The Oil Drum

146 comments on Conservation in the food chain

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Agric on March 27, 2006 - 8:00am

A bit over a year ago I decided to see if I could be at least 90% self sufficient in vegetables (not counting grains like wheat and rice, pulses) and set a target date of last 1st June as the practical start date. It's been surprisingly easy, I've spent less than £1 per week ($1.75) on vegetables since then, usually on tomatoes or mushrooms.

I rather like the seasonality and look forward to the first parsnips, green beans, lettuce etc. Currently I'm eating: leeks, purple sprouting broccoli (yummy), swede, carrots, parsnips, celery, shallots, tuscan kale, russian red kale, salad onions, garlic, raddichio, jerusalem artichokes, squashes. I don't have a greenhouse, one would increase the variety of vegetables at this time of year. May will probably be the nadir of supply and choice - when the winter veg has run out and the early summer crops are barely starting.

Sadly I am just reaching the end of my stored onions and potatoes (have given too many away, methinks!) - I grew small amounts of 12 different varieties last year and will be planting 20 varieties in a couple of weeks time. It's quite depressing, taste-wise, eating shop bought potatoes again :-(

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Don in Colorado on March 28, 2006 - 3:34am

I tried this too, Agric, and we've still got a lot of potatoes, even though they want to sprout. And we canned 300 pounds of tomatoes.

Since I already live on a small farm, it was pretty easy to eat about 80 percent of our food locally. Especially since we have a herd of delicious Angus cattle.

But we also bought local organic pork, chicken and fish. We have a ranch co-op already in place that sells local meats.

We also have many organic orchards here, so we had lots of apples, apricots, peaches, etc. We also canned a lot of stuff from our big garden. Have you ever tried pickled green beans? Delicious ...

We still have to buy coffee, dairy products (no local dairy) sugar and flour. This year someone is starting a local wheat farm/mill so we can localize that, too.

And of course I still have to buy ice cream ... :-)

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p on March 28, 2006 - 8:53am

Tomatoes and potatoes? Don't you have a late blight problem? What varieties do you grow?

I have: I grow a very early variety that will produce nice excellent tasting tubers but is rather prone to blight (Dore). It will produce before summer though which is the main blight season. I also grow a late variety (Texla) which shows remarkable resitance to late blight. That way I circumvent the blight problem a bit. I hope.