Growing Food Through the Winter: Good Ideas for a Survival Food Supply

Growing food through the winter? What are the best ways to manage your food supply during the frosty months of the year? Today we talk about balancing vegetable and animal food, keeping plants alive through cold, winter survival food in colder climates and more.

Canning? Dehydrating? Preserving? A greenhouse? What is the best way to keep food through the winter? Let's talk about winter food gardening and keeping animals.

[Silviotheoblate]

David, any chance you could walk us through how you are storing crops? So many of the resources out there seem over complicated or expensive, but what you described sounds much simpler (in typical Good fashion). Thank you for your videos!

[ursamajor]

Some produce goes into my cellar and the rest gets frozen, then, later in winter it all gets processed into jams, jellies, relishes, canned slaws, sauerkraut or dehydrated and powdered for extra nutrients in homemade sourdough bread. Hubs handles the meats, mostly venison and fish. We've lived this way for over 40 years. It's the closest thing to heaven that I can think of. The feel of the warm earth, feeding it with hand mixed compost and ground up byproducts of the harvest and out of that comes an abundance that's so awesome. I love being a gardener. Great video! Many blessings in the new year.

[mio.giardino]

Here we are going down to -40. Many ppl are complaining and I’m cheering the temps as it will significantly knock down the grasshopper population.
If I didn’t can my veg I wouldn’t have enough freezer space for the protein I want to have.

[janetwestrup]

If you have enough milk from cows or goats, you can make many kinds of cheeses for Winter consumption or when the animals go dry.
If you get an abundance of eggs in the Spring or Summer, you can freeze, water glass or pickle them and refrigerate them for Winter also.

[davidparliament]

This is the best youtub channel. I've been learning alot from it thank you David.

[SG-vuqy]

after NO success gardening this summer, I heard your voice in my head, "grow or die". I mocked my one romaine lettuce plant growing in a pot as winter approached. When in northern AZ our lows are in the teens with wind chill. to my surprised the one mocked plant is sailing through this artic cold. I think the mocking circled back. Thank you Mr. Good. God bless

[JK-jfxq]

I always love winter carrots. I plant in raised beds in September (NE TX), mulch heavily, leave in place and pick fresh all winter. The only thing that hurt them was when the snow thawed after the arctic blast of Feb '21.

[fabricdragon]

everyone overlooks raising pigeons. pigeons and rabbits are allowed almost everywhere and both breed food *fast*

[hilarylonsdale]

What did people do before they had pressure treated lumber for raised beds: they used low wattle panels (made like basketry) made of hazel and chestnut to contain small beds.

[abidingpastures]

So I watched twice. These are things that are crucial to know in a disaster. If folks would try to live without going to the store for anything for two months, that would give an idea of where you are weak and what you need. We have done this several times, but always discover something else we need. These things were not food, but things that break, more screws and nails than you ever imagined you needed, and pipe and fittings for when sinks starts leaking. Pig feed is the biggest issue for us to really be self reliant. If you are raising more than one, that takes a lot of scraps without other feed that you grow. It just takes a lot of corn and pumpkins for more than a couple of pigs. After 15 years of living with solar and attempting to feed ourselves, we are still learning. A disaster is not the time to learn. I say this from having been through two hurricanes and being without power and water for an extended period of time. Thanks, David the Good for all you do. Thanks to your family as well.

[janetwestrup]

Some vegetables produce more abundantly, provide more calories and store better then others, so concentrating on growing more of them makes more sense. For example: greens and watermelons are wonderful in hot weather, but they don’t store well and don’t provide enough calories to keep you warm in colder months as root vegetables, such as beets, carrots, rutabagas, yams, turnips, and potatoes.
Winter greens come from brassicas, such as cabbage, bokchoy, chard, kale, tops from beets, turnips, mustard greens and sweet potato tops. They store well also.

[craigwitte]

I always let a couple of broody hens be moms. Those new young pullets always lay through the winter! I ferment, can, and dehydrate for winter food. You have to love crops like taters, onions, garlic, squash, pumpkins and dent or flint corn for easy storing. My chickens also enjoy squash and pumpkin in the winter.

[homesteadgal]

We're in Zone 6B, north part of Virginia. Currently we have kale (tronchuda and curly) and onions (bunching) in raised beds -- that's it for fresh edibles right now. We are not overwintering anything in our greenhouse this year.

In the gardens, we're overwintering some Chard for seed so the leaves on the Chard need to stay on the plants. We have 2 very long beds of strawberries and herbs -- perennials. We've had some hard freezes with temps to 13-degrees but these plants do well and always pop back up.
We mostly can/pressure-can to preserve our homegrown foods, or we eat fresh. We store root crops (potatoes, carrots, etc) I will be sowing seeds in the greenhouse in mid-January -- cold tolerant greens, onions, etc. Lots of Mizuna -- the stems double as celery for us. We've stopped using forced-air heat in the greenhouse -- too expensive. I'll be starting a few seeds next week (snapdragons, peppers).
My belief is that it's better to train ourselves to live like we're in the 1800s as our forefathers did. Living on their homesteads gave them priceless wealth during the Depression.

[patriotic_salt]

Living in the "central part of a big state" weathering through "winter" raised beds with garden shade covering over peppers...potatoes are slow but enduring ....slower growing with 50s 60's during the days and low 40s at night..Still gets light and rain allowed...picked a large summer squash more than month ago
We will being experiencing the cold next week low 20s
Prepare or protect what you have
Happy Gardening

[SouthFloridaSunshine]

A frozen Cana seems so bizarre, sorry to hear about the drought we had like it suddenly just snap dry after a very wet Spring and Summer. So yup, some things died (many things) due to getting used to God watering everything for me. Oops! So cool to see Rachel milking your livestock, you all living the dream. Except the getting sick during winter that is not on my “dream” list. I guess it could be worse, like being sick on a vacation to the beach. 😬🤪 Thanks for the update DTG.

[brianedminster]

FWIW - it's common practice to leave sunchokes/jerusalem artichoke tubers in the ground until you need them. Works best in either planter bag gardening, or with a dedicated garden area - as any bits you DON'T dig up and use will sprout in the spring, causing it to spread. A few years of that and it can take over your garden if you're not careful. ;-)

[tanyawales]

I like the pumpkins that have seeds inside that are hull less. That's a dual crop! Radish greens as well as the root are edible. The same is true of beets.

Getting some barrels set up to catch water from the roof and outbuildings roofs is a good way to have water for crops that are thirsty. Planting thirsty crops like strawberries or fruit shrubs under the roof dripline can keep them watered too. Lentils are a crop that doesn't require a lot of irrigation. I want to plant spineless Opuntia (prickly pear) for the edible pads (nopales) and fruit (toonas) inside a small greenhouse to keep the rain off them. :)

Large sunflower heads can be roasted and eaten as a main dish before the hulls on the seeds turn black and hard.

[breaking_bear]

My Americana chickens keep laying through the winter! Northern Az, down into the teens. Just keep a nice red heat lamp in their chicken house for the night. Good to go!

[flatsville]

I haven't used pressure treated lumber for raised beds for years. Scrap fencing or catttle panel cut down to size forming rings & ovals, woven side walls using stakes or concrete nails & small branches & saplings...etc. If it looks too "rustic" for your taste grow beans & peas up the outer walls.

[k.p.]

😆😆🤣 I "harvested" 2 heads of cabbage, today. I made a small batch of pepper cabbage to go with our fish for supper.. If I was talking to my neighbor, it would have been, HEY, I picked 2 cabbage, do you need one? 😂I can be gardenlitically correct. 😆