I tilled the whole big patch on which I tried the three sisters system last year and a bit more.

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I had to use a garden fork, because the tractor is not powerful enough to cut through long-established turf. And most of this soil was undisturbed for about a hundred years, if ever. And parts of it were compacted by the honeywagon driving over it once a year when emptying my septic tank. However, on that front, I found out this spring that I can convert it into proper vegetable patches, because the honeywagon has a long enough trunk to not need to drive directly over it. Thus, I tilled even more than I initially intended – a rectangle approximately 10×6 m. In the first picture, it is almost all done, and I took that picture when fighting the compulsion to make the edges tidy. I lost that battle, and the day after, I spanned a string along the edges, and I did make them nice, straight, and precisely 6×10 m.

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I had a race against time when flattening it with the electric hoe. The weather forecast predicted rain, and I wanted to finish flatterooning it before it came. As you can see, I did not manage it. I did flatten most of it, but I could not manage to rake out the big lumps of grass from the last three meters or so. Now it will be a bit harder to do that, because it is all wet. And the wetness also makes sowing it a bit more difficult, because this is heavy, claggy clay that sticks to everything, mainly the soles of one’s boots.

Since I can use it to grow food, I do not actually need to sow it with alfalfa as was my initial plan. I will sow part of it with green peas, and the rest will be sown with alfalfa anyway. This is because I had to remove a lot of organic material when tilling and flattening it, and because the soil is not of particularly high quality. I have grown legumes on it last year, and another year of doing that should improve the soil further.

However, I won’t let the alfalfa grow for several years and use it for compost. I will chop and drop it in the summer, and till it all under in September. Since I disturbed the soil, shredded the turf, removed all dead tree roots (from my late cherry tree), and several buckets of stones, I should be able to use my tractor for that.

At this size, it is not a vegetable patch but essentially a mini-field. Therefore, I would like to grow grains on it next year. Either spelta, oats, or both.

Despite some grumbling about how the rain did not politely wait until I was finished with my work, I was glad for the forced pause today. My whole human hurts, from top to bottom. The good news about that is that I still did not hurt my back; I am just extremely tired. The remedy for that is simple.

In our hypothetical plot map, there are two areas designated for producing mainly fruit – the fruit shrubbery along the south border of the fields, and the small 12×10 m orchard. Let’s look at what fruits would be, in my opinion, most useful in a self-sufficiency setup. First, the orchard.

The orchard is small, but it is big enough for one plum tree, two quarter apple trees, two pears, and some frost-resistant grapes growing on the fences.

Apple would not bear fruit reliably, but when it does, it can be sliced and dehydrated for later use. The most valuable component in apples would be the pectin, because it can thicken into marmalade even fruits that do not do so on their own (like blueberries, raspberries, etc.). And although I did not test it  (because I never needed to), I see no reason why dehydrated apples, rehydrated and blended, should not work too.

Plums and pears would not bear fruit reliably either, but an occasional glut can be processed into something long-lasting – they can be dehydrated, they can be boiled down to fruit butter that will store in jars in a dark cellar for years, and if there is really too much of all of it, they usually contain enough sugar for fermenting and distilling liquor. Which is useless, but…

And lastly grapes (which I would actually recommend on any sheltered south-facing surface available). They cannot be stored, but they contain enough sugar to either be boiled into molasses-like syrup or fermented into wine, so an occasional glut could be made into something that lasts.

Both hard liquor and wine are useless as far as self-sufficiency goes, but they are an indispensable step in making vinegar, and vinegar would be essential for pickling and preserving some of the vegetables. It would require some work, but winter nights are long, and making vinegar is not that difficult.

The fruit shrubbery would consist mostly of small fruits, like raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, blackberries, currants, etc. These can either be made into jams/marmalades when mixed with apples, or they can be dehydrated for fruit teas.

In this regard, these three fruits would be essential: briar rose, sea buckthorn, and black currant. All these contain so much vitamin C that even tea made from heat-dried fruits contains enough of it to keep scurvy away.

I estimate that all these fruits together should produce approximately 60 kg of fruit per year on average, which would correspond to about 30 Mcal per year.

In the post about the coppice, I mentioned that there should be one walnut tree and a few hazelnuts in there for nuts, instead of firewood. I estimate those would produce about 20 kg of nuts per year on average, adding a whopping 133 Mcal per year. That would still not be enough to keep an active person alive the whole year, the rest would have to make up meat and eggs – and about those, next time.

I have sown the first seeds of the season. In my main best soil, I made rough rows, and I sprinkled peas in them. It is a variety that is used both for food and as a green fertilizer, and I am only sowing it for the second purpose here. They should grow a bit before the end of May, when I can finally plant various squash/pumpkins, corn, and beans in their stead. I won’t work them into the soil; I will just chop and drop them in place.

And then I was working on this.

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Like I said in the last article, I tilled a new approximately 21 m² patch. I intend to try to grow naked oats in it.

First, I bought organic naked oats in the fall to try them out in the kitchen. I liked them as a substitute for rice, so they are a viable addition to my food even if I cannot process them into anything other than whole grains (like flakes or flour). With that being decided, I tried to see if they germinate, to test if they are a viable crop in my garden. Unfortunately, they did not germinate at all. I was searching the whole winter for a supplier that would sell me organic naked oats in a small amount, but all the webshops I found were selling the grains from the same supplier. Until two weeks ago, when I coincidentally found another supplier. I bought the seeds, and they had 95%  germination rate. So I calculated how much I need to sow on my patch, I divvied it into 20 cups and went on to sow 20 rows.

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I do not have any sowing thingamajig (yet), and the soil was worked for the first time, so making the rows was not exactly easy. I kept hitting pieces of turf the whole time, and my pile of stones grew by another three buckets. In the end, I had to make a row with a hoe, sprinkle the seeds in it, cover them by digging the next row, etc. I ended up with a really nice, flat, 3×7 m mini-field in the end.

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The soil is not dry, but not too wet either, so I watered it a bit, and I will probably water it a few more times until the seeds pop out. After a cold and somewhat snowy winter, the spring is now abnormally sunny and warm.

I really hope it goes well and I get some meaningful harvest out of it. If it goes tits up, at least I have already got another 21 m² of arable land, which should be easier to work in subsequent years.

So far, I have managed to work in the garden without hurting my back this year. Let’s hope that holds.

The weather became suddenly very unseasonably warm and sunny. Essentially, we have spring weather now, and the “mud season” after the snow melted was very short. And I have spent a few days outdoors, working in my garden as much as I can. I am pleased to say that so far, I do not have any back pain, except for tiredness. After almost a year of nearly constant lower-back pains, that feels absolutely great. I hope it lasts.

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I managed to de-branch all the longer and thicker wood pieces. I will probably not use any for beans this year, because I think I have found a better, permanent solution, about which I will write at some later date. Right now, I will simply cut these into 50 cm pieces that fit into my stove, bag them, and weigh them so I know how much I have.

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I managed to shred, bag, and weigh most of the thinner pieces that are worth using as firewood (i.e., poplars and maples). I cut a few pieces of wood, and I weighed them fresh and then dry, in order to be able to estimate how much dry mass I have based on how much they weigh now. I know, therefore, that poplars and willows lose 60% mass when drying, maples and ashes lose 40%.

All that remains to shred now are thin twigs from trimming the hedge and the raspberries. Those won’t be bagged and weighed, they will be used as mulch on my vegetable beds.

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And as the title says, I started tilling the soil. I tilled the patch where the butternut squash were last year, and I enlarged it from ca 5 m² to ca 12 m². And yesterday I tilled the approximately 21 m² patch that you see in the picture. It is in the place of one of the three Three Sisters experiments of last year. On this specific patch, the beans froze, the corn failed, and the zucchini underperformed really badly. But at least the soil was worked a bit because of that, so it was slightly easier to turn with a garden fork than if it were completely untouched.

I will need to break the big lumps with an electric hoe and flatten the area a bit. And since I finally managed to get my hands on viable seeds of naked oats, I will try to grow that in here. Oats are not too picky about soil quality, but I will probably use some synthetic fertilizers to boost it up a bit. Next year, I will plant some legumes here to boost the soil naturally. If soy beans work out well, this will be their next-year’s home. If not, then green peas or bush beans.

Technically fruits, in the kitchen usually used as vegetables – those are the things that I choose to call fruigetables, to avoid any “whell, akshually…”. This post is going to be mostly about tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, and similar.

As you can see, there are three greenhouses in the map. There is a reason for that – in a self-sustainable setting, reliance on outside inputs should be reduced, including various -icides and fertilizers. And three greenhouses would allow a three-year rotation between these:

Soybeans, beans, peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, and, eventually, also radishes and peas as pre-crops. I think with greenhouses this size, it should be easy to grow about 50 kg of these crops together, adding about 16 Mcal to our tally. But more importantly than calories, these would add other nutrients and, most importantly, flavors. With two-three varieties of tomato and pepper, a wide span of variously flavored sauces and chutneys can be made, all the way from sweet, across savoury, to hot. The soybeans would take care of fixing nitrogen and breaking the cycles of nightshade family-specific diseases and pests.

The rodent-proof raised beds could further provide, in my estimate, 20 kg of green peas (as a pre-crop), 15 kg of carrots, 15 kg of onions+garlic, and about 50 kg of various pumpkins and squash, providing an additional 42 Mcal and more nutrients and flavors.

I think these are conservative estimates, averages, that account for occasional glut and occasional crop failure. Most of these crops can be preserved in various ways – pickled, dehydrated, in compotes – and some can keep fresh for several months over winter (winter squash).

With this, we are almost there as far as plant-based foodstuffs go. The next thing to look at will be fruits from our orchard and fruit shrubbery.

In our map, we have five 100 m2 fields to grow food. Five fields for the necessary crop rotation to ensure the soil recovers and does not get depleted. Because self-sustainability also includes minimising dependence on other outward inputs. In this post, let’s concentrate mainly on the crop rotation.

I personally consider these crops to be essential for growing in the fields each year in this rotational order:

1. Potatoes – 1 field, estimated caloric output 308 Mcal p.a. with 4 kg/m² production on average. This is the heavy lifter each year, guaranteeing enough carbs for bare survival, if not actual sustenance.
2. Soy/Beans – 1 field, estimated caloric output 100 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. These produce both carbs and proteins, and they fix nitrogen into the soil at the same time.
3. Oats/Wheat/Spelta – 2 fields, estimated caloric output 230 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. Again source of both carbs and protein (in combination with beans/peas, a complete protein), plus bedding straw for animals.
4. Alfalfa  – 1 field, essentially as a rest to fix nitrogen and to grow some high-quality hay to feed the rabbits. Also, part of this resting field could and should be reserved for the composting of both chicken and rabbit manure, as well as any organic scraps that cannot be eaten by them.

This way, the five fields could produce, in my estimation, 641 Mcal p.a. That means two-thirds of the yearly needs of one person living an active lifestyle. And let’s make one thing clear – trying self-sustainability is not for someone who does not like potatoes and exercise.

The remaining third of calories would need to be provided by the rest of the garden, and about that next time.

It is again that time of the year when, whenever the weather allows it, I have to cut and prune all the trees in my garden. Above all, the coppice. If I wait a bit longer, the trees start to pump sap into the wood, and it will be more difficult to cut, as well as the cuts would be more dangerous to the trees. I am not doing a full harvest this year, but I did cut most of the maples and some of the thicker poplar and willow poles. Together with the pile of raspberry and Symphoricarpos twigs, it looks impressive when piled up.

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You have already seen the front pile. The middle pile is the poplars and willows, and the rear pile is the maples. It looks big in the picture, but it is not much wood. As I said, the first pile is not worth much as firewood and thus will be mostly shredded and used as mulch. Today, I started de-branching the other two piles, and the work is progressing slowly.

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Some of the thicker and straighter poles will go towards growing beans over the summer, and thus they will be processed into firewood in the fall. The rest will be cut into ca 50 cm pieces that fit whole into my oven. The thinner twigs will also be cut into 50 cm pieces or shredded into chips, depending on what is easier. These are dense enough to be worth burning (together with the thicker Symphoricarpos twigs), but I might use them as mulch too. It depends on the amount.

And a little cross-over with the self-sustainability posts:

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Each time a poplar or willow is cut, they sprout an overabundance of thin twigs in the spring. Most of them die off in the same year due to overcrowding and overshadowing. I am currently thinning these dead twigs because they make other works, like mowing grass or even walking through the coppice, difficult. But if I had rabbits, guinea pigs, sheep, or goats, these could be pruned in early summer when still green and fresh and fed to them. They could also be dried up as “tree hay” and fed to them in winter. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why an omnivorous diet would beat a vegan diet in the self-sufficiency game, because only herbivorous animals are capable of converting inedible plant material into edible protein, thus utilizing slightly less land overall.

I am currently using my coppice as a vegan would. It is a conscious choice on my part – I am not attempting full self-sustainability (I do not have enough land for three people anyway), and the additional workload connected with having to care for the animals is not worth it to me personally. So I am buying all my animal products, and I concentrate on maximizing the plant-based outputs of my garden.

I wrote last year about my sewage cleaning facility  –click-. I actually designed that system myself, and I think it is a good design for a self-sustainable land plot. For just one person, it would not even need to be as big as mine is, although it is about twice the size on the hypothetical map. Here is what I think would be ideal to do with that space.

1. A 5 m³ underground, anaerobic, 3-chamber septic tank. This is the first stage of cleaning, and it separates all the liquid and water-soluble stuff from insoluble sludge. The sludge needs to be pumped out once a year with three people; with one person, it would last much, much longer. And since this structure is underground, it is not accounted for in the map – only the third fourth stage is.
2. An underground sand filter or biofilter. Which one to use depends on the local geography. Sand filters need a bigger slope, and biofilters deal better with being constantly submerged.
3. A 70 m² gravel field sown with reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea. Why this particular species and not the common reed Phragmites australis that I use in my own cleaning facility? Because unlike common reed,  reed canary grass can be mown two to three times a year for hay to feed the rabbits, whilst being just as effective at cleaning the water with its roots throughout the year. With a gravel field this big, I think the water would be even cleaner at the end than mine is, which is pretty clean.
4. An 8 to 10 m³ underground cistern, into which goes not only the clean water from the sewage cleaning facility, but also all the rainwater from all the buildings.
5. A small pond between two rows in the coppice, into which would go the overflow from the cistern. If there were a well somewhere on the property, it would need to be at a distance that a hydrologist determines as safe (in my case, 30 m was seen as ample).

That way, the sewage would serve a secondary purpose as a reservoir of utility water (mostly for watering the garden) in a drought.

Removal of insoluble sludge is the one thing that cannot be dealt with legally in a self-sustainable way where I live, but that does not mean it cannot be done safely, just that the laws are a bit overcautious (for good reasons). In the part of the coppice that is furthest from the well (and neighbour’s well), it could be safely disposed of on the ground once a year, ideally in the spring, in a pile of old, dead leaves or wood chips or both. It would be smelly for a bit, but nature is really good at dealing with shit, and one person does not produce so much of it to cause any trouble. After a few months, that pile of leaves would decompose and transform into compost safe enough to recycle nutrients to the fields. Which are the most interesting parts of all this, IMO, so that is the part about which I will write next time.

Edit: corrected numbering typo.