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• Depending on your personal beliefs, pesticides to control insects. Unfortunately, these will also kill beneficial insects.

• To repel birds, get a couple of big plastic owls to perch on your fence posts, lots of reflective (Mylar) strips (cut up used Mylar party balloons), and throwaway compact disks (strung on monofilament fishing line and positioned so that they will spin in the wind). Anti-bird netting is also available from the larger mail-order gardening suppliers.

• As a last resort for large numbers of moles or pocket gophers, you can use a probe-bait strychnine dispenser (such as an RCO probe), along with a large supply of RCO Omega bait (snipurl.com/hrm2t) or Gopher Getter bait (snipurl .com/hrm3b). (Typically, this is strychnine .5 percent.) In some states, such as California, these supplies are difficult to obtain locally unless you are a commercial grower, so consult your state, county, and local ordinances before mail-ordering this bait. Beware that this poison could lead to the untimely demise of your pets if they actually eat their prey, because they will also indirectly ingest the poison. There is a trick to using these dispensers: As you insert the probe, when you feel a sudden lack of soil resistance, that means you have penetrated a “runway” tunnel. That is when you press the trigger to dispense the grain bait. You will have a valuable post-TEOTWAWKI barterable skill if you have the ability (and supplies) to poison moles and gophers.

Growing Indoors

DWARF FRUIT TREES

You can grow dwarf fruit trees indoors, but it can be labor intensive, as each flower must be hand-pollinated (unless you have a house full of bees, butterflies, and/or flies). That means for each piece of fruit that you hope to produce, you must transfer pollen from one flower to another. Fruit will not develop unless the male pollen enters the female ovum. This can be done with the tip of a feather. If you have room for only one tree, be sure it is self-pollinating, which means that your tree will bear both male and female flowers. In nature trees are not self-pollinating, and you would need two trees of each variety you planned to grow. The crop-yield-versus-labor ratio is fairly small for most dwarf varieties. They seem susceptible to insect and fungus infestations. Also, dwarf varieties are grafted onto rootstock, not propagated from seeds, so you cannot grow new dwarf trees from the seeds. You can grow dwarf trees in a greenhouse in a big pot (such as a wine half-barrel, or possibly a bit larger). When the danger of frost has passed, you can place the pot on a low four-wheeled furniture dolly and wheel the trees outside, and then bring them back into the greenhouse in early fall. Lemons would be a treat in long-term TEOTWAWKI, when they would no longer be available at the grocery. My great-grandma said that lemonade was a much-anticipated, once-a-year, Fourth of July treat when she homesteaded in North Dakota. And an orange for Christmas was considered a special splurge. Who knows? Perhaps someday oranges and lemons will be a fantastic barter item.

SPROUTING

Sprouting is a great way to provide essential vitamins. Ounce for ounce, sprouting seeds are the most nutritious and space- and weight-efficient form of storage food. Sprouting seeds and sprouting kits (with trays) are available from a variety of Internet vendors, such as Ready Made Resources, Nitro-Pak, and Lehman’s, but anyone can produce fresh, healthy, and extremely nutritious sprouts on a kitchen counter with nothing more than a couple of plastic ice-cream containers. (Although containers with screen tops are handier for frequent rinsing.) They can provide a real respite from canned veggies while you’re waiting for the crops to mature, as well as year-round fresh greens. Some great sprouting options are: mung beans, lentils, various peas and beans, radish, alfalfa, and clover. You can also make a respectable salad in your kitchen with