The Suburban Homestead

Ludi · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:34 am Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

We've discussed the minimum land requirements for growing a complete diet many times.

The minimum area required to grow a (nearly) complete vegan diet for one person is 4000 square feet. This includes both the diet area and the compost ingredient area. This diet supplies all the needed calories and most nutrients.

Using these numbers, one acre will feed 10 people. Or some people and some small livestock.

For additional information on very small-space gardening, see "How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons, and "One Circle" by Dave Duhon and Cindy Gebhard, as well as many Ecology Action research papers.

http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=113

Many of us, perhaps most, don't aspire to raising all our caloric requirements, but hope to garden instead for better nutrition. This can be done in an average sized yard.
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deMolay · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 696

You may have discussed it Ludi, but I lived it. This is provided you must store food all winter and cannot garden year round. One acre of potatoes, one acre of varities like turnip/parsnip/carrots. One acre of various vegetables. We also kept chickens, sheep, cows. ducks, and geese. And no we were not vegetarian. So the bulk of our protien came from animal meat in addition to the 3 acres. Our family consisted of 11 kids, 2 parents, 2 grandparents and one hired man. We also consumed 40 full cords of firewood per year. That was for year round cooking and winter heating.

Ludi · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:15 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Ok, that's great. But most families aren't that large these days. Smile

I was under the impression this thread is to encourage people that they can do something in suburbia. Not to tell them they need acres of land.

Just sayin'.
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deMolay · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 696

By the way that garden was worked by horsepower and by hand. The food was either root cellared or canned down. The water was bucketed by hand from the well. The washing and mending was by hand, we later obtained a gasoline powered washing machine as we had no electricity at the time. Neither did 98% of our neighbours on the mountain either at the time. Lived it.

deMolay · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 04, 2005 Posts: 696

Ludi, don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful thing to grow your own food, and even if you live in an apartment, find a way to grow some it is far better for you. I was only commenting as I did for the sake of reality.

Ludi · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Definitely, few of us have that experience, deMolay. I was trying to calculate how many tons of potatoes you must have raised on that acre, truly an amazing amount of food.
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BigTex · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Thank you for all the replies thus far.

However, and this is an important point, the purpose of the OP was not to make the suburban home fully independent or self-sufficient. Rather, it was intended to get a person who lives in the suburbs started moving in the direction of self-sufficiency. Sort of like a crawl before you walk thing.

There are so many challenges involved in taking the step from mental preparation to actual preparation, and often things don't work the way you thought they would. It would be so much better to hit the frontier with several seasons of trial and error gardening and other preparations on your small suburban lot.

Think about your suburban dwelling as a MINIATURIZED VERSION of an actual 10-40 acre homestead. The things that you can't do on the scale needed to be self-reliant you can at least do on the scale necessary for you to understand how it actually works in practice (at least to some degree).

The lesson tends to be, even when doing things on a smaller scale, is that everything costs more, takes longer and doesn't work quite as well as you thought it would. The sooner these lessons are learned, the better.

And to return to the OP, the rabbit barn and garden my dad maintained when I was a kid didn't begin to provide an off-grid lifestyle, but it taught me that food and other essentials didn't magically come from the store, and has always made me want to do everything I can to create self-sufficiency (even if it's only partial) and redundancy in as many essentials as possible.

On the book front, I enjoyed reading "Square Foot Gardening." Any SFG fans here?
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Ludi · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

I like the Square Foot Gardening concept because it concentrates effort in the smallest possible space. With a lot of land available, it is easy to get too spread out and disorganized, and waste a lot of effort moving from point A to point B. With small-area growing such as Biointensive or Square Foot, the effort is much more efficient. The permaculture idea of planning in zones also tries to keep movement,effort, and resources concentrated in a small area.
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Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5431 Location: Oklahoma

John Seymour's books books have diagrams of ideas for food production layouts for different scales. I also like Square Foot Gardening. My mom and I both made several beds in that style this year and so far it's going great.
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WisJim · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Based on 30 years of my family living a lifestyle that is continually evolving towards self-sufficiency, I feel that we could certainly feed a family of 5 on an acre of garden and orchard, plus some additional space to grow feed for chickens etc. Our garden is about a half acre, and has been that size or less for the last 30 years or so. We also heat a large old farmhouse in Wisconsin using 4 to 6 full cords of wood (a cord is a pile 4x4x8 feet or 128 cubic feet). We are still eating root-cellared apples, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, squash, and cabbage (and probably some others that I have forgotten) from last fall's harvest. We buy some meat, some lettuce in the winter, mushrooms, and some other food items at the grocery store to supplement what we grow.

If the garden soil has been built up over the years, and the garden is carefully planted, maintained and harvested, you can grow an amazing amount of food on a suburban lot. Technically, our homesite qualifies as a "suburban lot", or maybe a "city lot", but it is a bit bigger than most, so I do have some advantages that other city or suburban residents don't have.

You're not going to grow your entire diet in a suburban back yard the first year that you try, but if you don't get out there and grow something, you won't get any part of your diet from your yard!!

eastbay · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

thuja · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 7:52 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Urban boy here but I think many of the same ideas apply to suburbia. Really the advantage in suburbia is often a larger lot to grow food while its disadvantage is often being further from jobs, long commuting times, etc.

Here is my priority list as an urban boy:

1- Get a job that will hopefully weather a Depression.
2- Install Wood Stove
3- Get a bike, ride to work
4- Transform yard into food garden.
5- Plant fruit and nut trees.
6- Set up rainwater catchment and greywater system for gardening
7- Tighten up that house (insulate, seal cracks.)
8- Learn to can and put up food. (Get a chest freezer)
9- Learn to hunt and fish. Get a good rifle and fishing pole
10- Learn carpentry, plumbing and electricical work and do it yourself
11- Get egg laying chickens.
12- If you have the land and zoning permits...get a lot of chickens and/or rabbits...start breeding them for good eating.
13 High efficiency appliances
14- Make friends with neighbors and share
15- If money - solar hot water and solar panels
16- Start a farmers market in your neighborhood (I did that but it can be hard for most folks to do.)

I've done everything except for #12, 15 and I'm working on #5 this Spring.

Really the same ideas apply to everyone- no matter where you live. Get more self-sufficient.

Urban folks will have the least land but the most proximity to jobs and stores. Suburban folks will have more land but will be farther from jobs and stores. Rural folks will have the most land and the most ability for self-sufficiency but will be far from jobs/stores etc.

The goal is not complete self-sufficiency. That's unneccessary. The best is to supplement as much as you can so you depend on a whole lot less...

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1244

BigTex Wrote

mos6507 · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead

Homesteader · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:16 am Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead