Old Coot Here - Longtime Prepper

[OldCoot]

I'm a redneck from north Mississippi who enjoys prepping and strives to learn self sufficiency. My long term stores are measured by the tons plus I store garden seeds by the hundreds of pounds. I love to garden and tend my orchard, berries & muscadines. I have around 150 apple trees, many rather young as I am in the process of replacing many varieties with ones that do well in my warm climate with minimal spray. I'll be replacing another 25 or so this winter/spring. I also have peaches, pears, Japanese persimmons & pecan trees. I keep 6 chickens as pets, because I love fresh eggs & enjoy the gals so much. They live in the fenced in blueberry patch, inside their own fenced in run with bird netting over the top the keep the hawks away. In a crisis, I'm prepared to greatly ramp up the chicken population. I also feed hundreds of channel catfish in the pond. IMO, a stocked catfish pond is a great choice for preppers. We also have 4 horses and 10 dogs.

I love the rural life and love my guns. I have my own home range and my preferred home defense gun is my suppressed, sbr 300 blackout. My favorite gun to shoot is my suppressed, sbr S&W 15-22. I love to learn from other preppers, am more than glad to give my help/opinion but absolutely refuse to talk politics or religion.

 

[jontte]

Welcome from Fin.

 

[DrPrepper1]

Welcome from Texas

 

[brandx]

Hello and Welcome from Indiana

 

[Maverick]

Welcome from Washington State

 

[Psalm7]

Welcome from Tennessee .

 

[Proud Prepper]

Welcome from a top secret location only 150 people know about.

 

[DrHenley]

Howdy from Georgia!

I have deep roots in Mississippi.

 

[WGregMiller]

Welcome from another old redneck in North Alabama!

 

[tmttactical]

Warm Welcome from the Arizona valley folks. Glad to see you have made the choice to drop in here.

 

[Dani]

Welcome from another Texan OldCoot. Glad you came by and hope you like it here. Your last sentence gave me a chuckle . Sounds like you are living like a homestead and preparing for whatever may come your way.

 

[lonewolf]

welcome from the UK.

 

[Brent S]

Looks like good advice, living rural, producing food, avoid religion and politics. What’s not to like! Lol. Welcome to the forum.

 

[OldCoot]

Sounds like you are living like a homestead and preparing for whatever may come your way.

Yep. As I still run a business, at least for a few more years, I homestead on a small scale. I use my limited time to supplement our food with homegrown items and to test different varieties/techniques to find out now which do best with the least input. I have a 2nd, very late crop of corn going to tassel now. Never grown corn this late. Right now I'm testing Seminole pumpkin, which is growing between/under some of my apple trees in the orchard. It is supposed to be a low input winter squash that is resistant to the damn squash bugs, plus can store thru the winter... even in our heat. So far, so good.

 

[Dani]

I had to looked into what a Seminole pumpkin is. Sounds like it would be a good grower for us southern states, especially if you live near the Gulf. It's always been a challenge for me to grow pumpkins here and had settled on just growing cushaws and butternut until this year. Last year we saw some pumpkins on the side of the road after Halloween so wanted to stop to pick them up for the pigs. I went ahead and saved some of the seeds to just try this year. It was a test run and planted only three but was pleasantly surprised on the amount I got and they are good keepers. Have no idea what variety they are but I saved some of the seeds for next year. The only down side was they didn't last thru summer, think I finally pulled them beginning of Aug. The shape was like a normal jack o lantern but it was pale in color by comparison and the flesh is a deep orange and also less "stringy" so held up well when canning chunks.

 

[Dani]

Nice looking apple harvest btw. I'm just curious, do you sell them or preserve for using thru out the year? I used to have a couple apple trees. One got taken out by a hurricane and the other was a combination of things but initial start of decline was the goats who ate the bark, even though we put sheet medal around the base. This year we replaced with another, but hunny accidentally ran over it with the golf cart. . . Started coming back and then got way too much rain and that was it. Maybe we will try again. We have three Mayhaws, one producing pear and another one we just planted this year, one peach again just planted, two lemons and one orange. A couple mulberries but the birds always get those before I can and a couple pecan trees that the squirrels get to before me.

 

[OldCoot]

I had to looked into what a Seminole pumpkin is. Sounds like it would be a good grower for us southern states, especially if you live near the Gulf. It's always been a challenge for me to grow pumpkins here and had settled on just growing cushaws and butternut until this year. Last year we saw some pumpkins on the side of the road after Halloween so wanted to stop to pick them up for the pigs. I went ahead and saved some of the seeds to just try this year. It was a test run and planted only three but was pleasantly surprised on the amount I got and they are good keepers. Have no idea what variety they are but I saved some of the seeds for next year. The only down side was they didn't last thru summer, think I finally pulled them beginning of Aug. The shape was like a normal jack o lantern but it was pale in color by comparison and the flesh is a deep orange and also less "stringy" so held up well when canning chunks.

My Seminoles are still in the field & I plan on leaving them till first frost. They are rather small but are supposed to taste like butternut.

 

[OldCoot]

Nice looking apple harvest btw. I'm just curious, do you sell them or preserve for using thru out the year? I used to have a couple apple trees. One got taken out by a hurricane and the other was a combination of things but initial start of decline was the goats who ate the bark, even though we put sheet medal around the base. This year we replaced with another, but hunny accidentally ran over it with the golf cart. . . Started coming back and then got way too much rain and that was it. Maybe we will try again. We have three Mayhaws, one producing pear and another one we just planted this year, one peach again just planted, two lemons and one orange. A couple mulberries but the birds always get those before I can and a couple pecan trees that the squirrels get to before me.

Currently we eat a bunch, put up lots of applesauce and then our church youth group makes apple butter & sells as a fundraiser. Once I get the orchard reestablished with proper varieties for my area, much of the harvest will go toward apple cider. I have built a cider press and am all set. My plan is to sell the cider and apples at farmers markets once I retire. Actually probably gonna go one step further to make apple cider vinegar to sell.

There is little info on growing apples in the south. I started with some 30 varieties of trees and will soon be down to 10 or so. Arkansas black, which is not listed as a disease resistant variety is my best by far. Eventually half of my orchard, 75 trees or so, will be Arkansas Black.

 

[Dani]

I unfortunately have to pick and choose what I did with my apples when I did get them. Mainly it was apple pie fulling. Now with the pears I get I make our filling, cinnamon pears, half pears, pear sauce and pear butter. Last two are so good. Maybe one day I'll have a nice apple harvest.

 

[Brent S]

Currently we eat a bunch, put up lots of applesauce and then our church youth group makes apple butter & sells as a fundraiser. Once I get the orchard reestablished with proper varieties for my area, much of the harvest will go toward apple cider. I have built a cider press and am all set. My plan is to sell the cider and apples at farmers markets once I retire. Actually probably gonna go one step further to make apple cider vinegar to sell.

There is little info on growing apples in the south. I started with some 30 varieties of trees and will soon be down to 10 or so. Arkansas black, which is not listed as a disease resistant variety is my best by far. Eventually half of my orchard, 75 trees or so, will be Arkansas Black.

I probably have 30 Apple trees right now, with about 10 different varieties. The only problem is I didn’t keep records of what was what, so have no clue what they are now! As far as varieties doing better than others, I’ve found each year is different. A tree that produced great last year barely produced this year. I guess they need a break occasionally. The one thing I’ve learned for certain is if you ever think you may have to depend on your plants for your primary food source then you need a lot of them. With good and bad years affecting production you need to plant a lot more than you think.

 

[jimLE]

Howdy from a Texan .... and welcome to the forum and family...there's quite a few knowledgeable folks here that'll gladly tell ya what you need to know,or at least point ya in the right direction and/or give ya a good idea or 2..and by all means jump right on in with any replies you have on a topic.