growing 90% of your own food support group

hmsteader71 · #**321** 11/14/14, 07:19 AM

Arnie-I am envious.

Grandmotherbear · #**322** 11/14/14, 08:44 AM

I'll never make the 90%, living on 2 city sized lots- 1 at the lake, 1 at the city, but I was rereading the archives from Daily Journal from CSF forum and had forgotten how much food we got from gardens back in 2006-2009. Basically we were buying milk bread and eggs (city regs forbid keeping any farm animals or poultry) I'm trying to get my garden pots cleared of the 7-9 feet tall weeds and get a traditional garden planted- so far I've seeded parsnips, peas, turnips, beets, crosnes, Irish taters and cukes, and bought maters, peppers, herbs, broccoli and cauliflowers. Got to get my green beans and yardlong beans in also. Summer is our fallow period a d I'm just gonna give up, I think, on the tropical vegies. Even the winged beans mainly bear in the shortend days. The rains (over a foot above normal) exploded all my sweet taters but I'll just keep the vines going till next spring. I think a good goal to aim for myself is dairy, bread and meat from the store and everything else from garden. I am going to try to track down okari and panama nuts, and maybe some oyster nuts too. I have a Pachira nut tree but it's only 3 years old and hasn't set any fruit yet.

dlskidmore · #**323** 01/20/15, 07:17 PM

So I'm doing my planning for next year's garden, and thinking that my most out of control food spending is holiday dinners, and maybe it would be an attainable intermediate step to plan to grow 90% of next year's Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I'd have to get around to canning more of the fruit I already grow. Several of the crops I use for Thanksgiving (carrots, parsnip, winter squash, pumpkin) are also sheep fodder varieties, so they're already on the list of things to plant anyway. I'm considering if I want lamb or chicken, or if I need to convince hubby to let me add turkeys this year. (Unfortunate that there is a minimum order on turkeys, easier to contemplate doing 2 of our own than trying to sell turkey.) If lamb, then I'd need to schedule an early butcher. If I do the lamb early I can even render my own tallow for pie making. (I should have beef tallow left over, but I didn't grow it myself.) I'd end up buying sugar, flour, milk products, nuts, maybe a box of jello...

Homesteader1 · #**324** 01/20/15, 07:36 PM

Am I missing something?? I did not see any family sizes. How many are in your families. After homesteading for years I might can help in some way. How many are working the homesteads? Someone mentioned bartering great tool to use especially in this coming year and beyond.

Dixie Bee Acres · #**325** 01/20/15, 08:01 PM

I have a family of 4, but I also grow a lot of produce to sell, and supply my dad with some pork, most of his produce, and supply him and my siblings with jams and jellies. I also supply about 4 or 5 families with eggs.
How many work our place? Well, 4 of us. Me full time, my wife some, and our kids help.

I might add, I wish I had Arnies property and set up, it would make the 90% goal so much easier.

dlskidmore · #**326** 01/22/15, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlskidmore

(Unfortunate that there is a minimum order on turkeys, easier to contemplate doing 2 of our own than trying to sell turkey.)

Perhaps I am mistaken, because some combos come with only 2 turkeys and several other species of bird. The combo makes me feel too ambitious though. TurGoDucken anyone?

Homesteader1 · #**327** 01/22/15, 07:53 PM

Going to be a great year. Best wishes to all.