Food Self-Sufficiency

At the tiny old Farm... I managed to have a nice kitchen garden, Orchard,berries, grapes, raised chickens, duck, odd turkey or two, sheep and goats. We ate well. Every once in awhile we bought a bit of beef from a friend..or traded some lamb for it. Only thing we would buy from the stores..(if we could not barter for it first)... Azure Standard to be exact, is, sugar, yeast and such. All Veggies/fruit/chicken/duck/lamb came from the tiny Farm.

Here... we are still not up to speed yet. I have a very young and small orchard, started the Veggie garden last year and hope to improve it enough to double the harvest this summer.
Want to add an Nut orchard but have to find a place for it first.
But it will be a few years before this place is producing like the tiny farm.
We raise all the hay we need for my equines.
Haven't added any goats or sheep to this place because of the predator problem. Rather not feed the wild animals..so will be awhile yet before I can get sheds built to house them during the night.

Instead of raising our own beef... we get a side every year from a local farmer, down the road a bit. They raise grass fed beef. So anything we don't grow or raise ourselves we buy local.

If you have the land you should be able to feed ones family at least most of the year on your Veggies, fruits and Nuts. It can be a lot of work presurving food but well worth it.
If you set it up right.. should also be able to have chickens for meat and eggs...same with Ducks, turkey and the smaller livestock like sheep and goats, that can feed you through out the year.
Get a hardy breed of sheep that has great fleece.. you can also handspin and either knit or weave, blankets, sweaters and so on.

Up north I had a barter system set up with other Homesteaders. Normally cover things like wheat and they would trade for lamb/turkey and so on...so I we did not have to buy what we needed in that department.
Not set up like that here though...maybe in time.

Things like Coffee... DH wouldn't give that up..so there are still things to buy like that and TP, Asprin and so on.

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Shari

I think it has been explained pretty well about habit eating vs producing all of your own food. On our farm we raise chickens, ducks, rabbits, dairy goats, honey bees, 1 hog a year and a large garden. I hunt and also bring home venison. IF we chose to, I think we could probably probably provide my entire family with enough food from our little farm to not require any outside food. This would entail cutting back on alot of things we do enjoy eating that we dont/cant grow and eating a more basic diet. As it stands now with the way we eat we probably supply close to 50% of our diet.

We do it for the comfort and security of knowing that whatever happens with the economy and the world, we can get by fine. Our farm is paid off, cars paid off. I am a disabled vet with a small pension and between my income and what we grow, we are pretty well insulated against the economic upturns and downturns. We sell/barter some of our excess supplies to pay feed costs. It is a great sense of security for us in these times. So although we COULD probably push to close to 100% self sufficient for food, we would not choose to.

Before my divorce, the family grocery expenses were reduced by 30 to 40 percent while the surplus sales from our truck patch garden made up about 6 percent of our income. After the divorce and changing my gardening strategy from a family of 3 perspective to a semi-retired singles perspective, my garden , hunting, fishing and barter reduce my grocery expenses by about 60 percent with no surplus for income as I no longer garden on a large scale, but rather use BISF technique for only my own needs.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

We do not buy any vegetables or jellies that's for sure.
But haven't got anywhere with peanuts yet for peanut butter to go with those jellies ;-)
On 2 acres we were in no way able to be self sufficient as far as our animals.
Yes we grew them but all of the hay for winter had to be bought and grain was from the mill.
We have added a few acres and look to be set for hay if we keep the animal numbers down to a reasonable level. With a good crop rotation we should have oats and corn to work with. A good protein source....beans or sunflowers haven't decided yet.
We should be able to work in winter wheat as well if we want to go to making our own flour and so forth.
Within 2 years I hope to only be at the store for stuff that cannot be grown here such as coffee and sugar although bees might fit in here somewhere and maybe we could drink some sort of tea.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Anyone actually providing 100% of their food, better than 90%, is something like 50% really more realistic or is that even optimistic?

Think about this, Indians lived off the land 100%, So to answer you question, yes!

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Verdigris Valley Farm
Altoona, Kansas
Cows, Chickens, Goats, Dogs, Cats and one Molly Mule

One can keep a yeast culture going just like a sourdough culture (in fact a sourdough culture is a yeast culture, (or a culture of different random yeasts) instead of a particular species. You do not need to get a starter, you can originate your own sourdough starter from the yeast spores naturaly flying around in the air (just like wine fermenting spores are naturaly on grape skins)

If starting you own sourdough culture is of interest to anyone, pm me, and I will make a thread with the information.

We have already had a lot of discussions on sourdough.

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http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

Its hard where I live to grow or raise enough to be that self sufficient but this year we are adding a hoop house to extend our growing options. We do hunt and fish and do a lot of gathering (seaweed, muscles, clams, shrimp, crab, berries of all types etc.) so I am estimating that we have made it to about 20%. We also eat fiddle head fern heads in the spring, dandilion greens, nasturtium flowers in summer, make spruce tip tea and we are starting to get into using other wild plants for medicinal purposes.

Used to have a chicken but there are too many bears, dogs, and eagles around here and I had to finally invite her to dinner.