How much of your daily calorie intake do you truly get from your gardens?

[SSanf]

Right. As proud as I am of my wonderful garden, I know I have to guard against any illusion that I can do without food from the larger community very long. Even with the addition of food animals, they need food to be productive or they are no good to me. So I would need additional supplies for the food producing animals.

I think I will go real heavy on corn, beans and potatoes next year. Those are the belly fillers.

[roro]

growing corn takes a lot out of your soil. they're heavy feeders. if you plant it, it'd be good to do it the way the native americans did... the "three sisters"... corn beans and squash. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html < this article tells you how to do that.

if you also had some chickens and/or guineas, you would have plenty of meat available. just be sure to get a couple roosters! plus the chicken poop would really help the garden. and the chickens would eat the pests on your plants, and the guineas would eat the ticks (if you have them). so you'd always have a source of fresh eggs and meat available.

also, you have LOTS of grass in your yard. you could make the whole thing food and just mulch the yard. you can also use your front yard to grow stuff. every bit of space that can grow food should grow food if the SHTF! lol if i didn't rent, i would make both my front & back yards nothing but food.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ < like them.

[SSanf]

One of my friends has been talking about pigeons as a food source. Some breeds are for meat production, I hear. And, they just fly away, find their own food and return. I guess they would be less of a burden if I need to provide food for them and my family. Don't know if they eat yard waste. But, they would be flying away from the property, finding calories, eating them and bringing them back to the property in their own fat bodies.

I suppose that a successful chicken coop is not a lot of work once established. I wonder how many pigeons it would produce to eating size and how fast.

[SSanf]

Originally Posted by roro

growing corn takes a lot out of your soil. they're heavy feeders. if you plant it, it'd be good to do it the way the native americans did... the "three sisters"... corn beans and squash. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html < this article tells you how to do that.

if you also had some chickens and/or guineas, you would have plenty of meat available. just be sure to get a couple roosters! plus the chicken poop would really help the garden. and the chickens would eat the pests on your plants, and the guineas would eat the ticks (if you have them). so you'd always have a source of fresh eggs and meat available.

also, you have LOTS of grass in your yard. you could make the whole thing food and just mulch the yard. you can also use your front yard to grow stuff. every bit of space that can grow food should grow food if the SHTF! lol if i didn't rent, i would make both my front & back yards nothing but food.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ < like them.

Thank you for the ideas. Yeah, I could grow a lot more. The landlord is funny. He will allow raised beds but he will not allow us to plow up the grass. I do know that, being a kind person, if TSHTF, he will back down and let us plant as needed for food. But now, he wants the place to look more like a normal suburban residential neighborhood. He does make people stay tidy and keep their yards attractive here. He is an excellent landlord. This park has been in his family for years and, I guess, he learned how to be a good landlord pretty young. I am so lucky that way.

[Nightside_Eclipse]

Originally Posted by SSanf

Thank you for the ideas. Yeah, I could grow a lot more. The landlord is funny. He will allow raised beds but he will not allow us to plow up the grass. I do know that, being a kind person, if TSHTF, he will back down and let us plant as needed for food. But now, he wants the place to look more like a normal suburban residential neighborhood. He does make people stay tidy and keep their yards attractive here. He is an excellent landlord. This park has been in his family for years and, I guess, he learned how to be a good landlord pretty young. I am so lucky that way.

Does he not realize that raised beds kill the grass underneath them? lol

You can grow a lot of food in a few decent sized raised beds, what that family in the Path to Freedom link does with their tiny plot never ceases to amaze me.

[SSanf]

Originally Posted by Nightside_Eclipse

Does he not realize that raised beds kill the grass underneath them? lol

You can grow a lot of food in a few decent sized raised beds, what that family in the Path to Freedom link does with their tiny plot never ceases to amaze me.

That site looks like something I should spend some time on. Thanks!

[SSanf]

Well now, that site is interesting. If i did as well as he does, by his numbers, I should be able to produce about 600 pounds of food. That sounds like a lot until you remember that there are 3 of us. Hum...200 pounds of food per person is a bit over a half pound each per day. That is a help but I think it would not sustain anyone. I guess that is really fantastic information. I need to both expand and increase the productivity big time.

[Nightside_Eclipse]

Originally Posted by SSanf

Well now, that site is interesting. If i did as well as he does, by his numbers, I should be able to produce about 600 pounds of food. That sounds like a lot until you remember that there are 3 of us. Hum...200 pounds of food per person is a bit over a half pound each per day. That is a help but I think it would not sustain anyone. I guess that is really fantastic information. I need to both expand and increase the productivity big time.

Any little bit helps, I know I don't have the time and help that guy does to garden so intensively, but almost any time you plant veggies you get your money back and often save money, so long as you do it wisely and realize you don't need to go crazy on a 1000 dollar tiller and all the fancy high tech crap.

[roro]

Originally Posted by Nightside_Eclipse

Any little bit helps, I know I don't have the time and help that guy does to garden so intensively, but almost any time you plant veggies you get your money back and often save money, so long as you do it wisely and realize you don't need to go crazy on a 1000 dollar tiller and all the fancy high tech crap.

yep!

here's a thing on "get rich slowly" that shows about how much you can save by having a garden.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/20...n-really-save/

[Nightside_Eclipse]

I planted about a half a packet of bell pepper seeds as "first steps" experiment this spring, cost of the packet was a little over a dollar so lets say I planted 50 cents worth of seeds, I think I harvested maybe 10 or so bell peps from the two plants I ended up transplanting (the plant is still producing but the cool weather has stunted them).

Average price per bell pep is about 50 cents around here so that's a savings of $5.00 worth of peppers for 50 cents worth of seeds.

Figure in a few dollars for a 25 pack of peat transplanting pots and maybe 5 bucks for a bag of potting soil for the containers and I'm still in the positive.

I scrounged up an old container for them so that was free, and the soil can be re-used next season, plus the pepper plant itself will be composted and re-used as well.

The plants were transplanted WAY late as well, so if I had done things right I could have gotten probably 20 peppers from each plant.