C asks asks about guerrilla horticulture for survival and wonders which plants might exist in the wild without much care . Sounds aboveboard – until you bump out where she live .
“ Hello David ,
go for all is well with you and yours . I would like to portray a question or 3 and see if maybe you could aid me . I ’m not come up a whole lot on the true guerrilla horticulture . I will attempt to explain . It is really more of a survival of the fittest type of horticulture .
The way I always empathise guerrilla horticulture was when living way out in the joystick with basically a collapsible shelter , cave or some other case of shelter . Taking seed out and making small little garden sometimes a couple miles aside . Always around rivers , steams or other constant water author in case you could not keep it water at all time and sooner vegetable that nature takes over and they just keep coming back every yr .
tater is a prize example of that and plan to test Daucus carota sativa this year if I can . I think pea will total back also . When the cod dry out and hit the land . If animals do n’t get them first . I know for fact if I leave a potato in the ground it will sprout up all by itself the next twelvemonth . Even after till the soil and planting something else there . admiration if beet will come back also . There are sealed solid food I would love to have out there .
I ’ve babbled enough , on to the question(s ) . If you do n’t already have it away , can you avail me find out what character of vegetable will well go to seminal fluid and start develop all on their own the next class . When I move out there again , I ca n’t dwell on just potatoes and Pisces and what few Charles Edward Berry I find this time . I call for a lilliputian estimable diet this time around . Because I do not plan on coming back to society after a year or so this prison term out .
These chanterelles grew in a 3-acre lot behind my house in North Florida. They appeared around the same tree, year after year.
I ’ve been learning to take seed from fruits and get them growing , so I design on take those type seminal fluid with me also and get some tress expire with fruit . I hump it will be a few years before I depart get fruit but if nothing else I can live on fruit just as easy as veggies . But I will need to essentially create plantation over clock time . Because when the deer , bears and other animals realize there is a sweet food source nearby . I ’ll have the every wild animal out there at my doorstep . So I desire to spread out those Tree far and wide . Of course , they will likely delineate every spot I can get near a river above the high-pitched water marks . I live in blow country and will be staying in snow nation . Montana . ”
Let ’s see if I can be of some service .
Determining What Will Work in a Guerrilla Garden: Natives First
Though I have no experience in Montana , I do have some guerilla horticulture cred . I have grafted knockout onto wild plums grow on the wayside and planted Japanese plum and yams in empty lots , as well as stuck cassava canes behind a Ft . Lauderdale foreclosure . Yet one big trouble with guerilla gardening in the natural state for endurance is that most food plants simply do n’t need to produce much , if anything , without caution . Before we get into more common species , allow ’s look into scrounge what may already exist , plus expand the universe of those edible works if potential .
The first thing I did when considering C ’s question is to search up which native plants in Montana are eatable , since native species will often do intimately than cultivated varieties .
Thereis a site dedicate to info on Montana plantswhich looks like a good resourcefulness , though you have to pay for access to the complete database .
There are also multiple books on gaga species , including Linda Kershaw’sEdible and Medicinal Plants of the RockiesandForaging the Rocky Mountainsby Lizbeth Morgan .
Thomas J. Elpel and Kris Reed also have a guide titledForaging the Mountain West : Gourmet Edible Plants , Mushrooms , and marrow .
Wherever I ’ve hold out , I ’ve essay to acquire the wild eatable plants . I have a good collection of Florida scrounge books that serve me well in the Sunshine State . ( In my current location I have n’t had as much fate finding resources – often due to local names and difficulty with the language . I may have to write my own . )
If I lived in Montana , I ’d do the same thing : I ’d start a collecting of local works foraging books and check the metal money which were already available .
How does this link up to guerilla horticulture ?
Once you know what grow wild , you could encourage more of it . I would collect semen of edible species and scatter them when I lived in Florida . I would also identify locations where good edibles grew and watch the arena .
These chanterelles grew in a 3-acre lot behind my house in North Florida. They appeared around the same tree, year after year.
These chanterelle grow in a 3 - acre lot behind my house in North Florida . They appear around the same tree , year after twelvemonth .
When I harvest , I made sure not to over - harvest . If possible , I would encourage the populations by spreading them to similar locations . I buried mushroom in the mulch around my yard and scattered their spores everywhere .
Ponds are a good place to hunt down and … encourage … wild edibles . Cattails are a well - know food source , butduck potatoesmay be even good for survival and they also grow in Montana .
Jerusalem artichokes create an abundance of tubers with almost zero work.
Guerrilla Gardening Cultivated Crops
I have try out with growing plant with almost no guardianship . C is veracious that it ’s a good thought to grow in soused areas if possible , as water is the master limiting ingredient on industrial plant growth . However , two other other immense issues with planting in the natural state :
Think about how hard it is to grow a normal garden in your backyard . Every year , something comes for your plants , whether it be potato beetles or a winding Marmota monax , rats in your clavus or a neighbor ’s chicken rupture up a newly planted seam of peas . Hornworms , squirrels , stinkbugs , slugs , crows , ants …
C notes this number . The cervid , bears , etc . , will add up !
It ’s a admiration anything survives . Nature is mean . Almost every plant you see is the one subsister out of thousands or millions of seed and seedlings that did n’t make it . Dandelions scatter chiliad of seeds for the few 12 that pop up in your lawn . Maples drop pail of whirling semen and short few retrieve good growing condition and hold up to maturity .
She ’s already experimenting with murphy and beets , which is good . Keep experimenting and experimenting with everything you could witness and test .
One selection I know that will constitute in the wilderness is Jerusalem artichokes . They will continue to develop for years and years and can survive band of cold . I do n’t find them to be particularly digestible , though . Your mileage may motley .
Jerusalem artichokes create an abundance of tubers with almost zero work .
Growing trees in the wild is a good melodic theme , but I would tot nutty along with the fruit.Permies.com has a thread on nut - maturate in Montanawhich contains useful information . It ’s go to take a long time to get yield or testis , especially in Montana ’s mood , but I still believe it ’s worth planting them .
The Wrap-Up
In conclusion , my advice boils down to :
1 . instruct the wild pabulum
2 . naturalise more of the wild edibles
3 . experimentation and experiment and experiment
I would also research what the Indians did and how the former settlers survived . Personally , I think if you really require to grow enough calories , you ’ll have to have one garden for a kitchen garden which is highly tended and protected , then grow and run guerrilla garden outside of that . Planting a guerrilla garden for survival may be possible , but it ’s knockout to rive off .
The manioc I plant behind a foreclosure eventually died without giving me anything . The yams in the empty mint stayed alive but did n’t give me usable root the first year , then I moved so I do n’t jazz how they turn out . the guerrilla grafted peach is believably eaten by plum tree subdivision at this peak .
It ai n’t easy . upright fortune .
