We’ve got a brand new article for you this season! If this is the year where you’re going to try to jump from a hobby garden into serious home food production, we finally have a reference for you!
In this one, our general goal was to give you an idea or model for what a decent sized garden might look like. One that can make a serious dent in your family’s home food production. From plant counts to the space it takes, we use ourselves as a reference point for what cold climate self-sustenance can look like.
We’re not quite sure why a lot of new gardeners start with the goal of “I’m going to produce all my own food!” as their starting point, but we tackle this one head on. This might be the reality check you were hoping not to see, but as practiced large scale growers, we can tell you just how unrealistic that is and how utterly unprepared you actually are for it.
And if that does describe you, we aren’t judging. Instead, we offer a pathway to actually achieving more and more with each season. We talk about the methods you can use to scale your gardens and techniques you might use to diversify it. Furthermore, we delve into some of the preservation techniques that we use in modern times to preserve our garden. We aren’t living in the 1800’s, we shouldn’t be eating like it either.
Over the years, we have definitely come to appreciate that self-reliance is not an all or nothing thing. There are an infinite number of degrees to which it can be practiced. It’s more of a lifestyle choice than it is a given production goal or actually supplanting some dependence on the external world. Truly, it’s an effort of taking on more and more personal responsibility and becoming better at those things you do practice. It’s about improving your craft to the point where it’s reliable, functional and repeatable.
These days, especially through social influence, it’s quite common for people to be fed unrealistic goals. We try, really hard, not to be those people. That’s one of the reasons we’re constantly checking ourselves down to the “beginner level” as we don’t want to offer the idea that this stuff is easy or something you simply accomplish after a season or two. We talk about the lifestyle choices we make to grow for ourselves, for better or for worse, as it’s important for people to understand that.
So, without further ado, here’s one of our brand new articles for this season!
