One thing to consider for sprays is that some of the ones not sold at HD/Lowes (like Avaunt, Actara, etc) are a bit more concentrated. For many of them, I could spay my 1/2 acre yard approximately 100 times from a single bottle. From what I’ve been told, most of the granular/powdered ones keep pretty well, as long as you keep them dry and around room temps. They aren’t cheap, but they don’t take a ton of space to store.
I’m guessing if things were that bad, the animals would be supplementing your diet…I bet that I’ve caught more calories in animals in the last few years than the amount of actual fruit I’ve harvested, at least from the trees. Not that I have any inclination to eat the animals, at least as long as I’m not starving.
Potatoes is definitely the most productive thing per area that I’ve grown. And I have very few losses to animals. Everything likes to eat sweet potato leaves, so it is much harder here.
Here’s a single Adirondack Blue plant from a few days ago. And yes, I did cut the largest one in half while digging…I’ve already eaten it now and it was tasty.
Thanks for mentioning this- I’ve never had them, but will look into it.
I want one of these someday. Good video on it is linked about half-way down the page:
I start a bit later (July), but I keep eating them until at least March and sometimes later. I put in a 2nd planting in July after digging the early ones. Then, I dig both the 2nd planting and the later first planting around the first frost, near Halloween. Those later potatoes can keep for a while.
I’m pretty boring (few ingredients and salt as the only seasoning) and can eat the same thing for quite a while, so my family isn’t always thrilled with my cooking choices… But I know I’d have issues if the only foods were ones I don’t like. When I had Covid back in Feb/March, I lost taste and smell. In ~3 weeks time, I lost over 10lbs , which doesn’t sound like much, but it put in the upper 130’s at just over 6’ tall.
Solar. Though many systems won’t work without a grid connection. A battery system would allow stand-alone operation. The inverters I got with my systems allow partial operation without grid, by powering just 2 plugs at 10 amps each. So during the last outage (3-4 days I think), I plugged the fridge and garage fridge in during the day. I couldn’t run both the garage fridge and freezer at the same time, so I’d alternate several times per day. Obviously a full battery system would be better…
Surprisingly potatoes have actually gone perennial in one bed. I haven’t planted any there for the last 4 years, but keep harvesting more each year. They are spreading from the bed and under nearby mulch. Originally 3’x10’, it is now probably 2 or 3 times wider. Last year was 20-25 lbs from very little effort (pulled the tall weeds a couple times and dug them). I had to look back at my old records, but I think the variety which is growing so well is Purple Peruvian.
I grew King Harry a few years ago. It is supposed to be disease resistant and I think the hairs are supposed to deter some insects as well. It grew well, but, it didn’t produce that much for me and wasn’t very good to eat. If I was going to be in a survival situation, I’d want to grow more Papa Cacho, a Peruvian land-race potato which is the strongest grower I’ve seen (I’ve probably grown 30+ types of potatoes over the years). PC has the same problem as PH- they don’t taste very good, at least compared to the other varieties. But if I was hungry and depending on the garden for food, both would taste just fine.