Zombies, black helicopters, the government…

I’m not sure which is worse!

1165 Steven Konkoly ebook PRACTICAL PREPPING

In Practical Prepping: No Apocalypse Required…it doesn’t matter! From a snowstorm induced power outage to a full-scale invasion of the United States, Randy Powers of Practical Tactical and I will point you in the right direction…the hills out yonder in case of an invasion. Seriously, the title says it all. There’s something for everyone in this book, written with a little humor and a lot of humility. Don’t be caught off guard by the next disaster, adopt the Practical Prepping mindset TODAY!

Available as Kindle book or hardcopy

Order From Amazon

 

A quick Homesteading lesson

From the Konkoly family garden.

BeansI decided to try something new this year. After researching and writing three post-apocalyptic, prepper-themed books in a row, I started to grasp the sheer scope and effort required to raise enough food on your land to survive without supermarkets and 2-day Amazon prime delivery of freeze-dried food buckets. I won’t go into the details of my broader “awakening” here. Instead, I’ll share one stark example.

I’ve never planted dry beans (beans suitable for drying and long-term storage) before, so I wanted to get a handle on the difficulty involved and general yields. I planted a 1.5ft x 6 ft row of Cannellini bean plants, spaced according to the seed packet recommendation. 9 square feet. I wasn’t planting for a big harvest…this was a test run. The results?

Growing the plants proved to be effort free. We saw a small amount of bug damage and light spotting on the leaves, but the pods looked healthy throughout the summer.

Yield: 9 square feet produced 2 cups of beans or .22 cups per square feet. 

Lesson Learned: Depending on the availability of other protein sources, to provide 8-10 cups of beans per week for a family of four, we would need to plant nearly 2,000 square feet of bean plants!  I’m not even sure my 2-cup yield would be enough to sow a field that large.

Randy Powers of Practical Tactical (co-author of Practical Prepping:No Apocalypse Required) wasn’t kidding when he said it takes about an acre of land to feed ONE person for an entire year. I’ve seen estimates lower than one acre using “square foot gardening” and “vertical gardening,” but the number of plants required will remain the same.

Homesteading will not be easy, but it’ll sure go smoother if you start now. Start small and build your experience level—one season at a time.

 

A quick look into the prepping world of The Perseid Collapse series

Readers of The Perseid Collapse series know that I teamed up with Randy Powers from Tactical Practical  to put a professional eye on the survival/homesteading/prepper aspects of the novel. The Perseid books take these themes to the next level, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t too far into left field with my ideas and theories. I reference a Handbook created by Randy in the acknowledgments of The Perseid Collapse, which contains an incredible amount of valuable, distilled information. I thought I would share one of his blog posts, which explains the BOLT Kits used by Alex Fletcher and his family. Randy has a unique take on the heavily popularized “Bug out Bag.” Enjoy!

Practical Tactical B.O.L.T. Kit©: What It Is And What It’s For

You’ve probably heard of a Bug Out Bag (BOB) or a Get Out Of Dodge (GOOD) bag that can be used as a grab and go kit in case you have to leave an area during an emergency situation. At Practical Tactical, we urge our clients to build what we call a B.O.L.T. (Basic Operations for a Limited Time) Kit. This mobile kit based on the basic tenets of preparedness: shelter, water, food, fire, comms/defense and psychological…and is geared towards executing your plan that was developed based on the threats in your area and your individual circumstances and will allow you to maintain your Basic Operations for a Limited Time as you BOLT to your next location that will hopefully be your safe haven from the immediate threat.

BOLT packBOLT pack II

Now, what makes our B.O.L.T. Kit any different from every other Bug Out or GOOD Bag out there? A focused philosophy, that’s what. Often when people talk about emergency bags (regardless of what you call them) the idea starts out the same…put together a bag of essential items like food and water in case you have to leave in a hurry because of an emergency that will help you survive the event…simple, right? But from there, things tend to spin out and become ever more nebulous. Inevitably you end with Jack the Survivor strapping a pack to his back that contains everything from his favorite comic books to ammo for his Barrett 50 cal. which by the way, he has lovingly cradled in his arms as he treks into the wilderness to live off the land for the duration of the apocalypse, and if you don’t do that too you’re doomed to fail miserably and die immediately or be swallowed up by the very mindless hordes you were trying to escape in the first place.

Whew! Just thinking about that was exhausting.

READ THE REST HERE!