The Survival Garden: How To Start And What To Prep.

LOL, This answers a question that I have always sort of wondered about. We have French, Spanish, Greek, Mexican, Itallian, several types of Oriental and all other sorts of Resturants. I often wondered why there are no English resturants.

 

A survival garden needs to concentrate on two main things. Food with as many calories as possible and spices to make food that you may not be used to easier to eat. I am fortunate. I eat almost anything and like it all. I like spicy food and the spices on the table are salt, black pepper, red devil hot sauce, worcestershire, garlic powder, Tony Chacheres file, and usually some onion and japalino peppers.

 

In my lifetime, I've eaten a few pickup truck-loads of kale. It is a staple in the South as are collard greens (deep South), curly mustard, poke greens (poke weed, you don't grow it, it simply grows everywhere).

Kale and poke greens, kale and curly mustard, mix and boil it up. Leafy greens taste best when mixed. Always throw in some streaked meat for seasoning. Southerners cook with pork fat; thus, high blood pressure and strokes. But it tastes great.

Corn bread is also necessary, of course.

 

Cod is more expensive now than salmon. Lot of fish and chip shops (AKA the chippy in UK) are now using Pollock and Basa which is not bad fish but cod has the better texture/flakes.

Grocery/provisions are going up and up but I'd say the UK is still cheaper overall than mainland Europe, certainly a lot cheaper than the USA but obviously you get regional/seasonal deals (I've picked up a couple of 5 litre cans of EVOO for €19.99/£17.50/$US19.50 which is dirt cheap).

Survival garden crops? I'm still learning but you need your greens for sure and your root/tuber veg to fill your belly.

How about flour/oats? What are your long term storage plans for these?

 

I was raised eating mustard and turnip greens and didn't get introduced to cabage until I got married. I actually like them all about equally well now. We raised greens in the garden but never cabage. Maybe it was too wet there for cabage to grow well. LOL where I was raised it was a lot less than 10 feet above sealevel and there were thousands of acres of marsh and swamp lands. Great hunting and fishing but there were mosquitos the size of sparrows there. They would blacken the sky at sundown some evenings.

 

EVOO is good stuff although I don't fry/sauté much with it I prefer a veg/sunflower oil, lard or dripping for that. I use it a lot for salad dressing combined with lemon juice or wine vinegar as a base mix. You can leave it at that or add herbs to it, thyme goes well on a salad/new potatoes with red meat, use tarragon with fish or chicken, garlic and herbs of choice as a general dressing; just use your imagination. Take a thick slab of good bread and drizzle with EVOO then rub the bread with a cut clove of garlic then a couple of tomato halves, season with a little salt and pepper and that is great with cooked meats/sausage/salami fresh salad and pickles. All the above is common practice in France, Italy, Spain and Greece...and the UK with people who enjoy good food...its not 'posh' food, its actually very rustic food at its base level.

Kept in a cool dark place its good for at least two years and I use around a half litre a week so a five litre can will realistically last me eight to ten weeks...at that price I'll get a few more. Its also used in bread making mostly in Europe.

Lonewolf, I don't have an issue with living on boiled meat and veg, we all do and will at some point but stop knocking those of us whose culinary skills and taste are broader than yours at a daily level.

 

Survival-wise, olive oil has value in that if one can keep it away from ultraviolet light, it can last over two years, even three years. Canola oil will also last if protected. Both of these oils are good foods, protect the body from oxidative compounds, and are a vital aid in cooking.

Wheat flower, corn flour, and oats just do not keep. This is why preppers store grains until time-of-use then grind them with their home grinders. If course, dried rice and dried beans keep if you toss-in O2 absorbers and seal the jars well. Once I tried to keep corn meal. Used the O2 absorbers. Opened the jar two years later and the smell was horrid. I must have insufficiently dried it. Most things need to be "bone-dry" to store. Meat stores because it is canned bacteria-killing HOT and is suffused with salt and other preservatives ... not to speak of being full of lard. bullion cubes are as salty as salty gets; however, in a survival situation, one needs their Na. Meat/proteins provide the K+.

Good info. Thnx!

Thing about sauerkraut is that it was brought over by German settlers. There were many German settlers in Southern Appalachia even though the majority were Ulster-Scots. My dad's family were from Ulster and Germany. Sauerkraut was one mainstay. I remember my maternal grandmother's HUGE stainless steal pots working during fall on her screened-in back porch. Behind that bench were numerous strings of peppers drying.

Me, I LOVE red cabbage. Have put-back numerous jars. I chop-up wieners, toss them in a pot of red cabbage and start the boiling. Yummy. Red cabbage jars store for around three years; however, since I rotate/use these, that storage life doesn't count. When at grocery, I dig-in to what they have on shelf. Easy to cycle, just like baked beans. We constantly use beans.
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Weenies and sauerkraut was a staple when I was a kid. We had it 3 or 4 times a month. My wifes family had german sausage and sourkraut and that was good to0. My wife and I are both about half German. We both come from parents that were country farm and ranch folks.

I have had gardens off and on for most of my life. For the last few yars I just couldn't do it. I'm hoping to put in a small garden next year. I like to have fresh vine ripened tomatoes, onions, garlic, and several types of peppers. Just small things now. Cantalope do well here and I like to let the grass grow a little for the cantalope to run in. I used to do a three sisters garden. That is corn with pole beans at its feet and then surounded by squash.

 

Couldn't do a garden this year due to immune system attack. Even attacked one of my eyes.

Unfortunately my lungs and heart are doing too fine. I was hoping my heart would kill me . OOPSIE!!! Looking forward to seeing my daughter and loved ones in the next world. A workmate of mine who is dead is visiting me in my dreams lately. Good to see him. He and another dead friend are doing well on the other side -- even in kind of a party mood. One of these dead friends was all serious and often a real stick-in-the mud kind'a guy -- me, I like to party -- but now after he's dead, his personality has changed a whole bunch and is FAR more happy over there = good for him.

Hoping to move back to my home state. Wife hasn't a home state -- her father was a very successful businessman and moved his family a bunch. My girlfriend/wife (45+ years) likes/loves my home state almost as much as do I -- her parents and one brother are buried there, along with our daughter (I don't know where my wife's other brother is buried; don't care; didn't like him). Me, I'm gonna take prednisone to kill this inflammation -- have bottles of it put back. Can buy prednisone for a song; therefore, I'm doing so now. Also am lowering prednisone this winter to force my body to make more.

By spring, I hope to NOT be living here. Play my cards right and I'll start a garden in my own state / not here. I learned decades ago to let the rototiller do the work, i.e. NOT you (same with sledge hammers). As a lazy man, I know what to plant that will give us more yield than we can deal with / eat / process. Still have squash shavings for squash bread-baking still stored. Hope to enable younger generations, then die / get killed. Would be great to take-out those who oppose our Creator's Will and then get killed during a firefight, get it over-with / move on spiritually / leave the world a better place.

Times will be hell, but then, that's nothing new to me. Life is an ongoing test of the soul. Those not tested do not mature. Maturity is the ONLY thing you get to take with you after this life is completed.
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500ml is not a lot really over a week or so for one person and no it won't go rancid before used up, olive oil is good for a couple of years or more depending how its stored, the cans of EVOO last a lot longer than that, keep them cool.

As DV said you can make salves and soap from it (I'll give that a try) and it can be used to soften leather and treat wood.

I know you like cabbage, have you tried stir frying finely shredded hard cabbage with smoked lard? Season with a little salt and chopped dill its fantastic with good sausages.

 

Well the Diva's gardens are under a layer of tht fluffy white stuff but to all of you out there I am hoping you have a Merry Christmas and a great New Year! See you in the garden trenches come spring,

 

I actually had to turn off the AC and turn the heater on last night!!! This should make the leaves start to fall now. Winter in South and South East Texas is usually only 45 to 60 days long at its worst. I remember years when we ran the AC on both Christmas and New Years day though.

People in colder areas think it is funny when we gripe about the cold here. We don't have the clothes or foot wear to deal with the sort of cold that people in the north considder fairly normal. It is a very rare day that the temperature doesn't get above freezing.

When it does though it is BAD!!! I'm glad that I'm retired. The last time we had this kind of cold I spent a week laying in the water under houses fixing pipes!!! I actually started to carry a blow up swimmng pool that I would drag under the house to lay in so I didn't have to lay in ice water while I worked on the busted pipes.

 

I wish you well during these winter blasts!

Man-oh-man is the wind kicking-up here! Wind gust are around 30 mph (48 kph) -- not bad, but the gusts suck the air right out'a your house. Temps are going yucky bad. Temps tonight are going to be around 5 deg F / -15 C = "3-dog night". This global warming is rough.

We just got our gas bill. Not a pretty sight. Have turned the thermostat down to 66 F / 18 C. We're wearing layers of clothes. Luckily, we've got lots of warm clothes. For Christmas, I've gotten my wife more merino wool socks. Don't tell her!
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Local town is busy with tourists who've come on skiing holidays at the resorts about 20 miles away, mountains are lovely and white, had flurries of snow on and off all week but not really sticking at the moment.

 

Were I a younger man ...

"How to Create a Food Forest in Your Backyard"

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/food-forest/

"Creating a food forest in your own backyard is a great way to produce your own food, reduce your carbon footprint, and create a sustainable living environment. A food forest is a low-maintenance, sustainable system that mimics a natural forest ecosystem, with layers of plants that work together to provide food and other benefits.

"In this article, we will discuss the steps you can take to create a food forest in your own backyard.

"Once you have assessed your site, you can start choosing the plants you want to include in your food forest. A food forest typically includes seven layers of plants, each providing a different function in the ecosystem. These layers include:

• Canopy trees – tall trees that provide shade and shelter for the other layers
• Understory trees – smaller trees that grow beneath the canopy and provide fruits and nuts
• Shrubs – medium-sized plants that produce berries, fruits, and nuts
• Herbaceous plants – plants that die back to the ground each year, such as vegetables, fruits, and herbs
• Groundcovers – low-growing plants that provide erosion control and weed suppression
• Vines – climbing plants that produce fruits and nuts
• Root crops – plants that grow underground

"Choose plants that are native or adapted to your area, as they will be better suited to your climate and soil conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/josedemunck



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You will have to go to the article itself for content. All I did above is to describe the principle. Food forests are a part of the permaculture concept. Once established, it sustains its own self without massive amounts of human input -- it's a bunch of work to start with, but once things get going, then the Mother Nature engineering specifications kick-in.

Turning one's property into a food-producing micro-image of the macro local natural environment is working with Mother Nature. Smart. Mommy Nature can be cruel to the max. You won't win. Best to get along with Her.

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Here are YouTube food forest videos:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=food+forest

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https://projectfoodforest.org/what-is-a-food-forest/

"What is a Food Forest…

"A food forest, also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and out.

"Generally, we recognize seven layers of a forest garden – the overstory, the understory, the shrub layer, the herbaceous layer, the root layer, the ground cover layer, and the vine layer. Some also like to recognize the mycelial layer, layer eight (mushrooms). Using these layers, we can fit more plants in an area without causing failure due to competition."



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"How to Start a Food Forest – The Ultimate Low-Maintenance Garden"

https://morningchores.com/food-fore...stainable and self-sufficient – like a forest.

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https://permacultureapprentice.com/creating-a-food-forest-step-by-step-guide/