>>>you’re farmin not gardenin.....<<<
LOL 7 1/2 acres total - not a very big farmer...
But, my garden provides for about 4-5 families... I usually can about 80 cases, freeze and dry, raise chickens, butcher a few deer a year - so besides salt, sugar, baking powder, black pepper, rice, etc. we don’t have to do much grocery shopping.
We use our stockpile daily, so there is no ‘survival shock’ to deal with, and not too much rotation to worry about. I get peas and limas from local neighboring farmer (all shelled via their half million dollar viners) and apples and peaches from my old college roommate (the pomology major) till my fruit trees grow a bit. Grow most of everything else we eat, including wheat.
I also grow hybrid poplars for firewood, and have had nubian milk goats in the past, as well as sheep, horses, Aberdeen Angus, and Poland China hogs.
We have ten acres but most of it is in hardwood timber and ridges and gullies....Only a couple of acres worth “farming”. I buy wheat out of the field (and also the bails of straw) We have some of the best truck farmers in the country within mile or two of house.
Have a small orchard and raised bed for gardens. Have been trying out lasagna gardening and gardening by the square foot. We buy chicken,pork and beef when it’s on sale or from local farmers (can’t eat what we name and we name anything we grow). Would love to have fowl, but too many cyotees and other vermits.
If you are interested in growing you own peas have a method passed to my sis by an amish lady...... Keep a large wash pan or water trough filled with dirt and compost in a building so it doesn’t freeze/warmed. On first of Feb. sprinkle pea seed in a long, 12+inch wide 1” deep area of garden. (Even on top of the snow) Cover with warmed dirt in building.....Mine are a couple of feet tall with peas forming now.
Am trying my luck at kidney beans this year. letting them dry on the bush ala grandma. (Dad is 89 hope he remembers correctly)
Have you ever grown sweet potatoes in a barrel?
When a child mom and dad fed us off of their five acres....Cows, pigs, sheep, goats, duck, geese, chickens, horses and lots of work to keep us out of trouble. That’s when I learned not to name something I was planning on eating.
Now raising just for dad, son and self.