How much garden you would need to survive on(lifehacker.com)
lifehacker.com
How much garden you would need to survive on
https://lifehacker.com/how-much-garden-you-would-need-to-100-survive-on-1848829190
139 comments
Exactly, if this is for survival you'll need fencing to keep small animals out, and possibly something like a pellet gun to remove pests like squirrels from existence.
Then you have the effort of preserving all the food. The modern house isn't a great place to store potatoes. You'll probably want to can/jar most of it. I mean you could freeze it, but in a survival situation you probably don't have reliable power. Oh, and like you said with a dry spell, where are you storing enough water for the dry season? We just got over a 60 day spell with no rain. Wouldn't want to try and survive here.
Then you have the effort of preserving all the food. The modern house isn't a great place to store potatoes. You'll probably want to can/jar most of it. I mean you could freeze it, but in a survival situation you probably don't have reliable power. Oh, and like you said with a dry spell, where are you storing enough water for the dry season? We just got over a 60 day spell with no rain. Wouldn't want to try and survive here.
> something like a pellet gun to remove pests like squirrels from existence.
Despite living in the city, this probably wouldn't do much. They always come back. I have chipmunks that I have not seen in over a year and yet I hear them bark a warning call when I am apparently approaching their vicinity. I bet they have been at some of my tomatoes this year.
I have regular rabbits and this year, one or more racoons have moved into the neighborhood. I have seen skunks and wild turkey in my yard in the past. We have deer but they don't jump my fence since we installed the 6 footers.
The rabbits definitely do some damage, but one of them is my bud. He hangs out about 6 feet from me and eats clover while I weed my garden.
Despite living in the city, this probably wouldn't do much. They always come back. I have chipmunks that I have not seen in over a year and yet I hear them bark a warning call when I am apparently approaching their vicinity. I bet they have been at some of my tomatoes this year.
I have regular rabbits and this year, one or more racoons have moved into the neighborhood. I have seen skunks and wild turkey in my yard in the past. We have deer but they don't jump my fence since we installed the 6 footers.
The rabbits definitely do some damage, but one of them is my bud. He hangs out about 6 feet from me and eats clover while I weed my garden.
Living in London, foxes tore apart our hens, not once, nor twice, but thrice. Clever, vicious little things they are, and they are literally everywhere - screaming like devils in the night, whilst no one bats an eye.
This was a survivalist meme a few years ago. Bosnian guy posted something about his experience during the Siege of Sarajevo, and one of his points was essentially "you need more buckets."
Like, lots of buckets. Food storage, food preservation, cooking, water storage (drinking, washing, utility), and sewage. And in most cases you won't want a lot of overlap with those; your poop bucket stays a poop bucket.
Also jars, bottles, sacks, bags, wraps, blankets, etc. Unsexy stuff, but often critical.
Like, lots of buckets. Food storage, food preservation, cooking, water storage (drinking, washing, utility), and sewage. And in most cases you won't want a lot of overlap with those; your poop bucket stays a poop bucket.
Also jars, bottles, sacks, bags, wraps, blankets, etc. Unsexy stuff, but often critical.
I have seven raised garden beds in a typical suburban block, plus espaliered fruit trees. If I had to revamp to make a more concerted effort to feed us rather than just a hobby, I would build in a few things from the start. Probably at serious expense too.
Things like: permanent wiring and netting to keep out possums and rats, a bordering method to deter as many slugs as possible, frameworks such as tubes and hooks to convert beds to polyhouses or add shade for winter and summer. I have a couple of these things now, but they're a bit of a mishmash.
It's too easy to put in a lot of effort and end up with scraps because a pest cleaned you out.
Things like: permanent wiring and netting to keep out possums and rats, a bordering method to deter as many slugs as possible, frameworks such as tubes and hooks to convert beds to polyhouses or add shade for winter and summer. I have a couple of these things now, but they're a bit of a mishmash.
It's too easy to put in a lot of effort and end up with scraps because a pest cleaned you out.
I have tried two years in a row to have garden boxes in SF, and I’m now giving up. The rats are an absolute force. I have ~4 ft high boxes and they have easily emptied literal tons of soil from them with their tunneling. They love to burrow through the roots of every plant, killing all but the most resilient. There is also no stopping them. I won’t do poison, due to having a dog + environmental concerns, but even orthodox traps I can catch 3-4 a night, night after night, and they just never stop coming.
Could you have tried wicking beds? They might discourage the burrowing?
I'm also limited in poisoning because the neighbour has a dog. Rats live in our compost bin and are tough to keep out. Possums here in South Australia are protected so we can't trap them and they cause trouble as well. Lost all my garlic and chives this year to black aphids. Virtually no stone fruit lasted until picking last year. Too hot through summer or not enough bees for zucchinis to set fruit.
The things that did well are mostly herbs/chillis/etc that aren't exactly the bulk you live off!
Sometimes I wonder if the best home approach is growing herbs so you don't get stuck paying a premium at the shop, and maybe 1-2 other things for the experience and to share with family/friends.
I'm also limited in poisoning because the neighbour has a dog. Rats live in our compost bin and are tough to keep out. Possums here in South Australia are protected so we can't trap them and they cause trouble as well. Lost all my garlic and chives this year to black aphids. Virtually no stone fruit lasted until picking last year. Too hot through summer or not enough bees for zucchinis to set fruit.
The things that did well are mostly herbs/chillis/etc that aren't exactly the bulk you live off!
Sometimes I wonder if the best home approach is growing herbs so you don't get stuck paying a premium at the shop, and maybe 1-2 other things for the experience and to share with family/friends.
There are environmentally safe rodent poisons. You can even make them yourself, from stuff in your pantry:
http://www.ratpoisonfacts.org/low-toxicity-rodenticides/
http://www.ratpoisonfacts.org/low-toxicity-rodenticides/
Not sure if it is effective, but supposedly cat urine naturally deters rodents. If you could secure some used cat litter, sprinkle it around your garden perimeter.
I, uh, might just deal with the rats in that case :)
> Then you have the effort of preserving all the food. The modern house isn't a great place to store potatoes. You'll probably want to can/jar most of it.
My my area of expertise, but can you preserve most foods without a significant bulk of salt or sugar? Especially if you're talking about a significant portion of a year's worth of calories.
That means you'd also need a salt mine, a sugar crop, or tons of honey or maple syrup you make on site.
So much of "live off the grid to" me seems like fantasy. Or quietly ignoring all the ingredients you still get from the grid. Fundamentally, any western standard of life from the past few hundred years requires local and long distance trade, which means interdependence and a large community. This go it alone fantasy just isn't possible.
My my area of expertise, but can you preserve most foods without a significant bulk of salt or sugar? Especially if you're talking about a significant portion of a year's worth of calories.
That means you'd also need a salt mine, a sugar crop, or tons of honey or maple syrup you make on site.
So much of "live off the grid to" me seems like fantasy. Or quietly ignoring all the ingredients you still get from the grid. Fundamentally, any western standard of life from the past few hundred years requires local and long distance trade, which means interdependence and a large community. This go it alone fantasy just isn't possible.
You can have a cellar by/under a modern house just fine.
If we're all doomsday prepping, serious solar and a deep freezing rig is a must, same with water storage/filtering.
> You can have a cellar by/under a modern house just fine
The ease of that depends on where you live. I live in the southern US, so we don't have a frost line in the soil. Accordingly, most homes are built on post-tensioned slabs (newer) or conventional (older) foundations. There's also shrink-swell soil, so a poured concrete basement would crack (the slab floats on this, but walls would be harder to do). Just because of the topography of my lot, it would be hard to have an external cellar (and it definitely would not be as cool as those found in more northern climates).
The ease of that depends on where you live. I live in the southern US, so we don't have a frost line in the soil. Accordingly, most homes are built on post-tensioned slabs (newer) or conventional (older) foundations. There's also shrink-swell soil, so a poured concrete basement would crack (the slab floats on this, but walls would be harder to do). Just because of the topography of my lot, it would be hard to have an external cellar (and it definitely would not be as cool as those found in more northern climates).
Don't squirrels taste good?
I heard they were high in cholesterol.
Yes, they do.
I concur. This year we had a biblical plague of grasshoppers year through our area and eat everything.
I thought about this a lot during the peak of the pandemic. How much would you need to grow to not need to go to the grocery stores. But then I noticed, even for myself, if I eat 1 potato every meal, that’s over 1K potatoes a year. That’s a shit ton of potatoes. Include veggies, fruits, grain for chicken to make eggs, it’s really really tough to survive on your own garden. Makes me really appreciate our current food system.
People do it in parts of the world, generally referred to as 'subsistence farming' and not considered a desirable situation
I think it's really awesome for people to grow their own food but at the same time we need to have our eyes open - industrial ag is the backbone of our civilization, our way of life, and our freedom to do anything else with our time is dependent on it.
There are home gardeners out there who tout how much of their food they grow but curiously never seem to address that the bulk of their calories come from your industrial staple grains and starches.
I think it's really awesome for people to grow their own food but at the same time we need to have our eyes open - industrial ag is the backbone of our civilization, our way of life, and our freedom to do anything else with our time is dependent on it.
There are home gardeners out there who tout how much of their food they grow but curiously never seem to address that the bulk of their calories come from your industrial staple grains and starches.
People could grow their own starches but it's painfully hard to justify when you can buy them for $1/kg at the store.
Taste.
Can understand doing it for environment/sustainable/prepper reasons but do homegrown potatoes really taste better? Have grown my own on a hobbyist level and they tasted the same
I only did it this year. If you grow your own, then you can select seeds that are not comercially viable but they will be way tastier. A commercial farmer will ditch any seed for another one that yealds 5% more production. You don't have to.
I got some potatoes from the local market, from a region that traditionally is planting a lot of them. These were the best potatoes I had in a long time. They were more yellow in color, much denser and tastier.
I also got some tomatoes that were quite big, softer meat and very good taste. These kinds of tomatoes can not be sold in big retail chains because they are easily damaged by transport (soft skin).
I saw a documentary about seeds. A french lady was beeing harassed by different french institutions because she was mailing traditional plant seeds to people. In Romania there are still people that use their own seeds but we also have people buying the same seeds that comercial farmers use. In this case the produce will taste more or less the same like the ones from the big stores.
PS: I forgot to mention, my potatoes had deep "eyes" (roots) inside them. This means that they can not be peeled with a machine in a factory. They are not comercially viable.
I got some potatoes from the local market, from a region that traditionally is planting a lot of them. These were the best potatoes I had in a long time. They were more yellow in color, much denser and tastier.
I also got some tomatoes that were quite big, softer meat and very good taste. These kinds of tomatoes can not be sold in big retail chains because they are easily damaged by transport (soft skin).
I saw a documentary about seeds. A french lady was beeing harassed by different french institutions because she was mailing traditional plant seeds to people. In Romania there are still people that use their own seeds but we also have people buying the same seeds that comercial farmers use. In this case the produce will taste more or less the same like the ones from the big stores.
PS: I forgot to mention, my potatoes had deep "eyes" (roots) inside them. This means that they can not be peeled with a machine in a factory. They are not comercially viable.
Growing food is more sustainable, but if I can just 50 years worth of rice and beans or MREs, do I need a sustainable solution?
Out of curiosity, is there something one can store that would last 40 years (guesstimate of my remaining lifespan) while still tasting good so that I would actually eat it?
I've had boxes of emergency rations (add hot water to get some rice meal) in our house, but they usually just advertise lasting for just a few years.
I've had boxes of emergency rations (add hot water to get some rice meal) in our house, but they usually just advertise lasting for just a few years.
I've had some fun trying over-date packaged foods a few years back. Regular store bought stuff. Personal record: a >25y old can of fruit cocktail - still edible. Conclusions:
For dry / packaged goods (dried beans, lentils, pasta, rice, spices, toast, etc) you can basically ignore the best-before date. Sugar (or -syrups, honey) & salt keep indefinitely.
'Wet' stuff, as long as sealed hermetically (like canned goods, shelf-stable drinks etc): similar. Seal broken: all bets are off. Use eyes / nose / texture as indicator, or don't risk it.
Long storage of these isn't a safe-to-eat, but a quality issue. Taste, sometimes texture, and vitamin / nutritional value deteriorates over time. 'Wet' stuff generally faster. Up to a point where you're left with tasteless calories with 0 vitamin content (but still safe to eat!).
Also: say you have 5y worth of food stored. Then you'd need to replace that vast amount of food semi-regularly (like use 1y worth, give away & replace the rest), which is very costly. Or consume everything yourself (FIFO). In which case a 5y's worth store would mean eating -on average- 5y old food. Not to mention the cost/waste if that supply is somehow lost (flooding, housefire, bugs, rodents, whatever).
Imho a 1 month up to 1 or 2y supply is a better compromise. Modest space/$ investment & most stuffs can be eaten within their BB date. But enough for peace of mind or ride out a wave of economic / social mayhem. Add some vitamin pills if you're worried about fresh fruits/veggies remaining available.
I've grown my own food at times. And imho substinence farming is underrated. But as a hedge against catastrophy? No. Do it for fun, do it if you have a large garden & like your independence. Or prefer the organic-everything & knowing where your food comes from.
Otherwise just buy food in bulk & stuff it in cellar (or wherever).
For dry / packaged goods (dried beans, lentils, pasta, rice, spices, toast, etc) you can basically ignore the best-before date. Sugar (or -syrups, honey) & salt keep indefinitely.
'Wet' stuff, as long as sealed hermetically (like canned goods, shelf-stable drinks etc): similar. Seal broken: all bets are off. Use eyes / nose / texture as indicator, or don't risk it.
Long storage of these isn't a safe-to-eat, but a quality issue. Taste, sometimes texture, and vitamin / nutritional value deteriorates over time. 'Wet' stuff generally faster. Up to a point where you're left with tasteless calories with 0 vitamin content (but still safe to eat!).
Also: say you have 5y worth of food stored. Then you'd need to replace that vast amount of food semi-regularly (like use 1y worth, give away & replace the rest), which is very costly. Or consume everything yourself (FIFO). In which case a 5y's worth store would mean eating -on average- 5y old food. Not to mention the cost/waste if that supply is somehow lost (flooding, housefire, bugs, rodents, whatever).
Imho a 1 month up to 1 or 2y supply is a better compromise. Modest space/$ investment & most stuffs can be eaten within their BB date. But enough for peace of mind or ride out a wave of economic / social mayhem. Add some vitamin pills if you're worried about fresh fruits/veggies remaining available.
I've grown my own food at times. And imho substinence farming is underrated. But as a hedge against catastrophy? No. Do it for fun, do it if you have a large garden & like your independence. Or prefer the organic-everything & knowing where your food comes from.
Otherwise just buy food in bulk & stuff it in cellar (or wherever).
Stuart Ashen (ashens) has a YouTube channel that ventures into trying expired packaged food. In practice, it appears that sugary things do not keep indefinitely, though that might be because the packaging isn't designed to last decades.
Have you tried living on beans and rice or god forbid MREs for any length of time?
The MREs in particular as a sole food source is a punishment I wouldnt wish on anyone. I don't know how they do it but those things ruins your body.
Something to take into account is we are all addicted to food. You dont know it until you have experienced it. Eating when you wake up, then at lunch and again at dinner is terrible, it's very addictive making you eat more and more and more, with less and less satisfaction. You can eat less and be healthier. For that, faste 16 hours a day and try to eat all your daily calories in a small window of 4 to 8 hours. In other words, sleep, wake up, coffee and no food until after you finished work. Thats what I (more or less) do and it's just amazing. You dont need to go nazi on this either, it's self fullfiling anyway. I can tell im very healthy as a result and my relation to food and eating is different. I can tell Im way less addicted. I can tell when i see someone he's just loaded intestines on legs, which is ugly. It makes me dam hot.
I had been on half a litter of veg soup plus 2 eggs plus 2 sausages, some bread, some nuts. A day. For months. And I felt absolutely fantastic. Now okay its a tat too short, lack variety and all, and its to note i wasnt working much. I have since got more resources and been able to eat a more balanced diet. But this gives you an idea of what we are talking about here when we say you can eat less. You still need some amount of calories every day but its really all different on many levels and no chance you go on 4k calories for no reasons other than "youre hungry". This 16 hours fasting is marvelous. It's all about the intestines somehow. You want them clean.
Please adapt to your own situation, you may have physical conditions that could affect your ability to do that, check with a specialist.
I had been on half a litter of veg soup plus 2 eggs plus 2 sausages, some bread, some nuts. A day. For months. And I felt absolutely fantastic. Now okay its a tat too short, lack variety and all, and its to note i wasnt working much. I have since got more resources and been able to eat a more balanced diet. But this gives you an idea of what we are talking about here when we say you can eat less. You still need some amount of calories every day but its really all different on many levels and no chance you go on 4k calories for no reasons other than "youre hungry". This 16 hours fasting is marvelous. It's all about the intestines somehow. You want them clean.
Please adapt to your own situation, you may have physical conditions that could affect your ability to do that, check with a specialist.
with "half a litter of veg soup plus 2 eggs plus 2 sausages, some bread, some nuts"
you likely have a borderline underweight BMI and little-to-no muscle to speak of.
muscle is extremely important for maintaining mobility and independence as you age. with this diet, even with training, it will be impossible to build any. past 30, without outside intervention, humans lose around 10% of muscle mass per decade. what happens when you're 70 and can barely walk after losing what little muscle you have? best have a reserve...
muscle is extremely important for maintaining mobility and independence as you age. with this diet, even with training, it will be impossible to build any. past 30, without outside intervention, humans lose around 10% of muscle mass per decade. what happens when you're 70 and can barely walk after losing what little muscle you have? best have a reserve...
Metabolism also slows with age, calorie requirements correspondingly drop and so should food intake really. There's a reason (healthy) seniors tend to be on the skinny side. Also something-something-three-score-and-ten.
> There's a reason (healthy) seniors tend to be on the skinny side.
and the healthier ones are similarly lean but more muscular.
also, while caloric needs drop, protein needs rise as older people show blunted anabolic responses to protein and thus need more protein to maximize muscle protein synthesis
and the healthier ones are similarly lean but more muscular.
also, while caloric needs drop, protein needs rise as older people show blunted anabolic responses to protein and thus need more protein to maximize muscle protein synthesis
2 eggs, 2 sausages, nuts, and beans (assuming in veg soup) every day is quite a bit of protein for someone who isn't bobybuilding or powerlifting.
what, ~50g? that's barely the RDA. hardly enough to build muscle. there are almost linear gains up to 100g for most people, with further potential growth gains to be had up until around 130g.
2 eggs = 12g 2 sausages = 14g 2 handfuls nuts = 14g 1 cup beans = 12g
2 eggs = 12g 2 sausages = 14g 2 handfuls nuts = 14g 1 cup beans = 12g
Not a farmer but, I think potato yields are such that is achievable if you were dedicated to the task.
According to[0], a hectare (100m x 100m) should yield 25,000kg in a year. That's a whole heck of a lot of potatoes.
[0] https://savvycalculator.com/potato-yield-calculator/
According to[0], a hectare (100m x 100m) should yield 25,000kg in a year. That's a whole heck of a lot of potatoes.
[0] https://savvycalculator.com/potato-yield-calculator/
100x100 meters is a lot of meters to be "garden farming", it's not a hobby anymore but a part-time job.
And from thence comes the whole concept of "it's my job to produce way more X than I need to survive, and I will trade my surplus X for Y" where Y is something you also need to survive but didn't have time to do because of X.
It's way more efficient for everybody to divide labor this way than to have each household be its own independent and self-sustaining system.
It's way more efficient for everybody to divide labor this way than to have each household be its own independent and self-sustaining system.
Thats only in a day dream about how surpluses in the systems work. Read the history of banking. Wall St will show up and convince you to hand over surplus to protect it, and handle all the hassles of dealing with others who need it. This way they control the price others pay. And make sure they are in their debt forever or go bankrupt.
As my econ prof loved to say all models of the world dont assume there is mindlessly ambitious J P Morgan out there. And have nothing interesting to say about what to do about him.
As my econ prof loved to say all models of the world dont assume there is mindlessly ambitious J P Morgan out there. And have nothing interesting to say about what to do about him.
25,000kg (68kg/day) is a lot for a human to consume, that was just the scale given in the article.
Drop it by 2 orders of magnitude (10mx10m) and you are looking at 250kg /year. Which sounds like a reasonable amount both for a large garden and human consumption.
Drop it by 2 orders of magnitude (10mx10m) and you are looking at 250kg /year. Which sounds like a reasonable amount both for a large garden and human consumption.
285 kg/year was the approximate per capita potato consumption around 1900 in Germany, before pasta and rice were inexpensive and convenient, and disposable income broadly high - as of 2008, it was only around 63 kg/year: https://taz.de/Das-Jahr-der-Kartoffel/!5170413/
This article also reports that Niedersachsen potato fields (large state in northern Germany) produce an average of 45,000 kg/hectare, or about 18,000 kg/acre.
This article also reports that Niedersachsen potato fields (large state in northern Germany) produce an average of 45,000 kg/hectare, or about 18,000 kg/acre.
Sustainable food is steady work but not all time consuming.
Potatoes alone take 60 to 90 days to grow (weather and varieties) and 'only' take up two to three days of full work (at most) per bed per crop (split the above into (say) three or four rotating beds).
The work is to turn and fork grown potatoes out, and prepping | weeding soil at same time, and then (same time) working new potato cuttings with eyes back in - then cleaning and storing - as potatoes are consumed bits that have budding eyes can be cut out and set aside for planting next time.
If you've got a spare back acre you can pretty much swap gym time for garden time and stay active, healthy, and mostly eat food you grow yourself (location dependant).
Potatoes alone take 60 to 90 days to grow (weather and varieties) and 'only' take up two to three days of full work (at most) per bed per crop (split the above into (say) three or four rotating beds).
The work is to turn and fork grown potatoes out, and prepping | weeding soil at same time, and then (same time) working new potato cuttings with eyes back in - then cleaning and storing - as potatoes are consumed bits that have budding eyes can be cut out and set aside for planting next time.
If you've got a spare back acre you can pretty much swap gym time for garden time and stay active, healthy, and mostly eat food you grow yourself (location dependant).
Courses/programmes for people interested in this would be a boon.
And your back will be broken by the time you reach 60.
I'm already 60 - I still do agriculture work with my father who was born in 1935 and still gets up at 4 am and walks 10km before getting into the main work of the day.
His back's fine and he spent a decade on shearing teams.
Work steady, smarter not harder.
His back's fine and he spent a decade on shearing teams.
Work steady, smarter not harder.
And this is why the human race only flourished after being able to have trade and a division of labor.
That’s also WAY more than you need to farm - no household will eat even 10% of that total yield.
A hectare is 2.5 acres. Most people in the US don’t even have 2.5 acres to farm. The average lot size is far closer to 0.25 acres.
It blew me away when i learned in roman times it took nine farmers per non farming person.
I know in the US the percentage was similar all the way up to the early 1800s. It was 40% of the population in 1900.
I don’t think the rest of the world was much different.
I don’t think the rest of the world was much different.
Sub Saharan Africa is still mostly in this situation and much less productive in farming than most other parts of the world. They are slowly improving but they lack the capital to invest in more productive methods. If they could improve their efficiency it would probably lift a lot of people out of poverty.
Thinking of Rome again!
Anyway, I wonder how much of that was due to limits of technology/knowledge (they just didn't know how to grow more) vs. limits in social organization (they didn't grow more because it wasn't worth it for them).
Anyway, I wonder how much of that was due to limits of technology/knowledge (they just didn't know how to grow more) vs. limits in social organization (they didn't grow more because it wasn't worth it for them).
Is the productivity mostly attributed to improved farming practices, better strains, or mechanization?
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It depends on where you live. In many tropical places you can essentially grow year round and there’s enough natural fodder that goats don’t really need a whole lot of supplemental nutrition. Also you can have fruit trees that bear a lot of food with only a small amount of work. You can grow enough rice and pulses to feed yourself on a pretty small plot of land.
You can grow >20m calories of jackfruit on a single acre.
The average person needs <1m calories per year.
The average person needs <1m calories per year.
Yeah jackfruit, bananas/plantains, mangos, oranges, coconuts, a bunch of other local stuff basically just grows with almost no intervention.
I know people who farm for themselves and frequently have a surplus of vegetables on about 50m2 of land.
They have a surplus of vegetables for a day or a week (maybe they have too much lettuce on a certain day to eat before they spoil, or too many radishes, etc) but 50 m² is definitely not enough to be anywhere near self-sustainable.
I never said they're self-sustainable though ,everyone jumped to that conclusion, I' m saying they have a surplus of "vegetables", they have other plots.
You have to have a good soil on your land. I have acres and acres of land but it’s all clay. Tobacco is about the only thing that grows easily.
Clay is a plus/minus - it's good for dams, not great for directly growing ... unless you can carve out a trough in the clay, put drainage in the lower end, and start packing the trough with evrything that rots, kitchen scraps, hedge cuttings, stable waste, etc.
Do that and you end up with a big clay garden pot that'll grow anything.
Do that and you end up with a big clay garden pot that'll grow anything.
Well it requires a lot of work but not impossible, south east of France soil is fairly poor quality (clay and iron) but we can grow nice fruits and vegetables, it would need manure and green fertilizer to feed the soil first, and to rotate culture as well.
We've got a block here in W.Australia that had a massive band of thick clay across it .. after twenty years it's been tamed by cutting long trenches into it when it gets wet enough to slice into with a sharp blade (it's harder than concrete in the summer) and blending those big chunks with dry sparse soil from other parts of the block - midway between the two is a nice mix that holds water but doesn't set like stone when dry.
But yep, that's the game with agriculture, long term steady work to improve conditions, soils, drainage, mulch pits, septic lines, fruit trees, etc.
But yep, that's the game with agriculture, long term steady work to improve conditions, soils, drainage, mulch pits, septic lines, fruit trees, etc.
Howdy fellow west aussie clay haver.
I've got a video somewhere of me hitting the ground on our block with spade in the summer and it bouncing off like it hit solid concrete, crazy stuff.
I've got a video somewhere of me hitting the ground on our block with spade in the summer and it bouncing off like it hit solid concrete, crazy stuff.
The US Government felt that 160 acres was the right size to sustain a family, and so that is the size allocated to a family in the Homestead Act. On a side note, individuals in their own gardens cannot even remotely approach the efficiency of modern farms, so going back that direction would be counter-productive and terrible for the environment.
Certainly a family garden is a better use of land, time, and resources than a lawn.
Who said anything about a lawn? [Edit. And no, not certainly. It would be better for you to procure your food from someone who grows it efficiently. Being /good/ at growing food without waste is fucking hard, leave it to the experts. Now, if you are not looking at this purely from an efficiency standpoint, then things like aesthetics, mental well being etc. come into play and you should do whatever floats your boat]
The experts you speak of tend to just be simply putting enormous amounts of petroleum and chemicals and capital toward producing kilocalories. In the process they strip the ground of nutrients and deplete topsoil.
And we likely both agree that continuing to improve those processes is worthwhile and critical. There is plenty to be left desired with modern farming - lack of variety, agriculture as IP, flat taste, etc... but this talk of "home-farming" as a solution to the bigger problems is foolish. I'm not saying don't grow a garden. I have a garden with fresh vegetables, and I love it, but I'm under no illusion that it is a solution to any other problem than my desire for fresh veggies.
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Well, we're making some assumptions about self-sufficiency being desirable and/or necessary here. If we don't, it's obvious I should be making Javascript, not food.
160 acres was enough to entice some dopes to risk their lives, nothing to do with some consumption based calculation.
Please elaborate. 160 acres was chosen as it was seen as a self-sustaining number (and evenly fit into the T&R PLSS), but interestingly, /that/ wasn't enough land to support a single family in the arid and high-elevation west until mass irrigation came along. Given five years to make proof that their land could be self-sustaining, many families failed even with 160 acres to cultivate. Maybe those are the fools you are talking about?
> Maybe those are the fools you are talking about?
Well yes, its a number picked and agreed upon to serve the goal of conquering the western United States. It was self-sustaining in a sense because the west was conquered, hell we don't even have native locusts anymore. But at the individual family level it was not self-sustaining in some cases, and in others it was quite more than enough which was what I was addressing for OP.
Well yes, its a number picked and agreed upon to serve the goal of conquering the western United States. It was self-sustaining in a sense because the west was conquered, hell we don't even have native locusts anymore. But at the individual family level it was not self-sustaining in some cases, and in others it was quite more than enough which was what I was addressing for OP.
That is an interesting behind-the-doors kind of theory, that settlers were just being sent out as fodder in the name of conquest. I'm cynical, but I'm about an order of magnitude less cynical than that. I don't deny there was probably some moustache twirling somewhere, but most of the participants in enabling early homesteaders - the settlers, surveyors, assessors, state and federal officials - were just trying to help people pursuit happiness in their own flawed way.
> hell we don't even have native locusts anymore
Not unique to the American West
> hell we don't even have native locusts anymore
Not unique to the American West
Man you are not nearly cynical enough. This was following an American civil war. And, many decades later wave after wave were thrown into meat grinder after meat grinder of foreign war, these American conquest years were relatively much less brutal.
This article begins by saying that estimated land requirements are 4000 sq ft per person, but probably if you’re efficient you can drop that to 200 sq ft. That 20x reduction out of nowhere makes me instantly question the rigor here.
There are several trivial ways to get way more than that efficiency difference. For example, switching from lettuce to potatoes. A greenhouse. That's not what the article is talking about, but it's enough pf a thought experiment to show that it's not necessarily unreasonable.
Whether you have the required space or not, two other variables complicate any attempt to do this:
1) length of the growing season - Where I live, we have 5-6 months of active growth. Never more than 6. Snow covers the garden the rest of the year.
2) time - Tending your growing food source is one investment in time, but because the food does come in all year at a regular rate, you are forced to spend time prepping it in a way that it will remain edible until the next harvest after the snow melts. It’s a lot of time. We only have about 100 m2 for vegetables but we spend hours a week pickling, canning, freezing, dehydrating, cooking and freezing. If our yields were larger to the point of complete sustainability, it would be a full time job.
It's amazing to me how many people are so far removed from food production in modern times that they've forgotten what most of our ancestors knew, "Subsistence farming sucks."
I have a long-term goal of doing similar. Specifically, I'd like to produce as much food as 2 people need, even though we won't actually try to survive off of it. If/when I do reach that point, I'll probably trade/sell/give away any excess, or send it back into the ground as compost.
I'll share my setup in case anyone wants a real life data point: I have about 2400 square feet of garden (in 4 plots), 19 fruit/nut trees, a small vineyard, blueberry/blackberry bushes, and various animals like chickens. I also grow indoors during the winter and have an herb garden. I think we'll accomplish this goal once the trees I've planted in the last 5 years start producing full loads, but we're probably at around 40% of needs currently. Technically, I could probably get much closer now if I hunted deer, since there's huge herds in the area and I'd qualify for a DNR crop damage permit (allowing me to take many additional deer over the limit and out of season), along with other animals. I have plenty of space for additional garden plots too, but don't really have any more bandwidth for it due to working full time as a software engineer.
Worth noting that while I have this goal, I'm not really min/maxing it either. I "waste" space/energy on flowers, gourds, luffas, and other nonedible things. Also, this is just a fun hobby, not really something too serious.
I'll share my setup in case anyone wants a real life data point: I have about 2400 square feet of garden (in 4 plots), 19 fruit/nut trees, a small vineyard, blueberry/blackberry bushes, and various animals like chickens. I also grow indoors during the winter and have an herb garden. I think we'll accomplish this goal once the trees I've planted in the last 5 years start producing full loads, but we're probably at around 40% of needs currently. Technically, I could probably get much closer now if I hunted deer, since there's huge herds in the area and I'd qualify for a DNR crop damage permit (allowing me to take many additional deer over the limit and out of season), along with other animals. I have plenty of space for additional garden plots too, but don't really have any more bandwidth for it due to working full time as a software engineer.
Worth noting that while I have this goal, I'm not really min/maxing it either. I "waste" space/energy on flowers, gourds, luffas, and other nonedible things. Also, this is just a fun hobby, not really something too serious.
Do you have good soil on your land or do you need to bring in a lot of outside topsoil and compost each year.
I try my best to carefully manage it. All compostable biomatter goes into compost, with the only exception being anything salty. I also shovel up all the animal plop and mix that into the soil twice a year. I haven't done any scientific soil tests, but my plants seem to be more productive as the years have gone by, so I guess it's doing the trick. I have a lot of forested land, and my additional plan starting this year is to collect leaves, run them over with the lawn mower a bunch, use it as mulch during the growing season, and then till that into the soil in the Fall.
What’s your composting technique? Do you just put everything into a large plywood box and turn and wet it often?
I might go the standard box method at some point, but right now I just dig a hole in a bare part of a garden and throw stuff in it till full. Then I cover it up and dig another hole. Seems to work okay.
I grew in a family where we were self-sustained on potatoes. We had ~250m2 plot that yielded ~1200kg every year. More than enough for a family of 6, so we gifted/sold a hefty amount too.
What article doesn't cover is the amont of hard work required to sustain such garden. At least we had a two-wheel tractor that tremendously helped with planting, bushing, weeding and harvesting.
Harvesting is not a final step either. You need to let it dry, clean from soil and probably sort by size to pick ones you will plant later. You need a pretty big, cold and dark storage for over a tonne of food. You need a way to transport it to your kitchen. So work spent by us only on potatoes was ~400 man hours each year.
What article doesn't cover is the amont of hard work required to sustain such garden. At least we had a two-wheel tractor that tremendously helped with planting, bushing, weeding and harvesting.
Harvesting is not a final step either. You need to let it dry, clean from soil and probably sort by size to pick ones you will plant later. You need a pretty big, cold and dark storage for over a tonne of food. You need a way to transport it to your kitchen. So work spent by us only on potatoes was ~400 man hours each year.
What sort of things were you making with the potatoes? Just to get a picture of what the family ate, and accompanied it with. Did you and any siblings find it miserable or did you cope well?
How did you address disease being introduced when resowing? I usually buy accredited seed potatoes because if I sow the eyes from old potatoes, sometimes by the time I'm harvesting, I find that the inside is diseased.
How did you address disease being introduced when resowing? I usually buy accredited seed potatoes because if I sow the eyes from old potatoes, sometimes by the time I'm harvesting, I find that the inside is diseased.
> What sort of things were you making with the potatoes? Just to get a picture of what the family ate, and accompanied it with.
In the country I'm from potato is the main ingredient in traditional cuisine (you could try to guess what country it is):
- potato in any form: baked, boiled, fried, mashed; often with cutlets/baked fish/beans and onions
- various soups with chicken/meatballs and vegetables
- potato pancakes[1]
- some salads where potato is a main ingredient[2]
I might've missed some, but in our family we basically ate boiled potatoes every dinner.
> Did you and any siblings find it miserable or did you cope well?
Yes, both miserable from eating it so often, and from having to help in the vegetable garden (it was forced by our parents). 8 year later, I still feel oversaturated by eating it and I consume it not very often.
> How did you address disease being introduced when resowing?
We collected potato beetles by hand... I still remember half-cut 1L bottles with them.
Some chemicals existed at that time, but we never used it, probably because parents thought that they might be harmful for humans...
> ...I find that the inside is diseased
Surprisingly, not much tubers were diseased or rotten.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_pancake
[2]: https://sweetandsavorymeals.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/p...
In the country I'm from potato is the main ingredient in traditional cuisine (you could try to guess what country it is):
- potato in any form: baked, boiled, fried, mashed; often with cutlets/baked fish/beans and onions
- various soups with chicken/meatballs and vegetables
- potato pancakes[1]
- some salads where potato is a main ingredient[2]
I might've missed some, but in our family we basically ate boiled potatoes every dinner.
> Did you and any siblings find it miserable or did you cope well?
Yes, both miserable from eating it so often, and from having to help in the vegetable garden (it was forced by our parents). 8 year later, I still feel oversaturated by eating it and I consume it not very often.
> How did you address disease being introduced when resowing?
We collected potato beetles by hand... I still remember half-cut 1L bottles with them.
Some chemicals existed at that time, but we never used it, probably because parents thought that they might be harmful for humans...
> ...I find that the inside is diseased
Surprisingly, not much tubers were diseased or rotten.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_pancake
[2]: https://sweetandsavorymeals.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/p...
I assumed Eastern Europe from the name? Your weariness of potatoes is a bit like mine with pasta - grew up eating it five nights a week and got quite bored of it.
My background is Slovenian, and potatoes are common for us also, though not really potato pancakes that I can remember. We had some great potato salads and soups though!
My background is Slovenian, and potatoes are common for us also, though not really potato pancakes that I can remember. We had some great potato salads and soups though!
? It's one of the most versatile thing you can grow
Potato bread, potatoes galettes, gnocchis, inside dumplings, soup, gratins, mashed, baked, fried, boiled, &c.
People eat pasta or rice everyday with no issues, potatoes can be used in the same way, if not more
Potato bread, potatoes galettes, gnocchis, inside dumplings, soup, gratins, mashed, baked, fried, boiled, &c.
People eat pasta or rice everyday with no issues, potatoes can be used in the same way, if not more
Yes, I know, which is why I was curious about specific examples from their culture. I wasn't expressing shock that it would be used a lot.
When was this out of interest? And why did you do it?
My back-of-an-envelope maths tells me your family worked for approximately £2 per hour, though I imagine if this was a few decades ago that would be worth a lot more.
My back-of-an-envelope maths tells me your family worked for approximately £2 per hour, though I imagine if this was a few decades ago that would be worth a lot more.
It was from mid 80s until 2015. In the early days, living was pretty poor and having a stash of food was neccesary. Later, since 00s, it was probably more of a psychological inertia to continue, although planted volumes were reduced quite a bit.
I think your math is skewed to a higher end because there potato is (and probably was) significantly cheaper than in US or EU (today it is ~4 times cheaper, 0.7$/kg).
Even though, considering todays mean salary there (5$/hr), 2$/hr is not that bad for such job...
I think your math is skewed to a higher end because there potato is (and probably was) significantly cheaper than in US or EU (today it is ~4 times cheaper, 0.7$/kg).
Even though, considering todays mean salary there (5$/hr), 2$/hr is not that bad for such job...
I’m no farmer, but 200 square feet feels way too small. Really?
I'm a home gardener and find that estimate hilarious.
Even if you just grew potatoes you would likely be starving.
Even if you just grew potatoes you would likely be starving.
I can't see how you'd have a chance. Isn't that 3x6 metres?! Literally everything would have to be perfectly efficient and go right without weather incidents, pests, etc. And I think you'd still need to supplement it, or have some miserly meals.
I did some math. Assuming a human male needs around 3000 KCal per day, it sums up to around 1,095,000 KCal per year. Potato is one of the most calory dense, as 1 acre produces 17.8 M KCal (found online).
So, one person will need 1 Acre (43560 sq feet) / (17.8 / 1.095) = 2679.6741573 sq feet of potatoes. Which will be 248.8872 sq meters (10 by 20 meters field).
It is either my math is wrong, or article is wron by order of magnitude
So, one person will need 1 Acre (43560 sq feet) / (17.8 / 1.095) = 2679.6741573 sq feet of potatoes. Which will be 248.8872 sq meters (10 by 20 meters field).
It is either my math is wrong, or article is wron by order of magnitude
I wonder if this is more feasible doing something like what Freight Farms[0] does with hydroponics and farming vertically.
[0] https://www.freightfarms.com/
[0] https://www.freightfarms.com/
I think we'll eventually see non-commercial ventures use a mixture of vertical/hydroponics and typical gardening. Pointless using up ground space growing lettuces if you can do it vertically in another part of your garden. But then there are other useful crops that don't suit that approach at all.
I could see this developed into an efficient garden with 3-4 shipping container sized portions running west-east with the most opaque at the rear to avoid blocking winter sun. Maybe something like: [1] enclosed and controlled space with vertical farming, grow lights, solar panels, heat pads, etc, [2] glasshouse with summer ventilation and hydroponic buckets and tubes/shelves, [3] open wicking beds with framework for climbing plants or shading, etc.
I could see this developed into an efficient garden with 3-4 shipping container sized portions running west-east with the most opaque at the rear to avoid blocking winter sun. Maybe something like: [1] enclosed and controlled space with vertical farming, grow lights, solar panels, heat pads, etc, [2] glasshouse with summer ventilation and hydroponic buckets and tubes/shelves, [3] open wicking beds with framework for climbing plants or shading, etc.
What about a middle solution like a greenhouse.
100% the way to go IMO, because with outdoor farming, all sorts of things can fuck up your entire crop and leave you starving for months. The reliance on externally-developed technology is a risk however.
A greenhouse or similar tech reduces many risks but it's an "all eggs in one basket" situation. A single pest or disaster can wipe out the entire greenhouse.
Anybody interested in exploring this may enjoy a series of shows from the BBC on farming using the technology available at various points in time. The first series is called "Tales from the Green Valley" and uses 17th century tech [0].
There are many practical concerns related to timing and food storage which are not considered in the original article which you can learn about in this series.
The followup, Victorian Farm [1], demonstrates how much of a force multiplier industrialization is, but also shows how capital intensive the machinery is, and it becomes pretty obvious why large scale industrial farms are the end state for feeding people at scale.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Green_Valley
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Farm
There are many practical concerns related to timing and food storage which are not considered in the original article which you can learn about in this series.
The followup, Victorian Farm [1], demonstrates how much of a force multiplier industrialization is, but also shows how capital intensive the machinery is, and it becomes pretty obvious why large scale industrial farms are the end state for feeding people at scale.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Green_Valley
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Farm
You also have to preserve most of that food for the non-harvest months. There's a reason why famine was common and widespread before modern agriculture.
For a far more in depth look into high intensity gardening, with real data and realistic expectations, I strongly recommend
John Jeavons:
How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine
Wouldn't you need more than that per person for redundancy? I assume that would help protect against some forms of crop loss?
This plan lacks fats.
You can live without any sort of oil, but concretely it's really terrible to eat without fats.
And salt, of course.
You can live without any sort of oil, but concretely it's really terrible to eat without fats.
And salt, of course.
It's not just terrible; fats are essential nutrients whereas carbohydrates are not. You will die if you don't eat some minimum amount of fats. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_fatty_acid
Avocados have plenty of healthy fats. Their trees are quite beautiful and grow fast.
Totally nonsensical. Even from a basic energetic calculation it does not make sense. Assume:
- Photosynthetic efficiency (sunlight to starch) 0.5% for typical crop plants [1]
- Average daily sunlight of 5kWh/m2 [2] or 18MJ/m2.
- Daily requirement is 8700 kJ for adults.
With 200 sqft you will only get ~1700 kJ. Even if you a had a cow stomach that could digest the entire biomass of the plant (2~3%) you would barely make it.
And then there's the issue of where you will get any nutrient other than carbohydrates.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance
- Photosynthetic efficiency (sunlight to starch) 0.5% for typical crop plants [1]
- Average daily sunlight of 5kWh/m2 [2] or 18MJ/m2.
- Daily requirement is 8700 kJ for adults.
With 200 sqft you will only get ~1700 kJ. Even if you a had a cow stomach that could digest the entire biomass of the plant (2~3%) you would barely make it.
And then there's the issue of where you will get any nutrient other than carbohydrates.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance
Don’t forget crop rotation, fertility, sun vs. shade, storage, processing and lastly: salt.
I got deep into gardening during the pandemic, and wanted to live off the garden.... with succession sowing and varied season per locale, it's actually very hard to figure out how much to plant, when, and for how long. I actually built http://raddish.app/ to help me figure it all out.
I am in full agreement the thekevan -- I would take excepted yield and multiple by .75. Things just don't work out very well at least 25% of the time.
I am in full agreement the thekevan -- I would take excepted yield and multiple by .75. Things just don't work out very well at least 25% of the time.
You can grow an ungodly amount of potatoes in a very small space if you keep burying the plants up to their tips every month or so. They just keep producing more higher and higher up.
This article have a strange math... Except, perhaps, some tropical areas, we need to eat the entire year, while the garden produce just few months. As a result we need MUCH MORE surface to harvest enough for the rest of the year, nourish animals and so on.
There is no fixed dimension since it vary from local climate to local climate + margins due to weather variations year per year but just to get enough grains, nourish enough poultry and so on in temperate climate we need MUCH, MUCH more.
There is no fixed dimension since it vary from local climate to local climate + margins due to weather variations year per year but just to get enough grains, nourish enough poultry and so on in temperate climate we need MUCH, MUCH more.
This isn’t even accurate, there’s been better analysis written on this exact topic previously rather than some LLM generated lifehacker blog post.
The book Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy by Howard T. Odum is an eye-opener in this regard. Odum studied this topic for decades and presents some numbers how much energie needs to be spent to feed a person in different regions of the world. It turns out the cheapest to feed humans is if they live sparsely in a rain forest.
This is low-quality content. Can't believe it's so upvoted..
Perhaps people are upvoting because of the discussion it might create.
probably they just read the title and thought it was an interesting question so they upvoted
People are tickled by the idea?
Sometimes I wonder if much of HN couldn't be replaced by automatically seeded and periodic threads about topics that commonly generate discussion. Every month, a bot starts the nuclear discussion. Every three months, it's the home farming discussion.
Along with auto posting every article from the blogs which are popular. There’s a bunch of blogs I follow, some I found here, where every post reliably generates discussion.
Just subscribe and post the RSS feed.
Just subscribe and post the RSS feed.
You position it as cultural spaced repetition learning.
Why isn't it considered to keep chickens?
If slugs and snails eat your crops, eat them instead.
In the UK, snails were brought over by the Romans explicitly as a food item.
In the UK, snails were brought over by the Romans explicitly as a food item.
1 acre of land can grow 40,000 lbs of potatoes. At 350 calories per potato you that is 14 million calories. If you need 2000 calories a day that is 730,000 per year. So one acre can support about 18.5 people.
Potatoes can be kept in store all year round, but do they provide all the necessary proteins and stuff those 18 people require?
No one food provides everything but potatoes are close. One guy who goes by th name SpudFit ate only potatoes for a year and his health greatly improved.
This year something ate the leaves off all my cucumber plants and they stopped producing after about 3 weeks. In 6 or 7 years of having them, that has never happened before.
One year squirrels overran the neighborhood and did the same to tomatoes. (The little f-ers take one bite of a tomato and drop it. It's so frustrating.)
One year I had to go out of town unexpectedly for 2 weeks and we happened to have a dry few weeks. Most of my plants died or were in bad shape.
Just off the cuff, if I were planning to do this, I would personally immediately almost double the size of garden I was told I needed just because I expect there would be a lot of loss.