What Is a Survival Garden?

With the economic situation deteriorating in the long run and the world having depleted resources, it would be too difficult for many of us to survive by 2050. In addition to that, the damaging effects of air pollution are seen with damages to the ozone layer. Too much air traffic and factories have contributed to it.

In all of this, one can always play their role in providing benefit to the environment as well as ensure that they are able to survive on their own. A simple way to do this is by creating a survival garden.

What is a Survival Garden?

Like the term says, a survival garden is intended for the purpose of survival in case there are any disasters or situations that restrict your access to the local markets. In short, a survival garden is a vegetable garden designed to provide you with crop products such that the garden produce itself is sufficient for you and your family to meet the daily food intake requirements.

One might have the question that there are so many vegetables and plants that can be grown but with restricted space in the garden, how would it be possible. A survival garden requires only a certain type of vegetables which could provide you enough calories needed to survive every day. For example, vegetables like green chilies are not as important to be grown as much are onions.

Things to Consider Before Making Your Survival Garden

There are plenty of things to consider before making a survival garden. It is definitely an interesting project for all garden lovers.

Planning for Each Season

Certain crops and food products are eaten in ample quantities in the winter months whereas the others are eaten in the summer months. For example, Carrots, Red Cabbage, Kale, and Collard Greens are all winter vegetables while Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, Greens, and Cabbage are some of the summer vegetables.

When making a survival garden, make sure that you are growing crops according to the season. Summer crops might not be useful in winters while many of the winter crops do not have enough water content making them relatively less useful for the summer months. Keep in mind that the generic vegetables which are used all season are grown properly such as onion, Peas, Potatoes, and Push Beans.

Grow plants according to the season for an effective survival garden

Consider Calorie Requirements

Calorie requirement is an important factor and would vary from family to family. Some people have different eating patterns than others and it is important that your survival garden is providing you with enough food to keep all the members of your family full. Certain vegetables have high calories and healthy content for the human body.

Peas and Beans are mostly useful for the protein requirements of the body which is why they are a must-have for any survival garden. Potatoes are rich in carbohydrates and also a good source of Protein. They can be stored easily for longer times without any risk of expiring. Winter Squash is quite high in vitamin content and starch. Therefore, don’t miss out on any such items that contain important nutrients for the human body.

Type of Seeds

The seed quality and type matter a lot. We would always recommend that you get the A-grade seeds which have a longer life and crop yield. Plants grow faster giving a better output of the production. These high-quality seeds can also survive in adverse conditions. In short, there is minimal risk with these seeds.

On the other hand, choose open-pollinated seeds. This will help in saving your seeds. As a result, there will be sufficient stock for the coming year as well. These open-pollinated seeds can also be traded against other seeds.  Heirloom variety seeds can also be bought but they are often not easily available and could be expensive too.

Good quality seeds always produce an amazing output

Design

Designing a survival garden is as essential as buying out the right garden seeds. Make sure that you have systematically kept everything and assigned each plant to a certain space rather than having it all set up improperly. Moreover, sunlight is an important factor to consider when designing out your survival garden.

Some plants would require more sunlight compared to others which will perform better in shade. Therefore, you need to adjust accordingly. You might have the question What would be the ideal design? The most ideal design of a survival garden is the one where you have grown a little bit of everything so the basic nutritional requirements are fulfilled as well as you have a better choice.

Survival gardens aren’t enough. You need to have the safety gear organized. Read more here – Organizing Survival Gear

Developing a Root Cellar

To keep some stock for emergencies, you can build a root cellar as well. Although it is not necessary, it is useful for preserving the vegetable supplies for a long time. Since a root cellar has soil underground and moisture levels in the air, the food stays useful for long because it stays cool and humid side by side. In a root cellar, you can store vegetables for up to 6 months at a time. Hire someone for making the root cellar since it is not a completely easy task to do on your own.

Preserve the food in different types of airtight food containers. Some vegetables have to be stored in cold storage such as carrots, broccoli, and onions while others can bear a warm temperature as well.

Using Fertilizers and Pesticides

Fertilizers are important if you need the crops to grow quickly and better. These fertilizers improve the quality of soil over time and you may not need them after a year or two. Fertilizers should be as organic as possible so that you don’t have any kind of chemical infestation directly inside the soil.

On the other hand, despite intense care, many people might see pesticides and insects ruining their crop yield. At this time, it is important to use pesticides and insecticides to get rid of these and save the vegetables. Make sure that you don’t overuse the pesticides or insecticides and once you have the harvest ready, you wash it thoroughly before eating thereby eliminating any kind of chemicals.

Carrots from a garden

Start Small

If you have made up your mind for making a survival garden, we recommend you to start small. Don’t directly design a large space and set up your garden because without previous experience, you might face bigger problems right away. Instead of having the big troubles facade right away, we suggest you go for a test run on a smaller space.

Try growing different vegetables. Assess the problems you face and look for their answers over the internet. Only go for having a full-scale survival garden when you have successfully managed the smaller one. In this way, the chances of failure will be reduced.

Benefits of Having a Survival Garden

One of the main benefits is that it is a sustainable way to produce your fruits and vegetables. With minimal effort, you can contribute to the deteriorating economy by being independent of your production. Share the idea with your friends too.

Another keen benefit of having a survival garden is that you are assured of a natural and authentic vegetable. The ones that you find at the market are often over-exposed to chemical sprays and pesticides. Moreover, they can be of low grade as well. At your survival garden, there is a complete choice over every aspect which means getting premium-quality vegetables is no longer an issue.

Learn more about the City Survival Basics over here – City Survival Basics.

Challenges of Having a Survival Garden

One has to put plenty of effort in the beginning for the garden to workout. You would have to learn more about the basics of gardening and regarding important vegetables. The initial effort is basically the learning phase and the implementation phase. Once you have sowed the seeds, not much work is required other than watering daily and taking care of any pesticide attacks.

Limited space is also another challenge in a survival garden. If you don’t have a sufficient area for making a survival garden, growing vegetables becomes relatively difficult, although pots and containers are still an option to have production. The larger the patch you have, the better it is and vice versa.

Space is a big challenge in developing a survival garden

Protecting the survival garden is a big challenge. People want to harvest the ready vegetables but so do the animals. For the air animals like crows or eagles, you should be having a scarecrow. Learn about the different types of plant diseases and if you have some extra space, try keeping some hens at your survival gardens which will eat up all the insects. They are wonderful caretakers of your plants.

Conclusion

When it comes to survival gardening, failure is not the option you should have in mind. We agree that there are different types of challenges that you might face but it does not mean that you give up. Try to look for the different types of solutions to these challenges so you don’t have to face them more. Go for small-scale vegetation at first and then the large-scale one. The things to consider which we mentioned are also quite important so keep a note of all these. We hope you create an amazing survival garden and contribute to society in a positive manner.