Urban Survival - Questions on Growing Crops

I guess that in this period of rising food costs, people (and not just survivalists) are growing crops on their property. Most of the readers of this site are sure to be familiar with the book "Square Foot Gardening" which is a great resource for efficiently growing vegetables in small plots.

I have receive a couple of e-mails asking me questions like: "what are you growing"; "what I recommended for certain climates or growing latitudes"; "how much room do I have to grow vegetables and what do I do to make the best use of the space as possible", and some other questions as well.

If you are reading this site then you are most probably prepping to survive a collapse,..be it an economic collapse, or some sort of terrorist event or anything that makes surviving very difficult without prior planning and preparation. I have been growing vegetables in my suburban location every year for the past five years for several purposes: 1 - it's cheap to do and good to practice growing crops even when you don't really need them; and 2 - in case an unexpected collapse hits then I have a jump start on growing vegetables.

In my backyard I am currently growing 6 Squash plants, 8 Cucumbers plants, 2 rows of Green Beans each six feet long, 2 rows of Corn each six feet long and 1 row of Onions in plant beds alongside my rock wall. I am now about out of space alongside my wall, as I also have a couple dwarf fruit trees, from which the Apricot trees are producing.

I also have a couple of bucket containers with squash and grapes in them and am planning on doing some square container gardening in a week or two, planting some egg plant, more squash, more onions and maybe some carrots or beets.

Every year I have included the "big three": Squash, Corn and Beans. This is the primary fare of first Pilgrims, taught to grow it from the local Indians they first made contact with.

I have lots of rice, macaroni, pinto and black beans stored. I plan on using the vegetables in different capacities to augment rice and pasta sort of like Jambalaya.

I use store bought hybrid and non-hybird seeds, saving my heirloom seed kits for when the SHTF. I have had good luck of any seed from Gurnseys and Ferry-Morse. Ferry-Morse, which should be available in your local Home Depot or Lowes, sells a 100% certified organic seeds that have a high percentage of sprouting.

I have some railroad ties used in my flower beds and landscaping. These are readily available not only to pull inside the house and use as small arms protection under the windows, but I can situate these in the back yard and turn my whole backyard into a survival garden. I keep some 1x4 inch boards in my garage to also use in this endeavor.

I have a green house kit, still in the box, and will get that up and running when the need to grow crops during the colder months becomes apparent.

So in summary I guess I saying that squash, corn, beans, cucumbers and onions are my mainstay crops. I think everyone needs to grow now to get those lessons learned. I think everyone also needs to think about how are they going to eat during the colder months. Use up all your stored foods? Better to learn to can or preserve what you grow and look into running a greenhouse. Last suggestion would be to buy the book "Square Foot Gardening" - this is a good asset to have in your survival bookshelf.....but read it before you need it.