this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Asklemmy
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I think the answer is potatoes. Other root vegetables might be equally reliable.
In spring, I put a few sprouting potatoes in the compost, waited a few month and since July or so I have a huge bucket of homegrown potatoes that I have problems to use up. So very easy food source. Can recommend. There were a few pill bugs/ potato bugs who love the taste of the plants, but their damage had not much effect on the harvest in the end.
Aha! Poland will survive in the post-apocalyptic world.
Not what I heard from an Irishman....
But jokes in poor taste aside, yeah. I'd have to agree. A lot of grains can also do really well, but potatoes are hearty, have a lot of what you need to live, and require no attraction work to make into food after you dig them out of the ground. Onions would also be high on the list, but aren't as viable for keeping you alive as long when eating them, nutritionally.
Kinda hard to have a stable food system when an imperial power is stealing most of your food in a rather genocidal fashion!
@ColeSloth @IzzyData As I recall, the issue with the potato famine was more that, if you're *only* growing potatoes, while they grow just about anywhere, they'll also get diseases really easily.
Which is why on the Lemmy instance linked to, people mentioned a variety of crops is the trick.
So, potatoes, but *also* onions, and *also* wheat, and *also* corn is the true answer, as I understand.
Jerusalem artichokes > potatoes
Yams FTW.
Irish Potato Famine would like a word
The problem with the potatoes in Ireland at the time is that they were basically a monoculture and all had the same susceptibility to the same diseases.
If you grow them as they're traditionally grown in Central and South America, you have hundreds (or thousands!) of varieties of potatoes planted in different climate zones by utilizing mountains. You have basically no risk of a total crop failure as long as it rains or you can irrigate them.