Path to Freedom Urban Farm

Girls, or anyone else that stumbles across this blog, check out these folks here.
The Dervaes family in California, and what they have done on their 1/10th of an acre propterty.
They say they harvest 3 tons of food off that 1/10th acre!
that is amazing.

Path to Freedom

Forum member Wishful posted this link today in a thread where we're talking about how much land does it take to feed a person for 1 year.

How Much Land Does It Take to Feed One Person for One Year?

You'd think that would be an easy question to answer but it's not.
I've been out among the interwebs this morning looking for some (not terrible technical) data about it and have found about as many suggestions and ideas and people answering the question.
It would depend on where you live, what you want to eat, the quality of the land, growing techniques used etc...
There are a lot of claims but not a lot of research that I could find yet.
But I'm still looking.
I found this on a site and it looks interesting. here's the link. http://ask.metafilter.com/77287/How-much-land-does-a-person-need

Quote
These are from speech notes from a guy named Jason Bradford, to a Rotary group in northern California. I don't know where he got them. The presentation used to be online here, but the link is broken, so I don't know where it is now.

Each person needs --
vegan food -- 3000 sq. ft.
a few eggs/week -- 3,500 sq. ft.
one chicken/week -- 24,300 sq. ft.
one cow/year -- 67,300 sq. ft.
posted by salvia at 9:51 AM on November 28, 2007


if you take the above and average it out, it comes to 24,525 sq. ft. per person per year.
according to and online conversion doo-hicky, that comes to 0.563016 acre. Or a little over 1/2 acre per person.
If I figured right, that would give a person a well rounded diet for a year from half an acre.
Of course, you can't raise a cow on half an acre and have room to grow everything else, including food for the cow.
So, let's remove the Cow.
out cow out!
now, we're looking at 10266 sq. ft. per person per year or 0.235674 acre, about 1/4 acre per person per year.
Wow.

I wanted to start a discussion about this hoping that for people looking to buy property, it would give them a better idea of how much land to buy.
so far, we've been talking about just land for food.
We'd want to add to that room for a modest home, and area for energy production which actually could be the roof of the house, or windmills that have very small footprints, area for water tanks for rainwater harvesting, and of course housing for your chickens or goats perhaps or rabbits.
If you plan on using wood for cooking and heating you would also have to add land big enough to renew itself as you harvest firewood over time.
so if you want to go beef free, a family of 4 would have to find a place with 1 acre of land for food, plus, land for the home and other buildings, plus woodlot.

If someone could find better numbers please post it.
I'd like to get some discussion going on this so that people have a more realistic idea about requirements when they go land shopping.
or, help people figure out how much they could do with the property they already live on.

So think girls what you could do with your yards!
Anyway, I'll be back later or tomorrow sometime, have to go to the gallery and get some new pencils!

love you girls,
keep prepping.

Hey Girls!!

Girls, check out the little doo-dad I put up. You can see my new pictures I'm working on.
I've been a busy old nanna lately. The greenhouse is growing like crazy and I've got lots of plants to pot up. Neighbor Dave has most of them already sold for us at his working place so I hope that the plants do extra good.
Hope you girls are working on your preps in whatever way you can.
I still hope to be able to get and Excalibur 3000, 9 drawer dehydrator!!
I have time though, won't be harvest time for months yet.

Hey, did you hear about the meteor that hit in the ocean off the Virginia coast? One of our forum members was out in his truck and saw it.

Link to article

here's an article about it.

Mysterious light in sky, loud explosion rattles nerves in Hampton Roads

05:21 PM EDT on Monday, March 30, 2009

13NEWS

(VIRGINIA BEACH) - Emergency crews fanned out across the city looking for whatever caused a loud explosion Sunday night.

By Monday afternoon, there were many theories about what happened.

Dr. Robert Hitt, director of the Chesapeake Planetarium, believes a basketball-sized meteor, traveling approx 100,000 mph, was responsible for the disturbance.

He says most meteors are about the size of a golf ball and burn up on entry, so it had to be larger than that to produce the sonic boom.

A report on Space.com says a falling Russian rocket was to blame. The Website cites Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. He says he checked the listing for debris expected to enter the lower atmosphere from their decaying orbits around this time period. He found that second stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched last Thursday was to hit during a window that started at 8 p.m.

At around 9:45 911 dispatchers started receiving calls from people reporting a light in the sky followed by a loud boom.
Video: Unknown light and loud boom over Hampton Roads
Larger screen E-mail this clip

Some reported that the explosion caused their homes to shake. Several callers to WVEC reported their doors and windows rattled from the explosion.

Emergency crews could find no evidence of any kind of explosion, however. No injuries, fires or damage were reported.

Hitt said he has spoken with two amateur astronomers who were out observing the sky Sunday night and saw the object. He said the object moved so fast, neither of them had time to pick up a camera.

The National Weather Service had few answers.

Meteorologist Jennifer McNatt said the service had been in touch with the Navy, Air Force and NASA, but none of those organizations had any unusual activity to report.

Officials at Norfolk International Airport had received reports of the light and explosion but said nothing was out of the ordinary at the airport.

The National Weather Service did tell officials in Virginia Beach that the reports of the light and the bang were coming in from Maryland to North Carolina.

The National Weather Service released this statement at 11:17pm Sunday:
Share Your Experience

If you saw or heard the object, tell us about it.

If you took a picture of the object in the sky, please send it to pics@wvec.com


Read Craig's blog

"Numerous reports have been called in to this office and into local law enforcement concerning what appeared to be flashes of light in the sky over the Suffolk/Virginia Beach area. We are confident in saying that this was not lightning...and have been in contact with military and other government agencies to determine the cause. So far...we have not seen or heard of any damage from this and will continue to inquire as to the cause."

anyway, interwebs are getting spotty so I'll post this right quick.
be good. Call me!

Earth Hour Tonight

hey, turn off your lights tonight for one hour.
It won't kill you! LOL
I think I'll do that this evening. Turn off the lights. I think I'll turn these off from 9 to 10.
I invite you all to join me in the dark!

It's 8:30 now, in half an hour I think I'll pull the main switch and see how dark and quite it gets here. LOL
I'll have the battery on this laptop so I can tell you what it's like here in the dark.
muhahahaha

ok it's about a quarter till 9 now.
I finally found the camera so maybe I can take some pictures of the dark.
pictures of the dark.
that's odd isn't it?
LOL

I've gone around and turned off some things already so it won't freak out the fuse box when I plug it back in.

Wow, it is so dark in here with everything turned off!
it's 9:04 now and I just went out and took some pictures of the building.
Hope they turn out nice.
You know, people used to have been able to see really well in the dark! I about fell over the lawnmower going out to take pictures!
well, I think I'll turn this laptop off now.
see you all in an hour.
Happy Earth Hour day!

Ok, it's after 11:30, I did extra. I fell asleep!
It was so dark and quiet and I had laid down to rest a bit and dozed off.
LOL
I guess that was as good a way as any to spend my earth hour. I took some pics and will post them here soon as I get them off the camera later.
I may lay back down and finish up my nap!
Happy Earth Hour!

Ok, hot off the camera, our place in the dark! LOL
Check out the orb activity in the second one too!



and here is one more. Look! Orbs!



Ok that's about it for me tonight, I learned a few things from Earth Hour.
It's nice in the dark and I wish my neighbor's outdoor light would go out.
Also, I have got to get rid of some clutter before I turn out all the lights in this place again, and....the best way to spend earth hour? Napping. LOL

Rainy Spring Day

It's been rainy for a couple days now, going to turn off cold tonight so I'll have to protect some cabbages and collards that are set out in the garden.
We have had some stunningly beautiful days this spring. Warm and bright.
I've recently been working on some art pieces and just watching and waiting.
President Obama seems to be a sincere honest man trying to do what seems best but he's likely to fail. This mess just seems too big to be fixed.
This system needs to die.

It's like watching some poor brain dead soul being kept alive with machines because some family members can't let go, can't turn lose and let the relative or loved one die with some dignity.
Here, we've worked on gardens, got the neighbors onboard and growing food. I suspect that one thing will be what really ends up putting food on all our tables in the days, weeks and months ahead.
Good luck to you girls.
try hard.