Food
An Introduction to Prepping and Emergency Food Storage
The 7-page, New Zealand-written booklet is a basic introduction to prepping, briefly touching on the 5 Pillars of Prepping and then focusing on water and food storage, with an example of a month's tinned and dried food supply for 1 adult to see them through 30 days and meet an average of 2400 calories per day.
Plan 4 Plenty - Food Abundance in a Crisis
A comprehensive (137 pages) guide filled with vital prepper/survival information. This carefully compiled guide covers sourcing, foraging, fertilising, storing, cultivating, farming and trading food in a crisis + much more.
Plan 4 Plenty - Planner
The planning process is unparalleled in its ability to reshape one’s entire mind to a new purpose. But where to start? The Plan 4 Plenty - Planner is an empty plan full of headings and topics that you must consider and address. It is intended as a companion to the Plan 4 Plenty - Food Abundance in a Crisis Guide - but it can be used as the basis for planning on its own.
Plan 4 Plenty - Planner - Template
For those of us who may prefer to keep an electronic version of the Plan 4 Plenty Planner, I have attempted to produce an editable & shortened (14 pages vs. 28 pages) version in Word docx format. Advantages may be:
- My handwriting is embarrassingly bad.
- PDF documents are not easily edited. Assuming we will wish to revise and update our personal plan notes periodically, a saved electronic version may, therefore, make this more practical.
- It is less wasteful to print only 14 pages.
Drying Fruits and Vegetables
Food drying is one of the oldest methods of preserving food for later use. It can either be an alternative to canning or freezing, or compliment these methods. Drying food is simple, safe and easy to learn.
Fermented Foods
Do you wish to improve your immune system, gut and general health? This 8-page printout features a selection of recipes from a recent local workshop. Included are recipes for sauerkraut, traditional milk kefir, kombucha & ginger and turmeric fermented carrot sticks.
Preparing & Canning Fermented Foods & Pickled Vegetables
Prepared by the U.S. National Institute of Food & Agriculture, this guide covers fermented foods, cucumber pickles, other vegetable pickles, pickled vegetable relishes and pickled foods for special diets.
The Pemmican Manual
Pemmican is a concentrated nutritionally complete food invented by the North American Plains Indians. It was originally made during the summer months from dried lean buffalo meat and rendered fat as a way to preserve and store the meat for use when traveling and as a primary food source during the lean winter months. As long as it was kept away from moisture, heat, and direct sunlight, it would last for many years with no refrigeration or other method of preservation.
Food Safety when the Grid Goes Down
When the grid goes down so may transportation systems, manufacturing systems, communications systems and of course, household systems. How, for instance, do you keep food safe when the temperature is 35 degrees Fahrenheit and the power grid is down for longer than a few hours?
Food & Water in an Emergency
If an earthquake, hurricane, winter storm or other disaster strikes your community, you might not have access to food, water and electricity for days, or even weeks. By taking some time now to store emergency food and water supplies, you can provide for your entire family. This brochure was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in cooperation with the American Red Cross and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Survival Nutrition
Produced by Mike Adams from naturalnews.com, this 106-page course is described as being all about how to use nutrition to stay alive as we experience this global reset ... and all these crazy things that are happening right now.
Making a Solar Dehydrator
Originally produced by the University of Georgia for farmers in tropical climates, this short brochure nevertheless illustrates the construction of a solar dehydrator and details the process.
Water
Purifying Water during an Emergency
Prepared by the Washington State Department of Health, this 2-page brochure covers storing water safely and purifying it by boiling and adding liquid chlorine bleach.
Water by Jiyani
This comprehensive booklet covers many aspects of water, such as its importance to our survival, finding it, collecting and purifying it.
Gardening
Backyard Composting Basics
Prepared by the University of California's Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources, this 6-page brochure begins by explaining what composting is. It then outlines several different methods of composting, do's & don'ts and troubleshooting your compost heap.
How to Start a Vegetable Garden
Are you wondering how to fit gardening into your life? Start small! With a bit of planning, you can master the basics—and then go beyond. In this guide, you will find everything you need to know to make a garden grow. So, roll up your sleeves and read on!
Sustainable Food Production at Home
Growing food is for many people the first step on the journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle and it is a very rewarding and exciting activity with many benefits. Produced by New Zealand's Sustainable Living Trust.
A Seed Saving Guide
This guide outlines most of the things you need to know to grow seed successfully. It covers the basics of seed growing from choosing appropriate varieties for seed saving to harvesting, processing, and storing seed. It assumes that you have basic knowledge of vegetable growing.
Chooks
An Introduction to Keeping Chickens
With the increasing cost of food and concern about animal welfare, more people are now keeping backyard chooks. This handout is designed as an introduction, to provide people with basic information.
A Beginner's Guide to Raising Backyard Chickens
Topics include:
- What do you need to raise chickens?
- How much does raising chickens cost?
- Daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal chores
- How many chickens should I get?
- Which breed should I get?
21 Tips for Raising Backyard Chickens
This 6 page guide comprises 21 useful tips for beginners.
Hastings District Council Consolidated Bylaws - 2021
In section 10.4, on page 64, you will find the Hastings / Heretaunga bylaws relating to the keeping of pigs, poultry, stock and bees. Interestingly, subsection 10.4.3 mentions that it is illegal to keep a rooster within the Hastings urban area.
Beekeeping
While setup costs and ongoing maintenance can seem a little daunting, the rewards of beekeeping are many: honey, beeswax, propolis (a natural broad-band antibiotic), pollen, pollination for your plants and protein (in some cultures bee brood is eaten). An an SHTF situation, surplus bee products may also be very desirable for barter.
A Beginner's Guide to Beekeeping
"About year ago I added honey bees to my backyard jungle. After numerous stings and a spectacular swarm, my respect and appreciation for Apis mellifera continues to grow. Unlike some gentleman farmer conceits, urban beekeeping has profound and far-reaching benefits, well beyond the confines of my section and the copious rewards of home-grown honey. We need bees. Most fruit trees and vegetable crops rely on their fastidious ministration as nature’s arch pollinators. Albert Einstein once predicted that people would last perhaps four years without bees, so great is their role in food production. Let’s hope this theory remains untested."
- Author: Virgil Evett. 3 pages.
The Australian Beekeeping Guide
Yes, it is Australian written. But, its many pages are so well set out, with many colour photos, that it seemed negligent to not include it.
- from Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, State Government of Victoria. 144 pages.
Beekeeping Basics
Again, not locally written. But, once again, a detailed, well set out document with many photos and illustrations.
- from the College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State. 102 pages.
The Art of Beekeeping
"It is fantastic that so many of us in New Zealand have become interested in beekeeping, either as a hobby or by making beekeeping a career through employment, perhaps with ambitions of creating a future livelihood within the industry. No matter who, where or what, we all have to learn how to walk — that is, understanding the basics of beekeeping — before we can run."
- from The NZ Beekeeper. Author: Ricki Leahy. 3 pages.
Caring for Bees
"Beekeeping is becoming more popular in Wellington. Bees are important for pollinating crops and gardens but can cause problems in urban areas, so good hive management is important."
- from the Wellington City Council. 4 pages.
Beekeeping - Seasonal Management
A handy month-by-month guide to the many seasonal tasks associated with beekeeping.
- from Farmlands Horticulture. 1 page.
The New Zealand Beekeeper Code of Conduct
"Aims: To allow the keeping of bees in a manner compatible with the environment they are located in, and to encourage the keeping of bees in such a way as to be acceptable to the relevant regulatory authorities, the general public, the landowner(s) concerned and other apiarists."
- from Apiculture New Zealand. 4 pages.