Peaches are fun to grow. Mulberries taste like sunshine and morning dew dipped in honey. But bananas are prolific. Nothing out-produces bananas, and you can pack them into a small space, which is great for a front yard. Give them lots of sun and water, and they will give you an abundant harvest throughout the year. Extend the downspout of a gutter to them, and they will get a ton of water when it rains, which they absolutely love. Bananas make a good “survival” food, something that will create abundant calories for you in a grid-down situation. They also freeze well and can be dehydrated.
Another favorite survival crop is papaya, because like bananas, you can really crowd them into a small spot. They grow straight up and don’t have branches. And they produce fruit all year long. I’ve blended frozen papaya in milk to make good milkshakes, but my favorite way to eat them is fresh. They’re like cantaloupes growing on trees.
I imagine figs would be another great survival crop, because they dry pretty well. My fig plants are still babies though.
African yam (Dioscorea Alata) is a great source of calories, and they grow so well in Florida. A great space-saver too because they are tubers that grow in the ground. Imagine digging up a single yam weighing 20 pounds! That’s quite typical for this variety of yam. It’s always good to have hundreds of pounds of food in the ground ready to dig up, during a crisis.
Another promising survival crop I’m growing is macadamia nuts. They have a very hard shell, which I imagine will preserve the nut inside all year. That’s my guess though, because mine are still babies. If you have a big macadamia tree growing and dropping nuts on the ground, you can just go around, pick them up and store them in jars or boxes. They are a great source of fat, which is what you really want in a grid-down situation.
As much as I love mangos and bananas, I don’t want to end up just eating those in times of food scarcity. I need lots of protein and fat. So, it would be smart to have lots of plants that will produce fatty fruit, like nuts, avocados and coconuts, which all grow very well here in central Florida.
As for protein, with all the small game here in Florida a shot gun would be very handy. And with all the lakes we have, fishing gear is a must. But since I have neither, it’s boxes of sardines from Costco for me.
That was informative and pretty funny. Thank Abbas for his input, you should have him put some of his homemade jam recipes on your page too. Could be useful to homesteaders with fruit on their hands – no pun intended.