Prepping on a budget vol I iss I--food storage part 1

this is the start of a new series I'm doing about prepping on a budget from my perspective.

So, I'm on a budget. I'm on a strict budget because I'm trying to eliminate all my consumer debt while prepping. I'm sure most of you don't have ten grand to plunk down on an extra years worth of shelf stable foods either. So how does one build their food storage while spending (almost) no money? I have several tips for this, but will focus on only one for this part.

If you do not know what the following items are, own the following items, and know in detail how to use the following items, you need to remedy that right now. Seriously right now. It’s the end of the season so many retailers are clearancing them out. a food dehydrator, pressure canner (for low acid foods such as most vegetables), and a water bath canner (for high acid foods such as fruits). While you are at it, pick up as many cases of canning jars (all sizes) that you can afford. Other than a little sugar, salt, spices, and vinegar that is all the money you will need to spend to utilize this tip. While it is a serious investment up front (depending on models, this can run up to several hundred dollars) it will save you immense amounts on both your everyday grocery budget and your preps.

so right now you're probably thinking I'm crazy and suggesting you can air or something. I'm not--please keep reading.

I'm sure all of you have seen the innumerable for sale signs in your local community (just one more example of a very sick economy). Most of these houses are sitting empty--and a great many of them have fruit trees and berry patches in the yard. Did you know that realtors most often consider the fruit from these trees and berry plants as a liability because un-gathered fruits will attract flies and other pests? many will be more than happy to let you pick the fruit. Lets think about this with the concrete example of an apple tree. Use the windfall apples to make sauce, the apples picked directly from the tree to make apple pie filling (yes you can can it, google for a recipe), dry apple slices, make jam and jelly, make wine. Literally the possibilities are endless, and this is free food storage. yes it takes work, but it is free (At least monetarily). now that you've found your apple bounty, and you've peeled and canned and dried until you've almost dropped--don't throw out the peels and cores. Stick them in your crock pot with some water, sugar, and spices and voila--apple butter. But you say, this is an awful lot of fruits (the possibilities are literally endless) but a little lite on the proteins and fats category. You are absolutely correct, but you are forgetting about the black walnut and pecan trees in those same backyards. gather them, shell them, and follow a conventional dry canning recipe (readily found through a google search).

In addition to the yards of houses up for sale, get to know your local parks. This is public land, and so it is perfectly legal in most locations, but not all so check it out, to gather the food growing there. You would be surprised by the amount of edible food stuffs (principally nut trees at least locally, although some fruit trees as well) planted on public lands. Don't let that food go to waste.

So far you may have noticed we haven't got into vegetables. Lets say you are an absolute beginner and don not know how to garden, you have none of the tools, and you do not have the financial means of putting in a garden. Now lets also say that you have a strong back, and a friend with a large vegetable garden. Offer to trade some sweat equity for a share of the produce. Then take that produce home, preserve it (Save the scraps for making stock) and put it in your food storage. Do you know an outright vegetable farmer or truck gardeners? Offer to help out in exchange for the misshapen produce. This stuff is perfectly edible, but grocers are only willing to buy perfect produce that is more likely to sell. Most of this excess produce is dumped for lack of a buyer.

now lets look a little closer to home--like your own front lawn (which you should look into digging out and replacing with raised garden beds--just sayin.). Unless you have a lawn made of astroturf and spend hours a day pulling weeds, you are literally looking at a huge salad bowl. Those pesky dandelions are edible right down to the root. The leaves for salad, the flowers for wine and jelly, and the roots can be dried, roasted, boiled, or any number of other combinations. Those clumps of wild onions? you should dig these all up now! wash them, trim them, slice them and put them in your handy dandy dehydrator. Voila, dried onions for adding to soups, stews, casseroles, etc. While those are drying go out and dig up some more wild onions (really, can you ever get them all?!) and make a huge pot of french onion soup. Dig out your pressure canner, your handy case of pint jars, and suddenly you have a ready made meal perfectly portioned sitting on your pantry shelf. A word to the wise, be very careful when it comes to mushrooms and other wildcrafted foods. Do your research and find out what is and is not edible. Speaking of those mushrooms, you already have the dehydrator and the pressure canner. Hmm, a match made in heaven?

As with all things, home food preservation is nothing to be scared of, but do know what you are doing. Pick up a book from your local library, hit up google, and under no circumstances can something without reading the manual included with every canner first. You want safe foods sitting on those shelves.

do you have any further suggestions? how do you fill out your food storage while on a budget? Have you done any home food preservation? Please let me know about it in the comments section below.