Cultivating Wild Foods

In growing survival foods, one source of seed is wild plants. Many wild plants were brought over from Europe for food, such as the dandelion, carrot and Russian thistle. Many of these plants lend themselves quite well to cultivation. If the ground is good and well prepared, most wild food plants will grow as well as cultivated varieties. Regular watering will increase the yield just as in a domestic garden.

Carrots are especially good at this. Also known as Queen Anne's Lace, wild carrots can be domesticated in a few years. The normal color of a carrot root is white or purple. Yellow and orange are fairly late developments agriculturally. If seed is selected for large roots, wild carrots can be very edible and palatable the very first year. Grow them as you would domestic carrots and you will have plants that are practically immune to pests. Try some wild seeds, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Seed tips

When survival gardening, try to use open pollinated, heirloom seeds. These seeds are more robust and will often self-seed for a persistent crop. Use permanent plantings, like clover, day lilies, Jerusalem artichokes and globe artichokes. There are many more perennial plantings of edible foods possible. Try to choose plantings that compete well with weeds. Even wild blackberries are a good survival plant, yielding tea and fruit. Here is a page from my web site on how to cultivate wild blackberries.
This picture is of a street planting of day lilies in a large concrete planter. Few people know these are edible and I believe I am the only one who harvests any, although many people pass this planter daily. I take only a few here and there.



Here is a picture of the edible day lily flowers and pods.


Here is my web site.

Persistance pays off

Gardening for survival requires a high level of persistence. The growing conditions are usually not optimum and the growing sites may be widely scattered. If you are considering survival gardening, you need to understand that in the beginning stages, it may be a lot of hard work.

Finding good, safe growing spots, selecting plants, doing soil improvements, etc. all take a lot of time and energy. But just like building raised beds, once the initial setup is completed, the work load goes down dramatically.

Hauling soil in small batches and hauling small amounts of water to widely scattered places can be quite time consuming. If at all possible, choose place that are close together or, best, choose one larger plot that can be disguised. You will save a lot of work if the growing places are close together.

Choosing the right plants

When survival gardening, it is important to be choosy about which plant varieties you plant. Some plants need a large amount of care and attention to succeed. Others can be left to grow virtually wild and unattended.

Some things to keep in mind when choosing plants varieties are:
How much water does it need and how regularly?
Does it need nutritional supplements to thrive?
What type of soil does it need?
Does it compete well with weeds?

These issues will tell you whether or not to use a particular plant variety. Survival gardening and especially stealth gardening, both impose restrictions that are not encountered in a normal home garden. There may be water shortages in a stealth garden. Or plenty of water available and no way to water the plant regularly.

If the soil is poor, it will be hard to get a usable crop from heavy feeders, such as some onions or squash varieties. Is you are stealth gardening, you may not be able to attend to the plantings regularly and weeds will be a problem. Growing weed and drought resistant plants will be helpful in these conditions. Choose the plants wisely and you will have a crop.
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Planting in stealth containers

Sometimes a very recognizable food plant can be totally disguised if planted in an unusual container. Container gardening is a very good way to use small spaces to grow food. Any non-toxic container with drain holes will work. At least one foot of soil is required for large plants. Radishes can be grown in four inches of good soil. If you have a hollow spot in a tree stump, it can be used to grow many types of plants. A pile of rocks can hold several plants that can look like a very natural composition. Strangely enough, roof gutters grow plants very well. You can attach some false gutters to the eaves of your house and have a large hanging garden. Just remember to keep the real gutters clear and clean! If you have a flat roof that will bear traffic, it can make a very nice hidden garden spot. Just make sure to space the containers so you do not add too much weight to the roof. Using your imagination, you can come up with some very unique ways to hide a garden in plain sight.

Stealth garden layout

A stealth garden should not look like a garden. In lean times, a home garden invites thieves and vandals. It also attracts the attention of local government officials. In many urban areas, vegetable gardens are banned or severely restricted in size. The main public reason for the bans is usually water crisis. Gardens take water and the authorities restrict water use in droughts. At other times, when there is no crisis, the bans are usually still enforced, leading one to conjecture that there might be hidden reasons for the bans, having nothing to do with water shortages. Other bans are imposed because local politicians don't like the look of gardens. They prefer sterile lawns of a uniform height. Gardens can get messy in the later stages of the growing season, so these politicians ban them to suit their own aesthetic sensibilities.

However, there are usually flower clubs in these urban areas. Many times these clubs wield considerable clout, so flowers are rarely banned. Flower beds can be mixed with all kinds of edibles and the edibles can be hidden in plain sight. Also, many flowers are edible in their own right. By planting the right mixes, a full garden can usually be grown as long as everything looks like flowers.

To avoid scrutiny, do not plant in rows or rigid grids. Plant more like the natural plants would grow, in mixed beds of informal shape. These beds can be made to be quite attractive if a little design thought goes into them. Download a plant companion guide and use it to plan your garden. Remember that many cultivated ornamental plants, such as flowering kale and orange cauliflower, are just as good as the standard varieties. And they make very pleasing gardens. Consider the planting from a hide in plain sight angle and you can stealth garden almost anywhere.

Use underground or drip irrigation that can be hidden among the plants to avoid the wrath of the authorities and their various informants. Water at night. Weed by hand in the early morning. If you follow these suggestions, you should be able to grow most of what you want safely and without local troubles.
http://www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org

Edible red clover

I posted this entry in another blog. I since realized it should be in the blog also, so I copied it over.

This post is about what I learned in my research of the edible plant, red clover. Red clover is the type of clover that has a large red or reddish-purple flower. I did some experiments with this plant and this is what I found. The leaves are very good as salad material, a little tangy but mild. They also make great tea, with no caffeine. The young stems and leaves can be steamed until tender and used like spinach or other greens. In the winter, early spring and late fall, the bigger roots are good as a starchy food. They can be eaten raw when they are tender. They can be steamed or boiled and treated much like beets or turnips or other root crops. They are very mild and take on the taste of other ingredients in the dish. So try some clover today and enjoy!
E-mail here: researcher@winterlakeresearchcenter.org
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org