Growing A Survival Garden

Are you interested in growing a survival garden? When preparing for a disaster or food shortage emergency, it's a great way to stock up or add to your emergency food supply. Consider the benefits of growing your own vegetable garden...

• You will be more prepared for a food crisis or emergency!
• You will save money, time and fuel not driving to the store.
• It's much cheaper than buying food.
• Organically grown vegetables are much healthier.
• You will become more self-sufficient and less dependent on your local grocery store.
• Plus... the physical activity is good for you, and you just might like growing your own food garden.

You will find there's a learning curve in growing a garden, so don't expect perfection in one year. Take your time with it and get a good understanding of what it takes to grow your own food, and before you know it, you WILL have a great survival garden.

Small Garden Space

• If you don't have the option of a large space, or just don't want to overwhelm yourself by planting a huge garden, get started by using the area or containers that you do have.

• Some ideas are: make a box (box's) out of lumber, cinder blocks, or other materials, to frame in your growing area. If your soil is already rich and fertile, fill your box or containers with good soil.

  Use your imagination here, you can even use pots or buckets in a small area, such as a patio, to grow a fairly good selection of healthy vegetables or herbs.

• If you do not have good soil, obtain a rich humus soil in bulk from a local nursery source, or buy top soil by the bag, along with some peat moss and some composted manure. (Be cautious if you use a local soil and manure source, sometimes the soil isn't that good and the compost/manure may contain weed seeds).
  
• Choose some vegetables and herbs that are easy to grow, store well, and that you like to eat. You can purchase many varieties of plants and seeds from a local store or nursery.
  Tip: All Seeds are NOT alike... learn why you should be using Non-Hybrid Survival Seeds. Check out our page here: Using Non Hybrid Seeds To Plant Your Survival Garden.

• With a small space garden, you won't have a whole lot of survival food to store at the end of the year, but you will get a good understanding of what it takes to store your own food. Plus, every little bit helps supply you with more nutritious and organic food grown from your own survival garden.

• You may also want to pick up this book, My Organic Food Garden from a professional gardener. His book will give you details of how you can grow organic vegetables in your own garden.
  (This book is in PDF format and can be downloaded instantly)

Larger Garden Space

• Soil and Seed necessities will be the same as above, but it will be more cost effective if you can purchase any soil additives (manure, top soil, etc.) in larger bags, or from a bulk provider such as a local nursery or farm.

• For those of you who have a larger garden area, there's quite a bit more variety that you can plant. A larger vegetable garden will increase the work and cost involved, but can greatly reduce the need for outside resources for your food source.

• Same advise as above: Choose vegetables that are easy to grow, store well, and that you like to eat. Difference here is that you will be able to choose many more varieties to plant and may therefore need several different methods of preserving and storing your harvest.

Storing Food - From Your Survival Garden

• A cool dark room, food pantry, or a root cellar are all good places to store your canned and dried goods.

• The best option for storing most of your food is a root cellar. A root cellar can be built directly into the ground or it could be a cool damp area set aside in a basement. Either way a root cellar is an excellent way to store food without the use of electricity or other outside resources.

• Root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, turnips, beets, and onions can be stored for a number of months in a root cellar. Squash does quite well in a root cellar as well as apples, oranges and grapes.

Preserving Food - From Your Survival Garden

• Freezing: Freezing foods is NOT the best option for emergency preparedness. Freezing works quite well with many types of foods, but it does require an extra freezer and electricity to store the food.

  Unlike canning or drying (dehydrating), if the power goes out your frozen food storage will not last more than a few days.

• Canning: If you are knowledgeable and have the equipment for canning, it is a great time-tested way to preserve food from season to season.

• A Food Dehydrator: is an excellent way to preserve your garden produce without leaching out any of the nutrients. Dehydrators can preserve most vegetables, fruits and herbs.

  Purchasing a quality food dehydrator is important and will ensure the proper moisture content is left in the food before sealing and storing.

  Extra Tips:
  Dehydrating food is a great way to save space, and because of the low heat used to dry foods, the vitamins and nutrients are not destroyed leaving them very nutritious.

  If you have limited garden produce of your own, you can purchase good quality, fresh foods from your local market while they are in season, and dry them to store.

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