. If we put a seed in the ground on April 16th we will see our first edible squash on about July 21st. However, if we start the butternut squash seeds on February 1st in our greenhouses and we plant the seedling on April 16th outside we will get our first edible squash on about May 25th, 59 days sooner.
Transplanting from a greenhouse to grow two crops in one season example:
We will use corn for this example. Let’s imagine that we are short on corn seeds to grow the calories our community needs for the year. If we can grow two crops of corn we can make some extra seed with the first crop to grow it in the second crop. If the growing season in this hypothetical area is April 15th to October 15th, 182 day growing season. If the corn seeds we have need 115 days to fully mature we would need 237 days to grow a second crop from seeds from the first, two 115 day cycles and 7 extra days to dry the corn. Without a greenhouse we would only have time to grow one crop per year, we are 55 days short for a double crop. With a greenhouse we could start our corn on February 1st and have 4 extra day to grow back to back crops with seeds from the first planting.
Related to this, I will share a couple transplanting tips. Corn is known to be harder to successfully transplant than other crops but many people do it successfully with careful seedling handling. Here is the first tip. A nursery owner once taught my wife and me how to have more successful transplants when multiple seeds have started in a container. Once the seedlings are mature enough to start transplanting carefully remove the soil and seedlings together. Then dunk the soil in a bucket of water to easily separate the seedlings roots as the soil washes away. Then the seedlings can be planted in larger starting containers to grow larger or be transplanted outside. This method reduces root damage and spreads out roots which both help transplanting to be more successful. This also allows us to start more seeds per starting container. The second tip is about the right time of day to transplant seedlings. Don’t transplant in the morning or at midday. The shock of the transplant and the heat of the day can often kill seedlings. This has happened to me a few times and it sucks. It could be deadly in an emergency situation. Transplant in the early evening to reduce this issue. If this was not an option the transplant crops should be shaded for a day or two to allow the plants to recover.
3.62 – Greenhouse Temperature Versus Ambient Temperature
Typical functional internal greenhouse temps are 50 F to 85 F, with most plants being able to handle 40F to 45F for short time frames. With just solar heating, a greenhouse can be 5 F to 30 F above the ambient temperature. This means that unless we have a way to heat a greenhouse when the nights and days are too cold, there are parts of the year that we can’t successfully operate a solar only greenhouse. This is critical to know so we can decide when we can and cannot depend on a solar only greenhouse in an emergency. I will share some ideas about how to heat a greenhouse with common resources but ambient temp will still drive our planning on how many extra growing days we can get from a greenhouse in our area.
3.63 – Pre-existing Greenhouses
If the weather is warm enough to use a greenhouse then the first place to start producing emergency calories is with any existing neighborhood greenhouses that are functional or repairable. An existing shed in the right location could also be quickly be converted to a greenhouse if windows are cut in and the insulation is added. Portable pop-up shade tents, if properly anchored, could also could also be quickly used to make a greenhouse with some modifications. Another option would be to convert a building’s south-facing rooms with windows into sunroom greenhouses. Vehicles are also natural greenhouses. They could be great emergency locations to start seed and even grow some crops in a pinch. The average car has an area of about 50 square feet so 871 average cars have an acre of growing space.
3.64 – Building Impromptu Greenhouses
When building an emergency greenhouse build it against teh side an existing building to maximize limited resources and to help maintain heat in the greenhouse due to the building’s thermal mass and insulation. Build on the south side of the building as the first option and east or west as the next best options. If porches are south, east or west facing this becomes a premium impromptu greenhouse spot to enclosed and expanded. The same goes for attached garages. Open the garage doors, tent it off with clear plastic sheeting, and turn part or all of it into greenhouse. Greenhouses can also be build off of fences or even in-between vehicles if they can’t be or don’t need to be used for transport. Ropes can also be attached from buildings to fences or trees to create tent style greenhouse with tarps and clear plastic sheeting.
3.65 – Impromptu Greenhouse Windows
For greenhouse window materials clear plastic sheeting is the go to material, with the thicker, string reinforced type being the one of the best. A roll of this type of plastic sheeting is great for things like emergency window repairs as well as for gardening. If it is not part of our prepping supplies we should consider adding some. Clear plastic sheeting can also be found in painting supplies. Various types of tapes, adhesives, or staples could be used to seal the window material to prevent the warm greenhouse air from escaping. Other clear plastic material could be plastic food storage bags, plastic wrap, clear picture frame glass or plastic, semi-transparent trash or grocery bags, clear plastic food storage containers, clear or semi-transparent shower curtains and even used clear plastic or glass bottles could be used. With these materials, tape/glue/staples and cardboard boxes, plastic totes, or lumber we can make an emergency double paned window to let light into a greenhouse while trapping more heat inside.
If we are using a cardboard box then fold in flaps edges or trim them off to open up the center of the box to create an open window. Then tape, glue, and/or staple our clear materials to either side of our window. With the plastic tote cut out the bottom and then attach the window material to either side of the frame. With lumber, cut pieces for the needed frame size and attach with nails or screws and then add the window materials. If we are using plastic bottles we can either cut the bottle apart to make flat plastic sheets or keep them whole. If we keep them whole we can use the following method for plastic and glass bottles. Get 2 pieces of cardboard that will cover the open window frame. Then cut holes on the cardboard sheets and insert and glue or tape the bottles in place. This will give us a double pane window with lots of round windows in it. We now have various options for homemade double pane window for impromptu greenhouses. A final repurposed window source could be glass shower doors. Remove them and find a way to add them to our greenhouse.
The max temperature our greenhouse can reach will be a function of the amount of light that gets in the greenhouse, window surface area, window direction, south, up, east and west are the best, thermal heat storage, the color of the surfaces in the greenhouse, the insulation on the walls, and heat loss. The fewer leaks our greenhouse has, the less hot air will escape. The purpose of the double-pane windows is to also reduce heat loss.
3.66 – Insulation Materials
The best source of insulation will likely be attic insulation. Insulation that is blown in or in batts can be placed in trash bags to make insulation bricks. Make these bricks as fluffy as possible to trap air in the insulation. If insulation is compressed than it will lose most of its insulation capacity. Another method would be to tape up all of the seams of a cardboard box to trap air inside. This box will now offer decent insulation. If we have balloons we can blow these up and put them in larger plastic bags as another type of insulating wall bricks. Bags or containers full of dirt will offer good insulation as well as good thermal mass for thermal storage. The same principle applies for containers full of water, good insulation and thermal mass. Apply insulation to the parts of our walls that are not windows. The thicker the insulation the warmer the greenhouse can get.
3.67 – Thermal Storage
One of the main purposes of a greenhouse is to trap heat inside of the structure. If all we have in the green house is soil, plants and air we will not have enough thermal mass to trap all of the heat comes in the greenhouse windows. This means that our greenhouse will get warm in the day but that warmth will quickly disappear at night. To solve this problem we need thermal mass. As mentioned before dirt, water and even stones are great materials for thermal storage. In the daytime their thermal mass will cause the greenhouse to heat up slower and prevent it from getting too hot. At night time the thermal mass will slowly release the heat it absorbed during the day keeping the greenhouse and our crops warm throughout the night. The amount of thermal mass we need will be a balancing act of usable space, daytime temp control, and nighttime temp control.
3.68 – Thermal Absorption and Reflection
Two other factors that can make a winter greenhouse more efficient is thermal absorption and solar reflection. Sunlight has an energy rate of about 1 kilowatt per square meter. This is enough energy to bring 25 gallons of 50 F water to a boil every sunny day from just a 10.8 square foot sunny area. A solar panel can only turn about 15% of this into electricity. A greenhouse can capture close to 100% of the light that enters it as heat for a period of time. To absorb the sunlight, we need dark surfaces. If you have ever felt a black trash bag left out in the sun it will be significantly hotter than the surrounding surfaces. In a greenhouse we will want to use black plastic, black or dark fabric, and other dark colored surfaces to absorb a broad light spectrum and convert it to infrared light to warm the surroundings in the greenhouse. We could also paint things dark colors if we have the paint.
Reflection can be used to aim more sunlight at the greenhouse. We can make good reflectors out of mirrors, Mylar blankets attached to cardboard, and aluminum foil on cardboard. We can place these reflectors around our greenhouse to put extra sunlight through our windows. This will increase the amount of solar heat we can capture each day and extend the number of days we can grow crops in our greenhouse.
3.69 – Greenhouse Heating
Sunlight is not the only way to heat our emergency greenhouses. We can supplement by burning fuels with a vent stack or running an electric heater inside the greenhouse. If someone burns fuels inside of a greenhouse there is a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning even with vents. Carbon monoxide is lighter than air and will spread out in a greenhouse. Carbon monoxide detectors should be used to test any enclosed spaces that are heated by burning things even with proper venting. If we don’t have a safe way to vent what we burn we should never start a fire in our greenhouse! Instead we can burn things outside and heat something up like water or rocks to bring into the greenhouse to eliminate the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
We should also make good use of all the waste heat we can. If we boil pasta or heat water for cleaning we shouldn’t waste the wastewater. We should put it in a container and place it in a greenhouse. If we use a grill direct the vent gas in a way to heat water we can then place in a greenhouse. Another method we could use would be to construct a solar cooker for the purpose of heat up our thermal mass for our greenhouses. In addition to cooking and sterilizing water the solar cooker can be used to concentrate heat in water, soil, or rocks to add to our greenhouses. If we are in a situation that will rely on greenhouses, we should always look for dual or more purpose our energy sources. One of the great methods for increasing prosperity is to turn waste streams into value streams. In an emergency we can turn our wasted heat into extra food and more time if we use it wisely.
(To be continued tomorrow, in Part 7.)
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