There's much more information in The Resilient Gardener than I touched on in this week's lunchtime series, and I especially recommend checking out her book if you want to read more about growing winter squash, dried beans, and corn as staple crops.  In the meantime, I'll end with a few fascinating tidbits that didn't fit into any other post.

Last spring, I had problems with some kind of tiny critters eating the tops off my seedlings, so I perked right up when Deppe mentioned her cure to this pesky problem.  When she pulls weeds, she leaves some of them lying along the edges of the beds in clumps to feed slugs and sowbugs, which she finds makes the critters leave her seedlings alone.  The trick is worth a try, even though weeds left in the garden often re-root in our wet weather.

Speaking of weather, Deppe recommends some good tricks for dealing with drought.  If you're unable to water, try removing every other plant in your vegetable rows so the ones left behind can spread their roots further in search of water.  And if you know a drought is coming and you won't be able to irrigate, don't fertilize beforehand since the plants' growth spurt will require more liquid to sustain itself.

The final tip has to do with long-term seed storage.  Deppe saves a lot of her own seeds, and stores some for long periods as a backup.  If you want to follow her lead and put away a stock of emergency seeds, she recommends drying the seeds at 95 degrees in a dehydrator until the seeds are dry enough to shatter when hit with a hammer (for corn and beans).  Then place the dried seeds in a jar in the freezer and they're likely to stay alive for many years.

I hope that whetted your appetite enough to give Carol Deppe's book a try!  Even though Mark and I won't be replicating a lot of her methods on our homestead, the book is definitely one of my favorites for providing realistic advice that is tried and true on the author's homestead.  Every permaculture homesteader should give The Resilient Gardener a read.

This post is part of our The Resilient Gardener lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: The Resilient Gardener "Food Production and Self Reliance in Uncertain Times" Carol Deppe's garden and diet Deppe on ducks A few last tips from Carol Deppe

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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