Anyway, there are seven categories of food products I need to grow on my quarter acre to be self-sustaining - vegetables, fruits and nuts, herbs, grains, poultry, meat or dairy animals, and wild foods. And here are the suggested items: 12, 4 x8 foot vegetable beds; various fruit trees, grape vines, berry canes, strawberry beds, and a kiwi arbor; culinary herbs; a 25 x 50 foot patch of a single grain like wheat or oats; 12 chickens; 2 pigs and rabbits; and 2 beehives. Like I was, I know you're wondering what the harvest will be right? Don't worry, the book estimates: 50 pounds of wheat, 280 pounds of pork, 120 dozen eggs, 100 pounds of honey, 25 to 75 pounds of nuts, 600 pounds of fruit, and a ton of vegetables. Seriously, 2,000 pounds of vegetables. Ah huh.
Honestly, this just left me slightly confused, with a list of questions, and pretty sure Giant Eagle was still going to be sustaining my family for quite some time. Fruit, veggies and herbs, come on, we even grew those in town, so no issues there. The nuts and honey kinda had me scratching my head though. To me, nuts are a snack and for the life of me I wouldn't know what to do with 100 pounds of honey. I keep a little plastic bear filled with honey on hand for my daughter. She likes to drink it in hot tea when she gets a cold. My first real concern was the wheat. My friends are having a hard time picturing me baking a loaf of bread. I'm having an even harder time picturing me grinding wheat into flour to bake that bread! But the real problem for me was the pigs. Seriously. They just smell so bad! And outside of a mound of really crispy, almost burnt bacon, I don't eat pork. And lastly, even though they avoided mentioning them in the harvest totals, the rabbits are in the meat category. I rest my case.
Some of you may think I gave up and burned the book, but not the new got-too-much-time-on-my-hands me! I'm just picking and choosing what I'm going to sustain my family with and what they're still getting full of preservatives and artificial coloring and dyes.
Obviously I'm going to have a vegetable garden. I always have a vegetable garden. Lucky for me my new backyard already has 10 raised beds. I know the book said I only needed eight, but I figure I'll need extra space for the weeds. And, my husband says he's gonna remove some "ornamental" pines and replace them with apple, pear and peach trees. My guess is we'll be supporting the local fruit markets for years to come. And, I bought some berry bushes the other day to plant along the back of our lot.
But, the biggest undertaking spurred by the book will be the chickens. Oh yes, I said chickens. In 16 days, 20 fuzzy little pullets (like my new word) will be arriving for their new life on my little ... I'm not sure what to call it...too small for a farm, plus we don't have a barn. My husband already told me I can't call it the Chicken Ranch because that one's already taken by a house of ill repute out in Vegas...anyway, my chicks are coming!! Then, hopefully sometime in September we'll have lots and lots of eggs! And, hopefully all my friends will want to eat them because I'll probably still be eating my Eggland's Best very very white eggs that I did not see come from a chicken's butt eggs from the grocery store!
By the way, if you think you'd like to be self sustaining and you have less than a quarter acre, don't worry. The book can tell you how to do it with one-tenth of an acre! But beware, all your meat comes from rabbits!
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