Survival Gardening - Amaranth

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OldCoot

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Living on a farmstead, my plan to survive a crisis involves ramping up my food production to become self reliant. To be able to accomplish this, I keep hundreds of pounds of garden seed in storage... both in the freezers and in storage pails in my temperature controlled prepper room. I store all sorts of garden seed but the majority are the three sisters... field corn, pole beans & winter squash. I also make sure to stock plenty of seed for the cool weather crops, such as peas & greens, so to ensure we are growing food almost year round.

But if I had to choose just one seed to keep, it would be amaranth. It is grown all over the world and was a major crop for the Aztecs. It requires little or no fertilizer and needs little water. Many folks know amaranth from one of the weed varieties knows as pigweed, which spreads like crazy & is hard to kill. Those weed like traits are included in the food varieties, which makes it such an easy crop to grow. The seeds are tiny and just a single pound of seed will contain around 600,000 seeds. Read that again. 600,000 seeds. As a prepper, think about having 600,000 seeds of a superfood and only having to store a single pound.

What makes amaranth so valuable as a food crop and so important for preppers is that you can eat the whole plant. Amaranth is related to spinach and the young leaves can be eaten raw. As the plant matures, the larger leaves can be cooked like greens. These leaves are considered more nutritious than spinach. The seeds at the top can be ground into flour and has more protein & nutrition than normal grains. The protein in amaranth is complete because it contains lysine, an amino acid missing or negligible in many grains.

In a crisis environment, with my large seed stores, I would broadcast the seed and not worry about the plants being too close together. As the young plants start growing, one simply thins them out and eats the entire small plants being harvested. Then as the remaining plants grow to maturity, one could harvest leaves throughout the summer & then collect the seed later. If one only had a pound of seed, you could be more careful in the planting so as to maximize the harvest of full sized plants. Each plant can produce a minimum of 100,000 seed, so it will be incredibly easy to store a huge number of seeds for the following year.

Another benefit of amaranth, for a prepper, is that the plants look like weeds. Anyone can recognize a field of corn or beans but few could do so with amaranth... especially if broadcast planted and not in rows. Stealth is critical in so may areas of prepping. If stealth is critical in your location, then one could plant many small, irregular patches to not draw attention to your crop. Another cool feature is that the plant easily reseeds itself. With all those seeds produced by each plant, some will fall to the ground even when being harvested. A plot of amaranth will come back next year all by itself... just like a weed.

Long story short, IMO all preppers should include at least a pound of amaranth seed in their stores... even if bugging out. That one pound of seed could grow an amazing amount of food, even for folks that know little about gardening. In Jamaica, the plant and cooked leaves are called callaloo.

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I have 2 gardens then pecan trees , blue berries , black berries , asparagus , and working on raised beds for perennials like spices and herbs . Then I have areas with what nature brings black walnuts , polk salad , wild turnips , wild black berries , huckel berries , paw paws , persimmons . The list goes on . Along with chickens and wild game , fish .
I may look into some of the plants that are recommend for prepping like You mentioned .
 
I have 2 gardens then pecan trees , blue berries , black berries , asparagus , and working on raised beds for perennials like spices and herbs . Then I have areas with what nature brings black walnuts , polk salad , wild turnips , wild black berries , huckel berries , paw paws , persimmons . The list goes on . Along with chickens and wild game , fish .
I may look into some of the plants that are recommend for prepping like You mentioned .
I think a prepper gardener has to consider gardening post SHTF, where resources are limited. Won't be able to run down to the farm supply for fertilizer and pesticides. That is why the core of my stored seeds are the 3 sisters, which the native Americans grew without having or relying on modern tools or chemicals. They are a companion planting in that they work together. The field corn provides the structure for the pole beans to grow upon. The pole beans, being a legume, put nitrogen back into the soil for the corn to use. The winter squash's leaves, growing along the ground, are a ground cover that smothers the weeds and keeps the soil moisture in.

Like I stated, I think it critical for a prepper gardener to be able to produce food as long as possible during the year. That entails cool weather crops for the spring & fall and then the summer plants. Kale & collards are the core of my cool weather plants and I'm picking them now & will continue to do so for many weeks. Cooked a big pot of collards last night & made a kale/collard gumbo a few days ago. Both of those, but especially collards, can produce a huge amount of food from just one plant. Amaranth will be primarily a summer green for me, as my grain of choice will be corn.
 
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a prepper not only has to consider gardening post SHTF he has to know how to grow food long before SHTF ever happens, without it he wont be around for long, a canned stockpile will only last so long, as I've said before so many times no stockpile will last the rest of our lives especially in British houses where storage is limited.
 
a prepper not only has to consider gardening post SHTF he has to know how to grow food long before SHTF ever happens, without it he wont be around for long, a canned stockpile will only last so long, as I've said before so many times no stockpile will last the rest of our lives especially in British houses where storage is limited.
Agree but there are all sorts of preppers that prep for different events. Some just prep for say getting by after a hurricane or some other short term event, where they have enough food, water & fuel to last a couple of weeks. Such a prepper doesn't have to consider growing food post SHTF. But for those looking at prepping for a more extended crisis, IMO amaranth should be on their radar. It grows like a weed and requires almost no gardening skills.
 
We grow and can our own here, we also do a lot of foraging, we raise our own meat that is supplemented with wild game and fish. We have one freezer strictly reserved for seeds but many seeds don't do well at all that's been stored longer than five years even in the freezer so we rotate them more often. We also keep a substantial supply of #10 can of 25yr shelf life of freeze/dehydrated food including 6gal buckets and 50/100lb bags. A garden isn't a guarantee food source thus we keep backup for such occasions, the weather will always dictate a garden success then we will have natural and man made events that can further erode success thus must have a backup. Our growing seasons are short here and doesn't leave much room for any interference. We spend all summer prepping for the winter plus restocking our shelves and freezers and we spend spring prepping for fire season and starts all over again. It's a vicious circle.
 
It's a vicious circle.
You sound like my sons. They think I am crazy to work as hard as I do around the farm. But to me, it is a joy. I enjoy hard work outside, as I spend most days inside, behind a computer running a business. I so look forward to retirement when I can spend much more time on the farm. But I agree, it is a circle... a circle of life.
 
You sound like my sons. They think I am crazy to work as hard as I do around the farm. But to me, it is a joy. I enjoy hard work outside, as I spend most days inside, behind a computer running a business. I so look forward to retirement when I can spend much more time on the farm. But I agree, it is a circle... a circle of life.

No, I love it, I am retired and very seldom leave the property anymore except to pick the Wife up at the airport or our travels to pick up equipment. The viciousness is the 10' of snow (one year it hit 14 feet) and the wildland fires we get from time to time. All my kids and there families live here. I wouldn't trade this life for anything :)
 
I am one who will always encourage someone to start a garden now, when times are good. It takes time to figure out what grows well for you area, when to plant what and even to work up your soil to where it will produce a nice crop. All that does not happen overnight.
I have never heard of the amaranth but I like the fact that it is a camouflage and actually a very pretty plant. You could probably use it in your landscaping and no one would know.
 
I am one who will always encourage someone to start a garden now, when times are good. It takes time to figure out what grows well for you area, when to plant what and even to work up your soil to where it will produce a nice crop. All that does not happen overnight.
I agree wholeheartedly, but truth be told, many folks will not learn to garden... including many preppers. That is why I wanted to ensure they knew about amaranth. It is a weed and how many weeds do you know that need help from an experienced gardener? :)

I have never heard of the amaranth but I like the fact that it is a camouflage and actually a very pretty plant. You could probably use it in your landscaping and no one would know.
Actually, amaranth is used as a landscape plant... especially the red seeded/red leafed varieties. They are all edible.

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Thanks OldCoot. I had never heard of this plant. Since I have a black thumb, I will need a plant that grows like a weed. I do have a question, would this plant help attract wild life? I am thinking of it as a method to encourage deer and such to hang around the homestead. Something along the lines of putting out salt licks. Spread it around the homestead and harvest as needed or desired but also attract wild life. I also love the camouflage concept too.
 
I do have a question, would this plant help attract wild life? I am thinking of it as a method to encourage deer and such to hang around the homestead. Something along the lines of putting out salt licks. Spread it around the homestead and harvest as needed or desired but also attract wild life. I also love the camouflage concept too.
I've never heard of it attracting wildlife. I Googled it and it seems occasionally deer eat it. Since it is a warm weather plant I just doubt deer would really need it as there are so many other wild items for them to eat. If it were me, I'd plant Austrian Winter Peas as a cool weather crop for them. Many folks around here use it for the wildlife. Since it is a legume, it also puts nitrogen back into the soil. I'll be planting it soon in my raised bed garden. It will stay green all winter here and the leaves taste yummy... like fresh peas. Deer absolutely love it. But you being in AZ, I don't know what grows in that climate.
 
I’ve heard the name before, but haven’t seen the seed for sale. I guess the question here on my mind is how does it taste? When considering a survival food taste is less relevant, but for right now it’s a biggie to me. I grew kale and turnips here. They both thrived with hardly any maintenance in this Ga soil. The problem is I really don’t like either one! I do have seeds on hand though and in tough times would definitely plant them due to their high success and production rates. I’ll look into the amaranth seeds on amazon.
One other plant that’s good in the south most overlook is kudzu. It is tough and prolific, and yes, it’s edible, raw or cooked.
 
@OldCoot Thanks for the alternate Austrian Winter Peas idea. Something to check into down the road a bit.
You are welcome. The winter peas are a part of my preps as naturally getting nitrogen back into the soil will be critical after a SHTF event. Many large farming operations across the country now plant it in the fall to save on the amount of fertilizer used the following year. Around here, farmers mainly use it to attract deer & other wildlife as it stays green all winter, is so tasty & grows when other things are dead. IMO, that is the time to plant wildlife food plots... when the animals really need the food.

I'd suggest next year you get some various colors of amaranth and plant around your home as a test. See how they grow & see if the wildlife likes them. But around here, if I want to attract bees & other pollinators, I plant lots of basil. My basil stays full of bees all summer long plus is great as a food item... especially with tomatoes. I plant way more than I can use for the pollinators. I find it very pretty too. My gardening style is to not have neat plantings. I'll space apart, say my pepper plants, but then put a basil plant between them. Ends up growing up into a huge mass of plants but is so productive and so helpful for the bees.
 

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