Question What are your new year's self sufficiency goals?

[Mandy Onderwater]

I'd love to hear everyone's conquests towards self sufficiency. What are your goals for the new year?

I'll go first....
I hope to set up my raised garden beds and to expand how much I grow. On top of that I'd love to learn more about (solar) drying my herbs, veg and potentially fruit.
I want to grow more, in order to provide my household with the freshest produce out there, and hopefully produce excess that I can leave at a nearby community stall.

 

[JP 1983]

Being able to name 100 bush foods and wild herbs on sight without having to consult one of my field guides. I'm about half way there already.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That sounds like an amazing goal @JP 1983

I'm slowly but steadily trying to learn those too, but I'm not faring too well so far, haha. One day...

 

[SamfromWA]

Continue to simplify and reach a balance between the energy input to grow food and the output that I get out of it.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Love that @SamfromWA . You basically want to become more energy efficient?

 

[SamfromWA]

Love that @SamfromWA . You basically want to become more energy efficient? Well if a person eats around 2 kilograms of food a day then i'm hoping i can produce more than that in food from a days effort which has been quite a challenge. Starting to get there though, but it involves making things as easy as possible and worth within the nature world rather than spending so much energy to modify it all the time. Our food crops too have become so fragile to the point that they require constant attention, so finding more resilient types and species that grow in a semi wild state makes a big difference.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Interesting concepts @SamfromWA . I hope it works out for you

I've grown my plants in various different ways, and have seen many differences in how they grow and/or produce. I think I've found a happy medium for myself as to how much effort I expel for what results. And some plants do better than others. I can fully neglect care on my chives and they thrive, whereas I find that my tomatoes taste better if I baby them.

 

[SamfromWA]

Interesting concepts @SamfromWA . I hope it works out for you

I've grown my plants in various different ways, and have seen many differences in how they grow and/or produce. I think I've found a happy medium for myself as to how much effort I expel for what results. And some plants do better than others. I can fully neglect care on my chives and they thrive, whereas I find that my tomatoes taste better if I baby them.

Thanks, trying to become truly self sufficient without outside inputs, sunchokes are probably one of my favourite foods as i just dig them up when needed, rinse the dirt off and eat them raw which seems to be better for the stomach with that particular food. As mentioned by JP wild foods are extremely important as well. A good aim is to grow/collect a ton of food per year per person which gives you a bit of allowance for unforeseen problems. Fermentation also fortifies foods as the microbes will manufacture different nutrients as they digest the food and build their bodies.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Sunchokes! Wow, don't often hear about those @SamfromWA . What'd they taste like?

Where I live we don't often win from the wildlife when trying to gather from nature. They are vicious, haha. Had a tree full of grumichama recently, but the fruit bats made short work of that. Only managed to collect from it twice.

 

[SamfromWA]

Sunchokes! Wow, don't often hear about those @SamfromWA . What'd they taste like?

Where I live we don't often win from the wildlife when trying to gather from nature. They are vicious, haha. Had a tree full of grumichama recently, but the fruit bats made short work of that. Only managed to collect from it twice.

Yep a lot of the wild fruits especially anything that can bee seen easy are a target for wildlife. Anything underground is usually pretty safe, plus some of the wattles have large seeds we're just starting to experiment with here in terms of edibility, plus some make edible gums. Ideally we'd grow species that are spread around by the animals that also eat them in which case the productivity of the system would continue to grow. Sunchokes are good raw, crisp and a little bit sweet in the winter, a very good survival food, they store all year in the soil here until they resprout again, one of the most highly productive species and one of the easiest to grow. Eating things raw or fermented also has the added benefit of introducing the microbes we need to digest the food into our gut. I haven't done much with beets but they store so well i'm trying to grow some different types this season including the fodder beets. Its very important to grow from seed as each generation it becomes better adapted to our local environment. If you're interested search for "Why you should grow landraces" by landrace gardening on youtube. We've seen the exact same thing here, and this extends to animals like chooks and sheep, if you can select locally adapted genetics they get tougher every generation. Also hoping to try grow some potatoes from true seed as they revert to their more wild traits and spread from runners underground and often have lower dormancy resprouting and growing throughout the year. "Garden Larder" on youtube is doing a lot of good work with such things.

 

[SamfromWA]

Sunchokes! Wow, don't often hear about those @SamfromWA . What'd they taste like?

Where I live we don't often win from the wildlife when trying to gather from nature. They are vicious, haha. Had a tree full of grumichama recently, but the fruit bats made short work of that. Only managed to collect from it twice.

Have a good Christmas and new years

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Love that @SamfromWA .

I've got cherry tomatoes sprouting everywhere as animals in my area have been loving it. And seeing as I personally do not like them, it's a free-for-all. And it helps keep them off of the plants I don't want them on (or at least, I hope so). I don't mind the animals visiting, so long as they don't destroy my crops and leave some for me.
My father has had birds for so many generations, they are exactly what we need them to be. They can handle everything we put them through and are some of the happier, healthier birds in the area. My dad keeps them for singing competitions (canaries), but an unhappy/unhealthy bird won't sing. I myself never got into it, but I could appreciate the care he put in for them. He's won many prizes and holds quite a lot of pride over his birds. They are also a fan favourite for elderly people in our area, who want a (or some) bird for song and company.

Mark is actually in the same (or at least very similar) kind of biome as I am. This makes watching him one of the best people out there for me to watch, especially as I love the information he gives. Sometimes I also like watching Epic Gardening, with whom he's worked before. And Simple Living Alaska will always hold a special place in my heart, even if we don't get snow where I live right now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

 

[SamfromWA]

Love that @SamfromWA .

I've got cherry tomatoes sprouting everywhere as animals in my area have been loving it. And seeing as I personally do not like them, it's a free-for-all. And it helps keep them off of the plants I don't want them on (or at least, I hope so). I don't mind the animals visiting, so long as they don't destroy my crops and leave some for me.
My father has had birds for so many generations, they are exactly what we need them to be. They can handle everything we put them through and are some of the happier, healthier birds in the area. My dad keeps them for singing competitions (canaries), but an unhappy/unhealthy bird won't sing. I myself never got into it, but I could appreciate the care he put in for them. He's won many prizes and holds quite a lot of pride over his birds. They are also a fan favourite for elderly people in our area, who want a (or some) bird for song and company.

Mark is actually in the same (or at least very similar) kind of biome as I am. This makes watching him one of the best people out there for me to watch, especially as I love the information he gives. Sometimes I also like watching Epic Gardening, with whom he's worked before. And Simple Living Alaska will always hold a special place in my heart, even if we don't get snow where I live right now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

That's something quite different, sounds like he enjoys it. Yep i have a rabbit that's not welcome in my veggies most mornings, might have to make some rabbit stew. I have a few friends that live in cold climates and though the snow looks nice i'm sure it would be too cold for me haha. If i can get any plant to grow on its own where i am i'm extremely happy but its a difficult climate here as we only get 10 inches of rain a year most of the time.

I've found that apples in particular are so much more vigorous from seed, though some of the newer varieties of fruits in general won't even grow from seed that's how unhealthy the plants are nowadays. I grow a lot of tagasaste for sheep feed, nitrogen fixation and honey for the bees and its rapidly becoming better adapted every generation.

Thanks, hopefully the new year can be a little less stressful for everyone.

 

[Loux-Jeanette]

This year will kick off with moving to a new home and building raised beds and pots to maximize my growing capabilities. I’m very excited to get back into the garden.

My plan is to grow and preserve as much of our food as possible but I know that it is impossible that I won’t learn about soil health, beneficial insects, seed saving, creating home remedies and microclimates along the way.

 

[Lunai]

I'll go with the stuff from @SamfromWA
But first of all I'll try to grow as many Veggies as possible. Especially I'll want to try to grow enough Tomatoes to not have to buy some, and hopefully even be able to preserve enough for Winter to have Tomato soup or Bolognese at least once a week We'll try and see Other veggies I'l try and see what grows without being mothered.
As Mark always says: You don't have to be self sufficient in everything.
I'll start with Tomatoes and Chili/Paprika/Peppers.
But there is also the possibility for a ton of Gooseberry, black/red/white Currant and Raspberry, depending on if they settle good in their new location and with 3 Apple trees there we'll also have more than enough of that.
Regardless of that, there are also sunchokes which I hope will prosper, chances are good, cause I got the from a garden close by. (Ours taste a bit like kohlrabi/stem cabbage/turnip cabbage but not exactly as flaworfull as those)

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Oh wow @SamfromWA , that's not a lot of rain at all. Where do you get your water from? We have a bore ourselves.

Yeah, lots of plants don't do too well nowadays. I've actually got a couple seedlings going for a new passionfruit vine from one that self-seeded. The other vine really thrived for a year, but then got hit by a disease and died off rapidly. I'm hoping that this one lasts longer, as the self-seeded vine really isn't even in a good location and it's still doing really well without me even looking after it. I don't even water it at all.

You know what, I love that goal. Let's hope for less stress

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

@Loux-Jeanette that sounds lovely. A bit of work for years and years of joy to come. I'd love to see updates on that, if you're ever so willing.

Gardening has lots and lots of things to learn about, but I find it to be quite enjoyable myself. Especially if you go at it light-heartedly, and see the mistakes simply as just another way of learning. One can't succeed without at least a couple (or a lot in my case) mistakes. I almost love the mistakes just as much as succeeding at this point; it shows me how to do better next time

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I've been seeing and enjoying the progress alongside you @Lunai
I hope your garden turns into the piece of paradise you hope it'll be. But from what I've seen, that shouldn't be a problem

 

[SamfromWA]

Oh wow @SamfromWA , that's not a lot of rain at all. Where do you get your water from? We have a bore ourselves.

Yeah, lots of plants don't do too well nowadays. I've actually got a couple seedlings going for a new passionfruit vine from one that self-seeded. The other vine really thrived for a year, but then got hit by a disease and died off rapidly. I'm hoping that this one lasts longer, as the self-seeded vine really isn't even in a good location and it's still doing really well without me even looking after it. I don't even water it at all.

You know what, I love that goal. Let's hope for less stress

Growing from seed makes a big difference, its the reason why weeds grow like weeds as they usually throw out 100's or even 1000's of seeds each season per plant. Across a landscape this will literally be trillions of rolls of the dice, each individual seed a new combination of the parents traits but also a small number or new traits as a few errors and made here and there in the copying procedure. Not to mention plants will literally take up beneficial microbes from the soil (endophytes) into their tissue which not only helps them but also the seed which is inoculated, giving them another advantage in regenerating each generation in its local environment. These endophytes often give disease resistance, or other things the plant needs like nitrogen fixation. All this progress and development is made and continues to improve every generation if given the chance.

I was scraping by on rainwater for a while and mostly growing drought tolerant things in the winter when the ground naturally has moisture but recently i set up some gravity fed water from a dam which seems to be doing well. I was eating a lot of stew with homegrown sheep, pigs or chooks, plus what ever else i could find or grow. Since i have water now i'm aiming to grow as much as possible this summer and eating a lot more vegetables and fruit but its hard to sustain your body weight on just that alone especially when working physically. A lot of survivalist types comment that you really need to regularly eat a good amount of fatty meat in order to sustain body weight when eating only natural foods and i would definitely agree with that. In saying that out of the plant based foods i think the tuber crops are the most sustaining. I also like grapes with seeds as i find i can sustain myself on them for a fair while as the seeds have a good amount of fat and protein. This is a common theme, most things that you eat the seeds with seem to be more sustaining.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I tend to enjoy scouring local nurseries to see how their plants are doing. The one I frequent is out in the open, very similar to how a "normal" garden would be (compared to a controlled environment). It sometimes helps guide me to see what plants are thriving that time of the year, and which aren't. Especially early on it helped me realise that I wasn't failing my garden, but that it was simply too hot for example and that's why my lettuces bolted.
I prefer starting from seed as I feel like most of the plants I started from seed are much sturdier than the ones I haven't. There are exceptions to this rule though. In my case most herbs do better when I buy them as seedlings, as they don't do well from seed for me.

Even rainwater would've been a struggle, if you only get so little water. What consistency is your soil like? Mine is mostly clay.
Ah, you have your own animals. I'd love to have my own chooks, but I fear I'd grow attached and wouldn't be able to eat them. I personally struggle killing any animal to begin with. I do think there are many benefits to keeping your own animals for food though.
I honestly do think that meat is necessary in a healthy, sustaining diet. Especially in colder environments, where the fat can be beneficial to your body coping with the cold. In the Netherlands we eat a lot of meat and potatoes. I always noticed that the food would be served with higher fat contents in winter, and that I would actually start to crave it on cool days.
Nowadays I live in Australia, and I did notice I eat a lot less fat now. It made me feel warm and oily, which isn't what you're looking for in the sub-tropics, really.
I'm still on a path to learn what I can grow here successfully and I'm enjoying the process. A future dream for me is to grow bananas, but I think I just missed the season. And I've found it hard to source bananas that are suitable for planting. One day I'll succeed...