Sallygarden Smallholding - The Forum For Sustainable Living

We have been scouting our neighborhood (and a little too far beyond) for a place to buy where we can set up a homestead. Ideally, we would like 1 acre of land at least, but the real estate here is such that we can probably only afford .5 acre. That's still a lot of land, enough for vegetables, fruit trees, and some small livestock.

But would I have to give up the plan of growing some grains? How much land does one need to grow enough grains - wheat, barley, corn - to feed a large family (say, of eight)?

Is it at all sustainable? Are any of you doing it? What kind is best for small-scale production?

This question fits my larger fear of what it will be like here in New England and many parts of the States, when oil prices go up so that transporting grains from the Midwest (grain country) will become untenable. As far as I knew, no one grows grains here anymore. Though people here can live on small scale gardens, grains seem to require more land, more care...

Any thoughts?

I have always thought of the growing of grain being too intensive in terms on all that needs doing before I can make a loaf of bread from it ... but as you say with the rising cost of food due to oil depletion, it will quite quickly become a far more inviting and practical thing to do on a smallholding. Bread is one of the food items we still buy at the supermarket, for the moment anyway. But you've got me thinking now.

I have read up on growing grains, harvest, milling etc in John Seymours 'The new complete book of self sufficiency', but although he goes into some detail theres no reference as to how much land you'd expect to give over to this in order to feed 4, 8, or whatever number of people.

I am planning on growing grain in the 30 x 30 foot plot that our spring pigs will dig up. I used to get freshly milled organic wheat from a heath food store and everything I baked felt guilt free. I located the seed at powerseeds.ie, but also I found an organic farm selling grain in the classifieds on organic-trust.org.

Powerseeds.ie also sold sugar beet, fodder beet and grasses...

I'm not sure about how much land or processing is required for conventional grains, but I have been toying with the idea of trying quinoa and amaranth this year, just as an experiment. The Real Seed Catalogue in the UK have seeds.
They also sometimes have naked oats, which are apparently easy to hand thresh.

Anyone else tried them in Ireland?

I'll let you know how I get on.

I tried Amaranth last year without any luck. I'd be interested in trying oats though.