Best Crops For A Self Sufficient Garden Plan

Wondering what plants produce the most food to feed your family? Here are some crop ideas for a self sufficient garden plan that are calorie rich, return high yields and store easily.

By Cindy Conner
Updated on February 20, 2024
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by AdobeStock/Indievibe

Wondering what plants produce the most food to feed your family? Here are some crop ideas for a self sufficient garden plan that are calorie rich, return high yields and store easily.

To rely on your garden to feed your family, you need to grow staple crops — those foods that are the basis of the human diet. The best staple crops for building food self-sufficiency should be easy to harvest and store, return good yields, and be calorie-dense to provide the food energy from carbohydrates that you need each day.  Most of the 10 staples spotlighted here are also rich sources of other nutrients.

In her book The Resilient Gardener, homesteader and seed breeder Carol Deppe provides in-depth information about staple crops, and names potatoes, corn, beans, squash and eggs as the “five crops you need to survive and thrive.” I’ve expanded on that list, adding wheat, sweet potatoes, peanuts, cabbage, collards and kale. To show yield comparisons between these staple foods, I’ve used the average crop yields and servings-per-pound numbers from the charts in my previous MOTHER EARTH NEWS article, A Plan for Food Self-Sufficiency (October/November 2012). The calorie references are from John Jeavons’ book How to Grow More Vegetables, a worthwhile resource for anyone interested in food self-sufficiency.

Food storage and preservation qualities are key aspects to consider when selecting staple crops to increase your household’s food security. I love to grow food that doesn’t require fossil fuels to preserve and store it. The puzzle then becomes where and how to store it. Check your house carefully for good food-storage areas. I’ve found that a bottom kitchen cabinet is often 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler during winter than the kitchen itself. I store potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash there. You might also have a closet in a spare room that stays cool. Find more creative food storage ideas in the article Top Storage Crops.

Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes

Potatoes (along with grain corn) will give you the most calories for the least space. They are easy to grow — just bury a piece of potato about the size of an egg with a couple of “eyes” on it in the ground in a 4-inch-deep furrow. In climates with cool summers, plant early, midseason and late varieties two to three weeks before your last spring frost date. Potatoes will be ready to harvest in about 65 to 90 days, depending on the variety.

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