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Food Independence

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How to Build a Square Foot Garden. Update! Check out our new Square Foot Gardening Infographic for even more tips, diagrams, a plant list and much more. I recently stumbled upon a book (All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! By Mel Bartholomew) with an interesting gardening method called square foot gardening, and decided we would give it a try. I’ve always thought the idea of having a vegetable garden would be a lot of fun. Walking out to your square foot garden and picking a fresh tomato for tonight’s dinner appeals to the self-sufficient nature of most frugal individuals.

I know just enough about gardening to know that I am not very good at it, and that it is a lot of work. What is Square Foot Gardening? The idea behind square foot gardening is that you can plant fruits, vegetables and flowers in raised beds, above infertile soil and even out of the reach of pets. Materials Needed to Set Up a Square Foot Garden Material costs are variable, depending on the size of garden you plan to build.

Small veggie plots, big rewards. The urban guide to being self sufficient'ish. 10 Simple, Cheap Home Gardening Innovations to Set You on the Path to Food Independence. Alex Pietrowski, Staff WriterWaking Times The issue of food quality and food independence is of critical importance these days, and people are recognizing just how easy and fun it is to grow your own food at home. When renegade gardener Ron Finley said, “growing your own food is like printing money,” he was remarking on the revolutionary nature of re-establishing control over your health and your pocket book as a means of subverting the exploitative and unhealthy food systems that encourage the over-consumption of processed and fast foods.

Thanks to the internet, the availability of parts and materials, and good old-fashioned ingenuity, there is a wide range of in-home, and in-apartment, gardening systems that are easy to construct and maintain, and that can provide nutritious, organic, and low-cost food for you and your family. Aquaponics Read: Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together Vertical Gardening Simple Greenhouse Designs Composting. How to Grow 100 Pounds of Potatoes in 4 Square Feet | Apartment Therapy Re-Nest. On many occasions, we've been tempted to grow our own potatoes. They're fairly low maintenance, can be grown in a pot or in the ground, last a fairly long time if stored properly, and can be very nutritious (high in potassium and vitamin C). Here's more incentive: according to this article, you can grow 100 pounds of potatoes in 4 sq. feet.

Learn how after the jump... According to this article from the Seattle Times, potatoes planted inside a box with this method can grow up to 100 pounds of potatoes in just 4 square feet. All that is required: Lumber Seed potatoes Soil Careful attention to watering The Times' guide for building a potato growing box yields up to a 100 lbs. of potatoes in a mere 4 square feet is shown below: Plant as early as April or as late as August 1, with an approximated 3 month till harvest turnaround time.

Here are some pointers from the article: Cut apart larger seed potatoes, making sure there are at least two eyes in each piece you plant. How 1 MILLION Pounds Of Organic Food Can Be Produced On 3 Acres. By Andy Whiteley Co-Founder of Wake Up World The quality and accessibility of our food supply is a mounting issue today. With GMOs, chemical pesticides and low-nutrition processed foods now commonplace in the mainstream supply, taking control of your own food supply is one of the smartest things you can do – for your health and for your hip pocket.

So, with limited space, how can we create an independent food supply? I recently came across this amazing video of a man, urban farmer Will Allen, who has figured out a self-sustaining system that can grow 1 million pounds of food every year, on just 3 acres of land, using the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. If you’re interested in starting your own Aquaponics system in your home, be sure to check out our exclusive special offer to Wake Up World readers at the bottom of this page. Grow 1 Million Pounds of Food on 3 Acres * Maintaining 3 acres of land in green houses * Producing 10,000 fish Growing Power.

6,000 lbs of food on 1/10th acre - Urban Farm - Urban Homestead - Growing Your Own Food. Family grows 6 TONS of food annually on a 1/10 acre lot. How we turned an old backyard swimming pool into a self-sufficient garden.