Over the holidays I found again a book by John Seymour in the hands. It appeared his instructions to a “self supply from the garden”, in 1978 at Dorling Kindersley, as a complement to its scope of work from the “life in the country”, which has been translated into twenty languages and a total circulation of more than a Milion copies richer. How many of his readers are actually to become self-sufficient, you do not know; I suspect a few have done it.

it is Believed John Seymour, then it’s a no-brainer to harvest on nine square meters, the entire annual requirement of an adult in vegetables. The only vegetables I can really say, potatoes. I have weighed over the years, and I’m under a generous use of compost on a kilograms per square meter. The average German consumed in the year fifty pounds. If we add to that the usual loss, he would have to reserve a considerable part of his garden alone for potatoes.

And this is not everything still. Even a Vegan wants to see something other than potatoes on the plate, therefore, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, onions, lettuces, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans, add peas, not to mention spices and fruit. All of this in a prudent crop rotation, to grow, to fertilize, to irrigate, to free constantly of weeds and defend against the hungry army of the pests.

How much space do you need? John Seymour said, for the beginning of an Acre would be enough. In the German Translations of the speech of a Morning was, what is, with 2500 square meters but only the half of it. The urgent recommendation was, in addition to chickens, pigs and a goat is not necessarily a cow. The milk and everything you can do with it, to the benefit of the family and the animals, the wonderful flatbread, which allows each cow to fall, would increase the fertility of the soil to the maximum.

in economic terms, one should not look at points, the least of all

It has given the Country local authorities, which have tried this way to lead a self-sufficient life. Most of them have sooner or later abandoned, because it turned out that the subsistence economy means, above all, hard physical work. More recently, the idea lives on, conveyed by all sorts of garden literature advises gardens to Create an urban community, equipped with raised beds and movable chicken coops. From an economic perspective one should not think of this: the Estimated to the actual costs, proposes a single Egg from our own production easily with ten euros to beech. Pruning and Maintenance, milking and butchering, Canning and pickling, bread baking, beekeepers and Cider are the wine-activities that are not just of the Hand.