With all that is happening, it should be pretty clear that preparing every needful thing and creating places of safety should be a primary focus for all of us. As members of the Utah OSR Land Cooperative, my sweetheart and I are in the process, this very week, of moving on to our two-acre homestead. In the midst of the moving chaos, it is easy to lose sight of the primary objective, and that is to start producing food as quickly as possible. Because, without food, everything else loses priority. Even now, segments of the food supply chains are breaking down. Our goal is to have a productive garden next spring. That goal will require having certain things in place.
One of our first decisions was to determine, what we wanted to grow, how much we need, and where to put it. We will be implementing our overall plan in phases because of time and lack of resources. Our first phase includes building a 1,200 square foot high-tunnel greenhouse and preparing a 50’ x 100’ open garden area. Also, we have purchased a dozen shade and fruit trees to go with this first phase. We hope to duplicate this pattern multiple times, thereby increasing our production capability in time.
We want to apply manure and other biomass to our growing areas this fall so the green manures don’t burn our young plants in the spring. In addition, we know that we need the greenhouse to protect our starts and early spring crops from late frosts. Overall, preparing every needful thing has an order to it, especially in gardening.
I have shared the preceding things with you so that we can keep the primary goal of food production in mind as we plan our transition from our city lifestyles to a desired country culture of self-reliance. We have a window of opportunity to prepare our places of safety. However, to take advantage of this opportunity, it will require a new focus. We need to let go of the paradigm that life will return as it was so that we can focus on preparing a new, healthier, safer, and happier lifestyle.
God Speed, Philip J Gleason Director
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