Monday, June 13, 2011

sustainability of food

Sustainability of food production is where you preserve how much food you have available, by growing it, harvesting and preserving it throughout the year. By growing your own food you will save money and have access to it whenever you like for example in a snow storm, when power is out, and traveling is impossible you have food whenever you need it. This makes you more resilient and more self sufficient.

We have to design the garden by drawing it on a sheet of paper. We have to go out to buy the seeds that we want for he garden and we get non hybrid seeds so we can plant them again.We use the design to find out where we plant different things according to their growing habits.
We have chickens and ducks for eggs and meat, and also protect them from foxes, dogs, coyotes and predatory birds.

We grow herbs like lemon balm, basil, catnip and mint which grows in the river. We use the catnip for cat toys. We store food and preserve it by canning it, pickling it, dehydrating it and freezing it. We store food in our nice cool cellar that we have. This year we made a solar dehydrator and we will be doing a lot more dehydrating this year!

Well this will save you lots of money because all you have to do is buy the seeds and plant them and re plant them each year. The food is as fresh as you want it when you harvest the food and its better than store quality. This is a life skill that you should have because when you need to do it and you don't now how to do it you will not be able to do it, so when you have learned how to do this teach your kids if you have any! You have access to the food whenever you like without traveling. You always can have food available when travel is impossible.

Upstate N.Y winters are harsh and growing outside is impossible. We can sprout beans and seeds inside, but that is the limit of fresh greens. We have 10 acres of land and use some of it for growing food.

Many people who have lost their jobs would love to have a garden to be more self sufficient.