I was extremely pleased finding this site during a search. Hi! I'm Polaris. I'm looking to link-up with like-minded preppers and I'd like to learn from my more experienced counterparts.
I'm based in the North of England.
Greetings fellow preppers
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Hi, and welcome from the North West.
Tell us about your prepping journey so far? What's your angle? What do you prep for?
Graceful Degradation! Prepping's objective summed up in two words. Turning Disaster into Mild Inconvenience by the power of fore-thought
Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong
Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Me and my partner are starting from the ground up with little to no prepper experience, so as close to a pure beginner as can be. Had thoughts about homesteading and not relying on the grid so much for years but recent news about the war kicked our butts into motion.
Right now we're working on basic survival needs, recently ordered a slimline 227L HDPE drum which would be enough potable water for a month or so for me and my partner, and slowly building up our reserves. Our milestones are securing shelter, water, food, for 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, a month, 3 months, 6 months, and a year. Goal is for all of our equipment and systems to remain extensible as we become more able to invest time and money.
I'd say we're prepping for power, water, heating, food networks going down or not being as reliable, mainly. So storing food in bulk, learning about hydroponics, setting up systems to create potable water, generating power in the event the grid goes down, etc. There's some prep for CBRN, as much is feasible for our income. Nuclear, for example-- we're not going to be able to build or pay someone to build a nuclear shelter, let alone own land to build on in our lifetime. In the event there's a chance we survive a nuke it'll be if our city isn't deemed a target or we find likeminded preppers with bunkers and join up beforehand.
Right now we're working on basic survival needs, recently ordered a slimline 227L HDPE drum which would be enough potable water for a month or so for me and my partner, and slowly building up our reserves. Our milestones are securing shelter, water, food, for 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, a month, 3 months, 6 months, and a year. Goal is for all of our equipment and systems to remain extensible as we become more able to invest time and money.
I'd say we're prepping for power, water, heating, food networks going down or not being as reliable, mainly. So storing food in bulk, learning about hydroponics, setting up systems to create potable water, generating power in the event the grid goes down, etc. There's some prep for CBRN, as much is feasible for our income. Nuclear, for example-- we're not going to be able to build or pay someone to build a nuclear shelter, let alone own land to build on in our lifetime. In the event there's a chance we survive a nuke it'll be if our city isn't deemed a target or we find likeminded preppers with bunkers and join up beforehand.
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Welcome to the forum.
227l of water is huge! Where are you going to keep it? Outside, presumably. Be aware that legionella etc could start growing in it. So you need to keep it cool in summer, and change the water periodically. If it is indoors, that is a bit easier. Ideally you want to steralise the container each time you change the water.
227l of water is huge! Where are you going to keep it? Outside, presumably. Be aware that legionella etc could start growing in it. So you need to keep it cool in summer, and change the water periodically. If it is indoors, that is a bit easier. Ideally you want to steralise the container each time you change the water.
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Hello Polaris, welcome to the forum. Sounds like you've got a good overview of what you need to do - I love the example of hydroponics in particular.
If you've got any outside space at all, can I recommend some perennial plants? A crown of rhubarb, a berry bush that grows well in your area, some herbs like chives, flowers that are edible that bees also like, such as marigolds and nasturtiums? All simple to set up, and some of it can be in containers if you only have a patio.
If you've got any outside space at all, can I recommend some perennial plants? A crown of rhubarb, a berry bush that grows well in your area, some herbs like chives, flowers that are edible that bees also like, such as marigolds and nasturtiums? All simple to set up, and some of it can be in containers if you only have a patio.
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Thanks for having us.
It's a 600mm wide slimline drum with a stand, and fairly round so we can roll it around to disinfect with bleach when we need to sterilize it. I think to build the habit we'll do a full drain and sterilization every 3 months. Biggest problem for now is how to pipe mains water from, say, a tap into the top of the drum instead of having to transfer manually with a sterile container.
It's very informal, and I'm no professional but what we've decided on is having the 227 drum be designated as a Yellow tank, for use with washing, cleaning, flushing, maybe even cooking as long as we boil it beforehand. Then, we'd have a smaller, stainless steel container as a Blue tank for drinking water, where we pass the water through a Sawyer gravity filter, then boil before storing in the Blue tank. Yellow and Blue for indoors, Red and Black for outdoors, where Red is filtered water and Black is unsafe collected water from say a roof or the nearby lake. Right now we've only got the indoor part down pat and it'll take a lot of researching before we'll settle on an improved setup.
It's a 600mm wide slimline drum with a stand, and fairly round so we can roll it around to disinfect with bleach when we need to sterilize it. I think to build the habit we'll do a full drain and sterilization every 3 months. Biggest problem for now is how to pipe mains water from, say, a tap into the top of the drum instead of having to transfer manually with a sterile container.
It's very informal, and I'm no professional but what we've decided on is having the 227 drum be designated as a Yellow tank, for use with washing, cleaning, flushing, maybe even cooking as long as we boil it beforehand. Then, we'd have a smaller, stainless steel container as a Blue tank for drinking water, where we pass the water through a Sawyer gravity filter, then boil before storing in the Blue tank. Yellow and Blue for indoors, Red and Black for outdoors, where Red is filtered water and Black is unsafe collected water from say a roof or the nearby lake. Right now we've only got the indoor part down pat and it'll take a lot of researching before we'll settle on an improved setup.
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Hi Arzosah,
Thanks for your response to my post, and, of course, the nice welcome to the forum.
We do have outside space, although, minimal. We have planter beds we could use; would you be so kind to advise us on what equipment we would need for the rhubarb, berry bush, chives, marigolds and nasturtiums to thrive?
Thanks for your response to my post, and, of course, the nice welcome to the forum.
We do have outside space, although, minimal. We have planter beds we could use; would you be so kind to advise us on what equipment we would need for the rhubarb, berry bush, chives, marigolds and nasturtiums to thrive?
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Sounds like a lot of work. I don't think you need to filter tap water before storing it as drinking water. All I do is steralise the container, add the water straight from the tap, and I chuck in Oasis tablets as belt and braces. To steralise it, I just fill with water, add Milton tabs, leave for half an hour, and empty. No need to rinse. But my containers are only 10 litres, so it's all very easy. I do it in the bath. I only keep 60 litres of drinking water. I don't keep any other water, so it would have to do for cooking and washing up too. I wouldn't waste it for flushing the toilet, unless it was just some temporary water off for a few hours type issue. I should really have more. One idea I had was to catch rain water on a tarp. If nothing else, it could be used for washing the pots.Polaris wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2026 1:22 pm Thanks for having us.
It's a 600mm wide slimline drum with a stand, and fairly round so we can roll it around to disinfect with bleach when we need to sterilize it. I think to build the habit we'll do a full drain and sterilization every 3 months. Biggest problem for now is how to pipe mains water from, say, a tap into the top of the drum instead of having to transfer manually with a sterile container.
It's very informal, and I'm no professional but what we've decided on is having the 227 drum be designated as a Yellow tank, for use with washing, cleaning, flushing, maybe even cooking as long as we boil it beforehand. Then, we'd have a smaller, stainless steel container as a Blue tank for drinking water, where we pass the water through a Sawyer gravity filter, then boil before storing in the Blue tank. Yellow and Blue for indoors, Red and Black for outdoors, where Red is filtered water and Black is unsafe collected water from say a roof or the nearby lake. Right now we've only got the indoor part down pat and it'll take a lot of researching before we'll settle on an improved setup.
For large containers, you want to be thinking about filling it straight from the tap, and also how you're going to empty it. Ideally drain it straight to an outside drain.
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
You're very welcome.
Check out what you've got first: perhaps you already have a berry bush, or a comfrey plant, or hawthorn - use google image search to find out what the plants are if you don't know.We do have outside space, although, minimal. We have planter beds we could use; would you be so kind to advise us on what equipment we would need for the rhubarb, berry bush, chives, marigolds and nasturtiums to thrive?
When you've decided what to keep, if anything (I mean, it might be full of Japanese knotweed, which I think is a notifiable weed) do the weeding you want to do, use flattened cardboard boxes as weed suppressant, have a look at a local garden centre or better still a nursery and see what's available. This link is to the beginners section of the Royal Horticultural Society. The plant choices I mentioned are some of the plants I've used: I've also put in mint, primroses, sage, comfrey, lavender, rosemary, wild garlic, sorrel, lots: some naturalise and they're wonderful, but I can't advise you because my soil is clay and hardly anything else.
Since you have planters you can use, I'd say get fresh soil to put in them. Then read the RHS page, and the world is your oyster
Let us know how it goes. Good luck!
https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardening
Re: Greetings fellow preppers
Rhubarb is incredibly easy if you have a square metre for it. It needs deep soil (60cm or more) little shade (i.e.it will not like living under a tree) and a shovelful of organic goodness like manure a couple if times a year. It will want a bucketful of water a week if it hasn't rained for the first year after planting. And search this site for the rhubarb chutney recipe which so good I need a second rhubarb plant to keep up.