Your food storage plan should most definitely be supplemented by having an edible garden. Growing vegetables and fruits is a step in the right direction to being self-reliant and self sufficient when it comes to preparedness. As a prepper I have managed to grow and harvest time and time again endless amounts of fruit and vegetables that grow specifically in my area. Living in Hawaii you have the normal gardening challenges and dealing with garden insects is universal wherever you live in the world. My neighbor gave me excellent advice when growing fruits and vegetables. She said "always remember, grow one for the birds, one for the bugs, and one for you in any and everything that you grow." And with this advice I grew 5-6 times the amount of food that I'd normally grow because I know that not everything will grow and turn out the way that I might expect it to. It's better to have more than less and these days you never can tell what's going to happen on a daily basis when it comes to disasters. And disasters come in many shapes and forms when you least expect them to.
Having an edible garden gives you a peace of mind and provides you with a set of skills to take care of yourself and family if all else fails when the grocery stores shut down and are looted in the event of SHTF scenario. I'm no expert in what I do preparedness wise but I am willing and ready to be prepared and do what is needed to acquire the much needed skills to be where I need to be in a preparedness manner. And if someone needs help prepping I am more than happy to assist the person(s) where assisting is needed because the first step in prepping is being aware of your surrounding and having an understanding of what is going on in the world and how it affects you on many levels. If you have not noticed by now how unstable the world is and how volitile things are you better start waking up because time is definitely running out and real fast.
What ever the living situation you may find yourself in there are ways to start a garden at any budget and living space. You don't need an acreage to grow fruits and vegetables although that would be an ideal situation. If you live in an apartment you can grow things on the balcony in planter pots and or 5 galon buckets. You can also grow things indoors as hanging planters. Get a sprouting kit and start sprouting vege's it's really easy and always at your fingertips. You really don't need to spend a lot of money on gardening because you can always recycle things that you use normally in the home to start with. All those clear plastic containers that hold berries or tomatoes that you purchase from the grocery stores can be used for sprouting seeds and starting seeds. Seeds can be harvested and saved from your fruits and vege's that you normally buy and consume. Or you can also purchase a packet of seeds which run about a dollar a pack.
Start somewhere and don't wait, have an edible garden as part of your food storge plan. My food storage plan consists of canned goods, dehydrated, freeze dried, garden edibles, etc. I made it a point to always have a variety of different types of foods to allow myself in having options that will become critical especially if I'm faced with a disaster that will not allow me to get to any store for fresh vege's or anything else foodwise for that matter. Growing herbs in the garden is also an excellent idea because herbs will give you many options and flavors to chose from when making the same thing over and over again to eat because after awhile eating that can of spam day in and day out will wear out REAL fast. So you'll want to kick it up a notch and spice things up with lots of herbs and spices. Besides, they are easy to grow and you can dry them out such as lavender and use as a tea and they are healthy for you and provide you with other medicinal properties, many herbs do so remember to grow these as well. And a lot of herbs are insect repellents in and out of the garden. So it is beneficial to have some of these in the garden because they perform multiple duties that will only benefit you in the long run.
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