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Planting a garden for survival makes sense, given the climate upheaval our world has been going through in recent years. Growing a variety of fruits and greens in your garden helps ensure that you’ll have food to consume during periods of food shortage. 

When you grow this type of garden correctly, you can source self-sufficiently the necessary minerals, calories, protein, and carbs to maintain good health.

So, what does it take to grow a survival garden? Also, what plants should you plant in your garden? Today, we’ll discuss the answers to these and other survival-garden-related questions. In this way, you should be able to create a garden that caters to your specific needs as a survivalist.

The main concern for any gardener is whether or not the kinds of plants he wants to grow in his garden will survive the climate. There’s also the fact that it may take a few months to produce a sustainable food source.

These things considered, it is important to put careful thought into creating your garden. 

Seeing as you’re planting a garden meant to get you through uncertain times, you’ll want to take into account the number of plants needed to feed your whole family. You should also take into consideration the amount of garden space each plant takes up.

On top of that, you’ll also want to calculate each of your loved ones’ needs in terms of daily calories and nutrition. Remember that these figures are easily influenced by activity levels, which may increase in situations that call on your survival instincts. 

You can suffer through years of trial and error before finding out which plants will thrive best in your location. It’s when gardens are already established that they’ll be able to produce enough nutritionally varied food to prevent malnourishment when supermarket shelves empty out.

If you happen to live in the warmer regions, it should be easy enough to grow this perennial crop. You’ll have no problem growing this plant up north, too, but only during the growing season. Also, you won’t find any trouble propagating this plant from shoots. In fact, from one sweet potato, you can gain as many as 16 shoots that are plantable. 

Once these nutrient-packed tubers make their home in the soil, it’ll take three to four months before you can harvest them. You can collect up to 20 sweet potatoes from a single plant. Additionally, the vines of sweet potatoes can spread out over your garden space quickly and easily. Thus, you're advised to grow five plants for every member of the family.

Bean plants barely take any effort to grow and are considered an excellent source of vegetable protein. Apart from the vine and bush form, the plant also comes in other varieties. It’s regarded as a member of the rotational crop group due to its ability to restore nitrogen in the soil. 

It is possible to harvest beans across different growth stages. On the 50th day after planting, you should be able to collect green beans, and by day 120, you can acquire mature, dry beans.

At this point, you have the option to either cook or replant your beans. If you’re looking to raise beans until they are mature and dry, you should grow at least 10 of them for each person in your family. In this way, you’ll have enough to get you through a season of food scarcity.

Carrots are root vegetables that are grown in season. They are packed with antioxidants and essential nutrients needed by the body to survive.

Although carrots are among the easiest plants to grow, to stay healthy, they require soil that’s loose and drains properly. They are also the type of vegetable that if you end up growing too many, you can just leave some on the ground for later use. Those that are left are then able to acquire a sweeter flavor.

In 50 days, you should be able to harvest baby carrots; 25 days after that, you’ll have a fresh batch of mature carrots.

Among the most prolific annual producers there is, squash is a must-have in your survivalist garden. Once a summer squash has been planted, all you have to do is wait 40 days until it's ready to consume. If it’s a winter squash you’re looking to raise, make sure to store it first and wait until the following season for growing before using it.

There’s a bevy of squash varieties to choose from, including scallopini, zucchini, and yellow crookneck. As for the winter squashes, you have the buttercup squash, pumpkin, spaghetti squash, and acorn squash.

Should you decide to include squash in your garden of survival plants, make it a point to plant at least two summer squashes for each individual in your family.

According to gardenerthumb.com, we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of quality plants to grow in our backyard. While these four are certainly some of the best, they might not be what you had in mind.

One thing’s for sure, though: a practical and effective survival garden isn’t going to come easy.

You not only have to assess which nutrient-rich plants can thrive in your location but also which of them you’d enjoy eating. So start building your garden now, because tomorrow might be a day too late when it comes to survival.