395 "Survival Garden" Basics

Show Transcript

395 TRANSCRIPT Survival Garden

Farmer Fred:

[0:00] Today, Master Gardener and Vegetable Expert Gail Pothour and I explore the concept of the survival garden, not just as a means of year-round sustenance, but a pathway to nutritious living. We discuss the practicalities of growing calorie-rich yet nutritious family foods such as corn, beans, potatoes, and a lot more while considering their yield and family preferences. Get tips on high-fiber foods, year-round crops, and effective harvest preservation, all aimed at enriching your diet and gardening experience. It's episode 395 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, Survival Garden Basics. We're podcasting from the Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon jungle in suburban purgatory. Let's go!

Farmer Fred:

[0:47] Although the term ‘survival garden’ does sound kind of ominous, It's a term that for a certain generation of listeners just might conjure up images of an impending nuclear holocaust or serious social unrest. Well, let's make that term a bit more user friendly today. Consider a survival garden if you're attempting to wean your family away from ultra processed foods and get them eating a little bit healthier. Or maybe you're aware of the blandness and nutritional deficits of grocery store fruits and vegetables due to the demands of commercial agriculture to produce food that primarily looks good and it can handle the rigors of shipping long distances and can last a long time in a warehouse storage bin. We've talked about that in the past on this show, about studies that have shown the nutritional decline in modern hybrid vegetables versus the varieties of more than a a half century ago, which had much more nutritional quality.

Back in October of 2024, there was an issue of Modern Farmer magazine, and there was an article entitled “Growing a Survival Garden, 10 calorie dense crops you can grow at home”. It looked at those crops that were the easiest to grow, that are the greatest sources of calories or nutrients that will fill you up and keep you satiated. And the crops mentioned included corn, beans, winter squash, potatoes, beets, lentils, chickpeas, garbanzo beans, Jerusalem artichokes (sometimes called sunchokes), sweet potatoes, and mushrooms. Well, the article was okay in its limited way, but there's definitely more to growing food than just picking those that are good sources of calories and nutrients.

Farmer Fred:

[2:23] There are questions you have to ask yourself, though, if you're going to be starting a survival garden. Which crops produce the most food? Even though corn is on the top of that list in that Modern Farmer article, one stalk of corn may only produce a few ears per six-foot stalk, maybe as low as just two ears. Nor is it a crop that will last very long nutritionally in your refrigerator. Corn has a short life, with one notable exception, and we'll talk about that. Winter crops. This article didn't go much into cool season vegetables that you could grow so you could also eat fresh in winter and spring. Most of the crops mentioned in the article will produce their finished product during the warm months. What are the cool season crops, including the perennial cool season crops, that you can harvest, especially in more mild climates during the winter and spring? Which crops, by the way, will your family eat? That's always a question a lot of beginning gardeners forget to ask themselves. It's better to plant test plots of unfamiliar ones before committing a lot of garden space in the survival garden to something that doesn't have a lot of what we will call local popularity in your household. And perhaps the biggest question that needs an answer that wasn't answered in this article is, which crops have the longest storage life and how do you store them? We'll be tackling a lot of those questions today. Sacramento County Master Gardener and Vegetable Growing Aficionado Gail Pothour is with us.

Farmer Fred:

[3:47] Gail, that was a very interesting article, wasn't it, about the 10 most, I guess you'd say, filling crops, really, and nutritionally dense crops that one could grow.

Gail Pothour:

[3:56] It was an interesting article, and I can agree with some of what is in the article. I also agree with what you said, that some of it may not be a wise thing to grow space-wise. You may not get a lot of bang for your buck. But there's a lot of other vegetables that aren't on that list that I would put on that list.

Farmer Fred:

[4:18] I found a few myself, too.

Gail Pothour:

[4:19] Oh, yeah. And I think, for me, the most nutritious vegetables are going to be ones that you eat regularly, that your family enjoys, and that you're going to eat. I mean, all vegetables have nutrition, and some just more than others. And, you know, in my way of thinking, the most nutritious ones are the ones you're going to be eating regularly. In your diet, a wide variety of different kinds of vegetables because they have different nutritional value, different vitamins, antioxidants, and that sort of thing. So yeah, we could really add to that list.

Farmer Fred:

[4:56] One subject she did not tackle, and I'm surprised the article doesn't touch on those crops you can grow that have a lot of fiber, because if you're looking to be satiated from what you've eaten, well, nothing slows down your appetite more than a high fiber food.

Gail Pothour:

[5:13] And fills you up.

Farmer Fred:

[5:14] exactly. And keeps you away from snacking or whatever. So we'll probably mention a few high fiber foods that could be added to this list. So let's start with corn. by the way, folks, this won't be a negative podcast about this article, but we just want to tweak it a little bit. I think growing sweet corn might not be the best use of your land if you have a limited amount of land and your whole goal is to grow as much food as possible.

Gail Pothour:

[5:45] I agree. I am growing corn this year. I don't grow it every year, but about every other year just because I love fresh sweet corn. But because of the way it's pollinated, it's pollinated by the wind. And so you can't just grow a few plants. I've seen people grow four plants in a container. You're not going to get very good pollination. So you need to have at least a block, four by four minimum, a little bit larger if you could, so that all those silks get pollinated, fertilized. Each one of those silks becomes a potential kernel of corn. So there's a lot of pollination that has to go for corn. And it does take up a fair amount of space. And you may only get one or two ears per stock. And it's not generally a quick-growing crop, depending on the variety you're growing. It could be a late-season crop. It takes three months, depending on what you're growing. So yeah, it's something I do enjoy growing, just because I like the sweet corn. But it may not be the best use of the space if you're trying to get a lot of crop that you could store. Or you could dry, you could freeze, or whatever your manner of preserving would be.

Farmer Fred:

[6:59] And with corn, your preservation is limited, but we'll talk about one cure for that in just a second here. A lot of people don't realize there are a lot of different sweet corn variety groups, if you will. You've got the SE, the SH2, the SU, things like that, the synergistic ones as well. The SH2 probably would be the best one to use in this situation. It has twice the sugar content of the SU varieties and the rate of conversion of sugar to starch is slower. And that extends, as they say, the post-harvest quality. So SH2 varieties of sweet corn are going to last the longest and also be the sweetest. And they included such varieties as 3680B. Oh, don't you love a good 3680B?, Aspen, challenger, and super sweet jubilee. I planted a super sweet jubilee in my yard this year. So we'll see how that turns out.

Gail Pothour:

[7:58] Yeah, the SH2, those are the super sweets. And sometimes they will just be listed that way as super sweet. Whereas the SE are the sugary enhanced. So there's a lot of different types. The old fashioned corn that some of us grew up on are the standard sugary. There's also triple sweets. So, I mean, there's a whole lot of new types of corn that they're developing. With the old standards, it was always promoted that first you boil your water. Once the water is ready to boil, then you go pick the corn and put it in because the starch converts, the sugar converts to starch pretty quickly. So, a lot of these hybrids, the sugar enhanced, the super sweets, they stay sweet a little bit longer. So you don't have to boil the water and immediately harvest it. It will last longer, but over time, they will still get a little bit starchy, you know, so you can't keep them in the fridge for weeks.

Farmer Fred:

[8:59] The old standard varieties, though, could germinate better in colder soil. That's one of the drawbacks of the super sweets is they need really warm soil. You wouldn't be putting those in the ground until June, for example.

Gail Pothour:

[9:12] And with the corn being wind pollinated, if you're growing several different types, it can interfere with the pollination. And some of your super sweets could have some starchier kernels. And yeah, so it's kind of complicated. Typically, cross-pollination would only manifest itself in the seed for next year, if you saved the seed. But with corn, it's a little different. So it will affect this year's crop.

Farmer Fred:

[9:41] Yes, you will see it if things have gone awry.

Gail Pothour:

[9:44] Especially if you're growing popcorn next to sweet corn, that type of thing.

Farmer Fred:

[9:48] Well, you can if you time it right. That's what I'm trying to test in my garden this year with growing corn, is I put in the early variety, the SU variety, I think it was silver queen, which is a white corn. And it's already three feet tall. And I'm sure I'll be harvesting it because I planted it in early April, I do believe. So that's, I think it's 100 days for that. No, it's 88 days for that. So what would that be like, May, June, mid-July? But because it takes a while for them to tassel to produce that pollen, you can go ahead and plant popcorn if it was, if that first, ordinary sweet corn had 88 days to harvest, then probably by day 70 or so, you could be planting popcorn because it won't be ready for quite a while.

Gail Pothour:

[10:42] Typically, you need to isolate. You can either do it by distance, which means none of your neighbors could be growing corn, you know, so you have to isolate by quite a while, or by their maturity date when the silks and the tassels come out. So you could do it that way. I don't have a large enough garden to do that. So I grow one type. That's it.

Farmer Fred:

[11:05] Yeah, I've actually got three types of corn going. I've got this in a bed in a four by four section, the Silver Queen, which is the early season variety. And then that super sweet variety I have is called Super Sweet Jubilee. And oh, you're going to like this. I have that growing in a barrel. Okay. But I just want to test it, so I'll probably get at least one ear.

Gail Pothour:

[11:28] Sure. I mean, and you could go out there and shake the tassels and all that and hopefully get some fertilization, but it's always fun to try it differently. But generally for corn, you need to have it in a good size block in order to get good pollination.

Farmer Fred:

[11:44] Right. So I'm just doing it as a test. I've grown sweet corn in barrels before, and production is small.

Gail Pothour:

[11:50] To say the least. And I've had not so good pollination in a block that's six by five. Maybe there wasn't enough wind or the wind direction was the wrong way. And, you know, so I don't get a lot of the kernels filled out. But I still get some great sweet corn. But yeah, you can isolate either by distance or by time. So if you planted several different types a month apart or so, that might work. You just want to be sure that they're not, all that pollen isn't flowing at the same time.

Farmer Fred:

[12:20] So my popcorn is going to go into a bed at the end of June in a bed that will be empty by then because the onions and garlic will have been harvested.

Gail Pothour:

[12:30] Fingers crossed. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[12:31] Well, I've actually harvested most of the garlic already.

Gail Pothour:

[12:34] Really? I've harvested some. I've got about half of my bed still there.

Farmer Fred:

[12:37] All right. But soon, you know, that bed will be bare and I'll rework the soil and then plant the popcorn seed. And it will be ready, historically, whenever I've planted at the end of June, the popcorn is ready by October. Usually the second week of October. I like to say when Major League Baseball playoffs begin is when the time is  to harvest the popcorn and then let it cure for a while to get to the 13 to 17 percent moisture level in a cool, dark place.

Gail Pothour:

[13:07]  I don't know how you do that, how you determine it.

Farmer Fred:

[13:09] I'll tell you how. And I really want people to grow popcorn, especially if you have a survival garden, because it is the longest storing corn that I know of. Because if you can get it to 13% to 17% moisture level, and that's pretty easy, just leave it in a cool, dark place, and then to test it, you take off four or six of the kernels, put it in a fry pan with hot oil in it, and make sure they pop.  and actually pop it.  And if they pop, go for it. If they don't pop fully, it's not quite dry yet. If it just burns up, it's too dry.

Gail Pothour:

[13:44] Okay. So when it pops up, it’s ready to go.

Farmer Fred:

[13:46] and then you can put them in jars. Give them a tight seal. I like to use canning jars and put it on a kitchen shelf and it'll last there for years.

Gail Pothour:

[13:55] Literally. And That humidity that you need to have, certain moisture level that you need to have in the popcorn, in a canning jar, it will remain that way? It won't continue to dry out?

Farmer Fred:

[14:07] So far, so good on that. And I've been growing popcorn for 30 years. But what I have done sometimes, if when I've popped those four kernels, and if all of a sudden it seems like, hmm, it seems a little dry, you can add a few drops of water to that jar and shake it up and then put it on the shelf. And that seems to restore a lot of the moisture level.

Gail Pothour:

[14:27] Oh, that's good to know. One year I grew Glass Gem. It's now more readily available, but this was about 10 or 12 years ago. And I was on some mailing list and I got in the middle of the night and it said the glass gem is ready. And I ordered it, so I got some. It is an ornamental corn that can also be used as a popcorn. And I didn't try it as a popcorn. I use it for ornamental purposes because it's got all the different colors in one ear, purple and pink and orange. It's just really pretty. but it can be used as a popcorn. So that's good to know. You may try that.

Farmer Fred:

[15:00] There are a lot of decorative heirloom popcorns as well. Among the more colorful ones are Cherokee Long Ear, and Black Dakota. But if you're just looking for a plain white to yellow kernel that pops up white, historically I've loved Pennsylvania butter-flavored popcorn, which is an heirloom that goes back to 1886. And a newer heirloom, if there is such a thing, called Dynamite, which is very prolific. And you can usually get three or four ears per stalk. And they're tall stalks with long ears of corn as well. So it's really a nice thing to have. The reason I like to promote popcorn, if you have a survival garden, it's going to last a long time. You get a goodly amount of calories in a cup of popcorn, 30 to 40, which doesn't sound like much, but the amount of fiber in it, which is around 1.2 grams per serving, is enough to slow you down after you've gone through a cup of unpopped popcorn.

Gail Pothour:

[15:56] And if it lasts a long time, see, that would be something you'd need for a survival garden is something that will last multiple years. Have you ever grown a popcorn that is a mushroom popcorn as opposed to the butterfly type?

Farmer Fred:

[16:08] I did. And I think the reason people grow the mushroom popcorn and one of those is called Gourmet Mushroom F1, Harris Seeds carries it. And that's a hybrid variety. if people like to have kettle corn or caramel corn, yeah, the round ball mushroom type popcorn is perfect for that. I don't find its flavor to be as full as with the other kinds.

Gail Pothour:

[16:32] But if it's covered in caramel, are you going to...

Farmer Fred:

[16:34] Yeah, well, you see, that's the downside of popcorn. That's what makes it not as nutritionally sound you know.

Gail Pothour:

[16:42] By putting all that sugar on it.

Farmer Fred:

[16:44] Yeah, exactly. And they also suggest, too, for the healthiest popcorn is to air pop it with an air popper. I use a microwave popper. It doesn't require any oil.

Gail Pothour:

[16:52] We do have an air popper, so we like that where I don't have to use oil or even put butter on it.

Farmer Fred:

[16:56] Yeah, or cinnamon or any other thing that you might like that's low calorie and somewhat nutritious.

Gail Pothour:

[17:04] Ooh, hadn't thought about that. That does sound good.

Farmer Fred:

[17:06] All right. So anyway, corn is on this list in Modern Farmer magazine for one of the things to have in your survival garden. And I like to think of, again, the survival garden is not because you think there's a bomb coming. Although I got to tell you, if you have a bomb shelter, That does make a great root cellar. And that's how you keep food longer.

Gail Pothour:

[17:28] Which I would love to have. In our climate, we're so hot and dry that it is difficult to store root crops and things like that. So to have some kind of a bomb shelter would be great. In fact, my husband had some training, he's a civil engineer, he has some training on building bomb shelters back in the day. So maybe see if he can work something out there.

Farmer Fred:

[17:52] If you can maintain a temperature around 50 degrees, between 40 and 60, ideally, you can preserve onions, you can preserve garlic, you can preserve a lot of your canned goods, too.

Gail Pothour:

[18:04] Yeah. And that's something I really miss here. You know, people in the Midwest, they all have basements, and so they're able to preserve that way.

Farmer Fred:

[18:12] Fortunately, we live on a hillside that slopes downward towards the backyard. So the back of the house is raised to the point where you can go in through the rear, at ground level, and you can stand up through the entire basement. It's not a basement. It's just under the house. So I said, this is great. This is a root cellar.

Gail Pothour:

[18:31] Absolutely.

Farmer Fred:

[18:32] Oh, OK. So you can always move.

Gail Pothour:

[18:34] To a hillside. That's true.

Farmer Fred:

[18:36] Right. Another crop mentioned in this article are beans. Now, you and I both like beans, and beans are very nutritious. 135 calories per serving, 24 grams of carbs, 9 grams of protein per 100 gram serving. There are all sorts of beans, though. In your estimation, which bean varieties will produce the most and last the longest?

Gail Pothour:

[18:59] There are two different types, typically, of beans, bush beans and pole beans. The pole beans would have the potential to produce more beans because they produce over a longer period of time. Where bush beans are more determinate, they grow two feet tall and set their beans and are pretty much done. Pole beans will grow a lot longer. So, for the space, the yield would be more with pole beans, I think.

Farmer Fred:

[19:28] Plus, you're growing it vertically.

Gail Pothour:

[19:30] Exactly. Yeah. So, you don't take up as much real estate. You can get the plants closer together. and they're growing taller. Most people, when they think of beans, probably think of a green bean, a snap bean that you eat fresh. And  that's one of my favorite. I like to grow those every year. They don't last a long time in the refrigerator, maybe a week or two, but you can freeze them. Just blanch them and freeze them. If you have a pressure canner, you could can them. But then I also grow the dry beans. I do like dry beans because those are the type of bean that would sustain you over a longer period of time. And you let them grow until the bean pod gets dry and that the bean inside gets dry. But it takes a lot of beans to feed a family. I was showing you, Fred, that I grow every other year, I grow a variety that's called Yellow Indian Woman or Buckskin. And it's a small little yellowy bean that is reminiscent of a black bean in its flavor and the way it holds together. And I grow an entire bed of these beans and I have them in a one quart jar. That was my yield. It takes a lot of plants to produce a lot of dried beans. this is just a family for two of us. So if you had children and other people that you're providing for, you need to grow a lot of beans to get dried beans that are going to sustain you over the winter.

Farmer Fred:

[20:57] There certainly are pole beans that are dry beans.

Gail Pothour:

[21:00] Right. The one that I grow happens to be a pole bean. Okay. And to say I had, what, 60 plants, I think, and I have a quart of dried beans. So yeah, it takes a lot, a lot of plants to produce a lot of dried beans. Bush beans will provide a lot of fresh beans and over a short period of time. So,  I grow them every year in the summer because we do like fresh beans.

Farmer Fred:

[21:25] What is the spacing for a pole bean versus a bush bean?

Gail Pothour:

[21:30] On the pole beans, I do them about six inches apart and I run a string up. I have a trellis at both ends and I have a copper tube that goes across the top and then I run the strings over that. So it goes over the pole and down the other side. And so I end up with about 60 some odd plants. They're about four to six inches apart. Bush beans would be about the same. Depends on the variety because bush beans tend to be broader. Pole beans tend to be long and skinny and they grow up. But I do them about the same, maybe six or eight. Yeah, six or eight inches maybe apart.

Farmer Fred:

[22:06] Doesn’t that become a bean jungle then?

Gail Pothour:

[22:08] It pretty much is. But I also put up supports even for my bush beans. They don't usually need supports because they only grow about two feet tall, but they still want to flop over. And I don't want any of the beans to actually touch the ground, even though I mulch with straw. I still will put up some kind of support, whether it's bamboo stakes around the edge and run twine. At the horticulture center, we are using bicycle wheels that we put around the edges and we'll run twine between them. Some way just to keep the plants from flopping onto the ground.

Farmer Fred:

[22:39] The beauty, too, of growing beans in your survival garden, it is a protein.

Gail Pothour:

[22:45] Correct. And there's a lot of different varieties. There's the Italian flat, more like a Romano bean. They're a little bit meatier. You've got the Haricots Verts (French green beans), the filet beans, the French ones that are real thin and tender. They're green. They've got them purple and yellow. So a lot of different varieties, a lot of different flavors. And then when you go to the dried beans, There's a lot of heirloom dried beans and even some new hybrids where the bean themselves that you save, the dried bean part, are speckled or they're striped and purple. Yeah, different colors, kind of jewel tones.

Farmer Fred:

[23:23] I think my favorite was Bingo.

Gail Pothour:

[23:25] Oh, I haven't heard of bingo. Yeah. But I do like this buckskin or yellow-Indian woman that I grow every year. It's a really good bean.

Farmer Fred:

[23:32] I think of all the crops we'll be talking about today for a survival garden, beans are the ones that are going to grow the quickest, give you a heck of a lot of nutrition. And they improve the soil.

Gail Pothour:

[23:43] Absolutely. As a legume, they will affix the nitrogen from the air into the soil onto the roots as long as the right rhizobium bacteria is there. So you usually want to inoculate your beans, but you don't have to. And then it will affix those nitrogen nodules to the roots of the plant. So then when you take the plant out, what I do is I'll cut it off at the soil level and leave those roots in the ground. So those nitrogen nodules are there for the next crop that's being grown. Excellent idea. They can utilize the nitrogen.

Farmer Fred:

[24:18] And by the time you get around to planting there again, those will have broken down.

Gail Pothour:

[24:21] Right. And microbes will have broken them down. So, yeah, it makes it available to the next crop that you grow.

Farmer Fred:

[24:27] One guest we've had on the show before, the fresh physician, Dr. Laura Varich, is very fond of beans. She says legumes like beans, peas, and lentils are wonder foods. They contain nutrients known to be anti-inflammatory, anti-obesity, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic, which decreases the chance of cancer. A study of multiple societies around the world demonstrated that eating legumes was the most important dietary predictor of increased survival, with an 8% decrease in premature death for every two tablespoons of legumes eaten per day. It's not saying you're not going to die, but it's saying you're going to live longer.

Gail Pothour:

[25:05] Right. And lentils and garbanzos or chickpeas, those are both legumes that are easy to grow. I don't produce a lot. I did grow garbanzos one year just for the fun of it. I had never grown garbanzo beans before. And there's only one or two little beans in each of the pods so that they're not huge producers, but because they're more bush type plants, you can grow them a little closer together. Just know that you're not going to get a lot of yield out of each of the little pods. They don't have a lot of beans in them. But I've never tried growing lentils. I think it would be fun. That's something I think we ought to maybe try to do at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, try to grow some lentils.

Farmer Fred:

[25:48] How much room would you need for that?

Gail Pothour:

[25:50] Our beds are four feet by 20. I'd say we could do a half a bed. That could be kind of fun just to see how they grow. My understanding is that lentils are more of a cool season legume. Most of the beans we think of, the regular snap beans, the green beans that we eat fresh, Those are warm season crops. You have to have warm soil before the seed will germinate or they'll just rot. And they go through the summer. Fava beans are a cool season legume that grows through the winter. And apparently lentils are as well. I've not grown lentils, but my understanding is it's more of a cool season crop that I would assume you would plant maybe in the fall, maybe September or so.

Farmer Fred:

[26:31] It depends where you live in the country.

Gail Pothour:

[26:32] I'm sure it does, yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[26:33] According to Modern Farmer, you would plant lentils April to early May or whenever temperatures are consistently above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most varieties take about 100 days to reach maturity. So, it's a long growing season.

Gail Pothour:

[26:47] It is. So, it's more of you plant them in early spring then.

Farmer Fred:

[26:50] Well, I don't know where this Modern Farmer author lives. So, I would think that they would sort of split the country up and say, well, let's do this for USDA zone 7 and 8. Because once you start getting to nine, we can talk about a lot of great survival garden crops to grow for California, for example, that you wouldn't have a chance in other parts of the country. Right. Things like artichokes.

Gail Pothour:

[27:14] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because our climate is so different from other parts of the country. But I know that the University of California does have some information on growing lentils. So I will be looking that up because that could be kind of an interesting thing to grow.

Farmer Fred:

[27:26] Another crop on the list of survival gardens from Modern Farmer magazine was winter squash. Pumpkins are a winter squash. There's certainly a lot of recipes, soups, or a side dish that can last a long time. And winter squash, that can last a long time.

Gail Pothour:

[27:43] And some people think that the difference between summer squash and winter squash is that summer squash is grown in the summer and winter squash is grown in the winter. And that is not correct. Winter squash is grown during the summer just like a zucchini and patty pan squash. It's just that it takes a little longer to mature. The skin gets a little tougher. The stem gets a little woody. And it stores over the winter. That's why it's called a winter squash. So then a root cellar would be great to have.

Farmer Fred:

[28:13] Exactly, yeah, for the winter squash. Right. Summer squashes are nice, but storage of zucchini, I've never experimented with storage of zucchini.

Gail Pothour:

[28:22] The only way I have stored zucchini is when I've preserved it. I make a zucchini butter that I store in the freezer. I don't do a lot of canning. I don't have a pressure canner, so I do a lot of freezing. So I freeze zucchini that way.  Yeah, the summer squash, which would be the yellow crook neck, the patty pan, the little scallop, the zucchini, those won't last a long time in your refrigerator, and you certainly can't store them in a root cellar. They would mold. They're so thin-skinned. The winter squash, on the other hand, as I say, take longer to mature.  You want to do the thumbnail test on the skin so you can't easily pierce the skin. What it does is it changes to its mature color. So if it starts out green, for instance, say a butternut squash would start out dark green, then it would turn that tan color that is typical of a butternut squash. So know what the mature color is supposed to be. Then try the thumbnail test. If it doesn't easily pierce the skin, it's getting tough enough, and the stem often gets kind of quirky or woody, meets all that criteria. Then cut off the stem with a pruner. It's going to be a pretty thick stem. Leave at least a couple of inches on the stem and don't carry it around by the stem. If that stem breaks off, then you run the risk of the squash rotting.

But then you want to cure it for several weeks. I think all except acorn squash needs to be cured. And what that means is the starches, the carbohydrates are turning to sugar. So it makes it a little bit sweeter. And I put it in kind of a dry place. I wouldn't leave it out in the sun, but someplace a little dry for a couple of weeks.

Farmer Fred:

[30:11] And probably out of the heat.

Gail Pothour:

[30:12] Out of the heat. Correct. And once it's cured, then depending on the variety, they can last several months, three or four months. Some could last through the winter. Depends on the variety.

Farmer Fred:

[30:22] Yeah. I think we should rename this episode the Bomb Shelter Garden. Yeah. Certainly, a root cellar is going to come in very handy.

Gail Pothour:

[30:30]  I would love to have one.

Farmer Fred:

[30:32] All right. Another crop mentioned in this article are potatoes. And potatoes are pretty easy to grow.

Gail Pothour:

[30:39]  I've got potatoes growing right now. I grow them every year. They're probably one of the easiest crops to grow. As long as your soil has been prepared well, it has organic matter and it's not too clay-y, it needs to have good drainage. And so I grow in a raised bed. It's one where you plant it and kind of not forget it, but it doesn't make a lot of work. Potatoes do like to be hilled up. What happens when you plant a seed potato? You don't plant, well, you can plant potatoes from seed. There is a new variety out called Clancy that's an All-America Selection winner that is grown from seed. But typically, potatoes are grown from a seed potato, an actual potato, that you want to have disease-free certification. You don't want to pass any diseases on. So, I would hesitate to grow a sprouted potato from the grocery store. Just because you don't know if there's a disease in it that you're passing on. But at any rate, You get certified disease-free seed potatoes from a garden center or mail order. You get your soil prepared. And what I like to do is dig a trench about six inches deep, maybe six to eight inches deep. Put the seed potato in there that I've already kind of pre-sprouted. I like, it's called chitting or green sprouting where you kind of get a jump on it. So it's already starting to sprout.

Farmer Fred:

[32:02] How do you do that?

Gail Pothour:

[32:03] I put them in an egg carton  in my north facing window. So it gets light, but no direct sunlight for four weeks or so. And it starts to sprout. It breaks dormancy, and the little eyes on the potato start to actually sprout. And so you get a jump on it. And I like to plant potatoes that are the size of an egg, a hen’s egg. That way I don't have to cut them. If you have bigger potatoes, you do need to cut them into smaller pieces, and there are ways to do that. And I've had pretty good luck letting them kind of heel over.

Farmer Fred:

[32:37] Scab over a little bit. That's like one or two days on the kitchen counter.

Gail Pothour:

[32:40] Yeah, kind of. But even then, you run the risk of those cut potatoes rotting in the ground if your soil's too wet. But this year, we had pretty good luck. They all came up. So apparently, I have figured out how to do it. But anyway, then you cover it with soil. So they're down in this little trench, and maybe about the six or eight-inch deep trench. You put the potato in and covered it. You didn't fill in the trench. You just covered the potato. And in a couple of weeks or so, you'll see sprouts coming up. And then as the plant gets maybe six or eight inches tall, then you fill in that trench. So you're hilling it up by covering that seed potato with soil.

Farmer Fred:

[33:23] Are you clearing off the branches that are there?

Gail Pothour:

[33:25] Nope. I'm just adding soil. You don't want to bury the top of the plant. You always want to have foliage out for photosynthesis, but you are providing space for the tubers that are going to be developing to grow. So the stem comes up out of the seed potato that has sprouted, and these underground stems start to form in the soil. And at the ends of those stems are where the potatoes will form later on. So you're hilling up by giving them a place for those little tubers to form in soil. And then I always add four, six inches of straw mulch on top of that to keep it covered, to keep the soil from drying out, keep weeds from coming up, and also to protect any of the little potatoes that are forming from getting sunlight. Because if they're exposed to light, they'll turn green. If you've ever seen a green potato that has a green skin, that's the solanine, that's the toxic compound that's in the solanaceous plants. That you wouldn't want to eat that. You'd want to peel that off. But if you keep it covered, if it's not exposed to light, then you won't have that issue with the greening.

Farmer Fred:

[34:41] Could you use portions of that green potato for a seed crop?

Gail Pothour:

[34:45] You can use it for a seed crop, right? Just you don't want to eat that. So when I am chitting or green sprouting my potatoes in the window in my egg carton, they're exposed to light. And so they very easily could be turning green, but it's okay for a seed potato. You just don't want the developing potatoes down the line to turn green.

Farmer Fred:

[35:08] Potatoes, though, are the crop that keeps on giving. If you don't get them all, which is why I like to plant potatoes in a large fabric bag.

Gail Pothour:

[35:17] Because they're easy to dump out and you get them all.

Farmer Fred:

[35:19] You get them all, right. Otherwise, you're going to leave one or two behind. And next thing you know, you've got a potato jungle.

Gail Pothour:

[35:25] Right. And yeah, you'll never get them all. There'll be some little marble-sized potatoes that you didn't know were there. When you dig them out of your raised bed or out of the soil, and they will come up. I don't recommend letting those continue to grow because they could have some kind of disease or kind of an insect problem. So everything I've read says you don't want those volunteer potatoes to come out. You know, so I'd take them out rather than, I mean, it'd be kind of a fun experiment, I suppose. Let them grow and see what they produce next year, but just know that you might run the risk of spreading a common disease like scab or something that could be a soil-borne disease.

Farmer Fred:

[36:08] Yeah, potatoes can carry a lot of potato diseases and soil diseases.

Gail Pothour:

[36:13] I have a whole compendium on potato diseases. There's a lot of things they can get.

Farmer Fred:

[36:18] Yeah, but you could, you know, the beauty of living here in California is you can plant potatoes, I think, in more months than not. And I'm thinking that as the potatoes that, for instance, you and I planted back in March, by the time they're ready to be harvested, you could use some of those as seed potatoes again.

Gail Pothour:

[36:39] Right. And it depends on the variety. The ones that we planted in March, I think you're referring to the Bodega Reds. That's a long season crop.

Farmer Fred:

[36:47] That's 100 days.

Gail Pothour:

[36:48] It's at least 100 days. So unfortunately, by the time we get those seed potatoes and we plant them in mid-March, they're going to go through the heat of summer. So that's kind of tough on potatoes. They're considered a cool season crop. And when they go through our 100 degree days in the summer, that's really tough on them. So if you grew a shorter season variety, say Yukon Gold or something is shorter than these Bodega Reds, You would be able to harvest them before we got in the heat of summer. Then you could plant them again, save some of those potatoes, as long as you know they haven't had any diseases. I would stick them in the paper bag, in the vegetable crisper, in my spare refrigerator in the garage. That's where I keep them. I don't put them in a sealed plastic bag. I may put them in a plastic Ziploc bag, but I don't seal it. I want to have some air circulation. And they're in a vegetable crisper by themselves with nothing else. It has ethylene gas that would cause them to sprout.

Farmer Fred:

[37:48] No apples.

Gail Pothour:

[37:49] Right, no apples. And then if it's a short season crop, I would consider planting it again late summer and you could have some potatoes by Thanksgiving or Christmas. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[37:59] And really, it's an economical crop from that standpoint, but it's still nutritious too. Potatoes per 100 grams contain about 80 calories, 17 grams of carbohydrates and 2 grams of protein per 100 grams. So for any survival garden, potatoes are a slam dunk.

Gail Pothour:

[38:16] And there's so many different varieties now. There's the old heirlooms, there's new hybrids, but there's yellow and red and purple and, you know, all these jewel tones. So there's a lot of different varieties now. There's some with the russeted skin, some with smooth skin. So, yeah, a lot of different varieties out there to try.

Farmer Fred:

[38:34] I thought there would be more root crops listed on this survival garden list than there are. but one root crop that is prominently mentioned are beets. And beets are a very healthy product, beets contain about 50 calories, five grams of carbs and two grams of protein per 100 grams serving. And they're fairly easy to grow as well.

Gail Pothour:

[38:53] They are. What you do need to realize is that most varieties of beets, when you see a beet seed, it's a cluster of seeds. It's called multi-germ seeds. So if you actually have looked at a beet seed, there's a bunch of seeds all fused together. And so when you plant those, you absolutely have to thin when they come up because they're going to be too crowded. So after they have sprouted and you have six different little sprouts coming out of that one seed, go in there with some sharp little scissors and cut them off except leave the one strongest one. There are some varieties I understand that are called monogerms. So they're hybrids where they have bred them to not have clustered seeds like that, but most of them are that way. They also have a natural germination inhibitor on them. So it's beneficial to soak them. At least several hours you could soak them overnight to get that germination inhibitor off of them so they'll sprout a little easier.

Farmer Fred:

[39:52] And beets that grow on their own. Is that a crop that you plant in the cool season?

Gail Pothour:

[39:59] Yes, it is considered a cool season.

Farmer Fred:

[40:02] Here in California.

Gail Pothour:

[40:03] Yeah, in California. And I know in some parts of the country, they can grow it in the summer, but they don't like our summer heat. They tend to get a little woody. So we plant them usually February, March, April. So a late winter, early spring crop. Or you could plant them late summer, so August and September. That's typically when we would plant them is in the late summer.

Farmer Fred:

[40:27] And I guess you wouldn't want to leave them in the ground for too long. They get kind of woody?

Gail Pothour:

[40:31] They can, although that might be a good place to store them over the winter if you don't have the type of weather where your ground freezes, which we don't have usually here in our part of California. You could leave them in the ground, but you would want to harvest them before they get too big because then they would start getting a little on the woody side.

Farmer Fred:

[40:50] And some are gorgeous.

Gail Pothour:

[40:52] Oh, and they have, well, the typical dark reddish purple ones. There's golden beets that are not quite as beety flavored, which I tend to like. I'm not a big beet fan, but I do like the golden beets. They have white beets. They have ones, the Chiogia, that looks like a bullseye. You cut it open and it looks alternating red and pink stripes kind of in circular patterns.

Farmer Fred:

[41:16] It's something a hypnotist would use.

Gail Pothour:

[41:18] Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of different types. There's cylindrical ones that they use a lot in canning. If you want to can, then all your slices look the same instead of being more like a ball. So a lot of different types. You can eat the greens as well. I often grow beets as for microgreens because I'm not a big beet fan. I do like the little microgreens of beets. And so I'll grow those and cut those off and put them in a salad, eat them fresh that way.

Farmer Fred:

[41:45] That's another aspect that is not mentioned in the survival garden:  microgreens.

Gail Pothour:

[41:51] Very nutritious.

Farmer Fred:

[41:52] Very nutritious, and you can grow them indoors.

Gail Pothour:

[41:55] They don't store very well because they grow so quickly. Usually in 7 to 14 days after you sow the seeds, you'll be cutting them off and putting them in a salad or sprinkling them on an omelet or something like that. But studies have shown they are a lot more nutrition than their mature counterparts.

Farmer Fred:

[42:15] Yeah, so if the whole purpose of your survival garden is more nutrition, then microgreens definitely should be part of your kitchen.

Gail Pothour:

[42:23] Right. And they're quick. I mean, so fast and use so thickly. And often I'll use my leftover seeds if I know my broccoli is maybe three years old and so maybe the germination isn't going to be great or my beets are getting a little old. Yeah. I will thickly sow those seeds in a deli container or whatever container I'm using. Sow them really thickly because it doesn't matter how many come up. If they all germinate, that's fine. You're just going to cut them off at the soil level with the scissors anyway and put them in a salad. So that's how I use up a lot of my old seeds.

Farmer Fred:

[43:02] How do you get the dirt off?

Gail Pothour:

[43:03] I cut them above the soil, but I always rinse them off. You do need to know what seeds to use and what is edible and what isn't. So I wouldn't sow your leftover tomato seeds, for instance, because they're in the solanaceous family and those are toxic. So the foliage is not edible on tomatoes. So know what you're planting, and make sure that it's a sprout that is edible.

Farmer Fred:

[43:31] There are some excellent microgreen mixes available from seed companies like Johnny Selected Seed or Harris Seeds that are mixes of things. There's a kale mix, I recall. There's a cilantro mix. And, you know, it'd be pretty, too. Oh, yeah.

Gail Pothour:

[43:47] And it grows quickly. And that's what's nice is you don't have to wait months and months for the plants to mature you. In a couple of weeks, you're ready to harvest. And then you take that root mass, the soil that has all those roots in it, that goes in your compost. And then you start over. Save your next deli container and put in a couple inches of potting soil and start over.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER: GROWING MICROGREENS

Farmer Fred:

[44:15] In the Garden Basics podcast you're listening to right now, episode 395, The Survival Garden, Master Gardener Gail Pothour and I are talking about a wide variety of nutrient-rich crops for a healthier family. And we briefly talked about microgreens, which are very nutritious and easy to grow. Maybe it was a little too brief, if you ask me. So for the current edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we do a deep dive into growing microgreens, featuring a previous interview all the way back in 2020 with Gail on that topic. You'll find out the wide variety of seeds that can grow to a harvestable size in as little as 10 to 20 days that can provide great nutrition in small doses when used as a garnish or maybe perhaps as a salad at mealtime. Heck, put it on a pizza. Plus, you'll enjoy the microgreens' wonderful taste and colorful appearance. It's all in the June 5th, 2025 edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, which is entitled Growing Microgreens.

Farmer Fred:

[45:14] This newsletter edition is available now in its entirety for both free and paid subscribers. However, paid subscribers do have some added perks. We have a new Monday edition of the newsletter that's just for paid subscribers. Last week, it was all about hot weather tips to save your garden.

Farmer Fred:

[45:31] Another benefit of being a paid subscriber to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, Paid subscribers also have complete access to the previous posts of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, and there are now over 200 of those editions. By the way, your paid subscription to the newsletter supports not only the ongoing efforts to produce that newsletter, but it also helps keep this podcast, the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, freely available each week. And starting this week, without commercial product interruptions, making your paid support via the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter even more important. You'll find a link to it in today's show notes. And you can find out more information about the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in several other places, too, at our homepage, gardenbasics.net, or at farmerfred.com, or go to the newsletter distributor, Substack. And thank you for your support and encouragement to keep the good gardening conversation going.

SURVIVAL GARDEN BASICS, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred:

Let's get back to our conversation with Master Gardener Gail Pothour about growing the survival garden.

For people who enjoy hummus, The key ingredient there is what, garbanzo beans?

Gail Pothour:

[46:49] Garbanzo, also called chickpeas.

Farmer Fred:

[46:49] Chickpeas and garbanzo beans are on this list of crops to grow for a survival garden. They are in the legume family. Yes. And I imagine there's your meat replacement. Correct. If you don't have a cow down there in the bomb shelter with you.

Gail Pothour:

[47:06] Yeah, they are in the legume family. They're not a bean and they're not a pea. So, while it's called garbanzo beans or chickpeas, they are neither beans nor peas, but they are in the legume family. They're meaty like a lima bean.

Farmer Fred:

[47:22] Okay.

Gail Pothour:

[47:23] So, if you're familiar with limas, they grow pretty rapidly, but you want to be sure that the soil is not too wet when you plant the seeds because they can rot before they come up.

Farmer Fred:

[47:34] When is planting time for that here in USDA Zone 9?

Gail Pothour:

[47:37] Yeah, it's a warm climate, so it's not a cool season crop like fava beans. And so it would be, and they have a long, what, at least three months, 100 days growing season. So, yeah, you'd want to be sure that the, typically for beans, you want the soil to be at least 65 degrees.

Farmer Fred:

[47:53] All right. So around here, that's May, June.  And then wait.

Gail Pothour:

[47:59] Yeah. And as I mentioned, I did do garbanzo beans. You don't get a lot of beans, you know, one or two beans in each of the pods. But the foliage is completely different than typical beans. It's real ferny looking. So it's kind of pretty. So it's fun to try.

Farmer Fred:

[48:12] How tall does the plant get?

Gail Pothour:

[48:13] A couple feet, 18 to 24 inches. And actually, parts of California down the valley is a big garbanzo bean growing area. I didn't realize that.

Farmer Fred:

[48:22] All right. They're delicious as meat replacement, a staple in Asian cuisine. And of course, as everyone knows who likes hummus, it's part of hummus. And it contains about 160 calories, 27 grams of carbs, and 9 grams of protein per 100 gram serving. Another plant on this list from Modern Farmer magazine for the survival garden are sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes. I am totally unfamiliar with that other than seeing them in the grocery store. I am not even sure I know what they taste like. And you're eating the roots, aren't you?

Gail Pothour:

[48:56]  Yeah, you are eating the roots. It's a tuber, and they are kind of gnarly looking. If you're familiar with a fingerling potato, it kind of has that look, but they're more rough-skinned and more knobby than that. Kind of not very attractive, but, you know, it's an underground root tuber. It is native sunflower. So you're going to want to put it in a place that can handle a 10-foot tall plant because they get huge. And then in the late summer, they have this small little sunflower, daisy-looking flower, which to me is kind of proportionally wrong. You've got this huge plant with a tiny little flower at the top. But they'll need some kind of staking because they're so tall, they can blow over in the wind. So when we did grow them at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center,  eight, ten years ago, we put up some galvanized fence poles,  to have substantial stakes for the plants. We did grow them at the end of our raised bed, and we grew them on the north side because they get so tall, we figured they would shade whatever we were going to be growing next to it. They can be a little on the invasive side in that regard.

One pound of tubers can make 100 pounds of tubers. I mean, it's a huge deal that you can get from them. And if you don't harvest them all, they will increase next year. So any of the little tubers you left in the ground, they'll go dormant in the winter and then they'll re-sprout. So if you contain them, some way to grow them, if you do it in a raised bed, I would put up some kind of a border, maybe like if you're growing mint, you don't want it to escape. or just be sure that you dig all those tubers out each spring. Good way to store them is to leave them in the ground. If you don't have freezing temperatures, which we don't hear, our soil doesn't freeze. Even if you did have freezing soil, if you got a thick layer of straw or something, that could insulate it. But that's one of the better places to store them is in the ground and dig them up as you need them.

Farmer Fred:

[51:08] This sounds like a back 40 crop.

Gail Pothour:

[51:10] Pretty much. Yeah. See, it is huge. They get eight to 10 feet tall. So, it's really large, yeah, large plants. And they do die back. So, they're not there all year. And then they'll resprout. But yeah, you get a lot more yield from Jerusalem artichokes than you do from potatoes,

Farmer Fred:

[51:28] For sure. Jerusalem artichokes. And erase from your mind if you think you know what an artichoke looks like.

Gail Pothour:

[51:35] Because it doesn't like an artichoke. Nothing. I think it must have got that name maybe because it tastes a little bit like an artichoke heart, perhaps. And they're not from Jerusalem at all. No. It's one of those who knows where the name came from. It's probably what the original name was got changed. So it's not from Jerusalem at all.

Farmer Fred:

[51:57] That's why it's called Sunchokes.

Gail Pothour:

[51:58] Yeah. Often it's called Sunchoke. It is Native American. So the Native Americans used it a lot. and it's a good potato substitute, kind of stays healthy. Moist and crispy like a water chestnut, sort of. You can boil them and mash them and cook them, things like that. We only grew them a couple of years. I found that we didn't really know what to do with them all that much. We weren't using them to their potential. And so we only tried it a couple of years. But boy, we got quite a bit of yield in those two years.

Farmer Fred:

[52:33] It sounds like a rhubarb kind of crop.

Gail Pothour:

[52:35] Kind of, yeah, maybe. But it's fun to try. You know, if you want to try something different, it has a pretty flower that attracts pollinators. So that's nice. And if you can figure out ways to use that tuber, you know, you get a lot of ways to use it.

Farmer Fred:

[52:51] Also on this list is a crop that is in the morning glory family, not the nightshade family. And that's sweet potatoes.

Gail Pothour:

[52:59] Sweet potatoes, right.

Farmer Fred:

[53:00] Sweet potatoes, sometimes called yams, but yams are a different crop than sweet potatoes.

Gail Pothour:

[53:04] Absolutely. And I think that was only a marketing thing that southern sweet potato growers did years and years ago was so that they could differentiate the moist, orangey colored flesh sweet potatoes from other sweet potatoes that are grown in other parts of the country. So they started calling their orange flesh sweet potatoes yams. So you'll see candied yams or, you know, cans of them or recipes for them. Well, the yam is a totally different animal that's from parts of Africa, I think. It can get to be 30 or 40 pounds. They're huge. So it's not even in the same family as sweet potatoes. So what we have in the U.S. that are called yams, they are sweet potatoes. They're required to also be called This garnet yam is a sweet potato. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[53:58] So sweet potatoes are a morning glory family.

Gail Pothour:

[54:02] Right. They have the same flower. If you've ever grown morning glories, the flower is a morning glory. It's this really pretty flower.

Farmer Fred:

[54:07] There are some crops called morning glories that are weeds.

Gail Pothour:

[54:11] Like bindweed. Like bindweed.

Farmer Fred:

[54:12] Is this a weed?

Gail Pothour:

[54:14] No, I wouldn't call this a weed. It's not invasive at all, so I wouldn't call it a weed.

Farmer Fred:

[54:18] And it takes about 100 days to maturity. Is it spring or fall planting on this?

Gail Pothour:

[54:23] Typically may in our climate, it needs to have warm soil. And you start the sweet potatoes from slips, which kind of reminds me of a science experiment we did in high school 100 years ago was you would take a sweet potato and put toothpicks in it and submerge it in a jar of water. So half of the sweet potato was in water and it would send out roots and then it would have sprouts at the top. Basically, that's what you're doing is you're getting these sprouts to grow from the sweet potato. You snap those off. You don't cut them off. You snap them off from the sweet potato, stick that in the ground, and those will become rooted cuttings. That's what you're planting. So if you order sweet potato slips, if you order sweet potatoes from a mail-order company, that's what you'll get are these slips. One of the problems is California has a quarantine on the sweet potato weevil, and most sweet potatoes come from southern growers. So there's a lot of mail-order companies that sell sweet potato slips, but if you read the fine print, cannot ship to California.

Farmer Fred:

[55:38] So what do you do? I think it's just one grower here.

Gail Pothour:

[55:41] Yeah, there are a few places. In fact, we do have an environmental horticulture note that I prepared many years ago. It needs to be updated, sadly. But I have some sources listed in there where you could get them. I need to update that. But just contact the mail order company and ask them, can they ship to California?

Farmer Fred:

[56:03] And probably if they're based in California, you can get them.

Gail Pothour:

[56:05] Yeah. Well, it depends on where their grower is. Sometimes they'll come directly from the grower from Tennessee, that sort of thing. I know that Victory Seeds is able to sell them, at least last I heard. So there are some seed companies that just check with them to see if they can ship to California.

Farmer Fred:

[56:22] Sweet potatoes contain 86 calories, 20 carbs, and 2 grams of protein per 100 grams. How long do they keep?

Gail Pothour:

[56:30] They can actually keep quite a long time. You do cure them similar to winter squash. I mentioned that you put them in a kind of a dry place, cool, dry place. Do the same with sweet potatoes. They won't last as long because they're pretty thin skins. But part of the curing process is that any nicks or bruises in that skin will have a chance to heal before any decay sets in. So as long as you have a root cellar, Fred, if you have that, you should be able to keep them in there pretty easily. I store mine in the garage during the winter. We have an insulated garage so it doesn't get too cold. They're also susceptible to freezing. so you wouldn't want to put them in your refrigerator or anything like that. But yeah, if you had a cool, dry place, they should keep several months, I would think. Maybe wrap them in newspaper individually so they're not touching. But yeah, sweet potatoes are pretty easy to grow. I remember one year we grew one that one of our master gardeners dubbed Taterzilla. It was a 10-pounder. This one we happened to grow in a straw bale. So it had unrestricted room for growth. And yeah, they did really well. So sweet potatoes are a fun crop to grow.

Farmer Fred:

[57:43] The final crop on this list in Modern Farmer magazine are mushrooms. And you probably think, well, why mushrooms? What's in mushrooms that makes them so nutritious? It's the protein, like 3.6 grams of protein per 100 gram serving.

Gail Pothour:

[58:00] Mushrooms have not been on my radar to actually grow. It hasn't occurred to me to try that. I don't know that I have the right environment for it. I'm too hot and dry. I don't have a shady, moist area. I know that you typically get logs that are already inoculated with the particular mushroom spores. I guess that's what it's called, plugs. So I've never done it. I have not even investigated how to do it. It could be a fun experiment if you had the right locale for it.

Farmer Fred:

[58:32] I think because they can be harvested within 30 to 40 days, you can get away with a lot if you're growing them indoors.

Gail Pothour:

[58:40] Yeah, if you had the right space, not too dry, I'm not sure what conditions they really want. I do know that we did have a speaker at one of our Master Gardener meetings last year, I believe it was, who's a mushroom grower. And he was trying to get a lot of the public interested in growing mushrooms. So not only was he selling the mushrooms, I believe he was selling the kits or the inoculation kits paraphernalia that you need. So, it could be a fun experiment. It's just not something I have thought about growing. I love mushrooms. I buy them every week when I go grocery shopping.

Farmer Fred:

[59:17] I bet if you went to Amazon and looked up mushroom kits.

Gail Pothour:

[59:20] They'd be there. Yeah, I'm sure. Absolutely.

Farmer Fred:

[59:22] Or your local nursery. Yeah. The choice is yours. As we mentioned, there are several sources for similar type gardens of what we're talking about here as far as the nutritious gardens, filling gardens, as far as the food quantity, and also the high fiber garden. And in case you were curious, the top, how many do I have on here? I think I've got like, well, I've got at least five of the highest fiber, soluble fiber vegetables, fruits and vegetables. And they include artichokes, blueberries, pinto beans, apricots and green peas and those are certainly all could be added to a survival garden.

Gail Pothour:

[1:00:03] Plus i would think any of the brassica family the cabbages kales broccoli cauliflower while they may not store a long time especially leafy greens and things like that they are certainly nutrition powerhouses you know all the antioxidants and and vitamins that they have So I would think that those sorts of vegetables, which are actually fairly easy to grow as well, should be added to the list.

Farmer Fred:

[1:00:37] I found more high-fiber foods for your garden. Kidney beans, white beans, raisins, avocados, carrots, eggplant, oranges, and pears. Now, a lot of you can't grow avocados. But go ahead and try. You know you're going to try. Go ahead, try.

Gail Pothour:

[1:00:51] I have tried.

Farmer Fred:

[1:00:52] How'd it work out?

Gail Pothour:

[1:00:53] After about five years, I took it out. Yeah, it's just one of those things.

Farmer Fred:

[1:00:58] Yeah, but there are others with high fiber, high soluble fiber that you may want to put in that diet as well for your home garden. Insoluble fiber, which is going to give you that filling feeling so you don't eat as much. Leafy greens like kale and spinach, brassicas like broccoli and cauliflower, legumes, beans and lentils, and then whole grains and some fruits with skins like apples and pears. Now, we didn't get into whole grains very much because that takes room and it's a rather tedious processing process.

Gail Pothour:

[1:01:31] Yeah, we did at the Horticulture Center a number of years ago, did try growing some Sonoran white wheat, I remember. Well, when you have a bed that's only four by 20 and you have 10 other crops in there, you don't have a very big patch of wheat, so you don't get much yield. But it was kind of interesting to try. Yeah, some of those things you need to have, big piece of property, acreage, that sort of thing. Yeah, I'm a big proponent for the whole grains. And I did want to mention the carrots because that wasn't on the original list. Carrots are really pretty easy to grow. It's great to grow with kids. If you've got kids or grandkids, it's a fun thing to grow. And all the different colors, there's white, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple carrots. So you get a lot of different nutrition from all those colors, you know, the different antioxidants and things that they bring to the table. But you can grow some in containers. There are varieties that are long and skinny. There are some that are short and fat and round and you can grow the shorter ones in containers. So if you don't have any place to grow other than a half a wine barrel or a few terracotta pots, you could grow some of those smaller carrots and they're fairly easy to grow. They are cool season, at least in our climate, you would want to grow them late summer, early fall and over the winter.

Farmer Fred:

[1:02:57] That was the other thing that was missing from this article were more cool season crops that you could eat in the winter and the spring. And way back when, I forget what date this was, that the Alameda County Master Gardeners put together a list of perennial vegetables for the winter garden. And so perennial meaning that they're basically permanent plants. Obviously, it's going to take up a permanent spot in your garden, so you have to plan for that. and at the top of their list was asparagus.

Gail Pothour:

[1:03:28] Asparagus. Yeah, that'd be the first one that would come to mind. Then also, well, depending on what climate zone you're in, artichokes and rhubarb.

Farmer Fred:

[1:03:38] Right, right. Yeah, not here, but in the Midwest. for rhubarb.

Gail Pothour:

[1:03:40] You can do rhubarb. We've tried that. And then the Jerusalem artichokes, and there's a lot of kind of exotic things that the names are escaping me, but some of the things that— Like sorrel. Yeah, yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[1:03:53] Bunching onions are on this list for the perennial cool season.

Gail Pothour:

[1:03:57] Crops to grow. Well, I suppose they were like the Egyptian walking onions. Those are considered perennial because the top of that... They're top setters, and as those fall to the ground, they root, and so they kind of become perennial, I guess, that way. And you know what's also missing is garlic. Yeah. I would think that while it might not be a nutritional powerhouse, it has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties and things like that. And so I was surprised to see garlic not on that list because it also stores. And I'm harvesting my garlic right now, and it will store through the winter.

Farmer Fred:

[1:04:35] Or wasabi.

Gail Pothour:

[1:04:36] Or wasabi, okay.

Farmer Fred:

[1:04:38] One thing about bunching onions, I know there's a big demand for bunching onions in our house. So I've got into the habit, something that Pam Farley, the Brown Thumb Mama, told us years ago was just plant a new onion seed crop in a container  every month and then harvest them as bunching onions.

Gail Pothour:

[1:04:56] I did that with  shallots for the first time. I haven't grown shallots before. And what started out as 12 different bulbs, 12 different plants. I have about 10 or 12 from each of those. So I have well over 100 shallots from these original 10 or 12 bulbs.

Farmer Fred:

[1:05:18] How are you storing them?

Gail Pothour:

[1:05:19] Well, I'm just starting to harvest them now, but I'm assuming that I dry them like I would garlic and onion. So they're drying for a couple of weeks and we'll see how they store. But Yeah, shallots are kind of interesting. I don't know that I'm doing it correctly. Everything I've read sounds like I'm curing them. I will store them just like I would onions, but I don't know if they're going to store a long time. I don't have a good place to store them, you know.

Farmer Fred:

[1:05:49] Yeah, you need that bomb shelter.

Gail Pothour:

[1:05:50] I need that bomb shelter. Yeah, all right.

Farmer Fred:

[1:05:52] The article we've been talking about from the October 2024 issue of Modern Farmer Magazine was entitled Growing a Survival Garden, 10 Calorie Dense Crops You Can Grow at Home. I think we've expanded on that and then told you how to save it and told you how to eat it, too. So, yeah, there's a lot of good information out there. But if you are looking to feed your family more healthy, it certainly makes a lot of sense to have, if you want to call it this, a survival garden. Did we leave anything out of this?

Gail Pothour:

[1:06:23] No, I just reiterate that just get a lot of different vegetables in your diet, a lot of different colors for the different nutrients that they provide. And if you can do that, those are going to be the most nutritious vegetables are the ones that you are going to be eating. The ones you and your family like and that will eat regularly. I think that's the important part is to keep them in your diet regularly.

Farmer Fred:

[1:06:49] And kids like color, too.

Gail Pothour:

[1:06:50] Yeah, exactly.

Farmer Fred:

[1:06:52] All right. Gail Pothour, hey, I think we've built ourself a garden here. Thanks so much for your help.

Gail Pothour:

[1:06:57] Yeah, and I'm sure there's a lot more we could talk about. We didn't talk about bell peppers and things like that.

Farmer Fred:

[1:07:03] Well, yeah, that goes back to this idea of quantity matters. And a lot of the crops for this article were kind of limited product.

Gail Pothour:

[1:07:13] That's right, yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[1:07:14] And yeah, we didn't talk about peppers. We didn't talk about tomatoes.

Gail Pothour:

[1:07:17] Tomatoes, yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[1:07:18] But yeah.

Gail Pothour:

[1:07:19] That's a whole other show, huh?

Farmer Fred:

[1:07:20] It is, yes, yes. We'll call that the bomb shelter show. There we go. All right, thank you, Gail.

Gail Pothour:

[1:07:25] You're welcome, Fred.

Farmer Fred:

[1:07:35] Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.