Gardening With Chickens for Fantastic Natural Pest Control

Chickens in the garden devour any insect that moves, including grasshoppers, Colorado potato beetles, slugs and more. If you don’t trust chickens to roam among your vegetable and flower beds, feed them captured insects by hand.

By Barbara Pleasant 
April 25, 2013

This article is part of our Organic Pest Control Series, which includes articles on attracting beneficial insects, controlling specific garden pests, and using organic pesticides.

How Do Chickens Control Pests?

Chickens in the garden quickly get to work eating any insect that moves. Then they scratch into the soil to eat more insects and larvae. In this way, chickens confined to an enclosure can be employed to clean permanent beds of insects between plantings. You can also set up chickens in the garden so that they patrol the garden’s perimeter, nabbing grasshoppers, Colorado potato beetles, and other insects before they make it into the garden. These and similar strategies help preserve populations of ground beetles and other beneficial garden insects, and avoid unwanted deposits of fresh chicken manure in veggie beds.

Which Pests Do Chickens Control?

Most living insects are of interest to foraging chickens. Even if you do not allow your chickens in the garden, they will eat most live insects gathered by hand, includingasparagus beetles, Colorado potato beetles and larvae,grasshoppers, slugs, and Japanese beetles. When you decide to get rid of squash plagued with squash bugs or beans infested with Mexican bean beetles, dumping the plants in the chicken yard will result in few survivors. Chickens are also useful in reducing the number of ticks present in many rural homesteads. Should you bring in spoiled hay to use as mulch, or compost with an unknown history, you can let your chickens remove slugs, snails, weed seeds and other unwanted stowaways before using it in your garden.

How to Use Chickens for Organic Pest Control

Chickens will dig down 2 inches or more when they forage in soft soil, so they can quickly do serious damage to an unprotected vegetable garden. It is usually best to fence them out of the vegetable garden from spring to fall. However, many gardeners find that as long as newly planted beds are protected with row cover or chicken wire, they can allow their birds into the garden for an hour or so before the sun sets. The chickens stay so busy grabbing bugs that they hardly have time to do serious damage.

Allowing chickens to forage around the outside of the garden has many benefits, even if the foraging run is limited to a chicken wire tunnel around the garden’s edge. Handpicked pests can be tossed to the chickens, and few crawling insects will safely cross the chickens’ paths.

Roaming chickens will make frequent checks of garden refuse piles, pecking up every aphid and slug. Confined chickens will eat most live insects that are given to them.

Tips for Gardening With Chickens and Other Pest-Eating Poultry

Chickens are the most popular type of home poultry because they provide eggs and meat, and a few hens make quiet backyard residents. However, larger guinea fowl are often considered the most aggressive of insect eaters, and guinea fowl are highly recommended where ticks are of primary concern.

Ducks are slightly more trainable than chickens, and often do a good job plucking up pests when slowly led around the garden. In moist climates, ducks are highly regarded for their slug control talents. Unlike chickens, ducks are not driven to scratch out holes everywhere they go, but they will sample tomatoes and other interesting veggies within their reach.


SOURCE: http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gardening-with-chickens-pest-control-zw0z1304zkin.aspx

Organic Farmers

By Shubhada Pandhare

Published on 14 Apr 2013

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SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJrDgZxRTo

NEWS : A village that plants 111 trees for every girl born in Rajasthan

• MAHIM PRATAP SINGH | The HinDu | JAIPUR, April 11, 2013

In an atmosphere where every morning, our newspapers greet us with stories of girls being tormented, raped, killed or treated like a doormat in one way or another, trust India's “village republics” to bring in some good news from time to time.

One such village in southern Rajasthan's Rajsamand district is quietly practicing its own, homegrown brand of Eco-feminism and achieving spectacular results.

For the last several years, Piplantri village panchayat has been saving girl children and increasing the green cover in and around it at the same time.

Here, villagers plant 111 trees every time a girl is born and the community ensures these trees survive, attaining fruition as the girls grow up.

Over the last six years, people here have managed to plant over a quarter million trees on the village's grazing commons- inlcuding neem, sheesham, mango, Amla among others.

On an average 60 girls are born here every year, according to the village's former sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal, who was instrumental in starting this initiative in the memory of his daughter Kiran, who died a few years ago.

In about half these cases, parents are reluctant to accept the girl children, he says.

Such families are identified by a village committee comprising the village school principal along with panchayat and Anganwadi members.

Rs. 21,000 is collected from the village residents and Rs.10,000 from the girl's father and this sum of Rs. 31,000 is made into a fixed deposit for the girl, with a maturity period of 20 years.

But here's the best part.

“We make these parents sign an affidavit promising that they would not marry her off before the legal age, send her to school regularly and take care of the trees planted in her name,” says Mr. Paliwal.

People also plant 11 trees whenever a family member dies.

But this village of 8,000 did not just stop at planting trees and greening their commons. To prevent these trees from being infested with termite, the residents planted over two and a half million Aloevera plants around them. Now these trees, especially the Aloevera, are a source of livelihood for several residents.

“Gradually, we realized that aloevera could be processed and marketed in a variety of ways. So we invited some experts and asked them to train our women. Now residents make and market aloevera products like juice, gel, pickle etc,” he says.

The village panchayat, which has a studio-recorded anthem and a website of its own, has completely banned alcohol, open grazing of animals and cutting of trees. Villagers claim there has not been any police case here for the last 7-8 years.

Mr. Paliwal recalls the visit of social activist Anna Hazare, who was very happy with the progress made by the village, he says.

“But Rajasthan is quite backward in terms of village development compared to panchayats in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra etc. So we need to work hard towards creating more and more empowered villages,” says the former sarpanch, hoping the government listens to him.

SOURCE : http://www.thehindu.com/news/other-states/a-village-that-plants-111-trees-for-every-girl-born-in-rajasthan/article4606735.ece 

Cotton growers' new initiative cuts fertiliser, water usage

M. R. Subramani | Chennai, April 10 2013  

Farmers in the country are veering towards growing cotton in a way that would cut fertiliser and water usage besides minimising the impact of crop protection measures such as pesticides.

Called the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), the cultivation aims at increasing yield while ensuring efficient use of water, lower pesticide and fertiliser consumption. At the same time, it also targets raising farmers’ income.

According to those behind the move, the initiative has helped improve yield by 20 per cent during 2010-11, while pesticide usage was cut by 60 per cent.

The farming, catching up in various parts of the country – mainly Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, has drawn support from retailers such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Adidas, Sainsbury and Nike.

In this system of farming, growers continue to cultivate transgenic cotton. People behind the new movement say it is a step before the growers can be encouraged to grow organic cotton.

Mani Chinnaswamy of Appachi Cotton at Pollachi in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district said that the initiative will make people aware of the advantage of growing organic cotton.

According to the International Cotton Advisory Council, a global body that promotes cooperation in cotton affairs, India topped in the number of growers who took to the new initiative. Some 79,000 growers practised the friendly cultivation covering 1.12 lakh hectares during 2011-12 when the total area under cotton was a record 120 lakh hectares.

BCI said on its Web site that about 35,000 licensed farmers produced 1.88 lakh bales (of 170 kg each) during 2011-12. This was against 12,500 farmers producing nearly 59,000 bales the previous year.

Nine States are following this method with the involvement of corporates such as Ambuja Cement Foundation, Arvind Mills and World Wildlife Fund.

Compulsory shift

However, Mani Chinnaswamy said that farmers are turning to better cotton initiative more out of compulsions.

“Farm input costs are rising. Prices of fertilisers and pesticides have increased forcing farmers to look at ways of cutting costs. For them, this initiative seems to be a better alternative,” he told Business Line over phone.

M.S. Kairon, a former scientist with the Nagpur-based Central Institute for Cotton Research, agrees with the view of farmers turning to alternative methods of cotton by default.

“Costs of Bt seeds have gone up by Rs 2,000 for a kg. Erratic weather is another reason,” he said.

Fertiliser prices, especially for non-urea, have gone up after the Centre decided to introduce nutrient based subsidy to cut the subsidy outgo. This resulted in prices rising by over 30 per cent in the last one year.

Premium for farmers

Appachi Cotton is one of the firms involved in the initiative through contract farming. “We pay farmers a 10 per cent premium from the moment they join the initiative,” says Chinnaswamy.

Appachi Cotton plans to bring 1,500 hectares under organic cotton farming via the initiative on the foothills of the Western Ghats in H.D. Kote near Mysore in Karnataka. “Farmers grow non-Bt varieties of Bunny and DCH-32 varieties,” he said. Bunny is the most popular cotton variety in the country.

“We have formed farmer groups, made one of them leaders and educate them on various good farming practices,” Chinnaswamy said.

Bt still favoured

Not all seed manufacturers or farmers are aware of this development. Once the initiative catches up, demand for Bt cotton could drop.

“The new cotton initiative is something new that I am hearing about,” said a seed manufacturing unit owner, not wishing to be quoted. “We are producing only Bt cotton seeds,” he said.

Farmers such as Kapoor Singh of Dhani village near Bhiwani in Haryana still prefer to bet on transgenic cotton. “Last year, we planted cotton on 20 hectares but due to a prolonged dry spell we didn’t get a good yield. However, this year, too, we will go in for Bollgard cotton,” he said.

Sanjay Deshmukh of Kanzara village in Maharashtra’s Buldana district said that since his crop was also hit by dry weather last year, he would be cutting the area to 10 acres from 12.

But he is not sure if he would opt for Bt or the traditional cotton variety. “Let us see at the time of sowing. I will take a call then,” he said.

Cotton scientists say that farmers, in fact, could be encouraged to grow organic cotton since it would get a premium.

But there are problems, said Chinnaswamy.

“Farmers have to get certification for organic cotton. It costs money for that. Besides, there are issues such as traceability and residue issues. This is where better cotton initiative comes in as its objective is to lower the usage inputs,” he said.

subramani.mancombu@thehindu.co.in

Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/agri-biz/cotton-growers-new-initiative-cuts-fertiliser-water-usage/article4603103.ece?css=print

NEWS: India rejects USAID’s GM food aid

11 April 2003 News By Narayan Kulkarni  | BioSpecturm

What worries environmental and food security activists is a new policy adopted by the GEAC that it would consider imports of GM foods on a case-by-case basis rather than stick to its original blanket ban.

On 6 March 2003, after four-hour long meeting, the GEAC ruled out the possibility of import of GM corn-soya blend into India. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the request of the two international NGOs operating in India, Co-operation for American Relief Everywhere (CARE) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for allowing them to import GM corn-soya blend from US for distribution amongst school children and the poor. The agencies were asked to get the consignments certified from the exporters that it does not contain any traces of Starlink Corn, a variety of corn banned for human consumption or any hazardous GM products, which they failed to oblige.

The agencies had applied in June 2002 for permission to import a total of 23,000 tons of corn-soya blend. The CARE-India proposed to import 15,000 tons of GM corn-soya blend and the CRS about 8,000 tons from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which gives food to these agencies free of cost. Pending, the decision of the GEAC, both the CRS and CARE-India booked a consignment of 1,000 tons. But this consignment could not land at the Indian shore as the GEAC finally rejected the plea for such imports in November 2002.

Aggrieved at the GEAC’s decision, the agencies appealed before the one-man Appeallate Authority that had fixed the date for hearing on 18 February. But before the actual hearing could take place both the CARE-India and the CRS withdrew their petitions. The GEAC was afraid that the said food aid from US might contain traces of the hazardous Starlink Corn, which is not yet approved for human consumption by the United States Food and Drug Administration. When the GEAC came out with a decision there were reports of traces of Starlink Corn slipping into US consignments to Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Wait and watch
Apparently, the GEAC does not want to take the risk of approving the import of GM foods aid from US and create problems in the country. According to reports, the GEAC does not have the expertise or the manpower to deal with checking, verifying, certifying, monitoring health impacts, labeling, even analyzing the impact on trade and other international agreements.

In this case the USAID food aid was meant for people already vulnerable and there was no mechanism for post-aid disbursement surveillance. The government officials are of the opinion that why should we rush in?" when even approving a single consignment of food aid, or a crop like mustard which is wholly edible, would be viewed as a green signal for GM food and set a precedent of sorts.

Need for transparent policy
The Green Peace activists’ recent seizure of the Monsanto R&D center in Bangalore shows that still people are opposing the GEAC’s approval of GM cotton a year ago. What worries them is a new policy adopted by GEAC that it would consider imports of GM foods on a case-by-case basis rather than stick to its original blanket ban. The activists claim that the results of the commercial planting of GM cotton are not positive as the farmers in many states suffered massive losses.

Before any more approvals on GM food, the government should announce a clear policy on GM foods. Even if it is a case-by-case policy, what are the issues, which need to be looked at each time, and what are the mechanisms, which need to be set in place? India’s present laws on the import of GM food items are strict, but implementation has been poor, especially after the lifting of import regulations.

Apart from this, the union environment ministry is also working on to make the decision-making process in GM food more transparent to educate people and meet the demand of activists that data on GM crops or food be made public. It’s just at a thinking on the right path as officials are wondering as to how to go about this and what kind of data to make available on the web, for instance. The efforts should be speeded up to have a clear and transparent policy on GM food.

Narayan Kulkarni

SOURCE : http://www.biospectrumindia.com/biospecindia/news/156374/india-rejects-usaid-s-gm-food-aid

Taste for tuber on the rise

Shree Padre, Kasargod

They grow underground, in great abundance and in a range of climates. If tapped right and added to the common man’s daily diet, tuber crops could end much of this nation’s worry on the food security front. This was the principal takeaway from a tuber exhibition organized recently in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district.      

“A tuber like toona genasu (huttari genasu, dioscorea elata) can feed a whole family for a month. Of course, no one can eat the same vegetable at every meal. But our apprehension about food scarcity is unfounded,” says Vasantha Kaje, a farmer and software engineer from Manchikaje. 

It was Vasantha’s farming family that, without any government help, hosted the unique programme, balu upakari gadde tarakari (tuber crops are very useful). Everyone liked the tuber-dominated breakfast, lunch and snacks. Idli was prepared from toona genasu. Arrowroot yielded a sweet dish. Payasa was made from suvarna gadde (elephant foot yam, amorphophallus paeoniifolius).

About 40 varieties of tubers brought by farmers were exhibited. On show were rare tubers like adike kesu, motte kesu (both colocasia species, the former looks like arecanut, the latter like eggs) and balli batate (vine potato). “In my childhood days,” recalls 76-year-old KS Kamath, “vendors selling cooked tubers were very common. I would buy them from an aged woman at Kadri Mangalore. It cost only an anna – one sixteenth of a rupee – to fill the belly. But once land reforms came, tubers were slowly relegated to history.”

The love for modern ready food items and changing lifestyles hastened the disappearance of tubers from the common man’s platter. “Now we think only of potato as a tuber crop,” laments AP Chandrashekhar, an organic farmer of Mysore.

The half-century-old Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI), an ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) institution, is located in Thiruvananthapuram. CTCRI conducts research exclusively on tropical tuber crops. In the early 1970s, the Institute released many hybrid cassava varieties and developed production technologies. They also saw the need for a separate body for popularizing tuber crops. So the Indian Society for Root Crops (ISRC) was created in 1973.

Dr S Ramanathan, principal scientist at CTCRI and president of ISRC, says: “Tuber crops are in general rain fed. They can grow even in low fertility conditions. Tuber crops have higher biological efficiency. With their higher carbohydrate and calorie content, they can substitute cereals.”

According to National Sample Survey statistics, in Kerala, per capita consumption of cassava as a ‘cereal substitute’ for a month during 1999-2000 was 0.96 kg in rural areas and 0.45 kg in urban areas. The corresponding all-India statistics were 0.05 kg and 0.03 kg respectively. Nare gadde (kand in Gujarati, dioscorea pentaphylla), a narrow elongated tuber, was favoured by the working class in the past. It grows in the wild. Says Vasantha Kaje, “I came to know about this variety of tuber at the festival. It seems that our own hilly land has quintals of this tuber. All these years, I was unaware that so much food source was hidden around my home.”

Shivakumar CK, a civil engineer and wild fruit enthusiast from Madikeri, consumes about 16 varieties of tuber every year. He himself grows eight of them. “If we collect the ancient knowledge and put it to use for four months a year – from November to February – we can depend on root crops,” he says.

Tuber crops have wide variety. Says Shivakumar: “I have seen an unusual variety locally called as handi genasu (pig potato) that comes to Dandeli market. Like balli batate, this tuber grows both under and above ground.”

 The Harangi backwater area in Kodagu in Shivakumar’s district has large areas under tuber crops. Tapioca and suvarna gadde are the two main crops here. Biju, 39, one such farmer, grows root crops on leased lands apart from his own. His annual production of suvarna gadde alone is around 150 tonnes! According to Shivakumar, root crops are seldom contaminated by pesticides.

In the last decade, CTCRI scientists have undertaken periodic field visits and surveys in several states to document potential pockets of

tuber cultivation. “In such regions,” says Dr Ramanathan, “these crops are raised intensively as market-oriented commercial crops. They get high yields and bag higher net returns from tuber than from any other crop of that locality”.

He says: “It is estimated that in the 21st century, about one-fourth of the world population will be in the grip of severe poverty. With the burgeoning population in India, we might have to import 40 million tonnes of food by 2030. In this context, tuber crops assume a lot of importance.”

 Argues Chandrashekhar: “A concerted campaign like the ones for millets and jackfruit is needed.” It might be better to make women the target of the tuber fests. If they start adding it to their shopping list, more growers would invariably emerge.”

Though other tuber crops still remain by and large neglected, tapioca (cassava, kappa in Malayalam) utilization in Kerala has increased. “Of late production in Kerala has decreased considerably. Rubber has taken over the earlier tapioca area. Tamil Nadu, a recent entrant into tapioca production, is diverting its produce to starch factories,” observes Ushakumari S., an agriculture specialist of Thanal, the Thiruvananthapuram-based Public Interest Research, Advocacy, Education and Action Trust, “But then, more and more upscale hotels and restaurants are now making tapioca dishes. The per capita consumption has gone up.”

According to Shivakumar, the Soliga tribals in Biligiri Rangana Betta of Karnataka have been conserving a few rare tuber varieties. “Similarly, in Kodagu, a few farmers have planted tuber crops. However, such efforts aren’t documented nor is there a network between such silent conservationists,” he says.

It is evident that only an awakening at the grassroots level can bring tubers to dining tables around the country. 

Source: http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/pages/Details.aspx?289

India's food crisis: Rotting food-grains, hungry people - Rediif.com

Rediff.com  | Devinder Sharma | April 01, 2013 14:55 IST

India has the largest population of hungry in the world at a time when there is no shortage of food within the country. It is time the government affords priority to food storage and distribution, says Devinder Sharma.

Nothing can explain this strange and criminal paradox of plenty. More than 45 years after the Green Revolution; India provides a unique spectre of overflowing godowns and rotting grains on the one hand while millions go to bed hungry. Having the largest population of hungry in the world, India ranks 66 among 105 countries in the 2012 Global Hunger Index. That too at a time when there is no shortage of food within the country.

To get rid of the huge stocks, India has aggressively resorted to food exports. While rice exports have touched 10 million tonnes, making India the world’s biggest rice exporter, close to 9.5 million tonnes of wheat has also been exported this fiscal. And yet, grain stocks remain unmanageable.  

With over 44 million tonnes of wheat expected to be procured once the procurement season begins officially from April, India will be saddled with a massive and unprecedented food-grain (rice and wheat) stock of over 100 million tonnes. Already, as on March 1, the Food Corporation of India was holding 62.8 million tonnes of grains -- 27.1 million tonnes of wheat and 35.7 million tonnes of rice -- good enough to meet the country’s food requirement for another year. Storing an additional 44 million tonnes is simply going to be a nightmare. While the all-time high production and procurement is a historic milestone, it provides an equally daunting task for the government agencies to store it, and store it safely.

Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal has already blamed the Centre for not providing enough incentives and investment to procure and store food-grains. “We are looking for space in sugar mills, yards and even in rice mills. It’s going to be very tough,” a visibly worried D S Grewal, principal secretary in Punjab’s food and civil supplies department, told a newspaper. Against an expectation of 14 million tonnes of wheat to be purchased, Punjab has space to keep only 6 million tonnes.

Although Punjab has a total food storage space for 23 million tonnes, including 12 million tonnes under what is popularly called CAP storage -- on open plinths -- the grain silos are bursting at the seams with food stocks from the purchases made in the previous year’s lying in the open.  

In Madhya Pradesh, fast emerging as the next wheat bowl of the country, there is space only for about 50 per cent of the expected 13 million tonnes that is likely to be procured by official agencies. Madhya Pradesh has beaten Haryana, which is expecting a procurement of 8.6 million tonnes, to the third spot in producing wheat surplus. “We are looking at even school premises and some government buildings for stocking wheat. We have no other option,” said a senior state official. Since wheat harvests begin early in central India, procurement is already in full swing in over 2,770 purchase centres that have been set up in the state. Not only Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, heavy arrivals are expected from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.

Nothing can explain this gross food mismanagement. For almost 30 years now, successive governments have failed to accord any priority to food storage and distribution. As early as in 1979, under a ‘grow more food’ campaign launched by the ministry of agriculture, the need for setting up 50 grain silos across the country was envisaged. The underlying objective was to reduce the burden for stockholding of wheat by the producing states by building a network of grain storage capacity across the country, which would also be used for effective distribution among the poor.

It’s all a question of priority. Food has never been on the top of the national agenda. In the past few years, the United Progressive Alliance has made massive investment in building 2.5 lakh panchayat ghars. These panchayat structures have been provided with a computer link-up and are also being dotted with solar power. Isn’t it strange that while the government has the resources to build panchayat ghars, it has no money to construct warehouses across the country?

Still worse, since 2004-05, UPA has doled out Rs 32 lakh-crore by way of tax exemptions to corporates, trade and business. These exemptions are clubbed under the category ‘revenue foregone’ in the budget documents. For 2013-14, the ‘revenue foregone’ is Rs 5.73 lakh crore.

The entire food production and distribution system therefore needs an urgent overhaul. If only the government was to focus on agricultural production, procurement and distribution in a decentralised manner, much of the agrarian crisis would disappear. Also, no country can claim to be a superpower with millions living in hunger. Therefore the need is to follow a four-pronged approach:

Set up a wide network of mandis (markets) and temporary purchase centres across Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and the other northeasern states. Extending the Green Revolution to the northeast has already increased rice production, but farmers are resorting to distress sale getting about 20 to 30 per cent less because of the absence of procurement centres.  

Madhya Pradesh has shown that providing a bonus of Rs 150 per quintal over the procurement price of Rs 1,350 a quintal has provided an incentive to farmers to produce more. A higher minimum support price for wheat and rice, and also extending it to pulses, millets and fodder would shift focus to other crops essential for maintaining nutritional security.

At least Rs 1 lakh crore be immediately taken out of the ‘revenue foregone’ category, and invested in setting up a network of grain silos, warehouses and godowns across 50 centres in the country. All this is doable provided food is accorded priority in national thinking and planning.

Stop food exports. It does not make any economic sense for a hungry nation to export food while millions go empty stomach.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/column/indias-food-crisis-rotting-food-grains-hungry-people/20130401.htm

Write up : How Much To Plant To Provide A Year’s Worth Of Food

by Brenda on April 1, 2013

 

Do you know how much your family eats in a year’s time? As a farmer’s wife, I am keenly aware of how much meat, poultry, eggs, honey and dairy we consume. Raising enough food to meet our own needs, as well as an abundance to sell is an integral part of our life. To be honest, it hasn’t been the same with vegetables. I’ve at least attempted a garden most of the years that we have been married. Some years, I was more successful than others. If I didn’t grow it, I bought some produce from local farmers and preserved some foods for the winter: salsa, canned tomatoes, strawberry jam, pickles, and lots of frozen veggies and fruit. Still, I’ve always depended on going grocery shopping. I’ve never preserved everything that we needed for the winter, nor have I ever grown enough to meet all of our family’s needs.

Not long ago, people had to think about how much to grow for the year. They had to plan ahead, save seeds, plant enough for their family, preserve enough, etc. It wasn’t just a hobby. It didn’t take up a 4 foot by 4 foot square in their backyard, next to the beautifully fertilized lawn. It was their yard. It didn’t take a back burner in their spring and summer plans, after camping trips, barbecues and swimming parties. These are all good things, but people had to think about survival first and foremost. Partying came after the harvest. Now days, most of us party first, fertilize our lawns second, go to the grocery store and depend on other people to grow our food (and expect it to be cheap), and then we think about gardening, maybe, if ever, as a hobby.

I loved Joel Salatin’s talk @ The Healthy Life Summit. I pretty much love everything Joel says. This quote got me thinking:

“Everybody is a part of agriculture whether you want to be or not.”

We’re all a part of agriculture. Even if our part is just being a consumer, getting spinach and rice at the grocery store, we would not survive without agriculture. I, personally, want to be more involved than that. I want to know how much my family eats and how much we need to grow to supply that need. I want to work towards the goal of a completely self-sustaining homestead.

With that in mind, recently, I have been curious about exactly how much my family eats in a year. I started looking through a gardening book that used to belong to my Great Grandmother. I LOVE old books. I love the look of them, the feel of them, and the wisdom in them. I love that my Great Grandmother once thumbed through this very book and gleaned from it. I also have a newer book that I’ve made use of to determine how much to grow. These are the two main resources I used to compile this list:
Sunset’s Vegetable Garden Book (from 1944)
The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food

Want to know how much to plant per person? This is what I found:
Artichokes1-4 plants per person
Asparagus10-12 plants per person
Beans, Bush10-20 plants per person
Beans, Lima10-20 plants per person
Beans, Pole10-20 plants per person
Beets10-20 plants per person
Broccoli5-10 plants per person
Brussels Sprouts2-8 plants per person
Cabbage3-10 plants per person
Carrots10-40 plants per person
Cauliflower3-5 plants per person
Celeriac1-5 plants per person
Celery3-8 plants per person
Corn12-40 plants per person
Cucumbers3-5 plants per person
Eggplant1 plant per person, plus 2-3 extra per family
Kale1 5’ row per person
Lettuce10-12 plants per person
Melons2-6 plants per person
Onions40-80 plants per person
Peas25-60 plants per person
Peppers5-6 plants per person
Potatoes10-30 plants per person
Pumpkins1 plant per person
Rhubarb2-3 crowns per person
Spinach10-20 plants per person
Summer Squash2-4 plants per person
Winter Squash2 plants per person
Sweet Potatoes5 plants per person
Tomatoes2-5 plants per person

Obviously, all of this will vary based on your family’s size, tastes, allergies and climate. If you’re on the GAPS Diet, you’ll obviously plant more squash and leafy greens, and no corn, potatoes or sweet potatoes. If you can grow some of these vegetables year-round, you will be able to grow smaller rows. If you’re doing Square Foot Gardening, you may be able to plant things closer together & thus take up less space in your garden. Never the less, I believe that we all ought to be considering how much we use in a year and how much needs to be grown to supply our family’s needs (whether we are the ones doing the growing or not).
If you like analyzing this kind of information, you might like the charts in my Garden & Preservation Planner!
What are you planting in your garden this year?

More Reading About Gardening

Source: Well Fed Homestead
Image: Dave Shafer

SOURCE : http://www.wellfedhomestead.com/how-much-should-you-plant-in-your-garden-to-provide-a-years-worth-of-food