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 didn’t see anybody suggest three rain barrels is all any gardener would need. It’s a “cost avoidance” method. You can use it to extend the availability of rainwater and put less pressure on your well water supply.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteOnce you plant buckwheat you always have buckwheat.
DeleteOne 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.
Dandelions were imported? Something new.. I'll put that on my list with honey bees and tumbleweeds!
DeleteYour 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.
A family has to survive the first year or two of Nueva Cubana or CWII before they need to worry about those things.
DeleteThe rule-of-thumb back in the early days of hybrid corn was that the hybrid vigor gave a 35% "pop" in yield.
I don't think any of the wheat planted in Michigan is "hybrid" due to the economics of ensuring zero self-pollination. It is a thousand times easier to do that with corn. The challenge of producing 60 bu/a or 90 bu/a of wheat is fungus and molds. The heads are PACKED cheek-by-jowl. 30 bu/a is likely to be achievable w/o fungicide sprays to protect the grain from aufloxin and vomitoxin issues.
Potatoes are vulnerable to viral infections. Saving seed year-after-year causes a slow loss of productivity as your seed-stock picks up multiple viral infections. Many of those virus have multiple plant hosts so a leaf-hopper biting a raspberry leaf and then biting a potato leaf can start infecting your seed stock even if you are OCD about cleanliness.
Many of the new open pollinated cultivars like Stocky Red Roaster Pepper were bred-back from hybrids that had all of the desirable characteristics the breeder wanted to capture in O.P. lines. I have seen this done with onions as well. Getting past the male-sterile genes (used to avoid that pesky self-pollination problem) can be an issue but the plant breeder can jump-start the process by having a few open pollinated varieties inter-planted with his f2 seedlings.
We started with a 16’ x16’ garden. Pole beans on the perimeter, a dozen tomatoes and Cukes, bell peppers, beets, zucchini. It went a long way to supplement the dinner table. We eventually put in more beds so we could rotate, and increase crops. I haven’t bought green beans, tomato sauce, peppers, winter squash, or beets in 20 years. We added snow peas about 6 years ago. We have good luck with heirlooms, but they are not disease resistant, so rotation, and some pesticides are necessary.
ReplyDeleteI grow potatoes in large planter pots, it’s easier to harvest. Not much yield, but keeps the voles away.
We catch water from the roof gutters into 7 or 8 barrels, and use a shallow well pump to water the gardens. Same system on the shed roof for those beds.
I used to tell people, any size garden can help your food supply. Don’t say ‘my yard is too small.’ But you do have to work at it. Bugs or critters can wipe out a lot your work.
Southern NH
You have good points on a garden, but a garden isn't all you need land for if things "go south". I see the following as enabling independence:
ReplyDelete- Enough woodlot to feed your wood stove for cooking and heating.
- The space to replicate your garden in case of problems with the current location.
- A well, usually not allowed on small parcels. Preferably a shallow one.
- A measure of privacy from the nosy, usually requiring a few acres of trees. This will also help with defense in depth and the woodlot mentioned above.
- The space for judicious hunting, which depends on which critters are in your area.
- A layout that reduces the impact of local hazards. For example, if you have enough rain for irrigation, you have enough rain for occasional severe floods, so don't have anything vital near water level.
To me, these add up to an absolute minimum of 5 acres, at least half wooded. 10+ would be better and allow for orchard and other uses.
Jonathan
I have an old book ere somewhere, self sufficiency on small acreage. The author was English. He had plans and rotations for multiple crops, a few chickens, for 1 or 2 acres up to about 10, as I recall. Very efficient, used all the land. But not everything goes right all the time.
DeleteSNH
Regarding "judicious hunting", catching game in a live-trap and then dispatching with CB caps or "CCI Quiet .22" inside of a shed is more common than you think. Rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs...coons and possum if you want.
DeleteTeeter-totter traps can catch pigeons and starlings.
Just make sure you use soft ground for a back-stop so you don't have to deal with ricochets.
The book Five Acres and Independence by M. G. Kains was originally published in 1935, so the information is dated, but if/when things go really bad, all of us will have to make do like it's 1935. I moved to the country almost 30 years ago and now have fruit trees, berries and a small garden plot and I drove a well with a pitcher pump for my garden and my chickens. For those who don't have much room, they might consider buying into a CSA for their vegetables. Regardless of the size of a future garden plot, now is the time to invest in the tools that will be required for planting, maintaining and preserving the crops. I bought a container of seeds that supposedly has a decent shelf life of most everything needed for a garden for emergency use. If I remember correctly, a few years back one of the states prevented people from buying seeds. Enjoy reading your blog, BTW.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 90s I was on a lot of 'homestead' email lists. I can remember someone saying that when they were growing up they planted 33 corn plants per person, for all the people they needed to feed during the year. That was some type of corn with every meal. That's a memory and as I get older I wonder about my memories like that.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who used home grown corn as a staple have a number of corn plants they needed to grow?