I’m going to start this post with a preference and two statements. First, the preference:
I prefer raising or hunting critters to gardening or gathering plants.
That’s just my opinion. You can do your own thing. The world is full of awesome gardeners and I’m totally cool with that. I endeavor to make some or all of my household’s food but I generally limit myself to critter-centric approaches. Avid gardeners can probably beat me in a pounds produced per year comparison. More power to ‘em!
This year things got wonky and my critter based food production went to hell. Now I’m buying food from grocery stores. If they run out I’m as fucked as everyone else! (I’ve got a fully stocked pantry of course… I’m not an idiot!)
Ironically, grocery stores are how everyone everywhere lives all the time but I’m jittery about it. I find dependency on ANY supply chain weird and a little unnerving. I’m not saying it’s logical, I’m just saying how I am.
Given that nothing else is going on (homestead food wise) I might as well try unconventional things. The point is, I’m an ADAPTIVE Curmudgeon and to live up to that name I ought to be willing to try anything once. That’s how it came that I grew what I call “free range” corn. I’ll elaborate in a moment. Before that I need to add two statements:
It is easy to tell the difference between a good idea and a dumb one but it’s very hard to tell the difference between a novel or genius idea and a dumb one.
And.
If it works, it’s not dumb.
Stay tuned to see if I’m dumb or not.
I’m an excellent gardener, of thistles. In fact, I’ve apparently bred a variety of thistle that doesn’t need sunlight to grow and drinks roundup. They propped up the garden tarp I was attempting to kill them with like a tent.
Want some? I’ve pulled ~6 or 7 wheelbarrow loads full of them out of my garden in an attempt to keep my strawberry patch alive. It’s my workout for the season. my pile is too close to the cornfield to burn – going to wait until the farmer behind me harvests. Hope he does it soon, they’re growing out of the weed pile and might soon eclipse my trees. Send help.
That’s the same variant I’ve got. The birds love it; goldfinches I think. Other than that it’s horrible stuff.
The build-up sound to me like some ‘guerrilla gardening’ efforts were done. If that is the case, I’m all ears. I am a lousy gardener as well, with hardly any patience. I’ve been researching wild plants that grow naturally and learning how to recognize and how to process them. Funny thing is, our locale used to be a famous winter garden growing area, particularly in citrus. Two major freezes some decades ago changed that – urban sprawl has replaced a lot of that land.
Truly, it will likely be the lack of water that will be the human population slate wiper. A shallow water table, but mostly saline so distillation will be required.
Water is limited where water is limited. At the basics all resource issues are far more local than people would like to admit. I’m thinking of expanding my ideas next year… but it’s more based in my tractor than anything “guerrilla”. I own enough land I don’t need to be sneaky.
Pre-empting but … I have an acquaintance who lives in Inverness, Scotland but has family in Wales. He regularly travels between and, being of a similar turn of mind, he … throws seeds (including tobacco) onto suitably rural motorway verges along the way to provide ‘sustenance’ should he be forced back onto Shanks mare. I suspect by now half of England’s motorways are amply seeded with a variety of ‘wild’ edibles (and smokeables) without anyone else being the wiser.
Having walked the Nordkalottleden a number (more than 8 I think over the decades) of times I ‘may’ have ensured certain off path areas are well supplied with berries and roots (for which I’m sure the bears thank me profusely when I’m not there).
I’m interested to see how you propose planting more ‘sustaining’ produce though.
Based on seasons I dint have to think about planting for many months. More recently I was planting trees: inedible but I like trees.