Self Sustaining Food Sources

[Totenkopf]

 With times getting rougher. I am getting more interested in having self sustainable food sources. I guess what I'm looking for is just to leave the parameters loose and have a good guide on the topic.
 Let's say you have some hunting land or just a patch of woods nearby. Looking for low input methods, not a yearly garden, just a one time planting. Any vegetables, forbes, trees or anything else are welcome. So what would you plant or try to improve that grows naturally?

[Badnews Bob]

Mushrooms are a good one, You can tend them in the woods, even buy spores so you can start them where you want them. Tommy toes/ charry tomatoe will come up every year as dose aspargas and Polk and I here cattail roots are pretty good tubers. We used to harvest a lot of these things when I was a kid, Looks like dredgeing up some old memorys would do some good.

[bilmac]

Jerusalem artechokes kind of grow like weeds in our part of the world as well as asparagus. Chokecherries and probably wild plums are about the only fruit producers that don't need some care. A little farther south and a little more moisture and all kinds of fruit trees kind of meet your criteria. There are old varieties of apples not far from the native varieties that pretty much take care of themselves.

[mcwoodduck]

I missed something.
Are you talking about food for you or a food plot for animals you hunt or both?  Some of this would depend on where you are.  Things that grow in the South may not grow in the North.  Kudzo for one is all over the south and grows easy and fast is edibale to both humans and deer but does not really grow up North.  My step mother grew up in NC and Va.  She liked the Kudzo and tried to get it to grow at our house in NJ and it just would grow like a wild weed in the summer and die out over the winter.  Doesn't taste bad in a salad either.
Acorns will feed small and large game from squirrles to turkey and deer.  So my input is oak trees and some other nut trees like Hazelnut or peacans that you can gather and sell or give as gifts.  half pound and full pound celaphane bag and some ribbon will do wonders.  Sell them to people that have booths at Farmers markets and go enjoy your saturday.

[Totenkopf]

Good job so far guys.
Just people food, the animals eat about everything we eat anyhow. Not real worried about climate. Let's just make it for everybody.
On the mushrooms I never thought about the grow kits, good idea. On the wild ones I never figured out the poison from good, even with color field guides.
Had cattail, pretty good, would be easy to transplant in a creek or bog.
I've heard about those J artichokes, need to give them a try, supposed to be similar to potatoe in taste.

A lot of brassicas are self seeding if left to the next spring. What about potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots or any other root crop? Do they die off or will they come back the next year if left in ground?
 What I'm looking at is say a bad case where you have to retreat away from civil unrest and live off the land. Most of us have families and would rather just hunt, fish and gather food instead of joining the chaos in the event of an economic break down. Not really looking at seed saving for next years garden, already do that now.
Thanks

[S.E.Ak]

Sweat potatoes go forever in a lot of areas.Sunflowers will reseed themselves.Mushrooms are good,I would add puffballs just for the size.Some melons and squash will resprout in the spring.Modern corn won't resprout but if you fine the old stuff you can keep it growing for a few years with little care.

[Badnews Bob]

I've had turnips come back bet never potatoe or carrots. Leaf lettuce dose thou and onions and scalions grow wild around here. Black walnut is plentiful to and blackberrys-they can be jelled for storage.

[SDS-GEN]

Here in the cornbelt many foods grow wild.  On my farm we have several wild apple trees in the woods, chokecherry trees everywhere, muscadines (wild grapes) grow in the fences, mulberry, raspberry, blackberry, and gooseberry grow wild.  Hickory and black walnut trees are everywhere.  There are other eddible plants that require some extra preparation to make them palatable, like acorn and nettles.  Add Rhubarb, raspberry and grape to the list of things you can plant without much upkeep.

[Westbound]

I've seen garden variety 10-15 onions go native, but the second year the bulbs weren't good at all.  I suppose they were edible, but they didn't grow into a nice, round shape.  Garlic will go native VERY well.  We started with a clump about a foot in diameter several years ago.  it is now several feet wide and 15 or so feet long.  it seems to want to take over the fenceline it is on.  I live in north texas, so the above ground, leafy section of the garlic will die out, but it comes back strong.  we rarely have deep freexes, so i can gather garlic bulbs year round.

if you have a patch of woods, you might introduce some varieties of tomatoes. i've seen them re-seed from tomatoes that hit the ground.
Okra will do the same after the hulls dry out.

If you wanted to supplement you diet, you'll probably need to figure out the best ways to preserve these foods.  some might have a short season where you live.

[Matt]

Given a 10'x10' room and a dozen or so fluorescent light fixtures with grow bulbs I can grow most anything indoors and enjoy it year round.

 Give the plants 24 hrs of light for about a month then 12/12 for another month and there you go...

Matt

[Greenmtnboy66]

at 4,000 ft you can get a seven month grow season with a underground green house.

[Ahshucks]

If you have a blueberry picking spot in your woods, I've seen them regenerate in large amounts after a forest fire.  Just exposing them to more sun would be helpfull.  Would also bring in the occasional bear dinner also.   

[bilmac]

Most parts of the country have some wild edibles, and a guy could probably enhance the productivity by introducing new things. The danger of this is that it may attract other folks to compete with you.

The trick may be preserving these wildlings so that they will help us survive the winter. I suppose drying will be the answer if you believe that electricity will not be available. I made an ice fishing shanty that would make an excellent solar drier, It will get 80 degrees inside when the outside temp is zero when the sun shines. Insulation on three sides and a lot of clear material on the south does the trick. Add screened ventilation low and high and you have a solar drier. My shanty has another advantage in that it is portable, I could take it to where ever the plants are on the trailer,   assuming there will be gasoline. 

[Cornbelt]

Try google for "pigeon towers"; source for meat and fertilizer. Don't know about your area, but around here, lots of silos aren't being used.

[SHOOTALL]

blackberries and such

[mannyrock]

   Wow.  You guys missed an old time standard.  Wild persimmons.   :-)

    If you live in the MidSouth, or the Carolinas or Georgia, wild persimmon trees grow like crazy.  The easiest way to find them is to walk along the fence line of a pasture, that borders on woods, in September and October.   You will see them growing about two feet back in the woods, up and down the fenceline.  Even a small tree (7 feet high) will produce two or three gallons of persimmons every year.  And, they attract lots of deer, possum and racoons. 

   Also, when you get one tree growing with fruit, it turns into a batch of trees, because the possum and racoons poop-out the seed in the surrounding area, and new trees start growing.

   I would go find some wild persimmon trees that are maybe two or three feet tall, dig them up, and transplant them to the place you are interested in.  They are totally eatible, and very very sweet, but have a bitter-orange undertaste, that takes some getting use to.  They are round and very orange colored, about the size of a very small apricot.

  Regards,

  Mannyrock

[mannyrock]

   Also, I've never tried this, and it's probably not legal in most places, but in the old days, folks in the mountains would let their domestic hogs loose, to live in the woods and multipy (feeding off acorns), and then catch them in the fall by using a trap baited with corn, using  lasoo snare to catch one of their legs.  Those that they didn't eat, they marked (by cutting a distinctive notch in one of their ears), and let them loose again to further multiply. Mountain folks simply could not grow enough corn to feed themselves and their hogs, so they let them just go wild in the woods.  This seemed to work fine for a couple hundred years.

Regards,

Mannyrock

[teamnelson]

I know this is primarily for growing things, but a couple things that work in tandem with gardening, like the pigeon tower, are a mobile chicken cage, and rice/crawfish paddies. You can raise free range chicken in a big cube made of wire mesh - move it every now and then and you have a fertilized plot. If you have the land for a rice paddy, stock it with crawfish after harvest - they eat the leavings and fertilize the ground. Two paddies and you can alternate. Grow some peppers and onions on the berms ... and mushrooms. Takes a lot of water.

Anyone know how to grow coffee? You'll be king in the new world!

[Cornbelt]

Speaking of coffee, does anybody know if you can make coffee from a Kentucky Coffee Tree, or is that just what they call it?

[theoldarcher]

I know they take some work, but a couple of colonies of honey bees produce liquid gold when it comes to trading stock for other kinds of food.  I have traded for home made breads, muffins, and cookies; canned produce; and other items.  I no longer have bees--my wife is very allergic to bee venom--and I miss having them just for that reason.  Also strawberries require a little work, but not much for wonderful treats. I harvest black berries and raspberries that grow wild in my woods--I improve accessability by keeping walking paths mowed among the briars for easy picking. Many herbs self perpetuate year after year--scratch up a small spot throw some seeds in and harvest 'em when they come up.  Sasafrass roots make wonderful tea, and they grow very well in the wild.

Neat topic!!

Arch

[Cornbelt]

For wildlife forage, staghorn soomac appeals to a wide variety of critters. Often seen along roads when it turns a bright red in the fall, and it has a seed-head cluster on top, so it isn't a problem to get it to spread, and not much problem to kill either. Yul Gibbons claimed you could boil the seeds to make a drink, but it sure ain't coffee.

[gdolby]

I remember some of my older relatives telling me about brewing coffee from acorns. Dont remember the process or if I was even told. have a good one

[Hodr]

If i was in the Ft Bragg area I would check for water first.  After year round water source I would find native rabbit, dove and quail to seed the area.  Plant grasses in low areas for cover and feed for the critters.  Also look for tree roosting fowl and swine to turn loose, porkfat is extremely useful in such a diet.  Add in wild oats, bunching onions, and hot peppers to trade.  Learn to find fish in your water source and dry excess.  Oh yeah, make sure you have a source of salt.

blindhari

[teamnelson]

Oh yeah, make sure you have a source of salt.

I live on an island, so sea salt harvesting is our source. But if I were on the mainland and wanted to stock up (assuming I didn't have access) how much are we thinking is good to have around? Would a big deer lick serve the purpose?

[Hodr]

Sea salt is great just remember it will probably need to be washed and dried in large flat shallow areas with wind crossing it to help drying.  If your on an island forget swine (too destructive) and set some loose on mainland, you can use excess to make salt blocks for baiting hunting sites on mainland.  If you put up shelter use a fireplace design that has an interior hook in the chimmny that you can use to smoke fish and anything else you can get in excess to your needs.  Dried food and peppers, hard packed salt, smoke cured flesh are all lightweight trade items.  Best value for dollar trade goods are probably distilled spirits, (light weight and long shelf life) so hardy non grafted grape or berry stock along with a still could be considered.  Remember the first step back from just surrviving is trade of your excess for things you don't have.

blindhari

Dow chemical makes a gazillion things from salt it dries in costal ponds out on the west coast near San Francisco  Biggest problem is getting it processed to clean salt.

[Rustyinfla]

 Here in Fla. when the settlers first coming around they said they could tell when they were in an area inhabited by Seminoles because they could see the pumpkins hanging from the trees. There is a type of pumpkin known by many names today that will grow up into the trees and requires very little upkeep. Along those lines you can also find a Chyotte (sp?) squash in your local market. Those can be planted and will grow all over everything. The fruit from them can then be harvested. Find out what indians that settled your area grew for food. Most tribes grew the Holy Trinity, beans, corn, and some type of squash or pumpkin.

[hillbill]

something yu can plant once and then rely on as a source of food doesnt really exist.other than fruit trees of certain types.turnips, green beans, sqaush,pumpkins,are all easy to grow and easy to save seed from. the problem here where i live in MO is that whatever yu plant will be taking over by weeds and shaded or choked out of existance.there are many wild foods as discussed here but a lot of them are hit and miss as far as produceing bumper crops every year.it all depends on the rain and the weather. much easier to grow a garden than to roam willy nilly in the woods hopeing to find sumpin to eat.not that i dont like roaming willy nilly in the woods lol.take a look at history for instance.the plains indians knew how to perserve meat and sum plant foods but still had a much rougher time in the winter than say the eastern indians who farmed to a certain extent and preserved more cultivated crops.the mountain men  of the west did survive and sometimes well but were very sparsely populated and had thousands of acres per man to forage from.i dont think we will have that luxury again