"David Hill" wrote in message ...
"...........In the US we produce easily 2 tons of wheat per
acre, which will cover the caloric needs of 7........."

You might do this on 100 acre fields where the birds are spoiled for choice,
but you try a small plot of grain and see just how much the birds have.

You may or may not be right. My birds even ignore the winter feeder I
put out for them, and 10 lbs of bird food go unfinished (and I live in
a place with plentiful wildlife) over the winter. As far as I can
tell, at my place the birds will eat seed only under extreme need -
they need the bugs more, and can find them even when the ground is
frozen (winter berries are also reltively plentiful). The squirrels
don't ignore the seeds, though, so I agree that one would have to
continuously kill & eat squirrels to save the crop. So, 1/4 acre
instead of 1/6?

"Tallgrass" wrote in message
om...
When it came canning time (it) was weeks of very hard hot work to
'put up'
hundreds of quarts or pints of fruits and vegitables. This is serious
business since we didn't buy any canned goods.

And for this, one needs a steady source of cooking flame, a pressure
cooker, a source of clean water, a large container capable of holding
multiple Mason jars, MULTIPLE Mason jars with matching seals and
rings, storage space, and a good place to wash and dry everything in
the first place.

some things like tomatoes can be canned in a boiling water bath, but most
will indeed need a pressure cooker.


Or one can blanch most fruits/veggies and freeze them, but then one
needs similar equipment as above, plus refrigeration/freezing, and
suitable containers.

Don't forget what the ambient temperatures are when all these foods
ripen and need to be preserved over that hot cookstove, either.

Linda H., veteran observer of canning

"BernadetteTS" wrote in message
...
Ian Stirling wrote in message
...
In misc.survivalism Down Under On The Bucket Farm
wrote:
Hi Everybody,

I am working on long-term plans for self-sufficiency, oriented to
buying some bare land and building an off-grid house, rainwater
catchment, composting toilet, etc, etc.

One issue is the question of how much physical space would be
needed to grow enough food to completely support myself?

Kains wrote "5 Acres and Independence"

This is a reprint of a post WW2 get out of the city and back to the land
overview. It was also republished as The Mother Earth News issue #2;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3572219710

I seem to recall a 5 acre section of fast growing hybrid poplars would
supply an annual supply of firewood on a sustainable basis.

It kind of depends on how much you need. Some of these claims are based on
very small housing units. I suppose if you had very well insulated and
tight housing you might get by as well. You still have to cut and split the
wood, which is a major chore in itself, even with power tools like a
chainsaw and splitter to help you.


Another title I recall is Independence on a 5 acre farm.

Like any plan of this type, it all depends on the source of fresh water
as the #1 factor.

Bernadette

"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"Bob Peterson" wrote in message
...
"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"Bob Peterson" wrote in message
...

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.


such a small area? In the US we produce easily 2 tons of wheat per
acre, which will cover the caloric needs of 7. Given that 90% of the
acreage is for feed,
we have much less than an acre per person to live on.

true, but this is using highly mechanized farming, specialty chemicals,
and
hybrid seeds. what was being discussed was subsistence farming using
all
manual labor. a radically different idea.

not sure I agree. On 1/6 acre, you can do things manually and
organically and still produce 300 kg over one year, and one can
certainly use hybrid seeds. As a matter of fact, in the best places we
do more like 4 tons per acre, so even if you want to save your own
seeds and use older varieties there is room for error. We have been
doing tons per acre for a long long time. Also, 300 kg of wheat are,
what, 60-70 bucks? I don't see the need to farm five acres in the
expectation of losing 97% of the crop. The guy has another job
apparently.

If one is willing to buy the wheat, why waste time planting a garden? other
then for the enjoyment of the fresh veggies. he is in a business where his
time spent on such a garden is worth 10 to 100 times the value of the
veggies he could grow.

Also try and get a a trio of dairy goats. A Buck and two does.
They will supply you with meat and milk, as well as goat hide
which makes excellent leather for jackets and gloves. They drink
al most no water and prefer to eat brush and bushes. (Your rose
garden is a great feast for them). The will also bleat at
anyone coming on the property including you.

the Independent


JMartin wrote:

Try ducks instead of chickens for eggs. They forage more on their own and
some breeds (Khaki Campbells) lay just as well as chickens. Geese are
excellent foragers, but they don't lay for very long.

I've found ducks to be more hardy, less likely to get sick, but messier.

Jena

On 8 Dec 2003 14:42:04 GMT, "JMartin"
wrote:


. Geese are
excellent foragers, but they don't lay for very long.


Good watchdogs, too. You don't want to walk into a goose filled
farmyard when the family's not home. You stand at the edge of the
yard and wait to see if anyone comes out. If not, you go away. The
geese like it that way...
--
rbc: vixen Fairly harmless

Hit reply to email.
Though I'm very slow to respond.
http://www.visi.com/~cyli

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 18:50:34 -0600, "Bob Peterson"
said:


"BernadetteTS" wrote in message
...
Ian Stirling wrote in message
...
In misc.survivalism Down Under On The Bucket Farm
wrote:
Hi Everybody,

I am working on long-term plans for self-sufficiency, oriented to
buying some bare land and building an off-grid house, rainwater
catchment, composting toilet, etc, etc.

One issue is the question of how much physical space would be
needed to grow enough food to completely support myself?

Kains wrote "5 Acres and Independence"

This is a reprint of a post WW2 get out of the city and back to the land
overview. It was also republished as The Mother Earth News issue #2;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3572219710

I seem to recall a 5 acre section of fast growing hybrid poplars would
supply an annual supply of firewood on a sustainable basis.

It kind of depends on how much you need. Some of these claims are based on
very small housing units. I suppose if you had very well insulated and
tight housing you might get by as well. You still have to cut and split the
wood, which is a major chore in itself, even with power tools like a
chainsaw and splitter to help you.

Hard work is good for the soul. I cut all the wood I need for 1 winter
in about two to three weeks


Another title I recall is Independence on a 5 acre farm.

Like any plan of this type, it all depends on the source of fresh water
as the #1 factor.

Bernadette

"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...


Excellent idea. Without such you will be subject to seasonal
feast/famine even with good preserving techniques.

David

Since the original poster was posting from subtropical Australia, I
doubt it. One just has to have winter vegetables, and things like
grains and beans.

Not really, he said

"I live in New Zealand, with plenty of rain in winter, but also
reasonable sunshine in summer."

New Zealand is not subtropical. Broadly, the North Island is warm(ish)
temperate and the South Island is cool temperate. This may assist:

http://www.liddlewonder.co.nz/zones/

But that point aside even if he was in one of the subtropical parts of
Australia (the West Island as our cousins over the Tasman like to put
it) you cannot grow
summer veges there all year around, there is still a glut in late
summer/ early autumn. Some sort of green house will extend the season
for warm season veges quite a bit and give a wider choice of what to
grow.

Your point about also using cool season veges is of course correct but,
speaking personally, you can only stomach so many meals of beans and
brassicas!

David

You might try finding some information on Eustace Conway. He spent 20 years
in the Carolina woods living off the land. No, electric, no running water.
I know there are books about him, but don't know how explicit they are about
how he actually lived. By the way, this wasn't like 100 years ago, it was
the 80s and 90s.



"Down Under On The Bucket Farm" wrote in message
...
Hi Everybody,

I am working on long-term plans for self-sufficiency, oriented to
buying some bare land and building an off-grid house, rainwater
catchment, composting toilet, etc, etc.

One issue is the question of how much physical space would be
needed to grow enough food to completely support myself?

I am willing to eat anything that is healthy, preferably
remaining vegetarian (although I am quite willing to have
chickens for eggs, and perhaps a goat for milk.)

This would involve one person living alone, in decent physical
condition, willing to do hard work and learn whatever is needed.

I realise that the yearly food yield will have to be spread out
via preserving, canning, etc.

My "day job" can be done remotely, via wireless Internet
connection, with flexible hours, thus leaving time and
opportunity for extensive gardening/farming, etc.

I do understand the risk of, for example, having a bad year, bad
weather, etc, and so would have money set aside to buy food in
that case. But the plan is to avoid that if at all possible.

I live in New Zealand, with plenty of rain in winter, but also
reasonable sunshine in summer.

So... How many acres of flat, farm-able land will I need?


Thanks in advance!

-V.

--
Guide To DIY Living
http://www.self-reliance.co.nz
(Work in progress)

"Steve" wrote in message ...
Thanks Linda,

Then what I remembered from 60+ years ago wasn't a flash back to 'Little
House'. That really was my Mother sweeting over the wood stove on a hot
August day after day after day.. Then going into tears when half the tomato
jars burst their top.

It is/was a rough life and I'm glad that I can now live in the woods, can't
see any utility lines (cause their underground), have running water from a
community well and with my social secruity and a small military pension I
eat very well without a garden.. Ya see I worked hard all my life for the
military and others and earned/paid into a pension plan that allows me to
retire in comfort in the woods.

Not to say there is anything wrong with hard work, but some of us are more
inclined to work in society and in the end have what we want while others
want to flee from society and work directly for what they want. In the end,
let's hope that we both can eventually relax and enjoy the fruits of our
individual labor.

Steve

Me, I would like to have my cake and eat it too!!!...Work for society
some 8-10h per day, then flee to my pieces of pasture and
oak-hickory-walnut woods (almost fergot the osage oranges!). While
I've put in my share of 43 hour days, I would retire if my age
qualified me and I had the resources upon which to retire!
Alas...another decade of toil for me.

Those canning memories are quite fresh for me, my mother of
seventy-something having canned pears this summer. Air conditioning
made a WORLD of difference from the days when my grandmother would put
up stringbeans - usually coming due in ?June or so (northern
hemisphere {{;-q ). She would work in the morning hours, since it was
a bit cooler, and we would have picked, and picked over, the beans the
night before. Hot, Hot work, sweat poured, frustrations eventually
erupted like a volcano, as you have described. And when those jars DO
explode....!! You best hope the cover is still on the pressure
cooker/pans, or a towel over the batch as it rests on the countertop!

It is nice to have the veggies and fruit in the dead of winter, I
agree. To have to depend upon this for my survival, though, is more
than my already decrepit bones can imagine. Automation and freezing,
I hope, will allow me to put in a garden next spring, maintain it, and
store some of the produce. If not, more able-bodied sorts will get to
help in return for produce!

ttfn....
Linda H., third generation gardener

lid wrote in message . ..
On 8 Dec 2003 14:42:04 GMT, "JMartin"
wrote:

. Geese are
excellent foragers, but they don't lay for very long.

Good watchdogs, too. You don't want to walk into a goose filled
farmyard when the family's not home. You stand at the edge of the
yard and wait to see if anyone comes out. If not, you go away. The
geese like it that way...

Before my time, my great aunt had the gammish of barnyard fowl on
their 300 some acre farm in northern Illinois, including a goose or
two. The gander, so it is told, bit my aunt on the hip one fine
weekday.

He was Sunday's dinner that following weekend!

Linda H.

"simy1" wrote in message

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Excellent idea. Without such you will be subject to seasonal
feast/famine even with good preserving techniques.

David

Since the original poster was posting from subtropical Australia,

Not so. The poster was from New Zealand.

"Dwight Sipler" wrote in message


(snip)However, there is a
book, written probably in the 1940's (judging from the illustrations),
called "5 Acres and Independence", author's name escapes me at the
moment, but I think it starts with a K.

John Seymour who is British wrote a very similar one with an almost
identical title. I think it was "Indepencce on (and?) 5 acres".

Here is an interesting list of self sufficiency books:
http://home.earthlink.net/~tabletoph.../booklist.html
although I would recommend that you use books which relate specifically to
either NZ or Aus as the British and American books tend to concentrate on
some things (eg 'canning') that don't relate well to the Southern
Hemisphere. where you need to use local terminology if you are to get what
you want.

I would strongly recommend that you search out any books by Malcolm Blackie
(such as "Successful Small Farming") and someone who I presume is his wife,
a Mary Blackie. Both wrote about small farming and eating the products of a
small farm in New Zealand so they would know the type of conditions you will
experience.

Also of use is the "Earth Garden" and "Grass Roots" mags which you should
find in a halfway decent library.

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 18:53:06 -0600, "Bob Peterson"
wrote:

(snip)

If one is willing to buy the wheat, why waste time planting a garden? other
then for the enjoyment of the fresh veggies. he is in a business where his
time spent on such a garden is worth 10 to 100 times the value of the
veggies he could grow.

For me, there are other things to factor in. Yes, I do enjoy gardening, but I do
it for other reasons too. There's the practical, hands-on experience which MIGHT
be helpful if I ever have to produce my own food. Also, growing your own
vegetables(etc.) allows you to grow varieties you will NEVER find in the
supermarkets. Commercial farmers grow the crops the stores want to sell. Organic
Gardening magazine did an article years ago about the criteria they use to
select varieties for growing. Good taste was not even in the top 5 criteria. It
IS in MY criteria list, and very near the top.
I've noticed that many gardening books ignore potatoes, since they're so cheap
to buy in the store it just doesn't pay to grow them at home. Just try finding
some of the better varieties for home gardeners and taste them and the
store-bought potatoes will never taste the same for you. I've done that with
tomatoes.






It is easier to fight for our principles than to live up to them.-Alfred Adler

Yes, got the idea from an old copy of TMEN.

Also you might be interested in "No Till" Agriculture for raising grains and
other food stuffs to minimize the energy expenditure vs. return on food. We
have homesteaded on as little as 3 acres, but currently have around 25.
Five would provide for the six of us. Buckwheat, 1/4 acre hand mowed, and
winnowed provided enough when stretched. I also collect acorn and make
acorn flour, and also cattail flour.

My son is almost a pure vegetarian by nature, so meat is of less importance
at our house these days. It is more of a side dish.

Grains and foraging are more important than vegetables to survival
homesteading.

Potatoes, peanuts, and Yams are also of high value.

IT is all in the calories.

Jim




Ever actually done this? or is this just an 'educated guess"?