Math: bed space needed

I honestly did not think that word problems would ever come back into my life. Dude.

From the last post: the average person in the US consumes about 322 lbs of vegetables & soft fruit annually, and 200 sq feet can yield over 300 lb of veg & soft fruit over a 4 to 6-month growing season at intermediate Grow Biointensive yields.

So if my family is 3 people who love vegetables and fruit, we can call it 350 lbs per person per year. Which is 1050 lbs/year. Let's call 1/5 - 1/4 of it fruit from trees and ignore that bit, because trees come later... so about 800 lbs/year. So if 200 sq feet grows 300 lbs/year, then I'll need to aim for 600 sq feet, giving 100 sq ft extra as herbs, pest damage and insurance. If the beds are laid out in 100 sq ft each, that means 6 beds.

Whooh.



Wanna see our front yard? With six beds? (Dude, 6 beds.)

I think I'll start with just one, thankyouverymuch. Starting small in gardening is the key to success. Or at least less pulled muscles.

Fun Fact for this post: Eggs from chickens which forage have deep orange yolks and generally better nutritional value than chickens from feed. And did you know that chickens are omnivorous? I once saw one eat a mouse! The little dangly tail out of the chicken's beak was delightfully ghastly. Riveting!