Self Sufficient Gardening. Please help?
My plan in life is simple, to live simply. Simple as that. Now the problem with living simply is that it is excruciatingly complex to retrieve the lost information of a self sufficient people. We are as Americans or Westerners or just the people of today too reliant on grocery stores and big food business to feed us. I have a problem with being that secure. I want to measure myself and work for the things I want, just to toil in the soil, a ‘hobbit’ life as my friends call it. I want to build my own earth lodge to live in, grow my own food, possibly live without power as it becomes a nuisance to the earth. I just want to experience that connection with earth and the signs in nature that are the true language of the world. So please help me with problem number one. I already have a wealth of knowledge about gardening/farming and more than enough experience but my issue is that when I start my garden the way I retrieve my plants is at some business or nursery. I don’t like relying on anyone else especially those that are in for the money and not the love. Monetary life is useless and not fulfilling. I want to grow tomatoes from the seeds of last years tomatoes, onions from onions and so on. I don’t want to have to buy seeds or plants but to use a system where last years crop provides this years and so on. so if someone could provide some info on this, as I have been looking for weeks and everything starts with "step one: Go to Nursery and Buy Plants." Any experienced self sufficient non-reliant gardener please help me.
It is true that with a nursery or small I business I will have to start. I plan on crafting my own tools. The plan is to step back into the archaic. No pumped water, electricity, internet, or television. With a roof of dirt and a bed of grass. No more shiny metal boxes set in their organized rows. Make my own clothes, furniture, everything. I wish the world were bigger. I don’t want money and when I finally have my own land I will not pay the taxes and don’t plan on leaving that piece of land. College was the biggest let down. Its a filing system placing you in your pragmatic pocket where you can help the system of carelessness and separation; our society. We are no longer bands of tribes but selfish pieces of a broken puzzle. Forgive the sorrowful poetry i am writing but this is my reality and the world around us. I would love to start a commune but it may be a tribe of one as i have met zero people who share this sight.
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I’m sorta of a quasi self sufficent non-reliant organic gardener myself ~ I grow almost all the produce our family needs here in our 1/2 acre yard, save the seeds for next year, raise my own beef, have chickens, home can, etc. I also have a greenhouse since it’s the only way I can extend our short growing season.
You do have to start from somewhere, however. When you start a feed lot for example, it starts with buying a few cattle from someone. Once you have a small herd, raise them to adulthood and breed them, only then are you self reliant. Same goes with veggies and fruits. You have to have seeds to start with, good seeds, not the stuff that comes out of grocery store produce. Definitely check with a farmers or gardeners co-op group for seeds, hit earth day celebrations in your area, the local botanical gardens, farmers markets, freecycle etc. This first year, you have to depend on someone else for those seeds ~ and from then on, you can cultivate your own. The county extension office for your county can definitely help you how to hold back part of your crops for seed.
Well, you know, you gotta start somewhere.
You can try buying plants at a farmer’s market instead of a big corporate nursery. That way at least you are supporting someone who is trying to do something similar to you.
You can also check places like freecycle. Last year someone on freecycle gave me some tomato plants that had volunteered in her compost pile. They produced a lot of good tomatoes.
You can try saving seeds from the vegetables that are currently in your diet. They might not work, but they might! Doesn’t hurt to try!
Then you need to think about how you are going to grow this garden, getting the soil ready. Are you going to purchase tools? Or make them yourself? Out of what materials?
Lots to consider!
You should consider blogging about your experiences. I think that would be very interesting!
look into heritage/heirloom seeds….. they’re the old style veggies,kept separate from the newer hybrids.. and when you use their seeds to start new plants the second year, you still get the same ones you started with… you’ll pay a price for them, but since you’ll only buy them once hopefully, it’s well worth the cost…
your dream is one that many of us share… we’d love to see you do it!!…. don’t forget all the stuff you need to do your canning and if you can’t freeze foods, you’ll need a great cold spring and rootcellar!… I can just imagine that good old woodstove cooking an apple pie …. ah, yes… just like back at Grandma’s…. see, I still remember… there’s a lot of us that do… it’s just too easy not to… I wish you the best…..
You could join a garden club and swap seeds and plants with other people. People who didn’t have seeds from last year’s crop have always had to get them from someone, whether they exchanged the seeds for money or for labour or a cow or something. Other than that, start learning about how to propagate plants. Planting some of last year’s potatoes to get potatoes this year is relatively simple, but saving seeds is a whole other subject.