Automatic Backyard Food Pump

About six months months ago I visited with a lot of people about this idea.  I think it was about this time that I recorded a podcast asking people what their top three food crops were.  Three things that would be your core staples.  Even more, what three crops would you suggest to a complete newbie to try with the greatest chance of success in calories per acre.

And now this idea has grown more and more and more in my head.  It is long overdue to start a thread.


My starting lineup:


sunchokes

  - highest calories per acre
  - tolerates all sorts of abuse
  - can be harvested september through mid-june (9.5 months)
  - if ignored for four years, it will spread
  - extremely easy to start

walking onions

  - tolerates abuse
  - can be harvested all year long
  - if ignored for four years, it will spread
  - extremely easy to start

kale

  - tolerates abuse
  - can be harvested 10 months out of the year
  - i am experimenting with it reseeding itself
  - pretty easy to start


Some of the scenarios I want to support:

  - the beginner
       o is open to learning 20 minutes of stuff and then spending 20 minutes getting started
       o starting any time of year
       o then forgetting and making a lot of mistakes
       o and it could be 3 months later, 8 months later or several years later when they are ready to harvest
       o the moment for harvest could be in the middle of winter

  - the absent traveler
       o be gone for four months and your crops are fine
       o you might be home in winter, and you can harvest in winter

  - the rarely visited cabin (or bugout location)
       o you might be gone six months at a time and your crops are fine
       o when you are there, it might be winter and you want to harvest

  - the prepper
       o plant some food in 20 minutes
       o in two years there is a 3 month supply of food
       o two years more there is a 12 month supply of food

  - the person stressed out by politics
       o your land gets overrun with food which makes you resilient to poor political decisions
       o if you produce more food than you can eat, it is easier to ignore scary politics

  - the self sufficient gardener or homesteader
       o a foundation of food pump systems you can ignore
       o these crops are your "safety net" if there are any bumps in the road
       o making all of your other gardening projects fun instead of desperately trying to fill the pantry before winter
       o your pantry no longer has to be as full
       o your pantry does not end up as depleted at the end of winter

  - ERE or FIRE peeps
       o dramatically cut your food expenses
       o also save trips to the grocery store
       o since it can be harvested all year, you don't need as much fridge space or other food storage space

  - large families
       o huge amounts of calories produced per year with zero effort
       o maintaining a giant crock pot and continuously throwing in food makes food prep super easy


I like the idea of making a list of a couple dozen foods to grow, and with that list, highlight the foods that have the biggest harvest windows - including the ability to harvest in winter in montana.  

  - can be harvested in winter, in montana
  - has a large harvest window (six month window is better than a 1 week window)
  - if left alone for four years, there will be more
  - food that can be eaten raw, or is very easy to prepare
  - list calories per acre
  - list deer resistance



I like the idea of breaking the system down so a huge focus is limited to three crops.  The top three.  It makes it all much easier for newbies.  Gardening stuff written by gardeners is often overwhelming to newbies.  There is too much to learn about every crop - and most crops require a fair bit of care, harvesting discipline, and preservation discipline.

And then there can be "level 2 food pump" where we talk about more crops.  



Corn is an example of a food crop that does not qualify as a food pump crop.  Corn requires you to plant it early in the summer.  It needs fertility and probably irrigation.  It needs to be harvested in a fairly narrow window - and then proper storage.  It can be eaten raw during a certain harvest window, but if you are storing it dry, then it will need a lot of work to get it to be edible.  But most of all, if you walk away from corn for four years, there won't be any when you get back.


I feel like I have several years of leaning into this to get more information.  This is just the beginning.  But I want to start putting the idea out there and see if a dozen others out there wanna play with this thought experiment.  I feel like it would be good to get a list going of possible contenders for the "top 3" and also make a list of the "top 24".  Maybe even make a list of crops that do NOT qualify as food pump crops - stuff that might be for the more disciplined gardeners.

Neat idea.  Some thoughts ...

I have not grown sunchokes because some folks say they cause gas.

My walking onions spread the first year doubling the amount of onions.

I did not have good luck with kale one the temperatures warm up the plants were attacked by aphids.  That was before I knew about using a soap spray and killing the ants farming them with vinegar.  I knew about vinegar just didn't know that ants farm aphids.

Where I live, mustard doesn't provide as much leaf as kale, but reseeds way, way better. So even though it's less efficient at producing food-mass, it might be a better pump.

I live on sand. Potatoes are pretty good at overwintering even though they hard-freeze. I want to find varieties that do that successfully and also produce valuable food crop. It seems right now the best-wintering varieties produce quite small tubers on 2-3 foot long stolons.

Are walking onions especially more productive than potato onions?

Anne Miller wrote:I have not grown sunchokes because some folks say they cause gas.

I have heard the same thing.  And I have learned three very important things:

THING-1:   I have eaten sunchokes about 50 times and had gas only once.  But it was sooooo good, I ate way, way, way more than i should have.  

THING-2:  my understanding is that you need to build up the ability to thoroughly digest sunchokes.  Start small.

THING-3:  apparently, if you harvest after the first hard frost, there will be less digestive issues.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Where I live, mustard doesn't provide as much leaf as kale, but reseeds way, way better. So even though it's less efficient at producing food-mass, it might be a better pump.

I think it is good for us all to pour in all of our ideas for the many different crops that might make good food pump crops.  

Are walking onions especially more productive than potato onions?

Excellent question!  I have not yet tried to grow potato onions!

I'm currently experimenting with purple top turnip in my garden as a 'perpetual' crop. It can be seeded throughout the growing season and requires mostly a hand-off approach as it grows. I find it useful as something that can be seeded in bare patches to cover the soil. I'll harvest young turnips for consumption, especially when thinning my plantings and find a group of them growing too close to each other.

Seed saving has been simple, but I have not tried allowing natural reseeding to evaluate results.

I'm toodling through Fall, helping my wife harvest potatoes and shelling beans. Thinking all the time, "Hey, I'll give Paul's Automatic Backyard Food Pump a try next year. Those hardy vegetables can be harvested most of the year long. They can even be planted in the Fall. Hey, wait a minute, it's Fall now."