Attn: Gardeners

[Guest guest]

I'm trying to get an idea of how realistic it is to live primarily off of the

food one grows in their own garden. These

are some of the questions I have:

 

1) Can you survive off of the nutrition received soley from a vegetable garden?

If not how much suplemental

food is needed?

 

2) How do you deal with seasonal changes in preparing a garden to sustain

living?

 

3) How big must a garden be to feed one person?

 

4) Any information on herb or tea gardens.

 

5) Am I being realistic?

 

6) How does organic growing affect a garden?

 

I am new to gardening in general so any and all advice is helpful. Also

practical experiences would be good.

Thank you in advance.

 

Incarnations

DPLD

[Guest guest]

DPLD wrote;

1) Can you survive off of the nutrition received soley from a

vegetable garden?

 

According to Diet for a New America, it takes 1/6 of an acre to

feed one vegan for one year. He doesn't specify what is grown or

how the land is managed. So, not a lot really.

 

I think it really would depend of the soil and topography though.

We have about 1/2 an acre of fruit trees, 1/2 an acre of garden.

If we gardened intensively (which we don't), I think we might

come close to meeting all our needs.

 

If not how much suplemental food is needed?

 

I think it would depend what you want to eat, and how much. For

example, we don't have the type of land here to grow rice, so we

buy that. We could grow corn and wheat, but we don't eat much of

either of those so it makes more sense for us to just buy the

small amounts of those we use. If you want to eat only what you

grow, then finding out what grows well in your area would be

essential. Our area grows great legumes (peas and beans),

potatoes, green leafies, squashes (pumpkin, zucchini, butternut,

etc). But it is lousey for tomatoes and melons, things that need

hot weather to develop.

 

Fruit and nut trees grow well in most of North America (I'm in

Canada), different types though prefer different climates.

Grapes like hotter climate, but can be accomodated with careful

choice of location (up against a south facing wall) in cooler

climate. Peach trees like drier climate, don't grow well in my

area which is very humid and wet most of the year.

 

Fruit trees take time to develop crops, and I would think that

the land needed for these would be different than the 1/6 acre

John Robbins mentions, although with very intensive land use, one

could probably plant annual crops beneath perrenial crops. I

have seen that done in Britain. The fruit trees are the upper

level, the berry bushes are the middle level and the annuals

(veggies) are the lowest level. That is VERY intensive land use!

:-)

 

Assuming you get enough calories from the fruits and veggies,

grains and legumes you get from you land, I think one still needs

to buy a B12 supplement.

 

2) How do you deal with seasonal changes in preparing a garden

to sustain living?

 

If you live in a temperate area like we do, veggies can be grown

in the ground MOST of the year. :-) In colder areas, greenhouses

are necessary I think. Cloches (little tents that can be built

over plants to protect them in cooler weather) are helpful in

transitional weather (spring and fall).

 

3) How big must a garden be to feed one person?

 

As above.

 

4) Any information on herb or tea gardens.

 

Most herbs are very easy to grow. Some are annual (have to be

planted every year) and others are perennial (come up every year

after the original planting). The mint family (makes GREAT tea!)

including lemon balm is weed-like in most areas. In other words,

plant it somewhere that you won't mind it spreading out and

taking over, because it WILL! :-) We have our mint patch at the

foot of a cherry tree which is surrounded by a large cement ring.

The ring keeps the mint from spreading beyond it's confines.

 

Keeping the herb beds near the kitchen door is best, so that one

can just run out, clip a handful when needed and throw them into

the pot fresh. THAT's the best! :-)

 

Aromatic herbs also are effective pest control in many cases.

Certain herbs give off strong enough smells, even though we

humans find them blissfully lovely, many bugs find them noxious!

They say " Roses love garlic " because planting garlic in the same

bed as roses protects the roses against many common pests that

can overwhelm roses. Marigolds are another good pest control

item. There's LOTS of tricks like this, organic gardening books

usually talk about them.

 

5) Am I being realistic?

 

Are you kidding? How do you think the early pioneers survived???

They grew what they needed! Of course it's do-able! :-)

It takes lots of work, lots of planning and on-going study.

 

6) How does organic growing affect a garden?

 

I think it is the way to go. When we first moved to our present

home, the previous owners had used chemical agents liberally for

years. We were into organic, so did not use them. The first

year we had the garden, it didn't grow anything. Even the

zucchini didn't grow (now THAT is bad! Zucchini grow like weeds

in most any soil!). The soil was burnt out from the chemicals.

There were no earth worms, it wouldn't hold water... it was sad,

sad soil. We started composting and adding local animal manure.

Now, we get luxurious green plants, runner beans vines 15 feet

long, jeruselum artichoke plants 10 feet high with tubers the

size of a Christmas cake! It took years to build it back up, but

gradually the earth worms began to increase in population and the

soil to hold water again.

 

The alternatives are toxic to humans anyway.

 

There is SO much more to know than would be realistic to post

here, but hopefull it give you a start. There are lots of

gardening websites that may be useful for you. I think getting

down to the library and start reading, is the place to start.

And any gardening clubs in your area will be valuable, having

local people who have lots of experience with both the local

conditions and gardening in general. You may find yourself a

mentor, which would be great! Local garden supply stores may

have some useful resources. I'd recommend caution in relying on

them too much though as their priority is selling. I'd recommend

LOTS of study, soil prep and planning before you make ANY seed or

plant purchases.

 

Please let us know how it goes for you! :-)

 

Wishing you success, health, wealth and prosperity...

 

Deborah from coastal BC