The Doable Off-Grid Homestead by Shannon Stonger

Author:Shannon Stonger [Stonger, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2018-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Hardworking Annuals

When your soil, water or climate—or all three—provide ample challenges, finding reliable, tough vegetable varieties is critical. The following are some of our favorite heat-, drought- and poor soil–tolerant garden vegetable varieties:

• Armenian cucumbers. This cucumber produces extremely large and tasty cucumber fruits. It has shown itself to be incredibly productive even in drought conditions.

• Austrian winter peas. This plant is a cold-tolerant winter pea that you can use as a cover crop. In some places, it will die in the winter; in other places, it may grow right through winter. You can also eat the pea shoots and put them in salads.

• Blue speckled tepary beans. This variety is a great heat- and drought-tolerant bean to use as a cover crop in between plantings of other things. You can also eat them, but it takes a lot of the little beans to amount to much. This bean can reseed itself sometimes and give you some nice volunteer plants.

• Desi summer squash. Summer squash and zucchini are one of the easiest of all vegetables to grow. This is such a fast-growing variety that you can stagger planting for several seasons’ worth of harvests.

• Garlic. Garlic is incredibly easy to grow and one of the first plants you can probably grow enough of to provide yourself with a year-round supply. Also, it is just plain good for you. Eat more garlic!

• Hopi pale grey squash. This is a winter squash variety that seems to tolerate the heat well. It is supposed to store for a very long period of time.

• Red Ripper cowpeas. These are a large cowpea variety. They also have great flavor.

• Seminole pumpkin. This is a fast-growing and productive pumpkin that perked up and produced like crazy every time it rained.

• Sodbuster radishes. These are a great cover crop for breaking up soil and adding organic material. The Sodbuster’s taproot is supposed to be able to go up to 6 feet (1.9 cm) deep. The actual radish part can punch a hole 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 cm) deep!

• Sunn hemp. Sunn hemp should not to be confused with hemp. It is a great nitrogen-fixing cover crop that can also be used as goat feed.

• Sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes make great ground cover, and you can eat the greens in salads. They may be a perennial for you if you live far enough south.

• Turnips. These roots really do seem to grow in the worst soil, the worst drought and the worst overall conditions. The greens are especially well-loved by cows and goats.

• Kazakh melons. Grown right through high summer, this drought-tolerant melon sprawls wide to produce small, very sweet and juicy yellow cantaloupes.

• Pigeon peas. Virtually unknown in the United States, pigeon peas are heat- and drought-tolerant. Look for shorter-season varieties unless you are just growing them for organic material.

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