Frugal gardening ideas for frugal times

[Kaleva]

13. For frugal times, most gardens ought to include these basic vegetables.

I'm working on my 1800 plus square foot garden and it's my plan to grow every year a group of vegetables that could provide me and my wife sustenance for several months if things go bad.

The criteria is that they:

Be relatively easy to grow
Are relatively east to store
Have a relatively long shelf life

I have full basements in two homes and it's my intent to use the basement of the small home which we pretty much close down for the winter as a root cellar. So what I'm plan on doing may not be applicable to your situation as you may not have the space for a large enough garden or have space to store the vegetables.

So here's my list:

Potatoes- properly stored, certain cultivars of potatoes, such as Elba, Katahdin, Red Chieftain, Yukon Gold, Burbank Russet, German Butterball, Yukon Gem, Rose Finn Apple Fingerling and Russian Banana Fingerling, can last for 6 months or more.

Winter Squash-Butter Nut and Blue Hubbard can last 6-7 months and one can harvest seeds from them for the following year's crop.

Pumpkin-Certain varieties of pumpkin can last up to 2-3 months.

Cabbage-If you make it into sauerkraut, this can last for many months if properly stored. I've made sauerkraut before in buckets and I just had the buckets sitting on the basement floor. I'm going to make some more this fall as my father-in-law has lots of cabbage growing in his garden.

Carrots and parsnips- With proper preparation, carrots and parsnips can be left in the ground and harvested as needed. I've never tried this but I'll give it a shot. The trick is to plant the carrots and parsnips at the right time so that they have matured when cold weather sets in. The link also provides info on other methods of storing.

Onions-The right varieties of onions properly stored can last for months.

Dry beans-While harvesting and curing dry beans may be time consuming, dried beans are about the easiest to store as they can be kept in a suitable container in a pantry.

Other then stocking up on pickling or kosher salt for making sauerkraut, once my method of storage is set up, I should be able to use it year after year without having to purchase other ingredients or items such as canning lids.

Keeping some potatoes and dried beans for seed and harvesting seeds from the pumpkins and winter squash for future crops is simple. Harvesting seeds from cabbage, carrots, parsnips is more involved but can be done.