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There was a food crisis in 2007 that lasted for about a year, and the food prices of today look very similar to what happened during that time.

The head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is warning about the possibility of an impending food crisis. In 2007 and 2008, riots plagued Kenya and a few dozen other countries. People were not able to afford food they needed. We are facing a similar crisis now. High energy prices are pushing up food costs as well. On top of that, terrible weather conditions, increased demand for biofuels and low reserves of grains are causing those prices to steadily tick upward.

Many exporters have increase their production in response to this problem, but a lot of the more vulnerable countries are falling behind. These are the same countries that suffered from riots and various other problems during 2007-2008’s food crisis. In many developing countries, food prices are ridiculously high. There is the constant threat there that a new food crisis is developing. Energy levels never recovered from that last global food crisis, and many crops are still being used to create biofuels. Very little besides the amount of grain we store has changed in the past decade. The UN expert, Jacques Diouf, says that all the signs of a new crisis are present.

Little has actually changed about the world’s food production systems since the previous crisis. If there is a serious flooding or drought problem, he says, then we will be right back where we started. Climate change is bringing serious weather problems with it that are affecting countries all over the world. On top of that, the population is expected to increase by 50% in the year 2050. It’s the developing countries that will see the largest population growth. Diouf also warns that not enough money is being invested in the right places. Eight nations pledged a total of $20 billion at the G-8 summit to help out farmers to increase the food supply. Countries have been slow in meeting their commitments, though.

Many developing countries also need better irrigation. On top of that, they have poor fertilisers and low-yield seeds that are causing food shortages over and over again. If the investments that were promised are not received, then another food crisis will come, he says.

A New Food Crisis Could Affect Us

There is a new food crisis on our horizon. The price of groceries has increased considerably. This had led to all sorts of problems in the Middle East. Bob Zoellick, who serves as President of the World Bank, is warning people to prepare for an incoming food crisis brought on by extremely high food prices around the globe. The food crisis began in 2007 and was the spark that caused riots in nearly 20 countries. In 2008, food prices were at their highest since 1845, when adjusted for inflation. This information comes from the Economist. That crisis managed to resolve itself, but a new crisis is on its way.

The record for food prices actually broke again recently, as tracking from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation showed. If you look at the prices on corn, soybeans and wheat, you see increases of almost 50 and 30%. Those food price increases have forced millions of people into poverty in a short period of time. Even the rich are starting to feel the impact. Joe Hockey of Australia’s Liberal Party has been warning his fellow citizens that the cost of living is going to increase shortly. Many countries like Ukraine and Russia are actually making it illegal to send food out of the country to sell to ensure that they have enough food for their own people.

This is in response to increasing food prices globally. This action has prompted Caroline Spelman, the environmental minster for Britain, to speak out against export policies of this nature, saying that it should be against the law for any countries to ban exports. In addition, the chief scientific officer for Britain, Sir John Beddington, said that it is now obvious that something needs to be done about the global food system problem. Australia and 19 other countries agreed with his statement, but the G20 meeting in Paris stopped short of anyone actually making any changes to the global food systems. Back in 1798, Thomas Malthus cautioned about the dangers of ever-expanding populations.

The population in his time was only 800 million, and today it’s closer to seven billion. The population is growing at a rate that global food supplies simply cannot keep up with. Are we about to see Malthus proved right after all these years? Perhaps not. The problem with today’s food supplies is that it isn’t being distributed properly. Bhere is actually enough food being produced right now to feed 12 billion people, but prices and distribution don’t allow for that to happen. Malthus’ predictions never came true because of smart production processes and new developments like fertiliser and plant genetics. Countries around the world have stepped up since his predictions to improve the way they produce and transport food. India experienced a Green Revolution around the mid-1900s. They created rice varieties that produced tons of grains, cutting costs and increasing overall rice production. So, if the available food is not the problem, then what is making the prices go so high? Why are about 16% of all people in the world going to bed hungry each day? The problems are both old and new. A lot of the richer counters have protectionist policies that keep food exports out and help to support farmers that aren’t producing very much.

This happens all throughout Europe, as well as the US and Japan. Many countries actually outlaw those kinds of policies, and the rich countries that could be producing a lot of food for everyone very cheaply are making it hard to do so. The World Trade Organization is not doing anything to stop these kinds of practices, unfortunately. Poverty is another factor here, and about a billion people survive on $1 a day. One of the newer problems is called financialisaton. This simply means that food is being treated like a tradeable commodity among many investors. That creates speculation where there should be far more reasonable prices. In 2008, food markets had been invested in to the tune of $137 billion. According to the UN’s Commission on Trade and Development, prices for food trading were very rarely determined by supply and demand and instead worked on a speculative system. Food staples have been compared by experts that contrast how traded staples measured up against untraded staples. Foods that were not part of future trading were shown to increase at a rate that was a fraction of what traded staples did. Biofuels create another problem. About 40% of the US fuel crop goes to be used as car fuel.

That’s enough food to take care of 350 million people. One problem that’s not so easy to solve is extreme weather. This could just be cyclical and pass in time. Or it could be the result of permanent climate change that will only get worse in time. Most of the problems we have listed do have solutions, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to change. The World Trade Organization has farm protectionism on its menu. If the intermittent talks come to some real conclusion, there could be some major changes on the way for global food market. Many rich countries have pledged to assist poorer countries in dealing with food shortages, and if they meet those pledges, then that could help with the problem of starvation for a while.

The amount of food produced by poor countries could be increased. Food speculation could be stopped or changed if financialization were ever addressed. Some of the G20’s leaders have said that if this problem is not dealt with using regulations, then we will all suffer under a jungle law type of system. The biofuels industry could be completely dismantled if many countries were actually concerned about the kind of impact they are having on food supplies. A lot of the problems we have listed here are manmade problems.

That means that they could have manmade solutions, but that kind of change ultimately rests on the shoulders of politicians.

When there is a food shortage, civilised humans can start to act erratically.

After a few short days without any food, humans can behave in ways that are almost animalistic and extremely unpleasant. The US Pentagon actually conducted some studies on how starvation affects the body during the 1950’s. What they found was truly shocking. After 10 days without food, people started to attack others, steal food, and even attempt to kill others. After 15 days, they started to demonstrate cannibalistic tendencies. A week without food does awful things to person’s psyche, making them contemplate doing the unimaginable. They become truly desperate after two weeks, thinking thoughts that are truly depraved, and setting aside their codes of conduct and respect for the law.

We can look back at history to see how many humans have reacted to a lack of food. When Leningrad was sieged over a period of three years, around 630,000 people died. Those who had just a crust for bead to eat were considered privileged. The majority of people tried to survive by consuming wallpaper and rats. There were even some situations where people ate their colleagues and unearthed bodies to eat corpses. You’ll often notice that in emergency situations, supermarket store shelves can become completely empty in a matter of hours. If you do not have some supplies stored up for just such a situation, you could find yourself in a bad place.

Let’s look at the pattern that usually develops: The first day, grocery stores start to empty out and people begin to fight over the food that remains. The second days sees people still having food in their homes, but they cut back on how much they are eating. They are doing what they can to stretch their supplies. People begin to become moody and edgy as they see disaster approaching. On the fifth day, food becomes scarce and people are starting to run out of supplies. Your neighbours may start knocking on your door, trying to see if they can get some food. By the tenth day, you’ll see roving gangs of people with knives, clubs, and other weapons. They take food by force, and you may hear people screaming or letting out gunshots throughout your neighbourhood. People become scared to leave their homes. On the fifteenth day, people begin to die, and there is little hope left among the populace. The people you once trusted will turn on you, and there will be danger around every corner. The government and local authorities become overwhelmed because the entire area is experiencing the same problem, and even the government is running out of supplies. This is not an impossible situation we have come up with here. It is how events are likely to happen based on what research has uncovered.

In a severe food crisis, the situation becomes hopeless very quickly. You’ll find little attention being given on the mainstream news about an impeding food crisis, but it is happening. There are a lot of scientists who are absolutely convinced that a worldwide famine is coming. This is happening because the world population is steadily increasing, and land is being over-farmed and overfished. The statistics regarding world hunger are these: Around a billion people go to bed each night having not gotten enough food. One person starves to death about every four seconds, and most of them are under five years old. Around 30% of all children in the world who are less than five years old are extremely malnourished.

There are natural catastrophes of all kinds that contribute to decreased food production and hurt our food supplies. Things like fires, flood and disease often lead to food shortages and famine. The difference between surviving food shortages and not surviving one comes down to having food stored up. You can prepare for the inevitable food crisis and survive or perish in it.

Incoming Food Crisis

There is a food crisis coming, and we are not talking on a local or national scale. No, this will be a global crisis the likes of which we have never seen. It’s a predictable crisis, and it’s one that has already started. It’s one we haven’t seen the US or Australian governments address, despite a host of campaign promises from parties in both countries every year. This just seems to fly under everyone’s radar.

The crisis began due to extreme summer weather. We saw about 80% of the United States experience drought conditions just a few years ago, and that is going to catch up with everyone soon. Australia and Russia experienced drought then as well. What that drought did was completely waste some key crops. We are looking at low corn harvests and wheat harvests. We are also expecting to see major price increases in both corn and wheat. We have already seen some price jumps for both of these, and we can lump soybeans in there as well, as it is experiencing a low harvest that is worse than anything we have seen in decades. Increases in prices for grain mean higher overall food prices.

These are staple items that are used in the production of a lot of foods, and as they increase, so too will a lot of other food items. In developed countries, the higher grocery prices may be a burden, but for the most part, they are a manageable one. Typically, Americans only spend about 10% of their income on food, and that includes what they eat at home and in restaurants. Gallup polls show that Americans are spending less on food than they did decades ago. The food crisis is going to hit a lot harder in undeveloped countries. Places where food is already scarce and expensive will experience a whole lot more food scarcity and high grocery prices.

Most people in these developing countries spend the majority of their income on food, which generally consists of bread and other grain items.

You may be able to buy all the food you want in a supermarket right now, but you need to know about the incoming global food deficit. This is something that a lot of scientists are convinced is coming, and a combination of things is making a global food crisis inevitable. World population is growing at exponential rates, and the environment is being over-farmed and overfished. If you want to prepare for the global crisis, then you need to act now.

You should be storing up supplies and preparing for an emergency, because when the food crisis impacts you, it is not going to be easy. Food demand will double in the next few decades, and that is going to leave a lot of people without the food they need. Right now, there are over 7 billion people in the world, and by 2060, there should be somewhere around 11 billion people on earth. How are all those people going to get fed? The world simply cannot product enough food for all those people the way things are set up now. If you look at the statistics, you’ll see that close to a billion people go to their beds hungry every night. On top of that, people are starving to death about every four seconds, and 75% of those people are children under five years of age. Speaking of children under five, did you know that about a third of all of those who fit into this age group are suffering from severe malnutrition.

We already know that there isn’t enough water to grow the food we need to feed everyone that will be on the earth in a few decades. Experts like IWMI director general say that there will not be enough water for everyone to get food in about 25 years. That means that the food crisis we already have is going to be an ongoing one. We are actually losing farm land due to pollution and over-farming. Around a quarter of farm land is experiencing extreme degradation, making it tough to use. That’s actually much worse than it was a few decades ago. The environment is hurting in some of the world’s largest countries.

Take India, for example. Three-fourths of the country’s surface water has been polluted from farm waste and human waste. The country is home to more than a billion people, but the sanitation infrastructure is severely underdeveloped. Most people find their restrooms wherever they can, often polluting land that is needed for farming. The UN released a study that showed that more people in India can access a mobile phone than a toilet. India is not the only country where environmental degradation is taking its toll. The US is experiencing some of that as well. In the US, a lot of farmers feed their cattle chicken waste, since it costs so little and a lot of it goes unused. You may very well be eating beef from cows that were fed chicken waste on a regular basis, and you might not even realise it. There isn’t much food that can be sourced from the oceans anymore. About 30% of all fisheries are collapsing, says one of Canada’s top scientists.

The fishing industry may actually start to provide less food as the years go on. That’s a problem since we will need more food in the coming years. What’s so disappointing about our current situation is that a lot of good food goes to waste. In countries that are considered to be developed, almost a third of all food is tossed out. When you look at how many people are suffering around the world because of a lack of food, that kind of waste seems immoral. We aren’t likely to waste as much food in later years, though. We will feel nostalgia for these years where we threw away so much food. We will remember them as good times and wish that we had taken measures to stop the waste.

The world’s economy is going down the drain at this moment. The collapse is coming, and the food crisis is going to come right behind it. Have you prepared for it?

Incoming Food Crisis Warns World Bank Head The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, is warning people that a global food crisis is inevitable. He says that one major shock to the world food production process can lead to a massive crisis, and the increase of food prices is one of his major concerns.

Food price inflation, he cautions, may lead to the loss of a generation in some of the poorer countries around the world. He spoke in Washington D.C. after the World Bank held meetings with the International Monetary Fund. His statement included advice that it would be best to partner with Middle East leaders to help with food stability. He said that there is a crisis happening now in northern Africa and the Middle East that require changes to employment, justice and security. He warned that if people simply wait for stability in these regions, then important opportunities would be lost. The status quo rarely wins when revolutions start.

The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has stated that he fears for global recovery efforts. He notes that low employment rates among the youth are some other most alarming statistics when it comes to what’s going to affect and lead to a global food crisis. He said that as recovering areas of the world heal, a lot of people will be left without jobs. Due to youth unemployment, he said, an entire generation could be lost as they struggle to find jobs for themselves.

There is an impending food crisis across the world. This is something you might not have noticed, but it will affect both you and your family sometime. Maybe that time won’t be today, and it may not be next week, but it will happen. Natural disasters like devastating weather have taken their toll on the agriculture of the world over the past few years.

Oil prices have started to dramatically increase. Our global economy is hinging on the cost of oil, in many ways, as oils is used to produce food cheaply and transport food around the world. If oil is no longer cheap, then food will no longer be cheap, and everything changes. We have seen topsoil erode at alarming rates and aquifers become drained of water at a pace that can’t be kept up with. Food prices around the world are already quite high, and they are only gong to go higher. What happens when there are additional millions of people all across the globe who cannot feed themselves?

Australians are used to going to supermarket that are packed with foods of all kinds that is sold at incredibly low prices. What happens when that era ends, and we start a new one where food is a scarcity? There are plenty of signs that this is coming and that there won’t be enough food to feed everybody. Food inflation is increasing, as more and more people are using fewer and fewer resources. It is only matter of time before food prices skyrocket. There are a number of reasons why an increasing number of people are feeling like the world is going to see a huge food crisis.

Let’s look at 20 of these indications of a global food emergency:

1. The World Bank says that since summer of last year, more than 40 million people have been forced into extreme poverty due to increased food prices.
2. Topsoil is disappearing quickly, and Lester Brown says that topsoil is being lost at a rate that is faster than new soil is forming naturally.
3. About a third of the corn produced in the United States is used in fuel, and that is dramatically increasing the cost of corn, thanks to ethanol subsidies.
4. Many Middle Eastern countries are losing water, and they rely almost entirely on surrounding nations for the very basic food supplies. Saudi Arabia has already run out of wheat for all intents and purposes.
5. The water tables around the world are diminishing quickly. The World Bank says that there are 175 million people in India and 130 million China who are being fed from grain that is grown using water pumped out of diminishing aquifers. The water is being pumped out at a rate that is faster than it is being refilled. What will those people do once the water runs out?
6. The part of America known as America’s Breadbasket could turn into a dust bowl due to the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer.
7. A lot of the world’s food is being destroyed by crop diseases, such as UG99 wheat rust.
8. Japan experienced a nuclear crisis and tsunami a few years ago, and those events have made a lot of the farming land there unusable. There are people who believe that large portions of Japan will be completely uninhabitable in time, and this economy, which is currently the third largest in the world, may start to collapse. How soon that happens, though, is tough to predict.
9. Oil prices are going to play a key role in the food crisis. We use oil to produce and transport food. As those oil prices increase, so too does our entire food production process. If the oil prices do not drop, then food prices are only going to increase as well, and soon it will not make sense to use some of the food production processes we currently use.
10. There could be a fertiliser shortage as well. The Global Phosphorous Research Initiative says that there won’t be enough phosphorous to meet the demand for fertiliser in a few decades.
11. India is just one of many countries that are dealing with food inflation. Their annual food inflation rate is around 18% right now and likely to increase.
12. The United Nations says that food prices around the world have reached new highs.
13. The World Bank has revealed a 36% increase in the global price of food in the last year.
14. Since summer, the commodity price of wheat has increased by 100%
15. The same thing has happened to the price of corn in the same period.
16. Soybean commodity rates are up about 50% since the same period.
17. If you look at the price of orange juice since 2009, it has more than doubled.
18. Around three billion people in the world live on less than two dollars each day. That’s a number that is only increasing according to statistics.
19. Global food production is being affected by Middle East revolutions, a Libyan civil war, financial problems in Europe and the slow death of the US dollar.
20. Many emergency food suppliers sin the US have experienced food shortages.

What we are saying is that time is short. Many emergency food suppliers are closing down their factories and websites and saying it is due to food shortages and excessive demand. It has already happened to Mountain House and Thyrosafe. How many more will follow? These emergency food suppliers often state on their websites or in their press releases the they hope to reopen at some later date, but that may never happen. The food crisis is not something that has snuck up on everyone. There have been numerous people who have been predicting it for years. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of get worked up about until recently.

Food prices have been on the rise, but our groceries are still packed with inexpensive food. All that is changing now, though. Now, you would have to be blind to not see the signs. Japan saw its store shelves cleared out immediately following the events of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. The food crisis is happening right now, but for many people it isn’t immediately obvious. It hasn’t hit every country or every person yet, but it will. What will you and your family be doing to protect yourselves? It’s something to start thinking about.

Preppers are all about taking care of both themselves and their families. Preppers realize that potential threats are everywhere, and they have to do all they can to be ready for whatever comes their way. Families that have emergency supplies ready will be able to handle emergency situations far better than those who scoff at the idea of prepping for emergencies.

Mentally Preparing

You have to be ready for anything as a prepper, but you also have to understand what the most likely scenarios are. You need to be ready for tornados, earthquakes, viral breakouts, terrorist attacks and more. To prepare for all those things can certainly stretch out a budget, and you can end up with a massive inventory that doesn’t do you any good. You need to look at what kind of problems are most likely to affect you where you live to be better prepared for reality.

You can start by looking at emergency preparedness websites that your state or local government have created. These will cover the most common disasters to occur in your area. You can also add in some potential risks that can affect you personally.

This could include all sorts of different things, such as living remotely and how that cuts you off from food and other supplies in the event of an emergency. If you live in city, you could prepare for a terrorist attack or gang warfare. If you have a job that is dependent on the economy, then you may want to prepare for a loss of income in the event of an economic emergency.

Your first concern when planning for any type of emergency should be to have adequate food, water and emergency first aid gear on hand. After that, you can start to budget and prepare for other risks involved with potential situations. You also need to keep in mind that not everyone is going to be civil in an emergency situation, and you need to be prepared to deal with hostile civilians.

Prepare for Bugging in and out

If you are a prepared prepper, then you will have emergency supplies stored away for when they are needed. You also likely have a bug out bag for when you have to pick up and leave. You will want to be ready to either stay in your home until the problem blows over or be able to cut and run at the first sign of trouble, and you need to have separate sets of supplies in order to do that.

Determine the Essentials

As you prepare your emergency supplies, you will need a way to sustain your shelter, clothing, food and water supplies. Once you have all that figured out, then you can determine what other essentials you will need. The supplies you store up should be enough to keep you and your family sustained for about a week and a half to start with. You can certainly plan for and prepare to keep all of you protected and taken care of for much longer, if you have the resources to do so.

Once you have decided on how long you will be preparing for, you can set aside about a gallon of water for each person for every day. Children and elderly people may need more. You can also stock water filters to deal with questionable water sources.

You will want to determine how much food everyone will need by using a food calculator. Each adult will need about 2,000 calories per day, and each child will need about 1,500. Determine what you can stock safely that will keep for years. Canned goods, dehydrated food and freeze-dried items will last the longest.

You also need to get emergency medical supplies ready. You can store first aid manuals and use online sources to find out what kind of supplies are required. Be sure to factor in any prescriptions or other medications that particular family members may need.

You ought to set aside a bug out bag that sustains you and your family for up to 72 hours. This can help you deal quickly with an emergency and get out of your home if it has become too dangerous.

It’s a good idea to have some survival tools stored away as well, such as equipment to help with communications, hunting, digging, construction and cutting.

A good quality radio is another essential tool, if you have the space and the resources. You will want one that can be operated by both battery and hand crank.

Your home’s survival room should be able to provide sanitation, cooking and heat for everyone.

You may also want to store up some defensive weapons.

How to Prepare for the Emergency Situation

We have talked about storing up items so far, but you need to know how to use each of them. They won’t do you any good if you are not well versed in what they do and how they can help you in the event of an emergency. You should understand how to use a radio and a compass and talk to others in the prepper community to find out what they know about using specific tools that could prove helpful. You also need an evacuation plan and a survival plan for each and every potential emergency situation. The best way to get through an emergency is to be prepared to handle it. So, you will want to practice with your family what to do and make sure everyone knows their role.

How to Garden with Limited Space

When you look outside your home, what is it that you see? Do you have a balcony on your apartment? Perhaps you have a very small backyard that you aren’t doing anything with. Maybe you have a patio that’s shaded from the sun. Whatever that space may be, you may be able to grow a garden there.

We have put together a practical guide to help you start and maintain garden in a very small space. If you have only a few feet or a few yards to work with, then this guide is for you. It’s possible that you might eventually grow enough to supplement your fresh produce shopping.

The Tools

You want to start with the right tools. You only need two things to begin- soil and some containers. The kind of containers you need will depend on what you plan to plant.

Soil is more than just dirt. It is packed with nutrients that plants need, and it retains water to feed them throughout the day. You have a lot of options when it comes to soil products you can buy. You could get potting mix that is ready to go and ready to be poured directly into your containers. Or you could choose something cheaper that doesn’t have as many nutrients in it.

If you would like to create growing soil from scratch, then you should use peat moss, compost and vermiculite. You can use coconut coir instead of peat moss, if you like. That absorbs water better than peat moss, but it doesn’t retain it as well.

Compost is made from organic matter that has decayed and that now serves as excellent fertiliser. You can buy this or make it yourself. Using the organic waste from the kitchen you can make plenty of compost for your garden.

For compost to be viable, you need a few different ingredients. First of all, you have to have nitrogen, which comes from any green or organic sources. You can use egg shells, tea bags, fruit skins, coffee grounds and more in your compost. You’ll find nitrogen in chicken parts and manure too, if you have a farm. You don’t want to add in your dog’s faeces, though, as that can have pathogens you would not want in your garden.

You’ll need carbon in your compost as well. This can be sourced from newspaper, sawdust, dry leaves or twigs. You’ll need to shred them up into lengths of 12 inches or less. If you are using thick branches or anything else heavy, it will need to be chipped before you can use it. You should have about an equal balance of nitrogen and carbon.

In order for the fungus and bacteria that are in your organic components to thrive, you need to supply them with air. Don’t pack the compost too densely or allow too much moisture in, as these factors can deprive the bacteria and fungus of oxygen. If you turn or churn the pile, you can let more air in.

You will need some moisture, though about 40-60% of the compost should be water. You don’t have to make it precise, and you can just squeeze a bit of compost to see how much water it has. You don’t want compost that is dripping water, but you do want enough that biological life can thrive there. If the pile is too dry, then just add in some water as needed.

The bin you use for your compost can be just about anything. You can buy a specialised compost container or just get any large barrel. How long you want it to last will determine what kind of materials it is made out of and the level of quality. You can use a cheap plastic container or a durable metal one to hold the compost.

Planting Container Options

You have lots of choices for planting containers as well. You could use ceramic, plastic or terracotta pots, and you can choose any size you want as well. Raised planter boxes are a good solution for small garden spaces, as they let you grow a range of produce, which includes things like carrots and potatoes that grow underground.

Methods of Planting

There is tons of wisdom out there about how to plant, much of it found online. It doesn’t take much effort to find a lot of great information on gardening in any kind of conditions. We have a few tips of our own to add to what is common knowledge on the subject.

How Dense Should You Plant?

When you are working with limited space, you have to make all of it count. Planting density is important. You don’t want to plant so close together that you crowd out your plants and stifle them to where they cannot flourish. On the other hand, you don’t want to space them so far apart that you end up wasting space. If you have plants with different heights and different root depths all mixed together, you can plant them fairly close to one another and not have any problems. Be sure to replant quickly to keep your crops coming fast and to maintain growth.

Square foot gardening may be controversial for some, but it works, if you know what you are doing. Urban gardeners have made it work for them, and we have to call your attention again to the planter boxes. These things make a world of difference. Set them up in one-foot by one-foot grids, and then plant a large plant in each one, along with some smaller ones. That is really all there is to it, other than simply tending to the plants.

Vertical Planting

You can go vertical with your plants as well. Use the terrace wall, the exterior wall and the property fence to hang your plants or to attach planter boxes to. You can use this for any leafy veggies you may be growing as well as for herbs. You should plant all your climbing plants such as string beans this way.

If you are feeling very ambitious, then you can mix the raised planter box with the vertical planting method. Take a vertical element like a lattice fence and anchor it to the plant box’s end. This gives you more growing area and ensures that you don’t need to drill holes into the wall or make other structural changes to your property. That comes in handy if it is not your property, such as in a renting situation.

What Should You Be Planting?

It’s up to you to decide what to start with, but we suggest lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and peppers since they are the simplest ones to grow. Potatoes can be grown in their own containers, and squash can be trained to grow vertically, even though they normally grow outward. You can make just about anything work if you have the willpower and the knowledge. Don’t feel like you are severely limited by your lack of space.

You can make your living space into a garden. You simply have to put in the effort and try out a few things to see what works well for you. As you learn, be sure to pass on that knowledge to the next person.

Not everyone is going to feel comfortable keeping bees. However, bees, hummingbirds and other animals that provide pollination can be great additions to your garden, and they can come in very useful if resources start to become scarce.

Just about every kind of seed plant needs to be pollinated, and while pollen may seem insignificant, it is an important part of plants’ reproductive cycle. That yellow dust allows plants to reproduce, remain genetically diverse and propagate the species. Making your garden bee friendly is a good way to keep your plants growing, and it isn’t that hard to do. You don’t have to worry about actual beekeeping, and you can be prepared with resources on hand if everything starts to hit the fan.

Whether you want to have a bee hive on your property or not, we have some tips that will help you attract and keep them in your backyard or garden area. If your family is helping you keep the garden, be sure to educate them on what it takes to care for bees and how they should conduct themselves, particularly if one of them is allergic to bees. Having bees on your property generally won’t bother you, and they should greatly benefit your garden’s ecosystem.

Making Your Garden Bee Friendly

Your Climate Determines What You Plant

It won’t take a lot of effort to make your garden friendly for bees, and you may already have things in place that are going to help. To attract pollinating animals, you need to have some flowering plants that are able to thrive in the climate you live in. The best kind of plants to invest in are ones that will flower for large parts of the year, instead of choosing short-blooming plants. No matter where you live or how much space you have, there is room for flowering plants to grow there. You can even start with a pot of flowers placed on your porch.

Have Some Colour

Bees are attracted to most bright colours. They can’t see red at all, so you will want to plant some orange, blue, white, pink, purple and yellow flowers to draw them in and keep them there.

Plants with Multiple Purposes

When you start to grow your own food, you will probably have some plants with flowers on them that attract bees and hummingbirds. Bees will go for herb plants with flowers as much as they will vine and flowering fruit plants. This means that you can grow a garden of food and still bring in the bees and other types of pollinating animals.

Plant Cyclically

You might not live somewhere that you can plant all year long, but even colder climates allow you to plant flowers for most of the year. What you may want to do is plant in cycles, so that there is always some flowering plant growing, and that may mean planting different things at different times. Start early with those early bloomers that will give you flowers as soon as April or May. Be sure to plant late bloomers as well, many of which can go as far as October. This gives you pollen throughout the year and keeps those bees and hummingbirds in your garden. Perennials are a great choice, since they come around each year and tell you when plants should begin blooming.

Group Unlike Flowers Together

If you put different flowers together in the same group, then you can help bees do their job better. If you can plant flowers that bloom in clusters, then that will produce more flowers for pollinators to get in there and do what they need to do.

Make Your Garden as Bee-Friendly as Possible

Follow the guidelines we have laid out, and you should start to see bees and other pollinators show up more frequently. You have to figure out what works best in the climate you live in, though. What we have given you is a starting point. The plants that attract bees are often herbal plants with medicinal properties that can serve a variety of uses for preppers. Basil, mint, yarrow root and more are multipurpose plants that draw in pollinators. You can stockpile these herbs and have them on hand for when you need them.

Here are a few plants that can be planted in just about any garden that serve multiple purposes.: rosemary, basil, goldenrod, coneflower, lavender, yarrow, black-eyed Susan, mint, lupine and day lilies.

Watch the Weed Killers

One of the worst things you can do to your garden when bees are involved is use weed killers and pesticides. You need to keep these ways from pollinators, especially since you will be ingesting some of those toxins when you eat from our garden. You can use natural alternatives, such as growing certain plants that ward off pests. Citronella is a good way to keep pests away and still bring in the bees and hummingbirds.

You don’t want to use weed killers on your lawn either. You might not like dandelions in your yard, but bees love them. Keep that in mind as you try to treat your yard in a way that is friendly to bees.

Introduce a Water Feature

Bees drink a lot of water, and if you keep a pond near your garden or some other water feature, then you can sate the bees’ thirst. Those worker bees will need a lot of water to do their job on hot, summer days. Just adding a fountain or bird bath can make a huge difference in how much work the bees get done and how much they enjoy hanging around your garden. It can help to just add a few bowls of water placed strategically around eh garden, and your pollinators will be happier for it.

Don’t just focus on saving up seeds in your prepper storehouses. Remember to take care of the bees and other pollinators. They have important jobs to do, and they contribute to the life cycles of plants. If you don’t take care of these pollinators, then many plants will die out, so keep your garden a friendly place for bees to ensure that in a disaster, you have the resources you need on hand.