I had a friend who was an apprentice of John Jeavons that was growing
all his own food for him and his small son on 4000 square feet, in
northern California. I recounted this tale a couple years ago, but
as I recall it was about a half-time job.
A student at UCSC also tried growing all his own food using the
Biointensive method on 4500 square feet, including paths, propagaton
area, and compost piles (only 2500 of this was actually beds. You
can read about this in the Winter 1997 issue of The Cultivar.
As I understand it, neither of these projects fully utilized the
potential of our Meditteranean climate to grow grains and legumes
during the Winter. I've recently realized that I could grow most of
my food without irrigation if I wanted to do it all with annuals
(which I don't). Annual gardening is hard work, and my plans are to
minimize it.
What hasn't been tried, to my knowledge, is to grow all of one's food
by maximizing the area covered by food forests. These use
practically all the sunlight, resulting in greater efficiency and
less weeding. They also require much less work and inputs and
fulfill more functions.
These studies aren't purely academic. It is useful to know how much
land needs to be devoted to growing food, whether you live in a small
household, a community, or a town. Growing food without fossil fuels
will require labor intensive methods and minimal transport. This
means that we will need to assess the ability of our local land to
provide for its inhabitants.
Make the least change for the greatest effect and start growing some food.
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