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I wonder if the people planting vegetables are aware of just how much they would need to plant in order to supply even a small fraction of someone's required ca

I wonder if the people planting vegetables are aware of just how much they would need to plant in order to supply even a small fraction of someone's required calories. I mean, there's a good reason we've centralized food production into massively efficient enormous farms with heavily mechanised harvesting.

nathanaldensr 7y ago
For my family and me it's not about calories, it's about nutrition. Vegetables are an excellent source of all kinds of vitamins and minerals, especially ones grown in quality soil with quality seeds. It's also about fiber. We get our calories from fats and protein.
- close04 7y ago
  In general most people planting these gardens "ad-hoc" and not doing it more or less "as a job" probably don't have that much dedicated surface for this, nor can put in that much effort/time into it in order to obtain more than a nice and tasty complement for their meals. If you can consistently offset a shortage for your family then you're pretty much a farmer. And I say this as someone who actually cultivated such a garden for years, with help from the family. I allocated a lot of time each day to tending that garden, more than most people would be able to do these days and have a stable job, even with WFH. It was just a pretty hard but pleasant activity, relaxing, I got fresh air and exercise, and I could get some really tasty vegetables but nothing that could "feed the family". And my livelihood didn't depend on the success. Like a dessert at the end of the meal: great but not quite main course.
- wsinks 7y ago
  Yeah!! And they taste better! And it incentivizes good composting and soil practices everywhere, which help all of us choose better choices in what we support for businesses and governments.
periram 7y ago
Perhaps we have a bigger backyard, but the vegetables we grow suffices our family of 6, after giving away most of them. A fertile land can be surprisingly productive.
Loughla 7y ago
100% this is correct. We have 10 raised beds that are 4'x16', and we supply probably 1/2 of what we need for the year for a family of 3. We're super efficient and good at this, too.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  wait wait... that can't be correct math. You must be getting far far more of your calories than 50%. The normal estimate is that it takes 1 acre of land to feed a person for the full year. One acre is 43560 square feet. Your 10 beds are 640 square feet. Somewhere the math is very very wrong.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    It's the difference in growing techniques and your estimates translating into the real world. Your estimates are based on what, grain production? That grain production equals meat and other things, not just produce. That estimate is also based on traditional row-cropping, is my guess. Also, at the heart of it, your impression is incorrect. I didn't say the raised beds provided 50% of the family's calories, but 50% of our vegetable and other fresh produce needs. This does not include meat, most proteins in general, or fruits. Finally, it is an assumption comparing traditional row cropping to square foot gardening in the raised beds. You get much more produce in a smaller space in square foot versus row crops, but it is much more labor intensive. You cannot use machinery in square foot gardens, compared to row crops. So there is a trade off. In other words, the math doesn't work with your assumptions, because they're two different things. My estimate is that, while the garden produces 50% of our vegetable and produce needs, it's probably 10-20% of our overall caloric consumption. But that's a madey upey number, really. I have no idea.
    - vkou 7y ago
      > Your estimates are based on what, grain production? 1 acre/person is roughly what a pre-mechanization, pre-chemical-fertilizer, pre-pesticide subsistence peasant needs to keep himself alive.
pvaldes 7y ago
Not so much as you think. You can have lots of potatoes in a relatively reduced space.
- mikedilger 7y ago
  Potatoes are indeed the game changer if you need to survive off of your garden.
snarf21 7y ago
Exactly. The only people who think "farming" sounds like fun are people who never farmed for a living. It is fine if you enjoy fresh tomatoes or whatever but it isn't a replacement for your grocery store trips. Even if you go big enough to grow enough, you are going to spend a lot of time canning too.
danharaj 7y ago
Enormous farms do not optimize yield per hectare, they optimize total amount of land being utilized. Maximizing yields over land is very labor intensive and you would be surprised how productive you can get a garden to be.
glup 7y ago
Ya but massively efficient enormous farms with heavily mechanised harvesting don't remind me I'm human, while my garden does.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  ...which is why you would say it's for your mental health - not your physical health. A home garden provides a trivial amount of food.
  - asdkjh345fd 7y ago
    A garden provides as much food as you want it to. 500 square feet of potatoes provides 25% of a person's caloric needs for a year. That is a trivial amount of land and work, and a substantial amount of food.
wins32767 7y ago
I look at growing a garden like washing your hands for this current situation. It won't prevent starvation if the world turns into Fury Road but it can meaningfully move the needle in aggregate and reduce pressure on strained supply chains.
- tathougies 7y ago
  There is no strained supply chain of food. If anything, coronavirus will cause a massive overproduction of food, because people are not splurging on giant feasts. The issue is that the supply chain typically leans towards restaurants and businesses, and that's been almost completely suspended. It will take time for the supply chain to adjust and food to start appearing in stores or direct to consumer, but it will.
  - wins32767 7y ago
    > The issue is that the supply chain typically leans towards restaurants and businesses, and that's been almost completely suspended. It will take time for the supply chain to adjust That sounds like a strained supply chain to me. =) I'm looking at the current situation as just the beginning of the start of this situation. There may well be localized flareups for the next year or two. Ill-timed flareups may cause further disruption (think the central valley during a harvest). I don't think there's going to be widespread starvation or anything, but adding more resilience to the system can't hurt and gives me something to do outside for the next several months.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      But it's not. The suppliers that supply restaurants and stuff will have extra on hand. It's just a matter of their orders going down and grocery orders going up. I have seen the empty shelves, but grocery stores are still well stocked with enough food to eat.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
        Around here at least, the shelves are pretty much back to normal. ...except for toilet paper!
commandlinefan 7y ago
Yeah, be prepared for some disappointment. I've been growing vegetables in my backyard now for about five years. I usually get a lot of jalapenos, some spices, and maybe a handful of tomatos, cucumbers and zucchinis. Plus it takes months before anything edible appears at all.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
Farm.bot have some calculations on their website [1]. They claim that a 2000 calories/day of vegetables only can be grown using 110-205 m^2. But even vegetarians eat grains etc , so assuming 3 cups of veggies per day, one person needs 7 m^2. [1] https://farm.bot/pages/yield https://farm.bot/pages/yield
mikedilger 7y ago
Before potatoes getting enough food from crops was very difficult. Wheat was common in Europe but the amount of work to get calories from wheat is intense. After potatoes it's much much easier to get a lot of calories from a small amount of land. Thank you South America!
xenocyon 7y ago
Food isn't just about calories. Fresh fruits and veggies are desirable for good health. Even a small garden producing a small amount of tasty, fresh produce forms a good complement to shelf-stable rice, dried beans, etc.
asdkjh345fd 7y ago
We only did that for staples, because we have ways to easily mechanically harvest huge quantities of them. We went from a man with a scythe harvesting an acre of wheat per day, to a man with a combine with a 45 foot header harvesting 600 acres of wheat per day. Vegetables are still harvested by hand. With vegetables we have gone from 4 workers harvesting an acre per day to 4 workers harvesting an acre per day. A whole family doesn't even need one acre to grow all their grains, fruits and vegetables, so the labor really isn't a big deal.
kyuudou 7y ago
This family of 3 produces 6000 pounds of food a year on 1/10 of an acre that is organic, non-GMO and vegetarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM They have enough surplus to sell to local restaurants to the tune of about 20,000$/year to supplement their income. They use a lot of techniques handed down from antiquity, apparently. Shh, don't tell the eugenicists masquerading as environmentalists and conservationists!

nathanaldensr 7y ago

For my family and me it's not about calories, it's about nutrition. Vegetables are an excellent source of all kinds of vitamins and minerals, especially ones grown in quality soil with quality seeds. It's also about fiber. We get our calories from fats and protein.

close04 7y ago
In general most people planting these gardens "ad-hoc" and not doing it more or less "as a job" probably don't have that much dedicated surface for this, nor can put in that much effort/time into it in order to obtain more than a nice and tasty complement for their meals. If you can consistently offset a shortage for your family then you're pretty much a farmer. And I say this as someone who actually cultivated such a garden for years, with help from the family. I allocated a lot of time each day to tending that garden, more than most people would be able to do these days and have a stable job, even with WFH. It was just a pretty hard but pleasant activity, relaxing, I got fresh air and exercise, and I could get some really tasty vegetables but nothing that could "feed the family". And my livelihood didn't depend on the success. Like a dessert at the end of the meal: great but not quite main course.
wsinks 7y ago
Yeah!! And they taste better! And it incentivizes good composting and soil practices everywhere, which help all of us choose better choices in what we support for businesses and governments.

periram 7y ago

Perhaps we have a bigger backyard, but the vegetables we grow suffices our family of 6, after giving away most of them. A fertile land can be surprisingly productive.

Loughla 7y ago

100% this is correct. We have 10 raised beds that are 4'x16', and we supply probably 1/2 of what we need for the year for a family of 3. We're super efficient and good at this, too.

koheripbal 7y ago
wait wait... that can't be correct math. You must be getting far far more of your calories than 50%. The normal estimate is that it takes 1 acre of land to feed a person for the full year. One acre is 43560 square feet. Your 10 beds are 640 square feet. Somewhere the math is very very wrong.
- Loughla 7y ago
  It's the difference in growing techniques and your estimates translating into the real world. Your estimates are based on what, grain production? That grain production equals meat and other things, not just produce. That estimate is also based on traditional row-cropping, is my guess. Also, at the heart of it, your impression is incorrect. I didn't say the raised beds provided 50% of the family's calories, but 50% of our vegetable and other fresh produce needs. This does not include meat, most proteins in general, or fruits. Finally, it is an assumption comparing traditional row cropping to square foot gardening in the raised beds. You get much more produce in a smaller space in square foot versus row crops, but it is much more labor intensive. You cannot use machinery in square foot gardens, compared to row crops. So there is a trade off. In other words, the math doesn't work with your assumptions, because they're two different things. My estimate is that, while the garden produces 50% of our vegetable and produce needs, it's probably 10-20% of our overall caloric consumption. But that's a madey upey number, really. I have no idea.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > Your estimates are based on what, grain production? 1 acre/person is roughly what a pre-mechanization, pre-chemical-fertilizer, pre-pesticide subsistence peasant needs to keep himself alive.

pvaldes 7y ago

Not so much as you think. You can have lots of potatoes in a relatively reduced space.

mikedilger 7y ago
Potatoes are indeed the game changer if you need to survive off of your garden.

snarf21 7y ago

Exactly. The only people who think "farming" sounds like fun are people who never farmed for a living. It is fine if you enjoy fresh tomatoes or whatever but it isn't a replacement for your grocery store trips. Even if you go big enough to grow enough, you are going to spend a lot of time canning too.

danharaj 7y ago

Enormous farms do not optimize yield per hectare, they optimize total amount of land being utilized. Maximizing yields over land is very labor intensive and you would be surprised how productive you can get a garden to be.

glup 7y ago

Ya but massively efficient enormous farms with heavily mechanised harvesting don't remind me I'm human, while my garden does.

koheripbal 7y ago
...which is why you would say it's for your mental health - not your physical health. A home garden provides a trivial amount of food.
- asdkjh345fd 7y ago
  A garden provides as much food as you want it to. 500 square feet of potatoes provides 25% of a person's caloric needs for a year. That is a trivial amount of land and work, and a substantial amount of food.

wins32767 7y ago

I look at growing a garden like washing your hands for this current situation. It won't prevent starvation if the world turns into Fury Road but it can meaningfully move the needle in aggregate and reduce pressure on strained supply chains.

tathougies 7y ago
There is no strained supply chain of food. If anything, coronavirus will cause a massive overproduction of food, because people are not splurging on giant feasts. The issue is that the supply chain typically leans towards restaurants and businesses, and that's been almost completely suspended. It will take time for the supply chain to adjust and food to start appearing in stores or direct to consumer, but it will.
- wins32767 7y ago
  > The issue is that the supply chain typically leans towards restaurants and businesses, and that's been almost completely suspended. It will take time for the supply chain to adjust That sounds like a strained supply chain to me. =) I'm looking at the current situation as just the beginning of the start of this situation. There may well be localized flareups for the next year or two. Ill-timed flareups may cause further disruption (think the central valley during a harvest). I don't think there's going to be widespread starvation or anything, but adding more resilience to the system can't hurt and gives me something to do outside for the next several months.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    But it's not. The suppliers that supply restaurants and stuff will have extra on hand. It's just a matter of their orders going down and grocery orders going up. I have seen the empty shelves, but grocery stores are still well stocked with enough food to eat.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
      Around here at least, the shelves are pretty much back to normal. ...except for toilet paper!

commandlinefan 7y ago

Yeah, be prepared for some disappointment. I've been growing vegetables in my backyard now for about five years. I usually get a lot of jalapenos, some spices, and maybe a handful of tomatos, cucumbers and zucchinis. Plus it takes months before anything edible appears at all.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

Farm.bot have some calculations on their website [1]. They claim that a 2000 calories/day of vegetables only can be grown using 110-205 m^2. But even vegetarians eat grains etc , so assuming 3 cups of veggies per day, one person needs 7 m^2. [1] https://farm.bot/pages/yield https://farm.bot/pages/yield

mikedilger 7y ago

Before potatoes getting enough food from crops was very difficult. Wheat was common in Europe but the amount of work to get calories from wheat is intense. After potatoes it's much much easier to get a lot of calories from a small amount of land. Thank you South America!

xenocyon 7y ago

Food isn't just about calories. Fresh fruits and veggies are desirable for good health. Even a small garden producing a small amount of tasty, fresh produce forms a good complement to shelf-stable rice, dried beans, etc.

asdkjh345fd 7y ago

We only did that for staples, because we have ways to easily mechanically harvest huge quantities of them. We went from a man with a scythe harvesting an acre of wheat per day, to a man with a combine with a 45 foot header harvesting 600 acres of wheat per day. Vegetables are still harvested by hand. With vegetables we have gone from 4 workers harvesting an acre per day to 4 workers harvesting an acre per day. A whole family doesn't even need one acre to grow all their grains, fruits and vegetables, so the labor really isn't a big deal.

kyuudou 7y ago

This family of 3 produces 6000 pounds of food a year on 1/10 of an acre that is organic, non-GMO and vegetarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM They have enough surplus to sell to local restaurants to the tune of about 20,000$/year to supplement their income. They use a lot of techniques handed down from antiquity, apparently. Shh, don't tell the eugenicists masquerading as environmentalists and conservationists!