Survival gardening

The modern world seems so safe and secure that it’s hard to imagine a situation where your life might depend on your ability to feed yourself from your garden. Much more easily imagined is a situation where you are out of work for a long time and so short of money you need to grow food to make ends meet. It’s impossible to predict the future of course (probably not a bad thing), but whatever happens it’s comforting to know that your garden can help to keep your family well fed. Growing enough food to live on isn’t actually very hard to do, so long as you have sufficient land, seeds of the right crops and enough gardening skill.

How much land you need depends upon the size of your family (obviously), how good a gardener you are and the length of the growing season. You need less land in warm climates because you can grow year round, whereas in cold climates all plant growth stops when winter comes. The smallest area of land I have seen suggested as being enough to grow food for one person is 1400 sq ft, but this comes with a lot of qualifications. It would require very intensive techniques, excellent soil, expert gardening, ideal circumstances and a little bit of luck, not a combination most of us can depend on finding.

One of the most important factors in determining how much land you need is what crops you choose to grow, because some are much more efficient at producing nutritious food than others (don’t try to live on celery or cucumber for example). Potatoes are easily the most efficient common crop and contain enough carbohydrate, protein and vitamin C that you could almost live on them. It has been estimated that you could grow enough potatoes for one person on only 3000 sq ft (64 x 48 ft or 1/14 acre) of land. Of course it would be a serious mistake to rely on one crop alone, not only would be it be very boring and unhealthy (you need a variety of foods to supply all necessary nutrients), but a particularly virulent pest or disease could wipe out your whole planting and leave you in serious trouble (this is how the Irish potato famine occurred). Growing a mixed vegetable garden would mean growing some less efficient crops and it has been estimated that this would require as much as 14000 sq ft (128 x 108 ft or 1/3 acre) of land. These figures assume a vegetarian diet, if you wanted to live on eggs you would need 25000 sq ft (128 x 195 ft or ½ acre) and beef would require 83000 sq ft (256 x 325 ft or 2 acres).

Of course these estimates are a little simplistic because the amount of land needed will be affected by how efficient your garden is and how well you manage it. If you can feed chickens on things you can’t eat, the garden will be more efficient than if you have to devote space to growing food for them.

The best crops to grow will also depend upon where you live. In some places pests and diseases or adverse climate may make a crop difficult to grow (potatoes often don’t do well in hot humid climates, Sweet Potatoes don’t do well in cool climates). Obviously if the comfort of your stomach, wallet or life depends upon it, you would want to grow the crops that are least likely to fail. Your choice of crop will also be influenced by the amount of land you have. If you have lots of room you can afford to grow a much wider variety than if space is very limited and you need to maximize efficiency.

Obviously you are in much better shape if you have plenty of land (and it rains regularly throughout the growing season). If you already have a vegetable garden and suddenly need to grow a lot more food, all you have to do is create a bigger garden by planting more of everything. If you only have a small garden and need to grow more food you will have to work harder because you will need to garden more efficiently and intensively.

There is more to supporting yourself than simply having the land and the seeds of course, you also need to know what to do with them. The time to acquire this knowledge is before you need it, a time of major crisis wouldn’t be the best time to start learning. You can start a vegetable garden at any time and learn the necessary skills at your leisure, secure in the knowledge that any failure won’t be a big deal. Hopefully you will never need these skills but will continue to vegetable garden because it is such a rewarding activity.

Of course if you have created the type of food garden I have discussed previously, you will already have a wide variety of supplemental crops growing permanently in your garden. These would help enormously and could transform the situation from one of potential hardship to one of relative comfort.

The best crops for a survival garden

A good survival crop is easy to grow, relatively free of serious pests or disease, tastes good, is easy to prepare and packs a lot of nutrition (carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins). I have briefly described the most useful plants below and ideally you would grow all of them in abundance.

Potato: If you could only grow one crop it should probably be the potato (if they grow well in your area). They are the most efficient subsistence crop you can grow; no other common crop even comes close to producing so much food in so little area. They actually provide enough calories, protein and vitamin C that you can almost live on them (Irish peasants often did live on little more than potatoes and milk). Of course they taste pretty good too.

Corn: This crop needs quite a bit of space but is easy to grow. When used as a staple food it should ideally be specially prepared with lime, otherwise you risk niacin deficiency. It is also deficient in certain amino acids, which is why it is often eaten with beans.

Quinoa: Grows like a weed and can be used for both seed and edible leaves. It can be used like rice but is a lot easier to grow and process. The seed is a very useful high protein grain and needs little preparation (apart from washing to remove mildly toxic saponins).

Carrot: Easy to grow and a good source of nutrients and vitamins. Produces a lot of food in a small area.

Beans: A dependable source of tasty protein. Which kinds will depend on where you live but could be pinto, soy, tepary, scarlet runner, fava, mung). Beans also fix their own nitrogen and so don’t deplete the soil.

Winter squash: Easy to grow, productive and has nutritious seed. It is also easy to store (which is why it’s called Winter Squash.)

Kale and collards: A good source of vitamins and various phytonutrients. Hardy and easy to grow, they have a long harvest season.

Sugar beet: High yielding, the roots can be used to make sweetener and give energy. The young leaves are also edible.

Rutabaga: This high yielding root crop was a staple winter food of northern European peasants because it is very hardy and stores well. It is rich in carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and valuable phytonutrients. The leaves are also edible when young.

Sweet potato: The Sweet Potato is outstanding if your climate is warm enough, and is commonly grown in hot humid areas instead of the potato. They are rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. It’s not widely known but the leaves are edible (and nutritious) raw or cooked.

Amaranth: Grows like a weed and can be used for its nutritious seed and edible leaves. It self sows in my garden.

In addition to of these essentials it would be a good idea to have garlic, onions, shallots, hot peppers and various herbs for flavoring (and maybe tomatoes too). A source of oil would be nice too (Sunflower, Sesame) but this would require some means of oil extraction (such as a Piteba hand press).

Using shrubs in the food garden

The food producing shrubs have a number of uses that make them especially important in the food garden and they can make up a significant proportion of the plants (especially as it gets bigger). When you compare their productivity to how little attention they require, the best species have few equals as food producers and deserve to be much more widely planted than they are in most gardens. They also produce some of the best tasting foods you will find anywhere and few people don’t like them (how can you not like raspberries, loganberries or blueberries?) As a major bonus they are also highly nutritious, being packed with a variety of minerals, vitamins and beneficial phytonutrients.

I value the shrubs so much because of the way they increase productivity in the garden. They increase the density of planting, by fitting between other plants: around trees, in borders, along boundaries. In a small garden they are most often used as hedges and foundation plantings, but in a larger garden you can also use them in a forest garden, where you create your own woodland ecosystem with trees, vines and perennials. Of course shrubs are quite permanent and often reach a significant size (sometimes as large as small trees), so they are also important landscaping plants (they fit into their own ecological niche between the taller trees and the lower growing plants). Their large size helps to create the framework of the garden and modifies the microclimate around them, so they shelter lower plants and make good windbreaks.

Many shrubs tend to be fairly easy to propagate vegetatively (easier than trees), which means you can produce a lot of them for very little money (it just takes time). Many are also very tough and able to grow and produce food in the most unpromising conditions, where lesser plants could barely even survive (in drought prone areas they often become the dominant species). These species are particularly useful for filling empty and unproductive parts of the garden.

Which shrubs work best for you will depend upon the climate and growing conditions (look around and see which kinds grow wild nearby). The Rubus species (Blackberries, Raspberries and their hybrids) are the quintessential weeds and in most places they need more control than encouragement (I am constantly amazed at their ability to tolerate neglect bordering on abuse and come back strong). In cooler climates Blueberries may grow like weeds too, but in my garden they take a little coaxing. The Ribes species (Gooseberries, Currants) are also very independent, as are the Honeyberries, Bush Cherries, Salal and Juneberrries.

Many shrubs grow rapidly and spread vegetatively to form colonies and in a few years they may fill an area to the point where it becomes crowded (they may also start to creep where they aren’t wanted). If this happens you may have to thin them, which is work, but also gives you more plants. You can try moving these to another location, or pot them up and give them away. Fortunately shrubs (unlike trees) are often fairly easy to move, even when they get quite big (you may even be able to divide them). You have to do this when they are dormant in winter, and fruit production will decline in the year you move them, but they usually recover quickly (I‘m not guaranteeing it though).

One of the things I most like about shrubs is that they don’t give up easily. Trees often die if you neglect them but not the rugged shrubs. I have bought various Bramble berries over the years and planted them in less than ideal conditions. I thought several of them had died of neglect, but this year I just realized that they have persisted and spread and I actually have quite a jumble of productive plants. Even if their tops are killed their roots will often survive and send up new shoots (they may also regenerate from root fragments left behind while transplanting, but that’s another story).  

If you live in an area with gophers you will have to protect your shrubs by planting in wire baskets. If you don’t they may very well kill your plants eventually (or parts of them, if they have spread out).

Garden management

Managing your garden means maintaining the garden as best you can with the available resources and labor while having a life at the same time. The amount of maintenance required will depend upon the kind of garden you have and what you want it to look like. My main goal is to grow food and increase biological diversity and appearance is somewhere down the list of priorities. I’ll try and make the garden look good if I can do it without too much effort, but I’m not going to spend hours on cosmetic surgery.

How much maintenance is necessary also varies according to what part of the garden you are talking about. You expect the wilder areas to look natural, so they only need as much care as is required to keep them growing well. On the other hand you expect the areas immediately adjacent to the house to be a lot more manicured and so will spend most of your maintenance time on them. Exactly how much is open to debate, depending on whether you want them to be immaculate or are happy with the semi-abandoned look.

When you get down to the practical questions of what to do and in what order, a large garden can sometimes feel so overwhelming that you don’t quite know where to start. If this happens just concentrate on one garden area at a time and rotate around the various areas one at a time. Obviously you will have to devote a lot more time to the intensively planted areas than you will the wilder ones (which may not need any attention at all).

A chalkboard is a useful management tool, keep it on the shed wall where you can write down tasks that need doing promptly (and don’t erase them until they are done). A calendar is also useful for noting down longer term tasks that need doing at some point in the year. There is an ideal time for every task and you are more likely to be successful if you do them at the right time (trees and shrubs should be planted or moved while they are dormant in winter, layering is done in spring). You don’t want to miss this ideal time, if you do you may then have to wait another year.

Gardening involves living, growing things and differs from other arts in that it is never static. As the plants get bigger they transform the growing conditions and the character of the garden around them. This continuous change opens up a whole range of opportunities and potential problems. You may have to intervene when a plant grows bigger than you envisioned, when an area becomes overcrowded, or when plants start to suffer from shading. These changes can be a good thing in that they can push you to try something new. In the past couple of years some of my shrubs have started to outgrow their locations and need to be moved. When they go dormant this fall I plan to move some of them to wilder areas, where they will form new colonies and help to make those areas more productive.

As you gain experience you will find a lot of the maintenance tasks get done almost unconsciously when you are out in the garden. This was brought home to me very vividly when I broke my foot and could only hobble around the garden on crutches (which aren’t designed for off road as they keep getting snagged on brambles and other vegetation). The garden still got watered because the irrigation is on a timer, but so many little things got neglected (isolated plants that needed water, harvesting, gopher checking, weeding). These are things I don’t even think about normally, I just do them.

It’s a good idea to take a walk around your garden once a year and evaluate how it is progressing. What needs to be done, what’s working well and what isn’t working at all. Make an inventory of your garden plants to see which ones are really paying their way and which ones are just taking up space and giving nothing in return. Over time your garden will often accumulate plants that grow well and take up space, but don’t actually get used for anything. This isn’t usually a problem in a big garden, but it can be in a small one where space is at a premium. In such cases you may want to replace them with something more useful. While evaluating your plants you should also note down any that obviously aren’t happy and find out why (are they water stressed, getting too much shade, too much sun?). If necessary move them to a better spot.

Garden management isn’t just about maintaining what you have created, it is also about improving the garden, making it more beautiful, more productive and more useful. Garden design books often treat management as an afterthought but I think it is actually the most important part of creating a garden (it’s certainly the one that takes up the most time). The design gives you an idea of where the major parts go and the construction produces a real garden out of your plans, but they only constitute the birth of the garden. It grows into a real garden when you are out working in the garden day after day. Only then do you develop the perspective and insight into how best to take it further, so you can polish that rough diamond into a dazzling gem (or whatever else you are after).

It’s a good habit to try and do a little bit extra every day (or as often as time allows), something that will have a long term effect and make the garden better.

Green drinks, low-cost nutritional supplements from the garden

A green drink is basically a smoothie made with fruit juice, fruit, various nutritious green leaves and other food supplements. I had never heard of them until I came to America and read about them in a fairly nondescript (but it influenced me) little book called Natures Healing Grasses by E. M. Kirschner. They immediately struck me as a great idea and I have been making them intermittently ever since. They give you a simple and inexpensive way to enhance your health without buying high priced food supplements. This is also a better way, as the nutrients are fresher, in easily digestible forms and come with all of their valuable fiber. You can now buy similar drinks ready-made, but they are fairly expensive and mostly created to taste good rather than for plant power packed punch.

I have found the green drink to be the best way to consume some of those highly nutritious plants that don’t taste very good (or are even downright nasty), but are good to eat for their undisputed health benefits. Making your own green drink is pretty simple and only takes a few minutes, in fact the most time consuming part is gathering the leaves and that can be part of a pleasant garden walk.

Preparing the drink

I don’t have a specific recipe for a green drink, because it varies according to what I have available. I just cruise around the garden picking a leaf here and there of whatever is available. The combination of ingredients changes through the year so you will always be creating something new. So long as you don’t overwhelm the sweet juice and fruit with too many bitter leaves, the whole thing will usually taste pretty good. Obviously this depends upon your palate, some people make a fruit smoothie with a few green leaves added. Others make a hardcore drink of greens and use water instead of fruit juice, so it isn’t sweet at all. I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to very strong flavors (though I prefer to think I have a more refined sense of taste) and prefer to keep my drinks fairly mildly flavored, which means I usually use fruit juice and bananas as a base. It all depends upon your taste.

Making the drink is pretty simple and only takes a few minutes. I start by putting the seeds and/or nuts in the blender with a small amount of fruit juice, and blend them to a smooth puree. I then add more fruit juice and the green leaves and blend until smooth. Finally I add the Banana and the rest of the ingredients (I sometimes add a little water to stop it getting too thick). That’s it, a simple way your garden (or neighborhood) can enhance your health.

Ingredients

You can use a wide variety of garden products in a green drink and it is possible to make it entirely from the garden if you wish.

Fruit juice: I most often use orange juice, but any fairly sweet fruit juice will work (I sometimes get inexpensive juice cocktails). Fresh juice is nutritionally superior to pasteurized juice, but the latter is more convenient and cheaper. The ideal would be to use fresh juice from the garden, so you might try apple or watermelon juice (or simply water).

Green leaves: You can use any edible leaf, either wild or from the garden, so I usually just go for a walk and pick what is available (of course if you use wild leaves you need to know which ones are edible and how to identify them). The most commonly used leaves include Amaranth, Chicory (bitter), Chickweed, Dandelion (bitter), Dock, Kale (or other mild tasting Brassicas), Lambs Quarters, Mallows, Storksbill, Violet and Strawberry leaf.

Comfrey was the base of Kirschners green drink, but many people warn against using this plant because it contains toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids which can damage the liver (others argue that it is perfectly safe though).

I grow some plants especially for these drinks, including Gotu Kola, Echinacea (use in small amounts only) and Ashwaganda (so bitter that this is the only way I use it).

Seed sprouts: Alfalfa, Clover, Sunflower are all convenient, relatively mild tasting and add a lot of nutrients and fiber. They are particularly useful in winter when there may not be many green leaves available.

Fruit: This can also be used to make the drink more palatable and add valuable vitamins and various phytonutrients. I usually add a banana for its sweetening and thickening properties, but I might also add blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, peach, plum or whatever is available. I also add miscellaneous berries from around the garden or foraged from the wild, aronia, viburnum, amelanchier, goji elderberries, rose hips (flesh only). This is a good way to use some any berries that don’t taste that great but contain special nutrients. You could freeze a surplus of berries in the summer for making drinks in the winter.

Sweetener: Using one of these enables you to add more bitter ingredients, though they are by no means essential. The banana works best, but raisins and stevia can also be used (of course you could also use various other sweeteners).

Seeds: These add protein and minerals to the drink. Blending them thoroughly can help to make them more digestible. I most often use sunflower seed, but have also used pumpkin, sesame, evening primrose, flax and walnuts.

Other ingredients: These may be added for their unique nutritional properties and could include kelp (not too much as it has a strong flavor), brewers yeast, bee pollen, lecithin, spirulina, dried barley greens, vitamin C powder (makes it quite tart) and more. Most of these are fairly expensive though.

Gathering the plants

To make a green drink you need a variety of weeds or other greens (and maybe fruits and seeds). To get them might require a walk around the neighborhood, though be careful where you gather in urban areas and clean the plants thoroughly. If you have to go some distance to gather then you will probably want to pick enough leaves in one go for several drinks. They will keep in the fridge in a plastic bag for several days. You can also grow many plants yourself and if you have a vegetable garden then you probably already have many useful weeds growing there. Don’t just grow plants for their leaves, you can also use fruits and seeds too.

Caution: Whenever you eat anything you face hazards and collecting and eating wild plants is not without its dangers. Foremost of course is picking a dangerously poisonous plant by mistake (though the danger of this is often overstated, not that many plants are dangerously toxic). Actually many edible wild (and some cultivated) plants can contain mild toxins, such as oxalic acid and saponins, though you don’t usually eat them in large enough quantities for them to be a problem (this is why I prefer to gather a variety of leaves when possible and only use a few of each).  

Thoughts on building the food garden

The hardest part of making a garden is not the design (anyone can do that sitting in bed eating chocolates and drinking beer), the hard part is physically building it. Making the beds, improving soil, digging holes, building fences, planting, laying paths, hauling and applying mulch, cutting trees, these are the activities that sort the women from the girls. Fortunately you don’t need to (and shouldn't) create the whole garden at once. It’s easier and more enjoyable to work on one little section at a time, starting with the most important parts near the house and working your way out until the whole garden is filled up.

I have never thought of creating a garden as a single project (like building a house or writing a book), it is more like a long journey with a small stage completed every day and all eventually adding up to a major achievement. For me working on the garden is an ongoing project that is a part of everyday life. I simply go out and do something whenever I get the opportunity (and feel motivated). My main guiding principle is to gradually increase the diversity and productivity of the garden. I keep on adding various parts (some are bigger than others) and each contributes a little more, but there is no end anywhere, I will be working on it for as long as I live here.

Generally the best place to start working on your garden is in the area around the back door. This isn’t because you are close to the kitchen for tea breaks and snacks, but because it is the most important living area in the garden. Work on the things you need in this area until it is planted and functioning and then start on another area (maybe out of the front door). You then work on one area at a time until you fill up the whole garden. Alternatively you could start by doing the things that interest you the most, whether planting fruit trees, digging a pond or raising chickens (as well as planting the permanent food plants – the trees and shrubs). As I have said before you are supposed to enjoy yourself (most of the time).

I have found the most practical way to create a garden is to separate the work into several phases. In the pioneering first phase the priority is to get each area functioning, which means getting the permanent woody plants (fruit trees, vines and berry bushes) growing. You also create the basic garden framework (form beds, build fences, dig ponds and anything else required to get the area started). You then work on each of the other areas in turn until all are functioning and their main plants are growing. In the second phase you go back over each area and refine it further (add paving, irrigation, trellis, do more planting). When you have completed the second phase for all areas of the garden (obviously some areas need more work than others) it should all be functioning pretty well. You then enter the third phase which includes mulching, refining the irrigation, adding ornamentation, more planting and other fun stuff.

Some people prefer to work on one area at a time until it is finished right down to the placement of tables and placemats (they call it being thorough and can’t do it any other way). The problem with this is that you really can fit a lot into a small space and it’s easy to spend so much time on the first area that the rest of the garden doesn’t develop very quickly (whereas you want to get those trees and bushes growing everywhere).

Sometimes creating the garden can be a lot like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You start with the most obvious parts (corners, edges) and work out from there, filling in as you go. Often you don’t know what to do next until you finish one part and suddenly the next step becomes obvious. Sometimes you will be perplexed for a while, not knowing with an area, in which case just carry on around it until the answer comes along. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle you can take as long as you want.

Once all parts of the garden are fully functioning you change from builder to manager and your workload goes down considerably. The work also tends to become more interesting because it has more direct and productive purpose. You introduce new plants, remove unproductive things, add artwork, propagate plants and generally fine tune the garden to maximize productivity for the amount of work expended. No area is ever completely finished and you may decide to go back to the most unproductive areas (places where things didn’t work out as expected) and improve them with the benefit of greater experience and knowledge.

Your perspective on time changes as you gain more experience in the garden. When you first start out 5 years sounds like an awfully long time and you debate whether it is worth doing something that takes so long to come to fruition. Yet the experienced gardener knows that 5 years will pass quickly enough and that planting a tree now simply gives you something else to look forward to. The growing plant is quickly forgotten and becomes just part of the scenery, until that day when it suddenly starts to produce fruit and takes center stage.

The biggest secret to creating a wonderful productive food garden is to simply keep at it. Over time the garden will inevitably improve, gradually becoming less work, more productive, more interesting, more diverse, more filled with wildlife and more beautiful. This is true even if you are a total incompetent and kill plants every year. So long as some of what you plant each year survives, the garden will eventually fill up with beautiful food. 

Planting the food garden

Plants are the most important part of any real garden and choosing the right ones and putting them in the right places is the most important part of creating a food garden. Your first criteria for choosing plants should be that they produce something you like to eat, the next is that you use varieties that will grow well in your location (you can try growing things that don’t, but they involve more work). Once you have chosen the right plants you need to put them in the places where they will grow best. This is particularly important with the more marginal plants, as they won’t grow well unless you put them in the best microclimate available. I can’t emphasize enough how important careful placement is, if you put your plants where they will be happy, the garden will largely grow itself. If you put a plant in an unsuitable place you will always have extra work to do to keep it growing well.

Of course you are creating a garden not a farm and so your planting also has another goal; you will use the plants to create the structure of the garden and enhance its’ appearance. In fact this will often be the determining factor in where you put the plants (after you have met the growing conditions of course).

Another aspect of planting concerns the nature of a plant, some species are quite sensitive and only thrive when given everything they need, whereas other are very vigorous and can grow almost anywhere (these will give you a lower maintenance garden of course). It may help your planning to divide the plants into those that require no maintenance and those that need regular attention.

How many plants of each type you need will vary according to species and its uses. Sometimes you only need one plant because you don’t use much (bay, rosemary). Some plants grow slowly and you will need to grow a few (so you can harvest a little from each). Some you use in large quantities and can easily preserve (basil, blackberries, apricots), in which case you can never have too much. Sometimes you will want several plants blooming in sequence to get a staggered harvest. Some fruiting plants need to be pollinated by another nearby plant (which may be simply another compatible variety or it might have to be a non-bearing male plant).

In very dry climates it helps to know how much water a plants needs, so you can keep those with similar requirements together. This would allow you to put all of the moisture loving plants in one irrigated area and use drought tolerant plants for the rest of the garden. Scattering moisture loving plants around the garden and then running irrigation lines to each one isn’t very efficient.

When you start to think about planting the garden it is helpful to be familiar with how the native plants around you grow (what kinds of plants, what kind of communities are formed, how do they space themselves, how do they deal with drought?). This can help you figure out the best low maintenance way to grow your own plants too. In a broader sense it really helps to spend some time learning how nature does things because it is so important to follow her rules. The biggest mistake you can make (one that many garden designers make every day) is to try and impose your will on nature. You can do it of course, but only by expending additional energy and resources trying to maintain the unbalanced status quo.

When you start planting the garden it may seem logical to fill up all of the growing space in one area before you move on to another one, but it is more important to get the long term woody plants (mainly fruit trees and shrubs) in the ground all around the garden. These take a few years to really get going and start producing, so the sooner you plant the better. Of course you have to know exactly where to put them, so you don’t regret it later. It is possible to move trees and shrubs while they are still small, but it sets them back for at least a year.

Getting plants in the ground isn’t the end of the matter of course. You still have to tend to their needs until they are established (and in some cases even longer). It soon becomes obvious when a plant isn’t doing well because it doesn’t get much bigger. It will often look dull and listless, leaves may emerge but slowly turn yellow and die, to be replaced by more new leaves, which then die in turn (slowly using up the plants resources). I have dug up an unhappy plant and found that its roots never even got beyond the confines of the gopher basket. If you have such a plant you need to find out why it is struggling. Probably the commonest reason is that it has been planted in the wrong place: it may be getting too little sun (pale and leggy), too much sun (leaves wilt frequently, turn yellow and die), too little water or its roots may be suffering from waterlogged soil. If a plant is definitely in the wrong place then try and move it to somewhere more suitable (this is worth trying even if it is quite big). Of course it is much better to make sure you put it in the right place to start with (I wasted a year and almost killed my Magnolia Vine (Schizandra) by putting it in full sun and fairly dry soil – which is not what it wants at all). If you are growing something for the very first time, do some research into the conditions it prefers (get as specific as you can). There are lots of online resources for finding out what conditions plants require.

When I first started my garden I reasoned that I could save money by propagating my own plants and then planting them. I did save money but I also wasted time (which apparently is money) because it takes a long time to grow a tree from a cutting or seed. I now think a better approach is to buy as many plants as you can afford (more in fact) to get the garden producing as quickly as possible (if you buy enough at once you may even be able to get a discount). When you get them growing you can start to practice your propagation techniques (layering, cuttings, seed) to get more plants. When you have more of these than you need you can sell the surplus to recoup your investment (and enrich other peoples gardens).

Creating your own food garden

If you are going to go to all of the trouble to create your own food garden, you should make it a good one; a garden that is as useful, productive and interesting as you can possibly make it. Such a garden will produce food as its main function, but it should also be beautiful, stimulating to the senses, challenging (both intellectually and artistically) and full of wildlife. At the same time it should also be fairly low maintenance, so it doesn’t become a full time job. Few existing gardens actually accomplish all of these things (mainly because few people have tried), but it isn’t that difficult to achieve. You just have to do some intelligent design before you start and use your imagination (rather than mindlessly following tradition). The possibilities are almost unlimited, but you need to find out what they are. Expand your options by reading a lot (and taking notes), talking to other people and looking at pictures. There is no shame in copying a good idea (it’s the sincerest form of flattery) so if you see something you like, incorporate it into your garden.

There are three aspects to creating a productive garden, design, construction and management. As you might expect designers tend to over-emphasize the importance of the design part, but I think it is actually the least important. You just need enough design to point you in the right direction. To get the various components in the right places in relation to the sun, the land and each other, and put the plants in the right places. You will do a lot more of the design while you are actually constructing the garden and experience real garden problems. Design doesn’t stop even when the garden is established though, you will come up with many improvements during your day to day gardening activities. In fact this is when you really get to know the garden and its (and your) needs.

Countless books have been written about creating gardens, but when you get down to basics it’s pretty straightforward. Like many practical things in life it appears to be more complicated than it really is and can be made more complicated than it needs to be (this is encouraged by people who make a living from designing gardens). Anyone can design a basic food garden (which is all you need to get started), you just have to look at what you have, think about what you need and then come up with a logical plan. Don’t worry about not making a great design right from the start, just go at your own pace, in your own way, for your own satisfaction. Once set in motion the garden will keep evolving and improving for as long as you live in it.

The simplest way to come up with a practical basic design is to divide the garden into a number of separate areas and deal with them individually. You will work on planning and creating these areas one at a time, but it makes sense to create a master plan (on paper or computer) that ties everything together. This will help you to put each element in the right place, in relation to the site and other components. You then build the garden step by step, planting, renovating or replacing one component at a time (installing a whole garden at one time is only practical if you are paying someone else to do it).

The most important garden area (from a food production standpoint) is usually the annual vegetable garden, as it is the most efficient way to produce the food crops we eat every day. As the most productive part of the garden it is essential that we locate it where it will work most efficiently. This primarily means it must get as much direct sunlight as possible, but ideally it should also be close to the house for convenience in harvesting (and because you will spend a lot of time there). The most important area for human activities is the patio or deck area, which is usually placed at the back of the house, near the kitchen and living area (though it should generally also be on the south side of the house for sun exposure). This is the place where we spend most of our outdoor leisure time, so it should be the most attractive and comfortable part of the garden. It is also the place for the high maintenance edibles, such as the Citrus or other frost sensitive plants, or those that need protection from wildlife. You may also want a fairly ornamental front entrance garden (planted with the most attractive food plants) to show off to the street. Other important areas would be a play area, herb garden, water garden or workshop. The parts of the garden not needed for a specific purpose are commonly planted with low maintenance plants that produce food without too much attention: food producing trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals and fungi. To minimize the amount of work they require these might be arranged in a forest garden or hedgerow type garden that largely functions like a self-sustaining ecosystem (this sounds more complicated than it really is).

Every garden consists of a number of important components (vegetable garden, greenhouse, patio, pond, hammock, fire pit, bed, clothes drying line, compost area), and though each will be created separately they often affect other components (either positively or negatively). The master plan is the place where you resolve any conflicts or make beneficial combinations. One of the key elements in deciding where to place each component is how often you need to use or maintain it. Those that need the most attention should be closest to the house and those that don’t need any should be furthest away. This one design idea can save you a lot of work.

Though designing on paper is the most efficient way to get your garden started (and fun for many people) it isn’t the only way. If you prefer you can do it all in the garden. Just start planting and placing things where you think they might do best and see what happens. Interesting things often happen unexpectedly when you work like this and it can result in a great garden. If something turns out to be really bad it’s not the end of the world, you can always change things later. This trial and error approach isn’t very efficient and often results in wasted time, duplicated effort and other problems, but it is probably how most home gardens were created in the past and it usually works out pretty well if you are motivated.

The primary aim of the food garden is to grow food and you will spend a lot of time on finding ways to increase productivity, but this isn’t its only purpose. The garden is also a place for living and you should give some thought to how you can make it more comfortable. You mainly do this by creating beautiful spaces where you can relax and enjoy your surroundings. Make them special with a combination of artwork, water, productive (beautiful and maybe scented) plants and other fun stuff.  

There is a definite link between work and productivity, the more work you put in, the more food you get out. You have to find the right balance between the level of productivity you want and how much work you are prepared to do. Don’t create more intensively worked garden than you can comfortably handle. If you have a large garden, create your highly cultivated areas close to the house and plant the rest as low maintenance forest garden or leave it in its natural state (or a bit of both). Successful gardening means enjoying yourself: if you are having a good time creating the garden and really want to be out doing it every day then you are doing it right. If it involves so much work it starts to become a chore then something is wrong

I think of my garden as a symbiotic relationship between me, the land and its other inhabitants, working together (mostly) to create a place that is more diverse and productive than it would naturally be. I figure I must be doing something right because my garden is suddenly full of birds (this year I have found four bird nests within 25 feet of the house), lizards (it seems like foot long lizards are lounging under every board), bees come to (presumably) drink from my pond, butterflies and hummingbirds flock to the Buddleia by my deck, bats circle the garden every night, there is an owl living in a tree (I won’t even mention the wood rats). When I compare my garden to those around me this isn’t really surprising, as it is far more biologically diverse and productive. 

Good reasons why you should have a food garden

There is no single compelling reason why you should plant your own food garden, but there are quite a few very good reasons and together they create a pretty convincing argument. Here are a few I can think of:

It helps you to eat better by producing the best tasting and most nutritious food available anywhere. You simply can’t beat home grown, home cooked (or raw) food.

It allows you to reduce your food bills considerably, or even eliminate them entirely (for at least a few months of the year). For the poorer among us it may be the only way to make eating organic food a viable option.

A garden can help you to reduce your impact on the earth by giving you a way to recycle some of your waste (and reduce the amount you consume).

It creates a beautiful living environment where you will want to spend a lot of time. I 

would never be so crass as to suggest you create a garden specifically to improve the value of your property, but apparently it does that too.

It enables you to develop some independence from the industrial consumption complex. When you grow some of your own food you gain a measure of independence from a system you have no control over. Human beings have lived comfortably without consuming the earth in the past (that’s what it really means when they call us consumers) and we can learn how to do it again.

It gives you pleasure and enhances your life by giving you interesting and satisfying work to do in a beautiful place. This is the reason gardening is the most popular hobby in most industrialized countries.

By growing your own food you know exactly where it has come from and what is in it (and what isn’t in it).

It improves your health by providing good nutrition, meaningful (and fairly gentle) exercise and a place to unwind and relax.

It brings us back under the benign influence of Mother Nature. This is becoming ever more 

important as humans start to spend more and more of their time in the virtual world.

A productive food garden (and the knowledge obtained creating one) is insurance against 

economic upheaval and food insecurity. Until recently this has seemed like a pretty abstract benefit, but the ongoing economic crisis has brought home the fact that life in America doesn’t necessarily come with a lifetime warranty. When the Soviet Union collapsed (and with it the economic infrastructure) many people relied on their vegetable gardens to keep them fed. With the United States showing many of the same symptoms we would do well to have alternative food sources ready and waiting. While a food garden is good insurance for the future, it also improves your life now.

I have my own personal reason for gardening, in that I am fascinated by edible plants and just love growing them. The fact that at the end of the process I get to try some new food (if I can bear to eat my pets) is almost incidental. I would do it even if it had no other benefit than keeping me entertained.

Of course a garden is only a good idea if you are interested in creating and maintaining one. If you aren’t really interested in it, you probably won’t do a very good job, or be very successful and shouldn’t even try (you can get some of the benefits described above by becoming friends with a generous gardener).

Anyone think of any more reasons?

Easy do-it-yourself vegetative propagation

When you really get into planting the garden you soon realize you can never have enough plants and that it is time to get involved with vegetative propagation. I find this to be one of the most interesting, rewarding and productive aspects of gardening and highly recommend that everyone try it. Most forms of vegetative propagation are easier than most people imagine and even the more complex methods are well within your ability if you have the right equipment and a little patience. If everyone starts propagating and swapping (or selling) the most useful and productive plants in their gardens, we could all have more varied and productive gardens.

There are many methods of vegetative propagation and which you choose will depend upon the species you wish to propagate and the time of year. Some are very easy, others are more temperamental and you should always check for any specific requirements before starting.

A good place to start your propagation education is with the ridiculously easy plants like Willow, (hardwood cuttings), Mint, Comfrey, Horseradish (root cuttings) and Jerusalem Artichoke (tubers). All you have to do is stick the right part in the ground and they will grow into new plants, guaranteed. They are so easy that this hardly counts as propagation at all, but it can get you inspired to start some serious multiplication.

Some plants are naturally inclined to propagate themselves repeatedly without your intervention. They may do this by rooting at the tips (Blackberries), offsets (Potato Onions), suckers (Raspberries), runners (Strawberries) or creeping rhizomes (Mints). These are also very simple to propagate, all you have to do is separate the new plant from the established plant and transplant it.

Layering is probably the most foolproof method of propagation proper and is particularly valuable because it works with a wide variety of species. It is based on the principle that when a woody branch touches moist soil it will eventually form roots. All you do is bend a shoot down and bury part of it in the ground. Do this in spring and it should have rooted by the end of the growing season. When it goes dormant in winter you detach it from the parent plant, dig it up and move it.

Quite a few plants can be grown from root cuttings, mostly perennials but also a few shrubs and even trees. You simply divide a root into pieces and each one eventually grows into a new plant. This will often happen accidentally in some cases. I have dug up and moved Blackberries, Black Locust, Horseradish, Comfrey, and Fragrant Spring Tree, only to find new plants springing up from root fragments that broke off while I was digging. This can sometimes be a problem if you are trying to get rid of a plant.

Hardwood cuttings are generally pretty easy to propagate, you just take a section of woody stem, stick it in the ground in fall and by the following spring it will have rooted. The easiest is undoubtedly the Willow (followed closely by Poplar), though Currants, Grapes, Mulberries and Figs (and many others) are all pretty straightforward.

Softwood cuttings are also fairly simple and work for a wide variety of species from annuals to perennials, vines, shrubs and even some trees. The most important thing to know about rooting softwood cuttings is that they lose moisture rapidly and must be kept humid until they have rooted. You don’t need anything fancy to do this, I usually root them in a 1 gallon pot filled with moist peat moss and covered with a clear plastic bag (keep this out of direct sunlight). You also need patience, don’t keep poking and pulling on your cuttings to see if they have rooted. 

Though this article is supposed to be about vegetative propagation, I feel I should also mention growing from seed (even though by definition it is not vegetative) because it is sometimes the easiest and cheapest way to get more plants. Some seeds (especially woody plants) can be temperamental and require special treatment before they will germinate, but many others are pretty easy and offer a simple way to get a lot of plants quickly (you also get some genetic variation, which can be good or bad). I just grew a bunch of Lovage plants from seed and it was more satisfactory than vegetatively propagating the same plant over and over. I have always thought of Canna as a fairly exotic edible ornamental, but it is easily grown from seed and grows rapidly. Passion Vine germinates easily too (these are two unusual edibles that are easily grown from seed, does anyone else have any other good examples?)

Many trees are more easily grown from seed than any other method. Chestnut seedlings are all over my garden (the seed will die if it dries out though). Apricots and peaches are easy too, though the fruit won’t be quite the same as the parent, it is usually still good. When you grow an apple tree from seed the fruit will rarely be like that of its parent, so seedlings are often used as rootstock and grafted with a scion of a known cultivar.

Probably the single most important thing about vegetative propagation is to do it now, today. Read this article, get up from the computer, go forth into your garden and multiply your plants (I put this paragraph at the end of the article so you will have no excuse). 

Blackcurrants

This year in the garden has been clouded by the sad absence of the normally reliable plums and peaches (and almonds and apricots too). This is the first year they have all completely failed me and was due to a very mild and spring-like January that brought them out of dormancy, to be followed by the more typical chilly winter weather in February and March. The new growth managed to hang on (if somewhat dejectedly) until it was hit by some unusually late and hard frosts in April, which killed it stone dead. The peaches also had to deal with severe Peach Leaf Curl on top of this, to the point where it looked like some trees might actually die. It was the first time I have seen whole tree branches completely bare in May. As some compensation for this lack of stone fruit, this has been the first year when I have had enough Blackcurrants to make a worthwhile harvest. It is still nowhere near enough, but I’m still taking cuttings to grow more.

Blackcurrants are native to northern Europe and if you look around a supermarket there you will find them flavoring all kinds of products: soft drinks, pies, jams, wine, cough drops, candies and more. They are so common that it was surprising for me to come to this country and find that they are almost unknown. This is partly because they are grow best in cooler climates (they are more popular in Canada) and partly because it has been illegal to grow them in many places. They are an alternate host for White Pine Blister Rust and it was thought that preventing their growth would reduce this disease (this didn’t really work out and so happily it is no longer banned in most places).

Another reason for their lack of popularity is their unusual flavor. They are barely edible raw, with a sour and almost unpleasant taste and I’m sure many gardeners have got no further than one taste. I have been trying to cultivate a taste for the raw berries for several years and can now eat a couple, but I never eat them by the handful as I do blueberries or raspberries. The secret to Blackcurrants is that they have to be cooked with a significant amount of sweetener. Do this and an astonishing bit of culinary alchemy occurs and their wonderful earthy, tangy, sour/bitter flavor comes flooding out.

Blackcurrants are very easy to grow and can be very productive. Though native to cool northern climates they actually grow very well in my garden in California. They tolerate the hot summer days without any problems that I have noticed and even seem to tolerate drought pretty well (they may look pretty bad at the end of a long dry summer, but come back strong the following spring). You could plant them as a deciduous hedge or in a forest garden. Another bonus is that birds don’t like them very much. Yet another one is that they are very easy to grow from hardwood cuttings, just cut them in fall, stick them in the ground and they will root by spring.

I found it difficult to decide whether to use my precious fruit for pie or preserves, two of my favorite treats since childhood. I eventually decided on Blackcurrant jam, the ultimate gourmet preserve, because I figured it would last a lot longer than a pie. A quick search online turned up a recipe that didn’t include an absurd quantity of sugar (some use 2 part sugar to one part fruit!). It consisted of 5 cups berries, 4 cups sugar, ¼ cup lemon juice and 2 cups water. I didn’t have any lemon juice so I substituted ½ cup of orange juice and reduced the amount of water accordingly. Some Blackcurrant recipes say you have to remove the little brown calyx from each individual berry, which would take an absurd amount of time, but fortunately they are wrong, you don’t have to. I just removed the few remaining green stems and then rinsed them in water. All the debris and most of the unripe berries then floated away, leaving clean ripe berries in the bottom. Blackcurrants are loaded with pectin (as well as vitamin C and a variety of powerful phytonutrients) so you don’t need to add any extra.

Making the jam didn’t take long. I just boiled everything together for 20 minutes before realizing I was supposed to boil the fruit and water for 10 minutes, then add the juice and sugar and boil for 10 minutes more. It didn’t seem to make any difference though, it still worked out great. The final product was even better than I expected, sweet and yet sour, with the musky earthy flavor that Blackcurrants are renowned for. Good enough to win a prize at the county fair (if only the judges could appreciate Blackcurrants). 

Some benefits of having a garden

I love being out in nature, whether foraging for fungi in the woods, paddling my canoe, sitting on the beach or climbing mountains, I find it very satisfying and relaxing. When you have a garden you don’t actually need to go anywhere to get your fill of nature, you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home, by just going outside. To me this is the greatest joy of the garden; it gives me a natural place where I want to spend my time. In one way the garden is even better than wild nature in that you can manipulate it; you can work with nature to make it more to your liking and more responsive to your needs.

Of course one of the greatest rewards of the food garden is the food it produces. I’m not just talking about your average supermarket standard food here, I am talking about the best food in existence. My spring Strawberries, summer Nectarines and winter Kale and carrots have all been blessed by the taste fairy and are astonishingly good. If there is a better apple than the Golden Delicious from my tree, it must be the one that Eve lured Adam with (or was it the other way around). This is all the more amazing to me because I always considered shop bought Golden Delicious apples to taste about as good as the box they were shipped in. There is some debate as to why home grown food tastes better, ranging from chemistry to autosuggestion, but I think that commercial growers just don’t put nearly as much love into their growing.

We have all been brainwashed to believe that producing food is an unpleasant necessity of life and that industrial agriculture liberated us from this chore, to go off and be ourselves (this was actually more like freeing the slaves, who were then free to go back and work on the same plantation, but that’s another story). The reality is that growing your own food is more of a pleasure than a chore and the occasional spell of hard work (look upon it as beneficial exercise that is much more meaningful than sweating in a gym) just makes the time when you are relaxing feel even better. It is wonderfully satisfying to help plants turn soil and sunlight into delicious food and then eat it.

Growing food connects you to the earth in a direct way that anyone can understand; it fills your stomach with things that came from the soil around you. Cook and eat a meal made completely from your garden and you will be on your way to developing a completely new relationship with your food and the natural world. Do this for long enough and your own body eventually comes to be made up of elements that came from a few square yards of soil in your garden. You don’t get any more connected to the earth than that.

The garden can also improve your health, as you get the ultimate fresh produce, packed with vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, and you can eat them immediately before they start to deteriorate. If you are so inclined you can take this a lot further and grow some uniquely nutritious foods and herbs, enabling you to create your own superior food supplements, green drinks, raw foods and juices. This type of garden can return our diet to something like the diversity of our hunter gatherer ancestors.

Researchers in the Netherlands discovered that people who live near to natural areas had a lower incidence of physical and mental problems, which suggests that humans need to live near plants. This would explain why gardening is a powerful antidote to the stresses of modern life. The garden gives us a place where we interact with the natural world on an intimate physical level. 

Six of the most useful edible garden weeds

There are so many variables in vegetable gardening (weather, timing, pests, watering) that the success of your crops will vary a lot from year to year. In some years you have more than you know what to do with, while in others you may not get anything at all. It's nice to know that some crops that are guaranteed to be a success year after year without fail: the weeds. You probably don’t think of this as a good thing, but many of the most common garden weeds are not only edible, but actually very good if gathered at the right time (often just as good as the crops you are trying to grow). The annual garden weeds have selected themselves from thousands of species from all over the world and share certain characteristics that make them supremely successful in the rich, moist, bare soil found in the garden. It makes sense to take advantage of the plants that are best adapted to growing in the garden, especially when they are tasty, highly nutritious and grow themselves without you having to lift a finger. All you have to do it identify them properly, harvest and eat them (if you don’t eat them you will have to weed them out anyway).

I look upon the edible weeds as just another crop, and treat them as one, allowing them to grow to useful size and then harvesting (though you might get several cuttings before you take them out). As with any other crop it is important to harvest them at the right stage of growth, they won’t be very good if gathered at the wrong time.


My favorite six edible weeds

Some edible weeds are so outstanding that they have a long history of use by knowledgeable gardeners around the world. Most of the plants mentioned below are so good they have even been cultivated occasionally (in some cases improved cultivars have been produced).

Pigweed (Amaranthus hybridus,  A. retroflexus)

This is one of the commonest warm weather garden weeds, and is probably found in most vegetable gardens by July. Pigweeds produce an abundance of long-lived edible seed and can out-compete almost all crop plants. The leaves are rich in protein, vitamins A and C, calcium and iron. Pigweed tastes good enough to be grown as a warm weather substitutes for spinach. Look for the seeds under the names Tampala, Chinese Spinach or Hinn Choy.

As with the related spinach the leaves contain oxalic acid, so should be eaten in moderation. One must also be careful about gathering the plant where chemical fertilizers are used, as they may accumulate nitrates and become toxic. Fortunately when used as a potherb most of these toxins are leached out, so they are unlikely to be consumed in dangerous quantities.

The tender young plants and growing tips of older plants (good until the flower appear) may be used in salads, or boiled for a few minutes as a potherb. My wife says that Amaranth greens are one of the best potherbs she has ever tasted. Try sautéing some onion and garlic in a pan and then add the washed greens. The water sticking to the leaves will be enough to cook them. If you plan to serve these to guests you might want to call them something other than Pigweed though, maybe Chinese Spinach.

Wintercress (Barbarea vulgaris)

This European Mustard is a very common cool weather garden weed and is sometimes cultivated as a cool weather salad plant. It gets its common name because it is very hardy and in milder areas often remains green throughout the winter. The leaves taste a lot like Watercress (Nasturtium) and can be used in the same ways, in salads, soups and sandwiches. It is at its best while young and can get very strongly flavored as it flowers. It is also good as a potherb, though you may need to change the cooking water after a couple of minutes, to reduce its bitterness to a palatable level. The unopened flower buds, gathered while still tightly furled, can be eaten raw, or cooked like miniature Broccoli.

Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium album)

This European species is the ultimate pioneer plant and has managed to spread itself around the world in the footsteps of colonists. This isn’t a bad thing as the leaves contains large amounts of vitamins A, C and several B's, as well as calcium, iron and phosphorus.

As with spinach and pigweed the plant contains mildly toxic oxalic acid and so shouldn't be used in large quantities for long periods (no more than spinach). It may also accumulate nitrates on certain soils, notably those where lots of chemical fertilizers have been used. 

The young growth of Lambs Quarters has been used as a salad or potherb for thousands of years.  The tender flowering tips of older plants (gathered up until the flowers fade), can be boiled or steamed for 5‑10 minutes and are very good. They shrink a lot in cooking so gather plenty. In Mexico those of the related Huazontle (C. berlandierii var nuttaliae) are boiled for 5 minutes, squeezed into bunches, dipped in eggs and fried.

There is now at least one improved cultivar available (Giant Lambs Quarters or Magentaspreen).

Mallows (Malva sylvestris, M. rotundifolia)

The Mallows are among the richest plant sources of carotene (which the body converts into vitamin A), containing as much as 16,000 i.u. per ounce. They also contain a lot of vitamin C and many minerals.

These hardy plants often grow right through the winter in mild climates and can be a valuable winter vegetable. The tender young leaves can be used in salads, but are best boiled as greens. Older leaves can be chopped and cooked as a potherb, though you might want to change the cooking water once or twice. This is not necessary to remove any unpleasant taste, but reduces their slimy, mucilaginous quality. The dried leaves have been used for tea.

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Purslane is native to the warmer parts of Eurasia, but has made itself at home in most countries of the world (including most of North America). This is such a good food plant that it is cultivated in many countries. It is often seen in Mexican markets in this country and has recently made an appearance in our local natural foods store.

Purslane is rich in vitamins A and C and iron and is one of the best plant sources of omega 3 fatty acids. It also contains oxalic acid, so shouldn't be used excessively.

Gather the tender new growing tips by pinching them off the plant. This will encourage the plant to put out more of the same, so you can take several harvests from a single plant in the course of a summer without harming it (though as a common weed you may want to harm it!) These slightly sour tips are good raw in sandwiches and salads, or can be boiled as a potherb. In China they are stir fried, added to soup and pickled. If you object to the mucilaginous quality of boiled Purslane, then try frying, or baking the tender tips with egg and breadcrumbs.

Purslane has a long history of cultivation in its homeland and improved varieties are available. However in this country most gardeners are only interested in eradicating it and the notion of actually planting it sounds ridiculous. There is some justification for this (it can be a bad weed if it gets out of hand) but it is unfortunate because Purslane is a great food crop. It grows well with almost no attention and is as good as any food plant you are likely to buy. In my first garden it took several years of careful neglect before I had enough Purslane growing in my garden to satisfy my needs. In later gardens I came to have a greater appreciation of its weed status, though in my present garden it nearly all gets eaten by quail.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Wherever you live in North America, you probably have the plant growing near you at some time in the year. Look for it in cool weather, when it will be one of the last green growing plants. Its’ delicate appearance is deceiving, as this is one of the hardiest of all annuals and can survive temperatures as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit. In chilly 40-degree weather will produce a luxuriant green carpet, in fact the plant is actually happiest in such cool temperatures, as the cold suppresses larger plants that would otherwise overwhelm them. It disappears altogether in hot weather.

Chickweed is highly regarded as a source of wild greens as it is common, easily identified, mildly flavored, rich in vitamin C and provide food during cool weather. The tender growing tips can be used as a base for a fine salad, simply add pungent, sour and aromatic leaves to give more flavor. They are also an attractive garnish. The young tops can also be used as a potherb, though you will need to gather a lot, as it shrinks when cooked. The tops of older plants can also be used as a potherb, though you may need to discard the tougher stems.