As I walk around the beautiful little villages in Somerset, UK, it suprises me how few of the houses have vegetable gardens. Granted, this is due to tiny patches of lawn with likely little sunlight, and anyone that keen on a garden might be already part of a co-op or allotment system, *and* it's only just Spring and the growing season is short, but I can't help thinking what I'd do if I lived here again. 


At home, I'm always thinking about food security and what I can grow to feed myself. This is something that's important to @owasco as well - in fact, she created an special prize entry for the Garden Journal challenge that comes out every month in the Hive Garden community on the 1st. You can win 2 Hive for talking about what you do to 'prep' or prepare for literal or other kinds of 'hard winters' where access to food may not be given. 


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**At home, my renters will be swimming in the eggplants I planted months ago.**

Of course, here I'd be thinking of a heated greenhouse or polytunnel if there was any chance of growing my own food. I'm sure there's things I could grow year round with a bit of thought. Both of us have the skills to build such a thing and I'm sure we could talk those with disused greenhouses or polytunnels to perhaps grow something in there for them. My mother in law has a greenhouse she'll never use again - I guess with an aging population, there's going to be a lot of those in this country! 

It's such a different way of gardening here, though. I struggled to get used to it when I lived here last time. I lovingly tended a huge patch of beetroot until the neighbour's pigs ate all the tops of them - I was so devastated! The season is so short, unlike home where I can grow all year round. 

What one does have in this country is wild food that's much easier to access here than in Australia. Being Spring, all the nettles are out - I guess I'd be drying tons and tons of them to add to winter soups! There's also lots of wild garlic and three cornered leeks - I'd be making tons of pesto or putting it in ice cube trays for the winter months. I haven't yet lived through a mushroom season here but I would certainly be looking into growing my own, as that's easy to do inside or in a garage! 

When we used to live in Dorset 15 years ago we also supplemented our diet with roadkill. Yes, you heard right. I'd drive the same route to drop my son off for school so I'd always be on the look out for pheasant road kill and if it was warm or definitely wasn't there the day before, I'd take it home to eat. Some people do deer as well - all you need to do is take it to the butchers and they'll carve it up for you for the freezer. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter what country you're in, you need to have some self sufficiency skills or a willingness to learn them. We're only a few years away from a pandemic and people seem to have forgotten we couldn't get yeast or flour in this country. I know everyone's on the breadline, excuse the pun, more than ever, but with a few skills you can save money making your own bread, and with the money you save, you could be putting away flour for a rainy day, so to speak. 

It's a little nerve wracking sometimes being itinerant the way we are. With no garden and no home base, if anything happens, we have nothing - no stores, no patch of earth. But I guess we are prepped in *some way* with our wits. I know at the slightest inkling of trouble I would not delay in getting certain things sharpish. 

Although I'm looking forward to our adventures over the next few months, part of me is really looking forward to settling down at home and prepping more than ever. The world is in a wierd place and I don't think it'd hurt do spend your time doing such things. 


I guess what I'd love right now is for people to share how their garden is, in some way, a prepper's garden, even if it's just for one winter, or to supplement your diet when life is tough. Go write about it for the #gardenjournal this week and join in the conversation! And don't forget to drop your link under the challenge post. 

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# `With Love,` 


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