growing 90% of your own food support group

Last nights dinner was Pork chops ( raised here ) , Corn pudding ( my canned corn and eggs , milk and cream from farm down the road ) and my canned applesauce. My goal would be my own stuff but I am ok with local and bartered for .

Laura love your garden . Heres mine.

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I have never raised chickens myself before but have helped with my brothers and my dads, is it easier to raise more at once and put them in the freezer or raise smaller amounts multiple times a year? space is not a problem so raising a large amount is doable in that sense. Would just like to hear suggestions from a few people who have done it both ways. I will probably start off with 25-30 just to learn with. Also is weather a problem for anyone, is it easier to raise chicks in the early spring vs later summer etc.
Thanks Rick

Check out www.backyardchickens.com. Great info on raising meat birds and for eggs.

It appears to me we have plenty interested in this, so, how are we going to proceed ?

We will be planting stuff in the garden this weekend and will continue for the next 3 months. Will also be butchering fryers starting this weekend. Milk and yogurt will start probably April. And we are getting eggs aplenty right now.

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So rule of tumb, if it's green you can plant a little before that, if it's a fruit you want to wait after that. So your peas, your broccoli, etc are slightly frost tolerant, but your tomatoes and peppers need to be frost free. If you're planting seed directly you can afford to bet this is an early year and replant if necessary, if you're buying transplants you want to wait or use a row cover to protect them from a surprise late frost. The seed packet will often tell you to plant after all risk of frost is gone, and to start seed indoors x weeks before that date. In my climate, hoop houses are not warm enough for germination, but they can help when the seedlings in the house get too big, and it's starting to warm up outside anyway. You can look up germination temperatures for each variety you are planting and get a soil thermometer if you don't have local advice on timing of planting. The type of hoop house and sun exposure will affect the temp of the soil inside.

Love this idea. Maybe next year I'll be able to join in as this year I'm buying land so won't have time to get things planted. Luck everyone!

I'm so envious! I have to wait 3 months to plant so much as a seed in a pot!

Well, why not. I certainly can try to grow a higher percentage of what I eat, but I think it will require an awful lot of discipline on my part. I'm getting a bit lazy in my old age. I'm looking forward to following this thread, seems it will challenge me to work towards being a better gardener/homesteader.

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On my part, I intend to proceed slowly.

I'm guessing some people will want to post more often about their progress than others. I'll probably put specific projects/problems in their own threads but try to give a year plan and year result post here.

I love this idea! Weve thought about this sort of thing for a long time. Im for sure in. But it will be a challenge since we are moving this year. My plans for gardening this coming year are very limited. Does buying form your neighbor count? We buy our raw honey from a local beekeeper and when my goats are dry, we get raw milk on a cow share from a local farmer also.

I think I am going to go make a list now.

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I guess I should have asked about posting. Do we want a community thread to post our lists and what we are doing to get there, individual threads for the same or what.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda

Thank you.
already got a soil thermometer =)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMrK...AE7062ADE5A19C

So I am planning on what to grow as we speak. Four I know of square foot gardens for the kitchen. I want to plant okra and leeks for the cash crop, but that is another project. I am growing in a soiless medium(wood chips) with Llama poo and LC1. Still planning on what to plant in the square foot gardens. I am doing also 4 square foot herb gardens. I want to be self sufficient and get past break even point.

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This year we are making more areas to increase the growing area of the garden. I am moving slow growing things like carrots and beets to raised beds which will be on the concrete around the pond which is in the center of the garden. Last year we raised peanuts and I am not sure if we will do that again. They took forever to grow, took up a good deal of space, and I didn't really know whether they were ready for harvest or not and some had already started making new plants. I think this year we are growing spring oats where we grew peanuts this year. We are making a new area for corn and will also grow pumpkins in with the corn. We plan on growing more sweet potatoes this year and have started working on a huegulkultur bed underneath a pine tree for herbs and possibly strawberries. Even though it is under a pine it gets plenty of sun because of the direction of the rising sun. We have another un-used area in the garden that we are fencing off and plan to run the pigs through this spring and then put in long bio-dynamic beds for a cool season grain in the fall. Most of our goal is to grow more to be able to feed the livestock and grow more variety than we have. We are also going to be planting berry bushes this spring to increase our fruit potential as we are sorely lacking in that area. We will start planting in a couple of weeks and right now we are just making sure that all the mulched areas are well covered so that we don't have to worry about that while planting. Blessings, Kat

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That is similar to some of what I am doing. I want to plant a bunch of corn. SO to utilize all the area, I am going with the 3 sisters planting. Pole beans along with winter squash and pumpkins.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda

Good discussions!

I have been slowly changing my family's diet to include only what we can grow ourselves. Anyone else do anything like that? I found we eat healthier and better when we do that.

Also we should name ourselves here. Something like this:

The 90% club
Or
The Food Sovereignty Support group
Or
Something so if we start a companion thread we can do a shout out in the subject line. just a thought.

Belle

I think you all are on to something. When I was trying to loose weight I felt the best way to go was a buddy.
It keeps you motivated and there is always a new idea or way to remedy a problem.

Maybe we can handle it like the singles forum.

I would love to see pics of every one's garden, a list of what each is growing for that season. That would lead to discussions about the individual varieties as well as any problems or failures.
As this grows, next year there will be incentive to increase each ones harvest.

Somebody iis going to have to tell me in very very simple steps how to post pictures

This is a great idea and its really garnered a lot of interest.

For the name I vote for the 90%ers.

I can give everyone a little hint on "LDS" food calculators. They weren't meant as a guide for daily food calories. The original calculators put out by the church were meant as a guide to preserve life ONLY. Today, the LDS church doesn't not "put out" a food calculator. All the foods recommended on the original calculators were staples meant for long-term storage. Easily picked up and moved. Perhaps in case the church members had to pick up a leave before the mobs came or something? They aren't good for calculating what percent of your diet you are producing yourself.

Perhaps we can each start a thread logging our individual efforts, and post a link to our individual threads here in the group thread?