According to my handy-dandy conversion program, 1 acre = 43559.66 square feet.

1/5 of that would be 8712 sq.ft. (or 31 yards x 31 yards).

Thanks! It seems that I would be trying to homestead on 1/20th of an acre. Better save my pennies to buy more land if I want greater self-sufficiency.

Even using the 1/20th of the acre might make a difference. Using it would give you some experience when you did get more land, and you might have seedstock for something that you knew grew in your area.

BrianTexas, you would be surprised at how much fresh, top-quality food you can generate from a tiny, intensive garden. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, fresh herbs, etc. etc. etc. -- a mouth-watering variety that your local supermarket can't match, quality-wise. I have a number of friends who are doing all of this -- and in a Northern climate to boot.

But if you're looking for more land, for (say) root vegetables, beans, a handful of wheat or barley and such, you would be surprised at the possibilities. (None of which involve buying more land.)

The key to all of this is Community. Networking. Conversations across the fence that build trust. People who know you, who can talk to people they know. Six degrees of separation, as the phrase goes.

There is a lot of under-utilitzed land out there. The back-yard gardens of your neighbours who can't keep up (just share the loot!). Small land-holders or acreages that will give you 0.2 acres if you will do occasional work on the other 0.8. Farmers who have a corner that's too wet to plant in spring, but will produce all sorts of garden loot for someone with hand tools and the reliability to keep the weeds down.

(Holy cow, I'm going on and on. This is just my 2-cents' worth, FWIW. But I think it holds true. I'm one of those acreage folks. Bring a hoe, and I'll fire up the BBQ.)

We planted a garden one year, just a few things and had way more than what we could eat or give away and it was just a small half circle about half as wide as our house. We planted a row of squash, didn't follow the spare requirements just poured the whole seed packet along the widest part of our half circle. Put lettuce and tomatoes, cauliflower in the next, onions and carrots in the outer row. Put a couple sun flowers next to the house and they got so tall I had to tie them to the gutter to hold them up, he squirrels got them before we could.
Look into raised bed / square foot gardening, then hydroponics and vertical gardening. combine them all by building up some sort of walled area and put the bigger crops there (raised bed), then suspend the small stuff over that in water piped (hydroponics) and then vined plants can grow up the sides of the raised bed or the sides of your house.

When people say it takes at least 5 acres to feed a family of 5, they must be talking about crops in single rows. Anyone with any sense does wide-bed gardening (3 or 4 ft wide), unless they're exceptionally fond of weeding.

An open tank in a plastic greenhouse can grow fish and food all winter. The tank is a solar collector that warms the greenhouse. A few chickens can add their body heat (approx 50 BTUs/chicken/hr), produce some eggs, and keep the bugs down.

Learn to can and dry food for the off-season.

Renting land is MUCH cheaper than buying land. Just keeping the weeds down usually costs the property owner money.

Find a way, find a place, and start learning.

Sue

Yes, it would require maximum allowable crop density to get it done. It'd be the only way to grow enough food to get the job done, and yes, it'd be a lot of work. In fact, maintaining the crops would be a full time job for every able bodied member of the family. You would not get a suitable yield from wide bed cropping on only 5 acres.

I've done high density gardening with another on an acre. We each spent an average of 20 hours a week and the yield was considerable, but I don't know as I'd want to do that amount of gardening like that ever again if I didn't have to. It's like you couldn't ever do anything else except what you had already worked into the routine, and for 6 months of the year that was rough, and a lot of it was done with a hoe and a small Mantis rototiller. We sold most of the produce at the farmer's market on the weekend, and I figure for the time we put in we probably each made about a dollar less than minimum wage for our effort, if you discount all our expenses first.

We did learn an awful lot about basic gardening. Mostly, it is time consuming, tedious work that'll make your back ache.

Sure, it's like real work! But you know how to do it now, and could do it again if you had to. That's the difference between you and most of the rest of America.

You can probably clean and load your guns blindfolded, too.

You just never know when knowledge will be useful.





I know the lyrics to the theme to Gilligan's Island.

Sue

More importantly, I know how to direct someone else to do the gardening now, heh heh heh.

I think I can still probably field strip and clean most of my arsenal without looking, but I am probably a lot slower doing it these days.

I used to do Amazing Grace to the tune of Gilligan's Island while in the church band. I got a wicked scowl from the pastor, but I busted up the congregation pretty good. I've since learned there's a more appropriate time and place for such antics than right before the sermon.

Try it out and you'll see, the tune actually fits the words pretty darn good.

benjammin, that is HILARIOUS. I'll have that song running through my head all day. Thanks for my daily chuckle.