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

Linkovich - "The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It" by John Seymour. One of the best books out there ... ever ... regardless of category. Any book by Seymour is awesome. Wonderful illustrations and the guy is hilarious in his writing. If I have the time, I'll post another thread with a section from his book entitle "Forgotten Arts and Crafts" that details how not to clean your chimney.

Very well said. This is probably the best post on the entire thread!

clovis - thanks for the compliment!

Regarding fruit trees, by using dwarf trees & spacing them closer than usual, you could get a LOT of fruit.

As I approach the half century mark, the smaller, simpler the better it will be for me. I look forward to selling my rough 50 acres so I can buy 3. Then I can actually do something on it.

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All our pain and all our tears will be no more.....

Just got this and really enjoying it. Getting me back in the garden.

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A lot being roughly 60% of what that same square footage of orchard would yield if you had grown full size trees.

When most people mention their quarter acre, that includes the land the house sits on. That is about the size of the lot our house in the burbs sits on. We have had this place longer than we have owned our ranch. Over the years we have had bees, garden and chickens here, and the neighbor complains about EVERYTHING except the bees. The chickens (three hens) make too much noise. The compost pile stinks. The only reason he hasn't complained about the bees is because we placed the hive so it isn't visible unless you actually go into our yard.

We have 12 fruit trees there too, and we could produce some of our food there, but certainly not all or even most of it.

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I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam.

Popeye

I look at this question a little differently.
Can I grow something on a quarter acre that I can sell for enough money to provide ALL the needs of my family and my crop?
The answer is yes.
With the right location, species (plant or animal), skills, and market, it is not particularly difficult to make a very profitable, interesting, and legal living on one quarter acre or less.

There was a place in California that sold gourmet lettuce to restaurants: they managed nicely.

Other than that, I think it would have to be smokable and hidden, if you know what I mean.

What were you thinking of growing?

Ditto.

If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Farmers with hundreds or thousands of acres could skip all the acreage, and do it on a postage stamp.

There indeed might be microniches near metro areas, where a few brave souls could 'make it'. But out in flyover country, not many folks are going to pay 10x for their groceries. Without yuppies, it won't work.

Or maybe it would. I wouldn't bet my life on it.

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this thread is old but i thought i would post anyway. Living on just over a 1/3acre with the house and i have been able to grow all my green and dry beans, tomatoes for cannings, tomatillos for saucing, greens for freezing, zukes for freezing, cukes for pickles, corn for freezing, winter squash, 4 apple trees for keeping, 2 plums for drying, 2 pearrs, 2 cherry, 30 blueberries, 10x101 strawberries, 8 currants, raspberries, blackberries, huckleberries, all for the freezer as well as eating seasonally fresh for my family of 5. All this with a large area of play yard too. I also keep 6 hens for eggs. I choose not to keep meat animals. I buy beef from my dad, pork from a local farmer. I do hope to add 2 dwarf milk goats for the dairy someday. we will see. I sell my extra fresh stuff to neighbors at half the cost of a local farmers market because i dod not have to pay stall fees and really i wonder how i might get through it all. My 1/3 acre brings in 900$ a year after deducting my seed/extra electric, and other expenses. I do not factor in my labor as i would be doing it with or without an income from the garden.

I've read the book. It has some good points, but maybe is oversold. I think it depends on where you live. Couldn't do it here because of soil problems and weather patterns. intensive planting is not as successful here as it was where we used to live.

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Since this thread was re-opened I thought I would post. It is possible. However, one must determine food wants from food needs. Anyone interested should check out Grow Bio-intensive, John Jeavons and William Chadwick along with Rudolph Steiner. It is not possible if one insists on working with the soil that they have as some soils are not capable of intensive growing methods. However, by amending the soil (lots of compost) it is possible. I started changing my traditional row garden over to intensive methods 2 years ago (finally completed this year) and I grow more food than I ever did.

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Look at Square Foot Gardening by Rhodale Press. Has some really great info in there.

So is sugar

Ohe thought is that you can live without grains. My DH and I do because of food allergies, don't even eat rice. We do fine.
You would need something though for the chickens to eat. I do plant vegs for them every year but buy their feed. I supplement with scraps.

I can do acreage from 5 acres up, I have a 2 acre thereabouts field. I cant imagine what a quarter acre is like. What does it measure to in ft??

Second, Ive seen several who said it would be hard work but one could/might do it I cant see where manageing a quarter acre would be near as hard as manageing say 5 as OV has said. What I see, is, You gotta do a certain amount of work on a certain amount of veggies. Thats in the planting and harvesting, AND, to tell the truth, Those 2 items should take less time on a 1/4 acre than on 5. BUT the big time eater, by FAR, is weed maintenance. The time spent on 5 acres to keep it weed free, would kill out any enthusium by most people.

BUT, Lets say, you cut it back to 1 acre. Thats STILL a chunk of land to be weeding, not to mention walking down planting, and watering. One acre, i would think, would produce all the food needed by a family, and therefore guarantee the rule of 4 as stated above. IF You can grow enough food in one acre for a family of 4, You SHOULD be able to grow enough food for one person on a quarter acre.

Yes, we can set at our puters and THINK, O yeah, I suppose it could be done, BUT youd have to stick with it, Youd have to be ready to harvest right on time so as to get it done and another crop right in behind it if possible. You couldnt let a weed grow that could take up the nuitrants that a needful plant could use. Youd have to keep it watered so that it would grow to the max of its capability at the shortest time. ect,ect,ect
BUT Those are things that a good gardener should be doing regardless of the amount of ground he is gardening, and if he is doing it on 1/4 acre, rather than 1 acre, He isnt watching as much ground. He is weeding as much ground, and picking out random weeds while doing the work isnt hard or time consuming. He isnt watering as much ground, and, therefore, shouldnt feel the need to cut back on his water, and therefore get a more adbundant harvest, on less land.

Its kinda like this. You can buy a hundred chickens, and turn them loose, and youll likely get a doz eggs a day not feeding them anything. OR, you can buy 2 doz hens, and keep them fed, and get between a doz and 2 a day. All depends on size, in both instances.
If you have other time consuming projects that take large amounts of time, Do you think haveing an acre in garden is going to be easier to manage than a 1/4 acre??

I would also see where one would have to take in companion planting, Take in the idea of planting things where one could get 2 crops from as in beets, where both the leaves AND the bulb are ediable. Beans could grow up corn stalks and the stalk and bean plant fed to rabbits.

I see Lehmans has a lawn sweeper that holds 6 bu. Why couldnt one supply a chunk of the green feed needed for rabbits and chickens ect from going round and sweeping up peoples lawns after theyve mowed them. Could be, that some would pay u a bit to take up the old clippings. I intend to get one of these, if I stay in rabbits. Im buying plastic bales of ground alfalfa which I feed a pinch to all my rabbits in the morning, and then give them a tuna can of pellets in the evening. They do not need that alfalfa in the morning. Thats $15 a bale. They could do just as well on grass clippings in the morning, as the can of pellets provides the daily needs and nuitrants of all that a rabbit needs.
Same way with chickens. Id sprinkle a good handful over their feed. Theyed eat some of it.

Take it and mix the clippings into a bucket of water. !/2 clippings, 1/4 oats. 1/4th ground corn in a slop and feed it to a hog.

Tell ya what. I wish theyed quit makeing books about gardening, OR at least make more vids about it. I cant learn anything hardly from a book, as I can from watching a vid over and over.

With aquaponics you can grow just about all of your needs on a quarter of an acre.
You would have to give some thought to what is really a need or just a want.
I can grow just about all I need on an area that size. Plenty of room for what ever vegetables you need. Small animals will have to do for meat. You may have to buy some feed but you can produce what you need to eat very easy.

I am older and wiser than I was in 2009, and I would like to change my answer.

I can now see how it could be done, but it would require some major changes in my diet.

see this thread has been resurrected. Might I suggest also reading Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway and considering food forest gardens rather than just regular gardens. I also suggest nuts but they do take a long time to bear.

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