Growing a Survival Garden: Ten Calorie-Dense Crops You Can Grow at Home
With grocery store sticker shock keeping budgets tight and major grocery retailers over-inflating prices, learning how to grow calorie- and nutrient-dense food at home is more important than ever. In this guide, you'll learn about the easiest, most nutritionally-dense crops you can grow at home whether you have a patio garden or acres of land.
A winter vegetable cornucopia. Photo by RFondren Photography / Shutterstock
For most Americans, having a garden is a hobby. While you may enjoy the produce of your garden, the chance that most of your calories are coming from your garden are slim. Growing big, beautiful heirloom tomatoes is impressive, but tomatoes aren’t a great source of calories or nutrients that will fill you up and keep you satiated.
However, if you want to start growing more of your own food, many kitchen staples such as corn, beans and potatoes can be grown at home.
Here are ten calorie-dense crops you can grow at home to turn your hobby garden into a more sustaining one. Data was collected from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USDA) and nutritionix.com and is based on the recommendation for a 2,000-calorie diet. Here, I list calories, carbohydrates and protein. Fats were excluded from the guide as most vegetables don’t produce much if any fat.
Corn
Corn is an American classic. Cultivated by native Americans, corn is present in so many hearty meals and has a variety of uses. You can eat corn right off the cob, pop it up in some oil over a fire or cook it and grind it into cornmeal to be used to make breads, tortillas and other tasty corn treats such as tamales.
The possibilities are endless for corn: From the fuel in our vehicles to the fuel in our bellies, it’s one of most widely cultivated and consumed crops in the world.
Corn’s time to maturity can get tricky based on the variety you’re growing and how much you want it to dry. A good rule of thumb is about 120 days, so plant your corn about two to three weeks after your last frost to ensure there’s enough time to harvest.
Corn contains about 100 calories, 22 grams of carbs and 3.5 grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Learn More
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Beans
Beans are one of the first crops kids learn about in school. If you didn’t get to have the bean germination experiment at school, I’m sorry if this reference is lost on you.
Beans germinate very quickly and are extremely easy to grow in your home garden. They thrive in the ground as well as in raised bed and container gardens.
Most beans will reach maturity between 45 and 60 days. Beans are a quick crop, easy to grow, and they can help make your soil more nitrogen-rich for whatever you’re planting next in your garden.
Red beans contain about 135 calories, 24 grams of carbs and 9 grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Winter Squash
Winter squash deserves a place on this list due to its growing habit and role as a great companion plant for beans and corn. It’s also delicious roasted and eaten as a side dish with your fall dinner or cooked into a soup for a warm winter meal.
Winter squash can take between 60 and 110 days to reach maturity. It is ready to harvest once the rinds are full of color and firm enough that your thumbnail won’t make an indention in the rind.
As for nutrients, winter squash contains about 45 calories, 11 grams of carbs and one gram of protein per 100-gram serving.
Potatoes
I said beans were easy, but potatoes might be even easier. Just bury the potato and then water it. Soon, leaves will grow up from the soil, capturing the light needed to make more potatoes.
Potatoes take between 60 and 130 days to reach maturity, depending on the variety you’re planting. If you’re planting potatoes right now, keep an eye out for that last frost date for your region. You want to harvest your potatoes before the last frost, so keep a watch on the weather before you plant your tubers.
Potatoes contain about 80 calories, 17 carbs and two grams of protein per 100 grams.
Beets
Beets aren’t just the favorite vegetable of Dwight Schrute, their high nutritional content makes them a superfood. Beets are a spring crop with a quick harvest time of 55 to 70 days to maturity. Unlike potatoes, beets are a root vegetable that you don’t want to leave in the ground, as over-mature beets can become tough or woody (aka not the most delicious).
Aside from being nutritious, beets also provide essential macronutrients. Beets contain about 50 calories, five grams of carbs and two grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Lentils
Lentils are great for making hearty soups or replacing meat in popular American dishes such as sloppy joe sandwiches. They’re one of my favorite vegetables thanks to their versatility and delicious flavor and texture.
Lentils are a summer crop and should be planted around late April to early May or whenever temperatures are consistently above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most varieties take about 100 days to reach maturity.
Lentils contain about 115 calories, 20 grams of carbs and nine grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Chickpeas
Whether you prefer to call them chickpeas or garbanzo beans, they do belong to the legume family. They’re delicious as a meat replacement and a staple in Asian cuisine as the star of Chana Masala (one of my favorite Indian dishes) and the star of everyone’s favorite dip: hummus.
Chickpeas take around 100 days to reach maturity, so follow the same guidelines for growing lentils.
Chickpeas contain about 160 calories, 27 grams of carbs and nine grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Jerusalem Artichokes
Jerusalem artichokes are one of my favorite misunderstood vegetables. I feel like people often put artichokes in a category with things such as olives or water chestnuts, which tend to attract the “love it or hate it” type of attention typical of uncommon vegetables in the United States.
Jerusalem artichokes contain about 77 calories, 18 grams of carbs and two grams of protein per 100-gram serving.
Sweet potatoes
Unlike potatoes, sweet potatoes aren’t members of the nightshade family. They’re actually a member of the morning glory family, making the sweet potato more closely related to your grandmother’s favorite flowers than the humble russet potatoes she’s baking up for dinner.
Instead of using a seed potato to grow sweet potatoes, you have to buy sweet potato slips, which are tiny sweet potato plants that have some small roots, which will turn into sweet potatoes.
Sweet potatoes have a longer time to maturity of about 100 days, so keep the first frost in mind when planting your tubers.
Sweet potatoes contain 86 calories, 20 carbs and two grams of protein per 100 grams.
Learn More
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Mushrooms
Mushrooms are one of my favorite things about nature. Neither plants or animals, mushrooms are fungi, and their growth conditions make them a perfect crop to grow for calorie and nutrient density.
Many mushrooms can be grown indoors, allowing you to grow mushrooms year-round. Some of the mushroom grow kits give you everything you need to start growing your own lion’s mane or oyster mushrooms at home, with an expected harvest time of about 30 to 40 days.
Mushrooms aren’t the greatest when it comes to calorie-density, but they do pack in the protein. Mushrooms contain about 25 calories, four grams of carbs, 3.6 grams of protein and 0.5 grams of fat per 100-gram serving.
The Three Sisters garden
One smart way to grow beans, squash and corn is to plant a three sisters garden. By planting these three crops together, they benefit each other and create a self-sustaining, relatively low-maintenance way to grow all three crops.
The corn won’t be competing with the squash or beans due to its fast, straight-up growing habit. Beans will use the corn stalks for support so they can grow tall without the need for a trellis. Squash’s vining habit and large leaves will protect the soil below the corn and beans to ensure weeds can’t thrive and the soil stays moist and protected from the summer sun.
Check out this guide from the Farmer’s Almanac to learn how to maximize your three sisters garden.
Looking forward
Whether growing food is your hobby or your livelihood, knowing how to grow more nutritious and macronutrient-dense crops can help us better appreciate the food we eat every day.
While it’s too late to plant a three sisters garden in Tennessee, I’m going to start planning now for how to maximize my garden to make it more sustainable and nourishing for me and my family.
Forget about keeper/dried beans: you will need to devote an incredible amount of space to get something sufficient for one family meal.
This article also only focuses on calories, and not nutitition, ska vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C and D, calcium and iron. Potatoes and sweet potatoes should be at the top of the list. Corn: NO. Consider tomatoes, Asian long beans, and brassicas but be prepared to deal with the many insect pests of brassicas. Carrots are also good.