Hmmm, interesting question. Some of the things on your list will be difficult because you'd need open pollinated varieties and then would have to avoid crossing - could be a real problem with the squash and anything else that isn't self-fertile/self-pollinating.

The tomatoes would be easy (for me anyway ;): Cherokee Purple, Giant Belgium, Kellogg's Breakfast, Opalka, Wes, Black from Tula, and misc. others. Check out Seed Savers Exchange on line for their catalog.

Beans & Peas - Purple Pod pole and Mississippi Silver Crowder and Great Northern. Check out Vermont Bean and Seed.

Strawberries would be almost impossible. Alpine strawberries possibly. Lettuces, herbs, radishes, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, etc. you'd have to let some of the plants go to seed. Onion seed won't store for more than a year.

Will also have to take into consideration what will crop wherever you choose to go. Not everything will grow everywhere. ;)

Hope this is of help.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Saving Vegetable Seeds

Ive thought many times about what would happen if one could not buy seeds mail-order or at the store. You'd really have to get disciplined about the seed-saving, for sure. What I have learned over ten years of undisciplined seed-saving, however, is that plants that self-sow or otherwise self-perpetuate are a more reliable way to be sure and have seed and plant material. I'm nearly in a zone 7. Food-plants that are well-adapted for me and relieve me of the trouble of saving seed are Red Russian kale, walking onion, parsnip, mustards, lettuces to some extent, amaranth, garlic. And of course there are the super-easy crops to save seed from: squashes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, potatoes (irish here and probably sweet in zones 7-8). Barring some severe misfortune it should be pretty simple to never have to re-buy those items.

Lotus seeds will be a good addition in your list.Both, seeds and roots are edible.Seeds can be stored for more than Thousand years.

Summer would be no problem, once the crops started coming in. But that is a fairly brief period. The rest of the year you would need to rely on good storage foods. This was done by our ancestors until a generation or two ago, so all the methods and plants are available. I would start by learning the three sisters method of growing corn (for meal, not sweet corn), beans and squash. You would need to have suitable varieties; not everything works for this. You need a grinder for the corn.

I would then add cabbage for making kraut, tomatoes for drying, onions, potatoes and so on. I consider the idea totally practical if you really want to do it, have the know-how and plan well.

Jim

Lotus roots are canned to use later in the year.Keep some potatoes in the ground for digging later next year.I have harvested potatoes from the plants germinated from left overs in the ground.

Jerusalem Artichoke grows like a weed, self perpetuates and makes a nice tuber for eating.

Lambs Quarters is a great green which self seeds every year. We freeze a lot of it for year round use.

I'd definitely grow rutabagas and or turnips for winter vegies. But I'd only produce seed from one of them each year, as they cross.

Carrots & beets would be a must, as would onions. For onions, I'd probably go heavy on potato onions,as they are so fool proof.

I'd pick one variety of a c. moschata squash, like butternut or perhaps something a bit larger, for better storage. I grow Warsaw Buff Pie Pumpkin, which fits that bill. But there are a lot of very good varieties out there. If you only grow one, you can easily save seed. C. moschatas are more resistant to pests and, any immature winter squash will do for eating like summer squash.

I'd grow a good, sturdy field corn for meal. These corns can be used for roasting ears as well. But they are not sweet. They are sustainable though. If I were growing all my own food corn would be very high on my list since it is easily processed in a homestead environment.

I'd grow a ton of cowpeas and beans. I personally would focus on a nice tender pod, STRING Bean, such as our family heirloom, Tennessee Cutshort; or some other cutshort or greasy bean. These beans are great for snap shell or dry use. Ruth Bible is a fantastic bean, very similar to Tennessee Cutshort.

I'd definitely grow tons of sweet potatoes. Choose your favorite. Just be sure it's a productive variety.

For melons and cantaloupe just grow one kind of each, every year. Though, if you mixed them up, you'd probably have an interesting, tasty mishmash. Some old timers grew their melons this way.

Finally (and I'm just out of time right now, there's so much more to think about) I'd have dairy goats. We do. They produce milk & meat. We've been making cheese and yogurt. I do Kefir, which is like yogurt, but sharper. It's not as temperamental as regular yogurt and it makes a really good soft cheese as well. I know they're not vegetables, but goats really fit into a homestead. I won't extol them more. But they desire it : )

Currently I grow and reproduce most of our vegetables and the seed or starts from which they come. My gardens are laid out for seed saving.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Corn for Meal & Grits

If you think you'll just be taking off with a backpack, heading for the hills, then sowing some seeds for survival, you're not being very realistic.

Do you know the difference between open-pollinated seeds and hybrids? Do you know what their requirements are? Do you know how to collect seed for use next year? How do you intend to keep deer/rabbits/groundhogs/wild pigs/etc out of your crops? How do you plan to store the food for winter and spring so you don't starve to death?

The fact that you asked this question says that you aren't a gardener. There is more to growing your own food than sticking a seed into the ground and standing around to collect the produce. Start practicing now, and hone your gardening skills. Learn all you can from books, the web and people. It can be trickier than you think.

The best plan would be to pick your survival site and start growing stuff there NOW. Many things will reseed by themselves whether you're there or not.

In the olden days, there were almost two seasons of food (late summer and fall), and if they didn't take care of the results, there were two seasons of starvation, and many didn't survive it.

Self-reliance depends more on what's in your head than what's in your backpack.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Survival Seeds in a Can

First, get out your libary card, you'll be doing a lot of studing.

Go get books on everything from how to raise chickens to how to make a fire with no matches.

Figure out how to manage and control a compost pile now, you'll wanna have this down, esp. if you're going no spray.

Read back articles from mother earth news, find what you can use, and commit that to heart.

Have you learned how to grind flour, dry herbs, can, and make jerky? If not start learning now.

With a 5-year timeline now is the time to ponder fruit trees and long-term beds suck as asparagus.

Have you pondered the things you may not be able to grow? coffee, sugar, pineapples? What can you substute, what can you live without, what can you buy with an occasional trip to town?

Assumming a nudiest commune isn't your plan, are you going to grow cotton/flaw/wool and learn to weave, or are clothing an acceptable expense?

Are you able to "dispatch" any squieerls or rabbits who threaten your food suppily? You may want to learn to shoot.

I'm sure there's another 50 things i've not mentioned, but thinking/planning on this list should get you started, in the meantime, start studing.

Here is a link that might be useful: mother earth news

Moringa oleifera is good plant/tree to include in the list.It's leaves,roots,flowers and pods(if the plants will bear in your zone) are edible. It is raised in pots in colder zones.In either size it can be trimmed to size to bring indoor after summer.It does not survive in cold weather.
Pods for vegetable.
Leaves and flowers for soups.
Roots as Horseradish.

4 things easily come to my mind but am not sure how some would do in your zone. Raspberries for me are the easiest things to grow. I started with just 3 roots and now have a 60 ft row in under 4 years and I have had no pests at all (other than a 4 legged puppy that loves to run through the bushes). Rhubarb has spread from a tiny piece and I have not seen any pests either. Mung beans are the third. I simply purchased some mung bean seeds for sprouts at the bulk food store and planted. They made prolific 3 ft tall bushes and I harvested them and use them for sprouts in the winter. I did this 7 years ago and they are still sprouting for me. I plan on doing the same next year as I only have a couple quart jars left. I could not live without tomatoes for fresh eating, dried, canned, frozen etc.

I was give some scarlet runner beans to try this year and am told they are good to eat at 3 different stages, snap, shelled and dried.

Mulberries grow like weeds in our area. I love to stand under the trees and eat. Only problem they will turn your feet purple! I have crushed and turned into a nice juice and also used to make syrup.

A crabapple tree will pollinate other apples and makes wonderful jelly. The juice can also be used in place of pectin (although I am not sure if they grow in the SE).

I would look at investing in a dehydrator and maybe some type of solar cooking unless you have plenty of wood. I would also think about a way to store massive amounts of water in the SE.

A crabapple tree will polinate other apples and makes wonderful jelly. The juice can also be used in place of pectin (although I am not sure if they grow in the SE).

Good luck...I have often pondered myself. Kim

You might also want to consider some herbs. Rosemary, sage, thyme and oregano should be winter-hardy perennials if you're in the SE. (I cut my sage, oregano and thyme back in the spring just to keep them from getting woody, but I can harvest fresh leaves all winter.) My rosemary I'm probably going to have to take a hedge trimmer to shortly... Basil is an annual, but it VIGOROUSLY self-seeds. Parsley is a biannual but should seed itself. Someone up-thread mentioned asparagus. Give that serious consideration.

I don't think this is a silly question at all. Of course I've thought about that. I married the first time rather young, and my husband's family did what amounted to subsistence farming. That's a great way to learn how to produce as much food as possible and how to preserve it.

Preserving your food is as important as growing it. It's really sad that so much 'common sense' about producing food has been lost in so few generations. I'm not just talking about canning, either. If you really had to survive without buying supplies, today's canning methods require an endless supply of replace-ables like lids and occasionally rings. It's a heck of a lot safer than the old methods where people did die of 'summer complaint' and botulism with some regularity. LOL.

In cooler climates you have a root or storage cellar. It not only kept things from freezing, it kept them cool too and root crops held a good long time. One also took advantage of their spring to keep perishables fresh. One of my houses had a dairy trough in the cellar where the spring flow was diverted inside and milk/butter and cheeses were kept in there to prevent spoilage.

One sweetened with sorghum, which is almost a lost art anymore, but was commonplace in my lifetime back in the Ozarks. So were wild honeybee trees, but no more with the diseases.

You need to think protein sources and that means legumes, dairy (and milk goats are a good idea), fowl.

I still live this lifestyle, more by choice now than necessity, but it does save us a mint at the market. I put up hundreds of quarts of fruits, veggies and sometimes meats each year to last us to the next.

Even people in cities would be surprised at how much of their own food supply they can grow if they wanted to. Instead of an ornamental flowering tree, a fruit tree is just as pretty and gives you something in return. So do nut trees. I have plenty of both. And I have a bramble patch for berries, and did have an Alpine berry patch. There is no reason one cannot perpetuate a June bearing strawberry patch, btw. You can root runners and they produce them. I have three different kinds of grapes, too. A large flock of chickens, and dairy goats on on the horizon, if I can get my husband used to the idea of more livestock. LOL. BTW, I do make butter, and cream from goats is not like cream from cows. If you want to make butters or cheeses, you'll need a separator.

BTW, onions are nice, but leeks and shallots should be planted as well because when the onions give up the ghost half way through winter, I am still using my shallots I dried and braided from last year's garden and the quality is still great, and leeks can be harvested clean through winter.

Somebody asked "Are you able to "dispatch" any squieerls or rabbits who threaten your food suppily? You may want to learn to shoot." (sic) Lemme tell you, squirrel and rabbit are wonderful and plentiful meat sources. They aren't just varmints one dispatches from a garden. Fried squirrel and gravy is hard to beat.

And, actually the world won't end if a hybrid cross pollinates against a self fertile strain. Sometimes you get less than the original, but sometimes you are pleasantly surprised. The most important thing is if you are planting fruit trees, to be sure that you know which one need pollinating against another, and what varieties pollinate which. Bloom time is important, because if they don't bloom at the same time, you are going to have a problem exchanging pollen.

This isn't stuff you sit down, read from a book and then expect to do without practice. The first times at a lot of self-sufficiency skills can be flops. Start honing your skills now. I've worked on it a lifetime and still have a lot to discover.

The old Foxfire series of books are a good start.

What's "summer complaint"?

It's the old time term for food poisoning, so common before refrigeration. It's called summer complaint, because deaths from food born illnesses shot up in hot weather.

"One of my houses had a dairy trough in the cellar where the spring flow was diverted inside and milk/butter and cheeses were kept in there to prevent spoilage."

A location which has a spring would be ideal for two reasons. You need a reliable supply of clean water and it serves as a form of refrigeration. Calliope's conveniently ran through the cellar. My grandfather had a spring house, which I think was more typical. Prior to building an electrified milk house he kept the evening's milk there for delivery to town the next morning.

Fuel for heating and cooking is also a consideration. A wood lot is needed for this sort of living unless you are on top of a natural gas supply. Don't laugh. I know of places like that. It's very convenient.

Jim

If you are planning to go on walkabout;
There are some survival programs on the discovery channel about how to find/make food and shelter, watch them. You may have to eat things like roadkill, insects, pine needle tips, grass seed, the inner bark of certain trees, cattail roots, even earthworms. Finding enough clean water and staying dry from the dew may also be tricky.

Will you be writing a book or blog about it? I'd read that.

But don't just watch shows on this stuff. I grew up in suburbia and have been learning about self-sufficiency since my late teens (and I'm in my late 40s now). These are things I've learned to do, related to your quest:

Hunt
trap
fish

grow:
vegetables
fruit (trees, bush & bramble)
grains
mushrooms
fish (culture)

raise:
bees
rabbits
chickens
turkeys
ducks
guineas
pigeons
milk goats
cattle (very small scale)

I've learned and actively practice:
sourdough (from scratch)
cheese making (novice)
making & using my own cornmeal

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. At any rate, these are things, some of which I've been working at for years. We have greatly reduced what we purchase from the store. But I have to say, I WORK LIKE A DOG, and it would hardly seem worth it if I didn't really enjoy what I do. I no longer watch television (no time and nothing much good to watch). My recreation and exercise program are tending the garden and animals.

My wife and daughters make soap. I haven't learned this. Now that the kids are growing up and moving away it's likely that the wife and I will have to cut back a bit. We both work full time.

If I were to be told, "In one year, you will have to produce all your own food," I'd be very concerned. I don't know if I could do it, especially if I couldn't put every waking minute into it, and have a lot more resources than I have now. I know, if we had to do it, our diet would be a lot simpler than it is now.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Now I want to read George's book or blog!!!

Agreed about tv. Out of 100 some channels, there are only about 5 or 6 that are even worth checking, let alone watching on a regular basis.

That's a curious phenomenon, isn't it, George? The more one knows the less confident one tends to become. After ten years of quite a bit of experimenting with low-input self-perpetuating food crops I'm far less confident than I might have been before that, despite knowing far more now. Similarly, before I started martial-arts training some years ago, I fancied I could handle myself in most situations. I have no such foolish notion now. I'd assume anybody could be a real butt-kicker.

Oh, BTW, if you work like my dog, then you're pretty useless! Though she has kept the squirrels at some distance from the ripe apples.......

In a do-or-die subsistence scenario, any dry summer or overly-wet summer could mean disaster. Rats or mice in the root-cellar eating up next year's seed-stock could be fatal. An injury or sickness during planting or harvest time. Think of the wretched folks in Mayanmar who couldn't plant their rice crop this year. That's doom for a certain number of people.

Pnbrown, you're right. I think that's a principle which follows through in almost any field of skill or learning. My wife and I have gotten to know a number of people with similar interests. We've noticed that those who are most confident generally are the newbies. Still, it's good to keep learning. Also, to any newbie, in whatever area, I advise "Enjoy yourself! Don't let it become such an obsession that you no longer LIVE."

I thought about the saying "work like a dog." I was counting on folk understanding it as it is commonly used. However, as I look at our dogs.... Only one even begins to work, and he has an awful lot of fun doing it : )

In regards to self sufficiency, my philosophy is that I want to make a lifelong study of it and gain in proficiency. But I have no idea of going completely independent. I value the skills, savor the flavors & textures and enjoy the exercise. I want to be able to pass skills on. But life as I know it would take a dramatic downgrade in quality if I had to produce all my own food given my current resources.

What I wish is that the average person would grow a small garden, learning how to "do it," and enjoying the fruit of their labor. Gardening could take the place of so much mindless, purposeless entertainment. Not only would the average person be in better shape, they'd better understand many basics of life. Also, if those same gardeners learned some basic seed saving and would adopt a few unique varieties; preservation would be way ahead.

George