Survival Garden
The Best Way to Survive Food Shortages

A survival garden is different from regular gardening, only in the fact that you need to use non-hybrid seeds when planting it.

As far as getting the garden spot ready, planting and taking care of it, there is no difference. For those that have gardening experience, planting a non-hybrid garden will be fun, as now you get to harvest your own seeds for next year. :)

It is not easy though to find good non-hybrid seeds, especially now with so many people getting into gardening as a means to survive any coming food shortage.

If it is all new to you an digging up part of your yard or field seems like a ton of work, why not try raised bed gardening?

It is a very popular way for folks that simply do not have the tools nor want to invest into a tiller,etc, to do traditional gardening

You will need non hybrid seeds for survival gardening - click here to learn more about that...

First He Leveled Off a Small Garden Spot...

In the first photo you can see he leveled his spot off with a small bobcat that he borrowed from a friend... that was the beginning stage.... you can actually lay your plastic on top of the grass but for long term gardening, I would recommend taking off the sod.

Then Came The 'Boxing' Part!...

Jeff used boards he had saved when they remodeled a deck on their house to make the boxes for the garden. His are like 12' x 12', I believe, as he wants to try square foot gardening as well, which is something new to me so I guess we will have to post more photos as he gets it done. :)

You can make the raised beds any size you want. You will want them deep enough to have a healthy dirt system for your roots, but it doesn't have to be more than 18 inches or so.

The length and width of your boxes is important, though. If they are too long, the boards will eventually get a bow in them, with all the weight of the dirt. From what I have experienced with raised bed gardening is that you want your boxes just big enough to be able to reach into the middle from all sides without having to walk around inside the boxes.

Any additional weight on the raised beds can cause the boards to bend if it is too long.

For the dirt, have a good mixture of topsoil, steer compost or some sort of good barnyard dirt mixed together.

As you can see in the next photo, Jeff covered the ground firts with a heavy plastic then set the boxes on top of that. Although you do not have to do the plastic, I highly recommend it as it will save you a LOT of work in keeping the boxes weed free and will also make your survival garden area not only practical, but beautiful as well.

to get it all set up but then after that, it is one of the easiest gardens to maintain as you can compost all your veggie plants for the next year and just hoe it into the beds....no tilling needed at all. That's MY style of gardening! :)

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