I Survived 30 Days on Gardening, Fishing, Foraging & Bartering 

That apocalypse potluck really puts into perspective how important holiday feasts would've been for people before supermarkets were a thing. Most of the time, you'd be eating what you could get or trade for, but a few times a year you could get together with friends and family and really enjoy a bountiful variety of foods you might not normally have access to.

Man, the community aspect of this really shows how our ancestors depended on each other and our different strengths and weaknesses to fulfill the needs of the group

This is the part that some prepers and apocalypse movies skip as having no value but its the part that keeps everyone in the movie alive. 👍🏿 well done

The boiled rock 😂😂

There should be a set month where people throughout the country do this every year. I would love to be a part of it in my local area. It would definitely get people out there in the garden and get everybody thinking about the hard work and where their foods come from. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with us! I'm super inspired!

We recently added 4 chickens to our yard which has a garden, they provide 3-4 eggs daily and consume garden and weed scraps. In turn they provide excellent fertilizer, with very little expense or effort on our part. I heartily recommend chickens to anyone considering improving their preps.

My wife grew up on a dairy farm in Arkansas. Her family was pretty self sufficient. They did buy sugar, flour, corn meal, coffee and tea. Her mother did know how to grind corn and wheat if she had to. She also knew how to forage for wild food which they did that a lot. I feel that my wife could survive if she had to because of what she learned from her family. She still does these things.

Well, I accidentally planted a potato in my raised bed which I left alone this year to become an ecosystem. When I threw potato peels in for food for the worms and etc. There was 1 potato in there, it hasn’t been watered since early April, and it has been hot and dry for 2 months. All weeds died, the potatoes thrived. So I think potatoes are my goal for growing. Being resilient and adaptive is needed when you want a crop in the climate change, our weather is pretty unpredictable. (Btw new potatoes are starting to grow already)

As someone who lives in such a rural area in the middle of no where, my first thought was "this is such a dumb challenge" since all of this stuff is a bit easier to get (like hunting, fishing, farming) but as I kept watching I didn't realize all the roadblocks you have to face with living in such a big city like that with the space like that. Is is a true challenge. Every day is a different challenge within itself and it just got more and more interesting how you did it. I was absolutely hooked by the end of it and wanted more! You sir have earned a subscriber.

Now that your in your own house you should do another apocolypse challenge once your settled in your bigger space! See what you can do with all the space you will have. lots more potatoes, but lost of other stuff too now!

This is what I remember most from my childhood. My family was in a rough spot financially for awhile so we lived with my grandparents out in the countryside of PA and had a big garden that produced most of our food. We had chickens for eggs, and my dad and Poppop would hunt and fish for our main source of protein. My Grammy taught me how to preserve fruit and veggies through canning and pickling for the winter months and we always had deep freeze full of venison and fish that we'd trade with our farmer neighbors for beef and chicken. I'm almost 24 now and I can't wait to start my own massive garden again once I buy a home and leave apartment life behind!

That right there, is my childhood. I grew up in the village, post war conditions (during '90s), without good financial source. Growing food, having farm animals and helping out my parents was my lifestyle for a while. No internet, no social media, no advanced technology. I miss it, it was so much simpler and I remember being a happy kid without having much stuff and how united our comunity was. This video reminded me of that. Thank you.

I've seen someone do this as a vegan challenge but actually watching this one with eggs and fish seems more like something I'd eventually try. I'm new at gardening and I want to thank you so much for your videos.

You can try to barter some coconuts and use dry coconut flakes instead of bottled oil, they release their own oil and add flavour to the food

Cool challenge. Really shows how important community is. Even now my neighbor and always have something to pass over the fence. If everyone shares something no one should go hungry.

No wonder people in rural areas around the world revolve their lives around food...they HAVE to!

I literally laughed out loud when you boiled that stone.

Being a Solo *Lone Wolf Prepper gardener* is a fantasy..... *Community unity cooperation* is the True survival way... Did you get any food fatigue...(tired of eating the same produce) every day ??

21:51 This part right here really (the whole barter process entirety, too, but specifically this timestamp) emphasizes how important it is to have community. No matter how small, if one person each has a "specialty" in their home or garden that they can barter, everyone in the community will thrive no matter where you live. It's good for everyone to know how to forage and garden and fish and hunt, BUT if each person is slightly better at one aspect than the others, you will never lack, and in times of hardship, the community is there to pull you back up.

Have a question if you decide to do this again have you thought of bartering services for food such as helping someone clean the coop for eggs or helping a bee keeper chores for honey for example? So glad to see this video! Love your channel keep up the good work.

In my DnD games, this kind of challenge would eventually lead into someone trading blood to a witch for a handful of potatoes.

Sorry Kevin I lied to you I said you’d have 600k subs by Wednesday It’s only Monday...this is a result of how badass you truly are..congrats my guy

In a situation like this I would chose to only grow Pepsi and Cheese.

“I think I can do that” as I struggle to put down my chips and pizza rolls

I'm with you on preferring the mulberries over blackberries.

Did this back in 2018 and it was one of the most rewarding experiences ever. I was able to raise rabbits and had a garden to support what I foraged, caught and bartered for. I'm planning on doing it again this year and have an actual homestead to support it.

i would be really interested if you did this again, since you have a larger garden now. A season 2 of this would be cool, Love this concept.

I just started following you a couple months ago. Your short documentary was intriguing and compelling. I loved your ground rules. I loved your take-aways, particularly as it pertained to the value of mutually supporting, like-minded friends and neighbors. All in all, I felt very inspired! Thanks for sharing!!

This is so cool!! I love bartering and foraging when I can!! My neighbor lets me forage blackberries from her yard. I actually made a cobbler from some frozen berries from her yard the other day. Yum!!

Hope you guys love this, here are your timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:57 - Rules 3:18 - Body Composition Before 3:50 - Growing Strategy 5:52 - Day 1 7:37 - Grunion Runs 10:55 - Foraging, Bartering, Fishing 15:31 - Mulberry Foraging 17:48 - Silver Play Button :) 19:20 - Apocalypse Potluck 22:17 - Body Composition After 23:40 - Closing Thoughts

AMAZING. People like you never fail to amaze and inspire me. I'm only 17 but when I get older and expand my knowledge, I'll definitely give this challenge a shot someday. Nature gives us everything we need to survive. We just never notice it. Like the people at the park with the mulberry trees. How many of the people there even knew you could eat those? Just today I found out there's an elderberry growing on the side of my house. Nature is full of so many surprises.

You really hit on a topic that resonates with me. I'm helping put together a community food forest in my county, and I'm beginning to forge a career as a permaculture designer and educator, so the aspect of community really struck me in this video. My goal is to show people what is possible, and the abundance you all shared is exactly the kind of experience I would love to see become commonplace in our society.

This seems fun for maybe a week.

This was great, it’s not easy to grow everything. Good to have friends.

This is one of my favorites videos. I’m a pro-foraging, survival enthusiast. I am in the process of learning what’s safe to eat within my area (Tampa). I’ve been harvesting edible weeds from the community garden…well I’m still here 😊 my friends think I’m nuts but there’s so much food “just growing”. Thank you for a fun video. I may do a test run of 1-week just eating from the garden. I did an only cook what’s in your freezer and pantry. As a clean out and a way of not buying groceries for a week. I’ll do it again!!

We call green onions "gronions" so I was very surprised to learn they are a fish lol

This is great information considering the current situation, we may actually need these resources soon. Thank you!

this is how our ancestors lived before globalization and industrialization

Thanks for sharing this experience with us man. I'd love to participate in something like that sometime. It seems like it's one of those things where it takes a village to support each individual within it. Also, huge congrats Kevin on reaching 100,000! You deserve it!

This is so the way my Dad grew up. I love that you did this and shared it with us all. Just the idea of prepping ahead just makes me realize how important it is to "prep ahead" for whatever may be in the future. I'm just getting started really growing vegetables and it's so rewarding and I'm sharing with my 86/84 year old parents now! Cycle of life :-)

Mulberry trees as decorative foliage is something very comon in Brazil. My childhood memories are filled with long walks, eating mulberries with my friends and homemade mulberry jam. Hahahah

Very very interesting! I’m in Central CA and of course my first thought was how many people I know with fruit rotting on their trees and falling into their yards. So, I was all over the fruit, no problem. (And mulberries ARE delicious fresh and dried too. Great little nutritional powerhouse!) But, alas, we can’t live on fruit alone. I realized that I didn’t know many other gardeners that I could barter with. So I truly agree that living in community is the safest strategy, both from malnutrition and zombies!! One other thing that you said in one of the clips in passing, is that finding your daily food took lots of time! I don’t think the average person realizes the energy it takes just to subsist when you are, say, homeless. Or living on very few dollars/food stamps. When your body is truly hungry and your next meal doesn’t exist until you walk to find it, it gives you a whole new perspective on being poor. As always, I’m grateful to live in a climate that really does feed the world. Californians have an abundance all around them. I appreciate you walking us through your challenge. Great video & congrats on your RU-vid Play Button. Well deserved!

The stone in the potatoes reminds me of the fairytale of the soupstone. In that tale a traveller starts boiling a stone in a pot of water. He tells everyone he has a special soupstone that makes the tastiest soup. He allows people to taste it, if they bring some veggies, herbs or meats for the soup. More and more people add things. In the end the traveller removes the stone and everyone shares the soup full of good veggies. They have a lovely meal together. The next day he goes to the next town and picks up another rock along the road.

I would like to just say thank you for this, you really put the thought alot of us has been tossing around into realistic terms and scenarios. The value of community I believe was the most overlooked and underrated asset to surviving...and the boiled rock was hilarious

I'm doing my first attempt at growing this year and I've been showing my family your videos to get us all educated along the way! Now we're growing over 20 different things to see what we can do best!!! Love your content and I'm happy I found your channel!!!! Thanks for the help with my green thumb!!

Great job , what a great glimpse into a different and more socially healthy lifestyle! You can just imagine how people would see each other as family if this were a permanent thing. Any plans to do this again sometime?

Kevin you’re the only one i seen brave enough to attempt this and put their green thumb where their confidence and mouth is. Thank you for the family friendly content, the honesty and the willing desire to share ypur knowldge with ppl like me, My brother, my homie much live buddy 💪🏽💪🏽❤️

Very cool video and experiment! I am No professional, but being a fairly serious "hobbyist" powerlifter, can explain a bit of the body composition stuff. Your total mass is a combination of your body fat, lean muscle mass, water+blood and other organs (skin, stomach, blood, bones, etc). The "other" category is really consistent and not likely to change much in such a short period of time. Hydration can vary quite a bit in terms of your overall body weight, but hopefully shouldn't change too much if you're within normal range of hydration. Which leaves us with body fat and lean muscle mass as the 2 most malleable, most heavily studied, and most diet dependent components that make up total body mass. Body composition is determined by the interaction of nutrition (macronutrients and calories, more precisely), activity and genetics. We can't control genetics, so for the sake of simplicity, we'll ignore that as well. Essentially, what you experienced is what most competitive athletes fear most. You lost body mass along with lean muscle mass. The fact that your total mass went down does indeed mean that you lost weight, obviously. What goes along with losing weight, though, is also a loss of fat and lean muscle mass. Almost every time, unless you are training, eating, possibly supplementing, possibly juicing (the kind with needles, not fruit), and resting to accommodate a sustain of muscle mass while dropping weight. Bodybuilders call this "cutting", and when they do this they have to INCREASE their protein intake (animal based, usually, since the math gets very complicated with plant protein and is not as varied or readily available to the body, on average) while cutting calories AND continuing to train at very high levels. This process typically can't be sustained for much longer than a handful of weeks. So to clarify, what you probably experienced was in fact your body eating its own energy stores due to the caloric deficit you were in, but the fact that your fat percentage increased during this time means you were using up fat AND muscle for energy, and the muscle at possibly a slightly higher rate than fat. Trading more carbohydrate sourced calories for protein sourced calories (both equal 4 calories per gram) wouldve likely maintained a bit more lean muscle mass, more total mass, and may have dropped your body fat percentage a touch. Cutting sucks and it makes you feel as though you are "surviving, not thriving" as you say. This info may be completely useless to you, but I thought it may shed some light into your results. This is in no way a critique of you, your channel, or anything like that either. It's really cool and interesting that you did a body comp as part of this. Love your channel, keep kicking ass.

I love how you found a sense of community through this callenge! I come from an urban setting and now live in a very rural area. I feel a little different in this setting because I am a freelance artist catering mainly to urban folks but I have to say that in our rural area (this may be the case for others as well!) it's like community is our default. Even though my community is mainly interested in snowmobiles and hunting (which are both awesome!) and not so much in my work, it's as if community is built at a more basic level of unconditionnal support which might be less of a reality in cities. Good job for doing the challenge for a whole month!

i felt like i was w my friends at that potluck. really needed that.

It was really interesting to hear the bit about trading skilled labor (garden consultation) and something that isn't even food yet (rare seeds) for food! I never thought about bartering like that before. I'm not very good at growing vegetables but I can do a lot of textile things (mending, weaving, crochet, sewing, etc) which might be more useful than I realized in this kind of context

I don't understand your words when you said "so I don't go crazy eating potatoes" I could live my life eating potatoes everyday!!!

This was great. I've always wanted to do something like this.

Knowing what you know now after this experience, are you getting more of a food supply rouse in case of emergencies? It’s great to have fresh food,, but having grains, died beans, pasta, dried herbs and spices,honey, sugar, oil, leavening, bottled and canned items make emergencies a less stressful.

As an avid fishermen, I would have used the fish you caught to catch the bigger fish that were feeding on them. I would imagine larger fish were feeding on those small fish(can't remember what you called them) that beached themselves by the thousands. Catfish, bass and other larger fish love to eat those small sunfish. Something to keep in mind.

Great concept! When community rallies around you its a great feeling! This was cool to watch!

Loved this so much. It’s also an eye opener to what we are capable of doing with such few resources

May i just point out that the guy at 7:09 has some fabulously bushy eyebrows

I love this and I love watching your videos! I’ve only started watching about 2 weeks ago, but I’ve already learned so much that has helped out with my garden! You really are great at what you do!

Thanks for making this video, Kevin. Honestly what I've loved the most to hear is how you've connected to more like minded people and actually got in a rhythm with living the barter/self sufficient way. Isn't that how it's "supposed to be"? Trading in fair value, helping each other out and literally getting together? Beautiful! @epicgardening

This was really great and inspiring. It was good to see that this not only maximised your self-sufficiency but expanded your community as well.

loved watching , sounds like community was the best gain , I'm sure food sustainability is a process and of course bartering has always been part of the journey , look forward to seeing your next longer version .

I've literally been looking for this video the past month thinking I'd missed it but it's finally here!! Excited to watch and kudos to you for trying!

A dinner party with only home grown and foraged food is my deepest fantasy in life.

Great challenge/experiment, and thanks for telling us about fallingfruit. Too bad no one had avocados to trade for some healthy fats and serious calories! Having a community to share and trade with= more realistic survival, and finding the fishing spots was a good addition. Really enjoyed this video.

Can’t wait to see this!!

I was really looking forward to seeing this based on your Instagram posts previously. It was fascinating. My favorite part was the community support and what you learned. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!!!

The potatoes being your main staple is like what happens in The Martian by Andy Weir and later the movie with Matt Damon. I think I’m going to try to grow potatoes for sure if I can ever get this veggie garden started! Thx for the inspiration!

Foraging weeds is great too. Dandelions and red root amaranth are my favorite.

The only thing that grew in my garden this year were cherry tomatoes and 3 zucchini, I would have died lol

I get so much value from watching this video. The abundance of real food that we get from nature for our survival and health is really something to be grateful for. Thank you for the inspiration!

This is just brilliant! I admire your garden knowledge, humble approach, and willingness to do this challenge. Three months of lockdown this year with a real Pandemic. I’d be lost without my three raised bed gardens. I’ve learned much from your videos. Thank you!

This is great content and deserves way more views.

This was so inspirational! It made me just feel happy. Happy that you grew your own plants. Happy that you took the time and effort to make memories and give us something truly wonderful to watch. Lifewith2youtubers shared this video with me, and I gatta tell you, I'm happy she did. New subscription for you! I can't emphasize enough how great this channel is. And for any random people reading this..... Hi :3 Have a food ( i mean good ) day!

So inspiring Kevin! As you said the beauty in it is in sharing what you grow!

Love the update! I saw the start of this challenge a couple of months ago. I especially appreciate your reliance/celebration of community!

Hopefully this wakes people up and appreciate how awesome the system we have in place truly is.

At last! We've been waiting for this. Looking forward to just how tired you got of Norland Reds! :-)

Can you do a video on the best high calorie foods to plant for an apocalypse garden in the spring and the fall? I'm new to gardening, it's my first year. My focus has been on acquiring seeds to build my own seed library and planting foods that are high calorie, pest resistant or have a long shelf life. I will be growing the popular foods like lettuce and tomatoes, but I my priorities are sun chokes, strawberries, squash, ground cherries, root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, radish), and peas and beans. I have a very small back yard, so I will also be trying to grow vertically. I am very interested in becoming more confident and knowledgeable about growing food. I really love the resources you shared, I bet the kids would love to go on a grunion run. You should have taken one with you, they never get tired and they're so quick.

I guess the difference between playing apocalypse and real apocalypse is the aspect of prolonged fear and scarcity, beyond that moment. And the desperation of other people-- it's hard to barter and potluck if other people are struggling.

That was such a cool/difficult challenge. FYI; In a serious “apocalypse” situation, all those sources are gone within 24 hours.

This was awesome to see, I love self sufficiency. Think everyone should learn how to be more so. However as your adventure has shown first hand how a community supports one another and doing it in this manner really helps each other value what we have and what others do for/with us more. It's awesome man and I agree with others in this chat that it should happen every year and I would totally jump on board with this! It'd also be cool to see how someone with a whole family (ie Wife and kids) would fair in this challenge. More hands for work but more mouths lol

Wow, that was awesome! You did really great! How crazy that your body composition changed in that way, I wouldn't have guessed that. That was fun to watch, thanks so much for sharing and best of luck in your new home!!

This is awesome. Kinda shows the best version of an apocalypse. And I love it cause you're not glorifying it nor saying its not possible but showing its some work, you were still losing body fat, and need more time to prepare to do it well enough to sustain yourself on.

This was pretty cool. I'm wondering how your trade partners fed their chickens, if you know. They can get a lot on their own free range (bugs and weeds amd such) but they usually need grain too. As I'm finding out, grains are a fairly difficult thing to homestead. I'm trying amaranth right now, but I'd be interested to see what others find the best grain to try to homestead is.

14:09 someone trapped in his frig!

You should look up the blog - "No groceries for a year" by Dog Island Farm. A lot of useful lessons to learn there.

I love all your videos. The extra details like doing a BMI scan adds so much more depth

LMAO! I was getting serious Matt Damon on Mars vibes with your potato strategy

Amazing! This needs to be the Forever plan! I love this and wish I had a community like this. How can us regular guys with no epic channel do this?

This is so timely! Loved this and moving more towards a self sufficient garden as well. I live in the city so this RU-vid channel has been very great for my beginner green thumb! Thank you!

Awesome Kevin... right up my alley... just wish I had more people around me interested in the same... need more like minded folks around to share the fun of growing and preserving and sharing... thanks for sharing...

It would be interesting to see what your daily meals looked like.

"what can give the most which calories?.... I came with potatoes" Did you know... That's exactly what the writer of "The Martian" did? And thus, potatoes

Been waiting all year for this video! Thanks, Kevin. And from 100,000 subscribers to over 600,000 in under a year?! You must be doing something right - keep it up!!

SO COOL! Love what you said in the end about community. Made my lil heart happy

You forgot some possible sources of protein: pigeons, squirrels, quail, etc.

"A fellow apocalypse survivor" wait .... what

Amazing video. As a beginner gardener myself this has been really inspiring and wholesome to watch, subbed

What has just helped me, mentally as a gardener to take a picture or at minimum a 15 second video to garden. INSTANT GRATIFICATION!!