Why. Why do I need to grow my own food? There are several important reasons why you should grow food. First of all it is fun and fulfilling. Watching the little sprouts reach for the sun and then harvesting and eating what you just grew is rewarding. You know where the food comes from and what it took to grow. Fresh food is healthier for you. You don’t have to run to the store for your food. If you need some parsley just clip a sprig and you have it. You don’t have to worry about shortages. You just plant all you need and store the surplus for later. You plan for what you need and work to make it produce. If there is a storm in the growing area you don’t have to worry. You will plant the safety stock and store the extra. You can also share with family and neighbors. You can teach the next generation grandkids how to be prepared. If the government becomes too intrusive you will always have food. Relying on yourself is always best. No one cares about you as much as you do. Plants give off O2 and absorb CO2. Done properly you keep the soil rich in the means to keep growing produce for generations.
What. What do I grow? At first you need to learn how to grow so you choose easy to grow vegetables and herbs. Lettuce, carrots, onions and potatoes. These are easy to grow in small spaces or containers. You use all of these in your current diet so as a start just supplement what you now use. As you gain confidence and expertise you can expand to beans, corn, spinach, mushrooms and other things you want and or need. You now have a season in expertise and can use raised beds to grow more of everything. You can also when you get confident build a green house and start growing fruits and more vegetables and fruits strawberries, bananas and more exotic plants.
Where. Where can I grow this produce? Depending on you circumstances you can pick an area of your yard or if limited you can pick up containers and start growing in buckets and sacks. Yes sacks. There are specially made sacks for growing potatoes. Herbs can be grown in small flower pots on your window shelfs. If you have a patio with a roof you can hang tomato vines and put a pot for planting a grape vine to climb up and reach for the sun. In your yard you can put up raised beds which keeps the crawling critters out and limits the weeds in the yard from coming into your garden. As you expand you can cover a portion of your yard and make a greenhouse for a longer growing season and more exotic plants.
How. How to plan and build a sustainable garden. The internet has boundless sources of information on the soil and growing conditions in your area. Growing grapes in North Dakota is much harder than in Napa valley of California. So find out what your area can grow and when. If you are doing this just for you and your family then indoors and in a greenhouse is a viable way to go. So after you plan what you want and need you can see what you have in the way of resources and space. If you don’t have some resources or space set out to acquire what you need and how to get it. As stated in where you can use buckets and small raised beds for a lot of what you want to grow. Once you start growing your own supplemental produce you save money to purchase needed supplies. Being inventive you can build a root cellar in a small area. You can construct a greenhouse out of surplus wood and plastic. As you gain expertise and more surplus produce you can barter for additional tools and other resources.
Money. What will we use for transactions when the governments outlaw cash? I just saw an advertisement for crypto currencies. If we grow our own food and barter with close neighbors for resources what do we need from them. They the all-inclusive paranoid them. If we opt out of the larger society there other things we need: safety, water, power, communications and maybe entertainment. If we know something has been done we can try and repeat it again and again. Grow wheat, pump water, and refine oil for energy. Once the genie is out of the bottle we know it can be done so we all become our own islands of society. Yes we need interaction with our family and friends. We need help with many things. And so the world grows and we end up back in the same place we are now. But as Jefferson said the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of patriots and oppressors. We are doomed to try, rinse and repeat. All we can hope for is to keep ourselves clean and ready for the final judgement in front of God. I know not what others choose but for me give me love of God.