* Add compost to the soil if needed and level off the top of the mound.

* Plant four to six corn seeds in holes at the center of the mound, six to eight inches apart and one-inch deep.

* Wait for corn to sprout and reach approximately six-inches high before planting beans. Plant four bean seeds four inches from base of corn stalks, evenly s.p.a.ced around stalks.

* At the outer edge of the mound, plant three squash seeds evenly s.p.a.ced around perimeter of the mound. Don't plant the squash directly on the edge. Instead, place them approximately six to eight inches in from the edge of the mound.

Foot traffic near root systems is decreased in this method of gardening, which prevents soil from becoming compacted like it does in row gardening.

Source: Jacqueline Cross, How to Grow a Three Sisters Garden, suite101.com, Nov. 10, 2008, http://vegetablegardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/three_sisters_gardening.

Before planting, it's common to use one pound of fertilizer containing N-P-K for each 100 square feet. The fertilizer might be labeled (20-20-20)-20% by weight each of nitrogen, phosphorus, and pota.s.sium and potash. There are many fertilizer mixes; another common one is ammonium sulfate (16-20-0), and many gardeners use two pounds of 16-20-0 for every 100 square feet. You can see where I'm going with this: Check with your local garden shop to see what kind of fertilizer you should be using and how much. Sulfur (S), Calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg) may also be needed, but you'll find that out when you do your soil testing. You can also use organic fertilizers-plant compost or manure.

Plan your garden so you have vegetables throughout the entire season. Check with your local garden shop to see what grows well at different times of the season in your area. And MotherEarthNews.com has an online guide at http://tinyurl.com/cdcx7l. Some crops, like corn, have short harvest periods, so depending on where you live, you can make several successive plantings for staggered harvests.

Plant disease-resistant varieties that are adapted to your area.7Again, your local garden shop will know what plants are best suited to survive the diseases and pests in your area.

Use companion plants. There are some plants that, when planted close together, will benefit each other. The Iroquois used the three sisters-beans, corn, and squash (see sidebar). Many organic farmers still swear by the three sisters today.

Some More Tips

Likewise, there are certain combinations of plants that will inhibit the growth of one or both types of plants. Here are a few combinations to avoid:* Potatoes-inhibit growth of tomatoes and squash * Beans-inhibit growth of onions * Broccoli-inhibits growth of tomatoes * Carrots-inhibit growth of dill Some other tips . . .

Soak seeds to get a jump on the season. Before germinating, seeds need to drink up moisture, just as if drenched by spring rains. Once they become plump and swollen, the little embryo inside will begin to grow.

Large seeds can be chipped or nicked with a knife to aid in germination. If they're too hard to nick easily, try rubbing them between pieces of sandpaper.

Small seeds can drown easily. Try starting the seeds in a mix containing sand or perlite, a volcanic material that creates tiny air tunnels which allows moisture and oxygen to flow freely to roots.

Especially in cold climates, you might want to start with large seedlings grown on your windowsill or purchased at a nursery (if you have more money than time). This works especially well for tomatoes and peppers.

Not every vegetable needs to be started as a seedling. Squash, zucchini, pumpkins, and cuc.u.mbers are best started by direct sowing in the ground.

If you grow too much food, then lucky you. Home canning is an excellent solution. The USDA has a great FREE guide to canning that you can find online at the National Center for Home Food Preservation web site: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html. There are whole books on canning if you're really interested. You can also check into dehydrating and preserving your homegrown foods. Or, be generous, and share with your neighbors or a local food bank.

In addition to giving you a fresh vegetable supply to stretch out your food stockpiles, gardening will calm your frayed nerves and put food on your table. That's a change from the chemical-soaked Frankenfood being sold at your grocery store. And remember, you can't eat gold or silver, but you can eat your own vegetables.

And if disaster never comes, then you've saved money, eaten more healthily, learned some new skills, and had fun in your own backyard.

10 Best Garden Crops for Beginners I don't have the best green thumb in the world, but there are plants that even I can't kill. Here are some to consider for your gardening.

1. Radishes. Radishes do well even in not-so-great garden soil and are ready to harvest in only a few weeks. Plant the seeds in spring and fall.

2. Green beans. These are easy to grow and prolific. If you get a big crop, they freeze well, and they're also delicious when pickled as dilly beans. Start with seeds after all danger of frost has pa.s.sed.

3. Onions. Start with onion sets, and if they do well, you can harvest bulb onions. If not, you can always eat the greens.

4. Strawberries. Perfectly ripe strawberries are unbelievably sweet, and the plants are surprisingly hardy. Buy bare-root plants in early spring. Put this perennial in a sunny spot and keep it well weeded.

5. Peppers. Both hot peppers and bell peppers are easy to grow. Start with plants and let peppers from the same plant ripen for different lengths of time to get a range of colors and flavors.

6. Bush zucchini. This squash won't take up as much room in your garden as many other types, and it's very prolific. Start from seeds or transplants. You won't need more than a few plants for a b.u.mper crop.

7. Tomatoes. There's just no subst.i.tute for a perfectly ripe homegrown tomato, and it's hard to go wrong when you start with strong plants. If you get a big crop, consider canning or freezing.

8. Basil. Many herbs are easy to grow, but basil is a good choice because it's a nice complement to tomatoes. Basil is easy to grow from seeds or from transplants.

9. Potatoes. These are an easy-to-grow staple that stores well when kept cool. A simple and low-maintenance approach is to plant potatoes in straw rather than soil. Seeds are whole or cut sections of potatoes, sold in early spring.

10. Salad greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula, and corn salad). Pick your favorite, or try a mix? Many companies sell mixed packets for summer and winter gardening. Plant the seeds in spring and fall, and you can pick salads almost year-round.

Source: MotherEarthNews.com.

The Least You Can Do * Consider starting a small garden-even if you begin with just one pot and one vegetable. You'll eat healthier, fresher food.

* Don't overspend. Buy what you need, but you can scrounge a lot of supplies and share rental costs on equipment with friends.

* Do basic research at Home Depot, Lowe's, or your neighborhood gardening store. They can tell you what to plant and when.

* If you're new at gardening, consider sticking to the list of 10 Best Garden Crops for Beginners. Taking on too much and trying to grow difficult crops could discourage you.

PART IV.

HEALTH, HOME, AND EDUCATION.

CHAPTER 10.

Health, Medicine, and Disease After a brief period of turmoil in which the usual helpless and useless patients who consume the lion's share of medical care dollars die out in a Darwinian ma.s.s extinction, we can at last get down to the serious business of making our statistics look good.

-Anonymous We've got a lot of ground to cover in this chapter. I'll tell you about what medical professionals are doing to prepare for a WTSHTF scenario, Seven Medical Tips for smart suburban survivalists, what you should keep in a traveling medicine bag, and why you should think twice before buying from an Internet pharmacy. I'll also tell you about medicinal plants you can grow yourself, and 23 Home remedies from the spice rack. Finally, we'll take a look at pandemics, epidemics, and how to protect yourself and your family in the event of either one.

When TSHTF, your family's immediate safety, food, and water will probably be your top three priorities. But medicine should be high on the list, as well.

Why? Well, you're used to living in a world where medicine is plentiful and (mostly) cheap. And the odds are better than average that you or someone in your family is taking medicine for a chronic condition. More than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems.1 Research shows that that last year, 51% of insured U.S. children and adults were taking one or more prescription drugs for a chronic condition, up from 50% the previous four years and 47% in 2001. Most of the drugs are taken daily.

Now here's the scary part: Our government discourages stockpiling of prescription drugs. If civilization breaks down, those drugs will become unavailable in a hurry.

There are many drugs that you can buy without a prescription in foreign countries (Mexico, for instance) that you cannot buy in the United States. Our government simply doesn't trust us because our medical professionals, who write the laws, are arrogant enough to think only they know best. For the same reason, your doctor won't prescribe more than three months' worth of most prescription medications, and sometimes less. There is some logic behind the caution-more people die from overdoses of prescription drugs every year than die from overdoses of illegal drugs. But this situation makes it tough to build a stockpile for long-term emergencies.

And my lawyer's head would explode if I didn't mention that medicine is something that should only be practiced by trained professionals. That being said . . .

Medical Professionals Are Worried About Something More Serious

I talked to Nannette Lavoie-Vaughan, certified Nurse Pract.i.tioner and CEO of Nurse Nan Consulting. She and other health pract.i.tioners have been talking a lot about this problem recently.

Since Nan does a lot of work with nursing homes, that's where she focuses her planning. Nursing homes carry, at most, one month's supply of each patient's drugs.

"It a hot topic for people in the nursing home field," Nan told me. "If transportation is disrupted, drug supplies will run out pretty quickly."

"All nursing homes are required by federal law to come up with a disaster manual and a disaster plan. It used to be for hurricanes and tornadoes. Now, we are realizing that it could be something more serious. It could be bioterrorism or something else. We live in an age where anything can happen."

Nursing homes are not allowed to stockpile large amounts of medication, Nan explains. They are supplied by what are called dispensing pharmacies, which keep close track of the drugs.

Just-in-time inventory practices and our highly centralized society make things worse, Nan explains. North Carolina, where she works, is served by just three major dispensing pharmacies. If one of those suffers a major disruption, patients might not get the medicine they need. People could start dying pretty quickly.

And nursing homes themselves could face armed attack. "Nursing homes do have drugs on hand that are mind-altering," she says. "In a time of civil unrest, like post-Katrina, nursing homes could become a target" for armed individuals or gangs.

Nursing homes may be especially vulnerable, but anyone who needs medicine-that is to say, the majority of Americans-is also at risk.

The first thing to do is to make sure you and your family need as little medicine as possible.

Seven Medical Tips for Smart Suburban Survivalists

Some of the best medical care you can get is preventative medical care. With that in mind, let's look at seven medical tips for suburban survivalists.

1. Get in shape NOW! Lose weight and build up your endurance. You might have to walk five or 10 or many more miles with a backpack loaded with stuff as you escape whatever calamity strikes your home. Also, losing weight means you'll be at less risk of diabetes and several other diseases. If you're diabetic and civilization collapses, your odds are grim.Obesity puts you at risk of heart disease, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, depression, high blood pressure, hormonal imbalance and infertility, sleep apnea, stroke, incontinence, and a list of cancers longer than your arm. Also, if you're being chased by an angry mob with pitch-forks, guess who gets caught first? The fat guy, that's who.

It reminds me of an old joke we used to tell in Maine. Two guys go camping. The next morning, they wake up to find a bear has wandered in to the camp and, having already eaten their food, is looking at the humans hungrily. Wisely, the campers decide to run away. One of them stops to put on his sneakers. The other camper can't believe it. "You d.a.m.ned fool!" he hissed at his friend. "Even with sneakers, you'll never outrun a bear."

"I don't have to outrun the bear," his friend said. "I just have to outrun you."

The point is, being overweight slows you down and makes you a liability to your friends and family, as well as putting you at risk of heart attacks and other medical crises that won't be easily treated WTSHTF.

2. Change your diet. This goes hand in hand with getting in shape, but you really want to change your diet before a crisis occurs. Learn to eat what you have stockpiled. This will help with rotating your stock. Put down the Cheetos and start eating healthier snacks. If you've followed my recommendation and planted a garden, you could have lots of healthy snacks growing in your own backyard.Benjamin Franklin said, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Start snacking on apples, bananas, and grapes, and you'll feel better. Start eating radishes and carrots you grow in your own garden and you'll feel better and have a real sense of accomplishment.

It's hard to diet in a land of abundance. Weight Watchers has helped me. Exercise is also good-30 minutes a day is recommended.

3. Don't get too skinny. That is, if you're really planning on hard times. Why? Because each two pounds of extra weight you carry gives you enough energy to survive for three to five days, as long as you have enough water and vitamin pills. Get fit enough to run away if you have to, but a few extra pounds won't kill you and may save your life.

4. Stop smoking. The government is already making it hard enough on smokers, and if you quit, you'll have more money to spend on building up your survival stash. Along with lung cancer, smoking is linked to damage to your arterial walls, high blood pressure, asthma, and you name it. Smoking also makes it hard to run.

5. Get a medical checkup. It's important to know and understand what your body needs, and a visit to your health-care provider can provide that information. If your doctor is like mine, he's a p.r.i.c.k who will marvel aloud that you're not dead yet, but he'll also give you a baseline of information and alert you to any unfortunate developments you might miss on your own.A survivalist I know went hard-core, bought a farm far from civilization, stocked it to the gills with survival gear, and then found out he had a chronic disease that would kill him unless he moved close to where he could get regular treatments. That changes your priorities. Maybe he should have gone for the checkup before he bought the farm, eh?

6. Get CPR/First-Aid Training. If the paramedics aren't answering the phone, it's all down to you. A Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) cla.s.s will teach you critical, life-saving skills. For example, you'll learn the ABC method for CPR:A = Airway. Check to be sure the person is breathing. They must have a clear pa.s.sage for the air to get in through their nose or mouth and down into their lungs. When we are awake and conscious, we automatically maintain our airway. If a person is unconscious, they cannot do this for themselves. There are various ways to clear the airway. First, be sure the tongue is not too far back into the throat area. This can be fixed by tilting the head backwards. This manually changes the angle of the airway so that the tongue is no longer a problem. Next, be sure there is no object blocking the airway. This can be remedied by using appropriate back slaps or abdominal thrusts, after learning how, where, and when these are to be done.

B = Breathing. If the victim is breathing, great! If not, the rescuer needs to begin artificial respiration, or rescue breathing .

C = Circulation. To check circulation, the rescuer would need to check the victim's pulse. If there is none, this is the time to begin CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CPR is a method of breathing for the patient as well as ma.s.saging the heart to help the blood move through the body until it can do so again on its own.

This short description is not enough. You're going to need hands-on training to become proficient at CPR. Taking CPR and First-Aid Training is well worth it for anyone. You can learn everything from the small (the correct way to bandage a cut) to the big (keeping a person alive). And the fact is, in a disaster, the only doctor or nurse your family may be able to depend on is you.

The Red Cross offers CPR and First-Aid courses that won't break your piggy bank. You can find out more by pointing your Web browser to http://tinyurl.com/cfzetl or calling 1-800-787-8002.

7. Get medicines for your pets. Along with protecting your pet, veterinarian supplies are more easily obtained that human prescriptions and can be used for your own needs in a pinch. I'm not endorsing this, but it bears mentioning. Use your own judgment.

Nurse Nan's Traveling Medicine Bag

Nan says everyone should keep over-the-counter medicines on hand for emergencies. These you can stockpile. Her list includes packages of:* Aspirin. "It has so many different properties," Nan explains. "Pain control, fever control, and it works as a blood thinner for people with high blood pressure."

* Topical antibiotic ointment, like Neosporin.

* Antidiarrheal medicine, like Imodium AD or Kaopectate."They're handy for bad water or food poisoning," Nan says.

* Nausea medicine, like Pepto Bismol or Mylanta.

* Anti-allergy medications, like Claritin and Zyrtec. "If there's any airborne threats or people have trouble breathing, these would be good to have."

* Multivitamins. "You don't know what your access to food will be in a crisis situation."

* Your current medical information. Nan recommends putting a list of all the current medications you take and a list of all your medical diagnoses in a little plastic bag, as well as a living will and a do-not-resuscitate form if that's your choice.