When I meet someone new and the topic turns to our year long challenge of only eating what we grew, foraged for, bartered for or funded our pantry filled with staples with the money we made from selling our excess produce, the first question I get asked is usually always HOW, then WHY?

The WHY is simple. We have always desired to become self sufficient, to step away from industrialized foods and feed our family fresh organic produce, but to finance this was always difficult. Back in suburbia our weekly food bill was between $2-300 a week for conventional produce, so change that to organic and we would be look at $500 a week on good quality clean food. We both enjoy pottering in the garden and so expanding our growing area was just an extension of this. We had both desired to move to land so our kids could grow up enjoying a country lifestyle and moving out here certainly gave us the freedom to plant out our property will all the fruit trees our heart desired, and for me to have a veggie patch as big as I could imagine.

So that’s the why but how about the HOW, and is this possible in a suburban block or a rental block? And to that I say ABSOLUTLEY. No matter where you are, even in an apartment, you can become more self sufficient now. It doesn’t have to be in everything, just start with something. I’ve compiled 10 tips to help you become more self sufficient.

10 WAYS TO BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT NOW

Grow INDOORS. Sprouts are the easiest and fastest way to reap a harvest and can be grown on your kitchen bench. They are incredibly nutritious and easy to add to salads, sandwiches and stir-fry’s. Mushroom buckets can be purchased and kept in warm humid environment like a bathroom, where they will provide you with fresh mushrooms in about a months time.
Grow FAST growing vegetables like radish, lettuce, Chinese broccoli, bok choy, Paris carrots and spinach which should be ready to harvest with in 30-60 days. Things like cauliflowers can take 12 months from seed to table so balance the hungry gap out with fast growing veggies.

3. Utilize VERTICAL growing space. If you have a small area start growing up so you can maximize your growing space. Things like zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkin, melons can all be trained to grow vertically as well as your usual like beans and peas.
4. Grow HERBS, use pots if you don’t have any veggie beds. Most herbs are perennial (basil, dill and coriander are annuals) so you only need to plant them once, bunches of herbs are expensive and you often don’t need the whole bunch for the recipe, not to mention they are usually covered in plastic.

125557227_148514593639741_2013873286145694271_n (1).jpg — 5. Grow your own SALAD mix, how often have you bought a head of lettuce for the whole thing to go slimy and gross, there are so many fantastic varieties where you can just harvest the outside leaves as you need.
6. Utilize FOOD AND SEED SWAPS such as crops swap, local harvest and ripe near me. You can swap your excess for other peoples excess, for me I don’t have many established fruit trees so I’m able to swap my veggies and eggs for other peoples fruit glut. And you may be able to form bartering relationships with like minded people near you.

7. UTILIZE space like your verge or existing flower beds. Councils seem to be adopting this once controversial growing space. You do need to apply to your local council, submit a plan and abide by their rules, but this is a fantastic way to expand your growing space. Veggies don’t need a dedicated veggie patch to grow, things like rhubarb, cabbages, Jerusalem artichokes, yacon, herbs, sorrel and globe artichokes are very attractive and look beautiful interplanted with flowers.

8. Save your own SEED, I would avoid saving seed from supermarket produce as they are usually hybrid or worse GM but if you grow heirloom plants you can save the seeds from these and their is a good chance they will grow true to type, I’ll be writing about how to save pure seed in another blog post, but it is possible to grow multiple varieties of pumpkins for example and save pure seed.
9. PRESERVE your excess and eat parts of the plant you wouldn’t usually eat. Have you eaten cauliflower leaves, radish seed pods or garlic scapes before? all delicious but not regularly eaten.

10. FORAGING is a wonderful way to increase your harvest, I am not condoning harvesting from someone’s tree, even if it is overhanging the fence, but there are so many wonderful foods that can be found out in the wild. We harvest roadside apples, plums, peaches, blackberries, elderberries and mushrooms. There are many edible weeds, wild fruits and fungi that can be harvested and hunting and fishing is another option too.

BONUS - JUST DO IT - stop making excuses and grow something, one thing. I’ve said this many times before but I think it is worth repeating, you will not be able to be self sufficient in everything, but you can be self sufficient in one or a few thing. Salad is a great example of this, so easy and quick to grow there is no reason why you can’t produce enough for your family year round.

10 WAY TO NOT BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT NOW

I would avoid trying to grow everything, it is IMPOSIBLE to become fully self sufficient by only your efforts. We barter with those around us for things we cannot produce here on our farm. And for things that do not grow in my climate like spices, coconut products, chocolate and grains I sell my excess produce which goes towards purchasing those things. To grow everything here on the farm would be several full time jobs, we would loose the joy and motivation and just end up burnt out.

119633343_3419662691429331_5044455113775082989_n (1).jpg — 2. Don’t try and GROW A YEARS WORTH of beans or chickpeas, they take up too much room (and I have 750m2 of growing space). I tried to grow a years worth of chickpeas and I was sorely disappointed when each pod had a grand total of 2 peas in each, and weighing less than half a gram in total, that it a lot of chickpeas you need to grow. It takes so many plants to make a kilo of dried beans not to mention the space you could utilize to grow something of more value, then the time it takes to shell the beans. I much rather grow something of value like garlic, cauliflowers or turmeric so I can sell them to buy good quality organic beans.

3. Don’t Grow OUT OF SEASON. Grow seasonally and plants for your climate (unless you have space to play around and experiment) otherwise you are going to waste your space with an underproductive or worse yet a dead plant.

4. You’ve probably seen those annoying YouTube HACKS where people plant a strawberry from the supermarket and it magically grows a raspberry bush (don’t laugh, I’ve seen this proposed), or a carrot top and it grows a whole new perfect carrot, sorry but it will only grow you new greens not a new root. Somethings do work like a slice of tomato will grow a few tomato plants if there are viable seeds inside, spring onion and leek roots will grow you new shoots, you may get a few spindly celery shoot from the base, but I find these way more effort than growing from seedling or seed.

5. Don’t think you just have to grow veggies in a dedicated bed, you can interplant with flowers and create a beautiful POTAGERS garden.

6. Don’t be DISCOURAGED, pests and diseases will happen, there have been many times I’ve lost an entire crop to slugs and snails. You learn to work around them and with them.