Green Living Library
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • The Sustainable Life Shop
    • 16 oz. Stainless Steel Insulated Drinking Cup
    • 4 Piece Silicone Bowl Covers
    • Silicone Storage Bags with Slide Closure
    • 10 piece set of bamboo handled toothbrushes with nylon bristles.
    • Dental Floss Holder with Compostable Dental Floss
    • 33 yards Eco-Friendly Dental Floss Refills
    • Stainless Steel Drinking Straws with Cleaning Brush
    • Plant Based Scrub Sponge 8 Pack
  • Green Living with a Kid
  • Lifestyle
    • All Natural Health
    • Books Worth Reading
    • Composting
    • Green Documentaries
    • Green Transportation
    • Green Landscaping
    • Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
  • Food
    • Organic Farming
    • Composting
    • Extra Resources
    • Food Storage and Preservation
    • Gardening >
      • Companion Planting
      • Seed Starting
      • Weed Control
    • Soil >
      • Soil Health
      • Soil Science
      • Soil Building
      • Soil Tests
  • Home Building
    • Adobe and Earthbag Building
    • Cob
    • Log
    • Rammed Earth
    • Straw Bales
    • Heating and Cooling >
      • Home Heating External Links
  • Frugal Living Library
  • Renewable Energy
    • Solar Power
  • About
  • Contact
  • Green Living Photo Gallery
  • Product
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • The Sustainable Life Shop
    • 16 oz. Stainless Steel Insulated Drinking Cup
    • 4 Piece Silicone Bowl Covers
    • Silicone Storage Bags with Slide Closure
    • 10 piece set of bamboo handled toothbrushes with nylon bristles.
    • Dental Floss Holder with Compostable Dental Floss
    • 33 yards Eco-Friendly Dental Floss Refills
    • Stainless Steel Drinking Straws with Cleaning Brush
    • Plant Based Scrub Sponge 8 Pack
  • Green Living with a Kid
  • Lifestyle
    • All Natural Health
    • Books Worth Reading
    • Composting
    • Green Documentaries
    • Green Transportation
    • Green Landscaping
    • Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
  • Food
    • Organic Farming
    • Composting
    • Extra Resources
    • Food Storage and Preservation
    • Gardening >
      • Companion Planting
      • Seed Starting
      • Weed Control
    • Soil >
      • Soil Health
      • Soil Science
      • Soil Building
      • Soil Tests
  • Home Building
    • Adobe and Earthbag Building
    • Cob
    • Log
    • Rammed Earth
    • Straw Bales
    • Heating and Cooling >
      • Home Heating External Links
  • Frugal Living Library
  • Renewable Energy
    • Solar Power
  • About
  • Contact
  • Green Living Photo Gallery
  • Product

Sizing up your Garden Needs

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Determining how much you need to grow is critical step in planning on how big you garden needs to be. Some people just want to grow a little bit of their own food, others want to grown enough food to feed themselves year round and others want to be able to to sell excess produce to friends, family and neighbors.  The types of food to grow in those three scenarios are not necessarily the same.  There will be crossover in plant types but the amounts and varieties are going to change depending on your end goals
Small Row Gardens


For a lot of people they just want a simple garden that can be planted in one day growing summer favorites like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and beets. If you want this then a simple row garden that is based on modern agriculture practices is the one for you. Most gardening tools that can be found in home improvement warehouse are designed for this type of gardening. It is not the most effective layout for a garden as it can cause weed problems and soil erosion because of the openness of the design. It also is water, fertilizer and space inefficient. On the other hand it is very easy to layout and the initial planting is a breeze when compared to other garden systems.  Above you can see a garden I planted during my Great Cardboard Garden experiment.  It was not my most successful garden I have ever planted but it does clearly show how wasteful in space a row garden can be.  To learn more about my cardboard garden experiment check out my Garden tab as the top to read on my observations.



Food for a Year

If you plan on trying to grow enough food to feed yourself year round then you have entered into a a whole new realm of food growing. To grow enough food to feed yourself year round to you to look at the food you really eat on a daily basis. Vegetables only provide around 10% of our daily caloric intake so if you plan on eating off of your garden you have to take into account the other 90%. This is made up primarily with grains like wheat and corn and meats like beef, chicken, and pork. So if you really want to grow your own food for the year you have to plant grains and grow some meat. This requires a shift in your garden designs to accommodate animals like chickens and the growth of densely planted grains. It will also require looking into some intensive gardening techniques like Square Foot gardening in order to maximize space and productivity.


Selling Fresh Produce

Finally you have people that wish to garden for the purpose of selling produce. If that is your primary goal then you will tailor your garden to maximizing production and growing profitable popular items.  In most areas popular items include veggies that are very perishable like the salad greens, fresh fruits like watermelons and items that damage easily like tomatoes.  If your goal is to sell fresh produce then some investigating in the local area is a must.  Check out local farmers markets if there are any and maybe conduct a survey with friends and family to find out what they will like to eat that can be grown in a garden.  Doing some footwork like above should give you a snapshot on what would be easy to sell and hopefully grow.  


The goals are presented above are very broad by design.  You maybe have a more specific goal of making you own spaghetti sauce or making applesauce.  For me the best type is a combination of Food for a Year and Selling Fresh Produce. The plan for this summer is to try and grow enough foodstuff to feed a group of 4 and still have some to sell on the side. If you want to follow along with a trials and triumphs of the growing season check out the Learning Curve Garden tab at the top of the page to learn all about it.


If you have never gardened before I will tell you one thing for sure will happen, something will go wrong. It is a absolute certainty that something will go wrong but never fear their are a variety of great resources out there that can help you out for what ever type of gardening you wish to pursue. One of my favorites is a book called Mini Farming-Self Sufficiency on a 1/4 Acre by Brett Markham which covers a variety of gardening methods, seed saving, produce selling techniques that are easy to follow and use. So whatever type of gardening you choose I wish you good luck in your growing endeavors. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hello my name is Josh Larson and I am the creator of the Green Living Library.  Here on the blog you will find updates to content found in the Green Living Library as well as stories from those living the sustainable life already.  

    Archives

    December 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Categories

    All
    Climate Change
    Companion Planting
    Composting
    Cover Crops
    DIY
    Documentaries
    Financial Independence
    FIRE
    Food Forests
    Food Preservation
    Gardening
    GMO
    Green Cleaning
    Health
    Heating
    Home Heating
    Homesteading
    Human Population
    Industrial Agriculture
    Kids
    Mulch
    Organic Food
    Organic Matter
    Passive Cooling
    Permaculture
    Plastic
    Pollution
    Recycling
    Renewable Energy
    Reuse
    Seed Starting
    Soil
    Soil Compaction
    Solar
    Solar Power
    Species Extinction
    Tillage
    Trees
    Trellis
    Tweaks
    Urban Agriculture
    Windbreaks

Photos used under Creative Commons from andrew_ross, Scrap Pile, USDA NRCS South Dakota, mikecogh, mikecogh, rmkoske, UnitedSoybeanBoard, naturalflow, Rennett Stowe