I’ve said repeatedly that per pound of production, no one has comprehensively compared the efficiency of self-sufficiency gardens to the industrial food system. Then I came across a 2019 scientific study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National...

Corn is the one crop where I engage in a little crop breeding. Not as serious as the USDA-funded research in potato breeding I did for years, but rewarding nevertheless. In Just Grow It Yourself I speculated that if I duplicated standard commercial corn spacing in my...

Some people may have a hard time believing that I grew over a thousand pounds of produce on a garden plot of just 35’ x 40’. However, I kept meticulous records, and loaded everything into spreadsheets that churned out the numbers automatically—all based on my 30-day...

So, by early November I’d harvested enough of this year’s (2021) garden project to report on the outcome. That is, with Swiss chard and Russian kale still coming in quite handily. I’m sure I’ll be harvesting those cold-hardy greens until well into December. Just to...

So how’s it going with my mission to raise enough vegetables on my 35 ’x 40’ garden to feed and keep me healthy for a year? I’d say, pretty good, but I’ll be surprised if I get 100% there this year. This will be an accounting of what’s happened so far. First, remember...

You never can tell when opportunity will strike. Around mid-July (2021), the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) asked scientists and experts for advice on strengthening scientific integrity policies across federal agencies. Great chance to...

In Just Grow It Yourself  I related my experience of living for a month only on vegetables produced from my garden. Based on my meticulous records of every ounce I consumed over those 30 days, and exactly how much area it took to grow it, I calculated that with a...

For Policymakers Only Everyday self-sufficiency gardeners should skip this As I’ve mentioned many times, both on this site and in the book, it’s imperative that gardeners be inspired by joy. If they don’t enjoy gardening, it’s simply not worth the effort, and they...

One of the biggest surprises I’ve encountered in my promotion of home food gardens is not only how different they are from industrial food, but also local food systems. I think that’s why local, small farmers—the ones who produce food just a few miles from where you...