Landscaping and Horticulture for Survival Non-fiction Writing Contest Submission by Bruce B
No matter what size of your property or if you don’t have land, you can increase your likelihood of survival by planting right and taking a holistic approach. Small scale farming is well covered in survivalist literature, however what I hope to do here is highlight some important approach and an approach that I have not seen covered before.
Using native/ wild and fruiting, seed bearing and edible plants is a highly effective way to ensure a reliable food source. Natives/ wild plants need less maintenance and water than non-native plants and can not only provide you with food but attract game to your homestead. Even plants used for windbreaks, concealment or barriers can double as a food source or attractant for game.
When using non native plants make sure the crop is abundant and calorie rich or contain essential nutrients to mitigate the extra effort and water. It is also worth considering stockpiling fertilizer to maintain the nutrients in the soil of the land your using.
Wild vs Native
Wild and native are not always the same, some wild plants are non-natives that manage to do just fine or even “too good” in a new environment. There are many non-native plant species in the United States, a considerable number of these are invasive and displace our native plants lowering diversity with a negative effect on wildlife.
I highly encourage everyone to plant as much native plants species as possible, and plant a non-native only when necessary. The most obvious reason to use native/ wild plants is to provide yourself with a low maintenance source of food that propagates on its own, as these plants have adapted to your local climate without human intervention.
You may want to note the locations of areas infested with edible non native wild plants like garlic mustard, wild carrot and Japanese knotweed that occur on or near your property but avoid using them on your property. Native/wild plants can be transported that are found growing wild and are also available from nurseries and seed stores.
Trees take very long to mature, but of you have oaks on your property you will have a source of food. Some populations of Native Americans sustained themselves largely on acorn mush and cakes. You will need a lot of water to rinse the acorns, or fuel and water to boil the tannins out of the acorns. Considering the amount of oaks in the United States and Canada there is a ready supply of survival food if properly processes. Other trees such as beech and hickory are also very common and have edible nuts.
Going into detail about what edible wild/ native plants are in your area is too much to cover in this post. It is best to consult a local guide, or better yet local knowledge. Take advantage of guided walks offered by nature centers and arboretums this sis the best way to learn to identify plants. The point I want to lave you with is to be proactive, the best way to know that you have edible plants in your property or nearby is because you planted them there.
Some edible pant guides and resources:
Edible Landscaping Online
Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide
Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1)
Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants
Planting edible plants
Hopefully you can buy a homestead already full of edible plants. If not, it is important to consider the size of your property and time. If you want to have an almost immediate source of food you will be restricted to herbaceous plants and vines such as wild asparagus, wild onions, concord grape and blackberry. If you have a large property and want to figure in a long-term strategy, then you can plant fruit and nut bearing trees like apples and pecans.
Sources
Native plants and trees
Gurney Seed and Nursery Co
Edible Landscaping Online
Apples
Apple trees produce a profusion of fruit. You could probably get enough calories from one large tree however if you want a palatable apple you will have to propagate the tree from grafting, not from seed. Apples grown from seed are unpredictable and will most likely be too sour to eat. All apples that we eat are grown from grafts taken from a known variety of edible apple and in effect genetic clones.
However non palatable apples are perfectly fine to make hard cinder. Hard cider was the main if not only available spirit on the American frontier. Producing hard cider after the collapse may make you very popular in barter markets. Be sure to keep your apple trees away from and junipers or red cedars (actually a juniper) which can infect your trees with cedar-apple rust fungus.
Grafting and Budding Fruit Trees
Making hard cider - video
Weston Fruit and Wine Press
Fertilizer and Crop Rotation
It is essential to rotate your crops. This reduces year to year insect infestations dramatically and also easier the drain on soil nutrients as different crops need different nutrients in different amounts. Even if you rotate your crops properly you will need an input of nutrients eventually. You may want to consider stockpiling fertilizer or growing green manure.
Green manure is a cover crop grown to control weed and provide additional nutrients. These include clovers, vetch and various beans. You can also use seaweed and other algae if you live near a coast, lake or marsh. Potatoes provide one of the most efficient uses of land in terms of amount of calories produced per acre. However potatoes can use up a lot of nutrients.
You may need to add some fertilizer to replenish what the potato crop has drained from the soil. Despite my tendency to go totally organic, I recommend storing a few drums of fertilizer, if you don’t need it you can always use it for explosives. Make sure you read up on proper fertilizer use for your soil and your crops.
Fertilizer info:
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/soilfert/sf715w.htm
http://www.startupbizhub.com/starting-a-potato-farm.htm
Organic Farming:
The New Organic Grower: A Master’s Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener
Nutrients from herbs, vitamins and minerals.
While I certainly recommend stocking up on vitamins, you can get much of what you need in the form of additional micro-nutrients from herbs. This is also a great way to spice your food to avoid getting bored with your staple diet.
http://www.glenbrookfarm.com/herbs/nutrientH.html
Guerrilla horticulture
If you do not have land to grow food you may want to consider guerrilla horticulture. Why not plant edible plants in a park or forest near where you live. Maybe seed the private property of a rich landowner’s forest or a public park or preserved land. Only do this with native plants. You will know exactly where to find edible wild plants if you were the one to plant them.
If you live in a city and are of the mindset that cities will be largely deserted after the collapse you may want to note the location of edible plants in parks as well as fruiting and nut bearing street trees. You can also “seed bomb” abandoned lots. Many cities have community gardens, be sure to sign up for a plot. After the collapse fenced in ball field or grounds of industrial complexes and schools could provide a more easily defended compound ripe for farming. However you can expect athletic fields to have soil compaction issues.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ggtips.html
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ggtips.html
http://www.laguerrillagardening.org/
Survival landscaping
Surrounding your homestead with walls or fences is both expensive and conspicuous. While fencing or walling off your property or living quarters may prevent some theft or attacks, it may however not be worth the cost of attracting the attention to your property. If you look like you have something worth defending opportunistic bandits may target you and may be more than you can handle. If you can adequately conceal your living quarters and farm from the road it may be a much more effective strategy.
Why not conceal your property with trees and shrubs that may also provide you with food and attract game. Hollies, green briar and Berberis are highly attractive to birds and provide a dense and nasty barrier against intruders. A homestead could be concealed and hidden by a maze of thorny shrubs. You would have the advantage of knowing the ways through and hidden entrances/ exits. Planting windbreaks around your garden could be very useful in high wind areas to keep from damaging your crops as well as concealing your food supply from passerby.
Why not plant bird attracting plants to conceal your property and use mist nets to catch some robins and starlings for dinner? I’ve heard lots lo mention of trapping small mammals for food, but no mention of trapping birds. All are edible. Japanese pilots in WWII used to pack mist nests in their survival kits.
Stretching a mist net across a small stream or down a trail is sure to catch a few birds each morning. As a bird watcher I’m kind of reluctant to share this information, however considering the small amount of meat per bird I doubt anyone would do this outside of a survival situation. Mist nets can also be used to protect your crops while passively trapping food.
Fast growing trees like, willows, poplars, paulownia, mulberry, alanthis and sycamore can be planted to provide a source of lumber and firewood. Poplar and mulberry are great attractants for wildlife and even have some food value for people as poplar sap and the mulberries are edible.
http://www.avinet.com/avi_order.taf?_function=view&ct_id=20
There is no reason not to consider gardening, concealment, bait for game, low maintenance wild food sources, barriers, lumber and firewood into the landscaping of your property. Your food and seed stockpiles can be stolen but it is unlikely that your properties vegetation would be. Consider a holistic approach to landscaping and gardening your life may just save your life.
{ 11 comments }
Great write up. While I would prefer native wild plants to non-native, I would use whatever works for you. Some non-native wild plants are great sources for different flavors and nutrients, and have appearances that locals may not recognize. Also recommend perennial vegetables/herbs scattered around the homestead, so you do not have to replant every year. And white oak are said to be the best source for edible acorns that have good flavor and do not have much tannin that needs to be washed out. Also, don’t forget versatile plants like yucca and bamboo.
Good article – I was going to try my hand at guerilla horticulture in the abandoned factory behind my property, but it was sold to a local college – who are teaching gardening – so they are doing it for me, lol. If a collapse happens, the land behind me is planted with beans, beets, squash, aubergines, cabbages, onions and more. Even the new fences are covered in nasturtium vines – they look pretty, and they’re edible.
I’m considering planting pyracantha as a security hedge – it grows quickly, looks attractive, attracts birds and the berries are edible and a great source of vitamin C – all that and it has long, sturdy, venomous thorns.
Has anyone used this and what was your experience?
A good native North American food source is Jerusalem artichoke. They’re an invasive weed, so there’s not likely to be a year you don’t have them. Roots are good raw or cooked.
Acorns are great but they are a lot of work to collect and process. There are some really good websites devoted to processing them and some with some terrific recipies. My family prefers them in pancakes with lots of maple or birch syrup. It also makes an interesting substitute for almond flour.
Near neighbors have a pyracantha bush at the corner of their property. For several years they didn’t keep it trimmed and it grew out past the sidewalk. You’re right, it’s vicious! Someone’s child got scratched up, and now the city makes them keep it trimmed. It looks better that way, anyway.
I don’t live in the South where it grows, but I understand the hated Kudzu is edible, by animals AND humans. Cooked like other greens, it should be a good source of vitamins, calcium and iron. Could someone who has eaten it let us know if it’s any good?
I’ve never eaten Kudzu and hope I don’t ever need to but I will tell you this about it. It chokes out everything in it’s path, grass, bushes, trees, whatever. If you keep it in control it might be ok but left untended it can be very invasive.
I’ve read up on Jerusalem Artichokes and I’m interested in trying them. As I understand it they bare no resemblence to or kin with regular Artichokes.
The tops look kind of like sunflowers and you eat the root, as was said.
Does anyone know where to get Jerusalem Artichoke plants, roots or however you go about planting them?
Hi Charlie – I’ve only eaten the tubers and they tasted a lot like potatoes but slightly crisper.
Here is a great article about them:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-1-a.html
Hope it helps.
Sorry forgot to add this article on the Jerusalem Artichokes:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/94-077.htm
You can buy them both in seed form and also plant tubers that you buy from your local organic veg store.
I have also been told that if you bury a kiddie pool and the plant into it, that it will stop the rhyzomes from spreading because they can be enormously invassive.
instead of chemical fertilizers which can destroy the biological life in soil, try some horse manure:
as a fertilizer, its rubbish. you’ll end up with loads of oats and barley or whatever the horse has eaten. but if you press it into bricks, let it dry and you have a fuel source that has similar BTU output as hardwood. once its burned, scoop up the ashes and sprinkle it over garden beds. awesome fertilizer. the Thais have been doing this for centuries, and some of their market gardens have been in constant use for 1000 years without going fallow.
Fantastic article and posts! As to the energy burned for the benefit gained, I was trained that the collection process is never ending. Trecking through the woods, or where ever, you always keep your eye out for the two most important things you need, water and food. Collect it when you can, or mark your way to get it later.
I live about two hundred feet from the boundry of a state conservation area. My “retreat” is next door to another state reserve as well (didn’t plan that at all, just happend) but the guerilla garden is a great idea, I never thought of planting native plants there that would not be noticed! Well, I might have thought about another crop….lol, no really, that’s a great idea. Next time I go through the palce, I’ll keep my eye out for some good spots. Thanks!!!
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