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How Prepared Are You Really To Live Off Your Gardening Skills Alone?

36K views 334 replies 79 participants last post by  Rural Buckeye Guy 
#1 ·
The grid is down long term. Industrial production no longer exists. There is no more buying cheater / shortcuts to grow your food like starter plants, seeds, fertilizer, soil, mulch, no city water or electricity, no gas for tillers... everything that we currently purchase to grow food is no longer available other than possibly thru barter.

Don't bother with all the other realities such as mass die off, looting provisions etc that would come in such a scenario. Just stick to an HONEST evaluation of your actual level of survival gardening skills.

Things to consider:
How many seeds do I have on hand
Do I know how to start from seed
How skilled am I at saving seed
How will I water and feed the plants
What do I know about soil management
If I'm utilizing solar set ups for power, am I prepared for when the parts fail
 
#2 ·
For my part, I fully admit it would be a challenge to grow enough to meet my families' needs. I already use stripped down methods, and my volume of growth is, IMO, pretty meager. Part of that is due to the smallish garden plot I have which could be expanded. But part is also lack of skills, knowledge, experience, and the time to spend getting better at it. I have trouble growing tomatoes and potatoes in bulk for instance.

My wife even commented that it "seems like everybody else grow a lot of tomatoes". My reply was... "yeah, but how are they doing it, and what products are they dependent upon to achieve that volume of growth?". I also remind her (and myself as well when garden envy sets in) that most gardeners aren't growing food with prep skill building in mind, to be able to feed their families using methods like the pioneers, which is what we, as preppers and self reliant folk, would be faced with in a long term, grid down situation.


I'll add more thoughts as others chime in.
 
#40 ·
I would very much like to grow all my own food, but I am a realist, and I'm pretty sure that's never going to happen.

For one thing, I just started learning how to garden. Last year was the first year I got serious about gardening.

Also, I'm in my 60s, so there is a limit to the energy I can devote to gardening.

And, I live alone, so there is nobody to share the workload.

All that said, I have set a goal that I think is achievable over the next couple of years. I might even achieve it this year. That goal is:

  • I want to produce and preserve a year's worth of tomatoes, potatoes, and applesauce for myself. For me, a year's worth of each of these foods is enough so I can eat the particular food with at least one meal every other day or so.

  • I want to produce and preserve a year's worth of onions for myself. I'm not sure what this equates to, in pounds or bushels or whatever.

If I meet or exceed these goals during the next couple years, I'll set some additional goals. But I don't think I'll ever be able to produce all my own food, even though I own 30 acres, much of which is tillable.

I do have pretty good food-preservation skills, as I've canned lots of applesauce and tomatoes and green beans during the past several years. And this year I will attempt dehydrating.

My wife even commented that it "seems like everybody else grow a lot of tomatoes". My reply was... "yeah, but how are they doing it, and what products are they dependent upon to achieve that volume of growth?". I also remind her (and myself as well when garden envy sets in) that most gardeners aren't growing food with prep skill building in mind, to be able to feed their families using methods like the pioneers, which is what we, as preppers and self reliant folk, would be faced with in a long term, grid down situation.
This is something I've thought about a lot.

For example, last year I had great success growing tomatoes in Earthboxes. An Earthbox is a container-gardening system marketed to inexperienced gardeners. It is pretty much idiot-proof. The Earthbox company sells the container, the watering system, the fertilizer, and even the soil. If you follow the instructions that come with an Earthbox, you almost cannot fail.

I plan to grow tomatoes in my Earthboxes again this summer, and I am about to order my Earthbox supplies for the 2018 growing season. But of course, in a survival situation, it's unlikely I'd be able to purchase Earthbox supplies.

As I gain experience as a gardener, I'm going to try to decrease my reliance on commercially available gardening supplies, but doing so will definitely be a challenge.

I won't be using any hybrid seeds, BTW, and I do plan to save seeds every year.

If I'm utilizing solar set ups for power, am I prepared for when the parts fail
This issue is a conundrum. I am off the grid, and I can store spare parts for my solar-electric systems (e.g., cables, extra panels), but storing extra batteries is a very big challenge, because batteries don't have very long shelf life.

I do have a manual water pump, but using it to water a garden entails carrying water from the pump, which is in the basement of my house, to my garden. [EDIT: The process of using the manual pump to get water to the garden would be much easier if there were two people involved. The spigot on my manual water pump is threaded so I can attach a garden hose to it; then I could run the garden hose out a basement window and down the hill to my garden. Then, one person could be in the basement, working the handle on the pump, while the other person could be in the garden, pointing the end of the hose where water is needed.]
 
#3 ·
I would say zero percent prepared. To survive off a garden one would have to plant a lot of high yielding carb crops (squash/potatoes/corn) and I am not growing any of that.

Corn takes up a lot of space, isn't as easy as it looks, and each huge stalk usually only produces 2 small ears. I don't really like squash. Would like to grow potatoes one of these years, but they are so easy to buy it is not on my list.
 
#4 ·
Having what I have on hand, if SHTF tomorrow, I could plant a 2018 crop. From seeds saved from last years harvest, excess seeds that were never planted, & starting material, I'm good. I don't water my garden, no commercial fertilizers, and don't have to buy vegetable plants. I would not be able to plant everything that I've enjoyed growing due to location, and weather. Some vegetables take two growing seasons to produce seeds.
We have the equipment to can & process everything we raise.
I too believe it would be a challenge, with everything going on around you, it would be hard to devote 100% to a survival garden. Even with my experience, it will be hard to do. :(
I would plant every inch of space available & then some. Any extras or abundance could be traded for necessities.
 
#5 ·
Not at all. I'm a miserable gardener. Much, much better with livestock of all kinds. I'm probably gonna die of protein starvation. ;) Or I guess I could barter.

I have had a congenital condition that has kept me from doing much leaning over (kinda a must do when gardening) or lifting stuff. I had surgery last year that went a long way towards correcting that so hopefully this year I will be able to at least give a garden an honest effort. I'm looking forward to it.
 
#6 ·
100% prepared to grow our needs without supplies other than what we have on hand.

(except coffee which can't grow here)

30% prepared to preserve what we harvest without the grid.

LP gas gets filled late July or early August. What if our shipment of gas didn't show up? Without gas or electric we'd have to can over a wood fire. Not sure I'm ready to do that.

Our dehydrator is electric. We would need to air dry or sun dry produce. We would have to build some racks or tables to do that. We don't have any constructed yet.

Freezer without the grid won't last long. I'd have to depend on a root cellar and/or clamps. Never have had a root cellar, would need to construct it. Clamps are easy enough but I've no real experience using them.

There would be alot of waste I suppose, though it would go to compost. :(

You get the idea.
 
#7 ·
Our dehydrator is electric. We would need to air dry or sun dry produce. We would have to build some racks or tables to do that. We don't have any constructed yet.

Just lay it out in a car. Cars that get a bit of sun dry things out amazingly fast even in the super humid South (likely much faster than any other non-electric method).
 
#15 ·
Call it 50/50 if we had to suddenly expand things to planting 8-10 acres. We have the materials and to a large degree the knowledge but no plow or planter for the tractor so a ton of physical labor. And Lord help us if there was no fuel for the walk behind tiller.

Long ago I knew an old woman who grew up living off what her family could grow during the 1930s; potatoes mostly along with some grains. She said "give her 2 good acres down by the creek and she would never starve". Around here the farmers use Round Up to kill the weeds and grass before plowing and planting. I suspect most people (including myself) don't keep enough Round Up to clear 2 acres per person or even have 2 acres per person of good soil.

As far as solar backups we should be ok.
 
#16 ·
I can, I have the background and several years recent practice on my own 30x60. I grew up with a 30x70 in our suburban backyard and helping a buddy do daily upkeep on his families 2 acre for extra meals and fishing/hunting time with him. With my available seed, I could do 60+ tomatoes with sweet potato ground cover, several hundred pepper plants, a couple rows of sweet corn with runner beans, a small field of feed corn from my sacks of deer feeder corn, not much collard greens this Spring but a couple hundred from seed by mid-summer with a late Fall harvest. I would be hurting for grains, especially wheat and barley, as both have been germinated and toasted in prep for fermentation and might not grow. No carrot or onion seed. Next year it would be 2-3 acres, easy, and need a couple people to hoe and hoof water in the evening.
 
#17 ·
Hi, I like the idea of using sweet potatoes under tomatoes, but do you have a good way, other than daily control of the vines, to keep the sweet potatoes from growing up into and over the tomatoes? I planted my sweet potatoes near my blackberries and they happily used them as a trellis. Looked pretty funny by the end of the year, with the volunteer cherry tomatoes mixed in. :) It did shade the ground well to conserve water though.
 
#18 ·
Lots of factors to consider. Weather, blight, predator damage. Lots of folks dependent on gardens or their crops alone have starved to death in bad years.
Now if all of those factors are controlled and we have an ideal growing season, I feel pretty confident I could feed us by expanding my garden. I use heirloom seeds and have a years supply on hand as well as one of those “survival garden” packages. Plenty of manure from the animals to recharge beds annually and a compost bin too.
Diets would definitely change. I grow potatoes, corn, squash and other things too each year. Throw in a little livestock protein, milk, eggs, meat and we could make it IF there were no major hiccups.
 
#20 ·
Depending on where you live, you really need to try and get in more than one planting. We're in Virginia and the last two seasons we got in a good three plantings. and are still using cabbage and green beans from last summer and fall. And our plot is only 20 x 20.

No we didn't plant any tomatoes - don't go over big with us. Beans, Squash, cabbage, peppers and turnips for the most part.
 
#23 ·
The old man and I were talking about this very thing today. We were trying to decide what the minimum acreage we would need to be able to grow everything I'd need to feed what I want to have on homestead. I think I could get by with 7 or so acres of cleared land but I'm not positive. Might be more like 10. I have plenty of time to do some studying before we start looking (in the next 12-18 months) so ...

My biggest thing is I have to be able to take care of what we get by myself, so at some point an amount of acreage will be too much. I think 10 is that magic number, but again, I'm just now starting to delve into this whole thing. I talked a lot about it a few years ago but let the old man talk me out of it. Not now. He can go with me or he can stay here. It matters not to me. If he doesn't to move he can stay here and visit on the weekends.
 
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#30 ·
First off, I would need to figure out a way to expand my gardening area. Currently using a small 20' x 45' plot. With the better part of an acre suburban lot, I have room to expand, but I'd have to take down some trees with an axe and my crosscut saw. Then I would need to fashion some secure fencing. Deer are a major problem.

But to break sod without a gas powered tiller would be a hurdle. My thoughts would be to kill off the grass with cover. Whatever I have on hand. Tarps, card board, old paneling.. anything to choke out the sun. Then hope for a good rain to soften it. Then muscle it with a shovel to remove the sod. I should like to acquire one of those sod kicker blades.

My watering is all done by hand with collected rainwater. I do have a river a 1/4 mile away, but don't think I'd would ever need to utilize it for irrigation purposes. And how clean is the water in rivers these days anyways? We have a few kiddie pools for further rain water collection if need be.

I have a fair amount of heirloom seeds on hand to get me through initially. But generating new seed is not nearly as easy as it might seem for everything. It's the one KEY thing that practically every prepper overlooks in my opinion. There is almost no discussion of that subject here on SB. Things like tomatoes and beans are relatively easy. But I have tried and failed at getting carrots to produce seed twice already, and am in the middle of trying again with a third different approach.

Because its fun, and I'm trying to test and learn different plants, I tend to grow a lot of different things in my small garden... which leaves me with a token harvest of many things more often than not. I would have to decrease some things and ramp up others.

I rotate my crops as best as I can. Within such a confined space, I have to wonder how much it matters. Currently, my only fertilization is the little bit of compost I can generate along with some coffee grounds and egg shells and and lots of chopped up leaves. We have plenty of leaves. But in the grid down situation, I would have no way to chop them. Would have to concentrate on improving my composting knowledge/ skill. I did acquire some cover crop seeds but haven't experimented with them yet. Nonetheless, I would hope I could get seed from them to provide regular soil improvement matter. Also going to order and learn to grow comfrey for the same purpose.
 
#34 ·
Most garden veggies have few calories in them. In order to survive I would have to grow a LOT of higher calorie veggies such as corn, potatos, peas, or dry beans.

I am not physically up to growing so much, so I would have to rely on stored grain, hunting, or both to add to my vegetable garden
If you aren't up to gardening, you might not be hunting much either. You should set up camp at my house and I'll let you water the herb garden, put up peaches, and make applesauce. I will pick the corn and dig potatoes 'n onions while the man goes after a deer. I don't envy the hunters :) Do you know how to snare a rabbit? My snow shows we have loads of them. :)
 
#38 ·
dont eskimos live on an exclusively carnivore diet?.. ive read that animals do in fact have all the necessary nutrients for a human to survive on assuming there is a high enough fat content

ive also read that incan soldiers could survive for months with no ill effect on an exclusively quinoa diet.. and quinoa can be used just like ice, or even ground into flour for bread
 
#39 ·
My situation is close to that of WeedinHoe's. We have an 8500 square foot garden for annual vegetables plus a 2000 square foot one for perennials such as asparagus. We have two small herb gardens. I also use a 10 1/2 foot by 12 foot green house for starting about 1,000 plants per year.

We have been gardening for a long time. We can, freeze, and to a limited extent, dry. We also have a dozen or so fruit trees of the usual kind. I try to have enough seed for this year plus the next two.
 
#44 ·
The Iroquois got along just fine with what they called the “three sisters “. They grew corn, beans and squash all together. The beans gave nutrients to the soil, the corn supported the beans and the squashed leaves shaded the soil, plus its prickly leaves helped keep critters at bay.

As far as how big a garden to have, my wife and I did well with a 100’x50’ garden. We didn’t grow all of our food, but we bought very little at the store, as far as vegetables go. At the end of the season our chest freezer would be full of veggies and we’d have s dozen cases of pickles, green beans, tomato products, beets, etc.

Anyone thinking they’ll just start a brand new garden and they’ll be putting up tons of food need a reality check. It will take a couple growing seasons before you know what your doing and what really does well in your area.
 
#45 ·
We are as well prepared as we can be, with approx 50x110 garden, and additional fruit trees/ shrubs. Still eating onions & shallots from 2017 garden. We only grew 150# of potatoes and we shared lots so those are all gone. Still eating canned beets, carrots, pickles, kale, and dried beans. Oh yes and a quart of salsa a week.
Canning would be interesting with our wood stove--would be better to dehydrate. Are asphalt rooftops a decent surface, maybe thin slices on a window screen on the south facing roof?
I save seeds for everything but carrots, and beets. We have a lot of volunteer plants--sometimes they have been awesome winter squash, sometimes I am diligent to pull them all out. In a SHTF situation I would probably let them all grow.
We have not grown corn in years due to rabid raccoons. We have a well, lakes with good fishing, and some great deer hunting nearby (assuming we don't get hunted ourselves). Our woodpile has a thriving rabbit population--could produce meat too.
My biggest concern with our garden is how visible it is, and all the human predators however.
Once the neighbors die off, I would use their backyards for gardening, unless we manage to make it to relatives who have farms and know we might be coming.
 
#49 ·
Thanks for an interesting thread. I have been recently trying to grow some stuff from seed at out BOL. I bought a veggie tunnel that is about 3x6 m. The ground in our location is so hard and has so much clay that it is hard to work. After a great deal of effort and mixing some compost into the soil, adding earthworms and putting scraps of food on there, we have had some small success getting a few things to grow. Most of the seeds failed to germinate and I do not have time or resources to try to get them to germinate and transport them up at this point. So my whole idea was to try what the OP asked. I will know in time what we end up with. But at this point I would have to say it is a miserable start.:(

If I can, I hope to expand, but the elements, especially the sun and pests, will destroy things without the veggie tunnel. It was destroyed by fire once and nearly destroyed by wind the second time and is barely standing at this point. They are expensive and I will need to wok hard to get a decent sized garden going that can sustain anyone.

Incidentally my neighbor has a large piece of land and he has fruit trees and has started a large garden and is growing stuff to sell. So, hopefully if the SHTF, I will be able to get stuff from him, God willing. We are just at the early stages of prepping, even though we have been working for years. We have enough stuff to survive for a few months, but to thrive for an extended period, I believe that this thread addresses a very important issue that we all need to deal with and I am certainly trying but far from where I need to be at this stage.

My solar situation is also just in the early stages and I would not be able to keep things going without support at this point in time.:D:
 
#51 ·
Velvet Elvis, thank you for starting your thread! I have so many questions now (more than I had before because you don't know what you don't know, you know :xeye:) about this whole gardening for sustainability thing.

I don't think I need as big a garden as I originally thought. But I DO think I need more land for posturing livestock so I can rotate usage. And I need a dedicated space to generate wood.

So far I'm really leaning towards 7-10 acres and gardening intensively on a 1/2 acre, including a small orchard. Peaches do well here. Blackberries and wild plums grow like weeds. And I remember climbing the cherry tree in my grandparents' back yard to get cherries when I was a kid.

I'm really looking forward to this whole adventure.
 
#53 ·
I just looked up square feet per acre; 43560 per acre. Funny I've never done that before. We have sixteen 4'x18' beds (1152 sq ft) and 1117 sq ft of tilled open area for a total of 2269 sq ft, not counting the 18x18 asparagus patch. That's 5/100's of an acre but it produces a bunch of stuff and even more with intensive planting.

In a SHTF situation, the garden efforts here would be a lot more concentrated. No "toys" or the oddball stuff I like to play with occasionally. Varieties would be whittled down with increased amounts of the chosen grown and more intense planting.

The main things we'd grow a lot more of because they are easily grown, produce a lot for the area taken up and seed is easy to collect:

Napa cabbage (lettuce substitute, key kimchi ingredient)
kale/collards (will grow all year here; leaves are tougher in summer but edible)
field peas (heat/drought tolerant, produces a ton)
turnips (can get two fall crops and one spring crop until it gets too hot)
daikon radish (huge and they store well; leaves edible too)
sweet potatoes
tomatoes
scallions (onion substitute, can grow all year)
garlic

Other things for whatever room is left. Mostly Fall/Winter stuff that will have spring things planted behind them:

kohlrabi (F/W)
broccoli (F/W)
green peas (F/W)
onions (F/W)
snap beans
okra

Things that we'd grow until the seed ran out. Also they're space hogs except the carrots.
cabbage - I've never seen cabbage flower here. But I have a lot of seed on hand.
squash, cukes (whatever the vine borers let me keep) - Could probably make enough to at least keep the seed coming.
carrots - I have trouble collecting viable seed

Things we most likely wouldn't grow:
shelling beans - dried beans don't do well for me in this heat while field peas do great, dry and store well.
Irish potatoes - storage challenge; sweets do better
eggplant - can use the space for something more productive
corn - needs too much water and takes up too much space

This thread is an interesting exercise!
 
#54 ·
We are fairly prepared for this. We do use a tractor now, but it would not be a problem to have one of our neighbors plow up the garden with a horse. We are not saving seeds, but I know how and have done it in the past. It's too much of a hassle doing it when you don't need to. But if I needed to, I could. We have water ( spring) and solar for our freezers, milk, eggs, and meat . It would be hard ( no more coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, bananas, oranges, lemons and so on) but we could probably survive for a while until the government troops showed up and confiscated our farm.
 
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