Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth (8 page)

Figure 3.2. Precipitation

Download this worksheet at
http://tinyurl.com/mf4a33r

4

How Much to Grow

Y
OU’VE DETERMINED
how much space you have and made your garden map. Also, you know what crops you want to put there. The next thing to consider is how much of everything you want to grow. Since we are talking about working through a diet, think of how much of each thing you need for your diet plan. Once you know how many pounds of each crop your family needs for a year, you can work from there. If you are wondering how much people usually eat of each crop for the year, there is a column for that called
Pounds Consumed per Year by Average Person in U.S.
in the Master Charts found in
How to Grow More Vegetables.

Make a list of your crops, the number of pounds you need for the year, your target yield, and the space it will take to grow that amount. Include columns for the area you have allotted for that crop and the expected yield from that area. Have a column for your actual yield per 100 ft
²
. That figure can only be filled in from your experience. If you can’t grow the whole amount that you project that you need, having all the numbers on a worksheet together will help for future planning. You can use the worksheet that I’ve designed (
Figure 4.1
) or design your own.

The Master Charts mentioned above are a good resource for the yield estimates. There is a column in the Master Charts that shows the
Possible
GROW BIOINTENSIVE Yield in Pounds per 100 Square-Foot Planting
for each crop. Three numbers are given: designating what might be expected at the beginning level, an intermediate yield that might be reached after much soil building has been accomplished, and the high yield. Most people could come close to the beginning yield. Only very few will reach the high yield. Another column in the Master Charts shows the
Average U.S. Yield in Pounds per 100 Square Feet
. The yield you will achieve will depend on many factors including your soil, climate, and management skills. Using these figures as a guide, decide on a realistic yield to use as a target in your plan. Of course, if you already know how much to expect for some of your crops, you can use your own yield numbers. Eventually, with diligent record keeping, you will have your own yield figures for all your crops. For fun you could do some calculations to see how much space you could save if your target yield was higher. As the quality of your soil increases, along with increases in your skills and understanding, most likely your yields will increase — to a point, of course.

Figure 4.1. How Much to Grow

Download this worksheet at
http://tinyurl.com/mf4a33r

A sustainable diet is a seasonal diet. You won’t necessarily be planning to have each food on your table for every week in the year. Some things are best eaten fresh from the garden. On the other hand, you will want to have enough staple crops for every week. If you have never stopped to think about how much your family needs each week, now is the time to do that. My worksheet has columns for how many pounds are needed of each crop per week and how many weeks you would be eating it during the year. You don’t have a suitable scale at home to figure this out? That’s okay because you can use the one at the grocery store. In the produce section, pick out how much you would need to cook up for a meal and put it on the scale. Multiply that by how many times you would serve that much during the week. Are you eating it only when it is in season? How many weeks would that be? Multiply the number of weeks by how much food is needed per week and you will know how much is needed for the year. Having a good scale in your kitchen is helpful for many things. Working by count or by bunches has its limits.

This all assumes that what you are eating is food that comes from the garden. If what you are eating currently comes from boxes and cans, you will have a transition period. As I mentioned in
Chapter 1
, it is an adjustment to handle food in its raw state in your kitchen. There are no instructions on the packaging. In fact, there is no packaging. It opens the opportunity for creativity.

There is always something to remember about a previous harvest, favorite (or not so favorite) varieties, etc. Record those things in the space for comments. On the worksheet I’ve included columns for the amount of calories, protein, and calcium per pound of each crop. These figures are in the Master Charts where you found the yields. If you are taking those nutrients into account as you plan your sustainable diet, it is handy to have those figures available for reference and comparison.
If not, you might use those columns for the things you are comparing with your crops. Some information on the worksheet will be carried over from year to year. Write that in once and make copies of the worksheets. That will save you from having to add it each time.

Biosphere 2

We can make our plans and work toward their fulfillment. Meanwhile, if our community food systems are also being developed, we have something to fall back on if we need it. But what if we had to live off only what we grew? That’s what was planned for the eight person crew of Biosphere 2, a self-contained sealed environment experiment that took place in Arizona. It was thought that it would be a prototype for a space colony. Eight adventurous people entered the two-year experiment on September 26, 1991. Biosphere 2 contained seven biomes: a tropical rainforest, savannah, marsh, 25-foot deep ocean, desert, an intensive agriculture area and a human habitat. I found the book
Biosphere 2: The Human Experiment
at a used bookstore. This book outlined the plans for each area. I was particularly interested in the intensive agriculture plans. When the crew sealed themselves in for the duration, they had some food that had been grown there in the planning stages and the crops were in full production. Their diet — which included meat, dairy, and eggs — had to be carefully planned. They had chosen a breed of chickens for eggs and meat. It was thought that these chickens would brood and raise their own chicks. The pygmy goats would be efficient eaters of the fodder crops they were growing to feed them. The small feral pigs would mostly get leftovers, starchy vegetables, and crop roughages. Worms and sorghum were planned to feed the chickens. They also had a fish-rice-azolla ecological system. Their crops were grown using Biointensive methods. This book was written at the beginning of the experiment. It all sounded great and I wondered what happened next.

I located a copy of
Eating In: From the Field to the Kitchen in Biosphere 2
written by Sally Silverstone, who was the manager of the food systems. From there I discovered that they were lucky to get any eggs at all from their chickens, let alone more chicks. They had limited food
for the chickens, but production improved the second year when they fed them crop residues from the threshing that contained more seeds. The pigs became a problem and the last two became food for the table at the end of the first year. At least they contributed to the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. The fish were not as productive as expected and the bees failed. They were able to make a little goat cheese that was a welcome addition to meals. All in all, they didn’t starve, but they all lost weight. Their staples were beans, rice, wheat, sorghum, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and peanuts. Peanuts were an important source of fat. They also had bananas and papayas that they learned to use in creative ways. The vegetables and herbs from their gardens added diversity to their diet. Birthdays and other holidays were feast days. They would save limited supplies of special foods for these celebrations. Too often we get caught up in our everyday lives and don’t take the time to declare “feast” days as we should. Can you put on a feast from only food you’ve grown? It is an interesting challenge.

Homegrown Fridays

For the past several years I’ve challenged myself to eat only what I’ve grown on the Fridays in Lent. It seemed like an appropriate time and having to do it every week for seven weeks kept me on my toes. I call my project Homegrown Fridays and have written about it in my blog at
HomeplaceEarth.wordpress.com
. I find myself labeling some things to save for the Homegrown Fridays if I have them in short supply. March is a lean time to be eating from the garden, so I’m calling on our staple crops for the meals. Carrots, beets, and greens will be brought in fresh from the garden. Actually, the roots will most likely be harvested in early March, before they send up a seed stalk and become woody. That last harvest can be put in the refrigerator. Stored crops and foods dried in the summer in the solar dryers fill our meals. The Irish potatoes are gone by then, but I could have sweet potatoes, garlic, winter squash, grains (mostly corn), cowpeas, and maybe onions. I do a limited amount of canning, since it takes more fossil fuel, lots of human energy, and heats up the house; but I do have green beans and tomato products that I’ve
canned. Raisins made from my grapes, popcorn popped without oil in a pan, and mead made from our fruit and honey, add interest to the day. Tea is brewed from herbs grown here. In 2012 I added Thai Red Roselle (a type of hibiscus) for tea, then had to learn what part to harvest and dry (the red calyxes, not the flowers).

As interesting as it is to grow all your food, don’t put too much pressure on yourself when you are starting out. You can learn a lot from putting together a meal, or a day’s worth of meals, using only what you’ve grown, even if it is for only one day. Declare a feast day with your friends and have them contribute. You could start with a potluck with everyone bringing a dish that includes at least one thing they’ve grown. Make up your own guidelines. By doing things like that, your thinking will begin to change and your food plans will evolve. Be ready to be flexible with the plans you are making.

Oils and Sweeteners

I mentioned in
Chapter 3
that you can make oil from peanuts, sunflowers, hazelnuts, and pumpkin seeds. Black oilseed varieties of sunflowers, such as Peredovik, are what you want. For pumpkin the oilseeds are “naked” varieties, the ones without the coarse white hull. Three varieties I have found that fit that description are Styrian Hulless, Lady Godiva, and Kakai. As you might imagine, their descriptions designate them as intended to be grown for their seeds, for eating or for oil, but not for their flesh. Maybe your chickens will like the flesh. The average US yield for pumpkin seeds is one pound per 100 ft
²
.

I have American hazelnuts (filberts) growing on the north border of my garden. If you are serious about growing hazelnuts you would probably want to grow the European varieties. Although they are more susceptible to blight, the nuts are larger. Oregon State University has bred some that are resistant to blight. My yield from hazelnuts pressed for oil is about 3⅓ tablespoons per 1 cup nuts.

I have gotten 4 tablespoons of oil from 1 cup of peanuts. If you are used to a diet that includes using cooking oil liberally, thinking in these terms is quite a change. The oil produced in your garden becomes so
much more valuable to your meals and to your spirit. A cup of peanuts weighs about 5.5 ounces. At 7.2 pounds per 100 ft
²
(US average) that would be 5.2 cups of oil per 100 ft
²
of garden space. If you used 1 tablespoon a day of peanut oil, you would use 22.8 cups of oil each year, or 1.4 gallons. At 5.2 cups of oil produced per 100 ft
²
, you would need 439 ft
²
of garden space to grow peanuts for cooking oil. If your peanut yield was less than 7.2 pounds per 100 ft
²
, you would need even more space.