Wednesday, August 26, 2009

My #1 Survival Food from Seed.

It's a tie: Golden Giant Amaranth and Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato.

They:

-Require little work.
-Are bug and disease resistant.
-Are highly productive.
-Are very nutritious.
-Have a better than a 95% chance of producing a crop.
-Grow well on poor soil.
-Are not as troubled by cool, wet Springs or hot, dry Summers as most garden plants.

These are the 2 crops I'm going to plant the most of next year. I figure 2, 20 ft. rows of Matts Wild Cherry will give me 50lbs.+ of tomatoes over a long season. I figure 200 sq. ft. will give me 50 lbs.+ of grain at harvest as well as several lbs. of very nutritious leaves for soups, stews, and stir fries over a long season.

After harvesting and drying the seed, I'll check for germination and offer a pack of each for $5, shipping included. I'll throw in a pack of Lemon Drop hot pepper seeds as a bonus. If you'd like to know when it's ready to ship email me at:

bostonmountainsgarden@yahoo.com

and I'll let you know when it's available.

If you are a member of iDigMyGarden(I post as EdlinUser) or HomesteadingToday(I post as woodsy_gardener)and you don't have $5, PM me for my address and I'll be glad to send you the seeds for a SASE.

4 comments:

Amy W. said...

Matt's Wild Cherry produces well in my yard, too, but harvesting those tiny tomatoes from two twenty foot rows sounds like a lot of work! Maybe they get bigger on Boston Mountain, but here they are about the size of marbles---they are delicious, though, and they do dehydrate nicely.

Your golden amaranth is beautiful. We grow a red amaranth, mostly for decoration, at the plant-a-row-for-the-hungry garden where I work as a volunteer. The food pantry we deliver our produce to doesn't want it, but some of us volunteers usually take the seed heads home when they are mature, to thresh out for ourselves. This year, though, some little black beetles demolished our crop. Hopefully, those beetles will never find your place in Arkansas!

I've enjoyed reading about your garden. Thanks for posting!

Amy, NW of Atlanta

woodsy_gardener said...

Thanks agwh.

It's a bit tedious to harvest all those MWC tomatoes but I don't mind.

And you're right about how well they dry. I plan to dry most of mine, crumble them up and use in a shaker to sprinkle over salads, pizza, soups, and stews.

Ottawa Gardener said...

These are two varieties that I am looking for. Someone is sending me more amaranth seeds this year. I am always looking for short season, gluten free, self reliant, grains/starches. I have heard mixed varieties on the Matt's wild cherry though mostly positive.

woodsy_gardener said...

varieties? Did you mean views.
The only negative view I've heard of Matt's WC is it's too small. That's why I tell people to think of them as berries not tomatoes.