Pros and Cons of Survival Bartering

As a sun arcs across the sky, there's some validity I would imagine in vertical planting and yield/sqm.   There's also added costs in plastic containers holding the plants or what have you and you'd have to weigh those up I suppose.  Growing spuds in tubs that are above ground and can be opened makes harvesting very easy, by the looks of it [seen some videos on it], though with more costs than sticking them in the ground. 

Spuds are easy to grow, fantastic nutritional qualities [you can almost live on spuds alone] and will grow almost anywhere there's sun. 

The downside with spuds is that the seed potatoes [basically a normal spud that is certified to be disease free that you plant] only last a few months [just like all spuds] out of the ground, so you can't really store them long term, though you could store them by growing a crop and perhaps just leaving it in the ground.  There's the risk of disease of course, though starting with seed potatoes reduces this risk.  From there your small 'seed crop' would take some time to develop into a crop large enough to be a stable food for your diet.  So you might have a couple of square meters that you keep going and eat some potatoes from yearly [to enjoy growing them and to thin them out a bit], perhaps a couple of varieties [to reduce your risk of disease killing all your crops] and leave or replant many of the spuds to keep the crop going.  Obviously throwing on mulch/fertilizer as well.  Then take all of those spuds and spread them out over a vast area if SHTF and not eat any until you develop a large enough food to have an ongoing crop to sustain your group.  I'm no expert in growing spuds, it just seems like that logical approach to take.

1 sqm of spuds, according to those figures above 'at best' is about enough energy for 6 days of food for one person to give you a gauge on what area we're talking about here.  

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Bringing it back to the topic of Barter, there's lots of risk and exposing yourself in the idea of Barter in a SHTF situation.  Why give intel on what you have?  Can you live on what you have already?  If not then fair enough, you have no choice, though with all negotiation, if you can't walk away, it's not a negotiation.  That is, desperation will cost you in some way.  As preppers we plan to reduce those risks of desperation.  

If things, such as severe economic changes happened, such as the Argentinian Financial Collapse or the Cuba 'special time' and not a full on SHTF, then sure, it would be a part of every day life and whilst the need for security might be elevated, I wouldn't imagine it would be mostly like normal but using goods/skills instead of currency. 

Lol and sure a root cellar too does a good job. What I meant was storing the seed potatoes, if you keep them cool and dark, I would imagine you could probably keep then a year or so. Pretty sure those preserved potatoes won't grow.

They will …… but only probably mould lol. Yeah sorry, misread your para three.

BTW spuds can be grown from seed

i really want a cellar

^ you did. I should have mentioned that pumpkin is a squash. We also have squash that's not a pumpkin :0 They are great, as you say super easy to grow, can get thousands of seeds for almost nothing and fairly nutritious. Not quite as good as potatoes on nutrition, but the seeds can keep for a couple of years which is great for us preppers.

New thread title "what's the least you'd kill for"?

hmmmm rather fortuitous...

same scenario is playing out on the Walking Dead.

ooo bugger...

my apologies...

so I better not mention anything about the 84mm they deployed last week...

That's an excellent point. I suppose the old hen only ever went in the pot when it stops laying, after all...