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Self sufficient gardening

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sleek:
I'm trying to reduce the impact of inflation and supply chain issues  I have been raising chickens for 3 years now for eggs. I don't have the heart to slaughter them for meat however. I have been playing around with a 40x40 garden and have had some success. I have a have a half acre available to me.

So, many folks talk about gardening to get off the grid, but nobody talks about what to grow for a balanced diet.  I'm in  Northern coastal nc. I'm curious what folks ideas of what to grow would be. My biggest requirement is that whatever I grow can also feed my chickens, and dogs. Hate for scraps to go to waste.

bjrogg:
Here we like potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, onions, chives, dill, peppers, tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, rhubarb, cucumber, spinach, garlic, muskmelon, cabbage, lettuce, radishes along with some fruit trees. Apples, cherries, peaches, plums and pears.

I think you’ll get pretty good well balanced meals from them. If you wanted more protein you could plant some edible beans like black beans, navy beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans.

Good luck with your garden Sleek. I hope you post some pictures as the seasons go by.

Bjrogg

Pappy:
Man BJ, that should feed a guy well . I use to raise a big garden but got to be more trouble than it was worth trying to keep the deer/ground hogs and other varmints out, the last year I raised one I spent all summer babying it and got 0, >:( now I just buy from the farmers market. ;) :) :)
 Pappy

Eric Krewson:
I think one consideration is what kind of food storage methods you plan to use, I freeze, can and dry what I produce. I vacuum seal most of the stuff I put in the freezer.

I grow a summer and winter garden.

I don't grow root crops like potatoes, beets, onions or carrots to store, living alone I only cook a couple times a week so I buy potatoes and such. I do cook a lot of meals where I produced everything but the onion and seasoning spices.

Here is an example, squash, okra and green tomatoes fried together, kale, turnips, Kentucky wonder pole beans with onion and chanterelle mushrooms picked out of my woods and deer minute steak, I bought the onion I used, the rest I grew or shot.
 

 

Eric Krewson:
Another thing; I have put tons of manure in my formally poor soil to build it up, with the manure comes every weed seed in existence, so many that I can't possibly keep ahead of them so I plant through black plastic. The plastic keeps the weeds at bay as well as retaining moisture so I don't have to water my garden even through a drought.

I didn't have deer problems until about 10 years ago at which point they started eating my garden to the ground, it was time for an electric fence to keep them at bay. I have trained the deer; they don't try to jump my fence and keep a wide berth around it. A low strand will keep the coons out of your corn as well.

I have built up my ground over the years to the point that I need very little fertilizer, that is a hill of white scalloped squash in the foreground. My garden is 20X60, I give away 10 times more than I use myself.

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