"North" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 14:11:23 -0600, "Bob Peterson"
said:

Lots of people claim lots of things. I would be inclined to do some
personal research before I would just my life to something I saw in a
book.
This type of farming is very difficult to sustain and takes a lot of
work.
You could well be in deep trouble if you were forced to stop work for a
week
or two due to injury, illness, or some other reason. or what if a storm
came through and destroyed your crops? or a horde of grasshoppers? even
a
herd of deer could decimate your garden very quickly.

personally I suspect you can do a lot on 5 good acres with a continuous
water source, but I am leery of trusting my life to such a small area.

I remember an old saying "Which can you spare more of ? Back or Brians
? "
I use the raised bed method of gardening. My total garden size is less
than 1/4 acres and I trow away 3 times as much food as my family (5 in
all) eat in a years time from this garden. Its a lot of work keeping
the soil good. Chicken wire and 2x4 frames keep the deer and harsh
rains from destorying the garden. A small green house gives me a big
jump on the growing season. Of course this is only a veggie garden, I
would need far more land to grow grain. BTW, for my familys needs, its
by far cheaper for me to buy or barter grain than it is to grow it.


You can grow a lot of veggies in a small garden, but veggies are not really
the bulk of anyone's diet (or at least should not be). The OP was talking
about going off in the middle of nowhere and relying entirely on his plot of
land for all his needs.

First off, its pretty silly as you will not be able to grow/make a lot of
things you will need (like clothing, drugs, glassware, tools, etc, etc,
etc...). These are things you will either have to stockpile or trade with
someone who can make them for you.

As for food, you really need reliable sources of protein. meat protein is
the best (although vegans may argue with you on that). Poultry and their
eggs, fish, and wild game are probably the most cost effective way to get
your protein. But you have to feed the captive critters and free ranging it
probably is not the answer. So you will need something to feed your
chickens (insert rabbits, goats, turkeys, whatever your favorite critter to
eat is). You either have to grow that or acquire it from someone else.
Growing grain is not trivial on such a small scale, in many ways its much
easier on a harge scale.. The scale is so small, mechanization is
impractical, so you are forced to work 15 hours a day to bring in a small
grain crop to feed the critters. You can also divert some of that to your
own uses, but then you have to grow even more.

The point I was trying to get through (and probably failed) was that the
more skills you have to have the less likely you are to be competent in any
of them. Intensive gardening is something I have a little experience with
and its something you spend a lot of time and effort on to grow enough food
to be useful. And if you have to skip as short a period of time as even a
week of tending to your crops, you may never catch up.

Before I would trust my life to such a scheme, i would want to do some
personal research - like planting a small scale intensive garden and keeping
track of just how much work it is, and how much food was gleaned from it.
Keep in mind that in the scenario you envision you will need to work with
non-hybrid seeds which have a lot of disadvantages compared to hyrbid seeds.
You will need to learnt te difference and how to save seeds for the next
crop. This in itself can be a lot of work. I have tried this as well - and
trust me the few dollars saved on seeds is not worth it, unless of course
you have no alternative. :-)

BTW - 1/4 acre sounds like a small plot, but its a huge amount of work. Its
about 1/4 the size of the garden we planted every summer when I was a kid.
We probably spent a total of 20-40 hours a week keeping it up.