Survival Gardening Grow Your Own Emergency Food Supply, from Seed to Root Cellar

by Coffman, Sam

• ISBN13: 9781635866469
• ISBN10: 1635866464
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-01-14
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC

Summary

Learn how to grow your own food supply and be prepared just in case of an emergency with this essential guide by a survival skills expert.

Become more resilient in the face of global crises and prepare yourself for supply chain disruptions by learning to grow your own food. Author Sam Coffman shows you how to select and grow the most valuable crops in the least amount of space, using few or no store-bought amendments. He also shows you how to grow food quickly (in as little as five days) in an emergency situation, choose and plant perennial food plants for longer-term harvest, grow mushrooms, forage from the backyard, and store food for the long term. 

Author Biography

Sam Coffman is the author of Herbal Medic and has taught survival skills for both urban and primitive situations for more than 25 years, including survival gardening and foraging, wilderness first aid, and post-disaster herbal medicine. He is a registered herbalist (RH) with the American Herbalists Guild, a Wilderness EMT (WEMT), and a Wilderness First Responder instructor, and holds a masters in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MSAOM). Coffman is the founder of The Human Path, a preparedness school based in Taos, New Mexico. 

Table of Contents

What Does it Mean to Have a “Survival Garden”?
How to Prepare Now for a Future Emergency

Part 1: Meeting Your Immediate Need for Food

Chapter 1    The First 5 Days: Sprouts and Microgreens

Sprouts
Microgreens
 

Chapter 2     What to Grow for Harvest in the First 5 Weeks

Top 12 Fast-Growing Plants Ready to Eat within 1 to 2 months
Mushrooms

 
Part 2: Creating a Resilient Garden for the Long Haul

Chapter 3    Planning Crops and Irrigation for Your Survival Garden

Choosing What to Grow in Your Survival Garden
Planning One or More Seasons Ahead
Water and Irrigation
 

Chapter 4     Growing Methods

Raised Beds vs. Growing in the Ground
DIY Raised Beds
Water-Conserving Garden Beds
Crop Rotation
Polyculture and Forest Gardening

Chapter 5     Low-Input Ways to Build Soil Fertility

Composting
Cover Crops (Green Manure)
Black Soldier Fly Larvae
Animal Manure
Humanure

Chapter 6    Beat ’Em or Eat ’Em: Garden Pests

Natural Repellent Methods
Insects as Food

 
Part 3: Planning for a Continual Food Supply

Chapter 7    Strategies for Growing a Nonstop Harvest

Succession Planting
Planting Crops for Storage
Expanding Your Growing Season

Chapter 8    Creating a Home Seed Bank

Selecting Plants for Seed Storage
How to Harvest Seeds
How to Store Seeds

 
Part 4: Survival Gardening Strategies for Small Spaces

Chapter 9    Quick Garden Setups for Small Spaces

Straw Bales
Potting Soil Bag Gardens
Vertical Gardens

Chapter 10    Guerilla Gardening

The Guerilla Gardening Movement
An Urban Food Supply

Chapter 11    Foraging for Wild Foods

Where to Forage
What to Forage

 
Appendix: Dealing with Hurricanes, Droughts, and Nuclear Disasters