When you’re living off-grid it’s imperative that you know what type of foods are essential to grow. As you work to live a self-sustained lifestyle, you’ll want to master the art of growing essential foods. Today we’re featuring a list of the essential foods to grow for off-grid living.

Beans

The first year of beans will be a smaller harvest than year two, but it’s worth the wait! Growing beans will take about 2-3 months before you can harvest some food for your family but you can store these easily to feed everyone throughout the cooler seasons when you can’t grow as much food.

Rabbits

One breeding pair of rabbits can yield you up to 20 meat rabbits per year. That’s just one mating pair, imagine if you had more breeding rabbits!? This is one of those options for off-grid living meals that isn’t suitable for all, but if you want meat and a low cost way to get it, rabbits are by far one of the easier options.

Poultry

If you’re not quite ready for meat rabbits, then consider getting meat chickens. Poultry is an easy option for meat on the homestead, as well. This essential food is something you can learn to raise, butcher, and store as you continue moving forward with your off-grid lifestyle. While you wait for the meat chickens to establish enough meat for feeding, you can collect their eggs. 

Corn

During the first year of attempting to grow corn, you may find you lose more than you gain! This is quite common for first-time corn growers as corn needs specific levels of heat and the right soil for maximum growth. So try to grow corn in the first year of living off-grid so you have more in year two of being self-sufficient.

Potatoes

Potatoes are one of the easiest essential foods to grow for off-grid living. You can harvest them in as little as 2-3 months and they’re easily regrown from scraps. Even the first year of growing potatoes will yield you a decent harvest of food for the family!

Apples

Lastly, apples are an essential food that can take years to establish. You’ll want to plan on starting apple trees within the first year of living off-grid. It can take you between 6-10 years before you start getting ample harvest from your apple trees.

These foods will help you survive all year round, if you can’t get to the store or don’t want to buy food in the future. These foods will help you feed the family and others you visit you during your time living this off-grid lifestyle.