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In this video we are going to pretend
like the apocalypse has hit us and based

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on some of the news I think
we've all been hearing lately,

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sometimes it can seem like that.

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But let's put the scaremongering aside
and discuss nine crops to grow in a

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survivalist setting.

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Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening
where it is my goal to help you grow a

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greener thumb.

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Let's talk about this with a survival
setting and this is something I have

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pretty good experience in. Last year,

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June 2019 to the end of June 2019,

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I did something called the
apocalypse grow challenge.

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I covered it really heavily on Instagram.

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I have footage that is still sitting on
my archives waiting to edit for you guys

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here on YouTube, but
the rules were simple.

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I had to live off of only
what I could grow, fish,

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forage or barter for at fair market value,

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and I did that for 30 days.

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So I've done that in a really urban
setting and that made me really think,

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okay,

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what do I have to grow in order to
quite literally survive for a month?

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Now, the first thing you have to
think about is, number one, calories.

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So we're going to be talking about crops
that are the easiest to grow for their

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caloric density and nutritional profile.

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And nutritional density is another thing.

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Some of our calorie heavy crops aren't
necessarily the most nutrient rich.

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They're serving that
caloric energy perspective,

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but they're not serving the
perspective of nutritional density.

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So our two categories that we're going
to discuss are going to be our calories

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and our nutrients. And
before we go any further,

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stay tuned at the end for a bonus category
of crops to grow to make this whole

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survival experience a lot more fun.
Let's go ahead and jump into it.

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Crop number one is the humble bean.

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It makes sense to look back at more
ancient cultures to figure out what they

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grew in order to subsistence
farm or subsistence garden,

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because that's just
how life was back then.

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And beans were a staple crop
across many different cultures.

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Now, the reason why they're
so good is number one,

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they're pretty calorically dense
compared to other things you can grow,

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but also a good amount of protein, all
sorts of vitamins and minerals in them.

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But on top of that, you can grow them
in many different ways. First of all,

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you have your categories of
bush beans and pole beans,

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and so based on your
unique growing conditions,

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you can choose which one
you want. This of course,

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is a vertically stacked
system growing bush beans.

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You wouldn't want to grow pole beans
in a system like this because of course

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then you'd need to trellis
all these different ones up,

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which doesn't make a whole lot
of sense. But then if you wanted,

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you could go ahead and throw some pole
beans on a trellis arch like this.

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And you have many, many ways to grow
beans. So as far as growing them,

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direct sowing is almost always
going to be your best bet.

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Although I will say they take okay to
transplanting. I've done that many times.

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In fact, I transplanted this entire thing.

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And besides the top suffering
from a little bit of spider mites,

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the rest of these are doing really nicely
and I expect to go to harvest out of

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those. Beans can be preserved. Beans
can be dried and stored for many, many,

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many months and years.

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And then beans can be worked into more
or less almost any type of cuisine and

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any type of recipe from soups to Mexican
food to all sorts of different things.

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And so beans are extremely high
up on the apocalypse garden list.

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Crop number two is going to be corn.
It's gotten a little cold, little windy,

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little rainy here. So I'm hanging
out under the awning. But corn,

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if you've listened to number one
and number two, beans and corn,

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you probably know number three, so
drop it down below if you know it.

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But let's talk about this. Most of us
are growing sweet corn in our gardens.

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I did a lot of that last year.

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Super rewarding to come out to the garden
and grab a stalk and grab an ear off

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the stalk and eat it fresh off
of the stalk. It's so delicious,

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but in a survival scenario, you
wouldn't really want to do that.

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You may want to opt to
grow a Dent corn variety,

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let it dry on the stalk to
somewhere below 15% moisture,

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and then what you can do is use it
as a dried corn meal, corn flour,

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that type of thing. That's going
to be a lot more versatile.

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It's going to be a lot easier to store
and preserve and you can just use it in

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so many more different recipes.

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So corn also plays nicely
with our first one.

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So if you use the corn stalk as a
makeshift organic trellis, then the beans,

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if you choose a pole variety,
can grow straight up it.

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And that leads us right
into our third pick.

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Apocalypse crop number three completes
the trilogy and that of course would be

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squash. So yes, for those of
you who guessed it, props,

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it is the three sisters combination
for our first three recommendations.

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So you have squash,
specifically winter squash.

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What that does is if you grow it on
the ground, it's a sprawling crop.

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And so it's going to be a faux
ground cover, a green ground cover.

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And what that's great for, if you
combine it with your beans and your corn,

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both of those are shallow-rooted crops
that really do prefer nice moist soil

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that's protected from crazy
fluctuations in moisture.

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And so what you'll do there is then
you'll throw squash out on the ground and

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you can have your beans climbing up the
corn if you so choose to do a pole bean

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and the corn of course providing
that support structure.

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So it's a really good triple threat.

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And then of course squash on
its own is nutritionally great.

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Calorically pretty good and
also a fantastic storing crop.

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Crop number four on our apocalypse
list, I've chosen cabbage.

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Cabbage is a pretty easy to grow crop
and it's special because it retains most

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of its nutrients even when it's
cooked. And if you want to preserve it,

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then you can of course do
that by fermenting it and
creating sauerkraut or other

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cabbage-based ferments. So it's great raw,

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it's great cooked and it's relatively
easy to grow and many varieties are pretty

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cold-tolerant. So you can grow it in
most regions throughout most of the year,

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barring the hottest and absolute coldest
parts of the year. So it's a really,

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really good crop. No,

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it's not the most calorically dense but
pretty nutritionally dense and combined

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with the fermentation angle, you can
actually do quite a bit with this crop.

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This next crop is absolutely number one
in my heart as a gardener and that of

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course is the humble but
really not so humble potato.

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These are a Norland red variety and
potatoes, right out of the gate,

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is a staple crop in a
survival scenario. In fact,

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potatoes and specifically this Norland
red potato right here is the one that

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provided most of my calories,
my base level of calories,

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for my apocalypse grow
survival challenge I did,

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as I mentioned earlier in the
video, June 2019 that entire month.

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Now these ones right here, you may be
wondering how do you still have some left?

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Well,

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these ones grew out of tiny ones that I
had forgotten and just didn't dig up in

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my raised beds and the other
ways that I grew them. In fact,

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these ones here came out
of my cold compost pile.

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Just the pile that I throw a bunch
of different things in. Of course,

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I guess some of them slipped through the
cracks and now I have a healthy amount,

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maybe like two or three pounds.
They're not the most sizeable,

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but they're completely free. And that
speaks to how easy potatoes are to grow.

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So easy. I've grown them in five different
ways - I've grown them in grow bags,

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I've grown them in five gallon buckets,

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I've grown them in raised beds with
hilling, raised beds without hilling,

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in ground, both with and without hilling.

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And you know which one performed the
best, surprisingly in the ground,

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buried deep. And I never hilled
them and I never touched them.

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I let the natural weather, the rain
throughout the season water them.

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And I got a massive haul of maybe 25 to
30 pounds just out of one bed of these

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Norlands on a friend's property.
So from a survival standpoint,

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potatoes are one of the few foods that
you can eat just potatoes and you won't

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be deficient. You'll, you'll be okay.
You're not going to be thriving,

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but you'll be okay. Calorically
pretty good. Good amount of magnesium,

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good amount of vitamin C.

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They are a great crop to grow and they
really are a set it and forget it crop

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that all you have to do is just not
harvest 100% of them every year and you're

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going to have them coming back
year after year after year.

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They're just an amazing
crop. So versatile. You can
turn them into hash browns,

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you can fry them, you can store
them in cool, somewhat humid place.

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They're going to last
for a long, long time.

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You can even turn them into
dehydrated potato flakes, whatever.

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The sky's the limit with potatoes.

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Clearly they're the favorite of mine and
these are probably gonna make it into a

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meal tonight. Our next apocalypse
pick is the humble kale. Now,

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is it the most calorically
dense crop? Certainly it's not,

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but it is extremely nutritionally dense
and the reason I picked it over many

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other greens is because
of its cold tolerance.

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You can grow this in almost any climate
throughout the winter provided you

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provide some cold protection like
a cold frame or a frost blanket,

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whatever the case may be. And it
actually surprisingly stores pretty well.

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If you were to cut it up and you
were to dehydrate it as kale chips,

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throw a desiccant like silica pack in
the container you're storing them in.

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This can be a great nutrient dense
little crunchy snack in the apocalypse.

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So kale, of course you
have this curly style.

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There's the dinosaur or Lacinato
style, many different varieties,

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some more cold tolerant than others,
some more, like I would prefer,

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heat tolerant than others. And
so definitely pick your variety,

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but kale does make it into
the top nine apocalypse list.

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Next up we have sweet potatoes,

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which despite the name aren't really
related to potatoes and grow slightly

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differently. They take a lot longer
to mature than the average potato.

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So if you're looking for
expediency of calories,

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you probably wouldn't choose this. But
there are some interesting benefits,

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namely that the greens are edible.

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Whereas with potatoes they certainly
are not edible and in fact potatoes even

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exposed on the surface you shouldn't
eat. We call those green potatoes.

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They have a lot of solanine content
in them. You don't want to eat that,

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but with sweet potatoes, not
only can you eat the greens,

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but you can just let this keep going and
going and going and you'll be pulling

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up these gnarly tubers.

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These are not even close to the max
size you can achieve. Of course,

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there's definitely a sweet
spot, but a great storing crop,

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good sugar content in here,

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good overall calories
and nutrient density.

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It's really hard to beat provided you
have the climate and the space to grow

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them. Our final one before the bonus
is the lentil. Lentil is a legume.

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It's a fantastic crop to grow.

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It's about 110 days for a dried lentil,

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so it'll get it all the way
there in just over about,

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well I guess just under four
months or so. So fantastic.

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You can grow in at scale. You want to
plant them maybe five inches or so apart.

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You can put a low trellis on if
you want to, you don't have to.

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You just want to make sure there's
nice air circulation. And again,

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these are in a jar and these are
stored. What does that tell you?

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It's a great dried storage,
food, calories, protein,

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bunch of good stuff going on with lentils.

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So make it a part of your
apocalypse survival garden.

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But those of you who have stayed,

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you have your bonus apocalypse tip and
that would be growing a ton of herbs.

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So I've got, what do I have? Rosemary,
lavender, basil, dill, thyme, oregano,

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sage - all that stuff is popping
off in this tiny little herb garden.

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And trust me when I say that you will
eventually get sick of eating potatoes,

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lentils, beans, squash, all
of this stuff, unseasoned.

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And speaking from someone who
literally did this for 30 days,

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I went through a love-hate bordering on
true hate of potatoes for a while and

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it's been nine months since that challenge
and I'm only slowly starting to like

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them again.

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So I got sick of them and having a bunch
of herbs that I can dry and dehydrate

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and mix into spice blends is
going to go a long, long way.

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What did you think of my apocalypse list?

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This is by no means an exhaustive list,

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so if you have a suggestion that
you think I really missed out on,

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drop it down below so everyone else,

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including myself can learn from your
apocalypse garden recommendations.

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And what I'd like to say is, first of
all, thank you so much for watching.

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If you enjoyed the video,
cultivate that like button.

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And the last thing is if you like the
raised beds I have in my front yard,

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a link is going to be in the description.

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I now am the distributor in America
for these Birdies raised beds,

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which I really like. It's
starting to rain really hard.

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So I'm going to wrap this up. If you
like them link in the description,

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link in the comment, check
them out. And until next time,

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good luck in the garden. Keep surviving
and I'll see you on the next video.