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6 top crops to grow at home

Vocab level: B2
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Oh, good day!
I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me.
Are you worried about the rising cost of food or even worse...
a food crisis, running out of food, no food at all?
Well, a worldwide fertilizer shortage, supply problems,
energy crisis, and even a lack of fruit and veg workers is putting pressure on food supplies.
And how about inflation?
It's out of control.
The only thing that's been going down and fast, in the last few years
is the IQ of our politicians.
What a bunch of bananas.
Well, it's enough to drive you bananas.
So if we can't rely on governments and big corporations, and we can't,
well then, we must take steps on an individual level to buffer ourselves against hard times.
And, that's why in this video,
I'm gonna give you my six top crops to grow at home
to save you from starving.
Let's get into it.
These six foods, I've put a lot of thought into them.
They had to be ones that you can effectively, and easily grow at home,
in an average sized yard,
which also give the best return for harvest,
have good preserving qualities,
and of course high sustenance to keep us going in an emergency.
Number one is potatoes.
You say "potato" and I say "potato".
I saved these potatoes from last season.
If only I could remember the date,
anyway, let's have a look at them.
Little bit over chitted,
but we might be able to get away with planting some.
Anyway, I'll have a go growing them later.
Luckily, I've got some new seed potatoes to plant as well.
But, did you know the great famine in Ireland back in 1845
was due to a lack of potatoes?
It's true, over a million people died of hunger,
despite efforts from England and the USA to help.
Potatoes grew so easily and are so full of calories
that the Irish population basically became dependent on them,
and when the crops were suddenly devastated by a fungal disease called late blight,
they effectively ran out of potato chips and starved.
What the Irish didn't know back then was the key to growing potatoes is diversity.
Grow different varieties at the same time, and from year to year
to limit a buildup of pests and disease.
These days there are more varieties of potatoes and ones that have better resistance to disease.
And, speaking of diversity,
I love the diverse ways that potatoes can be grown,
such as direct in ground or hilled up,
in trenches, boxes or containers.
There's a way to grow potatoes that suits just about everywhere,
every budget, and every sized property.
I think it's interesting how potatoes have gone from a main to a side on a plate like fries.
And during tough times, potatoes could become your main again.
And just quietly, it wouldn't be that bad.
I'm a sucker for potato chips.
Number two is corn.
Not this, it looks very similar, but that's sugar cane.
During the potato famine,
the USA sent tons of corn to Ireland in order to help the starving population.
And then the Irish made bourbon out of it.
Only joking, about the bourbon bit.
No, they survived off corn chips,
and of course many other things derived from this wonderful grain/vegetable
depending on how it's consumed.
Corn is one of the three biggest plant based food sources in the world.
Rice and wheat are the others, in case you're wondering.
But, unlike rice and wheat, corn can be grown effectively on a much smaller scale
and still produce a lot of food.
Corn has a compact and upright growing habit, which saves space.
It can be interplanted in the garden with other crops like beans and squash, to utilize even more space.
And, corn grows as fast as grass,
because it is grass.
Just like commercially, homegrown corn has many uses from eating it straight on the cob
to making flours, grits, tortillas, and popcorn.
All these things can be easily done at home without too much effort, making corn extremely versatile.
Even the whole plant can be chipped, and put back into the garden as a nutritious mulch.
No wonder corn became such an important crop for humanity
after its discovery in Mexico about 10,000 years ago.
And, now it's grown on every continent around the world except for Antarctica.
And, I encourage you to grow it as well because the way things are going,
we're not gonna be able to afford to eat at Taco Bell.
Number three is cabbage.
Now before you screw your nose up, hear me out.
Firstly, cabbage is known to lower blood pressure.
And, with all the terrible news spewing out of the idiot box these days
we need all the help we can get to lower our blood pressure, and heart rate.
And, cabbage has a heap of other health benefits
such as its full of nutrients to help bone building, immune system,
muscle function and energy, which are all vital if you're trying to survive.
Cabbage grows relatively fast,
and I think it's remarkable how tight and juicy the heads grow in such a short amount of time.
And cabbage can go a long way feeding a family using it as a filling stew,
shredded on its own and fried, or raw in a slaw.
KFC even use it in their burgers.
It's easy to preserve too. You can freeze cabbage,
freeze dry it, simply keep it in the crisper for several weeks to use all the time,
or ferment it to make tasty foods like Kimchi and Sauerkraut
which also accentuates the health benefit.
This kraut was made from last season's crop almost 12 months ago and it still awesome.
And, if you don't like the taste of cabbage, I say get used to it
or fry it up with bacon, that makes everything taste good.
Growing cabbage is easier than people think.
I hear food gardeners say how cabbage moth destroys their crops or the birds eat it before they can,
but it's one of the easiest crops to protect.
Cabbage doesn't need to be pollinated, so you don't have to worry about bees or anything like that.
And, there aren't really any long stalks that can be easily broken off.
So, all you need to do is drape over with a fine net and that's it.
Sit back and your cabbage crop is protected.
Number four is pumpkin.
There couldn't be anything easier than sowing a few pumpkin seeds,
and letting the vine meander around your garden doing whatever it wants.
If you look around our place, you'll find pumpkins everywhere.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe pumpkins originated in North America,
which makes sense about Halloween,
because if you can't possibly eat them all, well, you might as well make something out of them.
But, just imagine for a sec that you are starving.
Well, you wouldn't be carving, instead, you'd be eating every one of these scary squash.
Squashes?
Pumpkins aren't just a pretty face.
They are very good for you.
And, whilst being surprisingly low in calories for such a dense and often large veggie slash fruit,
they make up for it in fiber making you feel fuller than you are,
which can help if you're hungry.
Plus pumpkins are full of vitamin A which is needed for good eyesight.
So, you can eyeball the next politician who comes walking along, smiling like a moron,
handing out $200 to grandma to try to compensate her for the rising cost of living.
Number five is beans.
These are a dwarf French bean, grown on this mini trellis in this raised garden bed.
And, it was for good reason that the early settlers in the outback and also out west in the USA
ate a lot of beans and it wasn't for cheap entertainment.
Beans are almost the complete food, containing most vitamins,
nutrients, and essential amino acids needed by humans to live.
The bean seed can be stored or preserved easily through drying or canning,
and they don't take up much storage space.
So, they are ideal to keep as a survival food.
Beans don't take up much room in the garden either, as they typically grow vertical.
So, you can fit more in a smaller area,
which means that you can get bigger bang for a buck for harvest, compared to space.
There are a ton of different varieties of beans to grow,
and because they practically make their own nitrogen fertilizer
by forming a relationship with bacteria in the soil,
beans can also add more to your garden than they take.
So forgive the flatulence because if you're fighting to survive, you won't worry about that.
And, remember, if you don't eat, you don't fart,
and if you don't fart, you die.
Number six is tomatoes.
Nothing goes better with beans, then tomato sauce.
And cooked tomatoes to make tomato sauce actually enhances a very important antioxidant called lycopene.
This antioxidant is known to be one of the most important cancer preventative antioxidants we can eat.
So growing tomatoes for the sauce alone is good enough reason.
Behind me is a tomato, and this one here in my hand is a berry tomato.
But, there are many more benefits such as tomatoes go well with most other foods
and help to bulk up, and add flavor to otherwise dull tasting dishes.
And, of course, tomatoes are just good on their own.
They can be dried and made into tasty snacks that are healthy to eat,
or pickled and spread on breads or biscuits,
and canned or frozen to preserve and use later.
Tomatoes are easy to grow, especially these cherry types.
And they also have a good soil tolerance range
which means you can grow them in a lot of mediums without too much preparation or worry.
You can grow tomatoes from seed or simply clone it in the garden from off cuts,
bury it several inches deep, keep it watered, and in no time a new plant will grow.
I've said this a lot in the past and I'll keep saying it.
Homegrown tomatoes aren't artificially ripened with ethane gas, unlike supermarket tomatoes.
Our tomatoes taste better, they're healthier for you,
and they cost considerably less to grow than to buy them.
And one other question,
What is a tomato? Is it a fruit or a vegetable?
Botanists call it a fruit.
And, nutritionists call it a vegetable.
I call it a fruitable.
Can you think of any other crops that might save you from starving?
If you can, tell me what and why down in the comments section below.
You know, growing these six staples that we just talked about,
or being self-sufficient in at least something, is more than just about saving money.
It's peace of mind knowing that
you'll have something in case the world turns to custard,
and probably because of the actions of some custard gut politicians.