Grow enough to feed your family for a year!

So in our last post we discussed 5 different ways that you could homestead wherever and whenever in your life that you're currently at. These were the things that every single one of us can do. I wanted to go a bit into depth on some of the issues we talked about, because simply saying "grow your own food" yeah, that's all nice and whatnot, but it can really be overwhelming if you've not done it before, or if you're like me and had a salad garden and that's it. Going from growing a couple of heads of lettuce, some tomatoes and cukes to all out growing almost everything you eat.....well that takes time. And planning. And organization. And all those things that I wasn't good at. :) So I hope you can learn from my failures!

So lets get our hands dirty shall we? It's always a good day when you can play in the dirt!

Number One: Figure out how much space you can spare. 

We have a 1/4 acre lot. There's a large patio in the backyard, the chicken coop and run, the single detached garage and we can't plant anything in the front yard cause that's where the gas/elec/water lines run. The "front" portion of our side yard, contains a walnut tree (which nut trees give off toxins and the surrounding soils aren't fit for growing) and the other front portion houses a pine tree and no sun. That leaves us the side yard. Now you might think this isn't a lot of land to plant.

You'd be wrong! Our garden this year is 65ft x 30ft. That's over 1,900 sq ft in which to plant our food in. Now we use a very intensive growing method of sq ft gardening (where we amend the soil with homemade compost every year to help with nutrients) and so we plant everything pretty close together.

Number Two: Figure out what foods you eat and what you want to grow. 

I don't grow a thing we won't eat. I'd love to grow both cabbage and cauliflower. But we simply can't eat enough of it to make it worthwhile. So we forgo it. Instead I plant lots of beans, TONS of tomatoes, and loads of peppers and onions. We also plant potatoes, which a lot of backyard gardeners don't do because it's kind of land intensive. But we like organically grown potatoes, I feel like they're just so much better than what you get in the store, so I make that sacrifice. What you grow, will probably be changed year by year. I grew cabbage our first year until I realized we just don't eat enough to spend the space root cellaring it.

Once you figure out what you want to grow, planning the garden is easy. You'll have to have some trial and error on figuring out how much of what to plant, as it took me a season or two to figure ours out. But once you figure it out, you can then plant most of what you eat if not all of it!

Number Three: Learn how to Preserve the Bounty of your Harvest.

Photo courtesy of Mother Earth News Mag

There's a few ways to do this. Canning, Freezing, Dehydrating and Root Cellaring. Somethings will root cellar well. Like potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, beets, cabbage, leeks, parsnips, pears, turnips, radishes, dried beans, garlic, pumpkins, squash and sweet potatoes are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Almost anything can be canned. Things you don't want to can are pureed pumpkin, dairy products or mashed beans. Now there are people who do can these things, and like I tell people, you can how you want, what your comfortable with. I personally follow the guidelines given to us by the USDA so I can 100% know that my foods are safe.

Freezing is a great way to preserve things, especially things like corn and green beans that get mushy when you can them. However, this requires energy to keep them frozen and freezer space. I prefer to use the one time energy of canning these items and then simply putting them on the shelf for later. This is just a matter of preference.

One thing that I feel is underutilized is dehydrating. You can dehydrate so many things. Fruit slices, fruit leather, jerky, things like whole peppers for dried use or later rehydrated use....the list goes on. We are building a solar dehydrator this year, and I will be sharing the plans and the materials list with you so you can too, build your own for next to nothing. The only thing you'll need to use it, will be a clear sunny day.

Once you've got these three things down, you're well on your way to growing, preserving and enjoying the fruits of your labor. You'll know exactly where the food came from, what was used on it to grow it, and you'll bask in the greatness that is a 2¢ tomato seed turned into an entire plant that's produced roughly 25lbs of tomatoes that would have cost you about $100 at the store (if you purchase organic for around $4 per lb, which is how we farm here).

The savings are incredible, even though yes, it take some hard work, but the moment when you bite into that ripe, fleshy, and flavorful tomato, you'll realize the appeal of growing your own food.