Beating Food Challenges: Growing Veggies, Herbs, and Fruit
Almost anyone anywhere can grow some vegetables, herbs, and fruit.
This is a great place to start on a quest to provide more for yourself and rely less on outside sources of food.
It’s still possible to plant some cold season veggies in many areas–see our fall and winter veggie gardening info sheet for suggestions. Fall is definitely a good time to prepare a garden plot for next year. And winter can be the perfect season to study, learn, and order seeds in preparation for spring planting.
Why is it so important to raise our own food? Aside from shortages and high prices, there are other reasons it’s crucial that we take control over what we eat. We’ve talked about GMO foods before, and at the time of this posting, a must-see movie is available for free viewing. You won’t want to miss Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives.
Now, on to some resources to help with your gardening projects:
Gardening basics
The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener by Niki Jabbour
Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
THS Grow More With Companion Planting
Homesteading Today Gardening and Plant Propagation Forum
Sites, soils, amendments
RLT Gardening Where Soil Is Poor
THS Natural Nutrients for Plants
THS How to Properly Mulch a Garden
Garden seeds
The Difference Between Open Pollinated, Heirloom, and Hybrid Seeds from Seed Savers Exchange
THS Learning How to Grow From Seeds
THS DIY Heat Mat for Seed Starting
THS DIY Grow Rack for Seed Starting
Our favorite seed companies: Baker Creek Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Change
Creating a Personal Seed Bank from Rural Spin
Saving Seeds by Jackie Clay
Vegetable gardening
The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward C. Smith
The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible by Edward C. Smith
THS Learning to Garden: Growing Vegetables
Herb gardening
Homegrown Herbs by Tammi Hartung
THS Learning to Garden: Growing Herbs
Propagating Herbs from Homestead Revival and friends
Fruit gardening
The Fruit Gardener’s Bible by Lewis Hill & Leonard Perry
THS Learning to Garden: Growing Fruit
Cold-season gardening
RLT Fall and Winter Gardening Series
Alternative gardening concepts
Self Watering Containers from Preparing Your Family
Key to the Rural Living Today Network blog posts listed above:
RLT = Rural Living Today (our main website and blog: encouragement for the urban/suburban to rural transition)
THS = The Homesteader School (our archive site featuring DIY info and tutorials for sustainable living)
THK = The Homesteader Kitchen (our good eating, cooking from scratch food blog)
Previous posts in this series
Ten Realistic Ways to Overcome a Food Crisis
More About Beating Food Shortages and High Prices
In the coming weeks, we’ll be talking more specifically about each of our ten topics: growing vegetables, herbs, and fruit; raising meat, eggs, and dairy; local food sources and buying freezer meat; food storage; food preservation; sprouting; foraging; bartering; and learning more and more to help along the way.
To get these upcoming posts delivered straight to your email inbox, subscribe in the Rural Living Insider box below or at the upper right corner of this page.
This post shared at Homestead Barn Hop, Natural Living Mamma’s Mondays, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Rural Thursday, Little House in the Suburbs DIY Linky, Dandelion House Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, No Ordinary Homestead Natural Living Linkup, Small Footprint Friday, Prep Utility Vehicle Preparedness Fair
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Thank you, Marie! Appreciate the mention! While there is definitely a “high season” for the garden in summer, it’s never completely asleep and there is always something we can be doing to produce some kind of food. I get really excited when I think of the possibilities!
Amy recently posted..Inspiration Friday: Propagating Herbs
What a great list of resources! I have a lot of these books, and they are definitely helpful!
Heather recently posted..{31 Days} Intentional Living – Day 18
We’ve been eating lettuce and peppers and carrots and broccoli from our winter garden. And hopefully soon cabbage and peas too!
Lisa recently posted..Harper Cemetery – Harpers Ferry, WV – Rural Thursday
Great post ~ so informative ~ (A Creative Harbor)
Wow, that’s a huge list of resources! So much to process that it might take all winter to get through them
Thanks for linking up to NOH!
Tiffany recently posted..Bringing plants inside for the winter {Natural Life Link-up}
It’s so important to learn how to be self sufficient. Great post.
Nancy recently posted..Rural Thursday Blog Hop #39: Panorama Sunset
Thank you so much for sharing this excellent post at the Preparedness Fair!
Natalia
http://preputilityvehicle.blogspot.ca/
Natalia recently posted..Books Updated Mar 24, 2013