Teaching a class on what all one could raise on 1 acre

I bought the book on Amazon. Here's a link to the listing....

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...181373-0542221

To the right of the book's picture, it should say something like 'XX used and new' (where 'XX' is the number of used/new books available from third-party sellers). They have copies available as low as 70 cents (plus roughly $3.50 in shipping). It's a trade paperback, 340 pages.

(Of course, this brings me back to the sad state of bookselling nowadays when so many books have dropped so rapidly in price. This book was published in Dec. 2003 - it's not an old book.)

ok i thought if the usda published it that maybe the it was a free government pub.

Do some research on the Peace Corps and other similar organizations. There are some great websites showing how families across the globe make do on a patch of ground the size of your living room. One neat idea I saw was to raise rabbits in raised pens under arbors where squash plants were growing. The squash roots benefited from all the manure, the rabbits got shade, and there were ducks and chickens ranging underneath in the manure, where they got a good percentage of their ration from spilled and undigested grains. The manure was spread and turned by the scratching of the birds, so the smell was minimized, which is good since the hutch was about 2 feet from the kitchen door.
You could build a trough under the pens for the manure and grow worms in there as well for your birds or to sell.

You will need a tree or a line of bushes so that the animals can get out of the sun. Cherry is out, but apple or pear, or whatever would grow well in that particular soil.


Whats wrong with cherry trees?They grow like weeds here,fast and great shade.Please enlighten me.
Thanks
BooBoo

I'm not sure about cultivated "real" cherry trees, but what my folks called wild cherry or chok-cherry has a cyanide compound in the partially wilted leaves. Supposedly bad for horses. I don't know about cattled. Also, Japanese yew is bad. Poisonous plants could be a whole 'nother topic!

Jaybird-
Don't forget small scale aquaculture. Tilapia fish grow in tanks & fish-waste water can be used for (hydroponic?) vegetable gardening.
Remember when you're talking "sustaining" that people & livestock both produce waste & you need to deal with that too.
try to find the book "The Integral Urban House" by The Farallones Institute or the article about the house in TMEN archives issue #42. They raised chickens, rabbits, fish & bees, plus vegetables on a city lot.
Also www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/home.htm for more sustainable ideas.
CW

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Cindy in SW PA

ALL cherry leaves are poisonous, especially when wilted. The bark is poisonous, too.

Definitely depends on the locale.

On my wifes 2.5 acres, she has had two calves (about 200 #s apiece) for the past two months, which have grazed it down quite a bit - still some pasture left, but with rain making appearance once a month or so (and that less than 1"), these calves will likely be doing this pasture by themselves. When the original pasture was together (10 acres), 10 cows were present, but the land was irrigated two / three times a year, and hay was kept as a stop gap during drought years. In the unirrigated dry lands, they figure 10 acres per cow.

Water availability is the major factor is what you will be able to grow and raise.

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