Growing a survival garden has become a mainstream idea in the prepping community. Many people have started their own vegetable gardens, learning how to grow plants and preserve what they grow. This helps ensure that they’ll have at least some food to eat, whenever they are faced with a long-term survival situation.
But in reality, most of these people aren’t really ready for a major disaster, at least not in their gardens. The truth is, their gardens just aren’t big enough. So, while they will provide some food to eat, it won’t be enough.
Vertical gardening
Several years ago, the idea of vertical gardening hit the prepping community like a thunderstorm. Someone even wrote a book about how you could grow everything you need in a four foot square garden, if you used vertical gardening. I’m not really sure how much that person eats, but I’m sure it can’t be much, if they think that you can grow a year’s worth of food in that little space.
There are people who live totally off of what they raise in their gardens. I’ve run across articles talking about these people through the years. But in each and every one of those cases, they had turned their entire backyard into a garden, not just a small patch.
That’s real survival gardening, of the type we’re all going to have to do if there is ever a TEOTWAWKI event serious enough that we will have to produce our own food for the long-term. Therefore, the question is, are we ready for gardening on that sort of scale?
While I doubt you want to turn your entire yard into a garden right now and grow all your food, if that’s part of your survival plan, than you need to be prepared to do so. Regardless of when it is done, it will take time, energy and the right supplies to make it happen.
What’s needed for survival gardening
So, what will it take and what do we need to have ready?
- Your yard’s soil probably isn’t good enough for growing much more than grass. Fortify it with fertilizers and mulch, preparing it for growing something more important.
- Stockpile seed, fertilizers and chemicals, so that you’ll have enough to expand your garden.
- Make sure you have the physical tools necessary to dig up your grass and make planting beds.
- Develop a plan, broken down into stages, so that you’ll know how you are going to expand your garden when the time comes.
- Figure out where you’re going to get enough water from to water your garden. You might need to put in a well.
- Plant fruit trees now, so that they have time to grow.
- Start a mulch pile for fertilizer, recycling the nutrients from green matter back into the soil.
- If you don’t have a high enough worm count in your soil, import some. You can buy bulk worms online. It might also be worthwhile to start a worm far, so that you have enough worms for the expansion. Besides, they make good feed for fish.
- Keep in mind that your neighbors are going to notice your garden. Plan on being able to help them get started, at least with seed, so that they don’t come steal from your garden.
You May Also Like:
