Best 3 Crops In SHTF

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He has a great list of three survival foods.

I am not sure why, but I have had little success with beans. I keep trying though. I have planted many and had fewer produced than I planted. I keep trying! It might be the soil.

Squash can grow prolifically and it is one thing that people give away because they get too much of it. I am not someone who can eat much squash. I like it, but only eat it a couple times a year. It might be the way that I cook it that is the problem, I don't know. I bake it and eat it with butter.

Potatoes, something I rarely eat, I have had great success in growing. I am waiting to see what my 14 buckets of potatoes are going to produce. I also have some in the ground that I planted later. They are delicious, filling and have many ways of being used. In a tough situation, I know I would eat more of them again.

Not on his list:

I like onions, but they are more used as a seasoning or flavoring for many foods.
I like carrots, but like squash, don't eat many. Once I figured it out, to have loose soil, I have been much more successful with growing carrots.

There are other things that I think would help fill a person up, and many are root vegetables: parsnips, rutabagas, turnips. Root veggies seem to be the easier to grow, if you have properly prepared your soil with peat moss or compost to loosen it up.
Cabbage is something that can be relatively easy to grow.
Greens have lots of nutrition and grow when it is cooler, when things like tomatoes and peppers will not. Greens are not as filling, but can help round out a meal, nutritionally.
 
Probably corn, oats, and peas or green beans. Corn and oats feed both people and livestock and both can be made into flour. I hate peas, but they're easy to grow and have a lot of protein. Same for green beans.

I'd probably be awfully tempted to add apples for the Vitamin C content and to have a sweet food for a varied diet.

Somebody once told me that honey is one of the best SHTF "crops". I don't know if I'd classify it as a crop, but there's some logic to the idea...
 
I cant disagree with him. Beans and taters for sure. Both are prolific and can be stored with no processing (dry beans). Butternt squash I hadn't considered, but they grow a lot of fruit per plant and keep well too. We really like them and always grow some.
I like a lot of other stuff but mostly all has to be processed to store in many cases. If I had to pick a 4th it would be between cabbage, onions, or corn.
 
I agree with him, which 3 would you grow for staple to survive.

Is that a giant bug that runs down from the top of his hat, down his chest @3:02?
If it is, you can find me on aisle 3 in a store, trying to get past a stalled buggy :p.
 
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I think it ran down his phone or camera.
Ah, camera lens. It looked exactly like the giant roaches we have down here.
I wondered why he didn't even flinch.
I woulda been doing a dance!
panic.gif
 
I'm growing now pretty much what Dawn and I want to grow, which is nice. But if push comes to shove, here're my "only three" choices.
  • We have butternut squash; it's the first time for us, which is kind of dumb, because it's a favorite for both of us: baked and made into soups. Last year we grew patty-pan squash, which grew like stink and provided a lot of squash. Problem is, we don't like them that much. This year it's butternut, spaghetti, and acorn squash; all stuff we hope will fill us up over the winter.
  • Potatoes, of course (we live in Idaho, okay?) I have Pontiac Reds, Yukon Golds, and Russets. They've all worked out well, but Russets have the toughest skin (once you cure them) and will last all winter. We also are growing Murasaki sweet potatoes; if they produce, then they'd give the Russets a run for their money.
  • I love other root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, beets, turnips) a lot because they fill you up, are easy to grow, and store well. But the guy in the Yootoob is right; I need protein, and that means legumes. The question is, what is best: Green Beans, Great Northern Beans, Black Beans or Pintos? They all store well, they're pretty hardy, and they have lots of proteins. We'll see how this crop is going to work, and I'l tell you which one would be my final choice.
But you know what's really great? We're not limited! I also have tomatoes (cherries and Romas), onions (red and yellow) all the roots mentioned above) and peppers.
 
I'm growing now pretty much what Dawn and I want to grow, which is nice. But if push comes to shove, here're my "only three" choices.
  • We have butternut squash; it's the first time for us, which is kind of dumb, because it's a favorite for both of us: baked and made into soups. Last year we grew patty-pan squash, which grew like stink and provided a lot of squash. Problem is, we don't like them that much. This year it's butternut, spaghetti, and acorn squash; all stuff we hope will fill us up over the winter.
  • Potatoes, of course (we live in Idaho, okay?) I have Pontiac Reds, Yukon Golds, and Russets. They've all worked out well, but Russets have the toughest skin (once you cure them) and will last all winter. We also are growing Murasaki sweet potatoes; if they produce, then they'd give the Russets a run for their money.
  • I love other root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, beets, turnips) a lot because they fill you up, are easy to grow, and store well. But the guy in the Yootoob is right; I need protein, and that means legumes. The question is, what is best: Green Beans, Great Northern Beans, Black Beans or Pintos? They all store well, they're pretty hardy, and they have lots of proteins. We'll see how this crop is going to work, and I'l tell you which one would be my final choice.
But you know what's really great? We're not limited! I also have tomatoes (cherries and Romas), onions (red and yellow) all the roots mentioned above) and peppers.
The thing about beans is that they can be stored dry and they are very inexpensive. I have tried many times to grow them with minimal results. I will keep trying, but have pintos, black beans, and more stored.
 
If I could stay on my current property, I'd probably do either wheat or rice, carrots (because you can succession sow them forever), and some sort of legume. I am a fan of bush beans, but I might do a pole bean, because the crop would be bigger. Of course, if I could stay on my current property, given my current inventory of seeds and perennial food plants (including trees) I have all planted all over the place, I would do all those and about twenty more. ;)
 
If I could stay on my current property, I'd probably do either wheat or rice, carrots (because you can succession sow them forever), and some sort of legume. I am a fan of bush beans, but I might do a pole bean, because the crop would be bigger. Of course, if I could stay on my current property, given my current inventory of seeds and perennial food plants (including trees) I have all planted all over the place, I would do all those and about twenty more. ;)
Wheat and rice are difficult unless you have the right equipment, and maybe you do. These are not crops that produce well for people who do not have much land and are used to working the land. For people who do not have much land, or the right equipment, growing things like beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers and root vegetables.
 
I grew some wheat one year. Just a small patch 25x125. I cut it with a Scythe, but with no cradle on it so harvesting was a pain. Then threshing was an even bigger pain. I don't have the equipment to do a proper harvest. If I could come up with that it would be a valuable crop. Super easy to grow and very productive.
To me threshing is the hardest part to accomplish and I never came up with a decent solution. I have thought about using an old cycle bar mowing machine my dad has to cut it, so that would speed things up on that end.
 

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