Roughly speaking, gardens can be ordered by a hierarchy of size. And, a natural consequence of their size and the law of diminishing returns is what is likely to be grown in those gardens.
The very smallest urban gardens might be just a few pots or buckets on a balcony. The plants are likely to be high-flavor herbs, spices and maybe some enhancements to a daily salad. Chives, rosemary, sage, mint, cherry tomatoes, green onions, garlic, hot peppers are likely to be found in these gardens.
Those needs become saturated for most families somewhere between 32 and 100 square-feet and other foods start being grown. Maybe a zucchini or cucumbers. Perhaps full-sized tomatoes or radishes. Some greens like lettuce or maybe green beans.
The typical "hobby" suburban garden might be about 400 square-feet. Things like pumpkins and winter squash start to sneak in. Maybe sweet corn or potatoes. Perhaps enough tomatoes are planted so the gardener can preserve them for the winter soup-pot.
According to Steve Solomon, author of Gardening when it Counts, the next step is approximately 2000 square-feet. This depends on the climate but this is probably a good number for England, Tasmania, the Hudson Valley, Columbus Ohio and the Pacific Northwest. This size is large enough to mostly decouple from supply-chain shocks.
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| The back-yards in this suburban neighborhood in central Michigan are almost exactly 4000 square-feet. |
Then, if you are the kind of person who plans, you might plant berry bushes beside the paths between the garden and the hen-house and put a few small fruit trees along your poleward property line (north if you are the northern hemisphere and south if you are in the southern hemisphere). Or, if you are in the deep south, maybe you plant them to so that they provide partial shade during the hottest parts of the year.
Scale
So, while the word "land as an investment" might create images of hundreds of acres in the minds of most rural, North Americans...having authority to be lord-of-the-manor of as little as 4000 square-feet of garden can be pivotal to enabling autonomy for a family of two. Point-being that 4000 square-feet is 1/10th of an acre.
If the 2000 square-feet that is being cultivated was planted entirely to maize, then it could produce enough calories to supply two people with 1200 Calories each per day for a year. Not enough to survive but a huge boost to any diet under austere conditions. If planted entirely to potatoes, 2000 square-feet could produce 2.7 pounds of potatoes for two people each per day for a year.
These calcs assume 150 bu/acre yields for the corn and 40,000 lb potatoes (all grades combined) per acre. For reference, the average corn yield in Indiana was 203 bushels/acre last year and the US average potato yield was about 45,000 lb per acre.
Income
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| A random village east of Kyiv, Ukraine. Look at the gardens! |
It gets trickier to put a value on it when it is an option or an insurance policy. But it is still a legitimate form of income when circumstances force you to activate those options.
Under conditions like a civil war, it is almost impossible to put a value on the investment because you would bid your last dollar to feed your granddaughter if she was crying from hunger.
The devil is in the details
Decent soil of sufficient depth. Either reliable rains or infrastructure to irrigate or subsoil moisture within easy reach of the roots.
The plot not shaded by buildings or shade trees for any significant number of hours a day.
No HOA or Zoning busybodies poking their noses into your business.
A frost-free growing season that is nearly always more than 120 days.
Excellent weed control (many are edible).
Varieties that are good fits for the growing conditions. That will likely mean planting some hybrids, at least while getting your feet wet.
Enough gardening savvy to know when to plant and harvest. A willingness to use fertilizers, at least to get started. A willingness to put in the hours every day to make the garden work.
My land is best described as a hillside of soiled rocks. Bushes thrive, trees do okay, but the garden needs raised beds with real soil to work. So, making those bushes into mulch and compost.
ReplyDeleteEveryone who has the means to have a garden should have one. It's good for the environment, it's good for the economy and it's good for their health. Even if you live in the high desert like I do you can grow herbs and things in pots...which we do.
ReplyDeleteWell stated Joe. Solomon’s book is for 3 to 5,000 square feet with minimum water. Few of us have that much space so we grow more intensively. One pound per square foot is what I aim at for potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, beets, onions, cabbage, and more for squash and cukes.
ReplyDeleteTo have a productive plot one needs 4 things.
1) Sunshine. No shade or partial sun.
2) Water supply. 3 rain barrels are not going to do it.
3) Top soil. Not “garden blend compost” from the nursery. That is full of ground wood that robs your nitrogen from your plants.
4) Time, labour. You don’t just throw seeds into the ground.
Start now so you can learn how. Spacings, rotations, fertilizers, manures, composting, varieties, grow lights, potting mixes, greenhouses, weeds, mulches, diseases, pests, tools, harvesting, storage — stocking up. The knowledge doesn’t come overnight. It comes with experience to see what works and what doesn’t.
Then bless others by passing that knowledge on to others. And that’s what Joe’s been doing. Thanks.
Collecting rain water is a fools errand. How long to you think three rain barrels are going to last? You need a well and a manual pump. Period.
ReplyDeleteI upgraded to ~2500 sq ft garden. The weeds and raccoons have never been happier! Something wiped out an entire 100 row feet of corn this weekend. A week away from picking. Hate those coons.
ReplyDeleteA few thoughts, there are lots of ways to help feed your chickens from the garden,, all those weeds spread in the chicken run keep the birds happy, many garden plants, especially cole crops provide greens for the chickens after the human edible crop is harvested, I cook peelings, cull potatoes and any kitchen food waste with a little rice or oatmeal to thicken the liquid for the chickens. Learned about doing that from a book by an English lady who ended up Croft living in the Scottish Hebrides. Anything the birds don’t eat gets composted in the run and can be recycled to the garden. I can’t free range because we have too many raptors and loose chickens can get eaten! One other thought is living at 62 degrees north latitude I find that a little hear to extend the season in my green house and hoop houses into May pays better than trying to keep things going into late September or early October when we loose day length rapidly. The long days of June and July help make up for a 90 day frost free period outdoors.
ReplyDeleteThat’s heat not hear!
DeleteThe idea of making the garden twice as big as you plan to work and alternating each half between garden and "fallow" has the advantage of being able to quickly flip it all to garden if things go south. It is good to have options.
ReplyDeleteOne issue with the 400 square foot backyard is due to the Scotts Yard psychosis is the lifetime residue of roundup and similar herbicides. Very long half life as more than a few of my neighbors found out with their gardening attempts.
ReplyDeleteA general rule of thumb I've found useful is if Dandelions grow well there its reasonably Scotts yard free of garden killing herbicides.
Dandelions were IMPORTED by our European forefathers as a spring tonic and early greens. Self seeding and enthusiastic in growth. Very high in Vitamin C (preventing scurvy is Important) and even the dried cleaned roots can be roasted, ground up and used as a non-caffeinated coffee extender.
Pre-Grocery store era Spring was also known as the "Starving Season" as the root cellars were mostly bare or semi-rotten, the deer were too scrawny to be worth shooting and you HAD to prepare, plant and PROTECT your garden from a lot of hungry critters for about 90-110 days before a real decent harvest was available.
The "American" thing of doing it all yourself is kind of a bogus Hollywood thing. The strong John Wayne western works all day to provide, defends against bandits and Indians all night doesn't really fly.
Look to the Amish for how pre-electricity folks thrived. They work their own land BUT with the willing help and helping each other in amazing teamwork. An Amish Widow isn't cast off nor a burden to the rest. She does what she can do for the group (babysitting, teaching, laundry, light gardening) and the group helps her.
A 400 square foot garden cannot support a cow for example BUT can be useful in supporting the person you have a COW SHARE program with. Same with pigs and so on.
Community and the grace to speak kindly to others (looking at acerbic comment above here) is how an Amish community works well together.
Your yields assume that you access to modern hybrid seeds year over year. Generally you can halve the yield for Heirloom seeds, and the hybrids will not carry over year over year. Often their fruits are sterile for next year. Not sure about the potatoes and their yields, but that is true for most corn and wheat and other modern grains.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I like your work.