Story at-a-glance
- During times of crisis, staple foods and plants you know will grow well are ideal; it’s not the time to be trying out experimental varieties
- Choose vegetables that can be canned, fermented or pickled so you can eat them at your leisure, or those that can be stored for months without the need for refrigeration
- Top foods to plant in troubled times include potatoes, green beans, heirloom onions, carrots, winter squash and okra
- In addition to providing you with fresh vegetables without a trip to the grocery store, gardening is a simple way to reduce stress — another important benefit during times of crisis
The idea of being as self-reliant as possible is suddenly becoming more appealing to many, some are taking an interest in gardening for the first time.
In late March 2020, Oregon State University waived the fee for its online vegetable gardening course and had 15,000 people sign up in the next week. Normally, they would have had two to five people register in that time period. Meanwhile, seed companies have reported “an unprecedented surge of orders” while plant nurseries are seeing an uptick in business.1
“It has been like wildfire,” Elliot Dasler, owner of a nursery in Oregon, told KOIN 6 News about how their business has taken off.2 During times of crisis, staple foods and plants you know will grow well are ideal; it’s not the time to be trying out experimental varieties. Even better, choose vegetables that can be canned, fermented or pickled so you can eat them at your leisure, or those that can be stored for months without the need for refrigeration.
Such foods not only exist but can be quite easy to grow right in your own backyard. If you’re among those looking to test out your green thumb, whether for stress-relief purposes, sustenance or both, Hoss Tools has created the useful video I’ve posted here about some of the most crisis-worthy vegetables to plant.
Staple ‘Crisis Crops’ to Plant in Your Vegetable Garden
Hoss Tools, located in Georgia, provides tools, seeds and other supplies for growing your own food, including for those interested in homesteading or leading a self-sufficient lifestyle. In the video, they’ve detailed their top foods to plant in troubled times, which include the following:
| Potatoes — Potatoes can be stored for up to six months, offering a source of nutrition that doesn’t require refrigeration. They can also be canned, which extends their storage life to three to five years. Hoss recommends planting potatoes two to three weeks before your region’s last frost, in rows spaced 36 inches apart. You should incorporate compost into your soil before planting.
Their favorite varieties include Kennebec, a round white potato with creamy flesh and low- to medium starch, and Yukon gold, which has a buttery yellow flesh. Red Norland, which is a medium-sized rose-colored potato with dense flesh and low starch, is another favorite. Importantly, potatoes love to be hilled, which means adding additional soil to the bed and molding it around the plants. You should hill the potatoes two or three times during the growing season. The idea is that, since potatoes are a part of the plant’s stem, not the root, the more “stem” you keep underground, the more potatoes will grow and the better your harvest will be.3 Potatoes, which are rich in fiber, vitamins B and C and minerals like potassium, are easy to grow in the early spring and take about 85 to 100 days to mature, depending on environmental conditions. Once you harvest the potatoes, it’s important to store them properly — loosely (not in plastic) in a dark, dry spot at around 50 to 60 degrees F. While potatoes like a dark, cool environment, they should not be chilled, as they’re damaged by refrigeration. |
| Green beans — Green beans, which offer a rich source of vitamins A, C and K and manganese, fiber and folate, are another excellent, productive storage crop, which can be canned right along with potatoes, or fermented.
Green beans can also be blanched and frozen for up to a year. Hoss recommends the momentum bush bean variety,4 which they say is the most productive bush bean variety out there, with high yields, concentrated harvests and high tolerance to stress. Beans should be planted in spring after the last frost has occurred, as germination typically occurs when soil temperatures are 65 degrees F or higher (with optimal germination temperature being 77 degrees F). The seeds can be planted directly outdoors and can be planted every couple of weeks in the spring and early summer so you’ll have production throughout the entire growing season. Plant them as early as possible in the spring, since the plants will drop blooms, or cease production, during hot summer temperatures. Bush beans can be harvested three or four times in the season, and can also be planted in double rows to save space and increase your harvest. To do this, make two rows of beans spaced 6 inches apart, with the double rows spaced 3 feet apart.5 If you have access to drip irrigation or a soaker hose, you can use it to provide irrigation to both rows of beans at once. Beans can also be planted densely, with Hoss suggesting gardeners “stack the plants thick” to ensure you’ll have plenty of beans to eat in the cooler months if you can them. |
| Heirloom onions — Heirloom onions are a truly sustainable food source. Homesteaders in the past growing such onions would come out to the field and dig up onions as they needed them, then dig up the bulbs and store them as you would normal onions to be replanted the next year.
Not only do onions store really well, keeping for two months or more after harvest, depending on variety, but you have your own seed stock that you can reuse and share with your neighbors. Further, onions, which are rich in vitamin C, sulphuric compounds, flavonoids and other phytochemicals, are incredibly healthy. |
| Carrots — As with most homegrown vegetables, the taste of a store-bought carrot can’t compare to the flavor of a homegrown variety. Plus, carrots are another useful vegetable during hard times, as they can be stored in the refrigerator for two to three weeks or blanched and frozen for even longer storage.
Other options include canning and fermenting, making these a versatile vegetable for long-term usage. Like green beans, carrots can be grown in double rows with irrigation in between. Plant rows 6 inches apart, skip 3 feet, then plant two more rows 6 inches apart. Hoss recommends seeding carrots in a thick band and not thinning them, so you’ll have a “dense forest of carrots” and get a lot of production out of a little bit of space. When grown this way, your carrots may not all come out uniform in size — some will be smaller and some bigger — but they’ll taste great just the same. Carrots should be seeded directly outdoors, as they don’t transplant well, and do best when planted in cooler temperatures during the early spring or fall. Carrots, which are rich in valuable beta carotene, require longer to germinate than most other crops, and you’ll need to keep the soil moist for at least seven days for germination to occur. A soil temperature of about 75 degrees F is optimal. If you live in the South, you can grow two crops of carrots per year. Plant one in the fall, allowing the crop to overwinter so you can harvest in the spring. Since it’s not too hot yet, the carrots will hold well in the soil, allowing you to harvest them as you need them. You can then plant another crop in the early spring, which will be ready for a late spring/early summer harvest. |
| Winter squash — Winter squash, with its thick skin, is another excellent food for storage purposes. Though they’re called “winter” squash, they’re grown during the warm part of the year but can be stored without refrigeration for use during the winter. Generally, the sweeter the variety, the less time they can be stored.
Kabocha, a winter squash with a creamy flesh that’s useful for soups, can be stored for about three months while more common butternut and acorn squash will keep for six months. The sweet dumpling variety, which is one of the sweetest winter squashes, has an average storage time of 30 to 45 days. Winter squash is a good source of vitamins K1, A, C and E, as well as B vitamins, calcium and magnesium. Storage time is important, as winter squash produce one harvest at the end of the growing season, giving you food to enjoy all winter long. |
| Okra — Okra is a warm-weather crop that produces pods measuring 2 to 3 inches long, which grow on a large, leafy and perennial plant with hibiscus-type flowers. High in fiber, okra also offers vitamin K, manganese, folate and vitamin C, as well as plentiful amounts of flavonoids and antioxidants.
It’s an important crisis-crop because it’s a high-producing crop with long-term production. The plants may start producing pods when they’re 1 to 2 feet tall and will continue producing, as the plants grow 5 to 6 feet tall.6 However, you can cut the tops off when it gets about 4 feet tall, and plant three succession plants per year. Hoss recommends planting okra — especially the most productive jambalaya variety — in the spring and again in midsummer and early fall, as it will grow up until the first frost date. It’s important to rotate where you plant okra, coming back only on a three-year rotation, due to nematodes, which are tiny worms that act as plant parasites. However, once planted, okra is a hearty and versatile food that can be frozen, canned or pickled. It’s a staple food source in the South, and though it prefers irrigation for the most abundant productivity, it is somewhat drought-resistant and will still grow well in very hot, drier conditions. |
Planting Your Own ‘Victory Garden’
During World War II, a time when potential food shortages were looming, victory gardens became so prolific that they supplied an estimated 40% of Americans’ fresh vegetables.7 Now, “corona victory gardens” are becoming a thing, and while it’s always an excellent time to grow your own food, if you’ve been considering it in the past, now is a perfect time to get started.
In addition to providing you with fresh vegetables without a trip to the grocery store, gardening is a simple way to reduce stress — another important benefit during times of crisis.
A study in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports also concluded, “A regular dose of gardening can improve public health,” noting that gardening is associated with reductions in depression and anxiety and increases in life satisfaction, quality of life and sense of community.8 Gardening by older adults is also linked to:9
- Feelings of accomplishment
- Well-being and peace
- A decrease in depressive symptoms
- A protective effect on cognitive functions
- The development of social links
In addition to the vegetables mentioned above, which are ideal for their high productivity and/or long storage potential, other popular garden vegetables include tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, snow peas, spinach, lettuce and chard — all of which are easy to grow.
Remember, too, that the No. 1 rule for growing nutrient-dense food is healthy soil. To develop healthy soil, protect it by diversifying your plants, avoiding tilling and covering the surface with cover crops or mulch. Even starting with one or two vegetables will provide you with an important food source, increasing your food security and giving you a pastime you can be proud of.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Apparently some lazy NY woman figured out a long time ago you can just throw those taters on the ground, cover ’em with straw and they produce just fine. Just keep the light off them and water them when they look thirsty.
Lots of cool ways to grow taters! Try growing them in stacks of used tires! It makes harvesting as easy as kicking over an ant hill.
Ruth ….Stoudt, Stoud…(?)
Yes, the simplicity of her method was impressive
Garlic should be at the top of that list as well as cabbage, and beets.
They’ll thank you later!
Southern gardeners can plant garlic in the fall and about mid summer harvest their crop. Anyone can do this just by planting garlic cloves straight from your local grocery store.
Off-topic, but what the hey:
Please republish the image and short biography of de Costa, the Marrano who was a Catholic priest , but gave it up to go to Amsterdam & join the Sephardim, only to be disillusioned. I want to save that on a thumb drive, but couldn’t remember where you provided it in a comment earlier.
it was on makow,s site couple of days ago
Thanks!!
Not just Southern gardeners. I’m in NW Montana where the growing season is much shorter and I have had great harvests of garlic by planting in the fall. It stores quite well in my basement.
Look for the “non GMO” label BEFORE you plant that shit! Because we all reap what we sow.
;o)
Elephant garlic (not a true garlic) is what I do down here in Carolina. And while I grow a lot of beets, it’s still cheaper for me to BUY cabbage at the local Piggly Wiggly than it is to plant out cabbage. Go figure!
Ever try growing icicle radishes? I hear they get huge and have a milder taste than a common radish.
I planted some cabbage plants last November that survived -8 F and are thriving. I am shocked at how resilient these plants are.
I always had good luck growing cabbages. They always end up like green bowling balls for me! Luck O the Irish I imagine.
I should have known Mom had dementia when she wrapped all the last harvest in SARAN WRAP for storage! Every one of them rotted before I found out she’d done it. You gotta let those puppies breathe!
Potatoes, due to proclivity to disease, heat/high humidity and short storage in hot climes is not a good choice for Southern gardens. For shear bulk of high nutrient carbs , think Jerusalem artichokes and Sweet Potatoes , instead. Also, for Southern gardens , cow pea vines ( e.g. Blackeyes ) are prolific bearers, super nutritious , and do well in even the poorest soils, under hot/humid and dry conditions. They can be either frozen , canned or dried. My neighbors and family used to dry 200+ pounds every year , before they all became credit card capitalists living off the grocery store aisle. We all nigga’ rich now…
I walked by the frozen food section and spied a bag of all natural chicken nuggets. Curious, I picked up the back of goylsop and just as I expected, the ingredients read thus…Ingredients: Chicken, Water, Wheat Flour, Contains 2% Or Less Of The Following: Brown Sugar, Corn Starch, Dried Garlic, Dried Onion, Dried Yeast, Extractives Of Paprika, Natural Flavor, Oat Fiber, Salt, Spices, Wheat Starch, White Whole Wheat Flour, Yellow Corn Flour. Breading Set In Vegetable Oil.
So chicken like and delicious, too…reee
No no no! Growing your own food will destroy the entire planet with globull warming! This message was brought to you by your friends at the WEF. Cease and desist peasants! Biden for Supreme Exalted El Leader.
Sweet potatoes in place of Irish potatoes are what I do in my kitchen gardens. The soil around here on my place in Carolina, between deep river swamps below the fall line, is Lynchburg and Clarendon sandy loam. It gets hot and humid here early and stays hot until early October.
I find that Late Blight always seems to jump on any Irish potato plantations I make. But sweet potatoes kick ass here with production, cure well, and easily store over winter without having to can or freeze dry. I put away about 500 pounds every fall with minimal effort other than the labor. I can eat on them until at least May of every year, and then process the rest to feed my dogs.
Look into the “Hannah” white sweet potato cultivar as a replacement for Irish potatoes. It is so damned close to the taste of Irish potatoes, and can be used as a substitute without the need to grow Irish potatoes.
And grow THIS vegetable if you want to create or worsen your crisis:
h
I have been gardening for over 70 years and a lot of what this article says can be updated for home gardeners.
Planting things in double rows with 35 in between is an incredible waste of space for a home gardener. They only say that because a commercial farm like theirs must rely on mechanical tillage. Home gardeners can and usually do thin and weed by hand.
What I have always done is plant in beds, about 3 ft. wide or so, then a path, then another bed. Within these beds I plant solid, that is, plants equal distant in all directions, consistent with what I am planting. So carrots 2 in. apart in all directions, beets 4 in. and so forth.
What you want is that the bed is planted to the maximum density, such that when the plants are larger and actively growing in the latter summer, they will completely cover the ground with their foliage and thus be self-mulching.
On way to get the spacing right and make thinning easier, is to use what I call my in-bed mini-row system. That is, when seeding, I make short planting rows crosswise in my 3 ft beds, as far apart as I want my final spacing to be, thus 2 in. for carrots, etc. That way the thinning in one direction is already established. Thus, when I am thinning, I only have to thin the min-rows to my final spacing, and I will automatically have my grid established in both directions in the bed. Do not plant carrots real thick and leave them or you will have very very small carrots.
As far as keeping, my carrots kept in a used refrigerator used just for garden vegetables keep carrots and other root vegetables good all year long. Throw the shelving out and stack buckets and bags of veggies in.
For onions, one of my specialties, do not plant whole onions, usually called sets. They do not keep. What you want are the transplants that come in bunches of about 50, that look like miniature green onions. You need to get the right day-length onions for your region, the long-day onions will cover the northern 2/3 of the country. The longest keeping onions will keep the whole year round.
The key to long keeping is in the curing and storage. The real secret to long keeping is to never cut the fresh tops or roots off. Just keep them in your curing area until the tops are dried up naturally. Having a fan running in a closed area like a garage really helps. Only cut the tops off when they are naturally dried up and crispy, this prevents disease from entering the onion tops. Then keep them in the mesh bags you see in stores. They like free air flow to keep.
Just because you have no room for a PROPER garden is no reason to go around oppressing those of us who do…or did. You are HERE precisely because entire generations of humans practiced agriculture in exactly that manner.
Where is your gratitude?
I left 4 feet between my rows. Sometimes five. You ever see how far a squash or zucchini plant creeps? It’s nice to be able to walk down a row with a hoe without stepping on your own produce. At one point, my garden encompassed a full half acre. I later trimmed it down to a 1/4 acre for two people.
What is the most productive variety of potatoes? Still too cold here to plant anything, but I intend to plant potatoes and other root crops both in straw bales and in old 10 gallon tubs that were originally set out with feed supplement for cows on pasture. I read the difference is “determinate” vs “indeterminate” varieties.
The soil in my empty lot next to the house is black gumbo, like glue when wet, and like rock when dry. Would need to peel everything if grown in the ground, but I prefer to eat the skin along with the layer just under the skin, which contains most of the vitamins and other goodies.
What is the most productive variety of sweet potatoes, beets, and other root crops?
Your state agriculture dept. probably has some good information on which varieties grow best in your region, along with growing guides and lots of good information on how to control insects, weeds and improving soil.
I, too, have some “gumbo” clay soil and have been adding dried grass clippings, mulched leaves and other organic material to it for a few years. The consistency gets better each year. This year, I am leaving the oldest part of my garden fallow so it will have time to replenish the nutrients I have been pulling out with my veggies. I will still mulch it, but not plant anything.
Good luck with your garden, but remember that gardening is an annual experiment with a lot of variables you cannot control.
Outstanding thread and comments…picked up many tips!
mark – I always enjoy the gardening articles, along with the experiences shared by the commenters. Learning from others’ mistakes is the best learning there is.