SHTF FOOD

[gofish]

So you had to leave home! Your know the place you are going too. So y not go and plant a edable garden now. Some thing that would keep on seeding it's self.
Lets say that 5 years from now if we all have to leave the big city , what would we find ? Hope that some gardners would read this and have input.

Potatos ? onions ? etc.

Gofish

Cant' spell very well but shoot OK

[Lurker]

So you had to leave home! Your know the place you are going too. So y not go and plant a edable garden now. Some thing that would keep on seeding it's self.
Lets say that 5 years from now if we all have to leave the big city , what would we find ? Hope that some gardners would read this and have input.

Potatos ? onions ? etc.

Gofish

Cant' spell very well but shoot OK

Plant small plot gardens in out of the way places. These gardens are called "guerilla gardens" and are intended as fall back on food reserves. Don't plant in regular patterns like you would expect from row crops, but, randomly scatter them around, making them less noticable. We have been doing this, on and off, for over ten years as an experiment. And it works.

You don't have to cultivate the ground before you plant it. Use a sharp implement such as a stick or a metal rod and make random (scattered) holes, two or three inches deep, in the ground. Drop the seed in, step on the hole with your heel, and your done.

With potatoes you will need a slightly larger hole to drop the potato piece in. Then shove your heel into the side of the hole to fill (collapse) it in.

Sure, animals such as deer and other herbivores, will get into them and eat the foliage. However, if you plant enough of the vegetables  that will reseed themselves, there will be enough to supply yourself with. And, as the animals eat some of our vegetables, they will excrete the seeds and spread the plants around.

Right now my son and I have about twenty small (food) "guerilla garden" plots surreptitiously planted on State and BLM lands in north eastern Washington State. We plant mainly root crops, except for corn and tomatos. The vegetables from these plots aren't well tended garden produce, like you would expect from a home garden, but they are enough to feed our family, if need to be.

Another thing we have done, over the years, is we have seeded many small plots of Alfalfa, Timothy, Lespedesa and Pasture Mix grasses for wild life to feed on. And they, the herbivore wild life, are actively feeding on these plots.

We have put out blocks of salt in several places, which are being used by all manner of local wild life.

We're not harvesting any of the edible wild life from these various places, but we do observe what is happening. Around every feed plot there are signs of wild life eating the provided grasses. We have found many deer beds around the feed plots. 

Obviously, we don't advertise the presence of these feed plots, and "guerilla gardens," or their locations to anyone. Let other people plant their own plots instead of free loading off of yours.

One thing I have noticed about eastern Washington, is the number of abandoned farms which have untended fruit trees on them. A little surruptitious pruning and you increase the yield of the trees without being to noticable. This might be something to look for in your area of operations.

One other thing I have noticed about deer and elk, is they are crazy over apples and peaches.

Bill

Edited to add:

If you have ground hogs (Marmots) in your area, plant alfalfa all around them. They will stay in the area and eat the alfalfa, have large litters, and you can eat them.

BW

[Almtnman]

I'm already out of town way out in the suburbs or farming country. I'm in a very secluded and isolated place, long driveway with one way in, one way out. We plant a garden almost every year and put up a lot of produce to last through the winter and maybe even 2 or 3 years. We plant peas, green beans, lima beans, squash, okra, tomatoes, peppers of all varieties, corn, eggplant, greens, garlic and a few other vegetables. We have grape vines and make grape juice for drinking every morning at breakfast as the antioxidant in it is really good for your heart. Also have a fig tree and make fig preserves. And a pond stocked with catfish. A chicken pen with chickens which produces us with all the eggs we need for breakfast or in menus that uses them. We like to keep stocked up on canned food also, like Spam, Ramen noodles, peanut butter, canned soup, chili and too many others to mention. We also have a Great Pyrenees dog that alerts us to anything that drives onto our long driveway as it's next to impossible to sneak up on one.

BTW on that reseeding, make sure you buy heirloom seeds and not hybrid as crops planted with hybrid seeds will not produce any crops that will come up. Hybrid produces more produce, but you can't replant anything from the seeds of what you gather. Heirloom seeds don't produce as much, but you will always have seeds for replanting year after year.

As to what you would find if you had to leave the city on short order, you will find a lot of country and suburban folk that are very suspicious of you as they will know in an instant that you are an outsider and not one of them.

Anyway, I figure if the SHTF, I am already where I want to be.

[gofish]

Thank you for the info. I and others apreceate every thing you have to teach us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gofish

Can't spell very well but shoot OK

[HAMMERHEAD]

I'm no expert gardner, but non-hybrid seeds would be a good start so you can re-plant the seeds you harvest.

One trick to keep deer and other plant eaters away are stink pots. Basically just a tin can half buried into which you pee every visit. Over the top is a larger tin can with large holes punched around the sides. Push it halfway into the ground to prevent tip over. That allows the vapors to escape, but keeps out rain. Very effective.

[clodbuster]

Regarding variety selection most species we plant in gardens are not hybridized and hybrid (tomatoes) for example, will produce viable seeds.  The offspring will not be hybrids but will produce fruit.  Almost all
corn produced in the US is hybrid and the "volunteer" corn plants are always evident in the following crop
the next year.  Perhaps the mule thing is the source of the myth about hybrids not producing seed.
anyway there you go, if you only have hybrid tomatoes plant the seed.  Peas beans carrots onions etc
are self pollenated and not hybrids.

[Rolandedwinjohnson]

If I can catch it and kill it I'll likely use it as SHTF food.

Vegetables don't run to fast so I seem them as possible chow.  Even roasted roaches and rats become food. You need to get them well done and use them for soup with those slow moving green things.

Remember, hunger is the best spice.

[SHOOTALL]

cherry tomatos , squash and pumpkins will grow just about anywhere !