[...] Yams because of the vitamin content, blight resistance, ease of growth, and ease of storage. [...] |
I included "sweet potatoes" in the above table, but I'm very ignorant of the differences between them and yams. It seems that yams are native to even warmer regions, which means would be even more difficult to grow in NH. You'll get 3-5 higher yield with regular potatoes; and, for vitamin content, a greenhouse growing small patches of different leaf veggies year-round can't be beat.
I am sorry I transposed the two in my mind. The yam is rougher in texture and starchy vs sweet. The Sweet potato has the higher vitamin content and does come in a white variant.
Limiting to just three items is extremely difficult. And then imposing the NH grow season on top of that. I think you might want to look into hydroponics and expand the list to staples. If apples have to grow from seeds to maturity they would be too difficult in a pinch. In that case I would switch out for tomatoes.
I use hemp products now but it is very difficult for me to cook with as of yet I haven't figured out how to make a go of the hemp flour. But we enjoy hemp oil, and hemp milk in various things.
If I was to have a subsistence NH garden it would include more stuff than just hemp, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. I would also include green beans, blackeyed peas, watermelon, spinach, green peppers, cayenne peppers, leeks, garlic, carrots, broccoli and popping corn variant.
Popping corn can also be used to grind up for corn meal, cracked corn feed for animals and the dry cob is a cheap airlock for making vinegar. Watermelon, since apples take too long you can make a kind of vinegar from watermelon similar to cider vinegar. Peas, peppers, leeks, garlic, potatos can be successfully dry stored.
The animal to keep would be chickens with pigs coming in at a close second. Chickens are first because they produce eggs. Pigs because they are fast growing massive breeding garbage disposals. Pigs also produce methane which can be used to power a generator.
Another thing I would have an underground home style home or tapped earth home to minimize energy costs. But this is all pie in the sky as I don't have the funds to start up such a project.