Topic: How Much Garden You Would Need to 100% Survive On (Read 703 times)

I think if we consider some time and space saving options, you would need only a minimal amount of garden to survive on.

Something has lately sparked my interest. Namely indoor gardens aka greenhouses and potato growing bags. The growing bags are interesting because you would not have to actually uproot and harm/destroy the potato plants, rather you open a section of the bag and take out the grown potatoes. The plant itself stays unharmed and continues growing even more potatoes for the maximum yield, until exhaustion. Unlike if grown in a field, its more efficient, I would think.

It takes 3-4 months for the plant to grow to the point of harvest and with a potato bag, even though the next harvest will not be as plentiful, it should only take 10 weeks for new potatoes to fully grow.

Whether or not thats more efficient than replanting and waiting 3-4 months for a full harvest can be a point of argument...

You could grow in a greenhouse, or even in a room with sufficient sunlight. Even in winter, so the question is, seeing as you do not need to replant every time, how many perpetually growing potato plants do you need to harvest a steady amount of potatoes and survive?


edit: I am not plant expert, so I might be completely off on how many times you can harvest from a single potato plant. A strategically timed replanting could achieve the same result.

I think trees are overlooked. Here where I live, they grow on their own and whenever they yield their seasonal fruits we just eat them, without any maintenance whatsoever. 1 acre land is plenty, surround it with edible trees and in-middle plant vegetables, bit far from tree themselves as in shade they won't grow as proper.

Most likely many people are thinking about growing their own food not because they want to but because they believe that in the future they may have to do it, as we know the economy is not doing well and if there is one thing that you cannot live without is food, and when the country in which you are living or even the whole world is suffering due to an economic crisis, the very first thing that goes up in value is food because everyone needs it, and if you can cut your food expenses that will help you greatly under those circumstances.

My country has vast agricultural lands wasted due to rural-urban drift. Before now we lived in agrarian agricultural communities that were self-sufficient. There were no thieves because of our religious beliefs and we have sufficient rainfall. Now the rural areas lack basic amenities and employment opportunities which has made many people flee to the urban areas. But the environment in these cities is polluted and the food is highly inorganic. Sometimes we think we earning a better income in the city unknowingly that when we grow our food and live in a healthier environment we will spend less on food and healthcare. I always feel like going back to the rural area but my greatest challenge is the infrastructural deficit.

Hihi, this is one of those 1 in a trillion situations when the close to impossible happens, and, yes it did!
I was curious about how the building looks from the street view and guess how google maps greeted me:

Pasona Tokyo Headquarters
Permanently closed


Well, they tried, god knows how much money they've spent on it cause they didn't replicate that stunt anywhere else.
So I guees this counts as a shattered demolished dream.  

Although I agree with that in principle, when you already mentioned Japan, I remembered an example of an office building that contains 43 000 square feet of area for growing about 200 different types of fruits and vegetables. I was really fascinated by such an approach, which not only produces food for the employees, but also creates a very pleasant working environment - except for those who don't really like to be in the natural environment.

https://archello.com/project/pasona-hq

0.1 acres is 0.04 ha, best two-season production is around 7 tons of rice per ha, with 0.1 acres you will get 280 kilos of rice a year, or 56 kilos of rice per family member, so even all of it used won't satisfy your needs, livestock has no way to compete on used land with rice or other grains so it would be been less possible to live on it.
Redo the numbers!


You forgot the part where the math is completely wrong!
Self-reliance is just a dream, impossible to realize in today's world.
Even with the completely bogus numbers or 1000 sqm being enough you would still need cities like for example Tokyo to grow 10 times in size just so that everyone could have its small garden, how do you think it will look like, not even mentioning that those gardens will displace some other millions who will also need a new home and a  new garden? In countries like Belgium, Japan, or Vietnam you would cover 1/3 of the whole country with small farms, do you think it's still such a great idea?

For people who have land in front of their own house, it is very nice, because they can immediately turn their home page into a small garden to grow plants and fruits that can be consumed. But this will not be able to be run by those who only have a house without having a qualified front yard. So I think the advice you give is very limited because it is only for certain people.

I agree to this because the suggestions you are making are factual and very logical with so many examples that have been seen at this point. I have also seen some people who plant herbs on the walls of their homes, but it will not be enough for him even though it is very healthy, because everyone also needs fruits to eat besides they need vegetables to eat every day.

My country belongs to the category of half developing countries where many residents of the 70s generation in remote areas still make full use of the vacant land around them for daily food needs without relying on traditional markets at all. Even though it is only a small plot of land (not even 0.1 sq. acre), with the support of 2 tropical seasons,  it can produce food for 4-5 family members with almost complete nutrition all year round from farming and partly for raising livestock.

Growing crops for yourself and your family will actually be quite easy. because it certainly does not require a large area of ​​land. This is different from farming where the produce is for sale. Of course it requires a large area of ​​land as well as extra energy and high capital.

if you grow crops for yourself and your family, using chemical fertilizers will still be affordable. because buying vegetables and grains from the market will still be more expensive than growing yourself. but if we can grow plants with our own processed compost, it will be much more efficient.

but for large-scale farming it will require large amounts of fertilizer. so of course it will be difficult to make organic fertilizer on a large scale.

unless there is an agricultural group that cooperates in making it.

There are lots of way to make a garden though even if you have if you have small space left. Some farmers/gardeners hang it in the wall with a pot but it limits of what you must plant and herbs are the best choice for a pot but for the crops you really need some space to grow them. And if someone was living in an apartment it's not gonna work but if it's your own land you can do whatever you want since no one would hinder what you've been doing since planting really need a lot of time and care to grow.

If you don't have your own land to grow herbs or fruit that you can eat, then try to rent it to someone else if the rent is not that expensive and you feel it is very suitable to do the job. Because if you are a reliable farmer who has a lot of knowledge about agriculture and is able to manage every crop, then that is an advantage for you in terms of farming.

The glass alone can't resist the impact of ice the size of baseball balls, you need sandwiched reinforced one, and clearly, from the pictures that ain't one, it's not even tempered glass. That's why I recommend PE solution on top of that, it will take the initial blow and it will prevent much of the impact, if you're living in a dangerous zone you can renounce glass at all and go for double-layered LDPE, extra 20cents more on sqm and you get the UV resistant one which will not degrade even in 5 years of exposed sun, we have that on top of our normal PE sheets and it has withstanded everything to date, from rain to hailstorm to crows.


Well, green beans will be more prolific now with this warm weather, you could theoretically plant them in March since I doubt the soil below 30cm in southernn Europe is still frozen by that time, probably in excellent conditions you might be able to harvest it even before the first summer heatwave in July.

For others, yeah, it's going to be the end of home farming, I doubt anyone would be able to grow watermelons, cabbage, cucumbers or any other fruit or vegetables that have a late harvest schedule and requires tons of water, we've stopped growing the normal tomatoes and gone for the roma of plum type, rather change a bit the taste than have nothing at all.

Looking back at this topic, probably best to read it in spring or late autumn when the weather is nice, everything is fine, and everyone thinks that farming is fun, if you read it after getting back home from 40C outside all tried and sweaty from just walking reality kicks in, farming is a pain in the ass, it will always be and home farming is fun just for a few days while you know that if it goes wrong you can still pull the phone from your pocket and order a pizza in 15 minutes.

Look what hail did a few months ago in my country, and even greenhouses with glass that was supposed to be resistant to hail impacts were destroyed. Conditions have become extreme in every way, be it hail or temperatures going over 40 degrees Celsius in the shade. You must be aware that some plants cannot bloom and form fruits if the temperature does not suit them, so for example, we do not plant green beans in spring at all, but in late summer, which is more suitable for them and they produce good fruits in autumn.

https://www.zagorje-international.hr/2022/05/25/tuca-kakva-se-ne-pamti-nema-kuce-i-staklenika-koji-nisu-osteceni-usjeva-koji-nije-unisten/


It is logical that technology enters every pore of society, and agriculture is no exception. I have no doubt that in the future everything will be automated to the extent that the entire farm will be managed from one center, provided that it will be possible to produce food at all, given that some areas will look more like deserts than arable land.

https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/stretching-sands-desertification-spreads-europe

Solariums.

Despite what some believe that they are meant to keep vegetables as exposed to the sun as possible and warmer in spins/autumn they are also pretty good at dealing with every extreme weather also, be it rain, hailstone, and even extreme sun.
If you have a glass solarium and you don't want to spend a fortune on the reinforced glass all you need is some cheap rolls of standard white 0.5 polyethylene that you can simply pull from the rooftop down to the ground. If your solarium is already made out of a bit higher quality LDPE then you're set, all you need for your plants is to avoid direct radiation at peak sun times, otherwise heat alone won't do any harm to them.

And if you think of esthetics, there are a lot of them who ware works of art, looking far better than some houses!


You're not going to like it, but int he near future even the farmers will be looking at screens, J&D just brought their autonomous tractors CES, our company has in plans to test by 2025 the first full autonomous loader /unloader in one of our logistics centers, and delivery will probably start being dominated by pi-cup delivery locations like those safe boxes that have been popping up like mushrooms from Denmark to Bulgaria.


Some angelic tongues say it's because of what's been happening for decades at Karachay, quite coincidentally is in your region so that might explain a lot of things

No one can blame the current politicians for what has been happening for decades, all the politicians who put development first, regardless of the price that the next generations will pay, are to blame. I just cannot understand all those who claim that climate change is a fabrication and that all that is happening is just a natural development of events.

I read somewhere a very detailed explanation of why the temperatures have risen so drastically in parts of Europe, and the reason is a disturbance in the flow of air that stays too long near Africa and sucks in too much hot air that then comes over Europe. In short, everything has been disrupted and nothing is the same as before, and it doesn't look like anything will get better in the future.

---

Unfortunately, people are increasingly becoming some kind of techno zombies who spend more and more time looking at screens, instead of trying to deal with other things. Large corporations produce food that is unhealthy and poisoned, poorly paid workers put the same food on the shelves, and then people like ants grab that food and deliver it to their homes. It doesn't seem like a promising direction to me, because if for some reason the crops fail or the supply chains are seriously disrupted, I wonder what all those people will do when they realize that the shelves are completely empty?

You should be more grateful when you are still able to live in peace and hopefully the country you live in can always be peaceful because it is also the initial foundation for citizens to be able to live in peace.

That is true because there are many ways and paths that can be used by everyone in their own lives which in the end are for the purpose of a better life.
May your life continue to be enjoyable after reading the book compiled by John Seymour.

All of this was already thought about in the pre-digital age.
And John Seymour wrote a book about it.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It - The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide
Das grosse Buch vom Leben auf dem Lande - Ein praktisches Handbuch für Realisten und Träumer

I have read the book long time ago.
It's not in my nature to kill animals and farming is too exhausting for me.

Today i live peacefully in a country with a local crypto-exchange, where electricity is cheap and i can't read/understand the daily newspaper.

Everyone finds their own way 

These are not problems, considering how many nuclear-powered icebreakers Russia has. It is also possible to burn gas from the unused Nord Stream 2 and heat water locally in the waters of Murmansk. There is only a fraction of a joke in this joke, and everything else is true.

I wouldn't be surprised if Murmansk completely freezes over this coming winter as well /shrug

The whole idea of a "Climate weapon" is quite silly to be honest - I can't imagine Putin being dumb enough to get his only western sea port in the Arctic frozen off as a collateral effect.