For preppers, gardening is nearly non-negotiable.
It’s a vital way of ensuring you have a consistent and self-sufficient source of food during periods of emergency.
But gardening isn’t as easy as you think, and traditional approaches don’t work for everyone.
That’s why it’s worth considering the unconventional gardening craze that many people are trying today – chaos gardening.
What is chaos gardening, and why should preppers try it?
9 Reasons Preppers Are Turning to Chaos Gardening
Chaos gardening may sound a little scary, but it’s simpler than you think.
To grow a ‘chaos garden’ all you need to do is take a handful of mixed seeds, usually leftovers from previous gardening seasons, and toss them haphazardly into the soil.
You let the seeds fall where they may, so to speak.
The end result is a unique, semi-wild landscape that allows nature to take its course rather than you trying to control every element of your garden.
It’s an experimental way to grow both ornamental and edible plants by developing a more sustainable and self-sufficient garden in harmony with local ecosystems.
1. Food, Hidden in Plain Sight
Some associate chaos gardening with wildflowers, seeing it as a way to create a beautiful ornamental landscape. Growing flowers usually isn’t a priority for preppers.
Still, fortunately, you can also use the chaos gardening method to plant combinations of herbs and vegetables to create a diverse edible garden – effectively hiding your food in plain sight.
By mixing these plants with decorative foliage and flowers, casual observers may not even notice the abundance of produce growing right under their noses.
Having an edible garden is vital for preppers, and chaos gardening gives you the option of having both function and beauty in your garden.
2. A Hands-Off Approach
The core of being a prepper is being prepared for any major emergencies that could occur.
If you find yourself in the fallout of a natural disaster or economic collapse, you are going to be juggling a hundred different things just to keep yourself and your family safe and fed.
One of the beautiful – and sometimes frustrating – benefits of chaos gardening is that it is so hands-off.
Since you are letting your local ecosystems steer how your garden grows, it is recommended (but not a rule!) that you interfere with your plants as little as possible.
This means minimal weeding, mulching, fertilizing, pesticides, etc.
If you’re an experienced gardener this might be difficult, but as a prepper, it will pay off in spades.
The time you would normally spend maintaining your garden can instead be funneled into other important tasks.
3. Learning More About Your Environment
If you are dealing with the aftermath of an emergency, you could be living off the land and your supplies for a long time.
In that case, you will need to learn as much as you can about your local ecosystem.
This includes the kind of soil type you are dealing with, rainfall levels, what grows well and what grows poorly, etc.
Even if you only try chaos gardening once, the experimental nature of this method means you can observe how different plants will interact with your environment, and find which ones struggle and which thrive without intervention.
From then on you can develop thriving low-maintenance food gardens, whether you continue with chaos gardening or not.
4. Anything, Anywhere
Of course, when you are responding to or preparing for a disaster, you must work with what you’ve got – and you may have very limited resources.
The beauty of chaos gardening is that you do not need to have a specific kind of soil type, particular seeds, or tons of extra gardening supplies to create the perfect garden.
Instead, you can plant anything anywhere. You are taking whatever seeds you have lying around – no matter which variety, or how old – and scattering them in the backyard, in garden beds, in pots and buckets, wherever.
It is a matter of making do with what you have, which is a hard reality in times of emergency.
5. Combined With Other Methods
Just because you want to try chaos gardening, it doesn’t mean you have to stick with it in every area of your garden.
Some gardeners prefer to experiment with chaos gardening in mixed beds kept separate from their more conventional vegetable gardens.
Chaos gardening is an awesome way to gain more knowledge about your climate, environment, and the seeds you are using, but it isn’t always super successful, especially the first time you try it.
This can be frustrating, especially for preppers who might want to utilize every foot of soil for food.
Mixing chaos gardening with “normal” gardening, or even bucket gardens, is a great choice for preppers.
It means you can experiment with this low-maintenance gardening style and reap all of its benefits while still planting necessary crops.
6. It Requires Less Space
Usually, when you plant a garden you have to take space into consideration, making sure each plant has an adequate amount of room to grow.
Due to the haphazard nature of chaos gardening, you are planting seeds much more compactly without regard for how much space each individual plant normally needs.
The surviving plants that grow in your chaos garden will pop up much more densely, meaning you are saving space in your garden compared to conventional gardening practices.
7. Less Water Usage
Just as you are saving space by growing your plants in compact clusters, you will also be saving on water usage.
Randomized plants that grow so closely together will have varying heights, with taller plants providing shade for their shorter companion plants.
More shade from these taller plants means the smaller plants will require less watering.
This is a great benefit for preppers, especially those who live in dry arid climates and who live off of water from water tanks, wells, and other water storage units separate from their local water supply.
8. Promoting Bio-Diversity
Chaos gardening is an amazing way to foster biodiversity in your backyard, as it encourages plants to grow freely in exactly the way they would in the wild, without intervention.
The plants that are the best fit for your climate and environment will grow best, but the randomization of seeds means you will end up with many different types of herbs and vegetables growing side by side.
This array of diverse plants will attract a range of different wildlife, including pollinators like bees, birds, and other insects and mammals.
Attracting different pollinators will be an excellent benefit if you are planting a more traditional vegetable garden alongside your chaos garden, and if you have a flower garden or fruit trees.
Increasing biodiversity in your landscape will help to naturally balance local ecosystems and make them more resilient.
9. It Requires Less Supplies
As we’ve established, one of the best features of chaos gardening is how low maintenance it is compared to “normal” gardening.
This will be a lifesaver if you’re a prepper living in a post-emergency or post-disaster scenario where you need to rely on limited supplies because you will need very few supplies to establish and maintain your chaos garden.
With chaos gardening you don’t need to worry about a steady supply of fertilizer to feed your plants, pesticides, and herbicides to protect them from pests and disease, mulching materials, or even the usual gardening tools you might use to prune them and till the soil.
Garden maintenance can be tailored to your needs and abilities.
