Gardening: the cultivation and care of growing vegetables, greens, tubers, edible wild plants, herbs, flowers, or fruits. A well planned garden can assist your economic survival by reducing your grocery bills. The knowledge of gardening is fast becoming an essential skill. It could become a vital skill in the event of a disaster that deters the normal growing or marketing of food. A garden would thus become a matter of survival. Store an emergency supply of garden seeds so you will be prepared to meet this challenge. Keep the seeds frozen or in a cool location inside an airtight container. Plan your garden around the number of people you must feed. During a major emergency you might have to provide your own food for a year or more. Estimate your needs and the overall yield of your garden based upon probable yield per 10-feet row. Beans, beats, carrots, onions, peppers, and turnips will all yield 15 to 20 pounds per 10-feet row. Cabbage will yield 8 to 10 heads and lettuce 10 to 15 heads in the same space. Corn and cucumbers will yield 5 to 10 pounds per 10-feet row. Squash and tomatoes should yield 15 or more pounds per plant. If you lack space, remember that crops sucn as radishes mature early and can be followed by another crop. You can also train vining plants to grow on poles and thereby save more space. Grow pole crops on the north side of your garden to prevent shading of other garden crops. If you do not have land for a garden, consider specialized approaches to gardening. This would include roof-gardens, box-gardens, and hydroponics (a method of growing crops without soil).

Stagger the planting of crops like beans so the burden of picking and preservation does not come all at one time. Intercrop with herbs or flowers to save space and help control weeds and insects. After your garden has started growing, mulch can also be used for weed control. Mulch materials include straw, hay, grass clippings, leaves, corn-cobs, pine needles, redwood bark, stones, sawdust, wood chips, walnut shells, paper, peat moss, plastic, aluminum foil, and so on. Do not apply mulch too early in the season or it will keep the ground too cold for vegetables to do well. Chemical fertilizers will probably not be available during a prolonged emergency. But organic composts can be used to meet the fertilizer requirements. Use chicken wire to fence in a 4 by 4 feet area or larger, located so it will have partial shade during the day. Make compost by filling with layers of peat, leaves, straw, grass cuttings, and other organic waste between alternating layers of soil, animal manures, and small quantities of ground limestone. Add a layer of cottonseed meal, castor pomace, or dried blood as a source of organic nitrogen. Organic phosphorus can be obtained by adding slag, bone meal, or rock phosphate treated with sulphuric acid. Include wood ashes, potassium chloride, or muriate of potash as an organic source of pottassium. Add a mixture of weeds to obtain trace elements. The top of the compost pile should be concave so water can be easily added to keep the compost moist at all times. Apply compost to your garden after the compost turns black. Mix it in with the top six inches of soil.

Wheat and other cereals are considered field crops rather than garden crops. But wheat could be grown in a large garden plot if you had no other source of supply. To be prepared for such a situation, store at least 15 pounds of seed wheat per family member based upon a suggested seeding rate of 120 pounds per acre. Plan to plant a half acre of wheat to obtain a years supply of cereal grain for a family of four. This estimate is based upon an average yield of 40 bushels per acre at 60 pounds of wheat per bushel. Do not forget that actual yield will vary in accordance with soil and weather conditions.  If you are not an experienced gardener, obtain a good how-to-book. There are several on the market. You can also obtain a wealth of gardening information from the USDA County Agricultural Extension Agent. The latter is free for the asking.