Many homesteaders grow their own food as part of their pursuit of a self-sufficient life. Homegrown produce and grains can enrich your diet and even make trips to the grocery store unnecessary. In addition to increasing your self-sufficiency, producing your own sustenance makes eating a chemical-free diet much easier.
Growing food on your land will also help you develop the character qualities many homesteaders admire, such as a deeper connection to the Earth’s natural cycles. The process of planting, harvesting, and fighting off pests and diseases will give you a greater appreciation for what you consume.
One of the most important factors for successful growth is the weather. Environmental challenges like strong winds, extreme temperature changes, and drought can disrupt healthy gardens and destroy the chance of an abundant harvest.
Harvesting drought-tolerant crops is one of the best ways you can ensure your food source will sustain you year by year. All plants need water to grow, but some need more than others. Here’s how growing drought-tolerant crops can benefit your homestead.
What Are Drought-Tolerant Crops?
The term “drought-tolerant crops” may bring desert plants like succulents and cacti to mind. They are indeed tough, but they’re not all prickly like desert foliage. All drought-resistant plants can survive and even thrive in dry conditions.
Drought-tolerant plants are suited perfectly for thriving in dry climates, but they also work well when planted as a precaution for an unusually dry growing season. Large- and small-scale farmers worldwide are turning to these crops to combat unpredictable weather patterns and dry conditions.
Homesteaders who want to grow most or all of their own food should choose crops that are high in nutrition and calorie-dense. Some excellent choices for homestead gardens include beans, corn, squash, potatoes, kale and lentils. Supplemental herbs can enrich dishes and provide variety to these staples.
Many of these crops come in drought-tolerant varieties that thrive on very little water. For example, tomatoes, grapes, okra and grains are all hardy. Some homesteaders also practice dry farming, a method of watering that trains plants to need less water after they’ve gotten established in the soil.
How to Choose the Best Drought-Tolerant Crops
The best plants for your homestead garden will depend on where you live. There are 13 different plant hardiness zones across the 50 states, and these are divided into two parts depending on regional temperature.
Many plants will grow outside of their optimal zones, but you’ll get the best harvest from those that are suited to your regional climate. Understanding your hardiness zone can help you plan the most productive, efficient garden for your homestead.
The timing and length of the growing season will also vary depending on where you live. Many drought-tolerant crops can be planted across the United States, but planting and harvest times will vary depending on your location and climate.
Before planning your crops for the year, see if resources are available to help you find the best drought-tolerant crops for your area. Many universities research agriculture and release free materials on which plants are best for local climates.
Why Drought-Tolerant Crops Matter
Incorporating drought-tolerant plants into your garden may require some extra research, but they will bring massive benefits to your homestead. This is a case of putting in extra work at the beginning of a project so you have much less to do later.
As climates shift and weather patterns become more unpredictable worldwide, more people are turning to drought-tolerant crops to ensure a successful harvest. You can’t control the weather, but you can take steps to mitigate potential damage to your future food source.
Here are seven ways drought-tolerant crops will benefit your homestead, from increasing the quality of the food you raise to decreasing the time and energy you spend tending your land.
1. They Reduce Water Use
Clean water is a valuable resource, and it can take a lot to keep your garden flourishing through the hot summer months. According to FoodPrint, it takes somewhere around 240 gallons of water to grow the ingredients for one loaf of bread.
Homesteaders who plan to distribute an inch of water evenly over a 10-by-10 garden can expect to use 62 gallons of water. If you water your garden every day for three months, that adds up to around 5,766 gallons for only one inch of water a day.
Many city gardeners choose drought-resistant plants for landscaping and growing food simply to reduce their monthly water bills. Although homesteaders may have access to free, clean water on their property, 62 gallons is a lot of water to redistribute across your garden each day.
Unless you live somewhere with predictable, heavy rain, it’s a good idea to invest in drought-tolerant crops to reduce your water use. While many plants are available in drought-resistant varieties, cool-season crops generally aren’t. These plants go in the ground early or late in the year and need a lot of water to thrive.
2. They Bring High Yields
In addition to using less water, drought-tolerant crops bring higher, more reliable yields. Many of these plants mature early and have a short growing season. This means they avoid the late summer heat as well as diseases and pests that occur later in the year.
Plants with a short growing season can be replanted and harvested several times during the same year, increasing overall yield. When you’re trying to feed your family off the land, it’s good to know you can rely on an abundant harvest even during dry years.
Farmers in Africa are turning to drought-resistant crops to fight food insecurity and ensure a healthy harvest each year. Studies show that climate-resistant maize can produce up to a 25% higher yield in sub-Saharan Africa than traditional crops.
Homesteaders can learn a lot about safeguarding harvests from farmers who live in dry climates and face unpredictable weather patterns. When a surplus of food is grown, much of it can be preserved and stored for years of extremely dry weather and a low crop yield.
3. They Taste Better
In many cases, drought-resistant plant varieties actually taste better than their traditional counterparts. This is determined by many factors, including the specific seed you plant and what nutrients are in your soil.
The ratio of nutrients to water in food also affects its taste. Excessive watering can create bland fruits and vegetables that aren’t as nutrient-dense as they could be. Drought-tolerant plants often taste better because they are watered less than traditional varieties.
In addition, plants grown from heirloom seeds tend to taste better. Hybrid tomatoes that have been bred for size and durability often lack the complexities of flavor found in homegrown fruits. However, heirloom tomatoes soak up the sunshine to develop full flavors that you can’t find in the grocery store.
Another element for growing tasty, nutrient-dense crops is healthy soil enriched with natural organic matter. According to the USDA, soil can store 25,000 gallons of water per acre for every 1% of organic matter. The healthier your soil is, the less you’ll have to water drought-tolerant plants, and the higher return you’ll get.
4. They Enrich the Soil
Most drought-resistant plants do best in loose, aerated soil. Their taproots reach deep underground to access water below the surface. Because of the way these plants have adapted to their environment, dense, moist soils like clay don’t support their growth well.
If you’re experiencing dry conditions on your homestead, drought-tolerant plants can help you weather the storm while creating healthier soil. These crops have learned to thrive in dry, cracked earth with very little help. After their life cycle is complete, they’ll break down into organic matter that will naturally enrich your soil.
Adding mulch or composting material to your garden beds can help the soil retain moisture. As these materials break down, they’ll enrich the ground further to give drought-resistant plants the nutrients they need to thrive.
Drought-resistant plants also promote soil health by naturally breaking up your fields with their root systems. Healthy soil is full of air pockets, which give root systems access to oxygen. Oxygenated soil helps plant roots absorb water and supports the microbes and organisms that keep the ground healthy.
5. They Improve Each Year
Growing crops is like running a giant experiment. Each year, you can take note of which plants did well and which ones struggled from poor soil, drought, pests and disease. It can be difficult to efficiently address challenges for the next growing season because weather conditions are different every year.
However, using heirloom seeds can increase your crops’ resistance to drought each year by replanting from crops that did well in your garden. They stay true year after year, so the next generation of plants will carry the same genetic characteristics as the first.
By contrast, hybrid seeds can produce a plant with different characteristics because of cross-pollination. Some homesteaders use them for high yields with great success, but they have to purchase new seeds every growing season.
Heirloom seeds are a more sustainable and self-sufficient way to feed your family. In addition, these plants preserve the genetic material needed to create strong, hybrid varieties. Unless heirlooms are cultivated, genetic material can be lost, and the number of hybrid plants will decline.
6. They Inspire Land Management
Once you start learning about the benefits of drought-tolerant crops, you’ll find that planting the right kind of seed is only one of the many ways you can combat drought and unpredictable weather patterns on your homestead.
Choosing not to till your land is another way to protect crops from drought. When soil is broken up and turned over, its natural structure is disturbed, and the upper layers dry out. Leaving old growth and planting cover crops is a better option for regeneration.
Planting cover crops will protect the soil from drying out or being displaced over the winter. The root systems from these plants will help aerate the earth, and the plant material will break down into natural fertilizer. Aerated, well-nourished ground also doesn’t require as much watering to nourish crops.
Another good way to keep the soil hydrated is to let your fields rest periodically. Letting plant growth come up naturally and then break down for a season will help build healthy earth that’s rich in organic material.
7. They Decrease Spending
Running a homestead is expensive, and drought-resistant crops can help you save money on your harvests so you have more to spend on other projects. There are several ways drought-tolerant plants can help with your budget.
For one thing, they can save you money on water. It’s difficult to gauge how much water is coming through a hose or sprinkler system, especially when you’re distributing it over a large space. You can grow more crops with less water if they are drought-tolerant.
Using heirloom seeds means you won’t have to buy and ship new ones to your homestead each year. Even if there’s very little rain during the growing season, drought-tolerant crops will still produce well and keep your family fed. Your garden could also reduce your grocery bill, depending on your yield.
The cost of water and fertilizer will go down even further if you improve your soil health to reduce the risk of drought. Healthy soil that is drought-resistant will produce larger, nutrient-rich harvests, keeping your family well-fed and reducing future health care costs.
Investing in Sustainability
Planting drought-tolerant crops on your homestead can help you weather unseasonably dry conditions without losing valuable produce. However, that’s just one of many ways drought-tolerant crops will help you invest in a sustainable future.
Reducing your land’s susceptibility to drought will bump up your harvest, improve your soil and increase the nutritional value of what you grow. Drought-tolerant plants can also save you time, effort, and the money you put into water costs and grocery bills.
Drought-tolerant crops are an important investment for increasing your homestead’s self-sufficiency. Regardless of unpredictable weather and little rain, these plants are equipped to respond with resilience and produce a sustainable harvest year after year.
Author Bio:
Jane is the editor-in-chief of Environment.co. She is passionate about sustainability, gardening and homesteading.
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