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well for me my diet has to be primarily protein, so i need high protein fiber, low fat low carb (stomach surgery)
so id probably stick to fruit trees and bushes, carrots, tomatoes and dark leafy greens, (beans would be great but i dont tolerate them)
my primary crop given this need would be meat and dairy animals, rabbit, goat and quail and chicken/duck. so id be more apt to grow crops to feed the animals...
well for me my diet has to be primarily protein, so i need high protein fiber, low fat low carb (stomach surgery)
so id probably stick to fruit trees and bushes, carrots, tomatoes and dark leafy greens, (beans would be great but i dont tolerate them)
my primary crop given this need would be meat and dairy animals, rabbit, goat and quail and chicken/duck. so id be more apt to grow crops to feed the animals...
Are you really a foxyWench? My lord Gisburne may be able to get you a place in the castle. ;D
I would love to have asparagus... I just need to figure out how to keep them alive over winter. I'm hoping that a good insulated cold frame will keep them from freezing solid without any supplementary heat. Or they may end up in the greenhouse. Wonder if they'd work in some sort of large portable planter, something I could haul into the greenhouse on skids with the ATV in the winter if the cold frame doesn't work... just think the greenhouse might get too hot in the summer with our 24 hours of daylight. Need to do more research about whether asparagus is affected by photo-periods. We can't grow eggplant up here without a black out box since they need a certain amount of night-time to set fruit and we don't have night in the summer... but eggplant is yucky anyway, so I'm not put out LOL.
Some of the shelling beans do require a much longer season than we have up here, so unless they are extremely frost hardy or able to be started indoors really early and then transplanted, they're off the list. We'll just have to stick with the early varieties or load up on peas. Unlike many southern gardens where peas only grow well in early spring, it's cool enough here for peas to go all season. I tolerate peas better than some of the other hard beans anyway, and you can dry peas the same way (mmmm split pea soup). The same with spinach, broccoli and cauliflower... we can harvest them all summer without risk of bolting. And all the root crops grow wonderfully as long as they are early varieties. So we get lots of potatoes even if it's a pain to get tomatoes! Nature just seems to balance these things out for us once we figure out what grows well in our environment. No pineapples or citrus for us, but we get *edible* cabbages the size of basketballs and turnips the size of footballs and beets the size of softballs ROFL
So, it looks like your survival crops need to meet a few requirements (looking at the requirements is often better than looking at a solution!):
1. Adapted & appropriate to your climate and soil conditions
2. Easy to cultivate and maintain, high germination/growth rate
3. Resistant to pests and diseases common in your area
4. Proper nutrient balance, both macro & micro, with enough variety to meet all dietary needs
5. Contain foods that you will actually eat, and that you don't have any allergies or intolerances to
6. Self-perpetuating with high success (open pollinating or perennial plants, broody hens, etc)
7. Easy and low cost to acquire
8. Stores well (however you can store it in your conditions), or has a long enough grow/harvest period that you can eat year-round.
And the clincher if you're torn between two things: which has more than one use. Some bamboo can be eaten young, or harvested for building/craft material when older. Poultry for meat and eggs (and fertilizer, and weeding and pest control). Beets for greens, roots, sugar (with the right variety), and animal fodder. Etc etc.
I would love to have asparagus... I just need to figure out how to keep them alive over winter. I'm hoping that ...Some bamboo can be eaten young, or harvested for building/craft material when older. Poultry for meat and eggs (and fertilizer, and weeding and pest control). Beets for greens, roots, sugar (with the right variety), and animal fodder. Etc etc.
Maybe you can just eat animals that will survive in your area. I read someplace that if you eat raw animal products you can get vitamin C etc w/o needing to eat vegetables... I read your (I think) other post about how the ground is frozen in Alaska. What can you guys grow up there? oO
What did the Eskimoes (native people, sorry to not use the correct name, I know they went through a difficult time) eat? I doubt they grew crops... I guess I could Google it...
Maybe you can just eat animals that will survive in your area. I read someplace that if you eat raw animal products you can get vitamin C etc w/o needing to eat vegetables... I read your (I think) other post about how the ground is frozen in Alaska. What can you guys grow up there? oO
What did the Eskimoes (native people, sorry to not use the correct name, I know they went through a difficult time) eat? I doubt they grew crops... I guess I could Google it...
You can get some Vit C from organs, but it's better from plants/fruits. Typical alaskan native diets were really heavy on fish, meat and fat with some dried berries and rose hips for the major vitamins. We have a multitude of wild berries and roses throughout the state, so foraging for those was the way to go rather than actually farming stuff. Everyone loaded up on all the fresh wild greens and roots during the spring/summer/fall, and then made it through winter (the other half of the year ) on meat and berries.
However, almost all the brassica/cole crops grow exceptionally well up here, as do lettuces and other "spring" veggies since it doesn't get very warm in the summers. Bolting, wilting and legginess is not usually a problem as long as you have an early maturing variety. The root crops like potatoes, turnips, beets, kohlrabi, carrots and radishes also do well up here if you can warm up the soil a little early and protect them from frost damage (there is a risk for killing frosts year-round in some areas).
The hard things to grow up here are plants that like warm soil like corn, tomatoes, cukes, peppers, melons and squash... you normally have to grow those in a greenhouse or through clear plastic sheet "mulch". And most plants you have to make sure that they mature in 100 days or less... so slow growers like pumpkins and some beans can be a real challange. And then there's the photo-period thing... some plants don't do well with near-constant daylight for the entire growing season, and you have to artifically light (as well as heat) anything you grow in a greenhouse around winter because we only have a couple hours of daylight.
So, yeah, where I'm at corn, beans & squash would not be a good survival garden at all. Even eggs would be a little iffy since you have to rely on lights to keep them laying in the winter... most chickens up here might lay one or two eggs a month in the winter without supplemental light, if you're lucky. But potatoes, yeah, potatoes work really well
I had a tomato plant here alive until November 2, without any cover. Multiple frosts in that time...it was rather impressive. By the end it was only the lower half still alive but still, it was alive and had tomatoes growing on it...it was a yellow pear tomato but the seed was not entirely pure either.
But potatoes, lettuce, carrots, onions, peas, and such, are the best crops in cold climates. Even nut trees and fruit trees can be unreliable. A good crop one year, nothing the next. The apple trees in VT took a beating this spring; warm temperatures for a while made many of them come to life earlier than they should have, bad frosts then damaged the buds. Bad apple crops for many, though the trees that did not get too much damage were loaded with apples this year from a good summer.
Nut trees present issues mostly related to wildlife and diseases; squirrels and such get many of the nuts if you're not quick and don't control the animals, and some of the best nut trees are facing disease issues. Chestnuts and butternuts (the butternut is probably the hardiest nut tree besides some pine nuts and the best nut tree for northern areas), are dying off (or already have, as very few are now present in the wild and growing them for nuts presents major difficulties now, I got no butternuts this year but a handful from the few wild trees I know of here, they're not very healthy trees anymore) from diseases, and walnuts and some others are getting attacked now, all by imported diseases.
Wow, thanks, Missing and Gungnir! I am continually amazed at the ENCYCLOPEDIC knowledge you two demonstrate in this forum and wish to commend you on your dedication to educating us in understandable terms.
If I win the lottery, I plan to hire you both as live-in consultants. Wait, that means I'D have to move to Alaska, since I think you're through with Seattle!
Anyway, your input is much appreciated.
Agreed! This thread is really making me feel dumb!
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) on meat and berries.
Potatoes
