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Twisted Avatar | 01-17-2009 02:17 PM
Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, by H.I.C. By God�s grace I was born and raised on a small family farm. During the 1960s and 1970s we were trying to pay off a 340 acre corn and soybean farm in northwestern Iowa and we were flat stinking broke. So we raised nearly all of the food to support our family. This required a large garden (80ft x 120 ft), an even larger truck patch (48 ft x 1,200 ft), a small fruit orchard (12 trees), livestock (caves, sheep, hogs, and 300 laying hens). With some of the best and most productive farm land in the entire world, with better than 30 inches of precipitation, 165 frost free days, real farm tractors, planters, and cultivation equipment it took us 20 ac to feed six people. That breaks down to a 1/2 acre garden, 1 acre truck [farming] patch, 8 acre pasture, and 10 acres for hay ground and animal feed. My point for you non-farmers out there, is that you are not going to feed yourself with a Mantis tiller and 1,000 square feet of sandy dirt that requires you to pump endless ground water irrigation just to keep your crops alive. If you committed enough to surviving that you purchase over 20 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammo (a good start) I am suggesting that you need to consider a similar commitment to growing food. I do not discount the importance of purchasing and storing up bulk staples, dried grain, canned goods, and freeze dried entrees, I have them as well. But I am telling you straight out that if the economy tanks anything like the 1930s, and I think it will last longer, you are going to run out of grub mighty early. Now everyone has different skills, resources, and family commitments, but let's consider some of the basic requirements for growing food: Yearly precipitation Up to a point, more is better. You typically need 12 inches to grow grass, 20 inches to grow trees, and 30 inches to grow corn. If you want to raise a really big garden without irrigation you need about 8 inches per month through out the primary growing season (May-June-July-Aug). Except for a few areas defined as microclimates I recommend that you consider living east of the dry line (100th meridian, i.e. Wichita, Kansas). Rainfall beyond 12 inches per month or 48 inches total will only make it harder to control the weeds and bugs. A maximum of 48 inches leaves out Louisiana, Florida, and the Coastal areas of the deep south A good source of local area climate data is City-Data.com. Frost free growing season. See these maps at the NOAA web site. Anything less than 120 days severely limits what you can grow. Remember that the folks scratching a living from the Dakotas, Eastern Montana, and most of the Rocky Mountain States are not multi crop farmers, they are either ranchers or specialist who grow crops like hard winter wheat. Any climate with between 165 to 240 days is about perfect. This translates into south of the Dakotas and North of Dallas, Texas. This is enough of a growing season for row crops and all vegetables and allow a little wiggle room for getting every thing planted on time. In the south you will be able to plant every thing directly in the garden, on the northern edge you will be starting many of your plants in a greenhouse. That said, starting plants in a green house gives them an important jump start on weeds and bugs. You should plan on one. Microclimates While I suggest that you should consider living in the mid-southern region of the short grass prairie, there are a number of smaller areas that provide the basic conditions for productive farming. I suggest some fine areas such and La Grande Oregon, Rathdrum, Idaho, Montrose, Colorado, where the local rainfall and warmer winters make favorable microclimates. The easiest method of evaluating an area in the arid west is to look for big commercial fruit orchards. If it grows both apples and peaches the temperature extremes will be acceptable and if you can grow fruit without pumping ground water they must get enough rain. The reason that I concentrate so heavily on living in an area with rainfall is that I anticipate that no matter what the trigger event (WMD terror strike, economic crisis, destructive natural event) we will not have enough electrical power or fuels to pump large volumes of ground water for a really long time. Soil productivity Black, gray, brown, and even red soil is fine as long it is loam. This means that it has organic particles (composted twigs, leaves, wood, bark, and stems) to help hold the moisture and feed the worms, bugs, and microbes that make soil really productive. Sand and gravel are fine structure but if you don�t have the worms, bugs, and microbes to aerate the soil and fix atmospheric nitrogen for the plants roots you will have to do this mechanically and ultimately you will have to add nitrogen fertilizer. [JWR Adds: It is wise to have the soil tested before making an offer on a retreat property. Soil testing is usually available at colleges and universities that have agriculture programs. You can also contact your local NRCS office or USDA Extension Office, and they can. provide information on soil testing labs in your region. Equipment My whole family might be able to plant and cultivate 1/2 acre without equipment. But I don�t plan to find out. For my own use I bought a 25 hp diesel tractor and basic tillage, planting, and cultivating attachments. I also bought an old Ford 8N plus 4 attachments for under $2,000. A small tractor should only burn 20 gallons per year tending a small garden and truck patch. Gas and diesel may still be available during a deep depression, it may even be cheaper, but I have 500 gal of stabilized diesel in a farm tank. Seeds, Fertilizer, Weed & Pest Control, and Livestock Most folks have heard about Heirloom seeds. Plant varieties that will reseed themselves true year after year. But just as important, livestock will allow you continued farming success without access to petroleum based fertilizer, weed, and pest control. I use a wheel hoe in the garden and a tractor mounted cultivator in the truck patch to kill weeds, but I would rather use sheep, goats, and poultry to eat the seedling trees and weeds when I can. Livestock manure is the ultimate fertilizer and Poultry, particularly ducks, geese, and guinea hens will help control the bugs and deliver the fertilizer at the same time. Personally, I can not imagine trying to control weeds and bugs without my livestock. Fences, Shelters, Ponds, and Trees These are some common land improvements that are best built and planted before the crunch. [With most common soils] an agricultural pond will not efficiently seal and hold water for 2-3 years, fruit trees take 3-5 years to bear fruit heavily, and my Pecan grove will likely take 10 years if the deer and bugs will just leave it alone for a while. Building these improvements is really not difficult unless you try to do it yourself without power tools. I suggest that you build them now so you can borrow or rent tractors with PTO augers, bulldozers, backhoes, cement mixers as needed. Academic Classes and the Extension Service Many community colleges and land grant university extension services offer free information and classes to teach you to raise gardens, fruit, and livestock, and how to store your produce using a home canner. I took a great class titled �backyard food raising�. The skills needed to raise and store food are a lot like the skill to shoot a gun or reload ammunition. You can�t just read about it, you learn by doing. Practice Growing a garden is not like riding a bike. It is different for each area and the weeds and bugs are scheming right now to eat you out of house and home. I suggest that you start now and learn each new plant, animal, and pest while you can still buy food at the grocery store. While you can grow a lot the first year, my experience is that it will take 3 years practice before you are confident and fully successful . Some Useful References: Homesteading, Gene Logsdon, 1973 Rodale Press Basic Country Skills, Storey, 1999, Storey Publishing Emergency Preparedness and Survival-Section 3, Jackie Clay, 2003, Backwoods Home Magazine Organic Orcharding, Gene Logsdon, 1981, Rodale Press Introduction to Horticulture, Shry, Reiley, 2007, Thompson Delmar Learning Backyard Fruits and Berries, Miranda Smith, 1994 Quarto Publishing Animal Science, Ensminger, 1991, Interstate Publishers Inc. Permalink - Email This http://www.survivalblog.com/

Bx3 | 01-17-2009 02:23 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Great article. Did my first garden last year. Too many valuable lessons to be learned. Better to learn them while you can still supplement from the grocery store!

Quixote2 | 01-17-2009 03:24 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Best article I have seen. (One note: La Grande, Oregon agriculture uses irrigation water for crops and hay. Enough rain/snow for trees and grass - cattle grazing.) There is a reason that the original settlers jumped over the great plains and deserts and headed for the Willamette valley and portions of the California coast (rain at the right times of the year).

brewer | 01-17-2009 03:31 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Good article TA and wise words from this author H.I.C., Lately Rawles' blog has had some very useful artcles. I live in rural SE Oh. and I'm well aware of the DAILY WORK and equipment that's needed to raise your own feed for healthy livestock and maintain them from rabbits to steers. Same with growing vegatables and grains. Harvesting and preserving all the food is another story. and when times get tough...I expect a lot more theft of food from farms large and small.

silver_addiction | 01-17-2009 03:33 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, I am in a unique situation that i live on someones property in an apartment in upstate ny. The property consists of a large farm house, my apartment, and a 1000 sf. barn. It is 4 acres and the owner, who owns several restaurants in the NYC, is having me turn it into an organic farm to provide produce to himself and his restaurants. so far we have purchased a pickup and a tractor (kubota with backhoe and loader and tiller), prepared a 12,000 sf. gardening area and accumulated a good amount of compost from a local cow farm and leaves from fall cleanups. soon, there will be a 16X48 greenhouse. this spring will be the first year of gardening on this land, which is very fertile (hudson valley region has great soil) and has about 12-16 inches of topsoil. in the future we will be getting farm animals hopefully.

Ralleia | 01-17-2009 06:17 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
Originally Posted by silver_addiction (Post 1516361) I am in a unique situation that i live on someones property in an apartment in upstate ny. The property consists of a large farm house, my apartment, and a 1000 sf. barn. It is 4 acres and the owner, who owns several restaurants in the NYC, is having me turn it into an organic farm to provide produce to himself and his restaurants. so far we have purchased a pickup and a tractor (kubota with backhoe and loader and tiller), prepared a 12,000 sf. gardening area and accumulated a good amount of compost from a local cow farm and leaves from fall cleanups. soon, there will be a 16X48 greenhouse. this spring will be the first year of gardening on this land, which is very fertile (hudson valley region has great soil) and has about 12-16 inches of topsoil. in the future we will be getting farm animals hopefully.
Wow. Just last year we bought a small diesel Kubota tractor with backhoe, loader, and tiller. We are very pleased with it and plan to expand our gardening, which has always been limited in the past since we only had hand implements. Your description of your soil sounds exciting! We have predominantly clay soil here--it takes a lot of organic amendment to make it workable. Chickens are probably the best return on investment for farm animals. Eggs every day, and meat if want it. This year I would like to construct a combined greenhouse/henhouse so that the chickens can help provide heat to the greenhouse, and the south glass can help to heat the chickens on sunny winter days. Will you be doing this full-time or part-time?

GoldenPoet | 01-17-2009 06:35 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Excellent article. In case some plague of locusts descend and eat all my vegetables.. I have gallons of spouting seeds saved. Not that I like the idea of just living on sprout, but it�s better than nothing. Oh ya.. then theres the honey and coconut oil. :confused_m:

silver_addiction | 01-17-2009 06:44 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralleia (Post 1516499) Wow. Just last year we bought a small diesel Kubota tractor with backhoe, loader, and tiller. We are very pleased with it and plan to expand our gardening, which has always been limited in the past since we only had hand implements. Your description of your soil sounds exciting! We have predominantly clay soil here--it takes a lot of organic amendment to make it workable. Chickens are probably the best return on investment for farm animals. Eggs every day, and meat if want it. This year I would like to construct a combined greenhouse/henhouse so that the chickens can help provide heat to the greenhouse, and the south glass can help to heat the chickens on sunny winter days. Will you be doing this full-time or part-time?
this is going to be a full time, year round aoeration. we just got it started in the fall.

Ralleia | 01-17-2009 06:54 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, How's about building hoophouses? If you're planning for year-round operation, hoophouses are much better bang for the buck than conventional greenhouses. The idea of farming year-round without getting pulled by other priorities stirs me.

brewer | 01-18-2009 02:18 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Another note on winter food production... We have a 4'x24' raised bed of carrots planted in July. Currently there is 5" of snow and 10" of straw on the bed of carrots. Even with 10 below temps the carrot bed is safe. I harvested a dozen beer bottle size carrots today for soups/stews/salads. Still have a another 70+LBS in the bed for harvest this winter. Good luck folks

WeNeedARevolution | 01-18-2009 04:53 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Wish we had some land. Good to know I'm effed when TSHTF.

Canadian-guerilla | 01-18-2009 05:11 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
Originally Posted by WeNeedARevolution (Post 1517512) Wish we had some land. Good to know I'm effed when TSHTF.
there's a lot of wild edibles out there just have to know what to look for

Txkstew | 01-18-2009 07:56 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, A lot of truth in the article. Down here in coastal Texas, the weeds and bugs are outrageous. It'll be a full time job, to weed and fight the bugs. We have to start the garden early, like late February, to beat the heat in June. Most crops crap out in the heat of summer here. Then there is the rain. Most years it's just right, but sometimes, it doesn't rain all summer. Other years, it floods. We've had 10 inches fall in a day, and it takes 3 days to run off. It gets deep enough to go over the tops of my rubber boots. I've got the green houses, but haven't bought the 40 x 100 foot poly sheeting yet. If you don't buy agriculture grade poly, it'll decompose and shatter from the sunlight before spring. Agriculture grade poly (6 mil) could be used for a couple of years, if you're careful with it, and a storm doesn't tear it off. So, my soil sucks, I don't have a barn, my land isn't fenced in, I tore down my pig pens, and one of my tractor's big tires is flat. Other than that, I'm ready.

mtnman | 01-18-2009 11:04 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
Originally Posted by WeNeedARevolution (Post 1517512) Wish we had some land. Good to know I'm effed when TSHTF.
From Portland Maine you're a good candidate for bugging out. Lots of vacant logging company property north of you! And potatoes grow there!

WeNeedARevolution | 01-19-2009 12:37 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
Originally Posted by mtnman (Post 1518003) From Portland Maine you're a good candidate for bugging out. Lots of vacant logging company property north of you! And potatoes grow there!
Aint that the truth...plenty of land to bug out. As I'm new to the region, I do need to pick up a wild/edible plants and animals book. We're renting right now and are actually looking at buying a place somewhat soon with 8 acres. It's a start...definitely have a lot to learn though.

messianicdruid | 01-19-2009 12:51 PM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, The State Shall Wither Away Ain't gonna be no traffic in this city any more Ain't gonna be no pavement for the cars Cause the people got other needs now We got shovels we got seeds And the state gonna wither away. Ain't gonna be no guards at the border shake you down Ain't gonna be no border at all No Army No Marine Coprs No order and no law. When the state shall wither away. It may be Sunday morning It may be Tuesday afternoon But no matter what the day is I'm gonna make it my business to wither soon Ain't gonna be no sheriff and no highway patrol Ain't gonna be no highway take its toll John Henry get your hammer! Paul Bunyan, get your axe! And the state shall wither away. Fred Gardner "Campfires of the Resistance"

Unclad Lad | 01-22-2009 10:36 AM
Re: Survival Gardening: Growing Food During A Second Great Depression, Quote:
In case some plague of locusts descend and eat all my vegetables.. I have gallons of spouting seeds saved. Not that I like the idea of just living on sprout, but it�s better than nothing.
Or you can plant them.

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