Preppers: Losing Connection with the Seasons
Kevin Felts 06.21.18
A question to the reader: What is June 21st, 2018? The answer is not, “It’s Thursday.” June 21st is the summer solstice or the first day of summer.
Someone may ask, “What is the summer solstice?” It is the longest day of the year. Daylight hours on June 22nd will be approximately one minute less than on June 21st. Then June 23rd will be slightly shorter than June 22nd, and so on. The days will get hotter as we enter into the Dog Days of Summer, but the days will also get shorter as we head towards fall.
Go to a local grocery store and chances are the shelves will be full of fruit imported from all over the world. The idea of something being “out of season” is a foreign concept to a lot of people.
What does all this mean? It means a lot of people have lost connection with the seasons. People are not use to something being available for a short period of time. For example, I was watching the wild plums here on the farm. In just a couple of days all the plums were either eaten by wildlife, or fell off the trees. Within a span of maybe a week, the majority of the wild plums were ready to eat.
Another question to the reader, when is the best time to plant spring crops? What about summer crops that do well in hot weather? How about fall crops?
Here in Southeast Texas, my spring garden typically gets planted between the Ides of March and March 30th, depending on weather. Hot weather crops such as okra are planted around the first of May.
In 2018 I am hoping to plant a fall garden, which will be planted around September 1. Why start planting around September 1st? The 2018 fall equinox will be on September 22nd. I want the fall crops planted before the equinox.
Also, August is typically a brutal summer month here in Southeast Texas. Typically, temperatures start to dip in September, and we may get out first frost until late November. Most of the crops will need around 90 days before they start producing.
- September – 30 days
- October – 31 days
- November – 30 days
This gives a buffer of a few weeks from the time the plants start producing until the average first frost.
Let’s say some type of SHTF even happens, how many people would know when certain wild edibles are usually ready to harvest? What about planting a garden? How many people know when to plant certain crops?
This type of knowledge has been lost over the generations. As more people buy their food from grocery stores, less attention is paid to the seasons.
Townsends made an excellent video on how the seasons affected people in the 18th century.
