permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <rmwj@soonernet.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Gordon <gordonse@one.net>
>Sounds like a lot of wonderful new additions.  I enjoyed the
description >of >your Front Yard garden.  You have an impressive
variety of plants >there.>How much of your household food do you
expect to produce >once your>plants are really bearing at a good rate
in the next few >years?

I wish I was organized enough to answer this question.  One site that
I have read pretty thoroughly is http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ , which
is the site of some folks who have done amazing things with a 66' X
132' urban lot in an order neighborhood.  They are producing nearly
2,000 pounds of vegetables and 600 pounds of fruits and berries in a
cultivated area of about 3900 sq ft.  For five people, that would be a
bit over a pound of vegetables and a little more than five ounces of
fruits and berries per day for a year.

So that's one real life example we've been looking at.  I think we
will end up with more production of fruits, nuts, herbs, and berries,
our primary vegetables will be greens and salads, plus onions, garlic,
and potatoes. Also sun flowers. I don't think we'll do any corn,
although I do have a small patch of agrotriticum, a perennial grain.

One site I found suggested a Gala variety semi dwarf, 7 years old,
will produce 40 to 50 pounds of fruit/year in a 10' x 4' space.

We don't have a nice plan drawn out, I'm digesting the "zone" concept,
which helps because it seems easier to concentrate on smaller building
blocks that somehow interconnect.  Because of our corner location, we
get a lot of light on our growing areas all around the calendar.  One
of the things I think about a lot is how that will change as the semi
dwarf fruit trees grow.

Robert Waldrop, OKc

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