Preppers: Stockpiling Seeds For Bartering
Kevin Felts 05.03.18
To the preppers who are stockpiling seeds, what seeds would you consider bartering with? If so, which seeds are the first ones to come to mind?
First, we are going to need to have certain seeds stockpiled in excess. Of course we are not going to trade seeds we have just a few of. Nor would we want to trade for our best growing crops.
For a trade to work out both parties should be happy. The people who get the seeds will want to grow food, and the reader should get something in return.
Radishes
One easy example is the radish. Soak the seeds before planting, make sure they have fertile soil, keep the plants watered, and about 30 days after planting the radish should be ready to pull up and eat. The entire radish can be eaten. The only thing wasted is the tap root on the bottom of the radish.
Plant some seeds, wait a week, plant some more seeds, wait a week, and plant some more seeds. Starting about 30 days later, there should be a crop ready to harvest every week.
Trade for some radish seeds, tell the people how to grow them, and everyone should be happy. The are not a labor intensive crop and are pretty easy to grow.
Beans/Peas
Bean and pea seed can be found just about anywhere in the spring months. These grow well just about anywhere, will do well in sandy soil, and need just a little bit of fertilizer.
The bad news, rabbits and deer will eat a pea patch down to the ground overnight.
To prevent deer from eating peas and beans, plant some squash and zucchini in with the peas and beans. Deer will rarely eat squash plants.
Spinach
Excellent leafy green crop which is packed full of nutrients. Does well in a high nitrogen soil, such as manure. Plant in in the fall or early spring. Does not do well in the summer heat.
Spinach seeds can be bought at either farm supply stores, or the big box mart retail stores in the spring.
Seed Packets
Rather than trading for a pound of seed, or dividing up bulk seed, get some seed packets from retail stores at the end of spring.
Sometimes the big outlet stores will mark their seed packets do to something like two for a dollar, or three for a dollar. Buy a bunch of them, put them in the freeze and save for a later time.
One of the good things about buying in packets, the packets usually have the date stamped on them. This makes to see how old the seeds are.
Final Thoughts
Personally, I would avoid crops with a high fertilizer requirement, such as watermelons, for bartering. The person getting the seeds may not understand the amount of labor and fertilizer needed to grow something like watermelons.
Maybe look for high producing crops which would grow good in a range of conditions.
A few examples would include:
- Squash
- Zucchini
- Spinach
- Peas
- Beans
- Peppers
- Carrots
- Onions
Most of those seeds can be bought in see packets towards the end of spring.
