A Smart Survival Garden
High Calories + High Nutrition + Easy to Grow = Smart Survival Gardening
It’s time to get serious about survival gardening. Too many of us still grow our gardens like we’re hobbyists.
“Mmm… let’s see… I think I’ll plant some jalapeños for salsa, some nice lettuce, and maybe we’ll try peas again…”
There are lots of vegetables that are fun to grow—but they’re not the kind of crops that will sustain you through tough times.
I believe there are three main considerations you should take into account when planning a survival garden: calories, nutrition and ease of growing. Today I’ll take a look at all three and help you think through good options for each.
Gardening with Calories in MindPicking plants the grow with little care is a good idea. If the power goes out, would your garden die in a few days without water because you’ve got a bunch of picky plants? Do you really want to be hauling buckets over to your prize head lettuces every morning?
Go for the scrappy staples that will tough out adverse conditions and ditch the silly stuff. Grow whatever high-calorie and high-nutrition plants you can grow with the least amount of work.
Conclusion
In my gardens I grow lots of sweet potatoes, true yams, cassava, kale, cabbages and mulberries.
These plants just do really well and I can rely on them. I can’t trust eggplant (plus it’s not really a nutritional powerhouse or high-calorie crop), corn, white potatoes or dry beans to do well in my climate, so I limit their growing space and concentrate on the easy stuff. You can do the same. If you feel like a failure with certain crops, move on and grow the stuff that works. I know you may be emotionally attached to giant bell peppers or spotted chick peas or reticulated snake roots…. but let them go if they’re not working.
A survival garden is a food factory, not a hobby—and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a full plate of homegrown calories and nutrition than have to live on freeze-dried string cheese, gastric pain-inducing raviolis and cardboard-flavored apple pie substitute from a survival food company.
Plan your survival garden right and you’ll stay full and healthy no matter what happens.
Leave a Reply