Another gardening thread. =)

Hello, Survival Forum people.

This year, for our first time, my fiancee and I have decided to grow a vegetable garden. This is not done for love of the sport, (though it has proven to be rather enjoyable at times.. except the damn squash beetles. >:/) but rather as an effort to cope with the escalating costs of food and the desire to be more self-reliant overall. If the S should hit the F any time soon in a way that does not involve a complete societal breakdown, I'd like to be content in the knowledge that we will at least be eating comfortably. Combined with other food and water storage, and adequate supplies of non-consumable essentials, our gardening could help us to weather "the storm" for a long time in our most comfortable location: home. I'm not the bug-out sort unless the need was truly there, and would be one that holds out in the homeplace unless absolutely necessary for my family's well-being. My home is my castle, batten down the hatches, lock and load, etc.

This being said, I'm looking for more knowledge on the basics of food preservation. With the amount of plants we have in the ground, we will be looking at nearly enough food to get us through winter without spending any money at the grocery store on produce. *knock on wood* So long as the crops produce as they should - and they're looking pretty good so far.

This is if I can successfully preserve it until the next planting season. To that end, I'm considering ordering the following books, and would like opinions on them from other users that may have read such.

"Putting Food By" Beatrice Vaughan, Janet C. Greene, Ruth Hertzberg
"Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables" Mike Bubel
"Country Wisdom & Know-How" The Editors of Storey Publishing
"Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long" Eliot Coleman

Of course, opinions on these books would be greatly appreciated. Also, any other food storage hints that may not be covered would certainly be welcome.

Happy gardening! =)

Gardening and preserving your food is so rewarding in the end. Me and my husband always raise a garden year after year. It makes sense whether hard times was coming or not. Because you can save so much money in doing this. I have not read any of these books, but before you go out and buy a bunch of these there is so much info on the web for free.

Here is a good site that contains anything and everything you need to know about preserving foods, from canning, freezing, and drying foods.
Heck, it even gives you step by step pictures of how to do this..
www.pickyourown.org

You can store your potatoes in the ground or you can either build a large wooden box and insulate it very well and have a tighly sealed top on it and have this in a garage or barn or outbuilding. If they are stored in the ground the hole would have to be insulated also. You can use hay to line the hole with and then have a wooden top to cover this hole. Either way you just have to make sure that it is insulated well enough to keep from freezing in the winter.

We preserve out meat also. We cure our pork and make our own sausage.
We live in the country and this is common with us country folk. We have cattle that we raise to sell and eat a few..

Preserving your own food is not only cost saving but it is better in the long run because you dont have to worry about all those nasty preservatives and crap that is added to your food in the stores.