3 Tips That Make Self-Sufficiency Possible (And What To Ignore)

There are three uncomfortable truths when it comes to trying to be as self-sufficient as possible and growing as much food as possible to nourish your family. I don't think there's really anything more important than feeding your family high quality foods and even if you only have a patio or balcony and you're growing things in some containers, you can make a meaningful difference, especially with things like leafy greens and herbs and even things like peas, some root veg. It's amazing how much you can grow, particularly things that you can then get multiple harvests of like beetroot, you've got the beets and you've got the leaves or like the carrots, you've got the tops as well. But the three kind of simple truths are, and they're not like wow, like revolutionary kind of sexy things to talk about, but they're real and they're honest and this is where it makes a difference and this is where it does go against sometimes a bit of my advice that I have on this channel, but more and more increasingly I am getting so passionate about trying to help as many families as possible, not be so dependent on global food systems and to feel that bit of control, to feel that bit of freedom. That was the whole point why I wrote How to Grow Foods with Sam as a book, just to create that as a resource out there for people to use if they wish as well as creating so many of these videos on my channel. And the first thing that I would say that is like the most kind of important truth is, don't worry so much about doing amazing like polyculture or permaculture plantings and trying to treat your soil right. That can come later. If you're trying to actually make a difference on the food bill, things can happen in stages. You are allowed to have short-term goals, you're allowed to have long-term goals and medium-term goals. Of course long-term goals is to have the most healthy vibrant soil possible, but if you're just starting out, that takes some time to build anyway, so you might as well grow things. So here's what I have to say to keep it really simple, but to try and strike a balance. The first thing is grow things in blocks, okay. Grow a whole bed of potatoes, grow a whole bed of carrots, grow a whole bed of onions. Don't worry so much about trying to switch them up. The reason why is, okay yes you might get a little bit more pest issues, but it means it's all in one place so you could easily put a fleece over it or protect or deal with it. By simplifying things as much as possible, it gives you so much more head space to actually look after particular things. But what I will say is, if you're going to grow a huge amount of potatoes, you can maybe split it down into two blocks at opposite ends of the garden, because in that sense you're not putting all of your eggs in one basket. But don't worry about trying to do kind of complex polycultures and interplanting. That's something again you can experiment with later. If you grow intensively, you can grow a lot of food, and what it allows you to do is to simplify your planning. So let's say this bed in front of me here, I just grow potatoes. It means after I've harvested all those potatoes, I can grow a bed of kale. And then I've got more than enough kale in this bed for let's say a family of four to feed over winter, and then all of the kale flower shoots in spring. And so this single three square meters is pumping out a huge amount of food for very little effort. But what I would say is, every now and then, say at the end of a bed, a corner of a bed, every third bed, just broadcast so some things like edible annual flowers like calendula, borage, nasturtium, some aromatic herbs like dill and coriander. Let those grow, let those flower, let those bring in all of the biodiversity just to help with a natural pest predator balance. But you're not complicating things by or making a more complex system by trying to grow those in and around. You're very welcome to, but I'm telling you you don't need to to still grow a huge amount of food. The next thing that makes a massive difference is grow the things that you enjoy eating. Of course, there are so many different varieties of crops that you can grow that taste so much better than anything you can buy. That can be a really fun process, a really fun experiment over the years where you could have a single bed that's dedicated to trialing new varieties or varieties of crops that you're maybe not so excited about. But look at your like last three or four weeks of your eating habits, make a list of the fruits and vegetables that you ate the most and prioritize trying to grow those. If they're suitable to your climate, trying to grow those first and occupy maybe 80% of your garden. There is also zero shame in picking five or six staple crops and only growing those in your garden with a few nice kind of annual flowers and herbs around. That garden will probably be more productive than most permaculture gardens in the short term. And when I mean short term, I mean over the next growing season or two. Yes, when you're growing things intensively, you need to add more compost or more fertility, but that is where things like liquid feeds come in. So there is no shame in you buying something like organic seaweed feed just to help you in that first year to supplement the nutrition and get you those harvests. I can't remember how many times I have grown things and just not ended up eating them. Like I have grown way too many kohlrabi or even way too much radish. And so what I do, if I put myself in that situation, which I sometimes do, and you might do, is have zero shame in putting that on the compost. Of course, you can share it with other people if you want, but what I'm telling you is it is just nutrients and the expression of a turnip or kohlrabi. So put it in the compost. It is going to break down, decompose, and you can use that nutrition next year to grow the things that you actually enjoy eating. One of the simplest things to help with that is to look at crops that are very easy to store that you are eating a lot of, for example, carrots, garlic, onions, potatoes, growing things like that, where you don't have that urgency of having to pick and try and preserve and process everything all in one go. Let's just say you're getting loads of garden peas and stuff, and you're trying to pod them and freeze them and eat them and all of these kinds of things. If you just simplify it where things can be stored either in the ground or in sacks in your garage or something like that, that makes it much easier. And this is just a little thing that popped into my head right now, which is, if you can, try and dedicate a good half of your garden to winter vegetables, because I think we get so caught up in the idea of summer abundance. Now, don't get me wrong. Summer abundance is beautiful. There's that vibrancy around the garden. You got fresh peas, you got fresh tomatoes, all of these kinds of things. But I think we might, in terms of self-sufficiency, there was too much emphasis on summer. It's really easy to have lots of food during summer. What I would do instead is try and tailor more of your garden to winter vegetables and also vegetables in the hungry gap, because the hungry gap is when vegetables in shops are going to be more expensive because there are fewer of them about. And also, it means that if, for example, there was a lack of vegetables about in society, it means that you have plenty. So instead of worrying so much about summer, because summer kind of covers it, it's so easy to be self-sufficient in salads, eating all of the additional harvests over summer, you don't really need to plan for that. And so one of the single biggest, most important things you can do for your family's food security is to dedicate more of your garden to those winter crops and your hungry gap crops. And of course, that would include crops like potatoes, onions, and garlic that store really easily. And my final tip would be to gather data. Yes, this is going to take a little bit of time, but I want you to measure the food that is coming out of your garden for two key reasons. The first reason is that it's really useful to know how much food you're growing in a bed. Yes, in how to grow foods, I provide average yields per square meter, but it's really useful for you to know for future planning in terms of what varieties you're growing to think about, oh, actually, I was lacking a bit of carrots, so I'd like to do an extra bed and a half of carrots next year. But I'd say more importantly than that is by gathering the data of all the food that is coming out of your garden, what you're doing is something that so few people do, which is building up evidence of all of the food that your garden is providing. I had so much fun when I was measuring everything coming out of the self-sufficiency garden, just to think, oh my days, this space here, half the size of an allotment plot, grew nearly 7,000 portions of veg in a single growing season. That's over a hundred portions per square meter. I would have never have known that had I not gathered data. And so by you gathering data, that is your evidence. That is your motivation for certain days that are, oh, I'm not really feeling it today. And then you look and you think, wow, actually this year I've grown over 200 kilos of food. That is the proof. That is what is missing from so many people's self-sufficiency journeys, is gathering that data of what they're growing. And when you get that confidence, that is an energy, that is a resource that you can channel back into your garden that is perpetually going to help elevate this whole space to make it more and more productive each year. So how to grow food is written as a companion that gives you all the info to adapt to your garden, to help you with your self-sufficiency goals. And I have tons of videos on my channel to try and help you grow as much food as possible to feed and nourish your family. And I'll see you again soon.