Eating locally and/or home grown/produced only?

[sumi]

I read and really enjoyed the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara Kingsolver. I got me wondering, if the SHTF, how long could we live and eat locally? Without relying on outside sources of food. If you look at your pantries, your gardens, livestock and what produce the neighbours have to share/swap. Would you be able to survive for a year on only that?

And what products would you "import", if (like in the book) you were allowed a handful of food items now and then?

Right now, I won't get very far, the only food producing farms in this area (within a few miles) being dairy farms and a lone, if huge, corn field. And the property I am renting doesn't allow me more than a few chickens and a container vegetables (which did very well, I must say). Long term, my goal is to be able to grow and produce most of my meat, fruit and vegetables (Ireland's climate and weather permitting - many fruit and veg I like, prefer hotter and dryer climates) and barter for raw milk from one of the numerous dairy farms around here.

How are you all doing food-wise and what are your long term goals?

 

[lcertuche]

I'm thinking aquaponics, plant towers and rabbits would be a good start towards SS. Aquaponics is a little tricky but I believe with the right combo of local fish and leafy type plants it is do able. The fish fertilize the plants and the plants oxygenate the fish "in theory" or something to that effect. Rabbits take up little room and are quiet. They could be hid in the garage or in the house and out of neighbors sight. Towers can be intensively planted and made out of all types of recycled things like barrels, pallets, wire, etc. The thing that is important is not to wait until the Stuff Hits the Fan to put it into practice.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Asparagus huh? My husband hates the stuff!

I think there's a big difference in perspective between being self sufficient and preparing for SHTF. I can't spend all my time worrying for each individual scenario. I keep enough food on hand to be OK as long as I can, but preparedness is not my number one concern or reason for why I do what I do. Like Bee said, we have no guarantee of what will happen. And I don't think you can be prepared for everything.

I could live without chocolate but boy do I get irritable without my coffee! Sugar I could live without, maple sugar isn't hard to make and I'm surrounded by maple trees.

 

[Hinotori]

I need to grow us more veggies and more stuff for the chickens. grains don't grow well on this wet side of the mountains. We have plenty of grass much of the year though. Only one cutting of grass hay is possible. Squash grows really well here as do most berries. Cool weather crops do well.

I'm putting in a few more fruit trees this coming year. Plums do super well with the water. Apples and pears have done good. The stupid deer and elk keep eating my cherry trees to death. I quit growing strawberries as there is a local berry farm about 10 miles away. We have enough invasive blackberries that we might as well eat them.

We try to buy local. Our beef is local raised on pasture, bought by the side. We eat in season. 95 percent of our food is grown in Washington or Oregon.

 

[Britesea]

We do what we can, but there's only half an acre and 3 people (2 of them are decrepit, lol). We have some fruit trees, a garden and greenhouse, ducks for eggs and meat. We would have to barter/trade for grain, salt, honey or sugar. I've planted some hazelnuts that will hopefully give us nutmeats for protein and fat, and I'd like to start cultivating mushrooms as well. If we had to, we could live without tea and coffee- substituting with herbal teas and dandelion root. I think our diet would be kind of boring, but it would be adequate.

The thing is, I don't think we would have to do without for very long. If there is one thing that humans do, it's TRADE. I don't think it would be very long at all before we started seeing traders coming from further and further away, with foods and other items that we couldn't produce ourselves.

 

[tortoise]

I'm working on grocery store independence one item / food group at a time. My family is grocery-independent for meat, although we indulge in bacon from the store occasionally. We're working towards independence for produce. I'm not even thinking about grain or sugar yet!

 

[NH Homesteader]

I hadn't heard of that book. But I know her. I'll have to look into it!?

We are all set on meat, well I guess long term we would need to get a boar rather than borrowing one to continue to have pork. So we have chickens, turkeys and pigs for meat/eggs. And we would raise excess bucklings for meat.

We have a garden that we can get most vegetables from... If I was better at gardening. But we have a better one every year! We also have Apple trees on our property, and wild blackberry and raspberry bushes.

I have goats for milk. I have only milked one so far, but have two doelings so when I have 3 (and in the future one or two more I hope) I will be good on dairy also.

So... I hope to be mostly self sufficient with the exception of flour and things like that. And grain for the animals would be an issue.

 

[MoonShadows]

I am not familiar with this author. I looked the book up on Amazon, and I am able to read the entire book right online for free. (https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Vegetable-Miracle-Year-Food/dp/0060852569). I'm not sure if I can because I am an Amazon Prime Member (?).

This looks like a real interesting book, and would work for most of us if things remain relatively normal, but if the SHTF, it is unrealistic.

The problem if the SHTF and how long you could survive on local food would be determined by many factors. If you lived near a large population center, it would be a very short period of time before those folks ran out of food. They are going to spread out and begin looking for other sources, and they are not going to be too nice about it if they are starving. Once that area is picked clean, they will move out even further, so no one will be immune from those who are desperate. Additionally, you would need to consider what you might need the Grid for to process and save this food...would you have water, electricity, etc.? Corn fields would be ravaged. Dairy cows would be killed off for meat. A person's livestock would not stand a chance against starving people. Unless you have a way to hide them or protect them, your dairy goats won't last long from others. Or, could you become "invisible" to those searching for food? The key to the SHTF is to be prepared before it happens, because once it happens, all bets are off. Having access to gardens, livestock, other farmers, etc. now sounds great, but it probably won't be a reality if the SHTF.

Right now, we probably have about 3 months of stored food (not that prepared garbage you see on those survival sites), but real food. Canned meats, fish, grains, beans, oils, condiments, etc. We also only have enough clean stored water for 1 month, but we also have a state of the art water filter no matter what the water source might be. We have a seed vault with over 5000 seeds sealed in Mylar bags in our freezer, but there is no guarantee we could plant a garden and follow it through to harvest if there were people searching for food who had better means than us for taking it away from us. We do not store all our food in one place. We store it in a number of places in and out of the house, so if the SHTF and someone finds our food, they will think they have found it all.

 

[Beekissed]

We have food for today and some stored for winter eating, but that could change in a heartbeat. I don't make long term goals any longer.

I used to ponder on such things but I've since found there are better ways to redeem the time. My life is in God's hands now, so I don't wonder or worry about how long I could last in this or that situation....it's not really up to me or anything I could devise to preserve my life in difficult circumstances and for that I am so incredibly relieved! I can't even fathom trying to depend on my own strength or abilities to weather times that difficult and am so grateful that I no longer have to!

I just live day to day, grow and preserve against the coming winter and that's about it. Basically what folks have been doing since the fall of man. Even in doing that I try not to make plans too far ahead...I'm not even promised tomorrow.

 

[tortoise]

Flour, sugar, salt, coffee, lemon juice - in July/August - for canning