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Live off the Land: Survival Gardening Basics is an indispensable survival guide. This eBook covers invaluable advice about preparing for a garden from start to.
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Turn the surface soil frequently to keep it from developing a water-resistant crust, too. A common soil pollutant is lead, which can cause terrible health problems. Nearly one in ten households exceeds 2, parts per million. The most comprehensive cure is expensive and back-breaking.

What to grow to live off the land

Faced with such costs, some gardeners have dispensed with soil stripping and have simply laid down the cloth atop the ground and added new soil on top of it. A vegetation barrier of some sort, such as a hedge that will also help conceal your garden, can help screen windborne exhaust and other particulate matter.

Just so, a layer of mulch can protect soil from any new inputs of pollutants.

3. Set Up Your Soil for Success

In Chicago, health workers have planted abandoned gas station lots with purple coneflower and yarrow, wildflowers that help clean hydrocarbons out of the soil. Poplar trees are thirsty, and as they drink they remove nitrates and other pollutants from the soil. Within four years, the soil was clean enough to use to grow food without further concern. Finally, soil incinerated to a temperature of 1, degrees Fahrenheit becomes free of almost all organic pollutants. Ordinary kilns can reach such temperatures, but most home gardeners do not have such tools. However, a quick fix is to build a hot bonfire atop suspect earth.

This heat treatment is fast, but of course it involves sending up plumes of smoke, which would not be desirable if concealment is an issue.

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The obvious strategy there is to find a garden store and take away as much organic potting soil and mulch as you can find. Composting with cured chicken, steer, or horse manure, vegetable scraps, and the like is an essential to healthy soil. Like other manures, it needs to be cured by adding a layer of sawdust, mulch, or straw on top of it, then letting it sit for a year so that the bacteria can decompose.

Add small quantities of fireplace ashes, rock dust, and seaweed every couple of layers if you want to supercharge your concoction. Corn provides plenty of nutritional value, especially when added to a diet of beans and squash, the so-called Three Sisters of the Native American diet. Again, start small and remember: this is a journey, not a destination. You want to start by planning a garden you can keep up with. Start with vegetables recommended for your particular region. Take into consideration the days to maturity and compare it to your growing season. There are many growth charts, like this one from Iowa State University to show you the length of time required for each plant.

They can assist you with troubleshooting issues, conducting soil tests and understanding some common challenges in your area. Extension offices are in each state, in most mid-to-large sized cities and their services are often free to the public. Compare the growing dates to the plant hardiness zone maps and heat zone maps for your homestead.

This will tell you exactly what you should expect in terms of the growing season and which plants will thrive. It will also help you know when to plant each variety of vegetables you hope to grow. Generally, beginning gardeners may want to experiment with a variety of seeds and seedlings to see what flourishes and what struggles in your garden plot. As you identify which plants do well, focus on growing those in the future although it may vary from year to year.

Check out my post on the top 5 vegetables for beginning gardeners , for great ideas to start.

Container gardening seems to go hand-in-hand with small spaces, but from my experience container gardening is challenging because the plants end up pot-bound and their growth is limited. But my recommendation is to plant in the ground or raised bed whenever possible. My best recommendation for people with limited space is to join a community garden.

Best of all, community gardens are often very affordable.

Timothy Fox (Author of Survive Smart)

New gardeners may want to start with seedlings rather than seeds. Seedlings are easily transferred from peat pots right into the ground or your larger container. This gives them a chance to get used to life outdoors, no matter what type of container or plot they ultimately end up in. My suggestion is to wait at least a few years before you add in trying to start your own plants indoors as seedlings.

Growing from seed is an art form; keep it simple at first and buy seedlings. A big factor in the success of your homestead garden is the soil. No matter how large the container, raised bed, or piece of land, the mix of soil is critical for your plants. In short, your soil should have three components: vermiculite, compost, and peat moss. These items are easily purchased at a big box store or in truckloads from a local supplier.

Additionally, you may wish to add in compost from your own food and yard scraps. If you own a composter, you may be surprised at how quickly organic matter breaks down as compost. This nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium-rich compound feeds your plants and helps them grow. I also suggest you include a fertilizer such as bone meal or blood meal.

If you prefer to avoid animal sourced fertilizer, use seaweed meal. Companion planting is an age-old practice of planting certain vegetables together that support and complement each other. Larger plants might provide shade for shorter plants, which prefer partial sun. Tall plants can be used a trellis for vining plants. Low groundcover plants will block weeds from coming in. Some plants even draw nutrients from deep in the soil to make them available to other plants with shallow roots.

These companion plants may attract beneficial insects, add nitrogen to the soil and even give off scents to detract predators.

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They also attract pests who love eggplants and peppers, so avoid planting those nightshades together. Surrounding your tomato plants with marigolds, garlic or basil repels parasitic nematodes and hornworms. Companion planting is somewhat nuanced, but there are many companion vegetable chats and guides available to help you understand crop rotation and learn which plants complement each other. Select plants that give a high-yield crop. Zucchini and summer squash are two notoriously high-yield plants great for beginning homestead gardeners who want enough vegetables to harvest and enjoy for the season.

Lettuce and leafy greens are also great starters. Tomatoes and pepper plants may result in a high yield too, depending on your area.

6 Tips for Successful Desert Gardening

Other plants called perennials come back year after year, like berry bushes and asparagus, take time to establish and may not yield much if anything for the first few years. If you want these plants as part of your garden in the long-term, plan ahead and plant a few each year, but give yourself plenty of payoff plants to help you stay motivated. Find out what plants really thrive in your particular region and focus your efforts there.

Watering and irrigation is a high concern in certain areas. I always try to have a setup because life gets busy, so having your system on a timer keep plants alive and makes life easier. Even small container gardens dry out quickly during dry spells. It is a passive 4 season model using a gal water tank.

A couple of years ago we had a bout of very low temperature at night and highs of 14 during the day. The greenhouse never went below 45 using only the passive system. Expense may be an issue though. The 22 ft. You might consider building a modified Earthship using tire walls for the north and half of the east and west walls and then covering with Solex or a similar glaze the the rest. Probably get by with 1K for total cost that way. Great information!