Best "Prepper" Vegetables to grow?

[thanrose]

You could start a fire with sunlight through a lens. That lens could be spectacles or even a bead of water on a leaf, as long as you can focus the beam of light on relatively volatile tinder. That's actually pretty hard to do unless you have an actual glass lens.

For starting fire by "rubbing two sticks together" as most people think of it, you do have to be selective in your types of wood, and probably should be skilled at making some cordage.

There is often some human debris around. You might find something that would work if you know several fire building techniques.

Water in the wild should follow successful fire building. It's possible to find a decent spring with a strong flow, and that water would be potable without boiling. You would need to figure out a way to hold the water, too. There are a few ways to filter the water.

Most people would die from exposure if left on their own in the wild. Or they might die of thirst or of fright.

[ID jit]

rainbowgardener
That is kind of the point of the tests... there is a boat load of them.... sort of paleolithic or neolithic proficiencies.

The answer to your question: Most places a fire drill is easiest and that will generally start with finding the right 3 rocks to make a sharp edge. In New England, it is a granite hammer stone and chisel stone and hopefully the cleanest grained baseball sized (or there abouts) white quarts you can find. After you pop off or knap a shape edge, the rest is fairly easy. Finding the stuff generally takes the longest. After you have fashioned everything, it is maybe 15 minutes.

thanrose,
Cool story about the boyscouts... (I passed but failled since I violated hunting/fishing laws).
Doesn't surprise me they gained weight. From what I understand, the pacific northwest coast and skirting the swaps in the deep south are the only two places that Hunter/gather works without a huge range and/or locally specialized super skills. I believe in New England it is +100 acres for a group of 4



--
After I run out of coffee and nicotine... all bets would be off for me. Only way I would survive is if some group of people kept me around for what I know and my skill sets.

[rainbowgardener]

Does anyone watch "Naked and Afraid"? They turn two people out in some jungle in South America or where ever, with no clothes or shoes or anything, no food or water, but they each get to bring one item with them, often a knife or machete, a fire starter, or a cooking pot. They have to survive 21 days and then make it out from their drop off point to a pick up point. They mostly lose quite a bit of weight in the process! But it is interesting to see how they manage. One thing notable is that attitude makes a big difference! Some people are whiny and negative and complaining all the time and they are often the ones that don't make it (have to be picked up early). Also know your plants!! Many of them starve because they don't succeed in hunting fish or meat and it doesn't seem to occur to them to eat the plants around them.

[ID jit]

Never watched it... actually have never owned a TV in my life, though I have and do watch it on occasion.

Hunting and fishing are a complete waste of time you don't have in survival situations, or something you do when moving from point "A" to point "B". If you are stationary for even a short time, after enough of a shelter is taken care of, water is next, then you set capture or kill traps and get on with the foraging and scavenging which is most likely your best chance of not going to sleep more hungry than you need to be.

[Gary350]

About 1 week after Doomsday hungry people will be killing each other for food. I think about doomsday too.

When I was growing up as a kid our whole family grew a garden to put food on the table. Number one things we need are high food value items like, potatoes, corn, dried beans, tomatoes, peppers, and anything else your garden has room for, cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, kale, etc.

Your geographical location, weather, soil, all determine what you can grow.

For now I buy fertilizer but I also make my own fertilizer. Burn any kind of wood I can get and save the ash in 5 gallons buckets. Mix 10% wood ash with 90% compose. I put the mix in 5 gallon buckets then add about 1 gallon of urine. Cow, horse, goat, pig, sheep, urine are all good even people urine as long as your not taking a lot of medications. This makes a very good high nitrogen fertilizer with lots of NPK and minerals plants need including lime. Wood ash is about 30% lime.

Plant beans in with the corn the beans provide nitrogen for the corn.

Wood ash is very good for any plant that gets BER = Blossom End Rot. Tomatoes, squash, peppers, melons. A little wood ash is good for potatoes but don't over do it potatoes can over dose and have problems.

We all need to be saving seeds after doomsday there will be no seeds.

You also need a yard ground solar water condenser using glass from sliding patio doors. This needs to be drinking water and cooking water only. Need to experiment with this in your area in your soil to see how big your solar collector needs to be to make 10 gallons of water per day for about 5 people.

When doomsday comes there will be, no gasoline, no water, no electric, no food, no medical, no sugar, no flour, no salt, there are lots of things you need to stock pile before it is too late. You need several bicycles with trailers, several hand tools, several guns, lots of ammo, and a group of friends that all want to band together to be a group to work together to protect your crops, food, housing, and each other.

I have a bicycle with a trailer that I can haul 175 lbs on. I am going to build a bicycle pickup truck with a 2 foot wide bed 4 feet long. I have a friend with a bicycle trailer built like a hay wagon he can haul 12 ft long lumber, fence posts, cement blocks, from Home Depot to his house 12 miles away. Also need lots of bicycle repair parts too, gas engines will be worthless unless you can make alcohol which is easy if you can grow corn and stock pile a lot of vinegar.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! We've gone way beyond best herbs and veggies to grow to increase self-sufficiency, to everyone's worst apocalyptic fantasies. I liked thinking about what plants to grow. I will never, ever own a gun. I'm going to assume you want the gun for hunting animals for meat, anything else is too despicable to think of. I haven't eaten meat for over forty years, so if hard times come, I'm not going to start then. And I will share whatever I have with who ever needs it and work to build community. I'm not into stockpiling, which seems like another form of hoarding. I want to learn what I can about making/growing what I need, not try to survive off of some hoard I piled up.

Matthew 6:19-21 New International Version (NIV)

Treasures in Heaven
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

[thanrose]

Well then, in the spirit of the original post, sweet potatoes are so easy to grow, and store relatively well. I'm 4 days away from moving, and emptied out a very old planter of my mother's initially. I've not really tended it all that well, but have put sweet potato slips in a few years ago just for free foliage. Today, with benign neglect in twenty year old unamended planter soil which was probably dug from back yard sandy soil, occasional passive enrichment, I have five sweet potatoes. Good shape, no wire worms, firm skin.

In some parts of the world, they use sweet potatoes or the similar but unrelated yams to break up hardpan or compacted soil. I'd imagine they would be pretty gnarly looking. Of course, you could set pigs to rooting for them to really turn that soil over.

[ID jit]

Potatoes, corn, beans and squash... seem to be to popular suggestions.
Other root/tuber things might work.

Planning an experiment for this spring. Have a small, grassed clearing in the woods with a small trickle of a stream that does not run dry not so far form the house. Going to try planting a few things with minimal prep work and tools. Mostly loking at ripping out the (probably edible) weeds/grasses in a 2' circle, turning the soil over and loosening it up a bit, planting and mulching with what ever find close and then pretty much ignoring them. Expectation here is for 0% productivity, but I want to find out because I have to test everything (bad bad trait to have).

Potatoes: Will probably use slips from what ever I have in the house at the time.

Corn: Not even going to try it. Too high maintenance, too noticeable and too prone to the raccoons I now that are out there. Some of the non-modern strains might be a better choice, but am not going looking for them.

Beans: Any suggestions on what type to plant?

Squash: Thinking probably some kind of blue hubbard and or accorn, 3-5 seeds in a hill on a sunny slope. Any other ideas?

Carrots: Haven't found a type that do well in the garden. Really thinking a narrow raised bed with sand mixed in to the garden soil. Thinking the soil I have is too loamy for them. So, what's your best guess on which carrots to try?

[thanrose]

Idjit, don't be concerned with what edibles you may be turning under. Yeah, you probably have something that could be eaten starting with grubs and ants and earthworms, but whenever I took people out to ID wild edible plants, I would be sure to tell them that some things are edible, but that doesn't mean palatable. And even palatable things may not be advisable in quantity or with no knowledge of preparation. I'm guessing you are sort of in Connecticut rather than Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I think you've mentioned before, or someone here did, that you would need significant acreage just to maintain one person.

You could have hickory, beechnut, and other wonderful food source trees, but you might also have blueberries and the related family. I'd imagine you could identify the raspberries and blackberries easily enough. Would you recognize ostrich ferns? Some of the other stuff that is easy to find is not for the faint of heart or for a steady diet. So don't go Shrooming. Sure, I could tell you that you can chew spruce gum, and tap any maple for sap, or use sassafras or pine needles to make tea, but it's not worth the calories expended in a critical situation. Okay, maybe the seasonal sap gives you mostly water and some fructose.

Anyhow, whatever you might destroy in your experiment is not likely to be a serious loss. Unless it's Pirate gold. Or a Prohibition stash of 'shine or guns. Then give me a call and I'll take care of the problem for you. No charge.

For that small an area, you probably want to do pole beans of some sort. I'd find a fairly firm forking branch with a rather organic wavy shape that's maybe six feet or so in length. Push that firmly in the ground and chuck it with rocks or what have you. It's best if it has some serious texture going on to allow the beans to climb. Could be a lower spruce bough, maybe. Although spruce might be allelopathic. Haven't seen one in thirty years. Except on Christmas tree lots. The reason I like the bough as a support is it will look more like it belongs and people are less likely to investigate.

[applestar]

I was thinking about this latest turn of ideas, and thinking That -- though not taking into account other people and serious foraging by the bigger animals -- I have some edible things growing in odd corners of my property -- usually within the fenced backyard but sometimes in the front yard too... and thinking about them made me chuckle.

Ostrich Fern, check.
Asparagus -- did we mention asparagus? Just for fun, I tossed some of the asparagus berries around. I have single fronds growing here and there. Right now, more like deciding which ones to allow to grow, which ones to move, and which ones to rip out... it did take several years for the previously seed started ones to start bearing anything like harvestable size and quantity though.

Wild strawberries as well as blackberries will definitely spread out and grow on their own -- tough part is besting the wildlife to the berries. Elderberries too, though they are not for just popping in your mouth to enjoy.

Already talked about tomatoes and edible weeds....

One year, grew Malabar spinach and let it bloom and set seeds. Next three years I was inundated by volunteers. The seeds didn't survive one of the colder winters here after that.

Legumes in general seem harder to grow without certain level of protection in the initial stages. But aren't runner beans perennial in some areas?

[jal_ut]

"So, my garden is not to make a colorful salad at the dinner table, it's for when there is no other food source anywhere, and all I have to eat is what I can get from my garden, or from preserves I canned from my garden."

Yes, grow a garden. Yes, enjoy the things that grow there. Yes, preserve some for the future.

[jal_ut]

I have several fruit trees. Most years they give me a good harvest of fruit. This season however, we had a weird late frost that killed all the fruit bloom. I am not getting any fruit at all this year. We are at the mercy of the elements. Perennial plants such as rhubarb and asparagus are nice.

[rainbowgardener]

I have several fruit trees. Most years they give me a good harvest of fruit. This season however, we had a weird late frost that killed all the fruit bloom. I am not getting any fruit at all this year. We are at the mercy of the elements. Perennial plants such as rhubarb and asparagus are nice.

We had the weird late frost too, after a very mild winter. The frost killed off the peach buds, so nowhere in the SouthEast had much peaches; we didn't get any. But we did get some apples.

I am growing strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus, and artichoke for perennials as well as peaches, apples, figs, bananas, elderberries, serviceberries. Want to still get some blueberries. I refuse to grow raspberries, because the raspberry brambles were taking over my yard, where I used to live.

[ID jit]

thanrose,

I grew up in the berkshires with a huge state forest as a back yard, subsistence gardening, hunting and fishing with some random live stock rearing which greatly decreased the grocery bill. Spent a lot of summers and time in the North East Kingdom. Currently am just off the north eastern point RI. Have had a fascination of paleo and neo lithic stuff from childhood which eventually lead to me becoming and anthropologist. No longer work in the field. I have forgotten most of what I could eat out there and really only remember the things that I like to eat, and I am still snack when I do get out under the trees. Most intensive thing I have pass a "boots and pockets" test on was acorn flour.

What I am mostly curious about with my experiment is how "cultivated" plants are going to do in the natural world with little to no attention. It's sort of the next step to how to responsibly exploit a found natural resource.

[thanrose]

I'm thinking key to subsistence agriculture would be diversity: for hybrid vigor, disease resistance, productivity when conditions are right for only some crops, pollinators, and likely other benefits.

There was some interesting research a while back with relatively isolated communities and their customary diets, and how that affected some aspects of appearance and of health of the population. Groups that really existed with subsistence and nomadic hunter gatherer had good facial symmetry, strong bones, clear skin, some apparent disease resistance. Isolated groups that relied on subsistence farming but had developed an appetite for more highly processed Western diet and shunned some of their more traditional food stuff: these people showed stranger physiognomy, skin afflictions and allergies, more distorted growth patterns of teeth and bones, etc.This was noted worldwide. I recall some were in Scotland and some were in the Aussie Outback, but there were many other groups, too.

Groups like the Saami and probably Andaman islanders may have limited diets, but they traditionally find a balance of nutrition whether they primarily eat caribou or coconuts. That may mean eating bark or grubs or entrails.

So if you selectively seed five different types of beans in the woods and wilds, maybe two will make it through several years with reseeding (at a guess) and selectively plant several different native grapes, of which only some will have fruit or leaves you find palatable, and have fallen logs and growing trees that support saprophytic fungi of your choice, then you have a start toward independent subsistence.

[jal_ut]

Corn, beans Squash and potatoes, what I call the "Big Four". These are the plants that give you the calories we need. Yes, calories, fuel for the furnace! The other garden plants are nice for color and taste. Red beets are a good choice to plant as the whole plant is edible, leaves and roots. Onions, radish, turnip, lettuce, cabbage, beans, all good choices.

[jeff84]

Corn, beans Squash and potatoes, what I call the "Big Four". These are the plants that give you the calories we need. Yes, calories, fuel for the furnace! The other garden plants are nice for color and taste. Red beets are a good choice to plant as the whole plant is edible, leaves and roots. Onions, radish, turnip, lettuce, cabbage, beans, all good choices.

carrots too.

[jal_ut]

Check this out:

https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/GARDEN.pdf

[digitS']

Lost at Sea for 5 months:

Seems like the experience of 2 women with their dogs provide some insight on being prepared with food supplies. They left Hawaii for Tahiti this spring, but their engine failed May 30 during bad weather. "They continued on, hoping to reach land by sail.

"Lost and off course, they said they began issuing daily distress calls two months into their journey. But they were not close enough to other ships or land to be heard.

"A Taiwanese fishing boat finally discovered them Tuesday, 900 miles southeast of Japan and thousands of miles from Tahiti. The crew contacted the U.S. Coast Guard at Guam.

"Help arrived Wednesday morning in the form of the USS Ashland ..." they survived because "they had water purifiers and more than a year's worth of food — primarily oatmeal, pasta and rice."

I have grown oats and wheat as field crops but also in the garden. Flour corn also has been grown a few years, all, really, for ornamental purposes. I did use the corn for cornbread on a couple of occasions. And, enjoy rubbing the chaff off a small handful of wheat and having it as a chewy outdoor snack .

At one time, I entertained the idea of using some ground for growing feed for laying hens. I grew up on a farm, worked on farms for awhile, and still have access to more ground than needed for a large garden. I don't have the farm equipment these days and have no real desire to get back into farming. To make a little $ on a small flock of laying hens seemed feasible but the garden as a sole source of feed would require about a half acre increase in size. The gardens were already about 1/3 acre. I had no desire to cultivate all that ground with a rototiller and a spading fork! Delete the rototiller and I'm out there with a hoe ... Add a sharp stick for getting seed in the ground ... There I'd be - a subsistence farmer.

Steve, with lots of rice and pasta on the shelves ... potatoes in the basement ... and a full freezer in the garage

[jal_ut]

Wheat is a big storage item here. I have a plywood bin out in the garage where sacks of wheat are stored. You can crack wheat and boil it for cereal. Grind it into flour and make bread. I bake bread once a week and always grind wheat for the flour. Have fun!

[rainbowgardener]

The lost at sea story leaves me with more questions than answers.... What did the dogs eat? Surely not "oatmeal, pasta and rice." I have two dogs, both definitely smaller than the one pictured. I know what one month of their food looks like, it is a whole lot. Did the women eat their oatmeal, pasta and rice raw? If not, how did they have power to cook it? What kind of water purifier processed enough water for them to drink, cook with, and presumably wash a little? How was it powered? That is a very low protein diet also lacking in a number of vitamins. If the diet includes no vitamin C at all, the average onset of symptoms of scurvy is about four weeks. The woman pictured does not look particularly starved or malnourished or dirty....

[thanrose]

There are many more deaths at sea from people similarly stranded than there are survivors. But, given that they had a year's supply of food, I'd imagine a lot was freeze dried. I'd expect they carried a good deal of TVP which even dogs would eat. Some cast adrift sailors have lived longer than expected because of fortuitous fishing or seasonal rains, and others have used a skimming filter to collect plankton at the right time. You can dry fish and even the plankton scum on the boat decks to make a sort of jerky. The plankton's nutritional makeup would vary with what's coming to the surface at that time.

The one dog looked sort of boxer. If that's what he is, he is rather thin. Not emaciated though, and neither were the women. I would wonder about using the dogs to help fish. Some humans can catch the scent of schooling fish and I'm sure the dogs would. I would think you could grow sea vegetables and some shell fish in net bags trailing from the boat. You could put them in the hold when you are making good speed, but drop them over the side when becalmed.

I don't know what kind of water desalinizer they used. Since the motor conked out, they would still have fuel to power a still. Passive solar alone wouldn't likely provide enough water for four living beings.

[digitS']

Well, this took a turn I hadn't expected

.

I used to do some bay and lagoon fishing in saltwater. Clamming at low tide ... my brother lived on the coast for a few years after he was discharged from the navy. He worked on a crab boat. We migrated inland again after a few years .

Steve

[gumbo2176]

The lost at sea story leaves me with more questions than answers.... What did the dogs eat? Surely not "oatmeal, pasta and rice." I have two dogs, both definitely smaller than the one pictured. I know what one month of their food looks like, it is a whole lot. Did the women eat their oatmeal, pasta and rice raw? If not, how did they have power to cook it? What kind of water purifier processed enough water for them to drink, cook with, and presumably wash a little? How was it powered? That is a very low protein diet also lacking in a number of vitamins. If the diet includes no vitamin C at all, the average onset of symptoms of scurvy is about four weeks. The woman pictured does not look particularly starved or malnourished or dirty....

I'm with you on this Rainbowgardener. This story just doesn't add up and personally, I can't see how they were out there with animals and facing all the supposed hardships they say they faced and came away faring so well.

[thanrose]

Just surfing, and came across this on pinterest: https://www.piwakawakavalley.com/perenn ... w-zealand/ The lady is in New Zealand and this is her blog from April of 2017. The lists are of what she considers perennial vegetables useful for permaculture. Some of course are not going to apply to all of us, and some we may find hard to locate.

Cardoon
Chicory
Chinese Artichoke
Crosnes
Dame’s Rocket
Daylily
Elephant Garlic
Egyptian Walking Onions
Fennel
Globe Artichoke
Good King Henry
Jerusalem Artichoke
Kailaan (Chinese Broccoli/Chinese Kale)

This is just a partial list, and she has another list below that one of herbs that are perennial for her. I'm big on binomial nomenclature and I'd have to search for most of these even to find common names I'd recognize. On this short clip the only one that befuddles me is Good King Henry, but I can see how that would make it hard to know if it grows in USDA Zone 6, or is invasive in the subtropics, etc.

Anyhow, it's more ideas for potential recurrent vegetable crops.

[rainbowgardener]

Interesting. Some I am not familiar with. Some I am familiar with, but never thought of as vegetables -- e.g. daylily, chicory.

Jerusalem artichoke is a + and -. On the plus side it is very easy to grow, requires no particular care, and is hardy and prolific.
On the minus side, it spreads very aggressively. I had some at my Cincinnati home. At the end of the season, I would dig ALL of it up by the roots. The tiny tuber pieces that accidentally break off in that process were plenty to replenish it for the following year. And the tuber has to be carefully prepared or it will cause a lot of gastric distress (which is why its nickname is "fartichoke.")

[applestar]

I’ve seen Good King Henry mentioned in permaculture context as perennial veg. I tried growing it (seeds from https://www.bountifulgardens.org/), but it didn’t survive the winter here so not for my garden after all. Bummer because I really wanted to see them grow like trees — I think they grow to 6 feet or something.

Brassicas in general are not really easy to grow in my area anyway. Too many cabbage whites throughout the growing season, and then the cabbage aphids during the cooler weeks and harlequin bugs and cabbage moths during the hot months.

...oh interesting — I always visit the link I post to make sure the relevant info is still there, and they are no longer selling Good King Henry seeds — they have something called Perennial Tree Collards which are described as “cannot be grown from seeds but only from cuttings” — this might explain I haven’t been successful trying to get the rest of the old seeds to germinate.

[jal_ut]

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Our church leaders have been advising us for years to have a years supply of food in storage. There have been a couple of times that this advice has kept my family from going hungry. I have a large family of 13 children. All grown with their own families now. There were times when the economy went to pot and there were no jobs, no income. I like to add: also grow a garden and when you plant trees, make it something that will produce food to eat. You may preserve some of the harvest by drying, pickling or home canning.

[jal_ut]

apocalyptic........... hmmmmm as I understand it the apocalypse is: the complete final destruction of the world.

That would include the whole planet and all things on it. The end of life on the planet if you will. No use in us worrying about it.