Article - The Good-Enough Cheapskate Garden

[TWP]

I like this womans approach to gardening although I suspect she does not feel the desperation of hunger or the need to feed a larger group.

The plants she has in her garden are also my top picks for a prepper "survival" garden crop.

https://survivalblog.com/good-enough-cheapskate-garden-j-d/

I totally concur on the sweet potato paragraphs, my three year old sweet potato plant(s) are doing well in our window sill.

Note that some of these plants are perennials and some are self propagating (walking onions, potatoes).  The squash do require that you save the seed and that you start with a "heritage" variety which is self fertile (does not need bees to pollinate across multiple plants).   If you lack bees in your area, DO be ready to hand pollinate the flowers.

All of these plants will benefit from weeding of their beds to reduce competition for soil nutrients and regular compost additions to replace those same nutrients.

[230gr]

The squash start with a "heritage" variety which is self fertile (does not need bees to pollinate across multiple plants).

I am a little confused by your term self fertile relating to squash.
All varieties of squash (zucchini, crook neck, butternut, spaghetti acorn squash) that I know of have male squash blossom and a female squash blossom separately along the same vine but you definitely need some insect to visit each type of flower or you won’t be setting any squash fruit. For the sake of genetic vigor, the books recommend 12 to preferable 25 plants (not just individual fruits). Fewer and you can have genetic dwindling in a few generations. We try to plant them in hills and run 2 or 3 vines from each hill in between the vines growing from the next hill. Also many very different cultivars and actually  the same species.

 Field pumpkin, summer squash, and zucchini are all pepto and can interbreed and very undesirably so! The bees don't care where they have been so try to plant only species of C. moschata, C. maxima or C. pepo in the same year if you are saving seeds.      

[TWP]

230gr.  You are correct.  My reference was to plants (not squash) which require a male and female plant (separate plants, ie Kiwi).  Thanks for the correction.

[ken_]

Regarding sweet potatoes... the leaves are edible and nutritious (if not tasty...) so even if you don't get good roots out of them they're still worthwhile to grow. Squash leaves are also edible (some varieties are more so than others), just don't pick too many leaves. The year my in-laws lived with us they took enough leaves off of one of my pumpkin plants (of course the one with the best pumpkin...) that it killed the plant.

[TWP]

ken_

Also the squash blossoms are edible.  I would leave the female blossoms, fertilize them with the male blossom (by hand) and then make fried squash blossom with the male flowers.

One recipe (among many):

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/234616/fried-stuffed-squash-blossoms/

[230gr]

Squash leaves are also edible....squash blossoms are edible.

Squash and pumpkin leaves where standard pottage fare especially toward the end of the season when it is too late for newly set fruit to mature.
Just a note: ducks are pretty good at debugging the garden but not around sweet potato leaves which they seem to really like.