# garden; survival or supplement



## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

I am just going to throw this out as food for thought. I have seen many times d the ? of how much garden space is needed. I live on a farm and can and do more food than I could possibly eat. My garden is not survival but supplement and more expensive items. Like fruit, berrys , asparagus, garlic, tomatoes,cauliflower etc. In a survival situation, my #1 go to, negate starvation would be corn, not sweet corn but open pollinated dent or flint corn. There are several reasons. Corn can be grown in most climates in the US. It can be planted, harvested and stored and processed with primitive means.

Some basic facts. 1485 calories/lb

allowing 2 lbs/day =730lbs/person=13 bushel

a plot of 100'x100' would supply that at a modest yield of 60 bu/acre.

This is not a balanced diet, short on protein and vitamins. One would also want to know how to make mush, corn bread and parched corn.

Depending on your idea of the future, one could plant 30x30 plot to ensure seed when you need it, plant that 100x1oo plot, which take about 4000 seeds or go visit a local farmer and buy 13 bushel of dry dent corn which at todays prices could probably be accomplished for around $50.


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## Shine (Feb 19, 2011)

You are Blessed. Consider this: If the bottom fell out of everything and you had to live with no support what so ever, which of the blessings that you are receiving should you stockpile? Which of the blessings that you are receiving should you prepare for sale.

It is not a difficult situation to understand. Look at where you are, understand how you might use your surplus to augment your income, relax in understanding that if you are comfortable with the fact that you have enough, the surplus, if you market it well - will give you more capabilities. More capabilities allow you to have more latitude in where you wish to place your focus upon.


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

I'm not in a farm location myself, rather, suburban desert garden hobbyist. Over the last decade I've done a lot of small-scale container gardening, though, constantly debating practicalities should it come to being elsewhere (with more rain and suitable soil for in-ground "real" crop production) during a lengthy bug-out-or-in sort of emergency with normal supply systems thoroughly crashed. I've grown corn in containers, up to three plants each in very large pots and one or two in smaller, sweet hybrid varieties, of course as a hobbyist. The yield per plant was good, several full ears per stalk, BUT the amount of fertilizer, and for desert practicality, *water* necessary was horrendous considering the ultimate calorie and nutrition output. Given many regions do have abundant or at least adequate seasonal rainfall, I'd still urge careful parsing of just how much nitrogen supplement is needed for serious survival levels of the crop to result, especially if planning for year-in, year-out agrarian existence. Do you have the area of suitable field to do full rotations with nitrogen-fixing clover or field peas or whatever? Enough sustainable livestock for nitrogen from their output? Obviously communities like the Amish presently, and many others in past centuries have made it work, but it has seemed to me that it's become easy for present gardeners to overlook dependence on petroleum (methane especially for fertilizer) for easy, quick, intense inputs of nutrients for high-calorie plants like corn especially, and especially if total energy output of a high level is necessary.

In the case of more suburban prep-oriented gardening wanna-bees like myself, frankly, I've come to the view that the *practicality* for being able to transition to a lower-tech, lower-population society after a couple years of serious supply disruption/ collapse has to focus on using funds saved from fairly normal sorts of employment for setting aside storeable food as well as other assets like fertilizer and seeds. I lean towards storing hundreds of pounds each of such dry goods as rice, beans, corn, wheat, pasta, sugar, salt, then rotating through batches of canned goods like soups and stews that can be mixed sparingly for flavoring with those otherwise bland dry grains. Use your money earned after investing in a good education to set presently dirt-cheap necessities aside, hopefully including usable productive land in the best case; I guess that's my rationalized strategy.

The more near you are to having a self-sustaining land holding, the more blessed you are, as said by the previous poster. Just be sure you're not neglecting to stock up on something like high-nitrogen fertilizer while its basic source material, methane, is dirt cheap, as well as petroleum for moving necessities around in trade. That appears to me to be a major factor in the idea of growing corn. (Maybe not so much for the other two of the three sisters, beans and squash.)


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

I think I would look to dry beans for basic survival, rather than corn. A diet based on corn will cause pellagra. This why the Indians prepared corn, not just ate it off the cob.

Beans keep well, can be cooked as beans, or cooked into a creamy soup. With the right know how, you can do a lot with beans, so much so that you don&#8217;t even know you are eating beans. For instance, there is an ice cream made with beans. Beans and corn together form a complete protein, such as succotash. If you eat only one or the other, the protein is not complete.


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## Explorer (Dec 2, 2003)

Make nixtamal from the corn then into posole.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

I keep coming back to the Indians of this area. They grew corn, beans and squash. We used to call it the TV dinner (CBS). Next I'd be sure to have chickens for eggs. They can eat corn, and they love the squash guts. Left to freely roam they get bugs, worms and weed seeds for a balanced diet. I have been slowly accumulating egg recipes so I can have a variety of dishes with eggs. I have experimented with vegetarian milk from beans and grains. If the crap hit the fan we would eat, maybe not all we'd like to have but we'd have our stomachs full. Then there is the natural foods. Wild apples, pears, black caps, blackberries, cherries and wild rose hips. The hips have very high vitamin c. There is cattail, all kinds of salad greens like red dead nettle, lambs quarters, sorrel, and purselane. Then there is wild carrots, swamp potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes. Even in our lawn there is grill over the ground, dandelions, and plantain. All kinds of things make teas to drink. There is all kinds of medicines that grow naturally. By eating what you grow and what you can find you should be able to have a balanced diet.


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## Ellendra (Jul 31, 2013)

I have a chart calculating exactly what a person would need to eat in order to get 100% of all macro- and micro-nutrients per day. I'm still working on what it would take to then grow everything on that chart.

Potatoes offer more calories per square foot, so I'd actually focus on them more than corn. The trouble is, if you have a bad year with potatoes it's possible to lose your whole seed crop, so I've been buying a few packets of True Potato Seed every year as backup. They keep and store just like tomato seeds, but it does take longer for the plant to produce, so there's a trade-off.

I don't have my charts handy, but if I remember right, the minimum plants needed to provide 100% nutrition are:
Potatoes
Carrots
Tomatoes
Peas
Parsley
Sunflower seeds

Catch is, milk and eggs are also needed, and small amounts of meat. I'm still working on a similar nutrition chart for chickens and dairy goats, but that kind of data is harder to find.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

Ellendra said:


> I have a chart calculating exactly what a person would need to eat in order to get 100% of all macro- and micro-nutrients per day. I'm still working on what it would take to then grow everything on that chart.
> 
> Potatoes offer more calories per square foot, so I'd actually focus on them more than corn. The trouble is, if you have a bad year with potatoes it's possible to lose your whole seed crop, so I've been buying a few packets of True Potato Seed every year as backup. They keep and store just like tomato seeds, but it does take longer for the plant to produce, so there's a trade-off.
> 
> ...


 Where did you find the potato seeds?


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

We garden for survival now. We have 2 acres in the desert and raise chickens, rabbits, dairy goats and a pig every year. We have reached the point that when we go to the grocery store its to buy "junk" food. Coffee, sodas and stuff for when we just don't feel like cooking. Neither one of us are big on veggies but the animals love them. Our biggest short fall is hay. We bought 10 acres up in the mountains in central NM and will be moving up there in the next few years so that should help.


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

As I acknowledged and others pointed out this is not a balanced diet and not a long term answer. I was trying to offer the most practical calorie dense option. Potatoes may provide more calories/ acre, but storing potatoes from one harvest till the next is difficult and storing seed potatoes in case of crop failure is definitely a problem. Just food for thought


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

bruce2288 said:


> As I acknowledged and others pointed out this is not a balanced diet and not a long term answer. I was trying to offer the most practical calorie dense option. Potatoes may provide more calories/ acre, but storing potatoes from one harvest till the next is difficult and storing seed potatoes in case of crop failure is definitely a problem. Just food for thought


That's why I'm looking into the potato seeds. Around here the only way to keep them is in a canning jar. They sprout to fast otherwise.


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## Ellendra (Jul 31, 2013)

terri9630 said:


> Where did you find the potato seeds?


http://www.tom8toes.com/


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

Here's an eBay link, looks like this one variety only: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zolushka-Po...hash=item43e108ecd6:m:mRdsJL5RCFwOfSwHYQIPong

This is a great pointer, it had never occurred to me that I've never seen potato seed, or even the cuttings, included in prepping kits. A quick look at how important the plant has been, think "Ireland" lol, and surely it becomes worth a flyer to try to have it available after any major disruption.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

Thanks y'all. I had found one place but they had a $15 minimum order but I just couldn't get that high. They didn't have a lot of what I would use.


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## ldc (Oct 11, 2006)

I always used pieces of spuds with an eye; this was an eyeopener, thanks!


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

If you want to grow potatoes that you &#8220;want&#8221;, you have to start with a potato and plant it. Seeds are not going to give you the potato they came from. You don&#8217;t know what you will get. Not that it would be bad, but that is why everyone starts with the spud. Russet gives you Russet, Yukon Gold gives you Yukon Gold. The seed of a Yukon Gold gives you &#8220;?&#8221;.


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

Potatoes mostly self pollinate. So the vast majority of seeds would breed true and produce the same type of potatoe as the original plant


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## Ellendra (Jul 31, 2013)

bruce2288 said:


> Potatoes mostly self pollinate. So the vast majority of seeds would breed true and produce the same type of potatoe as the original plant


Depends. The offspring of a hybrid, even one that self-pollinated, can be pretty variable.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

> The nature of the potato flower and seed is such that the sexual pollination produces seed with very different features, even if no cross-pollination of a different cultivar is allowed. This fact explains why farmers prefer to "clone"


http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

I'm guessing it is like apple seeds, you'll get an apple tree but the genetics are so variable there is no telling which genes will dominate and which will recede making the type of potato vary by random chance.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

BlackFeather said:


> http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm
> 
> I'm guessing it is like apple seeds, you'll get an apple tree but the genetics are so variable there is no telling which genes will dominate and which will recede making the type of potato vary by random chance.


As long as it's edible and taste like a potato....


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## anniew (Dec 12, 2002)

My Kenebecs produced their own seed this year...should be fun to grow some out and see what the results are.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

A long term diet of corn based foods can cause the nutritional disease pellagra. White rice can cause beriberi which is another serious nutritional illness. scurvy is not hard to develop. lack of vit A can lead to blindness and lack of night vision. 

a year or more on malnourishing preps and one would be a goner. Sailors in the past who took long voyages died of malnutrition more then anything else. A ship sailing from western Europe on a journey around the cape of Africa could lose a third of their men to malnutrition before they even reached the cape.


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## Patchouli (Aug 3, 2011)

anniew said:


> My Kenebecs produced their own seed this year...should be fun to grow some out and see what the results are.


I would be interested in hearing what you get. 

I have never heard of potato seeds either.


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