Flowers attract bees and other insects that pollinate your vegetables, which gives you a bigger harvest!

Here’s a photo of my survival garden last year with marigolds growing through the center of it!

Plant marigolds with your veggies to attract pollinators and deter pests.

Lettuce and Tomatoes

Plant tomatoes among lettuce.

Tomatoes have deep root systems, so they don’t compete with lettuce. Tomatoes also grow up and provide some shade for lettuce, which will help the lettuce last longer.

Just Add Radishes

Radishes Growing

Radishes are beneficial for several regions. First of all, they’re yummy! But that’s not the only reason to plant them. Their strong scent deters pests. Then, if you let a few “bolt” or flower, they’ll attract a lot of beneficial pollinators to the garden!

Planting Peppers

I'm planting peppers!

(I got the MRS to take ONE picture of me for you!)

And, what do we feed our peppers and tomatoes? Did you even have to ask?

PROTOGROW!

To buy Protogrow for your garden, click here.

Let me take you through my pea journey this spring:

I used sticks that fell out of my trees for pea stakes.

I planted nasturtiums to try to catch any aphids that might want to munch.

Peas flower before they produce fruits.

Pick peas before the end flowers fall off!

Lots and lots of peas!

Peas growing like crazy!

Do you remember hearing about sailors who had problems with scurvy back in Christopher Columbus’s time? It is because they didn’t get vitamin C. If you grow your own survival garden, you won’t have that problem.

One of my favorite foods are leeks. I learned something new about leeks this year: you have to plant them low. If you want to get pretty white stems like you see in the grocery for $2 per finished leek (they are EXPENSIVE!) then you have to “hill” them up like you do for potatoes. You plant leeks so that the fork in the leaves is just above the soil.

As the leeks grow, you gradually add more soil, always keeping the fork in the leaves above the soil level. Doing this will keep the stems pretty and white! Your leeks will also grow larger this way.

Vitamins in leeks are important for survival gardeners

See you around. . .

APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!!

Ha ha! I had you there for a minute, didn’t I!

Provide peas with support so they'll produce more.

Peas really need to be supported for you to get the biggest harvest. I just use sticks that fall off my trees. No need to buy a fancy schmancy trellis. The sticks work just fine.

Also, peas can be prone to aphids. I had a problem with those last year. This year, I planted nasturtiums ( a flower ) as a trap for aphids around the peas.

Nasturtium sprouting

I planted these all around my pea plants in hopes that the insects will go for them instead of my peas. Here’s a hint about nasturtiums: you need to nick the seed coat with a nail file or scissor or something before planting. Otherwise, it is hard to get them to sprout.

Peas fix their own nitrogen, so they don’t need tons of extra fertilizer. However, they do benefit from one foliar feed of ProtoGrow when their vines are about 6 inches tall.

Buy ProtoGrow Here: http://www.growlikecrazy.com

Pollinators love mustard flowers

First, the plant flowers. And it flowers for a loooooooong time. You have to be patient. Then, after the flowers are pollinated (bees love the flowers!), skinny seed pods about 1-2 inches left form on the plans. Before the pods completely dry and open, I pulled up the plant and hung it upside-down in my garage over some newspaper to catch the seeds.

You definitely want to do that, because otherwise you’ll end up with little mustard plants all over your garden and no seeds!

(An extra tip-the flowers are edible, too, if you’re into that thing.)

Here are my collards growing in the garden:

Collards growing in my survival garden

Collards are really good for you, just like cabbage, but they DO need to be cooked or SOMETHING before you eat them. They are tough little suckers.

Luckily, it is easy to make a tasty batch of collards. Here’s the recipe from the Mrs.

How to Cook Collard Greens

Ingredients:

40 large collard leaves

1 ham hock

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup brown sugar or molassas

1 teaspoon ground cayenne red pepper

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

How to cook:

Wash the collard leaves and remove the big midrib. Then cut or tear into pieces about one inch by one inch. Next, put the ham hock, leaves and spices into a crock pot. Pack the pot FULL because the leaves will cook down. Then add enough water to cover all but the top two inches of greens.

Cook in the crock pot on LOW for 8 hours.

Remove the ham hock and then store the collards. They’re great with more vinegar added. If you don’t like it spicy, leave out the pepper.

The most beautiful cauliflower!

It took me FIVE MONTHS to grow this cauliflower. They, apparently, need a LONG growing season.

Broccoli-second harvest

Broccoli is great, because after you cut the first head, the plant will send up little stalks you can eat, too!

I love collards!

My pride and joy of winter: cabbage!

I think my most successful plants were my cabbages. I ended up with 10 really big cabbages. The key is, though, to harvest them before they start to bolt. A couple of them got away. I went to look at them to harvest and it looked like something was eating them, but really this giant and strange flower stalk was breaking through.

Of course, I owe my big plants to ProtoGrow! Get some here: http://www.growlikecrazy.com

http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/

http://survivallogistics.com/

http://rurallivingmagazine.com/

http://survivalcollege.com/

http://destinysurvival.com/

http://humbleseed.com/blog/category/humbleseed/

Please be sure to check them out!