Grow 6,000 Pounds of food on just 1/10th of an Acre

This article originally at http://prepping2survive.com/

Grow 6,000 Pounds of food on just 1/10th of an Acre

I know it sounds impossible right? You think you need 40 acres and a tractor and barn full of animals to be able to grow enough food to feed your family. That is what I thought before I came across the Dervaes family who is doing just that only 15 minutes outside L.A. on just under 4,000 square feet! Whats crazy is not only do they produce enough food to be self sustaining, but but they have enough left over to make around $20,000 a year. They do this by selling the excess they grow to local restaurants who are always looking for locally grow organic fruits and vegetables.

In a year they produce around 6,000 pounds vegetables, herbs, fruits & berries from over 350 species of plants. They also harvest 900 chicken eggs, 1000 duck eggs, 25 lbs honey, and pounds of seasonal fruit. They even have goats for goats milk for cheese making. They sell what they don’t consume or use for feed, and use those profits to purchase the crops they cannot grow They do all of this in only 3,900 square feet. They also use solar to power almost all of their energy needs and make their own bio fuel to power the autos they drive.

Here is a short video about the Dervaes family and their amazing micro farm.

Now depending on where you live, your production will be less. We cannot grow food here at Prepping 2 Survive year round. The freezing cold and snow during winter just wont allow it. But this got me to thinking about how much we could actually produce here in suburbia. To start I needed to figure out how much usable/grow-able space was actually left in the back yard. Now, I could get out there and measure, but it is spring. The 4 inches of snow that feel on Monday have been washed away be thunderstorms that rolled through last night. This is on top of a 18 inch snow base that just melted away. The yard is soggy and its raining. With just a little search I found a fantastic website called Findlotsize.com. All you do is plug in your address and an overhead picture of you property comes up. You then place markers on the map and it calculates the area inside of those markers. It was very easy to use. I came away with around 4,300 square feet of usable/grow-able space is left in the fenced in area of the back yard.

We have had a decent sized suburban garden, about 450 square feet, the past few years and have had many thoughts of grandeur. Our kids love to help and love to snack all day from the things growing in the garden. Is expanding the garden to 10 times the size really doable? We know that it is and that it also produces an amazing amount of food thanks to the Dervaes family. You will be able to follow along as my family takes the plunge and my wife gets the garden of her dreams. (Happy early birthday babe!)

You can also follow along with the Dervaes family and their microfarm at urbanhomestead.org We will be using their vast knowledge to aid us as we move along creating our own microfarm in suburbia.

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