growing 90% of your own food support group

Rain here also . I had to move the pig ;now a big shoat I should say from its little pen to the big lot I, been getting broicokli lettice n green onions from the garden and added a few more tomato plants while attempting to hoe weeds in the cane yesterday hope4ing to extend the season with some late planting . this seems to be a good start to the growing season things are comeing along well . my gardens tend to do better in dryer seasons than when it rains a lot (like last year) I can water every thing with the pump and hoses from the creek though it is added labor . all this rain this week was welcomed by the pasture grass and cow it seemed to green up over night .

I have 5 - 18 gallon pots planted to arrowhead wapato, and 3 to narrow leafed wapato- come autumn we'll see how we like the taste of the tubers. The narrowleafs tubers are the size of garbanzo beans so I am going to treat them like beans. I also discovered a source for the edible-rooted lotus- the owner suggested I would do better growing them in children's wading pools than in 18 gallon pots. I'll get fresh rootstock in the fall. I am going to send to the trash the plastic pots are breaking away from 12-15 years of use and repurpose these larger tubs as small raised beds. This is the last year dealing with 2-3 inch lotus roots in stir fry!!

Stinkbugs are laying eggs in the cowpeas. Seem to be less of them this year. Last year I didn't do much in the way of a summer crop because I had a 6 month case of bursitis that hit the end of June. When I tried to do extensive summer gardening in the past I wound up with a bumper crop of insect pests that also ravaged the fall/winter gardens. Guess I will have to plan an every-other-fallow-summer rotation.
So far the rain is 6 inches above normal. All the tomatoes are cracking and i'm quite sure if I tried to dig any sweet potatoes they'de be cracked also. The fig tree seems to like it tho.
Collards starting to wilt in the heat and whenever the bushes dry out I try to pick more pigeon peas. Those pigeon peas LOVE this climate! (and are so much better than storebought!)

Grandmotherbear, my Sis sent me some Malarbar spinach from Fl. she growes it there. Grows like crazy, it's a vine, and flowers so she easly gets seeds. It takes a bit to start growing here, but once it gets hot out-get out of the way! I'll always grow it, it's very prolific.

some of my brokoli is doing great forming nice darkgreen solid chunks others are sprouting up and booming ; and my cabbage -a couple plants look like lace where the bugs have eatin away on them while others go untuched ; I was trying to avoid it but I went down the row a dusted with seiven ,I gave the tomatoesa shot while I was at it / darned them bugs

Some one told me that they could buy taters cheaper than they could grow them. I bought 8 pounds of seed for less than a buck a pound, watered usually once a week for 2 hours with a soaker hose and picked up more than 80 pounds of taters including Yukon gold. That's bout a dime a pound. They taste much better too!

I'm in but i'm cheating as i'v been growing my own for 6 years now I plant much more than I could eat can lots ; once you get the routineand housing built for the meat animals you got it made .I now have a beef cow that has a calf every year for the freezer . and a big pig lot to grow my hog, in I hatch my own chickens .raise rabbits and am now milking a goat.it sounds like a lot but the daily livestock care can be done in about an hour includeing milking . of course some days are devoted to making hay plowing and planting or canning . but that's not really that bad the garden usally takes only a few hours a week . I am so very lucky to have a cannery in our county for residents to use at a very low cost. so when there isa bumper crop of corn or apples we can use all there equipment and cookers to make big jobs easy . they even have all the tools of a butcher shop to make your own sausage and steaks .though I send my own beef n hog to slaughter house the option is there to save cash . you can use your own jars or purchase tin cans at cost . today was a big day for me in the garden as I got my first big red tomato of the year .

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Hey that's neat. I'd love to hear more about the cannery deal. I'd love to see if we could get one in my county.

we're probly at 50% with atwo acre garden,tomatos/peppers/potatos/cukes/winter squashes(4)kinds,added strawberries-rhubarb-dill and horseradish.the cold got my peach and apple trees!time to replant!between freezing and canning last fall we're down to 5assorted quart jars left&2qts of chili sauce/2qts of pickles!

Big john, you sound like you are about on par with me. We are down to a dozen or so jars of jelly and jam, and a few pints of pickles, few pints of salsa, and 3 or 4 pints of tomato juice, and maybe 3 or 4 quarts of green beans. We ran out of about everything else one to two months ago, but that just shows us how much we need to increase production this year.
But, this year I have already done one batch, I think 8 jars, of raspberry jam, 4 gallons of maple syrup, 7 pints of beets and one pint of banana peppers. Will start picking green beans tomorrow.

getting a few tomatoes and the sweet corn is taller than I . I too may be canning beans next weekend as they' only need to fill out some more

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Nice maters!
Mine are growing, but doubt any will be ripe for a few weeks.

Way to go Arnie. I'm doing likewise. You have a great climate down there and good land from what I can tell. Looks like you are hard at work.

I've been looking over this post for the past few hours, longing to be at 90% produced. We are far from it, but trying our hardest. Unfortunately, "life" has a way of keeping us from those dreams at this point. We have two teenagers and a baby girl who consume a lot of food. Both DH and I work full time and it's a challenge trying to keep the balance. We bought just under 25 acres in Northern Ca two years ago. We have a few trees going, a small garden and hope to have chickens and a pig in the spring. We have cows on the pasture, though they aren't ours. For now, our neighbor leases the pasture and in exchange, we get a beef out of the deal. I try to make as much as I can (bread, english muffins, jam, sauces, etc) but it's challenging. I see all of these farms achieving what I hope we can soon enough. I'm hoping that in a few years, I will be teaching in a classroom and that will allow for my DH to be free to run the farm and help to raise our own food (and cut down on childcare!).

Does anyone know of any good resources for finding out how much of each veggie/fruit we need to grow to maintain our family? For example, if we eat green beans 2x per week and each serving is 1/2 cup (but there are 5 in our family-two of which eat twice what I do), that is 3.5 cups/meal so 7 cups/week.....7X52=364 cups of green beans...but I have no idea how many plants that is! I'm new to this! I know most will end up canned, but I LOVE fresh green beans so much more and want to utilize as much as possible (oops, I seem to have veered off subject). Anyway, any resource that helps give an approximate yield/plant would be helpful

It's so hard to calculate nutritional needs per plant per serving etc. The variation between individual plants is huge and each year is different. I've just come to the conclusion that I need about 1/3 of an acre to basically cover all my vegetables for the year. I know we will go through some lambs, chickens, eggs and rabbit this year but have no idea how much. I'm still not at the 90% mark, and wont be until our cow freshens and some other things come through.

Here are a couple of places to start:

http://www.harvesttotable.com/2011/0...elds_plants_p/

http://www.harvesttotable.com/2011/0..._of_vegetable/

and, last but not least, MEN:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homes...z12onzkon.aspx

It's all trial and error. You're further ahead than you were a few years ago, and in a couple of years, you'll be even further along the path.

Good luck!

__________________
Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Awesome, thank you both so much! From what I have gathered, record keeping is vital to being successful - that is, tracking what and where and how much. Obviously there is room for variation based on things out of our control (weather, water, etc), but I'm hoping to find a rhythm...just wasn't sure where to start!

I wish I could remember who made it, but floating around the house is a little slide-thingy guide that shows you how much to plant and when. You can set it for your own USDA zone.

If I remember (ha!) I will look for it tonight.

__________________
Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Plant yield has way to many variables and even from year to year at the same location. Books at the library might help you to know about what to expect with perfect conditions. For Green beans I'd count how many cans of them you use a week for the year. You'll need that many canned green beans. Be aware that different types yield different amounts and have different tastes. I usually buy blue lake at the store but I didn't do good with them here at least yet. Other varieties have better taste and yield. So I'm gonna venture into the unknown.

As far as green beans, I plant Top Crop. I have 15, 28 foot rows. Been picking for about a week now, on average I can pick about a 5 gallon bucket full per day.
So far, I have canned 35 quarts and frozen probably 6 or 7 quarts.
Hope that helps.

We plant tender green and yellow wax bush beans. 2 rows of each. We can in pints, about 100 a year. 60 green, 40 wax, that is about the difference in production between them. We have 36 left. I like to plant more than enough so we get more cans per picking. When we have the canning done then I start pulling and feeding to the animals. But I continue to pick for the animals and fresh for us, too....James