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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet?
  • Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:50:05 -0600


Excerpts from article - hybrid tomatoes? bell peppers? lettuce? Not me. And
how much zucchini can we eat? Can't we do better? And how much of hers got
eaten?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!
ROSALIND CREASY
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/Square-Foot-Gardening-Food.aspx?utm_content=10.22.10+FG&utm_campaign=FG&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

If more Americans grew a little food — instead of so much grass — our savings
on grocery bills would be astounding.

In 2007, I began to get lots of questions about growing food to help save
money. Then, while working on my new book, Edible Landscaping, I had an aha!
moment. As I was assembling statistics to show the wastefulness of the
American obsession with turf, I wondered what the productivity of just a
small part of American lawns would be if they were planted with edibles
instead of grass.

I wanted to make this garden simple — something anyone in the United States
could grow. I didn’t include fancy vegetable varieties; I chose those
available at my local nursery as transplants. I also selected vegetables that
are expensive to buy at the supermarket, as well as varieties that my
experience has told me produce high yields.

The first season (spring/summer 2008), I grew the following:

* Two tomato plants: ‘Better Boy’ and ‘Early Girl’
* Bell peppers, which are often luxuries at the market when fully
colored: two ‘California Wonder,’ two ‘Golden Bell,’ one ‘Orange Bell,’ and
one ‘Big Red Beauty’
* Four zucchinis: two green ‘Raven’ and two ‘Golden Dawn’
* Four basils (expensive in stores but essential in the kitchen)
* 18 lettuces: six ‘Crisp Mint’ romaine, six ‘Winter Density’ romaine,
and six ‘Sylvestra’ butterhead


>From April to September, this little organic garden produced 77.5 pounds of
>tomatoes, 15.5 pounds of bell peppers, 14.3 pounds of lettuce, and 2.5
>pounds of basil — plus a whopping 126 pounds of zucchini! Next time I won’t
>feel bad about pulling out those extra plants.

I figured the total value of my 2008 summer trial garden harvest was $746.52.
In order to get a fair picture, I also needed to subtract the cost of seeds,
plants and compost (I can’t make enough to keep up with my garden), which
added up to $63.09. That leaves $683.43 in savings on fresh vegetables. Of
course, prices vary throughout the season and throughout the country. I live
in northern California, and for comparison, Cathy, who lives in Iowa, checked
out her prices and figured the same amount of organic produce in her area
would be worth $975.18.

I started this garden to see what impact millions of organically grown
100-square-foot gardens would have if they replaced the equivalent acreage of
lawns in this country.

According to the Garden Writers Association, 84 million U.S. households
gardened in 2009. If just half of them (42 million) planted a 100-square-foot
garden, that would total 96,419 acres (about 150 square miles) no longer in
lawns, and no need for the tremendous resources that go into keeping them
manicured. If folks got even one-half of the yields I got, the national
savings on groceries would be stupendous: about $14.35 billion! So, a
100-square-foot food garden can be a big win-win for anyone who creates one —
and for our planet.

I have decided to keep the records from my 100-square-foot garden going
indefinitely. Last fall, I planted broccoli, chard, snap peas, cilantro, a
stir-fry greens mix, kale and scallions. This took much less time, as the
soil preparation was done and the drip system was in place.

Getting the Most Food from a Small Area

* Choose indeterminate tomatoes. They keep growing and producing fruit
until a killing frost. (Determinate varieties save space but ripen all at
once.)

* In spring, plant cool-season vegetables, including lettuce, mesclun and
stir-fry green mixes, arugula, scallions, spinach and radishes. They are
ready to harvest in a short time, and they act as space holders until the
warm-season veggies fill in.

* Grow up. Peas, small melons, squash, cucumbers and pole beans have a
small footprint when grown vertically. Plus, they yield more over a longer
time than bush types.

* Plants such as broccoli, eggplant, peppers, chard and kale are worth
the space they take for a long season. As long as you keep harvesting, they
will keep producing until frost





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