08-05-2010, 09:12 PM
Bananas are a great source of starch. Combined with wild pigs, bananas harvested green make a decent meal that you can eat again and again. But bananas are not a good crop at 2000'. Coconuts are hugely useful, available year round, and a nice source of minerals for someone drinking rainwater as you likely would be. No coconuts at 2000'. Papayas are an easy source of vit A, will be ready to harvest in a year, but won't be happy at 2000'. At 2000' you are looking at sweet potatoes, persimmons, granidillos, litchees... More important to a homesteader than breadfruit is breadnut, a breadfruit with 30-50 chestnut-sized seeds. I don't think it would grow well at 2000'. For me the choice is easy, stay under 600', the lower the better and make bananas, coconut, papayas, chickens, sweet potatoes, taro, breadnut and breadfruit the backbone of your food production. If you can get your mind around killing guinea pigs, they are an easy source of good meat at any elevation. They are easier to raise than most other farm animals and as they are small, you won't need to refridgerate the uneaten parts after a slaughter. You can grow many colourful fruits at the low elevations to supliment your easy-to-grow things. But to be self sufficient you'll have to bring cinder to your land or rip and cinder your land. This will cost as much as the land but will still be much cheaper than land with soil at that elevation.