Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre.

[Oldcountryboy]

Could any of you homesteaders do that on just a quarter acre?

I just bought the book, "The BACKYARD HOMESTEAD" a Storey Publishing, and am very interested in what it is going to teach me. I've been living on 2 acres and haven't been able to produce all the food I need on it and I've been putting in some really big gardens. However, I usually get too busy working that I loose my garden to the weeds. Hopefully not anymore as I'm trying to cut out some of my extra money making part time jobs. A lot of times they hardly seem worth the effort for no more money I make off of them.

Anywho, the book claimes if you lay out your plans right you can grow a big veggie garden, grains, and all the animals you need on just a quarter acre. It also shows drawing of bigger spaces if you have the land. So it's gonna be interesting to see what all the book talks about and how to go about growing all you need in such a small place.

[Maura]

I'm sure you could do it. But, it will depend on your soil conditions and length of season.

[Oldcountryboy]

Originally Posted by Maura

I'm sure you could do it. But, it will depend on your soil conditions and length of season.

Shouldn't be a problem there as I'm learning more and more about composting and here in Oklahoma we pretty much get 2 garden seasons per year. A spring garden that starts in March and a fall garden which ends about the last of October, or early November.

[texican]

Quarter acre isn't much land...

Personally I doubt if you planted it all in grain only, it'd be enough to feed a family of four... or even one... unless everything went exactly right at every step along the way. I was raised to plant 4x as much as you actually wanted to harvest... 1 for the weather, 1 for the varmints, 1 for the neighbors, and 1 for yourself... using this system, you usually at least have enough for yourself... sometimes you have enough for the neighbors also. If you only plant what you think you need, and you have a calamity... a flood or a drought, an army worm infestation, etc., currently in todays society, you end up out of luck and have to work, make money, and buy some food... if your life depended on it, post shtf or teotwawki, to have a calamity is to starve to death... a non nice prospect.

[turtlehead]

I don't see how, unless you're a vegetarian and even then it would be difficult to raise enough wheat, rice, beans, and corn to feed yourself. Plus vegetables, berries, fruit trees.

If you plan on milk, you'll need to raise hay and perhaps grain for a milking animal. A milking animal would contribute cheese and butter, too - so you might get away with not having cooking oil and lard.

Do you plan to use sugar? Can you grow sugar cane or sugar beets where you are and process the sugar?

Depending on where you live, you may have to give up pineapple, cocoa, bananas, coffee.

No, I don't think a person can grow all the food they need on a quarter acre. I don't think it can be done on less than five, and that's pushing things. IMO.

[uyk7]

How about enough food for just one person? Especially with smaller portion size? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

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[FrontPorch]

I have that book and think it's great. Not sure I could grow everything I need on 1/4 acre though.

[Common Tator]

Any time you have to raise animals in small confienment like that, your feed costs go way up, and pretty much wipe out any benefit they may have had with free browse. plus, your cleaning chores go way up, as the small pens are needing frequent cleaning, unlike open pasture.

[whodunit]

Originally Posted by Common Tator

Any time you have to raise animals in small confienment like that, your feed costs go way up, and pretty much wipe out any benefit they may have had with free browse. plus, your cleaning chores go way up, as the small pens are needing frequent cleaning, unlike open pasture.

We have a small holding pen area that's probably 100'X25' and I bet I get well over 200 pounds a month of manure between the milk cow and two donkeys that frequent it and they have access to open pasture, so they are only in this a few hours a day! I can't imagine what it would be like if they were confined to it. It would probably take some machinery or much back-breaking work to keep it clean.

[Ross]

I'd assume the animals are rabbits and chickens, eating alot of garden scraps.

[gilberte]

'Course ya could do it!...for one or two people (if yer both less than a hundred pounds). Probably hav'ta raise rice......and be there to hand pick the bugs (and add them to yer rice dishes for protein)

If the Vietnamese can do it, you can too!

[Ross]

The chickens can have mine thanks. Pidgeons would work too though technically theyre foraging more than the quarter acre!

[deaconjim]

Originally Posted by turtlehead

I don't see how, unless you're a vegetarian and even then it would be difficult to raise enough wheat, rice, beans, and corn to feed yourself. Plus vegetables, berries, fruit trees.

If you plan on milk, you'll need to raise hay and perhaps grain for a milking animal. A milking animal would contribute cheese and butter, too - so you might get away with not having cooking oil and lard.

Do you plan to use sugar? Can you grow sugar cane or sugar beets where you are and process the sugar?

Depending on where you live, you may have to give up pineapple, cocoa, bananas, coffee.

No, I don't think a person can grow all the food they need on a quarter acre. I don't think it can be done on less than five, and that's pushing things. IMO.

A beehive produces quite a bit of sugar, and takes up very little space. As for pineapple, cocoa, etc., those are wants, not needs.

[Beaners]

You know what, I bet with some very serious intensive methods it is possible. It wouldn't happen every year, without fail. It is certainly possible to get pretty close though. I disagree with the naysayers who say it is impossible. Especially when there is only one person. One person doesn't eat nearly as much food as a family.

I just opened the page in my Emery book that lists how much space it takes on average to grow a bushel of grain. 10x100 feet for wheat, 10x50 feet for field corn. If you want a bushel of wheat and two of corn, you're only using .046 of an acre. That's 18% of your available space. The corn stalks can go to feeding your rabbits once you have harvested your corn. Doesn't 60 lbs of wheat and 100 lbs of corn sound like plenty for a single person? That's not baking loaves of bread for families of 10 every day, but for a single person I'd think it's enough. If you do oats, you can get a second crop out of the space after the oats are done.

I have a feeling that the real material to be gleaned from the book mentioned is not that if you follow this specific layout to the letter you will always succeed. I bet it is about concepts that can be of use no matter what size your property is. Grow using intensive methods. After you harvest something plant a new crop. Rotate everything. Use your leftovers to feed your animals. And so on.

I know that right here where I am, I am still harvesting plenty from my garden. I could be eating a lot more out of it if I had continued planting after I put in the fall/winter stuff that I did. As it is I can have at least one salad out of the garden every day, a few beets or turnips or rutabagas a day, and some brussels sprouts here and there too. That is without my cold frames on anything right now. I don't need them yet, because of what I have planted. I am pretty sure we will be eating garden fresh vegetables until the end of December or middle of January this year. Then February and March are just too cold, getting down below zero occasionally. Not too long after that I can start my spring salads in cold frames or in the house.

I'll say again that I think it is possible. It might not be easy, and it might not work every year. But it is something I could be enthusiastic about.

Kayleigh

[Terri]

A few thoughts on the matter.

The Chinese would have a pig in a pen to use up the scraps and to get a little feed as well. The manure wnt on the garden.

*IF* you planted EXCLUSIVELY wheat, you would have, in a good year, 15 bushels of grain and a bushel weighs 60 pounds. If you lived mostly off of grain with beans and veggies off the side you could do it. You would need to plant much of your garden to wheat, but you would have room for some vegetables also.

Weeds and grain could probably feed a hutch of rabbits, though I do not know how to balance rabbit feed.

Bees could give honey for calories and sweetness.

Yes, I think it is possible, but you might have to do without much meat and dairy and eggs.

[MaggieJ]

Whether it is actually possible or not, I'm sure the original poster will learn a lot that will help him make better use of his four acres.

[ET1 SS]

It is hard for me to picture 1/4 acre being enough land.

If anyone does it, and can make it work; I would like to hear about it.

[HermitJohn]

If its very rich built up soil and you have capability to provide adequate water and have long enough season, then suspect you could raise enough calories. It may not be things you want to eat, but enough to live on. Meat, pineapple, cocoa, etc are wants/preferences not absolute needs. I dont know that even grain would even be most efficient use of growing space. Maybe something like amaranth which is both a grain and a vegetable and root vegetables. It really depends on water availability and local climate/growing season. Then you get into varieties. The most productive varieties for mechanical production may not be most productive for subsistance type use.

[Windy in Kansas]

The climate the ¼ acre is in would make a difference too as to whether one could get successive crops planted and harvested. Such as radishes, followed by beans, followed by turnips, and maybe even by spinach.

Crop residue going to chickens and rabbits. BTW, ever feed a bean plant to cattle? They seem to love them.

I tend to think it could be done albeit with not a lot of traditional crops/grains as staples like we usually use.

[edcopp]

Well, if you don't think you can then it's for sure you can't.

I think it is very possible and wise. A quarter of an acre, for one person. Now that would be a half acre for two people.

There will be some tricks to this I am sure. It seems to me that a quarter of an acre well tended would produce better than an acre full of weeds, and other problems. For me it would be good to stop trying to grow things that do not do well for me in my location, and just stick to what I eat and what does well here.

As for small livestock I do keep some now. Here I need to keep my surplus animals used up, or contributing to the productoin. For instance rabbits reproduce quickly, and can eat a lot of the garden scraps. They poop, and poop and poop, in return for the scraps from the garden. They also taste pretty good. More than justify the few square feet required for them.

Chickens likewise are capable of a good return, taste good, produce eggs, and abundant fertilizer.

The trick with the animals would be not to be keeping a bunch of surplus animals. Invite them to dinner on a regular basis.

A quarter of an acre would work a lot better for one person than extended time with the T.V. remote. If the project only was 90% effective it would still be a good deal.