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150 years ago, farmers also hunted, trapped and, if near water, fished. They also canned, dried, smoked, and traded. They could also make their own alcohol, soap, candles, and preserves, they baked their own bread, harvested eggs, etc., etc. All of which were consumed or stored, and, if things went as planned, they would have a surplus to sell off. I am not sure where you are going with your question, but a farmer did much, much more than plant crops in order to survive.
And don't forget make your own medicines, set your own broken bones, birth your children at home and many more things. Even 100 years ago it was very common for children & adults to die from things that are only a minor annoyance today.
If you must have a certain amount of a particular crop, such as potatoes, onions or tomatoes, plant many different varieties. So many times, I have planted just 1-2 varieties of tomatoes, for instance, only to find that I had 50-75% crop failure. Face it: some varieties simply will not grow well in some areas. You need to find out what not only grows, but thrives in your soil. Experience will tell you this.
One more very important bbok to add to your collection: Gardening When It Counts, by Steve Solomon. He's put out other excellent books, but this addresses how to produce a good result during what he terms "hard times". Appropriate reading, indeed!
I know that families lived in tougher times and a small family farm crop failure would be devastating. Farmers were often isolated and even if they weren't, there was no local nursery to run to.
I've have this desire to be able to sustain a variety of food that I grow without a nursery to supplement my garden. I've started vermicomposting and I want to grow heirloom varieties so that I can learn to harvest the seeds. I plant marigolds for, hopefully, pest control. I know that there are other plants for pest control, but I haven't got there yet. (Onions and garlic, right?)
What else did they, or could I, do? If I had to do everything without any outside assistance - like buying DE - what kinds of practices should I be employing?
(Please don't try to discourage me. If I fail, I fail. I want to give it a shot )
What did they do? My husbands family were WV farmers and did pretty well, but they worked their butts off, they prayed each night for a good crop, they also raised their own meat or hunted for it and they didn't spend a dime they didn't have to spend.
As for protecting the crop, not every year were they successful, but they had enough variety, that if one thing didn't make it, there were other varieties that did.
I also think, just like people, insects may not have survived as easily as they do now.
My dad was also raised somewhat in the country but his family had a ranch, not a farm, which is very different.
Now, what you can do, well I think you have been given some ideas. I have to admit, I have been lucky for the most part, but I do use pesticides if I have to.
So much has changed. Even the soil structure has changed due to climate and the way farming has been conducted on that exact piece of land over the years. Monoculture (growing a lot of one plant) has led to the need for pesticides, since fungi and insects more easily hop from one farm to the next. Folks forget how hard farming was in the past. My grandparents were 'successful' tobacco and veggie farmers, but the kids walked the rows daily picking tobacco worms off the plants by hand and killing them in a can full of kerosene.
The best approach today is to know about how people farmed both in that earlier time you love, and today, then to intelligently (not emotionally) combine the two approaches to suit your exact situation.
Those are a lot of good, insightful ideas. Things were a lot different 150 years ago.
All I can add is that I remember my grandfather saving wood ash for the garden. Also manure. Stored in huge containers. My own dad had a big compost pile. You need to be able to make good soil and to enrich it with the needed nutrients and keep it at the right balance, acidic or sweet. You need to know which plants need what certain conditions, especially what type of soil. Things like root vegetables doing well in sandy soil, tomatoes being heavy feeders (lots of compost), and knowing that if your soil is too acidic many plants can't take up the nutrients no matter what! What to do about clay soil?
Don't go to Home Depot. If you need something, make it yourself. (For instance, and everybody knows this) for staking your tomato plants there are actually people who will go to Home Depot and BUY sticks. Then they will BUY tomato ties. But all you have to do is scrounge around and find sticks (old broom handle or just for starters, get some scrap sticks somewhere, maybe a lumber yard. For ties you just cut up old pillow cases into strips. For climbing plants, find some sticks and make a trellis or use a ball of string between two sticks.
Learn how to make a coldframe for starting your plants outside as early as possible. Learn how to store your vegetables after they are harvested. Root vegetables in the cellar, maybe in barrels of sand, onions cured in the sunlight for a few days and then stored in mesh bags hung in a cool, dry place, etc. There would be a lot to learn. I like the old Rodale gardening books.
As I have posted elsewhere before, if you can watch the second episode of Chef's Table on Nextflix, it was very informative on this subject. The chef in this episode is into the farm to table movement, and was revitalizing his long dormant family farm in NY. He explained the relationship between farm animals and the health of the fields.
It was news to me that not only are the grains and grasses important to the health of the animals, but the animals are just as important to the health of the fields. Each animal has a function on the land...cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, goats.
I think OP is just asking about gardening, so in that case it would be important to use compost and a variety of manure to enrich the soil. The most successful farmers probably had a reliable source of water, besides just letting God water it.
I know that families lived in tougher times and a small family farm crop failure would be devastating. Farmers were often isolated and even if they weren't, there was no local nursery to run to.
I've have this desire to be able to sustain a variety of food that I grow without a nursery to supplement my garden. I've started vermicomposting and I want to grow heirloom varieties so that I can learn to harvest the seeds. I plant marigolds for, hopefully, pest control. I know that there are other plants for pest control, but I haven't got there yet. (Onions and garlic, right?)
What else did they, or could I, do? If I had to do everything without any outside assistance - like buying DE - what kinds of practices should I be employing?
(Please don't try to discourage me. If I fail, I fail. I want to give it a shot )
Read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, for ideas on what else the farmers did. And search for other historical records - there is a lot of lore you can pick up by reading newspapers and articles from long ago.
Find out who your county extension agent is and meet them. Tell them what you're trying to do. So many of them are out there just begging people to visit and get to know them. Some ag extensions will also do free/inexpensive soil analysis and can recommend types of fruits and vegetables that will do well in that soil.
Strongly recommend this. If you are able, you might even qualify for a small grant to start a community garden to help feed your neighborhood.
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