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Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 22:34:12 -0600, "Bob Peterson"
said: "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. I agree with everything you said. I'm very lucky because my neighbor owns a deer farm. Plenty of deer meat, more than I could ever eat in 10 life times. I have set up an area on my land for wild rabbits to flourish. Its an area with small shrubs and wild carrots. I purposely place brush piles so the rabbits can have a place to hide and live. And it works !! One thing that a lot of folks forget is all the wild food growing. I live in the Patomic highlands of West Virginia, we have 6 inches of snow on the ground. Right now (at 11:45 PM in 15 degree F temps) I can take a 5 gal bucket and within 1 hour I can gather enough greens to eat for a week. They taste like shit, but tabasco sauce helps a lot G In the spring and summer, I can gather the same amount in 5 minutes and its much better tasting. (ya just gotta know what to look for ) There is a lot of edibles growing in winter, they just taste like shit. With that in mind, the best tasting edibles in winter are the things that breath and walk. If you ever get a chance to cook with "Lemon Grass", try larding a rabbit with bacon and lemon grass, Low temp bake for a couple of hours, its heaven. FWIW, Larding is when you cut 1x2 inch cuts all over the rabbit and stuffing the cuts with uncooked bacon or some kind of tasty fat G. |
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