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Have noticed several threads lately on gardening -- most specifically vegetables and fruits ... thought some of you might find a recent article from Seattle interesting:
A lot of people have bought into the idea that a garden makes sense as a way to save money and eat fresh produce (including some on this forum). The problem is that a normal sized garden produces a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the food an individual or family eats. Hobbies are great, and that's all a fraction of an acre garden is. There is no real impact on sustainability.
I think it's a shame that so many people are completely ignorant of agriculture and how much land it really takes to support a human being.
A lot of people have bought into the idea that a garden makes sense as a way to save money and eat fresh produce (including some on this forum). The problem is that a normal sized garden produces a tiny tiny tiny fraction of the food an individual or family eats. Hobbies are great, and that's all a fraction of an acre garden is. There is no real impact on sustainability.
I think it's a shame that so many people are completely ignorant of agriculture and how much land it really takes to support a human being.
Define "normal size"?
At least a few hundred million people around the world, if not many more, especially in Asia, are very adept at substantially supplementing family food inventories on very (very!) small plots of land. Such has also been my long-standing experience.
How successful a person might be at providing a significant part of their own food from a garden has much to do with lifestyle and chosen diet. A family garden will not provide grains, for example, if that is a major part of the diet to be served. If a person eats lots of seasonal vegetables and fruits, then a very great deal can be produced in extremely small areas with proper planning and management.
Large scale agriculture is a VERY recent "innovation" in human history. People have been feeding themselves from tiny, self-sustained gardens since first evolving out of strictly hunting/gathering. Corporate agriculture is not at all a requirement of life -- never has been. Corporate agriculture is, furthermore, arguably one of the most destructive and threatening activities ever to sweep the planet.
Also, if one were to consider the actual quantity of production the only benefit of gardening - thus ignoring the inherent value of such labor to health and personal satisfaction - while preferring to tend a lawn - well, so be it. Some creatures love grazing grass and they are welcome to it.
At least a few hundred million people around the world, if not many more, especially in Asia, are very adept at substantially supplementing family food inventories on very (very!) small plots of land. Such has also been my long-standing experience.
How successful a person might be at providing a significant part of their own food from a garden has much to do with lifestyle and chosen diet. A family garden will not provide grains, for example, if that is a major part of the diet to be served. If a person eats lots of seasonal vegetables and fruits, then a very great deal can be produced in extremely small areas with proper planning and management.
Large scale agriculture is a VERY recent "innovation" in human history. People have been feeding themselves from tiny, self-sustained gardens since first evolving out of strictly hunting/gathering. Corporate agriculture is not at all a requirement of life -- never has been. Corporate agriculture is, furthermore, arguably one of the most destructive and threatening activities ever to sweep the planet.
Also, if one were to consider the actual quantity of production the only benefit of gardening - thus ignoring the inherent value of such labor to health and personal satisfaction - while preferring to tend a lawn - well, so be it. Some creatures love grazing grass and they are welcome to it.
Subsistence agriculture isn't the same as gardening on your 0.25ac yard
If the person has to grow their own grains, and legumes, along with their garden, and fruit orchard, they would be able to do so with an intensively farmed 5 acres (in the correct climate). Your grains of course are going to take up the lions share of your crop. You will need abut 3 acres of grains.
You need about 1/2 acre of fruit AND nut trees. Nuts are very important for adding viatimins and minerals to your diet
You will need about 1/2 an acre of "perminant garden." Those are the food items you do not plant every year. Items like raspberries, ruhbarb, apsperagus, your herbs, strawberries, blueberries, mushrooms, ect.
You will need about one acre of actual garden. About 1/3 of that is going to be taken up with your corn patch. Another 1/3 will be your potatoes (grow several types). The final 1/3 of an acre will be your intensively managed garden. There will also be overlap, as you will have some of your squash and pumpkins growing in your corn patch.
So there you have it, 5 acres for a vegetarian diet. Possibly several times that if you eat meat. A garden in the yard is a drop in the bucket, just a novelty.
For some of the issues surrounding producing and preserving your own food or at least eating locally grown food, I can recommend the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a complicated issue. From my experience, I wish that more families understood what it takes to feed them.
If you really want to be scared, you should also read Collapse by Jared Diamond, which chronicles failed civilizations whose populations exceeded the land available to provide for them.
So there you have it, 5 acres for a vegetarian diet. Possibly several times that if you eat meat. A garden in the yard is a drop in the bucket, just a novelty.
Amused reading this reply as I eat lunch, 1/2 or more of which is picked and rinsed straight into salad bowl from my garden. I merely thought some gardeners on this Forum might enjoy reading about what some other gardeners were doing in place of their lawns. I never wrote a word about yard gardens being any even partial solution to world hunger / sustainability – although they could be. Your reply seems as if you find my post offensive?
Not a young man, I have lived partially out of my garden for many years. I love what it does for me. I live on forested waterfront in near isolation but do have one neighbor nearby () who tends nearly 2 acres of lawn as if it were a golf course: noise, gasoline, fertilizers, toxic weed-killers, propane torching, etc. I have eight 3’x10’ raised beds in front of 9 fruit trees; 240 sq. ft. of vegetables / herbs; about the same for the fruit. 480 sq. ft. of garden (on which we spend far less time than neighbors do on their lawn) provides more vegetables and fruit than we can eat – by a HUGE margin; easily more than enough for the three of us eating our produce. Some plants are very seasonal; we eat as it comes in and move on with the changes. Other produce, like potatoes, carrots, leeks, turnips and more – along with apples and pears – all store (many in the ground) so well that we eat them 8 months of the year. (Then I fly to Hawaii for four months )
Sorry, but your Yahoo quote from an unnamed source has no credibility for me. The writer is clearly not an expert in the field; he/she can’t even spell much of what he/she writes about. Further, that writer states that growing grains takes about 60% of the proposed space, which I pointed out was NOT a yard garden crop. Yahoo then goes on to say corn will take up another large percentage of the proposed required space – corn is a grain and thus also not a great primary crop for a small yard garden. And Yahoo states that potatoes need a large space also, which is flatly false, beside the fact that potatoes grow VERY easily and can be scattered anywhere around a yard garden in nooks and crannies – producing like crazy everywhere, lasting all year.
Human beings have been gardening small spaces for thousands and thousands of years, very successfully and very meaningfully. The pleasure I derive eating healthy, homegrown food is meaning enough for me. But I do also actually save a little money this way. So there you have it: 5 acres is probably about 4-7/8 acres bigger than necessary for a VERY meaningful garden. A few hundred sq. feet will do great things. I do it. Your opinion of that which is my experience lacks foundation. If you are interested, and like to Yahoo, try typing in “gardening in small spaces” and see what comes up
Most importantly, however, was that my post was simply offered as an interesting article for gardeners to enjoy. No statement about saving the world. If you don't like gardening - well, don't bother reading the link. Now back to my turkey and vegetable salad. (Nope, I didn't raise the turkeys Gobble gobble.)
Yeah, NG, sorry about that. I was riffin' off of winko, because I just read the two books I mentioned and they got me thinking about self-sufficiency and sustainablility.
I had some hort training through the cooperative extension, and one of the things we learned on the first day is that it doesn't take much garden space to measurably improve the nutrition of a family, no matter where they live. And the "hobby garden" aspects, while a little harder to quantify, can be a very positive outlet for urban dwellers and directly improve the neighborhoods they live in.
I never thought that I'd say that gardening was easier in Colorado, where our growing season was about 3 months long. But I live in a dry, rocky part of Molokai, that is beset by axis deer and feral goats. And yet I take great pleasure from growing a "salad garden" on our lanai in large plastic storage boxes left over from our move. The garden will never actually pay for itself, since potting soil is $20 a bag. But I do love to use fresh parsley and basil, and I have a pantry full of pickled peppers.
I think of it this way: a bottle of Pace Picante sauce is $4.39 in Kaunakakai. It doesn't take too many batches of fresh, homemade salsa to nudge my therapeutic hobby into at least the "almost paying for itself" category.
FWIW, I collect a couple of gallons of water every day in the showers as we wait for the water to heat up. It's almost enough to keep the garden boxes watered without actually turning on the hose.
Amused reading this reply as I eat lunch, 1/2 or more of which is picked and rinsed straight into salad bowl from my garden. I merely thought some gardeners on this Forum might enjoy reading about what some other gardeners were doing in place of their lawns. I never wrote a word about yard gardens being any even partial solution to world hunger / sustainability – although they could be. Your reply seems as if you find my post offensive?
Not a young man, I have lived partially out of my garden for many years. I love what it does for me. I live on forested waterfront in near isolation but do have one neighbor nearby () who tends nearly 2 acres of lawn as if it were a golf course: noise, gasoline, fertilizers, toxic weed-killers, propane torching, etc. I have eight 3’x10’ raised beds in front of 9 fruit trees; 240 sq. ft. of vegetables / herbs; about the same for the fruit. 480 sq. ft. of garden (on which we spend far less time than neighbors do on their lawn) provides more vegetables and fruit than we can eat – by a HUGE margin; easily more than enough for the three of us eating our produce. Some plants are very seasonal; we eat as it comes in and move on with the changes. Other produce, like potatoes, carrots, leeks, turnips and more – along with apples and pears – all store (many in the ground) so well that we eat them 8 months of the year. (Then I fly to Hawaii for four months )
Sorry, but your Yahoo quote from an unnamed source has no credibility for me. The writer is clearly not an expert in the field; he/she can’t even spell much of what he/she writes about. Further, that writer states that growing grains takes about 60% of the proposed space, which I pointed out was NOT a yard garden crop. Yahoo then goes on to say corn will take up another large percentage of the proposed required space – corn is a grain and thus also not a great primary crop for a small yard garden. And Yahoo states that potatoes need a large space also, which is flatly false, beside the fact that potatoes grow VERY easily and can be scattered anywhere around a yard garden in nooks and crannies – producing like crazy everywhere, lasting all year.
Human beings have been gardening small spaces for thousands and thousands of years, very successfully and very meaningfully. The pleasure I derive eating healthy, homegrown food is meaning enough for me. But I do also actually save a little money this way. So there you have it: 5 acres is probably about 4-7/8 acres bigger than necessary for a VERY meaningful garden. A few hundred sq. feet will do great things. I do it. Your opinion of that which is my experience lacks foundation. If you are interested, and like to Yahoo, try typing in “gardening in small spaces” and see what comes up
Most importantly, however, was that my post was simply offered as an interesting article for gardeners to enjoy. No statement about saving the world. If you don't like gardening - well, don't bother reading the link. Now back to my turkey and vegetable salad. (Nope, I didn't raise the turkeys Gobble gobble.)
Sorry to be hostile but I think it's offensive how uninformed the vast majority of Americans are about what it takes to get food on our tables. The article implies that small scale gardening actually has an impact on the structure of food supply.
You said half your lunch is from your garden. Can it provide half your lunch every day for a whole year?
Last edited by winkosmosis; 06-09-2010 at 09:33 PM..
I had some hort training through the cooperative extension, and one of the things we learned on the first day is that it doesn't take much garden space to measurably improve the nutrition of a family, no matter where they live. And the "hobby garden" aspects, while a little harder to quantify, can be a very positive outlet for urban dwellers and directly improve the neighborhoods they live in.
I never thought that I'd say that gardening was easier in Colorado, where our growing season was about 3 months long. But I live in a dry, rocky part of Molokai, that is beset by axis deer and feral goats. And yet I take great pleasure from growing a "salad garden" on our lanai in large plastic storage boxes left over from our move. The garden will never actually pay for itself, since potting soil is $20 a bag. But I do love to use fresh parsley and basil, and I have a pantry full of pickled peppers.
I think of it this way: a bottle of Pace Picante sauce is $4.39 in Kaunakakai. It doesn't take too many batches of fresh, homemade salsa to nudge my therapeutic hobby into at least the "almost paying for itself" category.
FWIW, I collect a couple of gallons of water every day in the showers as we wait for the water to heat up. It's almost enough to keep the garden boxes watered without actually turning on the hose.
Hey, no foul / no harm … it’s all good Thanks for the nice response. Yes, gardening in small spaces can be not only productive, but plenty fun too. Enjoyed your description of dry-side Molokai gardening. Good strategy to save the shower water.
My personal experiences may or may not be interesting to others. But since you described your gardening challenges on Molokai, I’ll share a little creativity: I built my own Scandinavian-modern version of a simple, rustic cabin on a small island in the Pacific NW. … it is a modest 1,000 sq. ft., solid timber, and features a garden roof. That is: I roofed with a waterproof membrane and covered the 1,000 sq. ft. with deep soil and planted gardens topside, including vegetables and a strawberry patch. The deer and rabbits are [destructively] endemic here -- but they don’t go up on the roof, and the warmth of the house below supports a good growing season, among other advantages. But I also have extensive forest acreage and, since clearing and adding a small fruit orchard, we moved the downsized vegetable garden to the same area to keep all compact. I have learned that deer are easy to keep out. Rabbits tough! You probably also have a pig problem? None here.
I realize most folks aren’t in a position to build the kind of roof I have, but it is another example of using space for maximum production on a lot. I could also raise chickens and ducks in the garden where they would eat the bugs and slugs, deposit great manure, and provide eggs and meat beyond the fishing I do from my beach. I COULD probably become pretty close to self-sufficient, but I don’t choose to. Not concerned with self-sufficiency. Among other reasons, at this point in my life, I prefer to not care for livestock – rather live Hawaii in winters
From Colorado to Molokai? How long have you been there and how do you like it so far? I have been to (and enjoyed) Molokai. Looked at property but decided against it for now. My boats are my second and third homes. Your circumstances would provide endless distracting entertainment for me: figuring out how to successfully garden
Sorry to be hostile but I think it's offensive how uninformed the vast majority of Americans are about what it takes to get food on our tables. The article implies that small scale gardening actually has an impact on the structure of food supply.
You said half your lunch is from your garden. Can it provide half your lunch every day for a whole year?
I cannot grasp what might “offend” you about many people not understanding the full picture of the agriculture that feeds them; human beings don’t really understand much of anything is my experience – and that has never stopped life from proceeding, and doesn’t cause me much concern at all. In any case, I did not expect to be drawn into any argumentative discourse, and am not willing. So I will treat your responses as questions rather than as challenges.
The question you pose is not really well formed for the purpose of considering the value of yard gardens. May I suggest that we rephrase to: Can a small-ish yard garden of a few hundred sq. ft. supply a couple or three people with 10% - 15% of their daily food for a year? To which my answer is a simple: absolutely, yes, and more. Rather than personally elucidate, I will again suggest you make an internet search on “gardening in small spaces”. If you are actually interested in learning the simple and rewarding techniques of being garden productive with modest space and effort, you will find a terrific selection of very well studied methods, developed and explained by interesting experts with worthy credentials.
You might also ponder on how millions of Americans helped survive the Great Depression by home and community gardening. To whit, allow me to quote from an historical article: “In New York City, a gardening campaign led by the welfare department and helped by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), resulted in the formulation of over 5,000 gardens in vacant lots (Warner 1987). These 5,000 gardens produced $5 worth of vegetables for every dollar invested resulting in a total of $2.8 million worth of food by 1934 (Tucker 1993).”
Today’s yard-gardening is more about a broadly fulfilling lifestyle than quantitative productivity or global sustainability. As it is, yes, I raise enough in my small garden to eat probably at least 10% from my own production, without a heck of a lot of work, btw. Wife just made hash browns with breakfast, using last year’s potatoes, of which we still have plenty. I baked stellar spelt-date muffins the other day using frozen peaches from our tree, as well, and grated carrots and zucchini frozen from our last season’s garden. Others on this island grow winter lettuce and spinach and more under a few glass panels here in the cooler weather until the real gardens start to produce in later spring … the list goes on and on. It’s fun. It’s healthy. People have done this since long before corporate farming was ever conceived.
Aloha.
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) who tends nearly 2 acres of lawn as if it were a golf course: noise, gasoline, fertilizers, toxic weed-killers, propane torching, etc. I have eight 3’x10’ raised beds in front of 9 fruit trees; 240 sq. ft. of vegetables / herbs; about the same for the fruit. 480 sq. ft. of garden (on which we spend far less time than neighbors do on their lawn) provides more vegetables and fruit than we can eat – by a HUGE margin; easily more than enough for the three of us eating our produce. Some plants are very seasonal; we eat as it comes in and move on with the changes. Other produce, like potatoes, carrots, leeks, turnips and more – along with apples and pears – all store (many in the ground) so well that we eat them 8 months of the year. (Then I fly to Hawaii for four months 
Gobble gobble.)
In any case, I did not expect to be drawn into any argumentative discourse, and am not willing. So I will treat your responses as questions rather than as challenges. 
