I think having survival seeds is an essential part of any long-term survival plan, but there are a couple of things that you need to take into account.
1. Not all seeds are created equal. You need to be very careful when picking out which types of seeds to buy. At the very least, your seeds should be organic; but you also need to make sure you are buying them from a reputable dealer. A number of companies have been toying with the idea of so-called “suicide seeds” or “terminator technology.” This technology makes any seed that you plant produce a second generation seed that is sterile.
2. Know your climate. When buying seeds, you are probably better off staying away from those pre-packaged one-year supply deals. I say this because you really want to individualize your personal seed bank by buying seeds that are suited for your climate. What grows well in the Midwest, may not do so well in Florida, or the desert southwest.
Go to your local greenhouse or garden supply store and find out what types of seeds are best suited for your area.
3. Will you eat it? Just like when building up your food storage preps, you need to think about what foods you and your family will actually eat. Growing a field full of corn is great, but if everyone in your family hates corn, it may not be such a bright idea.
4. Practice growing before the SHTF. Growing food is extremely hard and takes years of practice to get good at. Don’t wait until things go bad; start a small garden and learn how to grow the types of foods that you plan on growing when the SHTF.
5. Make sure you have other options. As I said above, growing your own food is hard! A lot of people buy these one-size fits all seed bank packages and think they are somehow prepared to survive. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even if you are an experienced gardener there are far to many variables to rely solely on your seed bank.
- First, it takes time to start growing food. You need to have food stocks built up that will sustain you until your garden starts producing.
- Second, there’s no telling what the future holds; flood, fire and droughts could all pose a serious risk to your survival garden.
- You need to have a back up plan for those times when growing food may become impossible. Make sure you have a good emergency food supply, a way to hunt and trap game, and knowledge of where the local edible plants are and how to prepare them.
Additional Resources:
I highly recommend checking out Food Production Systems for a Backyard or Small Farm.
As regards the “thousand dill plants”, you must learn HOW a specific plant propagates. Dill, for example, must be planted in clumps–several seeds per pot or spot. Not all of the seeds will germinate. When planting your garden, you have to remember the medicinal values of your plants. Dill can be used as baby dill to freshen a plain salad, spruce-up potatoes, but also acts as a digestive aid. In times of turmoil, I know I get the “belly curdles”. Dill is invaluable for gas,indigestion and belly aches. Plus, you can’t think of your garden as having its value just during the growing season; you have to think of what you are going to need BEYOND harvest time. Dill has a relatively short growing season (for leaves), then you can look forward to the seeds, which you will need to pickle those cucumbers for winter. The bottom line is, always think past the “grocery store-availabilty” of your garden. You are going to have to learn the old ways.
My wife and I have been gardening for a few years now. I purchased “storage” heirloom seed this year. With the intent to plant most if not all of it this growing season. Seed don’t keep indefinitely. Even the nitro-packed and sealed kind. The proverbial doo doo hasn’t hit the fan yet….. but I don’t want to learn on the fly. I’d rather get the majority of my novice caused failures out of the way now when a big garden is still basically a luxury and not a necessity.
This being 100% heirloom seed I also fully intend to save the seed from what I for a bigger garden next year. Seed saving is also one of those deals where the newer you are to it the more you are going to screw up. Once again I’d rather get the novice induced failures out of the way now.
This is also my families learning curve for canning, dehydrating and cellaring what we grow. Once a again…. want to get the novice failures out of the way before we have to actually depend on what we know.
The moral of my long winded post is it’s never too EARLY to start. Gardening is a thing I love to do. It connects me to my land. It contents my soul watching my family receive nourishment from something I’ve grown. Gardening isn’t something I approach as a SHTF preparation. IME when you think of things in those term you tend to get lax and or never get around to it because you either figure you have enough time to get to it eventually. or not enough time to make a meaningful effort. This is something I’ll do for the rest of my life, while I am able. This is something I want to do for fun and if I end up needing it in a SHTF situation then so be it. Not something I see as having to to to be ready…. making stuff seem like work is a good way to demotivate yourself from doing it.
What are the names and e-mail addresses of some companies that sell these seeds that will reproduce year after year. Thanks
We live in the mountains of colorado. 9000 feet above sea level. We need a book on what will grow up their. Thanks
I live at 8,800 in CO and have successfully been growing everything from potatoes to beets, carrots, peas, zucchini, salad, chard, onions, kale, tomatoes, pretty much anything… I planted Bali cherry, haralson and sweet sixteen apple, and mount royal plum… you can do a lot at your altitude, its just a little more challenging.
i use our donkey for plowing the garden i use the horses and his poop to fertilize it and i get heirloom seeds from friends and others i trade for.my chickens are a good thing for the garden thy are my best bug eaters as well as ducks we plant potatoes ternups beets onions cabbages corn carrots and others that do well here in the great northwest we also gather berrys and fruits blackberry’s apples and pears are free here we also cut our own hay and butcher our own meats but if you live in town get friends that dont and share what you have with each other you may be able to do things thy cant and get stuff
i reall dont like this article
be ware of GM seeds,terminator plants sterilize others they cross polinate with.do not plant GM seed near your good seeds
Hi Everyone,
I’m a ‘newbie’ and just started prepping and have a concern. I live in an apartment with a small balcony on the second floor and am wondering if it’s possible to grow in pots. I’ve researched it to some extent but have never had much of a green thumb. Is there hope for people in my situation? Great site by the way…very informative. Thanks!
Let me start by saying I am a farmer and rancher, I grow crops for a living so I feel competent to give some advice here. While growing organic and nonhybrid crops will eventually become a necessity in a post-apocalytic world, it would be foolish to choose to do so in a survival situation. Most of the world grows heirloom organic crops…they live on the brink of starvation every day because of it AND THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. From the comments on here most of you have never raised a crop in your life. Heirloom varieties are great for taste, but for caloric yield and disease resistance include some hybrids in your seed mix. FOr growing calories, the single best option for most of the US is corn. Here is where I think most of you on this site are WAY off base in your thought. First of all, the seed from hybrid crops is NOT sterile as most of you seem to think. It simply reverts back to a mixture of the parent varieties. This is a problem with modern farming, as the offspring will be different heights and maturities and cannot be harvested mechanically which requires uniform ripening and height. With hand harvest, not a problem.
Second, forget the sscare stories about GMO corn, it is not toxic except to caterpillars and rootworm larvae, nor is it sterile, nor does it sterilize other plants. GMO corn has been the majority of the corn in the food chain for over 15 years, if these scare stories were true we would all be dead by now. Farmers grow the stuff for a reason. GMO Hybrid corn can yield over 200 bushels per acre with good management, while open pollinated varieties seldom exceed 30. An acre is 43,560 square feet by the way. If you have only a few thousand square feet of garden, that may mean the difference between all of your family having enough to live or having to pick and choose which of your kids has to starve. A person needs about 600 pounds of food or more per year, and a bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds. A full acre of organic open pollinated corn will produce enough to feed about three people, while a GMO hybrid with fertilzer and chemicals can feed a dozen to as many as 20. How many of you have handweeded an entire acre, by the way? I have, it is a fulltime job, no hyperbole. You will hoe from sunrise to sunset for about three months, and after the first day you will do it with no skin left on your hands if you are picking up a hoe for the first time.. Heres a better idea. Buy GMO corn resistant to ROundup, and have a gallon of ROundup on hand. Roundup kills nearly all weeds. Yes, it is made by the evil Monsanto but the stuff flat works, is extremely safe to humans and is easy to use. AN hour with a hand sprayer can replace a weeks worth of hoeing.If TSHTF, you will have a LOT of things to do other than hand weed. ANother good herbicide to have on hand would be Poast, which kills grassy weeds in broadleaf vegetable crops. I would also keep on hand a good general insecticide with low mammalian toxicity like permethrin, if you are depending on a crop for your very survival and a wave of chinch bugs or armyworms move in, you will starve.Think about it, this nation grows about 90 million acres of corn every year, and every acre raises a crop of corn feeding insects. After a collapse, where will all those bugs go to eat when those 90 million acres didnt get planted because there was no diesel? Thats right, your garden. Might also be handy for mosquitoes. I would also have some fertilizer on hand, soil test your growing area to find out what you need and build your soil up before TSHTF when fertilizer will be difficult to procure. Be sure to have legumes in your crop mix to provide nitrogen, but remember that only is available the year after the legume is grown. Using some nitrogen fertilizer in year one may be crucial. Learn to grow organically by all means, but in year one after a collapse having all the crutches of modern farming may just keep you alive when all the organic farming-for-the-first-time-in-their-life crowd is starving. You all can do what you want but my recommendation is to use the crutches of modern farming as long as you can if your life depends on a successful crop.
I have to say Dale I agree. As much as I like and agree with the other comments I’ve read when it comes to life or death I want all the crutches I can get. I think growing an organic garden now when your life doesn’t depend on it will teach you many lessons that will be invalueable. Gardening is basically easy, growing food to survive is a whole different story. I’m using the crutches while they last. My next step is going to be educating myself on the points you have made. Thank you, you may have just saved my families lives. By the way I love the “organic farming-for-the-first-time-in-their-life crowd is starving” comment. I hope others take your advice to heart.
We should listen to Dale! If farming will be your main food source, do all that you can to ensure that it stays constant and yields. Also, when the SHTF I think it’d be a good idea to find a sort of a hiding spot for your crops. That’ll be difficult considering that hiding spots are usually small, but it may protect your crops to put them in an ‘out of the way’ spot. People will take all your food like locusts and think nothing of it if they’re near in area with heavy foot traffic.