I'm just curious.

Do you grow any kind of food? The common, easy kind like potatoes, carrots, lettuce, peas, beans? Berries? Tree fruits?

If you grow it, do you mostly eat it fresh, or can, dry or freeze it?

It seems that certain kinds of disasters can come during garden production time as well as the dead of winter. And a productive garden would seem to be a way to get food for right now so you could save your canned and dry stuff until later.

You could probably use fresh food as a viable bartering tool, too.

Sue, who is practicing gardening, getting better

We moved into a new(ly rebuilt) house last year, and are still getting our garden into shape--last year we only grew sunflowers, tomatoes, basil, peppers, and strawberries.

All of the produce around here seems to get eaten before it can make it to the drying rack, but I'm going to try canning some things this year.

We've joined the local food co-op recently, and now most of our food is coming from local area organic farms: even nicer, the price is cheaper than buying organic at the stores.

Oh, forgot to mention: we're adding heirloom carrots and wheat to the mix this spring <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I currently have peas, turnips, kohlrabi, strawberries, and cabbage in my garden (Houston gardens can go all year). Soon I'll plant yellow squash, beans, peppers, and zuchinni. The peas have been producing since October!

For fruits/nuts I have two lime trees, a loquat tree, and two live oaks (acorns).

I also grow purslane, prickly pear, day lilies, cana lilies and assorted other "edible landscape" plants.

I used to do tomatoes but the birds would always eat them.

-Blast

From a low maintenance longterm survival strategy - I would really recommend everyone ordering about 50 lbs. of Jerusalem Artichokes & planting a large area with them. If you have fairly good soil & water them they grow without any work at all. The only downside is they are an aggressive plant so they will dominate which is also their strength because you don't need to weed or spray them. (at least here)

The other fast growing low maintenance veggie I would recommend is zucchini. No need to spray or weed because they just take over & produce a heavy crop that can be canned or frozen fairly easily. I absolutely love to slice them about 1/4 inch thick - spray with cooking spray & grill them until they are golden brown on both sides. Healthy & Delicious - at least for me. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I also have two peach trees, but will warn you they are a lot of work. A dead ripe peach is the best food on the planet except for maybe a dead ripe tomato. I guess it depends on which one I'm eating. Also have two more peach trees that are only couple years old that I'm not letting produce yet so they will grow faster. If you are going to try growing peaches I highly recommend you get a good sprayer (metal end - not the plastic ones) and order some Surround Spray. The first 3 years I tried all kinds of different sprays including SEVEN, etc. and my peach crop was 95% or so wormy. I tried Surround & was stunned. Still have a 10% to 20% that get infected, but I pick most of those off. Last year I was eating 12- 15 peaches a day for about 3 weeks. And I froze tons of them. Canned peaches have virtually no flavor - frozen is better, but still nothing compared to when they are dead ripe. I have problems with the Surround clogging the sprayer, but have found if I mix SEVEN with it then it breaks it down. I read recently that you want to put a piece of panty hose over the intake hose in the sprayer.

I also have a raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and asparagus which are all nice crops to have because they don't need to be replanted everyyear.

Also grow some potatos so I can have some new potato soup every spring.

Four pear trees, but the only one I get fruit from is the Kiefer canning pear because the raccoons keep beating me to the fruit on the other trees. <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> But that's ok because I'm planning on eating every coon within 10 miles anyways if we ever have to start fending for ourselves. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> The three that they clean out early are the softer bartlett types. The Kiefer is a tough skinned canning pear, but I love it because it is very crunchy & sweet.

I have a yellow delicious apple tree, but between the viruses & bugs I just don't end up with much because I'm not faithful enough on it like I am on spraying the peaches.

Also grow 18-20 mostly Better Boy tomato's every summer & love making homemade spaghetti sauce. The dry powder sauce mix in the canning section at Wal-Mart is awesome. Tomato's will get eaten alive if you don't spray with SEVEN here is SW MO.

And one more thing. If - like me - you are seriously worried about a major SHTF scenario happening in our lifetimes then don't make the mistake that you will start gardening after TEOTWAWKI. Growing your own food can be very frustrating. You can work really hard & still get very little crop at harvest time. I'm not saying don't try to grow your own food as it can be very rewarding & if the season is a good one it can be very productive. But counting on it to feed your family 365 days a years would be foolish, IMO.

I also would recommend buying seed now & storing some of it in your freezer as it is supposed to keep a lot longer there. If you find a good plant that is productive in your area start saving the seed now.

My would-be "garden" is about15x12 feet. How can I make it into a nice food producing land with almost no work ?

I have no preferences . Anything that works is OK. Tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce .. anything.

Any links will be appreciated.

where you live will be the main factor in what you can grow...

I'm no expert, but with that small of an area you are going to want to target highly productive stuff like potatos, tomatos, etc.

my experience with the various berries, asparagus, etc. is they don't give you that much bang for your buck - square foot wise and canteloupe & watermelon need a large area.

Knowing what I know now if I was restricted to that small of a patch I would have a row of onions on the southern most end of the garden then a row of potatos then bush green beans then tomatos staked in those round cages then northern most would be the Jerusalem Artichokes.

Get the area tilled up & then find out what nutrients it's short on. Fertilize heavily. And mulch with straw, grass & leaves as heavily in between the rows as possible.

Just my .02 - factor in the fact that I'm no expert & look for local advice first.

Texas

Chisel,

I highly recommend looking into Square Foot Gardening. Check his book out of a library and read it. It's loaded with great info on what to plant where and when so as to maximize crops in small areas. I began to use his method last fall and find it easy and productive. Note: read the book before actually starting any of this. His website is great but he leaves out a few very important tips found only in the book. I guess even he needs to make money. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

Hot & dry. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />