Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Growing your own food - all of it

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Pumpkin Lady <pumpkin@xanadoo.com>
  • To: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>, Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Growing your own food - all of it
  • Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:13:53 -0600

E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:
These kinds of conversations always make me question how much of our food I can grow. Jeavon's work is the only quantitative information I have found on our needs vs. what a home gardener can do, and I'm not optimistic that I can produce a healthy, diverse, year-round, diet.

You do what you can as you can. Do remember that you can do some stockpiling now if you have the money. I suspect that if it all goes pear-shaped, you'll have more time to put in new garden space then than you do now.

Most of us on this list are growing gardens; some are raising animals, but I'll bet most would like to have some discussions about what, and how much, we should be producing in order to feed ourselves.

What you feed yourself depends on what you like. >I< like winter squash. It takes up a lot of room for the most part, but it stores well and there are some bush varieties that are OP. I also like amaranth grain, good thing for me that the wild version is a local weed, so I will be playing with growing that this year and hoping that I can figure out how to isolate what I'll need to save seed that will produce good grain.

I could raise rabbits for meat, if I would eat them, but I know myself well enough to suspect strongly that I will be a vegetarian if pre-slaughtered meat is not available to me. I would kind of like some chickens or ducks, but I have some concerns about H5N1 (bird flu).

I only have about 10% of the garden space that Jeavons says I need, but I don't think I can add more than about 10% a year. Yeah, I'm ahead of most folks, but I don't think that's good enough for this situation.

Again, stockpiling nonperishables will get you through a transition period. Also, you should get seeds that will store and keep them in the freezer. Play with seed saving now as well, and you will be ready for when you have to be.

True, Tomatoes are the #1 market garden item, but they don't offer many calories. I've never eaten a Turnip, or many other root crops. Beans, squash, greens, tomatoes. Corn is not a good use of space. What else?

Get small packs of seeds and experiment, find what you like that grows well for you and then look up the nutritional values. See what you can do towards getting fruit trees/bushes and learning how to preserve your harvest. Tomatoes may not have a lot of calories, but they are the basis for a lot of soups and cooking that we do these days. They are very worthwhile for that alone.

Look thorough old books and old cookbooks to see what people used to eat in the days before frozen foods and year round "fresh" fruits. Learn to can if you don't already know how.

Look into a winter garden. See what you can grow in a cold frame or, if you have one, see what you can make produce in a small greenhouse. I have heard that you can "heat" a greenhouse with rabbits. If you can slaughter and eat them, that would be 3 things you could do with them - poo for gardens, heat for greenhouse in winter, and meat. If I spun fiber, I'd get angora rabbits and use them for that.

Look into expanding in to "non traditional" uses of foods. I hate okra, but I am going to grow some and grind the seed into flour and see if I like to eat it in breads.

There are some "fruits" that are annuals, garden huckleberries have been improved to the point the fruit can be eaten raw (old varieties have to be cooked).

There's all kinds of stuff out there. We just have to find it again. :-)

Happy growing!
Morgan




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page