Low maintenance high yield crops

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snowy39@reddit

I wouldn't say high-yield, but various things like raspberries, currants, and fruit trees like pears, apples, cherries, apricots require no maintenance, other than watering somewhat maybe (mostly they do well with rain water) and maybe removing weeds.

But i barely know anything about gardening, these are just my observations. Lots of fruit trees just seem like they grow on their own, you just need to harvest.

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shryke12@reddit

Fruit trees absolutely require maintenance and care to get good yields.

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Tiny-Art7074@reddit

I don't know about that, I live in central Sweden and other than mowing the lawn we don't do shit to our apple trees and they put out huge amounts of fruit every year.

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shryke12@reddit

How old are they? They very likely were properly pruned at one time. You could keep them healthier and yielding more with proper maintenance.

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snowy39@reddit

Yeah, my experience with them just growing in a garden is that they're almost never watered, except for during dry periods when there's little rain. And even then it's just a matter of spraying them with a hose for some time and that's it.

But those are just my memories as a child and teen, from my perspective those trees were almost always practically ignored except for when it was time to harvest the pears, apples, plums, mulberries, or whichever other fruit they bore. It's Eastern Europe, if it matters.

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hiraeth555@reddit

It’s less hassle than planting and taking care of leafy greens though.

And it depends on the tree- my parents have a dwarf apple that produces kilos and kilos of apples every year and it is completely neglected

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Tiny-Art7074@reddit

Don't forget about apple trees. They put out a huge amount of calories that are very easy to harvest and store. If you have an area to grow a few rows of potatoes you can grow apples. They require almost no maintenance, no annual crop rotations, seasonal re planting, etc, etc and they keep the ground largely clear below them for other use. If you are able to can them they will last just about forever. If preppers have the room I think an apple tree is a top 3 produce requirement because in a shit hits the fan scenario, a large amount of low maintenance, super high yield, super hardy calories is critical for long term survival.

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FlashyImprovement5@reddit

Jerusalem artichokes

Potato onions

Sunflowers

Field peas

Popcorn

Field corn

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ladyangua@reddit

Cherry tomatoes - very hardy, wide range of temperature zones, a good source of vit C, easy to preserve - half them and dry or cook them down to a sauce and can. They readily self-seed, once they are started they will be there forever.

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Misfitranchgoats@reddit

Oh I so agree. I won't even plant cherry tomatoes in my garden anymore, I keep them confined to containers on my deck. I joke that cherry tomatoes would take over the world. They were everywhere in my garden, almost as bad as weeds. I finally got rid of them.

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ThisJokeMadeMeSad@reddit

George Clooney warned us.

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squidwardTalks@reddit

Tomatillo grows like that too. Plant one and you'll have them forever if you want.

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EconomistPlus3522@reddit

High yield without accounting for calories ok

lettuce and swiss chard- swiss chard is a biannial and produces thoughout the growing season
Strawberries
Potatoes
Cucmbers
Tomatoes
Peppers ( for me Pepperchinos and Bannana Peppers produce alot per plant)
Zucchini
Radishes

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

corn->potatoes-> nitrogen fixing legumes -> repeat

mono culture is a recipe for failure, generally via disease or at least soil nutrient depletion.

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Unlucky-Rutabaga4806@reddit

what u described is actually monoculture lul "In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time."

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

you win, I meant monocropping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocropping

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Mehhucklebear@reddit

Crop rotation is so important, and I don't think it gets enough air time here or even in home gardening subs generally.

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

my guess is that they link mono culture is only something that big ag does. but no, a 5x30 potato plot season after season is mono culture too.

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SgtWrongway@reddit

We grow all our own food (including livestock/animals) Our base "Bulk Calories" - stores at least over Winter, up to multiple years is (in order of most calories we put up:

Corn (cornmeal corn, not Sweet Corn)

Potato

Sweet Potato

Dried Beans

SunChoke

Sorghum

Peanut

Upland Rice

Pumpkin/Squash

Pearl Millet.

Quinoa

Sunflower seed

None of these require any real "maintenance" in our area other than weeding and harvesting/processing

Our highest caloric density (and super long storage (3 to 4 years, in shell) are our nut trees. We can harvest enough calories for 10 people for a year if we want. Literally 10+ people could survive all year on nothing but nuts that we do absolutely nothing to grow.

Walnuts. Pecans. Heartnut. Hazelnut. (Not really a true nut but I'll throw it in here because it's in the name: Chestnut)

We literally do nothing except pick up free calories off the ground (and tree/bush in the case of Hazel). We grab enough to snack on all year, but it doesnt amount to a month' calories. We can 100x that by simply picking up more.

A single American Hazel tree/bush will throw off 1 to 3 days calories for an adult, depending on cultivar, fertility, and conditions ... and we have hundreds upon hundreds of them on The Homestead. Once you have 2 or 3 (needed for genetic diversity / pollination) you can have thousands in a decade or two. They're super easy to propagate by layering or seed. I've got 200 seed germinating as we speak.

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StuffNThingsK@reddit

How do u process the sunflower seeds

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SuburbanSubversive@reddit

It absolutely depends on your geographic location.

In general, perennial crops are your best bet. Fruit and nut trees, once established, will give years of harvests for minimal care. You'll need a way to preserve it (a dehydrator is your friend) because you will get so much all at once, but mature crop trees are self-sufficiency gold.

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HawocX@reddit

In a fairly wet and cool climate, potatoes are king.

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delatour56@reddit

Jerusalem Artichoke.

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YardFudge@reddit

In North America, Three sisters

https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters

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Spiritual-Mechanic-4@reddit

worth considering what yield means to you

are you trying to provide dollars? or calories. For offsetting food costs, look for what the high value food items you spend on. greens, microgreens, are highly valuable, if you spend money on greens, and easy to grow.

for calories? yea, potatoes if your soil is good for them.

beans are great and might work if potatoes don't work for you, but might require some trellising infrastructure

berry bushes might be great

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wondering2019@reddit

Jerusalem Artichoke, potatoes, tomatoes and bell peppers are my top go to

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hiraeth555@reddit

Fruit and Nut trees are easily the lowest maintenance and have quite high yield.

Chestnuts, hazelnuts, apples, pears, cherry, walnut etc.

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melympia@reddit

Some ideas for combining several species, though not exactly "low maintenance". Move the beds one up every year for continuous good harvests. So, if you have 1-2-3... this year, plant 2-3-4... next year and so on.

Tomato/garlic/basil/celery: One row of tomato plants (whichever you prefer); For pest control, put two garlic cloves between two tomato plants like this O:O (O= tomato, . = garlic). One row above the tomatos, plant basil (better taste for tomatoes, or so I've been told). The row below the tomatos, plant celery (also good for pest control). Since basil, tomato and celery are all quite allergic to frost and need to be planted rather late in the season, you can use the space for an early harvest of various lettuces, spinach or may turnips. Extra kudos if you use New Zealand spinach as a living mulch. If you're not into celery, go for garden leek - preferably a variety that can be harvested late (autumn or winter), as those also get planted a little later.
Peas and lettuce: Sounds... like not much. You're wrong. Peas get sown rather late, and don't grow too quickly, giving you a good amount of time to plant an early fennel variety, may turnips (the greens are edible and are actually cooked where I'm from), an early variety of kohlrabi or various lettuces. While that stuff is still growing, you need to grow your peas either indoors or in a greenhouse. They are planted after the last frost - where I'm from, that's around May (middle/end). Since peas can be quite fickle, you might want to try different varieties, including some edible Lathyrus species (peavines, vetchlings) or even chickpeas. Note that not all peavines are edible! Once the peas are harvested, you can - once again, plant various lettuces, preferably in combination with garlic. (Yes, giving your lettuce a head start outside their final bed is a good idea...)
Now, a bit of care for your ground (in case you want to keep going for many years): Plant some marigolds of the Tagetes species, some sweet lupine (yes, there are some edible varieties out there...) and some garlic. Marigolds are good against nematodes, lupines are good for nitrogen, and garlic keeps various pests away. And you still have a bit of a harvest...
Cabbage family bed: One row of an early kohlrabi variety - cultivate in advance, they'll stay pretty small unless planted into the soil - then plant, wait 8-12 weeks, harvest, plant the next young plant - and you have a continuous supply of kohlrabi. From March to April and June to July, you can use may turnips instead (the taste is similar, but the turnips are ready to harvest after 4-8 weeks already). One row of broccoli. Do not replace this with cauliflower, because the broccoli can be harvested and grows back. If you try that with cauliflower, it will just rot. Put one row of celery in between and use all free spaces in-between for garlic or onions. Even if you won't get a harvest out of the garlic or onions, they're good pest deterrents. You can also put some radishes betwen the celeries for more variety.
Carrots and onions: One row of onion, one row of carrot. Repeat until the bed is full. Onions keep away the carrot fly (and most rabbits), while carrots keep the onion fly away. Which means that this combination is a match made in heaven. If you use an early variety of carrot, you can have two harvests (sow February, harvest in May, sow again in June/July, harvest in October), but those carrots cannot be stored for long times (unless canned, dried or the like). If you use scallions as your onion of choice (in one row, at least), you can harvest them before July and leave the place open for some parsnips in the next row. Parsnips need quite some space, so having the scallions by their side (and then vanishing - yum!) will do the parsnips some good. Once everything is harvested, consider planting some extra garlic, onions or spinach and leave them over the winter. (Spinach is good to keep the soil moist and ready for the next generation of plants)
It's been three years since the last ground care year, so here we go again. Phacelia is a great plant to give some nitrogen to your ground, and Borage is great at getting minerals from far down in the ground back up. Ideal mulch...

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melympia@reddit

Continued:

Bell pepper and cucumber: Both are - once again - highly averse to frost, so start with some lettuce early in the year. Cultivate peppers and cucumbers early in march (inside or in a greenhouse), then plant them by the end of May. Peppers go well with basil, cucumbers with dill. Keep in mind that cucumbers can climb trellises if you help them a little bit. You can try New Zealand spinach as a ground cover, too. And the ever-present garlic to deter pests. Once you brought in your harvest sometime in September, you still have time to plant buck's horn plantain, miner's lettuce/winter's purslane, lamb's lettuce (Valerianella) or spinach for an early spring harvest.
Chickpeas, fennel and soy: Just as said. If you want to make life hell for slugs, plant some small nasturtiums around the fennel. Once you got your harvest in, plant some onions and spinach.
Time for some ground care... You needs mostly Raphanus sativus var. oleiformis, which helps against harmful nematodes. The fruit can also be pressed to get oil. Add some (sweet) lupines for some nitrogen, too.
three sisters: Before you start with the actual three sisters (corn, beans, pumpkin), you can have an early harvest of salads and/or early radishes or, well, spinach. Then plant (pre-cultivated) corn, runner beans and pumpkins. Since this is draining for the soil, you might want to plant a winter-cultivar of lathyrus latifolius.
Sweet potato: Before you actually plant the sweet potatoes, which you need to cultivate some time in January, you can plant some fava beans, lettuce and garlic. While you have to keep the fava beans around, they mesh well with the sweet potatoes. And, yes, after the harvest, you can still plant the usual suspects.
Ground care, again. Just sweet lupines (the edible varieties...), some onions in between and maybe some borage if you like.
Potato: Before you start planting your potatoes, you want to have an early harvest of, well, the usual suspects (radishes, asia-salads, various other lettuces, spinach...) Between the rows of potatoes, you can plant the occasional caraway and fava beans. If you use an early potato variety that you harvest during the summer, you can still plant some (pre-cultivated) lacinato kale.
Beans - because beans are great for confusing the colorado potato beetle: Plant all your runner beans of choice - like "Blauhilde" (purple), "Borlotto" (white with red speckling) or whatever. Non-green varieties are easier to harvest because they're harder to miss. (This is especially true with the three sisters, too.) Add some savory in between the beans.
More ground care: Something against nematodes again - there are mixes you can buy for just this purpose. I just don't know what they're called in English. XD

But if you want truly low maintenance: Go for fruit and nut trees. Seriously. Maybe not the walnut tree (due to allelopathy). But trees. Bushes underneath. Some smaller plants underneath the bushes. Yes, this is basically a food forest.

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TheOccasionalBrowser@reddit

Potatoes are a good staple, tomatoes are always good to have, and peas/beans put the nitrogen back in the soil. That's pretty basic, and more crops would probably help. Rotate or have a larger space.

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CannyGardener@reddit

Permaculture has been a huge time/effort saver for me. I'm on a bit under an acre and have currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, grapes, strawberries, cherries, apples, blueberries. These keep me in sweet preserves year round, but don't really take care of my nutritional needs as much as I'd like, Great for trades/bartering though.

For annuals, I really want to suggest corn, potatoes, and tomatoes, like I'm seeing a lot of other folks recommending...but at least where I live (a desert) those are very high effort plants. The corn takes a lot of space and water to yield anything calorically significant. The potatoes and tomatoes and prone to disease and bugs.

For easy yields, I have the best luck with Blue Hubbard Squash, bush beans, and kale. The squash yields multiple 30-50# squash per vine, and it keeps fooooooreeeeeever since its rind requires an axe to open it up. Bush beans can and freeze well. Kale blanches and freezes on sheet pans really well. I almost never have pest or health issues with these plants. So long as you water them regularly, they yield a good amount with minimal effort.

Garlic has been a new set-it-and-forget-it for me. Plant in fall, let it overwinter. I've watered mine twice since November, and I'm looking to get \~100 heads out of my two beds.

Zucchini and soft neck squash are good for yield for minimum effort, but nutritionally there isn't much there.

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19Thanatos83@reddit

Topinambur ! (I think its Jerusalem artichoke in english) . You plant them once and wont ever get rid of them, in fact you need a roit barrier or they will take over your garden

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Ave_TechSenger@reddit

Ground cherries

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ryan112ryan@reddit

Sweet potatoes, zucchini until the bugs come then I pull it out, honey from bees

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GreenPL8@reddit

Are bees "low maintenance"?

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Puhnanas0@reddit

I think they can be but most ppl get in there and manage them like any other crop to maximize it.

Moved and had to leave a hive once for 1.5-2 years. They were still buzzing along when I went to get them. Of course they were jam packed full and had burr comb everywhere with everything glued shut. I’m sure they split their self many times.

Prob not the best practice but time invested vs calories gained was up there. Not as much honey if you put some honey supers on tho since they were using the comb for brood and storage and were short on space.

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GreenPL8@reddit

I thought you had to inspect them fairly often, and do seasonal mite control treatments?

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Puhnanas0@reddit

One should and it’s the best practice. Will they survive without all that? Most likely. Eventually the honeycomb will become too dirty and used and I’m guessing they would abandon it altogether. Would take a few years I’m betting.

I’m the world’s worst beekeeper. Sometimes I just don’t have time and I run behind on splits so I get a swarm every now and then. If I’m home I can get em and put them in a nuc box.

I also don’t treat for mites which may be looked down on. They’re not one of my top problems. Wax moths, dearth’s and the time to give them what they need at times are my top issues. Wax moths get in a weak/small hive because I’m giving them too much room to take care of, entering a dearth and didn’t feed a lay split.

A dearth I can’t do anything about except feed them. Last year was dry and they didn’t put up enough honey for themselves. They should’ve been fed in the fall but I didn’t get to it and it got too late. So Nov/dec I took top cover off, laid some paper down and spread some sugar on top. They’re all doing great this spring!

Best way to start a good debate is get a room full of beekeepers together!

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SweetAlyssumm@reddit

Always have some berry bushes. They only require a little light pruning and nothing else when established.

Berries are a "superfood" and taste good and easily preserved. OK, the idea of a superfood is hokey but look up the nutrition of the various berries - they are fantastic.

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Usernamenotdetermin@reddit

To talk to local gardening groups

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nanneryeeter@reddit

r/foodforests

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dave9199@reddit

Depends on your growing zone. In my area(humid subtropics) yuca/cassava, sweet potatoes, true yams, pigeon peas are the best calories per acre per year (and low effort growing).

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anotherfakeemail987@reddit

squirrels and birds will eat most of your fruits and berries.

Learning to can and store things is also important.

pumpkins are also good as they store forever. Check out https://www.youtube.com/@townsends for other ideas.

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Soft_Zookeepergame44@reddit

I've been growing bloody butcher corn for 5 or so years. Produces a ton.

Also a ton of work to process into usable end products.

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iwannaddr2afi@reddit

Nice to have some perennial fruit going. Not sure where you are, but I'm in MN, and rhubarb, strawberries, and apples are pretty easy to set and forget around here.

Tomatillos are nice and easy. They are raised as annuals in my zone 4a garden, but you just direct seed them and they go. Pretty brief time before they're producing too, as early as a couple months depending on varietal, and they are indeterminate so keep producing as long as it's warm. These are usually my easiest heavy producer.

Yes to potatoes, for ease and calorie density. Obviously tomatoes are pretty prolific. Zucchini earned its reputation. Extremely easy and you'll have it coming out your ears.

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Dumbkitty2@reddit

Long Island cheese pumpkin. Grown them two years, they’ve been insect and fungus resistant, handled the heat, large fruits and store well over the winter. I have one sitting on the counter looking perfect months after my other squash went soft. I purchased my seeds from a small in state seed producer.

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LowBarometer@reddit

Cabbage? It's a superfood and stores really well.

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JL3Eleven@reddit

If you are in a legal area, Cannabis.

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Mehhucklebear@reddit

So, odd one here, but I've found habanero is incredibly easy to grow, propagates itself, and it changes color to let you know when it's having a bad time. Plus, while it's hot, it's a complex flavor that can be used to replace and elevate where you'd use other peppers, like chili powder, flakes, etc. Underrated prep pepper, IMHO

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kittensnip3r@reddit

Guess it depends on where you are located at but for me its:

Potato's, green beans, cucumbers and tomato's. Last year my tomato's were crazy to the point of not picking them fast enough.