Every survival location that I have seen developed by people who actually had any foresight at all involved planting fruit trees that were relevant to whatever area the location was at. One thing to look out for with northern type trees is the pruning styles will have a major impact on fruit yields later on, and then will have a major impact on how long the tree could possibly last without pruning.

Pruning the apple trees for example is an art form. Orchards doing them for maximum fruit yield will do them one way, and if they are left fallow a couple years without additional pruning of that particular type, they might as well be cut for firewood because the growth will be all screwed up. If you prune them like a big shade tree, they can live virtually forever, but forget being able to harvest half the fruit and what fruit you can harvest will just be so-so, but once that sort of tree is mature, it can go a few years between prunings.

Even if you cant't or won't get around to properly harvesting the fruit, the trees attract game animals of all times and that just supplements your diet. On my old property, we had a half dozen types of fruit trees and a pretty decent sized family of deer that called them home. I never shot any of the deer, figuring the grocery store being a good enough source of meat if there was not going to be a shit on the fan scenario, and the deer being comfortable hanging out on the property during hunting season meant that if I wanted to, I had the prize antlers just hanging out.

Thing is, the fruit trees are a long term deal. On the property in Oregon, they had mostly been planted in the 1970s. Stuff I planted in 2003 now ten years old is barely still alive.

I tried every alternative out there before just knuckling down, working the extra overtime and buying in the freeze dried food from Walmart and the long term storage stuff from the Mormon Cannery. For all the hassle of everything else, once I got past the six month supply I sure had a lot better attitude about no longer having to make excuses for not stocking up on the stuff.

The next big benchmark is the one year supply, then after that, "thickening" the supply to stretch it to more people and a little bit better quality food.