Creating a Survival Seed Vault for Emergency Food Storage
Are you prepared for the worst possible day of your life?
When it comes to surviving the effects of cataclysmic events, it’s all about disaster planning–being ready. If the economy suddenly finds itself collapsed because of a tsunami, tornado, massive earthquake, or nuclear war, it’s up to you to make sure that your family doesn’t starve to death. In times like these, food security is ensured by emergency food storage by growing your own food, which starts with creating a survival seed vault.
Keeping an organized seed vault is where independent food growing for survival starts. It’s basic farming and gardening; you first need to know how to acquire, save, and care for the seeds before you can get to actually growing produce.
How?
It all starts with seed saving, mankind’s continuous ritual of saving the best seeds from each harvest, planting those seeds to produce the best possible yield, and repeating that process over and over again. Besides that, you can purchase your seeds from online and offline sources.
Which seeds should I include?
If you already have a home garden, save the best seeds from whatever produce you prefer.
For beginners, the easiest seeds to save are tomato, pea, lettuce, pepper, or bean; each is self-pollinating and produces seeds the same season they’re planted.
Besides these starter seeds, it’s a good idea to purchase a variety of other food crops you might need in the future. You are saving seeds for emergency purposes, after all. Also, remember to purchase only from heirloom sources–people who have saved seeds the natural way. Check to see if these sources are not selling you genetically-modified seeds as those will only hurt the long-term health of the crop.
Don’t bother with hybrid seeds either. Those seeds are bred to exhibit desirable genetic traits only for the first generation; they’re not good for long-term production.
How do I store the seed vault? How long is it going to last?
Each seed is a living embryo with the best chances of survival if kept in the driest, coolest, darkest place possible. So if you have a freezer, you already have a place to store your seeds. Just keep them hermetically-sealed to prevent freezing as that will damage the embryo.
Most of the time, you won’t need a separate freezer just for seed storage–it depends on how big your home garden or farm is going to be. As for how long your seeds will last, opinions vary from 10 up to 100 years. It also depends on the type of seed.
Besides being essential to emergency food storage and proper disaster planning, a survival seed vault is simply a great way to ensure a lush bounty of healthy crops for your family’s daily diet.
Eating what you plant in your garden sets you free from price increases in the produce market, and assures an all-organic harvest–you can’t get any organic than using choice seeds in your own garden soil.
