Yardsmart: Survival plants

Crop failures, wars and natural disasters have preceded many of the world's most dire famines. To cope, every culture has reserved its own survival foods to sustain people in these trying times. Survival foods are not part of the daily diet, owing to cumulative toxicity, limited supply, difficulty of preparation or simply distasteful flavor. But when times are tough and the children are hungry, their nutritional value has saved millions.

Today's survival foods are those that were known to early Americans but have disappeared from our diet because of commercial agriculture. Planting them in your garden is just like filling a pantry in preparation for natural disaster. These four easy-to-grow survival foods are also just the thing for a bored foodie who wants something new to challenge the palate.

Fiddlehead. A northern rite of spring involves the gathering of native ostrich fern fiddleheads. Found across the Northern Hemisphere, Matteuccia struthiopteris produces tender new sprouts in early spring. They are akin to edible asparagus except the ferns roll up just like the swirl at the end of a violin neck, hence the common name. Sauteed fiddleheads cannot be eaten in great quantities like other vegetables, so they were never widely popular. However, they offer a solid dose of vitamins and fresh flavor after a long, dark winter of preserved foods. Note: Ferns accumulate heavy metals, and therefore, fiddleheads never became a cultivated crop and were limited to seasonal use.

Cardoon. Italians considered this thistle their famine food. A close relative of the artichoke, Cynara cardunculus is a tall, stiff-stalked perennial so resilient it naturalizes even in dry climates with poor soils, such as Sicily. While the flowers can be eaten, it is the long stalks that are stripped of their thorns and braised into a delicious celerylike vegetable. When grown in a garden patch, it serves as a gorgeous perennial because it is topped with luscious purple flowers. Note: The rather wicked thorns make handling cardoon somewhat painful, and the plants can be invasive under certain conditions.

Cattails. Wherever there is even the smallest water source, cattails manage to gain a foothold. This easy-to-recognize reed, with its cigarlike seed head, is among the most useful plants on Earth. The pith of the stalks is ready to eat right out of the ground, and it tastes much like fresh heart of palm. The thick, starchy roots, which can spread into enormous colonies, produce fine flour when dried and pounded. Native Americans depended on these plants heavily. For homes with a water garden, grow cattails in submerged pots. Plant in a poorly drained, seasonally wet low spot, as these plants can adapt equally well to both wet and dry ground.