GARDENING IS NOT JUST FOR VEGETABLES
by
New England Gardener
Most people eat far more starchy foods
than meats or vegetables. Wheat, Rice, Corn, Potatoes and
Beans have been the foundation of many cultures. These
are field crops that don't require the attention of
vegetables, but will need several times as much space to
grow a years supply. Your local climate will determine
which ones you can grow. I'd try to find out what the
native peoples and the early settlers grew for their own
food.
The
Secret Garden
This booklet develops
the concept that gardening in the new Millennium
may be very different, and presents plans on
survival gardening, maximum yield of edibles per
area, how to make a "French Intensive" garden as
well as an all-year vegetable garden. Order here.
|
The common agricultural crops in your
area today are worth noting, but they may rely on hybrid
or even Genetically Modified (GM) seed or herbicides to
grow them today. To grow most grains, you thoroughly
cultivate the top few inches of soil and broadcast the
seed. When ripe and dry, you harvest, and thresh to
separate the kernels of grain. You don't need a fertile
soil, or much summer rain, but you do need it to be dry
at harvest time. The yield and labor are both low, so you
need a few thousand square feet of grain to feed a family
all year.
Beans, corn and potatoes are planted
in hills or furrows and covered. Only the soil directly
below them needs to be loosened deeply, no need to plough
the whole field. They need water through the growing
season, and want a very fertile soil under them, but the
yield and labor are both high.
Where I live in New England, our wet
autumn season makes it hard to dry field crops. It not
just how long your growing season is, or what USDA zone you live
in. We grow winter rye and shell beans, which are ready
in August, and early field corn. Potatoes grow very well
here too, and keep through the winter in our root cellar.
Walton Feed has
nutritional labels for most field crops at their web
site, so you can figure out what you may want to grow to
have a balanced diet, and learn about cooking whole
foods. Before you buy a bucket of food or plant a field,
you really should try a smaller quantity, cook it
different ways, and see what you like to
eat.-New England Gardener
Site
Index