We all intuitively know that it’s important to have access to locally grown food, especially if it’s grown organically.
It gives us calorie resilience in case our standard thousand-mile supply chains become disrupted. It’s more nutrient-rich and healthier for us. It tastes (much) better. Growing it increases our connection to nature. The list of additional benefits is long.
Marjory Wildcraft, founder of The Grow Network and author of Grow Your Own Groceries, explains how we can contribute to the local food production movement by using our own windowsills, planters and backyards as a food production system.
Even those with no prior experience can swiftly learn how to grow and raise a meaningful portion of their dietary calories:
It’s a very simple three-part system. To set your expectations, I would say that if you have no skills at all, give yourself a year to get these three systems up and running.
The first is a garden. Just start out with a small garden, I would say 50 square feet, 100 square feet at the most. Start small, that way you’ll be able to focus on it. It won’t be overwhelming. Your chances of success are going to be a lot higher. That size garden doesn’t produce a ton of calories — though you can get about 35 to 40,000 calories a year out of in one season out of a garden like that — but it produces a lot of nutrition, and diversity.
Next get a little flock of chickens. You can get about 200-250 eggs per hen in a year. With just a couple of chickens you will be egg wealthy. Eggs have so much great stuff. They’re a complete food; lots of protein and lots of fat.
Then, get some rabbits for meat. One buck and three breeding does, even in Texas where we only have about six or seven months of production because it’s too hot in the summertime for them to breed, I get 75 – 80 rabbits a year out of that. One rabbit is the equivalent of a chicken. In fact, I have often served rabbit and forgot to tell people, and they just assume it’s chicken meat. You can process a rabbit at home 15 minutes before you cook it.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Marjory Wildcraft (76m:04s).
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