Book 11 of my 2014 Goal

Survival Seeds: The Emergency Heirloom Seed Saving Guide by M Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Survival Seeds: The Emergency Heirloom Seeds Saving Guide by M. Anderson was the perfect book for me to read after Survival Guide for Beginners by Vitaly Pedchenko. Although these are two different authors the information they provide go hand in hand. Survival Seeds: The Emergency Heirloom Seeds Saving Guide takes it one step further and instructs you how to save seeds and grow your own crops for long-term survival.

If there was ever a threat to the global food supply, how would you and your family survive for even a year? What would you eat if there were no food in the grocery stores? If you were prepared as most books explain you probably only have a month of food stored for yourself and your family but what if it is going to longer, much longer? Survival Seeds are the answer (even mentioned in several other books to have some) but what do you do with them? This book gives you the answers.

Not only does this book explain what survival seeds are, it goes into the types of seeds, pollination of seeds, climate, rotation, and even fertilization. But don't get turned off yet, this book isn't only useful for a survival situation, anyone who has or wants to start a garden will find the information provided very useful. It goes into the subject of cover crops, of course bugs/pests, and seed viability. There is a lot of useful information for any garden including a patio garden.

Not only does the book tell you about different seeds/plants, it has list after list of some of the most common plants that are good to grow for food in different climates, what time of year, (after all, if you plant everything at one time and they all ripen at the same time, what do you do for the fall and winter months?) The information on the plant itself is excellent. It tells you the difficulty level, how it is pollinated, how much sun it needs, soil pH levels, where the seeds are located, isolation requirements (more about this later), harvesting instructions of seeds, storage instructions of seeds, and some basic information such as if it can be grown indoors. There is a lot of good information in this book (although those who are really into gardening may already know this information) but I didn't know it all and I had a garden for years. I also did things that I know I had to but never understood the reason why I was doing it.

Two of the chapters I found really useful and interesting is the one about cover crops and the isolation of plants (by distance) so they can not cross-pollinate.The book goes into enough information about the reason behind both of these subjects so even beginners can understand why you wouldn't want your plants to cross--pollinate and why you would use a cover crop. I found these both very interesting.

I recommend this book for gardeners even if you are not interested in planting a survival garden.


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