Surviving Off Off-Grid: Chapter 13 - Food, Part 3

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FIRST GO READ THE INTRODUCTION
THEN GO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 2
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 3
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 4
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 5
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 6
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 7
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 8
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 9
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 10
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 11
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 12

Chapter 13: Food, Part 3

Separate, Simple, Sustainable

The means and methods of acquisition, procurement, production, processing, and preservation of our food – every one of these things - have to be re-evaluated once we come to the right conclusion that the system we have trusted heretofore has gone wildly off-track, and once we admit that our lives have become dependent on a corrupt and wicked food philosophy. Survival is going to require us to re-think everything. As I say all the time... “It is not something that is wrong with our thinking when we are in the world... everything is wrong with our thinking”. No previously held maxims can be exempt from re-consideration. The system we have discussed thus far in this book needs to be a framework for re-examining everything we have come to believe. It is necessary that we learn to re-frame all of our thinking and all of our actions according to the correct system.

I have appreciated all the great comments and emails I have received while writing this book. I think one of the most interesting things to me has been that so many people have rightly identified that the philosophy of "off off-grid" living that I teach in this book is so radically different than the philosophy they see portrayed in the off-grid magazines, books, and websites. As I've said, most people think of off-grid living as merely a way to avoid paying utility bills, or as a way to be insulated against disasters or emergencies, or as a preferable eco-friendly lifestyle choice. Our philosophy includes all of those things, but those things are merely results or products of a life lived separately, simply, and sustainably. The philosophy I am espousing in this book is so fundamentally different than what most people know or expect, that it makes it necessary that I constantly remind everyone of those pre-suppositional differences. First, I personally believe that this life (particularly Agrarian Separatism) is the one that God commands of His people. Second, I believe that this way of living is the only way to preserve and maintain our family and our Christianity in the face of a world bent on destroying both it and us. Our focus on separation, simplicity, and sustainability, means that many of the biggest features of what the world considers "off-grid living" are not going to be part of our long-term plans. Every single thought and idea has to be examined to see if it actually fits into our model. Every single process needs to be measured against these measuring sticks (and note that they are all interwoven/interdependent):

1. Does it increase or maintain our separation? Does the principle, idea, or act require more syncretism with the world, or less? If it does require constant maintenance and expense, is that requirement going to increase my dependence on the world and the world's vulnerable systems? Does any item, product, or practice require continued worldly input? Do I have to work away from my land in order to support it?

2. Is it simple? Is it less complicated and involved; less likely to break or break down and need worldly attention; less gaudy, ostentatious, or prideful? Why do we do what we do, the way that we do it? As an example of the philosophy behind this question, I always ask myself this: How was this task done in the past? Why the change? If there was a change, what precipitated it, and what was the result of it?

3. Is it sustainable? How much continued cost, expense, outside material, money, etc. will it take to maintain or continue doing things this way? Can I produce it here, or can I produce what it takes to produce it here? Can I continue to use it/do it/practice it if the world system around us collapses?

Of course, for us, all three of these measuring sticks are founded on the over-riding principle "Is it moral and Biblical?"

Re-Thinking Everything

We have previously shown where our current systems of industrial food production and JIT (Just In Time) transport and supply, are not sustainable or safe. The alternative in the minds of most homesteaders or off-grid folks has usually been to engage in some combination of gardening, a pen-based animal system, row-crops, greenhouses, etc. While these things, each in-and-of itself, may be helpful or beneficial in certain circumstances, I have determined that the usual alternative means of going off-grid in producing our food supply does not perfectly fit our new worldview and philosophy. The knee-jerk (or default) system of off-grid food production fails in answering one or more of the three critical questions I have asked above.

So let us do some re-thinking...

Although the scriptures do mention rotational, "seasonal", or annual crop farming, by far, when speaking of food products in the context of, or in relation to, God's providence, or in identifying blessed wealth, the Bible talks about (or refers to) perennial crops or perennial food items. Crops such as wheat and corn (which in the Bible usually refers to Barley) are discussed, but generally these are products used to make bread and other staples, therefore they are general representative of bare sustenance and not wealth, prosperity, or success. In the Scriptures, a blessed land is said to run with "milk and honey". The term “milk and honey” represents staple, but indulgent, food products that exist naturally without much added human work or management. When the Bible identifies the blessings or the providence of God, we read about olive and almond trees, pistachio trees, dates, sycamore figs, apples, grapes, and pomegranates, as well as many wild or perennial root crops including garlic, onion, and leeks - foods which in many cases could be left or stored in the ground for a good part of the year. I think we can all agree that the original garden planted by God for man was most likely made up of fruit and nut orchards and other perennial crops. I doubt very seriously that annual crops were instituted until after the fall, but of course that is mainly speculation on my part. I do, however, believe that many crops which are considered annual seed crops today were actually perennial plants in ancient times, and in the original garden. For example, tomatoes, which are an annual plant in most of the world, are actually perennials in the Tropics and all of the modern species of tomato are derived from perennial fruit. I would think it would be safe to say that, logically, all of our now “annual” row and seed vegetables and plants were derived from perennial ancestors. I am not disparaging annual crops because in many cases we must rely on them and they can be very valuable to us and our survival. I am saying that if we want to re-think our food supply, we must begin to question anything that man has adapted to fit in with his industrial designs and plans. Should the common practice (and maxim) of planting row crops and focusing on annual vegetable gardening be our primary source of vegetable food? I think not.

Let's take a lesson from what we have learned before. As we mentioned in the previous chapter, historically, most non-plant food was stored "on the hoof", which is actually one of the Biblical means of storing wealth and being prepared for hard times. Biblical herdsman concentrated their efforts on animals that were fairly easy to keep, that reproduced well or copiously, that could be pastured on free or relatively free lands, and that did not require expensive care or feeds. In short, it seems that a man's primary wealth was determined by that which he owned that was renewable, sustainable, and more or less perennial. This principle seems to have applied to all manner of what was considered “wealth” in primitive cultures. A wealthy man would have had a land “running with milk and honey”, which means that he had many, readily available, renewable, and sustainable resources available to him. He would have had orchards, and vineyards, and cattle, and root crops that come up and produce all year or every year. Those who depended inordinately on annual crops, as we see in the story of Joseph when he was in Egypt, were subject to drought, disease, and famine. We ought to think about that when we get started in our own homesteads.

So, although row-crops and annual vegetable gardens are a good source of food for our homesteads, our thinking ought to first be more inclined towards ideas like:

Primitive and Simple over Complicated and High-Maintenance

Perennial over Annual

Permaculture over Separate Individual High-Input Systems

Primitive and Simple

This category is going to be predictably and appropriately short. When I say that our food plans ought to tend towards that which is primitive and simple, I am saying that we ought to focus on what is indigenous, local, and natural first. Do some research and find out what the first inhabitants, colonists, homesteaders, etc. produced or gathered from the land you plan on homesteading. Read books written by or about primitive inhabitants of your region, and you will find some great ideas that might help you. This doesn't mean that you must stop doing things the way you've always done them all at once. It means that you need to start transitioning to a more natural and sustainable food production system, and you can learn a lot by studying primitive examples. This is how we “discovered” the ubiquitous and over-abundant Mesquite Tree in our area. We learned that the pods were used by Indians and early settlers as flour for bread, as a sweetener, and as medicine. We read in an Almanac that the locals used the roasted Mesquite pod to make coffee when none was available during the War Between the States. We learned that our local (and also ubiquitous) Optunia cactus was, and still is, a food staple for many people who live where the prickly-pear cactus grows abundantly. Then we learned that many of these primitive and simple food products are excellent (and in some cases superior) replacements for the more industrialized, processed, consumer foods that we had been trained to consume.

Perennialism (A word I might have made up)

In an ideal system we would initially focus our energy, from the very beginning of our off off-grid journey, on creating a food production program that utilizes all of our available resources to produce (as much as is possible) a perennial and sustainable food production system on our land. Now, this reality will likely mean that our diets will need to change. More of our food will need to come from perennial plants, trees, and crops. We will need to eat more indigenous (or wild) foods, nuts, and fruit, and less of our diet will naturally come from annual row crops and annual vegetable gardens.

One of the first things any diligent homesteader will need to do is to PLANT TREES. Make it a priority. I mean, before you do almost anything on your land including developing a place to live, you should plant fruit and nut trees that will provide you with food (If the Lord wills) year after year in due season. Our family has made a practice of planting trees every year, and the majority of those trees are chosen for some type of food production. I think setting a goal to plant 5-15 fruit or nut producing trees a year every year ought to be in every homesteading plan, no matter how much land is available. Even if a small acreage were to get too crowded with trees, the oldest trees could then be harvested for the wood. Pecan, cherry, walnut, and apple trees provide great wood for woodworking, for building, and for firewood. Fruiting bushes and vines ought to be also be planted every year, so that their product can be used for valuable food, for people and for animals.

You ought not to worry about producing too much fruit or too many nuts. Remember that you will always be buying food for your animals until you can produce enough on your own to stop buying feed. Planting productive trees is just another down-payment on becoming independent of the feed store. When you begin to experience an abundance of these products, feed a portion of your crop to your animals because fruits and nuts are a great addition to a balanced animal diet. Rotted fruit is great for a compost pile. Fruit and nuts can be dried, powdered, canned, etc. pretty easily. It is a truism that in this current environment, our diets are greatly lacking in fruit and nuts, so changing our diet to represent those items which are more permanent and perennial is just a good idea.

In addition to planting trees and plants for our food, we ought to immediately begin learning about, studying and eventually harvesting whatever edibles are already being made available from our land. This is something that everyone talks about but almost no one really does. I went on a group nature walk in the high-mountains of New Mexico a decade ago with an herbalist who illustrated how much of our environment is actually edible. She claimed (and I have no way to know if this is true, although it seems about right) that in most inhabitable environments, during the “growing season”, up to 20% of the plants or trees you see are actually edible or useful for other purposes. This means that ideally (though not practically), if you have five acres of land, up to one acre of that land is covered with edible growth. It is up to us to be diligent to determine what plants or trees that grow on our land actually produce some edible product (leaves, shoots, roots, fruit, nuts, etc.). Then we must educate ourselves on how to nurture and encourage these plants (and others that we might introduce) so that we can have a sustainable food source for the future. On our land we have identified several edible plants and products, though we probably have not identified even a small percentage of what is available. We currently harvest several products from the local prickly-pear cactus (pads and fruit); Mesquite pods for flour, coffee, and tea; and a few other edible “weeds” (such as stinging nettle and purslane) as greens. We intend to learn what other edibles naturally grow on our land, and we also are considering introducing some perennial and wild vegetables that we think will grow well and become sustainable in our environment.

Some plants, roots, berries, and vegetables - like sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, mint, and strawberries – if left alone to multiply, will become invasive and will produce beyond your wildest dreams. Encouraging this tendency in the proper place, in a controlled way, or in a portion of your property set aside for that purpose, will ensure a continued source of food for ourselves and our families. Many perennial ground cover plants generally used for landscaping under trees, in small raised beds, or in gardens are actually edible and can be used in salads or can be preserved for later use. We were shocked and pleasantly surprised to find out that, the year after we planted sweet potatoes in the spring and harvested them all (we thought) in the fall, the next year our garden was almost completely overrun with new sweet potato plants. We even had a larger crop of volunteer sweet potatoes then we had planted the previous year! Sweet potato leaves are delicious greens for salads, stir-fry, or as an addition to soup and stews. Dandelion greens have always been a very healthy and delicious perennial vegetable. We had been so “colonized” into thinking that we had to grow annual lettuce plants every year for salads and sandwiches, that we didn't consider how many other, more natural and perennial plants would serve the same purpose. I won't recommend many materials in this book, but I highly recommend you get a copy of Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier. His is an awesome introduction into a completely non-traditional (but historical and ancient) way of looking at growing food.

Permaculture

One of the topics I talk a lot about around here, and one that you will hear me speak on quite often, is permaculture. The word "Permaculture" is a combination of the terms Permanent and Agriculture (therefore it ought to immediately have our attention). Permaculture is a philosophy and design theory that revolves around the idea of inter-dependent planting, planning, and design. The overall idea is one of simplicity and sustainability, but it goes beyond that. A permaculture plan is one that incorporates all of the sustainable ideas in a way where each area benefits and serves another area, in a type of symbiosis that is hard to explain, but easy to understand once it is grasped. For example, a permaculture idea of raising chickens might be a chicken coop and pen system where fruit and nut trees and bushes are planted so that they drop their fruit or nuts into the chicken pens. The coop might be designed so that the chickens (which produce heat, fertilizer, and carbon dioxide - all of which are necessary for healthy plants) have a portion of their "run" in a greenhouse. By going about their normal duties, they produce a large portion of the heat and CO2 that is necessary for the plants to survive (especially in winter, when the chickens will spend more time inside). The plants produce oxygen and food for the animals, and the fertilizer can be used to boost the productivity of the plants. This is mainly just an idea to get you started on the overall philosophy, but modern pastured poultry and pasture rotation/animal rotation schemes are all based on some permaculture philosophies.

Proper, intelligent, sustainable, permaculture design of the homestead can greatly reduce the overall workload, and can reduce or eliminate many of the costs related to running the homestead. A few hours of planning and design can eliminate untold amounts of cost and work on the homestead. Some permaculture ideas, though they will not eliminate labor completely, will certainly eliminate costs. Using chickens or guinea fowl in insect and pest control; using properly planned and designed orchards to produce food for our animals, and using animals to work and improve the fields and gardens, are all a part of permaculture design.

Put it all on the table

In coming to a right mindset on these issues, it is necessary that everything we think be put on the table and debated. Our diets ought to change to better represent our location and our geographical reality. We ought to eat those things that grow well locally, and as much as possible, our diets should reflect those things that can be grown perennially or that increase the sustainability of our homestead. From the species of trees we plant, to the types of crops we grow, we need to keep in mind how each choice is going to effect us - and continue to effect us in the long run. If we get into the mindset that we are always going to be able to put in a nice annual vegetable garden, or some annual seed crops, and that somehow that that idea is a sustainable one, then we are likely to fail if things do not forever continue as they are now. From the day we start our homestead we ought to be thinking about some type of perennial or continuous food production, and never stop thinking about it. It is hard in this world of immediate gratification and a "get it now" mentality, to plan for a crop that may not mature for many years, but we ought to always remember that this is exactly the way that God works, and our patience will be rewarded in due time. One of my greatest anticipations, and now greatest pleasures, has been to see the trees we planted in our first year here on the ranch, produce fruit. Not only is this a great example of God's mighty works in and through us, but it is a profound picture of His providence and grace towards us, that He provides sweet and free fruit from the ground abundantly to all of His children who will reach out and take it.

Grow Year-Round

One of the solutions to many food production problems is to really work on and emphasize a year-round growing program. I was personally so brainwashed into the “spring annual garden” rut, that I never really spent much time thinking about using the whole year to grow food. In a conversation with a master gardener and homesteading teacher, I discovered that in our area many of the staple “colder weather” crops are best planted in fall and harvested all winter, instead of counting on these crops to grow up and mature in our short and unpredictable spring weather. Most people plant broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and other crops in late winter or early spring for harvest before the heat of summer comes, but here in Central Texas, I have found that this is very difficult to accomplish because the heat of summer comes in early spring! Most of my early crops were just getting going good when the 100 degree days would start... and eventually burn up my crop. The homesteading teacher told me that he usually plants these crops in the fall, and he finds that often (in this area) they will continue to thrive and produce throughout the winter. He also uses cold and hot frames, along with greenhouses, to extend the growing season. The point is that, since I was operating on the accepted or common way of doing things today, I was missing out on about half of the available year in my food growing system. Every area and region is going to be different, so we shouldn't except any “commercial standard” as the accepted or only way to do things.

In addition to our plans to add a greenhouse and cold-frames, we intend to do some other year-round growing of plants and vegetables that we have learned can be grown in our area throughout the fall and winter. We are installing double-dug garden beds and raised beds for these purposes, and we also will be (if the Lord wills) building some ½ acre and one acre pens for free-range animal and crop rotation.

I learned by reading history books and old almanacs that the modern and ubiquitous “feed grain” animal feeding system is really just that... it is very modern. Historically, most subsistence farmers (homesteaders or farmers who grow all, or nearly all, of their own food) fed their animals almost exclusively on pasture and on seasonal root crops. Today, if I were to ask almost anyone to draw a picture of a farmer feeding cattle, he or she would draw a picture of the farmer throwing purchased hay to cows in pens, or of pouring some type of grain feed or industrial feed cubes to the cattle. But historically, even as late as the early 1900's, this was not how cattle were fed. Cattle, as I have already said, were primarily fed on pasture, on bailed hay or grass from pasture, and on root crops. So in the old cartoons when you would see a cow lazily chomping on carrots, beets, and turnips, that was because the cartoonist knew what subsistence farmers fed their cattle. Root crops were used because they were very easy to grow and because they could be stored in the ground until they were needed. Some farmers would let the cattle graze on the greens and then later, maybe even in the winter, the roots would be harvested to supplement the cattle. All manner of farm animals: cattle, poultry, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. were mainly fed on root crops and not primarily on grain crops. The modern grain crop industry came about during and after the industrial revolution as large agri-businessmen found it easy to produce enormous supplies of feed grains on their expansive corporate farms. What followed was predictable and followed the normal industrial pattern.

In the beginning (the beginning of the industrialization of our food supply), feed grains were very, very inexpensive, sometimes only pennies a bushel. Because grain prices were so low, small farmers found that they could profitably raise cattle and other animals in pens, rather than on expensive pasture (which could, instead, be used to raise grain crops), and they could begin to make good money selling their animals into the industrial food production system. Later, as human food needs exploded due to the industrialization of the human food supply and the concentration of humans in cities, people competed with animals for the feed, and prices increased. By this time, unhappily, most farmers had for generations changed the way they did business and the way they raised animals. They were entrenched in the “pen system” of raising animals on grain feed. They couldn't figure out what went wrong, but when feed grain prices skyrocketed, they knew they could no longer operate small, diversified farms using industrial feed grains for feed. Pigs were sold off or butchered, and from that point on, pork production was consolidated by the industrial pig producers who specialized in just pork production. Beef production was “farmed out” to the beef producers who raised cattle on huge tracts of land for short periods of time, then fattened them up in very small and tight feeder and stockyard operations. Once upon a time, local dairies bought their milk from small farmers, but eventually the dairies found it easier to operate their own, large-scale, industrial milk systems based on feeding the cows cheap, bulk grains. There was really no going back for these farmers, because as grain prices increased, they found that they could buy bulk, mass-produced, and nutritionally inferior food at the store for cheaper than they could grow and process it.

This industrialization process happened in every single category of food production. The corporations and marketing arms of the industrial system needed all food to be inexpensive, consistent, and mainstream. A commercial ham or a package of bacon with a brand name on it purchased in Waukesha, Wisconsin, needs to look and taste exactly how it would look and taste if you bought the same brand and product in Jackson, Mississippi. This is what the industrial producers demanded, and eventually this became what the consumer demanded. This process “mainstreamed”, or actually “dumbed-down”, our food supply and the tastes of the modern consumer. In the old days, pigs that fed almost exclusively on acorns and root crops produced far superior meat than those who were fed cheap and mass-produced grains, and everyone knew it. But all of these differences (and the ability to know the differences) were eradicated when the industrial producers took over the production of all food. So the tastes of the people were “dumbed-down” as well. We were all trained to like and expect inferior and unhealthy food products. The pictures on the wrappers of industrialized food still shows the pig, the chicken, or the cow munching on grass in a beautiful green meadow, even if the actual animal in the package never saw the sky, never ate green grass, or never left the commercial feed pen. Differences between brand names are usually purely cosmetic, or are based on some differences in additives, not on differences in quality or nutritional value. Later in the game, chemicals and additives were introduced to increase consistency and to increase the visual appearance of the food – regardless of what had been done to it nutritionally.

Hopefully by now you have picked up on the industrial process and how things devolve under that process. Along with that process, our food has been devalued and diminished, and along the way we have become weaker and more unhealthy. Most people over 50 years of age today are on copious medications and they need more and more medical intervention in order to maintain what they have been told is “the good life”. But, what is the inevitable result of where we are headed? The inevitable destination and result of industrializing the food supply has been (and will increasingly be) socialized and Industrialized medicine; brainwashed and sometimes seriously intellectually challenged “consumers”; and eventual societal corruption and collapse. So, what does this all have to do with grain crops vs. root crops? Not much, and everything. Not much if you plan on doing nothing about it. Everything if you plan on living off the grid. To succeed and to survive it is needful that you learn the history of how every particular modern agrarian practice or process began. When you are dumping that bag of grain to an animal, you need to know where you are on the slippery slope of societal “progress”. This doesn't mean that you cannot use bagged grain as an intermediate step, but it is necessary that you know how you got to where you are, so you can make plans to escape. The price of bagged grain feeds will only increase until the world as we know it collapses. We need to think differently today in order to survive that collapse.

Which brings us back to our topic. When you are planning your farm, you need to carefully consider what crops you can grow easily and cheaply in order to supplement your animals. Hopefully you are considering a pasture system for feeding your animals, but if you are not, then you need to grow what it takes to feed them and keep them healthy.

Our Agrarian ancestors planned their land and their farms so that they grew many root crops that were beneficial to both their animals, and to their selves. They focused their energy on foods that grew well in their region, and that would thrive even in difficult times. Sure, they grew some grains and row crops, especially in places where products like dry beans, corn, and grains grow exceptionally well without chemicals or without extensive labor. Sure, they often had annual vegetable gardens – to deny that would be to deny history – but the point is that these products were often very small portions of the overall food plan of any subsistence homestead.

On our farm we do intend (if the Lord allows) to produce some large scale dry bean and seed (oats/wheat/etc.) crops in rotating fields as part of our pasture rotation system. We are also moving into intensive gardening of some vegetables and other staples in order to move towards 100% production of our own supplies. We are constantly studying and testing to find out what will grow well in our area, and what will fit well into our overall plan.

Making a Plan

One of the first things the potential off-grid family can do is to get an idea of what you use, and how much of it. As a part of that process, you should also ask yourself why you use each item and what alternatives are available. Realize that many of the things you do, and many of the foods you eat, are part of your life not because of some deliberate plan or because of intensive study. Many of the things we do, we do just because we have always done them. We haven't changed because our own thoughts and preconceived ideas and notions have never been challenged. For gardeners, this means that many people just grow whatever they feel like growing and in whatever amount the current garden size and condition allows. Many gardeners put more thought into having a garden than they do into what they will grow and how they will grow it. A garden and all growing programs, even for your small homestead, should be planned. Some old favorites, or things you just like to have around, may have to be sacrificed if they are not solid additions to an overall sustainable food supply plan. Crops that take up a lot of space, but only produce a small amount of food and only for a short amount of time are usually the first things that need to go. Some other crops that you may never have tried, or that may not currently be a part of your diet, may need to be adopted by you and your family. After much study and research, our family is adopting many traditional southern food products that were once more occasional, ceremonial, or “seasonal” in our old lives (like sweet potatoes, cooked greens, and dry beans).

Plan your Food Storage as you plan your Food Production

We are going to talk a whole lot more about food preservation and food storage in the coming chapters, but it is important to mention here that you ought to plan your food storage program as you are planning your food growing program. Plan out what you will grow, and how it will serve you throughout the year. These are all questions you need to spend some time answering:

What is your food storage capacity, and in what ways (and in what amounts) will you plan on storing food?

How will your food storage capacity change, and in what ways will your growing program effect your food storage program?

What (and how much) do you plan on growing for fresh picking and how much for eating?

What do you plan on growing to preserve for the cold winter months?

What foods are amenable to what preservation techniques – and what output (labor and money) will be necessary to practice those particular techniques?

For storage purposes, I always try to pick out one major product every year, and I heavily focus on growing a bunch of that one thing that year. That product ought to be a.) a major food source for the family - something you will eat a lot of, b.) something that stores or preserves well, and c.) something that you can produce a lot more of than you can consume in one year. For us, one year that product was green beans. The next year it was onions. Several years ago my big thing for one year was dried beans, and we grew several great crops of black and white beans during that year and were able to store a good supply, much of which we subsequently used for seed in the years that followed. By growing a lot of one particular food product in a year, we can often grow several years supply of that one food – which will allow us to use our land and resources for other purposes in subsequent years. Some gardens are not big enough to grow a lot of everything we need every year, But if we can reserve a large portion of our garden to grow one particular crop in an abundant way, we can better utilize the area that is available.

As far as growing food, there are as many opinions as there are growers, and I am still in the learning phase. The main point I want to make, though, is that I know some excellent modernist gardeners who would make poor subsistence farmers. It is one thing to be able to, (using ample resources) grow some great veggies or awesome marigolds. It is quite another to purposely work towards providing a majority of the food for your family so that you do not have to buy food at stores - which is the goal and ideal of Off-Grid Agrarianism. Be aware that many of those pictures of gorgeous gardens that you see on Internet blogs, are actually the product of industrialized production using grid water and power. So don't be green with envy when you see some suburban “homestead blogger” bragging about their abundant crop. Growing food off-grid takes a whole different worldview and mentality, and a whole new set of skills.

Much less space is necessary for a small subsistence farm than most people think. I am convinced that a pretty large family can live and survive, providing near 100% of their own foodstuffs, on only a few acres OR LESS. While our ranch is close to 40 acres in size, my garden is less than 1/8th of an acre. I plan on making more and more land available for tillage every year, but I believe I can provide more than enough non-meat food for my family just from this one small garden, using intensive gardening techniques. Ideally (and hopefully eventually) we will build a garden that is nearly 1/4 acre. I will keep my current garden as a perennial herb garden, and will utilize the one acre and ½ acre rotation fields for growing some larger crops each year. When we are in full production, any excess crops that cannot be eaten, stored, used for animal feed, or bartered, will be sold at the farmers market, or bartered with neighbors in my community. My gardens will consist mainly of double-dug beds, used in rotation, and used year-round.

As I mentioned before, any good subsistence farming/gardening plan needs to be combined with ample food storage. Root cellars are a necessity, especially here in the hot south, but just about anywhere. We will also be needing dry storage, some barns and outbuildings for drying and curing foods, a smokehouse, a springhouse, and an icehouse. We are almost finished building our smokehouse as I write this chapter. If you cannot utilize it immediately, store it, or preserve it, you probably should not produce it. Very few things, with the exception of lettuce and a few other garden and salad greens and veggies, are going to be grown for immediate consumption - until we build ourselves a good sized greenhouse. It is a great thing to be able to go directly to the garden for a meal, and I relish such times, but I have to keep in mind that food production is for the whole year, and is accomplished for our survival and for our safety and security. Too many people look at their garden as a temporary, seasonal fling – or as a summertime hobby. God provides these things for us because He cares about us and loves us, and our labor is bestowed for His glory alone, and we must always keep that in mind. God's provision in allowing us to work for Him in providing nearly 100% of our necessities constantly puts us in remembrance of Him and His goodness and kindness towards us. We pray to Him to wean us from the "store", and to provide for us completely and sovereignly right here on the land. We, like plants, need our rain and food in due season, and we rely on Him for it. A good food subsistence program coupled with a sound storage and preservation plan is our way of being dutiful and diligent according to God's commandments. It is He that has commanded us to till the soil, and to work the land (Gen. 2:15, 3:23), and we all ought to do that diligently as unto a glorious and loving master.

A Final Word on Growing Animal Feed

Many people get into animal husbandry and they immediately make some really big mistakes. I receive letters and emails from these people all of the time. They go out and buy the best feed money can buy, and they keep feeding those animals from the feed store, and they never can figure out why they are losing money and time on the deal. We are certainly not in this for the money, but if I have to keep working a day job in order to feed my animals, then something has gone horribly awry. If I have to toil and slave in a corporate job so I can feed my animals, I have dropped from modern suburbanism (where people work all day to buy stuff from other people to feed and provide for themselves), to sub-suburbanism (where people work all day to buy stuff from other people to feed their animals). Not a good trade-off. Our plan must include a program to provide much of the food and supplies for our animals from our own labor and from the ground. Back in the old South, where sweet potatoes, turnips, collard greens, and carrots, etc. were major staple crops, most of the crop went to feed the animals! When you read some of the old farmer's almanacs you will find that most small farms in the south fed their animals sweet potatoes, rutabagas, radishes, turnips and turnip greens, and other root crops. Corn didn't become a major feed crop on the plains until just before and after the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Many people automatically run to corn as a staple crop for feeding their animals, but historically, at least in this area, corn was not used for that purpose. The idea of root crops being the primary type of animal feed was so pervasive in history, that in England, potatoes (regular white potatoes) were considered animal food and not people food. The English (perennially derisive of the Irish) considered it quite hilarious that Irishmen ate potatoes. There was an old English joke that potatoes were food only for horses and Irishmen. The Irish responded that this is why the Irish man is as strong as a horse! Anyway, I love potatoes and all these other root crops, and I eat them, but remember that, in most of the world, root crops (and the majority of each crop) were used for animal feed. Root crops grow better with fewer problems and less risk of a total crop failure than does corn and other above ground seed crops.

Also, do not neglect harvesting from the wild when you are thinking about how to feed your animals without store-bought feed. Here in Central Texas, we harvest acorns from the hundreds of oak trees on our land to feed to our pigs. We are able to feed them and fatten them for several months just off of acorns from the land. If we were more diligent at it, or if we had already established a good free-range program (we don't free-range them year-around yet) we would have had to buy less and less feed for them.

In Conclusion

There will always be some products we will likely not be able to produce. We cannot produce salt, although we do get salt from a lot of the foods we produce. We do not have a salt mine on our land, so we buy and store large amounts of salt. We will never be able to produce quite a few of our other necessities, but that number is dropping, and is far smaller than I first thought. Some of the items I once believed had to be purchased at a store, we ought to be able to produce ourselves, like honey, soap, pepper, candles, even rope, string, furniture, tools, etc. God created us with minds and with the ability to solve problems. We have to divorce ourselves from the consumer mentality and industrial mindset that has crippled our individual creativity, convincing us that everything around us must come from a store.

Having been deprived for their whole lives of the historical, normal, and expected use of their eyes, and ears, and of their legs, arms and hands, many people today are not able to function when the productive use of these faculties is required. These things atrophy from lack of use, as do all of our other creative senses and abilities. The industrial system paralyzes men and makes them increasingly dependent on the system, while simultaneously convincing them that they are better off than their ancestors... and "more advanced". So the blind, mentally atrophied cripple has now been convinced that he is better off than those who came before him who could think, see, and work fruitfully to provide the necessities of life.