Why Grow or Die? | The Survival Gardener

Back in 2006, Rachel and I had two children and were living in a little rental house we could barely afford. i was struggling as a freelancer, and trying to stay near my family in Ft. Lauderdale. For a while, we kept our heads above water with my audio editing skills, but then one evening I got a phone call. My main client was no longer financially able to stay afloat. This meant that we weren’t going to be able to stay afloat either – at least not in Ft. Lauderdale! The housing boom had driven prices through the roof and there were rumblings of financial ruin on the horizon.

To stay financially solvent, we moved to Central Florida and rented a little trailer in a park surrounded by orange groves. There I worked hard to grow food in the terrible sand – every bit of food we grew helped our budget, so gardening was important! After more financial issues hit us – and after we had another baby – we moved up to Tennessee where I had some freelance connections. I took odd jobs, ranging from painting houses to working in a warehouse. We got some audio editing jobs, but they weren’t enough. For a while, I even tutored ESL students at a local college.

In Tennessee, I learned more about gardening, this time in zone 6/7. We grew all we could, composted all we could to feed our gardens, and we lived on next to nothing. We had a wall unit keeping one room of our house cool when it was over 100 degrees outside, since we couldn’t afford to cool the entire house, as tiny as it was. We had a single car and the budget was tight.

Now I realize how much those days taught us – and how they shaped my life as a gardener. We didn’t grow for fun, though we enjoyed growing. We grew because it helped us stay fed. Potatoes, tomatoes, healthy greens, piles of compost… this was our life. And it still is.

Those experience led me to write the book Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening – and the events of 2020 cemented what I wrote in that book – and also turned it into a bestseller on Amazon.

Life is complex and fragile, so our food gardening should be simple and antifragile.

If you’re a normal person who just wants to have success with growing food, no matter what craziness is going on in the world… get Grow or Die – it will help you find food security.