SHTF: What Would You Grow In Your Garden?

[Stonecarver]

Thought this would be of interest to people. How your plans would differ from what you do normally in your garden

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc_2Epcx6yI

[jansman]

I have a mature garden now,with fruit trees and bushes.Perennial onions,herbs and a nice stand of Jerusalem Artichokes.SHTF,the annual garden will be no different to now: spuds, beans and Winter squashes.Salad and greens in the tunnel,along with my tomatoes.All that compliments stored food.All of it from saved seed.

[Arzosah]

My initial reply would have been much the same as jansman's, except that my garden isn't planted the way I want it to be, as yet. But the video is good, she makes some very valid points about getting the absolute most out of your crop.

I can't help a bit of a juvenile snigger, though, at hearing "shtf" pronounced verbally as its initials rather than words

[korolev]

I have some woods behind my house, full of wildlife. If I planted anything it would get eaten by the rabbits, squirrels, foxes, badgers, crows and the like.
when I can find someone to buy my house and move I hope to grow some spuds/onions/carrots etc

[Deeps]

Maybe not for everyone (including myself) but guerrilla gardening might be an option.

[Clarebelle]

I think it would be difficult to grow enough carbs if shtf. Poatoes would abviously be vital as few people would be able to grow cereals. But what happens if blight destroys your crop? Alternatives might be jerusalem artichokes, sweet potato if you had a tunnel. Anyone else have any ideas?

[Arzosah]

To try to take care of issues of disease, pest, and natural variation in the level of cropping, I think you/we have to plant as many varieties as you can: rely on one crop for carbs, or greens, or whatever, and if it gets wiped out, you're probably dead. Even in less disastrous situations, you/we still need to plant more than is strictly necessary.

[jansman]

Perennials are brilliant from this perspective.Jerusalem Artichokes for example,are bombproof.Nothing bothers them.Even in the drought ,when they wilted a little,they bounced back.The yield is massive every year.My chives and Welsh onions,same again.Fruit,easy.And with all this ,no work!

Regarding potatoes,I have a couple of compost heaps where ' volunteers ' have grown with zero attention.I lifted two of the plants and the yield was impressive,10 lbs for no work.Although blight has now cut back the Marmande tomatoes next to the heaps where the spuds have grown,the spuds are fine!

Calorie crops are vital,but take a lot of room; room many dont have.For me,the garden will provide fresh food ( even if it is fresh greens and salads) to compliment my stored foods.The majority of the world lives on rice that is supplemented with whatever protein and vegetables can be found.Rice is simple,cheap, and easy to store a lot of.SHTF,if that was all that was available then I would make it work.

[xplosiv1]

My garden wouldn't change too much,

spuds, carrots, peas, onion, lettuce
strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, ruhbarb
sage, rosemary, parsley, thyme etc .... lots of herbs

I have approx 80,000 non GMO heirloom seeds in storage for the following;

Celery, Beans, Lettuce, Broccoli,Tomato, Cantaloupe, Cauliflower, Collards, Carrot, Cabbage,Peas, Brussels Sprouts, Cucumber, Eggplant, Asparagus, Melon, Beet, Kale, Onion, Pumpkin, Arugula, Corn, Spinach, Squash, Radish, Sunflower, Swiss Chard, Pepper, Watermelon, Rutabaga, Buttercrunch Lettuce ,Red Romaine, Lettuce.


I was reading earlier today about avocado farming and one little part of the article got me thinking and I still have to do the math on it, apparently to produce 1kg of avocado fruit 1,000 litres of water is required during the growing process compared to lettuce which only requires about 30 to 40 litres from seed to maturity and peas are much the same....... its something really worth thinking about if your growing a SHTF garden especially if your trying to feed a family from it through a heat wave like the one we just had this year.

[ukpreppergrrl]

Calorie crops are vital,but take a lot of room; room many dont have.For me,the garden will provide fresh food ( even if it is fresh greens and salads) to compliment my stored foods.The majority of the world lives on rice that is supplemented with whatever protein and vegetables can be found.Rice is simple,cheap, and easy to store a lot of.SHTF,if that was all that was available then I would make it work.

Yup..that's my theory too. I store vast amounts of rice and a fair amount of pasta and potatoes as well as other food. What I grow in my garden will supplement that in times of need. In hunter gather societies it's carbohydrates that have been the hardest thing to come by. Allegedly this is why we crave carbohydrate - a survival thing to make sure we eat them when we find them! Protein and vitamins (in the form of veggies) are much easier to find in nature. You can eat things like water lilly roots, and bulrushes (I believe they're called cattails in the US) which are both a good source of carbohydrate, but are a foraging thing rather than a growing yourself thing. Bulrushes, incidentally, are fabulously useful food plants - the pollen can even be used as flour. The post-apocalypse purists will, of course, point out that eventually even my stores of rice will run out and yes, should we ever reach that point and I'm still alive, then I will be growing potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes. And I guess also that should we ever reach that point, then there will by that time be more space to grow these crops as quite a large portion of the population will be dead. That's entropy