It's just my personal opinion, but it seems that people interested in survival might want to think about growing some of their own food, even on a city lot. You can have all the knives, gadgets, & firestarters in the world, but you still can't eat them. Even during the last Depression, I don't think there were many farmers standing in bread lines.

Start small, and just grow the kinds you'll eat.

Sue

Wikipedia tells me that "zucchini " is American for courgette. Just in case any other British people are having trouble following this thread.

Wikipedia also tells me that it is Britain's 10th favourite culinary vegetable. There are over 10 different vegetables? Who'd have thought.

Couldn't have said it better m'self, Sue, 100% agreed.

Troy

I was about to look at "zucchini". Thanks for the translation.
Maybe I should really try to like those damned "courgettes"...
Only way I cook them is "en gratin", with cream and cheese ... (more cream and cheese than courgettes, AAMOF <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)

norad45,

If you are interested in experimenting with gardening for subsistence or for any other reason, I would like to suggest a very good book entitled Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, ISBN numbers 0-87857-340-2 for hardcover and -0 for paperback. I have used this book as a reference for twenty five years. It has helped me build gardens for myself as well as for older and or disabled individuals that I have built gardens for to meet their needs of diminished mobility or sight.

My main thought process is that of an engineer and the fact that I am basically lazy. I worked on the family truck farm as a youth and I can tell you it can be a lot of long hot back breaking work. The methods and techniques detailed in this book eliminates much of this toil. It also allows you to get a large yield from very small plot of land while at the same time greatly reducing the need for weeding. This plot of land can be built on just a few square feet of paved patio or a balcony for apartment dwellers.

This year, after my wife had gone through a serious three year cancer fight, I put a garden at our present location. She had seen me do this at other homes and for other people, but she thought that I had gone off the deep end with this one. Instead of the normal vertical support frames made out of light weight fencing post or conduit, I put in eight foot cyclone fencing post every eight feet tied together with cyclone top rail, aircraft cable, and turnbuckles. Each row is two feet apart. The little garden is about sixteen feet by twenty feet including two rows of two foot wide by two foot high raised beds. I also installed a drip irrigation system controlled by a battery powered computerized time valve. These run about $25 to $30 dollars from Home Depot. One set of AA batteries last all season. A drip irrigation system can be very cheap to install if you do a little research and buy in bulk when on sale or at the end of the gardening season. The cyclone fencing can be expensive if bought new.

Out of this garden we have been continually harvesting peas, beans, broccoli, cabbage, onions, radishes, tomatoes, dill, chives, parsley, basil, peppers, leaf lettuce, cauliflower, carrots, green and yellow zucchini, cucumbers, watermelons, and soon three different types of muskmelons. I also had garlic but one of my German Shepherd Dogs ate them and then started on the carrots. I had to fence off the garden. The biggest harvest will be from three spaghetti squash plants. Currently I estimate that fruits from these three plants weight more than one hundred pounds. Their not done blossoming yet or are they ready for harvest. Spaghetti squash keeps a long time once harvested.

Most plants are grown vertically on string woven nets support from the top rail. The spaghetti squash can support itself due to its strong stem but the melons must have a net bag support because their stems are not strong enough. As plants are harvested, I immediately replace them with new ones. Each plant is crowded with other faster ripening plants that will be harvested before the other plant gets to big. Consequently, what weeding you do is actually harvesting.

All the plants made it to the top of the rail, seven foot height, and now are branching over to the next row. The spaghetti squash have reached over the six foot fence and is trying to take over the neighbors yard. Many melons are at eye level and my wife enjoys lightly carving faces and poems in some of them to surprise me. With the automatic watering system, we can still travel and not have to worry it.



These results will encourage you to try growing different vegetable and extending your growing season.

Growing Potatoes
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1619.html
http://ohioline.osu.edu/b672/b672_28.html
http://www.hdra.org.uk/nd_spuds.htm
<a href="uhttp://www.colostate.ed/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/VegFruit/potatoes.htm" target="_blank">uhttp://www.colostate.ed/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/VegFruit/potatoes.htm</a>
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/potato.html
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/rhodcv/hort410/potat/potat.htm
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/horticulture/5231.html
Major link page
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/rhodcv/hort410/potat/potat.htm

General Gardening
http://www.essortment.com/in/Gardening.Growing.How.To/

"There are over 10 different vegetables? Who'd have thought."

I thought there were only three: the green one, the brown one, and the red one. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Regards, Vince

The last depression followed immediately by WWII was the beginning of the end of the family farm in a America. Remeber Grapes of Wrath? It was quite representative.

THAT is interesting. I have no intention of gardening, but I'm going to look for the book.

This reminds me of something which has really Amazed and Stuck with me. This was during an Ethiopian Famine of 73 or 74. (They've had more than just the well publicized 80's ones, you know!).

In it, -It Struck me in an article I've read on it that starved enough People were too Weak, -to even gather up Loose Grain in a ditch, -which had finally drifted on over their way! It's just one of those "Realizational Epiphanies", or other Kernels of Wisdom, -that you come across in Life.

And Congrats on getting that new Computer!
[color:"black"] [/color] [email]Chris Kavanaugh[/email]