PLANNING
HOME FOOD PRODUCTION
by
New England Gardener
Even with only a relatively small area
to work with, much of our food can be grown at home. This
is how to start. Make a list of foods you absolutely will
not eat, or are allergic to. Remember, freshly harvested
foods all taste much better than anything you can buy, so
keep it short. Your goal is to be harvesting a reasonably
balanced diet of food, as many months out of the year as
possible, and to store foods for the rest of the year.
You want to spread out the workload, so it is reasonable.
I like to think in terms of months, no need to figure it
closer than that. Every year will be a little different
anyway.
You don't want to miss any possible
source of food that you could eat. Look at wild herbs and
berries, fish and game, but garden vegetables, field
crops, grapes, berry bushes and fruit trees, will feed
you more. There are many mail order seed and nursery
companies that offer informative catalogs to help you
plan what can be grown in your area. I prefer to order
from well established companies that have a reputation to
protect. Avoid any catalog that looks and reads like a
tabloid newspaper. Any good one will have trial gardens
where they test what they sell. They will have a "days to
maturity" from seed or from transplant for their
location.
Choose a company in a harsher climate
than you have, with similar rainfall, and see what they
recommend. Most all the seed you buy will have come from
wholesale seed growers, located where it's ideal to
produce it. You can buy the recommended variety from any
retailer. It's how well the seed is stored and tested by
the vendor that really counts. The bulk of your food will
probably be dried beans and field corn or other grains
you have bought and stored, or grown yourself.
If you can, add a small flock of
laying hens and a couple roosters. The manure will feed
your garden, orchard and vineyard. Choose from an old
breeds that will set on their own eggs or "go broody".
They are better at foraging for more of there own feed
and living on home grown grains. Mail order hatcheries
will need to ship about 2 dozen day old chicks at a time,
so feed stores and neighbors often pool orders together.
I've raised most every kind of poultry, but I think a
laying flock of chickens is the most efficient way to
make high protein food, and the others are fine as a
hobby if you like them. I really can't tell you if
rabbits can actually be raised efficiently or not,
although I am sure you could raise the food for them on a
very small scale. I have seen the story told of how you
can produce huge amounts of meat because of how quickly
they can multiply. I would look for someone with years of
experience raising rabbits to eat, not to sell as pets or
for some specialty market, which pays high prices.
There are many rare new breeds of
livestock promoted as being so profitable, you just have
to get in on the ground floor. They seem to turn out to
be Ponzi schemes. If the breeding stock costs more than
twice what they get at a live animal meat auction, its
only for people who really know what they are doing. I am
going to continue on here about other livestock, but its
only for the few that are interested.
We have raised both sheep and dairy
goats for many years, and they only need a few acres in
this part of the country, but I don't think they are
practical for a single family. In more barren areas, they
may be one of only a few choices. If you have active
farms in your area to buy from, raising up a young pig or
steer on home grown foods is practical. The pig needs a
very sturdy pen, in or near the garden, but shaded. You
bring the food to him. He eats foods similar to us,
grains like corn, cooked potatoes, and any of our food
that has spoiled, as well as acorns. The steer needs
grass to eat, only a half acre here. Much more in dryer
areas. On my farm, I can move grazing animals every few
days to fresh pasture, which is called intensive grazing,
or cut hay when its only a few inches high, and bring it
to them twice a day. The new growth at the top of grass
has as much protein as grain. But only grazing animals
can digest it. I think this could be done anywhere there
are commercial dairy herds, but there is too much hand
labor for them to do this. Don't be discouraged, there is
no need to have any livestock at all, but a few laying
hens will help.
Now let's get back to planning. Make a
list for each month of the year, and show what you will
need to be doing, and what you will be harvesting. Here
is an example of some entries.
JANUARY - Review any notes from last
year. Plan for garden and any new fruit, eat from root
cellar and other stored foods.
FEBRUARY - Make Maple syrup, start
Peppers and early cabbage and broccoli indoors. Eat
stored food.
MARCH - Start tomato plants, check on
spinach or other crops you tried to winter over in the
garden.
APRIL - Plant peas in the ground, as
soon as the frost is out, Dig parsnips and turnips that
have wintered over and collect wild salad greens to
supplement stored foods. Plant any new trees, vines or
bushes. A good root cellar will still have good potatoes,
if you break off eyes that grow long through the winter.
You get the idea, once you have the framework, you can
start figuring, how many months will I be eating those
potatoes I raised? Once you get to Summer, eating what
you are growing is easier until late autumn.
Now you can look at your own plan to
figure it out. I have ever bearing raspberries that ripen
briefly in June, and bear a few through the fall, and
also the regular varieties that yield one large crop in
July or August. When the peaches come in, they have to be
canned right away, so I don't want to be canning corn at
the same time, but I do want to be eating it fresh. Start
with a reasonable number of projects for each month, and
build up from there. You don't want too much of any one
thing, but many small crops, spaced over as much of the
year as possible. Being organized will greatly speed your
progress, and keeping notes to review, your
learning.-New England Gardener
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