Gardening for Survival - By Lynn Grail

Have  you ever thought about where you are going to get your food when
the emergency supplies you have stored away  are  depleted?  Will  you
forage  for  wild  edibles? How much of that will you be able to do if
you are hungry and weakened by having to  defend  yourself?  or  doing
everything  by  hand.  .  .  Foraging  for  foods  takes a lot of time
knowledge and energy.

Bartering is good.

Game hunting might be feasable, if you have a weapon and the skill.

Stealing food is another possibility but you could get dead.

Maybe you figure that the emergency will only last a  few  years,  you
will then be able to waltz into your favorite supermarket for food and
pick  up  what  ever you need. Ha ha ha . It will take a few years for
the farmers to get their farms back into production, that is  assuming
that  they  still have them, the fuel to run their equipment, the fuel
to get produce to market. If perchance the  markets  do  reopen;  what
will we purchase the goods with?

I  think  by  now  you have the direction that I am hinting at. If you
guessed gardening you are definately on the right track.

BUT, Do you really want to put  together  a  garden  that  looks  like
something  straight  out  of  a garden magazine? Do you really want to
advertise that you have a garden overflowing with food? You  might  as
well  put  a  sign  advertising  FREE  FOOD FOR THE TAKING, out by the
street.

I think I may have at least a partial  answer,  part  of  it  involves
container  planting,  and the other part involves planting lots of the
green or root crop vegetables on the southern side of buildings,  tree
stands,  or even trying to create a naturalistic type of free growing,
untouched by a survivor type of garden.

Naturally the bright eye catching types of vegetables, like  tomatoes,
pumpkins,  ect., will have to be either camoflaged while still getting
plenty of sunshine. Or  they  will  have  to  be  planted  in  movable
containers,  potatoes  can  be grown in garbage cans with holes in the
bottom. Take a look at Burpee's, or Parks, ect.  seed  catalogs;  they
have  a  few  container  growing idea's. (Look at Burpee's Patio Tower
Garden, maybe you could come up with other ideas too) You might  think
this  is  more  trouble than necessary; but I would rather put in some
extra time, than to have my children go hungry for even one day.

I also feel that storing an unknown quantity of commercial  fertilizer
and pesticides is not only monetarily unwise but who wants to put more
chemicals into contaminated soil, water and air?

Pick up some good books on organic gardening and check out some of the
natural  pesticides  and  fertilizers.  Look at some of the books that
talk about growing your garden in squares rather than rows, (this type
ought to burst some of your preconceived ideas about gardening)

Start a compost  pile,  throw  all  organic  materials;  food  scraps,
weeds,  hay, manure, garden surplus or rotten food in a pile, ((DO NOT
ADD meats, bones or petroleum based products)) add dirt, stir once  or
twice  a  week  and you'll get some organic fertilizer, to enrich your
garden soil.

Try using onion tea as a spray pesticide. Also use  some  liquid  soap
mixed  with  water  and spray that on your plants. Don't forget to use
companion planting. Plant marigolds, zinnias and nasturniums  in  your
garden  to  control  other  pests. I read somewhere recently, that you
could hang those  perfumed  hotel  bars  of  soap  (I  think  it  said
deodorant  bars) in your orchard trees, to discourage deer from eating
the trees. Hang the small bars with copper wire, still in the wrapper,
from a branch about 4 - 6 feet high.  There  are  many  other  natural
pesticides that only add to the good soil.

Mulching  around  your  plants  with  hay, compost, shredded paper, or
other organic mulches, should help to reduce the  amount  of  watering
that you have to do. Some people will tell you to use black plastic as
a mulch, but I would watch that there is no rotting since the air cant
get  to  the  soil.  There  is  a  new  plastic on the market that has
"microscopic holes "punched in it.

The best suggestion that I can give any would be gardener is to DO  IT
NOW.  There  are  plenty of people out there that will gladly give you
free advise on how to garden. Some of  it  will  come  while  you  are
digging  up  the soil. Some of it will come when you put in your first
plants. Some advise will be given while you are weeding  (check  those
weeds they might be edible). I got almost as much advise on gardening,
as  when  I  brought  home  my  first child. But I remembered the best
advise I was given then, "Listen to all of the advise you were  given;
but   only   use   what   you   think  is  good  advise".

                                                        Lynn  Grail