It not only feels good to grow some of your food but there’s the quality: the taste of a homegrown sun-ripened tomato just knocks your socks off; broccoli cooked within minutes of picking is sweet, entirely different from store-bought; fresh eggs cause you to think, “So this is what eggs are like”.
Want to know how to feed a family on less than an acre of land? If you need some homesteading tips when dealing with a small patch of land or plenty of space, then this is for you!
Space Factor
Research in the 1970s by John Jeavons and the Ecology Action Organization found that 4000 square feet (about 370 square meters) of growing space was enough to sustain one person on a vegetarian diet for a year, with about another 4000 square feet (370 square meters) for access paths and storage – so that’s a plot around 80 feet x 100 feet (24m x 30m).
How much you can grow in this space will depend on your climate, weather, and soil and, crucially, how much time you have.
What to grow and how many plants of each vegetable would you need per person?
Choose to grow plants that you already like to eat – it’s not worth putting the time and effort into growing asparagus if no one in your family is very keen on it.
Your grocery bills can help you to start working out how much you need to grow.
How much you want to harvest will dictate how many plants you need to grow and how much space you’ll need to grow them in. Some crops, such as tomatoes, produce many vegetables or fruits per plant, so you’ll need fewer of these plants to obtain a large harvest. Others such as carrots produce just one vegetable per plant and require correspondingly more to be sown. Here are our suggestions for some of the most common crops, remembering that yield will vary depending on your season length, soil, watering, and the varieties you choose to grow:
Tomatoes
- Harvest per person required: 15-65lbs (7-29kgs) per person
- Yield per 10 foot (3m) row: 15-45lbs (7-20kg)
- Row length needed: 10-15 feet (3-5m), which is 6-10 plants
Potatoes
- Harvest per person required: 75-200lbs (34-91kg) per person
- Yield per 10 foot (3m) row: 10-20lbs (4.5-9kg)
- Row length needed: 75-100 feet (23-30m), which is about 85 plants
Carrots
- Harvest per person required: 7-20lbs (3-9kg) should be suitable for one person
- Yield per 10 foot (3m) row: 7-10lbs (3-4.5kg)
- Row length needed: 10-20 feet (3-6m) which is about 30-60 plants
A Garden Planner makes can work out the row length required for a certain number of plants, so for other crops just continue this process of working out how much you’ll eat, researching how much each plant yields, and how long the row will need to be.
Techniques that can help you get the most from any garden
- Cultivate different varieties: Where possible, plant early, mid and late varieties of your crops. This will provide a steady flow of produce spread throughout the season, and can also help to reduce losses due to pests and diseases as your plants will be in different stages of growth at different times.
- Grow calorie crops: Calorie crops are those which have a high-calorie content per weight of the crop. If you’re growing lots of your food, you’ll want to include the top 5 of potatoes, corn, beans, winter squash, and perhaps grains such as wheat. These crops fill you up, are generally much less work than other crops, and are very versatile– they store well, for long periods and are endlessly useful in the kitchen.
Use of greenhouses
Use greenhouses, cold frames, or a hoop house to add an extra few weeks at the start and end of the growing season. In cooler climates, this will ensure you are much more successful with tender crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons. They will also help to protect your crops from unseasonal weather such as wet summers and some pests such as birds, small mammals, and deers.
Succession plant
Succession planting is all about maximizing the space you have available, ensuring that there is always something growing in the ground. As you harvest your first early potatoes in June, you could then plant a quick-growing crop such as some beets. A Garden Planner can help to keep track of this – set the dates that crops will be in the ground and select a specific month to see what space will be available, then pop in a few rows of your chosen succession crop.
The truth is you can be self-sustaining on a 1/2-acre property but it takes work, education, dedication, and time. So, if you have an oversized lot or small acreage and want to be as sustainable as possible, the above are some ideas and suggestions on how to get started creating a self-sufficient homestead.