Ready for Self-Sufficient Gardening?

People definitely want to thin the hogs out. The problem is there are just so many of them. This farmer killed 107 hogs:

There's even tour groups like 'Helibacon' that let you fly overhead and use fully automated machine guns to mow them down:

There's just so many of them. I'm sure if you wanted one or fifty, a farmer would be glad to have you on his property to remove them.
 
baymule said:
Everything around here is private land. Would have to lease it, too bad can’t shoot hogs off the road.
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Shoot from road here, better hope game warden doesn’t see or hear of it......

@Ridgerunner Interesting. Our oldest plow horse was Ol' Bob. He was the steady one that Dad used to train us boys how to plow with a horse. Out younger less steady horse was Prince. So what breed were your drafts? Granda’s Was a Percheron.
 
Shoot?

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OK, THIS is what I think of self sufficiency gardening:
"Albuquerque" by Weird Al Yankovic
...And as luck would have it, that's exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams
Her name was Zelda
She was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of strained peaches
I'll never forget the first thing she said to me
She said "Hey, you've got weasels on your face"

That's when I knew it was true love
We were inseparable after that
Aw, we ate together, we bathed together
We even shared the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss
The world was our burrito
So we got married and we bought us a house
And had two beautiful children - Nathaniel and Superfly
Oh, we were so very very very happy, aw yeah

But then one fateful night, Zelda said to me
She said "Sweetie pumpkin? Do you wanna join the Columbia Record Club?"
I said "Woah, hold on now, baby"
"I'm just not ready for that kinda commitment"
Really, haven't we ALL started out thinking that we could free ourselves from the grocery store?!?!?!?
Considering that if the electricity goes off, there goes the freezers we all have and the stored frozen food!
Think I am ready to use my pressure canner.
Any hot water bath canning isn't hard and I just used a quart of 2015 tomatoes. You KNOW they are bad after that long just by using your nose, but the contents smelled sweet.
My grandfather had a job during the Great Depression, just not enough money to buy enough for a family of 4, and sometimes there was no work at all. He kept a garden this size of my dining room/living room combined out of necessity. When I visited he was retired and his vegetable garden could have been from P. Allen Smith, it was so manicured! I think at that point he saved all of his seeds for next year and we ate tomatoes the size of a small plate. When my cousins had their small horse he "manured his garden" every Fall.
I am cleaning house this Spring, throwing away pantry items that aren't any good, or don't justify keeping. I made a blueberry pie from scratch last week. Yesterday, I made one from two cans of blueberries I had in the pantry. Not As good, but I adjusted the sugar, since they were in light syrup, and it turned out well.
I made bread on Friday, froze 1/2 for DD to make sometime With instructions on the ziplock bag. Then, I made a 20 pound turkey yesterday, so I made bread again. 1/2 is gone.
I have been craving, making and eating vinegar slaw a LOT.
DD went shopping a week ago, during the great rush. She noticed that NOBODY was buying turkey, so she bought 3 and froze them. We ate one meal yesterday, dinner again tonight, and I have the order to make 2 turkey pot pies for Monday and Tuesday.
DD even made a Sauerbraten last week when she was home and Would have been on her cruise, so we are eating mighty good.
Don't know about you but many of the potatoes we are buying want to grow and I don't want to argue with them.
We have Been through this before, and recently! I hate it, but I know how to pinch pennies until they cry "Uncle!!"
I don't think we'll be down for the count very long.
 
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digitS' said:
Should we be starting a thread about gardening for all our food needs?

The USDA has newer information on food consumption but it's cups per person per day. That doesn't make much sense for gardening. Here is a link on annual food consumption by the pound: Table 13-7. Per capita consumption of major food commodities . It's a 10 page per file but printed data so a quick download.

What can a garden produce? Here is a short pdf file: Small Plot and Intensive Gardening from Purdue University.

I think they may help understand food requirements and the capability of our self-sufficient gardener.

Steve :)
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Although many of those reports place the number at much less, the general opinion is that you do need at least 5 acres of land per person in order to be self-sufficient. And that's assuming you have decent soil, decent rainfall and a long growing season.
 
I say we re-examine our personal gardening goals. For instance, DD wanted a new toaster for Christmas bc her toaster was...toast--it always burned EVERYTHING. I went shopping and found her an air fryer with 8 features inCLUDING dehydrating. I have a dehydrator with 2 speeds, slow and slow. Hers has a special dehydrating setting and it turns itself off when done, then you can leave them in the air fryer oven until you want to store. For St. Patrick's Day she bought mint from the grocery store, only used a small bit. She ran it through the dehydrator and now has it labelled and stored in a 1/2 pint canning jar. Same with parsley, bought and used a tiny bit, and the cilantro that we didn't even Use with Sunday's lamb chops. She owns the Better dehydrator, but I will still be using mine for peppers. $15/fresh herbs that didn't get thrown away, which is what she would have done.
Yes, I pushed her to use it.
I won't grow lambs ear for medicine or t.p., but I am careful with the paper towels I am using. I just cleaned up my bathroom with a bleach cleaner, but I wipe it all up with paper towels and then into my trash can "burn barrel" to dry out and get burned. Bleach isn't good for septic systems. It kills the good bacteria that breaks things down.
I bought 6 pounds of carrots bc DH is home and we intend to practice with my brand new, never used pressure canner this week. I hope to have carrots in pints to use for meals. I am tired of giving not so nice carrots to my horses. If I have a great potato harvest I also intend to can cut up potatoes in pints.
We just ate meal #6 from the 20 pound turkey and turkey hash that I froze. I froze the extra turkey hash and made it into yet another turkey pot pie. I have enough refrozen for one more meal. That will be 7 meals/4 adults/one 20 lb turkey, $13.00/7 meals, not counting the mashed potatoes, extra carrots, onions and celery, but they are still cheap. I should get my brooder ready and pick up some chicks!
Heads up, chicken and beef butchering is down bc workers have come down with the virus, so beef and chicken $'s will be going up.
 
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