Survival Garden How To: Tips For Designing A Survival Garden
If you’ve never heard people talk about survival gardens, you may well ask: “What is a survival garden and are you sure I need one?” A survival garden is a vegetable garden designed to provide enough crops to permit you and your family to live on the garden produce alone. Without a crystal ball, nobody can say whether the economic situation in the country will deteriorate to the point that you and your family will need a survival garden to survive. However, like putting plans together in case of an earthquake or other disaster, the key to survival is preparation. Read on to learn about designing a survival garden and survival gardening tips.
What is a Survival Garden?
It would take quite a few plants to feed you and your family, if all you had to eat were the crops you raised. Take a moment and calculate the calories your family would need each day to survive – then see whether you could name plants that could provide the fat, carbs, and vitamins it would take to keep you healthy. If you just have no idea, you aren’t alone. That’s why family survival gardens have become a hot gardening topic. If you ever find yourself in the kind of emergency situation that would require you to consume only garden crops, you will be far better off if you learn something about survival garden how to well in advance of necessity.
Survival Garden How To
How do you start designing family survival gardens? Your best bet is to start by working a plot of land and learning hands-on. The garden plot can be small, or you can even use containers if need be. The most important thing is to start getting practice in growing crops. Start small in your backyard with a few vegetables that you like to eat. You might try easy-to-grow veggies like:
Use open-pollinated seeds, like heirloom seeds, since they will continue to produce. As time goes on and you get more familiar with gardening, consider what crops will give you the most calories for the space and also store well. Practice growing these. Calorie rich crops include:
Read up on survival gardening tips and you’ll learn that eating sunflower seeds is one of the best ways you can get necessary quantities of fats from a vegetarian diet. Peanuts are another. Look for crops that meet your nutritional needs that you can grow where you live. Remember that storing your crops is just as important as growing them, since you’ll have to make the garden riches last all winter. Veggies that store well include:
You can also dry, freeze, and can many vegetable crops. The more you practice growing these types of veggies, the better prepared you are for living off the land, if and when it is necessary.
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Teo Spengler has been gardening for 30 years. She is a docent at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. Her passion is trees, 250 of which she has planted on her land in France.
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