New gardener, acreage, production goals

Hello beautiful people

I am generally new to Permies. Hello how can I help ya?

A little background. Last year, I grew a small garden here in SW Ohio (zone 6) out of a fenced off 20x24’ space. I went against suggestions to “start simple” and planted everything from beans to tomatoes to watermelon to cukes to lettuce etc etc.

Being that it was my first garden, (and keeping in mind to be forgiving of myself as a newbie) I would consider it pretty darn successful. With the exception of beets and bush beans, I grew pounds and pounds of food, flowers, edibles and the like. Only used compost, fox farm fertilizers and straw for mulch. I never sprayed and trusted nature to do the work (beginners luck??) (Learned how bad pulling those pesky straw seeds sucks too! Boo!)

As we had a late fall and I’m still pulling the last of my cauliflower and turnips etc... I have GOT. THE. HOMESTEADING. ITCH.

We stayed in apartment life before we moved here so I simply pumped my brain full of knowledge and applied it best I could. I find myself reading natural chicken keeping books now, again pumping up the knowledge dreaming one day of putting some kind of system into practice on my own land.

SOOOO all that being said we are on the hunt for land which meets at least most of our basic requirements and one big factor seems undecided.

How much?

We are a small family of 3 and I want to a) grow enough food to supplement a substantial part of our diet (at least 40% with chicken products -primarily eggs but also some meat birds) and be able to either give to our community or sell at markets or on a small CSA.

What is your recommendation on how much land, a range of land perhaps, to look for this type of purpose? Looking to the future I would love to have a small flock of sheep or goats as well.

Anyway! Thank you for reading and for your time.

Heather

Hey what hardiness zone you looking at for your land?

The basic formula I've come up with based on indigenous food foresting people is 12*0.5)/monthsOver10C  to get how many hectares (2.5 acres) you need per person. So 6 month growing need 1 hectare each, 5 months growing need 1.25 hectares.

I hear you grew a bunch of annuals. And indeed as you say some of it could have been 'beginners luck' cause soil depletion and pests usually only appear after the first year.

So yeah I do recommend the permaculture approach, i have a brief intro to how to do it in my area here:

https://gitlab.com/gbosic/food-forest

That's a good looking garden Heather. You seem to have a green thumb. Welcome to permies!

There are many factors in how much is enough. As Logan said climate is a big one. Another is soil condition, water availability, what you like to eat, what you want to grow, & what will grow in your area. Another consideration is whether or not you know how to preserve food for future use. How much time & equipment you have or intend to have. A single acre can grow a very large amount of food including some chickens. I think keep learning as much as you can & keep looking for what suits your needs. Sooner or later it might jump right out at you.

I would say three acres with the possibility to expand