Practical spring planting

You will need a few egg cartons, some plastic wrap and a cutting implement, such as a scissorⁱ.

You remove the tops, wrap them in cellophaneⁱⁱ, then set the bottoms inside them. Fill the egg spots with earth, add your seeds, water sparingly.

The main advantage of this arrangement is that by the time seedlings are ready to plant, the "pots" have been mostly deteriorated to the point that replanting can easily be done with no damage to the seedling's roots. As a bonus in many applications the seedlings are already adequately spaced, so you can plant sets of thirty rather than one at a time. The various earthworms and whatnot will also appreciate a little fiber in their diet.

The only drawback, of course, is the incredible high-tech level of all the materials employed. In a sense playing the survivalist while postmodern, postindustrial industry roars at full blast all around is pretty much the only time in history when surviving will be any fun. Might as well enjoy it.

Speaking of which : wngd.org.

1. Which, incidentally, brings forth a very interesting point : survivalist communities that are too small to be able to support metalworking will have a hell of a time if it actually comes to any real surviving. To quote a fascinating story Smithsonian Mag ran recently,

   The Lykovs had carried a crude spinning wheel and, incredibly, the components of a loom into the taiga with them—moving these from place to place as they gradually went further into the wilderness must have required many long and arduous journeys—but they had no technology for replacing metal. A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark. Since these could not be placed in a fire, it became far harder to cook. By the time the Lykovs were discovered, their staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.

   Absent electricity you need troops in the range of a few hundred people to be able to process metal (and even then you'll be mostly doing brass). You won't be making anything too fancy, either. [↩]

2. "Lord, what have they thought up—it is glass, but it crumples!" [↩]