Wilderness Gardening

[Deleted member 2626]

To attach to another thread I made about wilderness wandering or long term living, I've thought on planting seeds-if you were staying put a bit or had land or whatever- and seeing how they'd work out. Obviously you'd need a clear area and plenty of sunlight. Anyone have suggestions for plants to attempt to grow or ideas for wilderness farming or any tips on primitive gardening at all?
Into the Wild it was said the dude had seeds in his gear, I would suppose to plant. Just a thought. And seeds can be had for few dollars at Walmart or anywhere really.

 

[Tude]

An option too is to read up/get a book or be on line to gather food from the wild - wild plants, etc. There is some information here (search gardening) and in the "wilderness survival" (foraging) forum. Ha - I still have my copy of "Euell Gibbons - Stalking the wild asparagus" - got it as a kid and it always went with me as I spent all my Summers out in the fields and swamps. But I bet just googling the gathering of food and such should yield some good information. Looking for this type of info on another site I'm on - there is one girl there who posts a lot of this - trouble is I cannot remember who.

 

[creature]

bulk seeds (verify the types.. soy, mung, etc.) can be sprouted in a moist environment while carried..
They yield enzymes and vitamins best found in fresh veggies..

 

[Wawa]

Heya. Usually when I spend a few weeks somewhere I start putting things in the ground. There are a lot of things from the grocery store or dumpster you can get growing without waiting for seeds; green onion bottoms(go ahead and cut off the tops and use them, they will wilt anyway as the plant puts its energy into growing new roots), carrot tops, garlic cloves, shallots, parsnips tops, beets, radish(will grow some good edible greens) ginger, potatoes(ever seen a potato start sprouting in the bag? just cut off a chunk around each sprout) bAsically anything that still has roots. Very fast growing seeds are melons, beans, and squash. Depending on how long you are going to be staying, might want to think twice about the very traditional garden plants; tomatoes and peppers. With both of these, from seed, you have to keep the plant alive for several weeks for a relatively small yield of vegetables that are mostly water. Tomatoes also attract a lot of insect pests. Spinach an kale are nice because you can pick leaves off and let it keep growingcause you an

 

[iamwhatiam]

I've thought a lot about this topic. You need to really think about the pH level of the soil in the area obviously. Sometimes you can amend the soil easily with stuff you have on hand - like to make the soil more alkaline mix some wood ash into it. Or also - some types of trees/plants may not be good to grow by (eucalyptus comes to mind, among other allelopathic trees) because they emit toxins into the soil that prevent or inhibit other things from growing around it.

But like wawa said, I think the biggest threat is predators like deer, birds and even snails/slugs eating your plants.
I think a better way to wilderness garden, is to grow things that already grow wild there and are already acclimated to the environment. and of course sprouts are way easy

 

[Justin Case]

there is quite a bit around on stealth gardening, im new so can not include links yet but i can point you in direction to look, check out seed bombs and the access lanes for the big electric towers make good spots if you do not have your own land

 

[Deleted member 2626]

Thanks for all the replies. Good info. to look back on when the time does come. I was definitely thinking of planting dense and durable rooted plants. that are hopefully higher in calories and nutritious value. I'm going to try tomorrow or tonight a little cup or small bucket garden to give some plants a head start or something

 

[Wawa]

Good thing to mention, sprouts. For the most part I've stopped buying salad greens because they're stupid expensive and spoil quickly. Whole lentils, dry peas, and mung beans however are very cheap and sprouts grow easily in a backpack pocket or bicye pannier. If you are diligent enough about rinsing them often and let em get a bit of sun at the end, you can get them pretty big and leafy. Kind of the ultimate "just add water" food... I've been meaning to look into gathering seeds from wild and garden plants for sprouting. Mints and lambsquarters, basil, radishes, amaranth all produce a ton of seeds

 

[Deleted member 2626]

Nice! I'll have to try the mung beans. Also, I wonder how plantain would grow being that they produce a lot of seeds. Or fiddle heads.

 

[Justin Case]

You are right on about the sprouts they have 17x the nutrition of a full mature plant and you can even sprout while backpacking with a sprouting bag. I have had effortless success with radishes by just picking the best when i want one and letting the others go to seed now they are everywhere planting themselves. same with heirloom plum tomatoes they are really low maintenance and the pests around here leave them alone unlike my full size tomatoes.

 

[Deleted member 2626]

So just get some dry mung beans and throw em in a bag with some moist soil and go from there?

 

[Wawa]

If you want sprouts, dont use soil. Glass or plastic jar, with holes punched in the lid or mosquito mesh tied over it. Soak them overnight then drain. Rinse twice a day. Lentils and peas keep longer. Mung bean sprouts turn brown fast in the light. Google for better more patient instructions, this keypadfucking blows. Ive always had an easier time with the jar then the bag. Bag gets slimey real easy. I'd post pictures if data rates in NZ were not so unreasonable....

 

[Wawa]

Other thing you can do with bean seeds and sunflower seeds real easy is microgreens. Almost same as sprouts but you do plant them in soil and let them get a little bigger, then cut all the tops off for greens. Just stick them real dense in the ground, no need to worry and spacing them since they wont get big. I did this by mistake once.. poured out some gross old chia water and a few days later had a fuzzy lawn out front of my tent