馃攳
9 Survival Gardening Crops to Grow in a Post Apocalyptic World - YouTube
Channel: Epic Gardening
[0]
In this video we are going to pretend
like the apocalypse has hit us and based
[5]
on some of the news I think
we've all been hearing lately,
[7]
sometimes it can seem like that.
[8]
But let's put the scaremongering aside
and discuss nine crops to grow in a
[12]
survivalist setting.
[16]
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening
where it is my goal to help you grow a
[20]
greener thumb.
[21]
Let's talk about this with a survival
setting and this is something I have
[26]
pretty good experience in. Last year,
[28]
June 2019 to the end of June 2019,
[31]
I did something called the
apocalypse grow challenge.
[34]
I covered it really heavily on Instagram.
[35]
I have footage that is still sitting on
my archives waiting to edit for you guys
[40]
here on YouTube, but
the rules were simple.
[42]
I had to live off of only
what I could grow, fish,
[45]
forage or barter for at fair market value,
[48]
and I did that for 30 days.
[50]
So I've done that in a really urban
setting and that made me really think,
[56]
okay,
[56]
what do I have to grow in order to
quite literally survive for a month?
[61]
Now, the first thing you have to
think about is, number one, calories.
[65]
So we're going to be talking about crops
that are the easiest to grow for their
[69]
caloric density and nutritional profile.
[71]
And nutritional density is another thing.
[74]
Some of our calorie heavy crops aren't
necessarily the most nutrient rich.
[78]
They're serving that
caloric energy perspective,
[80]
but they're not serving the
perspective of nutritional density.
[83]
So our two categories that we're going
to discuss are going to be our calories
[87]
and our nutrients. And
before we go any further,
[89]
stay tuned at the end for a bonus category
of crops to grow to make this whole
[94]
survival experience a lot more fun.
Let's go ahead and jump into it.
[97]
Crop number one is the humble bean.
[100]
It makes sense to look back at more
ancient cultures to figure out what they
[104]
grew in order to subsistence
farm or subsistence garden,
[108]
because that's just
how life was back then.
[110]
And beans were a staple crop
across many different cultures.
[115]
Now, the reason why they're
so good is number one,
[117]
they're pretty calorically dense
compared to other things you can grow,
[121]
but also a good amount of protein, all
sorts of vitamins and minerals in them.
[124]
But on top of that, you can grow them
in many different ways. First of all,
[128]
you have your categories of
bush beans and pole beans,
[131]
and so based on your
unique growing conditions,
[134]
you can choose which one
you want. This of course,
[137]
is a vertically stacked
system growing bush beans.
[140]
You wouldn't want to grow pole beans
in a system like this because of course
[143]
then you'd need to trellis
all these different ones up,
[145]
which doesn't make a whole lot
of sense. But then if you wanted,
[148]
you could go ahead and throw some pole
beans on a trellis arch like this.
[152]
And you have many, many ways to grow
beans. So as far as growing them,
[156]
direct sowing is almost always
going to be your best bet.
[159]
Although I will say they take okay to
transplanting. I've done that many times.
[162]
In fact, I transplanted this entire thing.
[164]
And besides the top suffering
from a little bit of spider mites,
[167]
the rest of these are doing really nicely
and I expect to go to harvest out of
[170]
those. Beans can be preserved. Beans
can be dried and stored for many, many,
[175]
many months and years.
[177]
And then beans can be worked into more
or less almost any type of cuisine and
[181]
any type of recipe from soups to Mexican
food to all sorts of different things.
[187]
And so beans are extremely high
up on the apocalypse garden list.
[191]
Crop number two is going to be corn.
It's gotten a little cold, little windy,
[195]
little rainy here. So I'm hanging
out under the awning. But corn,
[199]
if you've listened to number one
and number two, beans and corn,
[201]
you probably know number three, so
drop it down below if you know it.
[205]
But let's talk about this. Most of us
are growing sweet corn in our gardens.
[208]
I did a lot of that last year.
[210]
Super rewarding to come out to the garden
and grab a stalk and grab an ear off
[214]
the stalk and eat it fresh off
of the stalk. It's so delicious,
[216]
but in a survival scenario, you
wouldn't really want to do that.
[219]
You may want to opt to
grow a Dent corn variety,
[222]
let it dry on the stalk to
somewhere below 15% moisture,
[226]
and then what you can do is use it
as a dried corn meal, corn flour,
[231]
that type of thing. That's going
to be a lot more versatile.
[234]
It's going to be a lot easier to store
and preserve and you can just use it in
[237]
so many more different recipes.
[239]
So corn also plays nicely
with our first one.
[243]
So if you use the corn stalk as a
makeshift organic trellis, then the beans,
[248]
if you choose a pole variety,
can grow straight up it.
[250]
And that leads us right
into our third pick.
[253]
Apocalypse crop number three completes
the trilogy and that of course would be
[258]
squash. So yes, for those of
you who guessed it, props,
[261]
it is the three sisters combination
for our first three recommendations.
[265]
So you have squash,
specifically winter squash.
[267]
What that does is if you grow it on
the ground, it's a sprawling crop.
[272]
And so it's going to be a faux
ground cover, a green ground cover.
[276]
And what that's great for, if you
combine it with your beans and your corn,
[280]
both of those are shallow-rooted crops
that really do prefer nice moist soil
[285]
that's protected from crazy
fluctuations in moisture.
[289]
And so what you'll do there is then
you'll throw squash out on the ground and
[292]
you can have your beans climbing up the
corn if you so choose to do a pole bean
[296]
and the corn of course providing
that support structure.
[299]
So it's a really good triple threat.
[301]
And then of course squash on
its own is nutritionally great.
[305]
Calorically pretty good and
also a fantastic storing crop.
[309]
Crop number four on our apocalypse
list, I've chosen cabbage.
[312]
Cabbage is a pretty easy to grow crop
and it's special because it retains most
[317]
of its nutrients even when it's
cooked. And if you want to preserve it,
[321]
then you can of course do
that by fermenting it and
creating sauerkraut or other
[325]
cabbage-based ferments. So it's great raw,
[327]
it's great cooked and it's relatively
easy to grow and many varieties are pretty
[331]
cold-tolerant. So you can grow it in
most regions throughout most of the year,
[336]
barring the hottest and absolute coldest
parts of the year. So it's a really,
[340]
really good crop. No,
[342]
it's not the most calorically dense but
pretty nutritionally dense and combined
[345]
with the fermentation angle, you can
actually do quite a bit with this crop.
[349]
This next crop is absolutely number one
in my heart as a gardener and that of
[353]
course is the humble but
really not so humble potato.
[356]
These are a Norland red variety and
potatoes, right out of the gate,
[361]
is a staple crop in a
survival scenario. In fact,
[364]
potatoes and specifically this Norland
red potato right here is the one that
[370]
provided most of my calories,
my base level of calories,
[374]
for my apocalypse grow
survival challenge I did,
[376]
as I mentioned earlier in the
video, June 2019 that entire month.
[380]
Now these ones right here, you may be
wondering how do you still have some left?
[383]
Well,
[384]
these ones grew out of tiny ones that I
had forgotten and just didn't dig up in
[389]
my raised beds and the other
ways that I grew them. In fact,
[391]
these ones here came out
of my cold compost pile.
[394]
Just the pile that I throw a bunch
of different things in. Of course,
[397]
I guess some of them slipped through the
cracks and now I have a healthy amount,
[401]
maybe like two or three pounds.
They're not the most sizeable,
[404]
but they're completely free. And that
speaks to how easy potatoes are to grow.
[409]
So easy. I've grown them in five different
ways - I've grown them in grow bags,
[413]
I've grown them in five gallon buckets,
[415]
I've grown them in raised beds with
hilling, raised beds without hilling,
[418]
in ground, both with and without hilling.
[421]
And you know which one performed the
best, surprisingly in the ground,
[425]
buried deep. And I never hilled
them and I never touched them.
[428]
I let the natural weather, the rain
throughout the season water them.
[432]
And I got a massive haul of maybe 25 to
30 pounds just out of one bed of these
[438]
Norlands on a friend's property.
So from a survival standpoint,
[442]
potatoes are one of the few foods that
you can eat just potatoes and you won't
[446]
be deficient. You'll, you'll be okay.
You're not going to be thriving,
[449]
but you'll be okay. Calorically
pretty good. Good amount of magnesium,
[453]
good amount of vitamin C.
[454]
They are a great crop to grow and they
really are a set it and forget it crop
[459]
that all you have to do is just not
harvest 100% of them every year and you're
[463]
going to have them coming back
year after year after year.
[466]
They're just an amazing
crop. So versatile. You can
turn them into hash browns,
[470]
you can fry them, you can store
them in cool, somewhat humid place.
[474]
They're going to last
for a long, long time.
[476]
You can even turn them into
dehydrated potato flakes, whatever.
[479]
The sky's the limit with potatoes.
[481]
Clearly they're the favorite of mine and
these are probably gonna make it into a
[484]
meal tonight. Our next apocalypse
pick is the humble kale. Now,
[488]
is it the most calorically
dense crop? Certainly it's not,
[492]
but it is extremely nutritionally dense
and the reason I picked it over many
[495]
other greens is because
of its cold tolerance.
[498]
You can grow this in almost any climate
throughout the winter provided you
[502]
provide some cold protection like
a cold frame or a frost blanket,
[506]
whatever the case may be. And it
actually surprisingly stores pretty well.
[511]
If you were to cut it up and you
were to dehydrate it as kale chips,
[515]
throw a desiccant like silica pack in
the container you're storing them in.
[519]
This can be a great nutrient dense
little crunchy snack in the apocalypse.
[524]
So kale, of course you
have this curly style.
[526]
There's the dinosaur or Lacinato
style, many different varieties,
[529]
some more cold tolerant than others,
some more, like I would prefer,
[533]
heat tolerant than others. And
so definitely pick your variety,
[536]
but kale does make it into
the top nine apocalypse list.
[540]
Next up we have sweet potatoes,
[542]
which despite the name aren't really
related to potatoes and grow slightly
[546]
differently. They take a lot longer
to mature than the average potato.
[551]
So if you're looking for
expediency of calories,
[553]
you probably wouldn't choose this. But
there are some interesting benefits,
[557]
namely that the greens are edible.
[559]
Whereas with potatoes they certainly
are not edible and in fact potatoes even
[563]
exposed on the surface you shouldn't
eat. We call those green potatoes.
[567]
They have a lot of solanine content
in them. You don't want to eat that,
[570]
but with sweet potatoes, not
only can you eat the greens,
[573]
but you can just let this keep going and
going and going and you'll be pulling
[577]
up these gnarly tubers.
[578]
These are not even close to the max
size you can achieve. Of course,
[581]
there's definitely a sweet
spot, but a great storing crop,
[586]
good sugar content in here,
[588]
good overall calories
and nutrient density.
[591]
It's really hard to beat provided you
have the climate and the space to grow
[595]
them. Our final one before the bonus
is the lentil. Lentil is a legume.
[600]
It's a fantastic crop to grow.
[601]
It's about 110 days for a dried lentil,
[605]
so it'll get it all the way
there in just over about,
[609]
well I guess just under four
months or so. So fantastic.
[612]
You can grow in at scale. You want to
plant them maybe five inches or so apart.
[616]
You can put a low trellis on if
you want to, you don't have to.
[618]
You just want to make sure there's
nice air circulation. And again,
[623]
these are in a jar and these are
stored. What does that tell you?
[625]
It's a great dried storage,
food, calories, protein,
[630]
bunch of good stuff going on with lentils.
[632]
So make it a part of your
apocalypse survival garden.
[635]
But those of you who have stayed,
[636]
you have your bonus apocalypse tip and
that would be growing a ton of herbs.
[641]
So I've got, what do I have? Rosemary,
lavender, basil, dill, thyme, oregano,
[645]
sage - all that stuff is popping
off in this tiny little herb garden.
[649]
And trust me when I say that you will
eventually get sick of eating potatoes,
[655]
lentils, beans, squash, all
of this stuff, unseasoned.
[659]
And speaking from someone who
literally did this for 30 days,
[662]
I went through a love-hate bordering on
true hate of potatoes for a while and
[668]
it's been nine months since that challenge
and I'm only slowly starting to like
[671]
them again.
[672]
So I got sick of them and having a bunch
of herbs that I can dry and dehydrate
[676]
and mix into spice blends is
going to go a long, long way.
[681]
What did you think of my apocalypse list?
[682]
This is by no means an exhaustive list,
[684]
so if you have a suggestion that
you think I really missed out on,
[687]
drop it down below so everyone else,
[689]
including myself can learn from your
apocalypse garden recommendations.
[694]
And what I'd like to say is, first of
all, thank you so much for watching.
[696]
If you enjoyed the video,
cultivate that like button.
[699]
And the last thing is if you like the
raised beds I have in my front yard,
[703]
a link is going to be in the description.
[705]
I now am the distributor in America
for these Birdies raised beds,
[707]
which I really like. It's
starting to rain really hard.
[710]
So I'm going to wrap this up. If you
like them link in the description,
[713]
link in the comment, check
them out. And until next time,
[715]
good luck in the garden. Keep surviving
and I'll see you on the next video.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage