Survival Gardening: Grow Your Own Emergency Food Supply, from Seed to Root Cellar

Coffman (Herbal Medic), a former Green Beret medic, delivers a competent guide to subsisting on home-grown crops and livestock in the event of a disaster. To acquire protein in a hurry, Coffman recommends growing broccoli and kale sprouts by soaking seeds in water, draining them, and then harvesting after five days. Detailing more long-term methods for growing produce, Coffman describes how to construct raised plots, which afford more control over soil quality than in-ground gardens, and hügelkultur beds, which are mulch mounds piled atop buried branches that help retain water. Elsewhere, Coffman details how city dwellers can construct vertical gardens by hanging planters made from plastic bottles, as well as how to raise chickens, recommending that readers provide separate areas for roosting and nesting so the eggs stay clean. The thorough guidance will help anyone who aspires to live off the land, but an appendix on the difficulties of sustaining oneself after a hurricane, drought, or nuclear disaster somewhat undermines the book’s conceit. For instance, the ostensibly straightforward recommendation to find soil without “high levels of radionuclide activity” after a nuclear incident is easier said than done and reveals how self-sufficiency may offer only illusory protection from peril. Still, readers with the more modest ambition of producing more of their food will find plenty of use. (Jan.)