It’s small, considering I own 1.5 tillable acres, and that’s not counting the non-tillable part :)
If I’d told them all I had was a backyard, it would have been a much smaller assignment.
I’m still calculating how much room I’ll need for the gourds and the ashwaganda, but for the beans I’ll need 1 row for the limas and 2 for the runners, assuming the rows are 50 feet long. The sunflowers will need roughly a 15x60 foot patch.
I’ll have more than enough room for my own garden, and even my own breeding projects. During the negotiation process I made sure that my breeding projects wouldn’t interfere with the seed crop, and vice-versa.
I’m excited about it! :)
A post on a recent gardening thread reminded me of something. For those of you who keep an emergency seed stash, I recommend adding a few packets of True Potato Seed (TPS).
Most potatoes are grown from spuds, not seeds. That means they produce a bigger crop, and are consistent and predictable in how they grow. But, seed potatoes don’t keep very long. If something destroys or infects your crop in a SHTF situation, you might not be able to replace it. Potatoes produce a lot of food in a relatively small space, which makes them valuable enough to want a backup plan.
TPS look like tomato seeds, and can keep for years, even decades, with proper storage. A few tablespoons of TPS will plant an entire acre. The downsides to using TPS are that the first year’s crop will usually be fairly small, and each plant will have different characteristics. Sometimes the differences are so drastic that it’s hard to believe they’re even the same species! But, when you find one you like, you can save spuds from it to replant, at which point you’re back to growing from seed potatoes.
True potato seeds are a way to rebuild your seed potato supplies, not a main crop by themselves. But, what’s prepping without a backup plan?
Potato seeds can be hard to find. Tom Wagner’s used to carry them, but I don’t see them on their website now. I did find a few here: https://www.cultivariable.com/catalog/potato/true-potato-seeds/