Anybody here into self-sufficent food growing/Sustainable growing?

Codex Alimentarius is quite worrying!! So fritillary seed collective have been harvesting our own seed crops for the past few years while maintaining heirloom seed varieties and distributing the seeds to fellow home growers as an insurance policy. 10,000+ seeds went out so far.

That is, without self-sufficient seed stocks you cant even begin to think about producing your own food crops year after year while aiming to be sustainable!!

fritillary aim to grow all our seed-crops using organic methods and ecological practises that hold little impact on the local environ. moreover food gardening is an educational and fun way of consuming.

Bees and wild populations of insect are also worth investing in, IMO.

Yeah, I have this great book by Steve Solomon called "Gardening when it counts", Its a book about growing your own food in practical ways. Steve used to be a seed breeder, and so he gives detail instructions on how to produce seed for each variety of vegetable. I'm going to establish remote garden patches on my property to use when I need to produce seeds for multiple varieties of one vegetable, for example whichever of the Tomatoes I listed above do the best for me.

hi cascadia:


my house in the suburbs is on sale, as soon as someone buy it i´ll go and find myself a really nice piece of land (im thinking in the mountains) in which I can live in contact with nature, grow my own food and rely the less possible in the outside world, same thing as you´re doing.


meanwhile, i´m preparing myself for the experience, learning how to grow veggies in my backyard (theres a link to my veggie garden in my signature if you want to give it a look) and doing all the research i can in permaculture subjects, and other things i need to know. I`ve lived my whole life in the suburbs of a big city, so im not much a ¨country man¨


I´ve tagged this, i´ll love to see how you´re doing your trip!



cheers



sero

It's not that hard. Originally a city boy, I went pretty self sufficient for a long time while the kids were here eating like horses. The easy things to grow, all of which had a high return on investment of time and money included : chickens , turkeys, all sorts of fruits and veggies, and tree fruits. If I was doing it all over, I would stay away from cattle... way too much investment in machinery and work. We turned a profit on cows, but we also worked our balls off for a small profit, time which could have been better used goofing off.
I liked having pigs, easy to care for, cheap to feed if you use a lot of "bakery salvage". On the other hand my wife says she"ll divorce me if I ever get swine again. Worth knowing that, one way or the other.
We still heat with wood.

lets keep this thread going...I love this stuff. I am planning my dream as well...jsut bought some land...jsut enough to get started with living off the the land...it will take some time but you got to start somehwere. I'll check back in from time to time....good luck to ya'll,

Cool thread, I'm into this stuff but have to say it's getting harder to tend the veggi plot these days...still pull off some peas, potatoes, sweet corn, and winter squash. gotta do some weeding

I recently found these nice broilers called Colored Rangers/Freedom Rangers There an older meat bird bread in France specially for free/pasture ranging style. Along with some friends we got these this year instead of the white cornish x's.
They are slower growing (5-6 lbs at 12 weeks vs. 7-8 lbs at 8 weeks) but man they are active and spunky and you don't need to worry about some frankenfreak chicken having a heart attack or breaking its leg...they just run around and forage real well

For any one with layers or broilers, pigeon feed is an awesome suppliment. It is pricy but will really make a difference in quailty of the end product.

Love these kinds of things, i too am learning all i can gather about permaculture, food forests, perennials, micro organisms and fungi and how they all interact, i love organics. +rep to all

one thing, does anybody know how vegans get B12 vitamin (getting it as supplement does NOT count as its usually derived from animals)

- Strains

*no more rep for 24h*

Hi
I grow my own veggies, runner beans, radish, pots, toms, cabbage, you know the usual stuff, been doing it for 3 years now and its been great. Learning all the time, have an old gardening book from the 40's very useful. Hard work with the weeding, but thats ok. Veggies taste so much better than from store bought. 10 minutes from soil to cook to eat, yum yum.

I plan on having my cabin fully sustainable eventually by using companion planting permaculture methods.
Sepp Holzer has a few videos explaining his methods and I highly recommend them, truly inspiring.

I'm getting there. The way things are shaping up in this country, looks like I'll need the know-how before long. I have "a" tomato plant, a bunch of cherry tomato plants (currently housing 8 of them in my hydro unit, feeding them my Dutch Masters Advanced nutes (they love it!), 3 types of peppers, about 10 different herbs, and some onions. I have fall seeds but I'm moving so no need to start anything else right now.

Expertsetup said:

Looks like chicken and rabbits both for me then next year. Good thing you woke me up Marali, I was believing the lie & I love farm fresh eggs.

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Make sure that's what's appropriate for your blood type/Geno type. Might want to take a look at the Dr. Diadamo stuff. Chicken is NOT healthy for B and B+ blood types and not that great for most others either. It definitely depends on your genetic background though as to what foods to eat.

I hope to one day be able to be about 80% free from going to the grocery store....I understand some things are going to have to be bought. Between a garden, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, a few small cattle, goats, a few pigs.....a solar panel and wind generator all with battery backups......I think a family of 4(husband.wife.kids) could easily survive on a 100 acre plot of land and only make a trip to the grocery store once a month. If you could have a farm pond or lake, then things just got alot easier......from food supply, to alternative means of water, to hundreds of things if your brain can work.

Of course the big thing we all mistake is this.....living off the grid and preparing for the world to shut down is tough ass work.....living here and maintaining all this is at least an 8 hour/day job, that is minimum......and that is all members of the family pitching in and helping out....you are not gonna live this lifestyle and be the same person you are now. For that reason alone, my wife and I have bought our property and are planning this lifestyle to take place in about 10-15 years......that way our kids are not subject to that kind of change. They are welcome to come along, but we would like them to be old enough to make that choice on their own and not be forced......I suggest everyone start researching about preserving food, research energy.....how to work on your energy means.

This is a style of life that we all want and we really all need to be able to do in case the worse situation does happen.....be please be prepared cause I too once thought it was gonna be all fun and glory getting away from the grid and living on my own..literally. It would be nice to create a confidence group of people from here to help each other out with our learnings and our ideas....Me also thinks my weed garden will flourish if I can tend to it like a medicine more than a , well, weed.....I tend to get to busy with all the hustle and bustle nowadays to get in to deep....I am really looking forward to eventually living that style.

sero! said:

hi cascadia:


my house in the suburbs is on sale, as soon as someone buy it i´ll go and find myself a really nice piece of land (im thinking in the mountains) in which I can live in contact with nature, grow my own food and rely the less possible in the outside world, same thing as you´re doing.
sero

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looks like we got ourself a city slicker..

J/K . I've lived in the suburbs my whole life,

But I want to learn more about gardening and self sustainability, which I believe can easily be down in the suburbs. get some raised boxes and be off, maybe a "undercover" lean to greenhouse and do some companion planting.. there are some good books about 4 season harvesting people should check out

Two homesteading books I found to be of great help are "Five Acres and Independence" by Kairns, And "Grow It" by Langer. Both are available on Amazon although out of print. They teach a lot about low input sustainable agriculture/homesteading for people wanting to be more self sufficient and less dependent on chemicals etc. Also anything by Gene Logsdon is usually full of good ideas and worth the read.

'Food For Free' by Richard Mabey, 1972 is a nice addition to any garden.

We grow several crops,, ferral ,, semi wild,, in the hope they'll always be there to harvest in the future

I am. Grow almost everything except for the plastic bags. Been in sustainable agriculture and horticulture all my life as a profession, so let me know if you have any questions....

HortProOrganics said:

I am. Grow almost everything except for the plastic bags. Been in sustainable agriculture and horticulture all my life as a profession, so let me know if you have any questions....

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I got a few questions.....If you were gonna go out and try this self style of living, at say 75%.....meaning you still will be some things at the store. Hoe many acres would, say a family of 4, need....meaning husband, wife and 2 kids? would 10 acres be enough if you used 3 of those acres for a pond?

What would you focus the main part of your acreage with? Veggies? beef? pork?

Is building a root cellar really worth it? does having a good basement really add life to your canned goods?

would you try to be 100% of the grid, or just be partial? and if your fully off the grid, is there any classes a home owner can take to learn to maintain the solar and wind generators?

I didn't read the entire thread but did a quick search in this thread of 'aquaponics' to see if anyone had mentioned it. Since we are talking about sustainability, I am surprised no one has mentioned aquaponics.

Basically, it's pretty much an aquarium that completes the nitrogen cycle, except the plants aren't grown in the fish tank. Other than feeding the fish (and depending on what you feed the fish -- it's considered organic), it's a pretty self-sustained miniature eco-system. You could even set-up an additional upgrade to your system to grow fish feed. i.e. breed your own worms or plants the fish like.

The most basic explanation to aquaponics is that it combines hydroponics and aquaculture so the two synergist each other.

The fish dirty up the water while the plants clean it.

We have made an attempt to get more independant this summer, and found that for a family with 6 adults and 4 children...6 chickens do not support the egg demand but 12 certainly would. 20 tomato plants dont support that load but 20 peppers was more then enough. 5 blueberry, 3 raspberries,3 cucumber, 4 okra plants were plenty, romaine lettuce every other week and 4 eggplants were enough too. Next year we'll be getting a few cows and adding potatoes and strawberries as well as make adjustments to this past years yield. Hope this helps. By the way, our veggies are on about two acres. We have 40 more acres for the cows and three horses.
I have a small pond I would like to try aquaponics on....but need to learn a lot more about it before we get in to that.

lidspinner said:

I got a few questions.....If you were gonna go out and try this self style of living, at say 75%.....meaning you still will be some things at the store. Hoe many acres would, say a family of 4, need....meaning husband, wife and 2 kids? would 10 acres be enough if you used 3 of those acres for a pond?

What would you focus the main part of your acreage with? Veggies? beef? pork?

Is building a root cellar really worth it? does having a good basement really add life to your canned goods?

would you try to be 100% of the grid, or just be partial? and if your fully off the grid, is there any classes a home owner can take to learn to maintain the solar and wind generators?

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10 acres would be plenty. Making sure your soil is plentiful with bio-activated supplements, and going 100% organic, you can do a world of good for you, your family, and the planet.

70% would be in greens( grains, leafcrops, fruits, covercrops, etc), 20% would be in meats( poultry would be enough, plus the benefit of using the whole chicken-everything-for all sorts of products), and 10% would be various landscape insurance plantings ie. sedimentation control, erosion control, windbreaks, greenways, beneficial insect promoting landscaping, and native plantings. Compost and vermicompost, make your own compost teas, and make sure you map out plans for storm water runoff, catch basins, etc.

And I would not be entirely of the grid, just to be safe, IMO. The great thing about wind and solar, is that most states will have a buy-back program, and you can have a backup if needed.

Insulation- think about utilization of hemp insulation of the house, well casing, other buildings.

Classes- definitely take a look on some of the major sustainable living sites on the web, as there are a great welath of info nowadays. Also, always take a look at your local county extension programs, and look at your climate and native surroundings as a tool for planning an efficient plan.