Friday, July 1, 2011

Fence Row Potato Growing





There is a lot to be said for seeding patches in the wild, particularly along roadsides.  Usually they are open with plenty of sunlight and drainage control.  He targets root vegetables which are certainly the best to tolerate the rough conditions.  It is useful to not that potatoes are not touched, as they should not be.  It may even be a good practice to plant potatoes loosely throughout a roadside to provide additional cover and give com-petition to the many weeds.  It is certainly easy enough, although it goes completely against normal practice which calls for ample tilling as they grow.

If one is not too concerned about size and the like, it is certainly a great place to produce a lot of product and potatoes are the one crop that could actually be grown on a roadside.  There is actually a lot of available land and so long as one is not trying to mechanize the process it works.

Go farther; invite folks to do just that with your permission.  At least you may have the weeds largely suppressed.  Recall and acre of land will easily produce a ton of potatoes.

Gardening in Plain Sight

By James Wesley, Rawles on June 10, 2011 9:08 PM

Dear JWR:

A few years ago I started food plots for wild game on my ranch.   Since then, I have noticed that the game have returned in greater numbers. The reason is the variety of plants from the seeds sown. One of the plants in this mix is the turnip.  The seed mix allows there to be food from spring to winter, with the turnips being the last food consumed. I find deer, elk and bears eating them first thing in the spring. 

I got an idea from this last year. If turnips grow this well in the wild with no care, and humans consume turnips, what other food would grow with no care and would be a real resource for human consumption? So last spring I planted my regular food plot mix that you can buy at any sporting goods store.  I planted the seeds along the roads on National Forest land on the way to my ranch at three different elevations and added a new plant, one I have never planted before; the lowly potato. I planted them along forest service roads and I was amazed at the results. My food plots at all elevations, (3,300 ft, 5,000 ft, and 6,800 ft) all produced more potatoes and turnips than my family or five families could eat in a year. Also, the potato is not as attractive to bears and wildlife.  They were virtually untouched.  The turnips, on the other hand, were consumed by deer, elk, and bears, so there was some competition for some of the resources planted. This spring I have gone to the store and found some hearty carrot seed, and I am adding this to my private garden along forest service roads.  I am hoping to get a positive result. 

Another discovery I found amazing is that not one human intruder had found, disturbed, or messed with these any of these food plots. They are in plain sight, just not planted in rows, but planted sporadically along the road, creek, or drainage. My only explanation is that the plant's nutritional value is under ground, and how many people know what the tops of a potato plant looks like? 

My goal this year is to see how dry land wheat grows wild at these different elevations. I know it grows well at 6,800 ft, because it is a part of the food plot on my ranch.  This year I have planted a lot of it to see how much could be harvested if one wanted to in the fall, with no human care until harvest time. 

The reason for this experiment is simple. How much food can you grow in the wild, with no care, how much work is involved, and can you produce enough for a family of four for an entire year?   And can you do this in plain sight and get away with it undisturbed? The answer is yes, with no real effort. 

This is a simple plan of insurance in addition to your TEOTWAWKI preps, with no cost but seed, and no labor except planting and harvesting, and nobody knows where your food plots are, except you! Simple and basic.  Of course, this will only work in areas were you can "dry farm" like in portions of the American Redoubt.  - M.O.

JWR Replies: I encourage readers to check into the legalities before planting any crops on public land. You wouldn't want to create a "weed" nightmare that would displace native species!

4 comments:

Curtis.Scott said...

This is really a great idea! If left alone, --with these crops come up in following years (self seed)?

Curtis.Scott said...

Great idea! Will these crops self-reseed & come up in following years if unharvested?

Samuel Boes said...

A comment regarding the comment at the end of the article: "legality" has nothing to do with the common sense of making sure that there is no problem with introducing non-native species.

That said, if we ARE concerned about the legality of planting or harvesting food crops in rights-of-way (or on ANY public land), we need to remember that the legality is going to vary SIGNIFICANTLY from state to state, county to county, town to town, tribe to tribe, and indeed, even within those jurisdictions. In part this will depend on who is the owner of the property immediately outside the ROW: one set of rules will apply if it is privately-owned, another if it is BLM-controlled or some other federal, state, or local agency.

But as this is for emergency and essentially clandestine food production (and incidentally for wildlife, which can indirectly be for food production), it is not legality as much as not getting caught that should be of concern.

Samuel Boes said...

A comment on the comment at the end.

Legality has nothing to do with the common sense concern (a valid one) about introducing exotic species into a habitat.

Legality is, at best, a very muddled situation and varies from town to town, county to county, state to state, and tribe to tribe, and indeed, since what can and cannot be done in a designated right-of-way (which might not actually be a deeded right-of-way, but only an easement) often depends on the ownership of the adjacent property, from agency to agency (whether federal, state, or local). And what can be planted might be different than what can be harvested.

But the real concern, given the fact that this is a matter of providing food for emergency conditions as much as anything, is NOT legality but the more pragmatic issue of getting caught or not getting caught.