How Much Ammo Should You Stockpile for Emergency Preparedness?

Most people who think about stockpiling ammunition are already approaching the problem backwards. They focus on numbers first, like how many rounds of 9mm, how many boxes of 5.56 or maybe a few hundred shells for a shotgun. It sounds reasonable on paper, but it ignores the one factor that actually determines how much ammunition ... Read more...

from Prepper's Will

How to Sharpen a Knife Without a Sharpener (7 Survival Methods)

A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one. That statement surprises a lot of people until they use a blade that slips instead of cuts and realize how quickly a loss of control turns into a serious injury. Whether you are deep in the backcountry, dealing with a grid-down situation, or simply nowhere […]

The post How to Sharpen a Knife Without a Sharpener (7 Survival Methods) appeared first on Ask a Prepper.

from Ask a Prepper https://ift.tt/dMfKz4c

If We Have A War: 6 Outside Cooking Products

If We Have a War: 6 Outside Cooking Products Every Household Needs. War, whether it arrives on our shores or disrupts the fragile systems we depend on, has a way of reminding us how thin the line is between comfort and crisis. Fuel pipelines, electrical grids, and supply chains are all targets, and they have all failed before during times of conflict.

The single most urgent skill your household can develop right now is the ability to cook a hot, nourishing meal outside, without electricity, without natural gas, and without a trip to the grocery store. The good news is that the right outside cooking products make this not only possible but surprisingly straightforward. Below are six tools that belong in every serious family preparedness plan, each proven and capable of feeding your family when everything else breaks down.

If We Have A War: 6 Outside Cooking Products

1. The Sun Oven

Of all the outside cooking products available to the preparedness-minded household, the Sun Oven stands alone in one critical respect: it requires no fuel whatsoever. Harnessing direct sunlight through a series of reflective panels, a quality Sun Oven, such as the flagship All American Sun Oven, reaches temperatures between 360°F and 400°F, hot enough to bake bread, roast meat, cook rice, and even pasteurize water. In a war scenario where fuel becomes scarce, rationed, or weaponized, the sun remains the one resource that no enemy can cut off. Please note that where I live, I can only get mine to reach 350°F.

The cooking process with a Sun Oven is slower than conventional methods, generally running about the same time as a conventional oven, but it requires little attention once positioned. You may have to adjust the unit’s position slightly as the sun moves across the sky, but that’s an easy step. You place your pot or baking dish inside the insulated cooking chamber, angle the reflectors toward the sun, and step away. The oven holds heat remarkably well, and because it uses no open flame, it produces no smoke — a meaningful tactical advantage if you need to avoid drawing attention to yourself or your location.

Sun Ovens are also extraordinarily durable. The All American model is built with a heavy-gauge anodized aluminum interior and a tempered glass door that can withstand years of outdoor use. For long-term outside cooking, particularly in sunny climates across the American West and South, this is the cornerstone tool around which the rest of your cooking kit can be built.

The prices got up to $750.00, and now you can’t even get one. Check garage sales, eBay, or Google the phrase “All American Sun Oven”. I asked people for years to get one; those who did are sleeping well at night, trust me, I know. Keep in mind that in some locations, this product doesn’t work due to limited sunshine, so you’ll have to go a different route. They may have gone out of business. It’s a real shame, it’s a great product.

2. The Dutch Oven

The cast-iron Dutch Oven is arguably one of the oldest and most battle-tested outside cooking products in human history. Armies, pioneers, and homesteaders have cooked with these heavy, lidded pots for decades, and for good reason: they are essentially indestructible, they distribute heat with extraordinary evenness, and they can do virtually anything; bake, braise, fry, simmer, boil, and roast, over any heat source available, including an open wood fire, charcoal, propane, or even coals dug directly from the ground.

The camp Dutch Oven differs slightly from its kitchen counterpart in one important way: it has legs. Those three short legs allow it to sit directly over a bed of coals, and the flanged lid, flat with a rim around the edge, lets you pile additional coals on top, effectively turning the pot into a two-zone oven capable of producing biscuits, cobblers, casseroles, and stews that would be at home on any restaurant table. A 12-inch Dutch Oven will comfortably feed a family of four to six people.

For emergency outside cooking, the Dutch Oven pairs beautifully with whatever fuel source you have available. It works with firewood you scavenge, charcoal briquettes stored in your garage, or the wood fire in a Volcano Stove. Its weight, typically 10 to 15 pounds, is its only real drawback, making it less suited to bugging out on foot, but for sheltering in place, there is no more versatile or reliable outside cooking vessel on this list.

I prefer the 6-quart cast-iron Dutch oven with the rim around the lid with legs. Great for stacking other Dutch ovens on top to cook at the same time outdoors. 6-Quart Dutch Oven

3. The Volcano Stove & Grill

The Volcano Stove is one of those outside cooking products that, once you understand what it does, you wonder how you ever planned an emergency kit without it. It’s a collapsible, three-fuel cooking system that burns wood, charcoal, or propane interchangeably; switching between fuels takes only a few seconds and a simple adjustment to the fuel feed. In a wartime scenario where one fuel type may become unavailable at any given moment, that flexibility is worth more than almost any other single feature.

The stove itself is engineered as a truncated cone, hence the name, with an opening at the base for fuel and a grated cooking platform at the top. The conical shape creates a natural draft that draws air upward through the fire, producing a highly efficient burn that uses significantly less fuel than an open campfire while generating more concentrated, usable heat. This efficiency matters enormously when supplies are limited or when wood must be gathered by hand.

Beyond its triple-fuel design, the Volcano is remarkably versatile as an outside cooking platform. Its top grate accommodates a standard Dutch Oven, a cast-iron skillet, a stockpot, or a griddle plate, making it a true outdoor kitchen hub. A dedicated Volcano Grill attachment transforms it into a full BBQ grill capable of cooking everything from burgers to fish. The stove breaks down flat for storage and is made from heavy-gauge steel with a powder-coat finish that resists rust. For a family sheltering in place through an extended crisis, the Volcano Stove may be the single most important outside cooking purchase on this entire list.

The Volcano Stove is awesome. You can use charcoal, wood, and propane.

4. The Butane Stove

Speed, simplicity, and convenience are the hallmarks of the butane stove, and in an emergency outside cooking situation, those qualities have real value. When you need to boil water fast, heat up a meal for a sick family member, or cook something quickly before dusk, a butane stove delivers instant, controllable flame at the turn of a knob, no kindling, no lighter fluid, no waiting for coals to ash over. For outside cooking in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, butane stoves bridge the gap while longer-burning systems are set up.

A standard single-burner butane camp stove uses butane canisters that are inexpensive, widely available, and store for years without degrading. A single canister typically provides between 1 and 3 hours of cooking time, depending on the heat setting, so storing a case of 12 to 24 canisters gives you meaningful cooking capacity over an extended period. Butane performs best in mild temperatures; however, below 32°F, it begins to struggle, so in cold-weather emergencies or winter conflict scenarios, propane or multi-fuel options should take precedence.

The butane stove shines as a precision outdoor cooking tool for small meals and tasks that require precise heat control: sautéing vegetables, making sauces, simmering soups, or scrambling eggs. Some companies produce compact, wind-resistant models built for serious outdoor use that feel far more substantial than budget camp stoves sold in discount stores. Stock several spare burner heads along with your canisters, and include a butane stove in every outside cooking kit as the quick-response workhorse of your setup.

Every family needs a Butane Stove with Butane Fuel stocked.

5. The Thermal Cooker

The thermal cooker, sometimes called a wonder cooker or fireless cooker, is perhaps the least well-known outside cooking product on this list, and that’s a genuine oversight in the preparedness community. The concept is simple and nearly magical: you bring your food to a boil or a vigorous simmer on any heat source, then transfer the cooking pot into a heavily insulated outer container that traps the heat inside. The food continues cooking entirely on retained thermal energy for the next two to eight hours, with no additional fuel required whatsoever.

In practice, this means you can prepare a pot of beans, stew, soup, or whole grains in the morning using your Volcano Stove or butane burner, seal it in the thermal cooker, and return to a fully cooked, piping-hot meal at lunchtime or dinner without spending a single additional BTU. For outside cooking in a fuel-scarce environment, that is a transformative capability. It effectively multiplies the productive output of every other fuel-burning stove in your kit.

High-quality thermal cookers are built with stainless steel inner pots that are dishwasher safe and designed for tens of thousands of cooking cycles. The outer insulated cases are typically hard-sided, with secure-latching lids that prevent heat loss and make the entire unit portable. A thermal cooker is also silent and produces no light, smoke, or detectable output after the initial cooking phase, another quiet tactical advantage for households that need to maintain a low profile during civil unrest. Every outside cooking system should include one.

Every family should have a Thermal Cooker, trust me, I use mine a lot.

6. The Kelly Kettle

Hot water is the foundation of survival cooking. It makes instant meals safe to eat, rehydrates freeze-dried food storage, sterilizes wounds, purifies drinking water, and provides the psychological comfort of a hot cup of tea, hot chocolate, or coffee in genuinely miserable circumstances. The Kelly Kettle, an Irish-designed, chimney-style water boiler manufactured since the 1890s, is the fastest and most fuel-efficient outdoor cooking tool ever devised for the sole purpose of boiling water quickly from virtually any biomass fuel.

The design is a double-walled aluminum or stainless steel kettle with a hollow fire chamber running up through its center. You build a small fire in the base using twigs, pine cones, dry leaves, bark, or any small dry biomass you can gather, then place the kettle over it. The chimney effect draws air up through the hollow core at high velocity, intensifying the burn and directing heat directly into the water surrounding the chamber. The result is that a 1.6-liter Kelly Kettle boils water in three to five minutes using only a small handful of sticks, no purchased fuel required.

This matters in a wartime, outdoor cooking scenario because it means your hot water supply depends on nothing more than your ability to gather small, dry debris from your surroundings. Forests, parks, backyards, and rural properties provide a continuous supply of natural fuel at no cost. The Kelly Kettle also supports a small pot attachment for its chimney top, allowing you to cook a simple meal or warm food simultaneously while boiling water below, a true two-course capability from a device that weighs less than two pounds. It’s the outside cooking tool that should live in every bug-out bag, every shelter-in-place kit, and every vehicle emergency bin in your household.

A Kelly Kettle is awesome for boiling water or cooking a small pan of soup. It uses free fuel, such as dried leaves, pine cones, and dried small branches from bushes or small trees.

My Series On If We Have A War

If We Have A War: 30 OTC Medications To Stock

If We Have a War: What Skills Will Homemakers Need?

If We Have A War: Stock These Ten Foods Now

If We Have A War: 25 Personal Hygiene Products

If We Have A War: Stock These Cast-Iron Pans

If We Have A War: Stock Paper Products Now

The Bottom Line

War, grid failure, or societal disruption doesn’t announce itself with enough lead time to improvise. The households that’ll feed themselves and their neighbors during the next major crisis are the ones building their outside cooking capability today, stocking the Sun Oven, seasoning the Dutch Oven, staging the Volcano Stove, changing the butane canisters, filling the thermal cooker, and keeping the Kelly Kettle dry and ready to light.

Final Word

These six outside cooking products are not luxuries. At the wrong moment, they are the difference between eating and not eating. Start acquiring them now, learn to use each one before you need it, and rotate your fuel supplies regularly. The time to prepare is always before the emergency arrives. May God bless this world, Linda

The post If We Have A War: 6 Outside Cooking Products appeared first on Food Storage Moms.

from Food Storage Moms

The Federal Government Creates Blackouts on Purpose. When Will It Hit You?

You don’t need a real collapse to understand where things are going. Right now, the grid is being pushed harder than it should be. In fact, that pressure is coming from decisions that are already in motion. According to recent reports, production is moving back inside the country. It sounds like progress, but it also […]

The post The Federal Government Creates Blackouts on Purpose. When Will It Hit You? appeared first on Ask a Prepper.

from Ask a Prepper https://ift.tt/oELAqDW

20 Garden Plants That Can Survive a Drought

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Planting a survival garden requires you to foresee and prepare for a number of possible scenarios that could kill your plants and leave you without a source of food. One of the most dreaded of these scenarios is an extended drought. Many plants are unable to survive more than a few days without water.

In a survival scenario where no rain is falling, providing water to them can be a real struggle. While it's important to devise a plan for watering your plants during a drought, it's also beneficial to have plants that you can rely on to survive drought when the weather turns hot and water is scarce.

The plants listed below are all able to survive without water longer than the average plant and can handle the heat quite well. If you live in a part of the country where drought is a possibility (which is most of the country), consider including these plants in your survival garden.

Want to save this post for later? Click Here to Pin It On Pinterest!

1. Beans

Most every variety of beans, from bush beans to pole beans and beyond, are able to handle the heat and drought incredibly well. The best part is that you’ve got a lot of options considering all the different varieties of beans that are available, meaning that planting several different types of beans in your garden will add plenty of variety to your drought-time cuisine.

2. Beets

One of the main sources of sugar aside from sugarcane, beets handle the heat and drought quite well. The deep purple tubers grow and are harvested much like potatoes. If you don’t wish to make processed sugar, though, don’t worry; beets are quite tasty in salads, pickled, or mixed into other dishes.

3. Black Eyed Peas

Like most plants native to the Southwest, black-eyed peas are plenty capable of surviving a drought and hot weather. The peas themselves contain very little moisture, meaning that little water is required to produce them.

Combine this with a relatively deep root system and black-eyed peas are plenty capable of producing food when the weather turns hot and the rain stops falling.

4. Carrots

Simply looking at a carrot and understanding how the plant functions will let you know why carrots are more drought-resistant than most vegetables. The part of the carrot that you eat is the plant’s root, meaning that the carrot is able to extend deep down into the soil and collect water that other plants can't.

5. Eggplant

Once the plant has been established, eggplants are able to survive droughts better than most vegetables. Eggplants are a heat-loving plant and won’t begin to wilt until daytime temperatures exceed 95 degrees for an extended period of time. Eggplants will also still set fruit in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees so long as they have some moisture and nutrients.

6. Figs

Fig trees need ample sun in order to thrive, but they aren’t particularly picky about the soil they grow in or the high temperatures they're exposed to. Come time to harvest, fig trees will yield a bounty of sweet, sticky fruit.

It’s recommended that you water figs every five days during the summer months in order to yield the biggest fruit, which isn’t a lot, especially considering that figs are able to survive and yield fruit with even less water.

Add to that the fact that fig trees love the heat and are easy to care for, and you’ve got a plant that is well worth considering as part of your drought-preparedness strategy.

7. Horned Melon

Also common referred to as the horned cucumber. As a general rule, most varieties of cucumber are fairly drought resistant, but this one is even more drought resistant.

This unusual plant is quite different from the melons and cucumbers that most people are familiar with, as the fruit it produces is spiny, bright orange, has a jelly-like texture, and is said to taste like a cross between a lime, a cucumber, and a banana.

8. Jerusalem Artichokes

Also known as sunchokes, Jerusalem artichokes are a tough, drought-resistant perennial that produces edible tubers underground. Because the tubers form below the surface, the plant is often able to keep going through hot, dry spells better than many shallow-rooted crops. Extension sources also note that sunchokes handle drought well and require relatively little fertilizer once established.

The tubers have a slightly sweet, nutty flavor and can be cooked much like potatoes. In a survival garden, that makes them especially valuable since they give you a dependable source of calories from a plant that doesn’t demand constant attention.

9. Jujube

Also known as a red date or Chinese date, jujube trees are a drought-resistant fruit tree native to the Chinese mainland. Originally, jujube fruits were quite sour. Over the past few thousand years, though, growers have tweaked the species to produce a fruit that is much sweeter and more enjoyable.

Jujube trees may not be the most well-known fruit tree. However, their resistance to drought and ability to produce fruit in hot climates make them an option worth considering.

10. Kei Apples

Kei apple trees originate from southwest Africa, which is enough alone to tell you that this fruit tree is able to handle the heat and drought. The Kei apple tree grows up to thirty feet tall and produces smallish, bright yellow apples.

Kei apple trees are also able to grow in high salinity soil. However, they do prefer the dry air of higher climates, meaning that growing them in a humid climate may prove difficult.

11. Malabar Spinach

Ordinary spinach plants don’t do particularly well in a drought. Malabar spinach, however, which grows on a vine and tastes similar to the spinach you're used to, loves the heat and can survive a drought quite well.

Since you’ll have a hard time getting most leafy greens to produce in a drought, Malabar spinach is definitely a green you should consider planting in order to incorporate leafy greens into your diet during a drought.

12. Mulberries

Mulberry trees are another excellent choice for a drought-ready survival garden. Once established, they’re known to tolerate drought quite well, and they can also handle poor, sandy soils better than many other fruit trees. That kind of toughness makes them worth considering if you want a fruit tree that doesn’t need pampering.

When harvest time comes, mulberry trees can produce a heavy crop of sweet berries that can be eaten fresh, dried, or turned into preserves. Since the trees grow quickly and produce plenty of fruit, they offer a reliable food source when more delicate crops are struggling with the heat.

13. Natal Plums

Natal plum trees are among the heartiest of all fruit trees. Not only are the trees drought-resistant, they're also able to grow in a wide range of soil conditions and climates.

With a wintertime harvest, natal plums won’t provide any food during the drought. However, they'll be able to survive the drought and provide you with food in the winter that follows.

14. Okra

A southern classic, okra is considerably more drought-resistant than most vegetables and does well in hot, summer weather.

Okra pods can be added to soups and stews, grilled, or battered and fried. The last method is the most popular way to cook okra, as any other method leaves okra quite slimy – an off-putting texture for many.

Prepared correctly, though, okra makes for a delicious dish that you will be able to enjoy when there's not enough rain to keep other plants in your garden alive.

15. Oriental Persimmons

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of tasting a wild persimmon that isn’t quite ripe, just the name persimmon alone might put a bitter taste in your mouth. However, the flavorful oriental persimmons have little in common with their wild-growing namesake.

Oriental persimmon trees produce tomato-sized fruit that is fairly firm and sweet. What makes oriental persimmon trees drought-resistant is the nature of the tree’s root system. Most fruit trees have roots that are shallow and branch out.

Oriental persimmon trees, however, have a tap root that goes deep into the ground, allowing the tree to collect water even when all the water near the surface of the soil has dried up and other trees are struggling.

16. Peppers

In addition to having some heat of their own, peppers handle heat and droughts quite well. It doesn’t particularly matter what variety of pepper that you plant, as most all peppers are fairly drought-resistant.

Larger peppers such as bell peppers will naturally provide more sustenance, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with mixing up your pepper plants for more variety – provided, of course, that you can handle the heat yourself!

17. Pomegranate

Pomegranates have gained a lot of popularity recently among natural health enthusiasts thanks to the fruit’s powerful antioxidant properties. Hailing from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, pomegranate trees are used to the heat and are quite drought-resistant.

Getting the fruit out of a pomegranate’s fleshy outer shell requires a little bit of work. However, the sweet morsels inside are well worth the effort.

18. Squash

Squash is one of the few vegetables where the hotter the temperature is, the bigger the fruit they produce. This goes for all varieties of squash, both summer squash and winter squash alike.

This fact enables you to plant vegetables with both a summertime and a winter harvest and ensure that they will be able to survive any dry, hot weather that comes along.

19. Sweet Potatoes

Most varieties of potatoes don't do well in hot climates and instead prefer cooler soil. This is not the case with sweet potatoes, however, as they do quite well when the weather turns hot. Like any other variety of potato, sweet potatoes are full of carbs that will keep you full and energized in a survival situation, and they have a high yield relative to the amount of area they take up.

20. Watermelon

Given the amount of water in a watermelon, it may come as a surprise that this fruit grows best in long, hot summers and well-drained soil. While watermelon will naturally need some water to produce fruit, you won’t have to worry about the high heat wilting the plant and killing off its fruit.

Like this post? Don't Forget to Pin It On Pinterest!

You May Also Like:

• 15 High-Calorie Crops You Can Grow in Containers
• 15 Fastest-Growing Fruit Trees
• Why Food Prices Are Going To Skyrocket
• 100 Delicious Canning Recipes You Have To Try
• 15 Most Nutritious Plants for Gardeners

The post 20 Garden Plants That Can Survive a Drought appeared first on Urban Survival Site.

from Urban Survival Site