A vegetable garden in a crisis year: what to plant for survival

The outbreak of the virus and economic shocks are forcing people to think more and more about the food supply. A number of economists believe that by winter we may find ourselves in a situation comparable to 1998. And this season, dacha and vegetable garden life takes an apocalyptic bias: people are trying to create such vegetable gardens that, in an emergency, will help to survive if the shops are empty. We explain how to plant an anti-crisis vegetable garden.

How to create a food strategy

"In any crisis, plant potatoes" - this is written in the genes of Russian summer residents in golden letters. Potatoes, indeed, will not let you die of hunger, but it is equally important that the diet is varied and complete. In the anti-crisis vegetable garden, the emphasis is on nutrient crops rich in vitamins and minerals that are easy to process or keep fresh.

Beets, carrots, beans and peas will provide “good” carbohydrates; greens - iron (apples from the garden are still useful here), cucumbers, cabbage and asparagus - folic acid. Pumpkin, garlic and onions can be stored all year round even in an apartment, carrots and beets are also perfectly stored. For blanks, you will need tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions, beets; pickled apples, which strengthen the immune system, are preferable to high-calorie and useless jam. All berries, fruits and vegetables that can be dried also need to be included in the list of anti-crisis crops.

What crops to plant in a crisis

When setting up a vegetable garden, the emphasis should be on crops that grow well in your area. It is recommended to take into account the peculiarities of the garden - if most of the day it is in the shade, plant more shade-tolerant crops, the garden - in the open sun, think about how to shade cucumbers and cabbage; how easy it is to organize watering, etc. It is highly recommended not to make the beds wider than 45 cm. In very small areas and even on balconies, plants can be grown in containers.

What to plant

According to various estimates, an adult needs at least 80 kg of potatoes, 130–150 kg of various vegetables and about 30 kg of melons per year. Participants our portal adhere to approximately such numbers (per person).

Why varieties are better than hybrids

In times of crisis, you need to strive for autonomy. Everything that you can produce yourself is best done yourself, including the seeds. We need to be sure that by the beginning of the next summer season we will have our own seeds for planting, which is why it is necessary to plant not hybrids, but varieties. It is very easy to get seeds of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, melons, watermelons, carrots, beets and any legumes.

How to do without mineral fertilizers

You always need to think about how to get a good harvest without mineral fertilizers: it may be difficult to buy them. On FORUMHOUSE many stories of soil improvement have been told - people created fertile soil from the scarce land, mulching and planting green manures in the soil. It is especially important to provide the soil with nitrogen, on which its health directly depends. Here it is better not to rely on compost - it will be safer to rely on rotted manure, blood and feather meal and chicken manure solution.

How to make your garden more efficient

An important tool for increasing the efficiency of the garden is joint planting. Plants "cooperate" with each other, protect against pests and improve the quality of the fruit. Tomatoes are planted next to basil and garlic, onions with carrots, potatoes with beans, cucumbers with corn, strawberries with parsley and pumpkin. But pumpkin should not be planted next to zucchini (fraught with over-pollination), cucumbers with tomatoes, potatoes inhibit the growth of tomatoes and pumpkins, beans inhibit the growth of onions.
It will be appropriate to plant flowers near garden crops, they will attract bees and other insects for pollination. The recommendations here are as follows: plant roses closer to garlic, nasturtiums to cucumbers, alissum to potatoes, and borage to squash.

Why crop rotation is important

A good harvest cannot be obtained without crop rotation. If the same culture is grown in the same place for several years in a row, then pathogens of precisely those diseases that affect it will accumulate in the soil. In addition, different plants have different "gluttony": cabbage, pumpkin and cucumbers deplete the soil, legumes, on the contrary, enrich it, and beets, carrots and radishes extract very few nutrients from it. Considering the above, in no case should you plant tomatoes after potatoes, cabbage after root crops, carrots after beans, cucumbers and after beans, and after carrots, beets after cabbage and carrots, and onions after cabbage, carrots and tomatoes.

How to get a high yield of potatoes

A special planting method must be applied. Small branches and rotted grass are placed in a trench bayonet deep and 40 cm wide, and everything is covered with earth on top. Potatoes are planted on the resulting high bed, the distance between the tubers is 15 cm.

What are you planting this year? Write in the comments.

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