! 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."

What a fun idea. Thanks for organizing it.

I am a wild at heart Gypsy soul right now that apparently can’t sit still. I know very well throwing the time into creating and then being called all over the place.

In S GA zone 9a where I had a part year homestead I grew collards and mustard greens that loved to come back each year and built a sweet potato mound. It provided again and again and had cilantro and fennel growing on it. Basil of 12 varieties grew rampant, I also allowed all the ‘weeds’ to grow. The aphids loved the dandelion so they didn’t bother my food crops. There were over 50 native medicinal plants that came up when I let the land just go wild for a full season. Many great sources that I didn’t even have to bring in. Nature offered it up. It did result in many people the first two years commenting on ‘that lady that won’t take care of her yard’. But year 3 when there was abundance and beautiful flowers people were asking to come and take cuttings and many neighbors enjoyed the abundance of food and herbs. Even the nasty bidens that I allowed to be free in area because they are wonderful food and medicine!

I have a rarely visited cabin in zone 3b. There, volunteer tomatoes came from habits of just chucking things out as far as I can throw them. Potatoes grow under the apple trees. Pumpkin and other types of squash grow in an old cellar hole that was back filled with horse manure. Timothy hay also grows out of it every year for chickens and gets chopped down for mulch. Peas and beans line the edges. Wild mustards grow many places and provide wonderful food. Garlic and kale seem to grow happily and freely. Wild berries grow everywhere. Fiddleheads are wildly available (although I recently learned only certain species should be harvested for food. I heard people saying they got a little sick on them because of their ‘detoxifying’ qualities when it seems that they were just eating species of fern not meant to be eaten). , along with ramps and some invasive Japanese knotweed which people like to eat.

A lot of companion planting I think helps to keep things when there is little time to spend and gardens are left. And a lot of just chucking out left overs and throwing out seed to see what may happen. The earth tends to take care of it and the birds spread it around. I also make ground bird habitat and plant things for them. I assume they keep a lot of the glory growing but there’s no telling on that one.

In 9a in coastal Florida, the soils is different than the same zone in GA and I am having a lot of trouble getting things going. It’s taken about 5 years to get ground cover which I believe will help. Although I have not put much time or research into FL and plan to in the next year. It was sand flats here with turkey oaks, cactus and sawgrass it is slowly shifting to other things growing. Would love ideas for this place!

I like the idea of limiting the idea to three crops.  To that end, I have been fishing for anything that might work their way onto this list.  

I do think there could, someday, be #4 to try later.  I'm not yet sure what that might be.  


All that said, I like the idea that somebody might plant 4 sunchokes, 4 walking onions, and scatter a packet of kale seeds ...   then forget about all that and come back 2 years later and there is enough food to feed a family of four all winter.  


I like the idea of, in time, a bunch of us try this.  And we help a friend get it started.  And some day we say something like "30 minutes of gardening produces $200,000 worth of food."   So we demonstrate a dozen times the "30 minutes of gardening" part and then demonstrate the "ignore" phase.   And then, two years later, show the harvest phase.  And three years later.  And each year for many years after that.  The idea is that this the foundation.  This foundation erases the misconceptions of people spending $1000 and 100 hours to get $50 worth of food.

I *really* like the idea of 3 core plants that mostly look after themselves. Unfortunately, deer seem to learn to eat things they shouldn't like in my region. (Comfrey for Exhibit 1.) I absolutely would have to protect kale, but they're less interested in Daikon leaves, so I need to try planting some of those "in the wild."

They rarely eat the onion greens from walking onion, but other plants seem to out-compete it if I give it absolutely no care. However, in my climate they are prolific enough, that I *really* should try introducing some to the big field and see how they respond. Has anyone tried them as an understory plant under bamboo? It might be too much shade.

I'm on Glacial till where it rains all winter and is a drought all summer.  I have planted sunchokes twice, both times they survived a few years and then didn't sprout. In my climate, although they would very occasionally bloom, they never produced seed or spread.

My friend has had better luck, but also planted hers in better soil. However, "deer resistant" doesn't mean "deer won't decide they like it when it's the only food around." My friend thinks that the deer munching down her plants was enough in our climate to prevent them from producing many tubers.

I think that to realistically attempt this, I need someone to turn back the clock 20 years and teach a younger me about living fences. A well designed living fence in an amoeba shape (Ie -stealthy -  only humans do straight lines... well, nurse logs sometimes do also) that's bushy enough that the deer can't destroy it, to surround a patch of land large enough to house an Automatic food pump, and improve the soil inside the area just enough to give the plants a fighting chance, and then the only big concern would be that it would start a lot of baby fir/maple/cedar trees, so it would need "weeding" a couple times a year to prevent reversion to forest.

This year we are planting more sunchokes and kale inside the paddock, while eating up the walking onions inside the paddock.  

We are currently eating up the kale outside of the paddock.  

We are tossing more walking onion tops outside of the paddock.

While the deer destroy sunchoke tops in the fall, the sunchokes will come back next year.  ...   unless ....  


we did grow sunchokes in a few spots where the deer got to them.  After three years the sunchokes are all gone.  This was entirely in places where the soil was poor and there was zero irrigation.  So the sunchokes could not survive a full three-prong attack of growing in gravel, exposed to deer and zero irrigation.  

We currently have some sunchokes growing where the deer can get them and we are working on improving the soil and gave them some irrigation this year.

I like your three crops Paul - partly because I could imagine making a meal just out of those....However onions don't do very well for me so I'd have to think of alternatives....Maybe babbington leek? But that is very garlicky, so only good in moderation.
Sunchokes are fine, especially if they are left a few years and have a bit of shelter. I'm having better results with woodland sunflower - still technically a sort of sunroot but likes it cooler and moister. Silverweed and march woundwort are other alternatives for me: smaller roots to harvest but pretty deer proof, and they do grow well into nice patches.

My perennial kale is wonderful! it does tend to spread by layering over time.

I wish I could think of self seeders apart from Angelica, which is a bit strong flavoured for a vegetable.

tell me more about the onion issues.

My onions tend to just not grow very well and get eaten by slugs - too cool, wet and acidic soil. I do have some walking onions I started again this year, and I think a couple have at least survived...

I heard a rumour of a non garlicky perennial leek, which might do better for me here and would be more suitable for a bulk ingredient than Babbington leek

perennial leek

source

They send up a head of bulbils which then fall down and make a clump some distance from the mother, so pretty good for making a spreading vegetable patch.

I just need to find a source for some in the UK....

I am making some notes for the future ...


In the spring, I hope to lean into planting:


       skirret (tastes like carrots, but spreads itself and can be harvested in winter)

       parsnips (can be harvested in winter)

       strawberries that spread prolifically


(currently, we have wild strawberries all over the place.  You can eat a dozen tiny strawberries per year.  And we have a dozen other strawberry plants that produce okay, but just don't seem to spread.  Gonna lean into some super invasive varieties next year)

paul wheaton wrote:     strawberries that spread prolifically  

If you can find someone with some very old domestic strawberries, you could get some medium sized fruit with much better flavor than the modern larger strawberries.

However, I would advise deer protection while they're getting started. The deer have been known to mow unprotected strawberry leaves on my land, and it has generally killed the plants, or at least seriously slowed them down. Birds, slugs, sow bugs and European Wall Lizards (yes, an imported pest in my area) are all known to taste every fruit (if they'd only just eat 1 whole fruit, I wouldn't mind so much), but that doesn't kill the whole plant like repeated deer browsing does.

paul wheaton wrote:
       skirret (tastes like carrots, but spreads itself and can be harvested in winter)

Likes it damp, so may prefer a shady spot with you. I find the clump gradually gets bigger in one spot rather than spreading around (unless you're lucky enough to find it self seeding...)

       parsnips (can be harvested in winter)

They may well self seed if you let them

Good luck finding the strawberry to suit! They can have a very long season. Raspberries are good and go feral here....

I'm happy this thread serendipitously crossed my eyes today, as I just harvested my first Jerusalem Artichokes two days ago, and planted a single Egyptian walking onion then as well.

Two years ago during my fall PDC they gave us a few to take home, and I planted them immediately in a couple different agroforestry nooks.  I basically walked away and forgot about them... until Monday while walking with my friend I saw a flash of green and was like "Is that what I think it is?".    Whoopee!

~2 years after PDC planting~
Harvest notes to follow:

We harvested half of a nice plant cluster that was growing between some juvenile black locusts, plus another few tubers from a tall scrawny cluster growing in the shade of my outhouse.  From those, we immediately replanted:
- 3 tubers+roots between black locusts
- 3 tubers+roots by a young fig tree (under wood chips)
- 3 tubers each adjacent to a baby redbud tree (under wood chips)
- 1 random tuber (under wood chips)
Wood chips were dropped in summer.

We also each took between 200 - 250 grams worth of tubers home to the burbs.  I couldn't bear to eat them because I wanted to plant more!  So today I planted all mine around the house.  

Edit to add:  If someone reminds me a couple years from now I can check back at the recent and original planting locations for a yield report.  PDC was Fall 2023 for original planting nooks.

If I were in the tropics as opposed to sub tropics, I would definitely test the fast growing Moringa tree to see if it reseeds easily.

An organization I recently had some training from (Equipping Farmers International) has heard of very good results with Moringa in the Global South.  It's a complete protein — especially good for nursing mothers.  I hear it can be grown as an annual, or brought inside.  I think I will try it out next spring.  Also a spectacular chicken feed I hear.

For a wider range, how about a native nitrogen fixer, Apios americana?  aka Groundnut.  I have not yet grown or purchased any, but I know some permies on here sell it.  

I bet Eric Toensmeier could rattle off a bunch more in his book...

https://permies.com/wiki/20163/Perennial-Vegetables-Eric-Toensmeier

Tree and shrubs that crop fairly early in their life I think are a good suggestion George. Although most leafy crops are summer only and fruit may take longer to be available. I'm thinking linden leaves and mulberry leaves though for example. They both crop through the whole growing season, especially if coppiced. I find lime leaves very palatable raw when young, and Martin Crawford says that mulberry leaves are one of his staple crops as he likes them so much (cooked though I think).

Alternatives for other growing zones, or based on availability:
For sunchoke alternatives, some people have access to yams, especially the ones that give "air potatoes" in the fall. They are perennial, getting bigger with age and spread by edible air potatoes (a little too easily if you have neighbors who don't want free food). David the Good has some articles on his website about which ones are good for eating.

Where I grow we get more heat than cold; kale would be the crop that gets babied with a short harvest window. Horseradish grows well here and even the leaves are medicinal; they do better than kale for me with bugs and harvest window and neglect. For summer we use lamb's quarter; it's related to spinach, grows early spring to early winter in the heat, and is SUPER "weedy" (ie spreads easily, no care required, pest and critter resistant). You can also use care-free trees that grow in your area to make salads or a leaf concentrate (see Leaf for Life website). Some, like mulberry, will provide a crop of berries as well as leaves and you can totally defoliate them and they'll come right back in 2 months, with more berries!

I also have wild garlic because the walking and potato onions I bought died on me but the foraged garlic is thriving under neglect! The greens are mostly only available in the spring but the bulbs are always there, and they, too, are "weedy", spreading and thriving.

By your definition they wouldn't count as food pumps, but if you're around for it foraging nuts & acorns is also a viable strategy for cheap and easy calories. Acorns require processing; but you can get upwards of 200# per oak tree and the processing can be done with minimal equipment and hands-on time so I think it's still worth eating if you've got it.

Been reading through this and pondering our options here in south-central Kentucky (growing zone 6b or 7a, depending on which chart you look at, though I think it's more 6b, given that we've had temps down to minus 10 F the last two winters, and minus 5 just about every previous winter since we moved here).

The sunchokes would probably grow just fine, but I suspect my daughter (adult, handicapped) can't eat them. Most plant foods seem to trigger extreme gut problems for her, leading to her not being able to eat and losing way too much weight (possible Crohn's, but definitely something along those lines). We've found a few things that she seems to be able to safely eat, but sunchokes are high in fiber and I suspect those wouldn't work for her. On the other hand, she seems to be okay with winter squash or sweet potatoes, and those both grow well in our climate. Both keep quite well, given appropriate storage conditions, and are pretty hardy even in adverse growing conditions, and are easy enough to plant. Daughter doesn't tolerate nightshade family plants well, so potatoes won't work for us.

The walking onions should be fine, since onions are used for seasoning, rather than as a primary vegetable. Our diet now is primarily meat, but we still use some onion and garlic.

The kale - I'm not sure about. It's a good choice in a lot of respects. Daughter tolerates sauerkraut well (and dill pickles); it seems likely that kale could be made into sauerkraut, though it would be a little different....

My major focus is on raising the meat portion of our diet, complicated because we are both sensitive to eggs (which qualify as meat for diet purposes); she's extremely sensitive to eggs, and eating them causes her autistic behaviors to come roaring back. We have about an acre and a half of pasture, and currently have eight goats on that (feeding hay in the winter), but we've had issues with parasites with them, in spite of regular worming, and I want to sell the goats and get some St. Croix sheep instead. Don't know if we can raise all of our meat, but if we could raise all of our red meat from ruminants, we could continue buying some poultry and pork (and fish).

I have a fenced garden area (it's only 32' x 52'), and dogs on the property that keep deer and most other pests away, so don't have to worry too much about my stuff getting eaten, just out-competed by the weeds!

Because of the goats, I haven't progressed much on tree-planting, but would like to put in mulberries and persimmons (which are native here), and chestnuts, all widely spaced in our small pasture. There are wild black walnuts all over the place which usually have a fair crop, too.

So that's where we are at.

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

That's not a problem if you cook them.

Lif Strand wrote:

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

That's not a problem if you cook them.

Not a problem if you cook long enough for the inulin to break down. Loooooong sloooooow cook.

I've heard fermenting them also works but I haven't tried that.

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:The sunchokes would probably grow just fine, but I suspect my daughter (adult, handicapped) can't eat them. Most plant foods seem to trigger extreme gut problems for her...Daughter tolerates sauerkraut well (and dill pickles); it seems likely that kale could be made into sauerkraut...

It might be worth trying fermented sunroots. There's some chance that the fermentation is what's making hard to handle veggies work, and if it worked for these, you might have a staple.

Fairy potatoes: grows wild in many climates, entire plant is edible, no real maintenance necessary

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:The sunchokes would probably grow just fine, but I suspect my daughter (adult, handicapped) can't eat them. Most plant foods seem to trigger extreme gut problems for her...Daughter tolerates sauerkraut well (and dill pickles); it seems likely that kale could be made into sauerkraut...

It might be worth trying fermented sunroots. There's some chance that the fermentation is what's making hard to handle veggies work, and if it worked for these, you might have a staple.

That is definitely something worth trying. I have been planning to do a variety of fermented vegetables, and see what she (and I) tolerate. We both tolerate fermented dairy much better than non-fermented, too.

I wonder, can we have different lists of "3" for each climate zone and soil type?

I'm 8b on clay soil.   Lambs-quarter is hands down my favorite and easiest to grow green and it has 9ish month growing season down here.   My brother says its so bad that even the bugs won't eat it, but I like it just fine and it is my staple fiber source most of the year.    For the cooler weather, I switch to arugula which reseeds better than kale.   I can get 9ish months out of it too if I sprout new plants on the regular.

In central Texas, sweet potatoes are borderline as far as growing maintenance free goes ... in Houston they do great, and if you build a hill and cover with wood chips, they are super easy to harvest.   Its exactly what you can plant and forget about for 4 years.

Walking onions are a win here too!   I'm wishing I had more, and more garlic to go with  ...if only I'd just forget about them for 4 years, but I eat from them almost everyday.

Oyster mushrooms do great here in the winter, but you gotta figure out how to create a consistent cool, moist, oxygenated place for them ...I kinda cheat and use big plastic buckets, but definitely a great source of easy calories.

I'm just now experimenting with eating Wandering Jew.   Its a spiderwort family plant that grows all over around here without effort or watering ...it has 9ish month season here as well.

I don't know if they do this everywhere, but potatoes are tenacious where I live. If you miss just one or two little potatoes, they grow big, healthy plants next year. There are potatoes growing in the lawn areas where we had garden beds years ago. They could hypothetically be harvested any time, you would just need to know where they were in the winter.

Cassie Martin wrote:I don't know if they do this everywhere, but potatoes are tenacious where I live. If you miss just one or two little potatoes, they grow big, healthy plants next year. There are potatoes growing in the lawn areas where we had garden beds years ago. They could hypothetically be harvested any time, you would just need to know where they were in the winter.

Could you mark the plants with stakes?

paul wheaton wrote:

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.

Thing 2 is true for a variety of veggies with fiber, our guts need to build up the proper bacteria with regular feeding to better digest said veggies.
Thing 3 is true with other starchy foods, for example if you cook up potatoes and then chill them in the fridge, some of the starches become resistant starches with a significantly lower glycemic index (yay for those with diabetes!), which could also be the mechanism that benefits sunchokes. Chilling and/or reheating helps potatoes, perhaps sunchokes too:


For warmer climates I'd vote for sweet potato, otherwise regular potatoes if colder. There are varieties which have more vibrant flesh colors like purple, which provide more antioxidants too, but I'm not sure how they compare for planting and forgetting. But a person could visit their site once to plant several crops with a similar harvest date, then  come back months later to harvest what they want to store in a root cellar for example.

James Bradford wrote:Oyster mushrooms do great here in the winter, but you gotta figure out how to create a consistent cool, moist, oxygenated place for them ...I kinda cheat and use big plastic buckets, but definitely a great source of easy calories.

More on this please!

Paul - I really like your food pump idea.  I am especially enthusiastic that you are focusing on a wide range of groups (people needs, stages, etc). This should result in a number of models that people can use and tweak and make them their own.

At the moment, I have a basic question (preoccupation?): how is “staple crop” defined and operationalized? The bullet points listed under your initial list (sunchokes, walking onions, and the other one that just slipped my mind) is helpful in  providing some different  ways to think about it.  Of course there will be variations in the actual plants that different people advocate for (or against)  based on their individual circumstances - growing experiences, tastes, resources, geography,
……

So I am assuming that you offer the 3 that you derived from your poll as an heuristic device. I am proceeding as though that is the case, and please pardon me if I am wrong about that.

Anyway, I am finding your project timely, and expect to be following it closely.   I have had to downsize drastically the space I have for growing food, and the space itself is fraught with challenges that I won’t bother to list here.  
I moved here last May, so had little time for planning and planting (and figuring out how to work around those challenges).  Having been a regular reader on the website for  a number of years, at least I was equipped with a lot of potential strategies in my back pocket and managed to get a little good out of my yard and generate some ideas going forward.

I’m just begun my second year here. I implemented some of those ideas, tried out new ones, got more food out of my yard than last year, and learned a lot more about how this plot of land works.

But coming back to the food pump idea, and defining one’s staple crops.
Gradually over the summer, I had to jettison so many taken for granted expectations regarding  what I grow, how much of it I grow, and how I grow it.  Years and years of gardening and eating.

It has been a difficult road, accepting that I couldn’t provide for myself as before, and have confidence that nearly everything I ate was produced in ways that nurtured the land and at the same time maximized the nutrients in my food.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago I realized I’d been in mourning and it was time to rethink my whole food producing system. That was daunting. But a few days after that, it occurred to me I couldn’t provide start by identifying which dietary niche I could best meet with the resources I have.

Hence, my question: how to define staple crops?

My conclusion for my situation:
1. Calories no longer matter in my calculus for what grow. If we get to a place where I can’t afford enough beans and rice, I’m doomed anyway.  
2. I’m getting older.  I like perennials. So much less work. Much kinder to the soil. And many of them provide much needed hedges and shade. I can nibble on fruits all summer and still have plenty to preserve for the winter, even after the  birds take their share. And, I can repurpose my stupid front lawn to food production without irritating my way too close to me neighbors  by planting the pretty ones out front. Persimmon. Elderberry. Plum. Interspersed with natives that might tempt the urban wildlife enough that they leave enough fruit for me.  (And eventually fill up the whole front yard until there is no more room for lawn, save a few paths).
3. Backyard: continue focus on high nutrition foods. Yes, I started some jerusalem artichoke.  Tree collards. Blueberries and raspberries.  But as much variety as I can get in the vegetable department.  Lots of raised planters (at least 2 feet high - I’m old, and my soil is heavily compacted clay fill. I can make it better but it will take time).

Bottom line:  my staple crops will be:
1. those which provide the greatest variety of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and all that other good stuff that others take pills for but I’d rather get from my food. So: maximize variety for good nutrition.
2. Those that I can find space for, or create space for, that I can manage (physically) while aging in place.
3. Those that are good for the ground and the air and help support birds and bees etc. And don’t require crazy amounts of water (it no longer rains here in summer), and can tolerate ever increasing heat.

Long winded, as usual. I blame Paul.  Having to think very differently in a very short time, and not of my choosing, has been a slog. Then Paul shows up with a framework that can help me to focus my goals (as in, what amI doing this for? What do I expect to get given what I have? What is important to me? Is it attainable given what I have available?).

So here is my stream of consciousness shaggy dog story offered as an illustration of one way to apply a food pump model.
Again, I apologize if I’ve got the concept all wrong. But I think it’s not there to tell us what to grow. Even Paul can’t make me eat kale. Ever.
Rather, I see it as a very helpful model to help us along the path of defining our needs and wants and figuring out the best way to meet them.

I learn best from examples. Not one or two, but many.
And given that this model aspires to focus on all different kinds of growers and growing situations, I’m thinking there might be lots of thoughtful examples to inspire me for a long time.  
And I’m not going to pay attention to stuff I don’t like in it (like kale, or making my own biochar).  
I’m going to pay attention to the parts that get me thinking of possibilities I hadn’t thought of.

Thank you, Paul.

Here in the Metro Denver area, garlic chives, garlic, and walking onions will self propagate and have except for when my hubby decides that he hates wild plants growing where he didn't establish them... so he digs them all up.  I am slowly training him that this is a high desert and if something wants to grow in our yard and is edible, he should leave it alone!

I also have sorrel reseeding its self and slowly spreading around the front yard and strangely enough we are horrible at getting every little Peruvian purple potato out of the ground so they have been coming up every year for the last 5 years (I actually only purchased one start and now they are in every bed - I didn't even know that potatoes had seeds and could be spread probably by birds or squirrels).  It actually makes it hard to do crop rotation and that sort of thing; but hey if they are growing well, who cares about that?  Lastly, it looks like Orach is the salad and cooking green (well with red as well) that will grow here on its own... I didn't plant any this year but apparently something seeded itself from last year so I got about a dozen or so freebee plants that took off.  We were harvesting quarts of greens/reds every day or two, so I ended up having to take a bunch to the food bank - 11 lbs one day even.

So I totally agree about the 3-4 plants per region/zone/area...

L Anderson wrote: I’m not going to pay attention to stuff I don’t like in it (like kale, or making my own biochar).  
I’m going to pay attention to the parts that get me thinking of possibilities I hadn’t thought of.

Super post!

Your thoughts on being in mourning for the gardening you could no longer do really hit home for me. I lived for over two decades in California before moving to New Mexico, and I've been here over thirty years, still mourning the fact that my coastal CA green thumb has turned brown. High altitude and low moisture, along with extreme temp ranges within one day and short growning season (with my "greenhouse" being inside my home), plus all kinds of hungry critters that don't share well, combine to make me feel triumphant if I can keep one plant alive for one growing season.

Okay, I exaggerate somewhat, but not by much. I have found a few plants that I can grow reliably because they're almost as tough as the wild native plants. I love them for that. I do have to water heavily during the dry season, which is currently drought conditions (normally 10" annual precipitation, this year 4.08" since New Year's Day). Some plants have to be covered every night because of the hungry critters mentioned above, and uncovered at sunrise lest the sun bakes them.

Anyway, because of your post, I realized I've been in mourning for the loss of California conditions which is crazy because I adore living in New Mexico.  I can grow things, I just have to figure out new ways of going about it.  I know it can be done because a friend about five miles away has an organic farm and I buy my veggies from her. If she can do it, I can do it.

Also, I will not eat kale. Don't care how nutritious it is.

Here's what I've got for zone 9, near Gainesville FL.

Kale would do it here too. I have yet to try the perennial ones  but red russian is a staple until the summer heat burns it down.
In brassicas I have tried tree collards and the only survivors were in the shade. Limited success there so not exactly pumping out food.
Chard does well here in the winter. Not so well with the heat.

Sweet potatoes if you don't mind waiting 200 or more days to get them. The heat here delays tuber formation until the ground temps drop down around 70F in Sept./Oct. then first freeze is usually late November and you have to dig them then or slightly before.  They will volunteer from leftover bits of roots and missed tubers but they do better here if planted in a different place every year. The leaves are edible so that prolongs food availability. I grow them in containers and they seem to like that.

Walking onions won't survive summers here. I'm working on getting a similar Florida heirloom multiplier  onion called a Finley redistributed to as many folks here as possible. Those things are a set it and forget it for the winter, which is our onion season.  They're so willing tp grow that ones accidentally dropped on the ground will set roots and grow. Some of the local seed suppliers are working to save these too, like Hoss up in Georgia.

My most productive crop is  living room lettuce. This is leaf cutting lettuce  grown indoors on bakers wire racks  in 10 x 20 nursery trays Kratky hydroponic style with grow lights. This goes year round non stop, seeding new trays every 15 days on the first and fifteenth of the month. This keeps me and a few friends in all the lettuce we would ever want.

Regular potatoes have two seasons here, planting in Jan./Feb. and again in August. They struggle a bit with the heat but almost always come through with some potatoes.

Cowpeas in the summer.

Daikon radishes love it here. Tasty seed pods on them too.

Mulberries grow and produce like crazy. Edible leaves on those also.

For a lot more good info on what works here check out Melissa DeSa and working food in Gainesville FL. Much good work happening there.

https://workingfood.org/seeds

Cody Cove would be another.

https://codycovefarm.com

If we elongate the timeline a bit we can include the really easy tree crops.

I can vouch for Chinese/ hybrid chestnuts.  Thrive on neglect.  Abundant late fall harvests after only a few years of growth.  Easy to store. Relatively easy to prepare. Survived pretty strong goat pressure so I think they could handle deer as well.

I have high hopes for my persimmons as well though they still aren't bearing.

Autumn olive and its relatives might qualify.

As for non trees...

Chinese yams (dioscorea polystachya) absolutely. Dual cropping with the bulbils and tubers. Zero maintenance. Bulbils very easy to harvest tho but particularly flavorful.  Root is easy enough to harvest if you plant in any kind of container.

Water lotus.  Found this to be surprisingly weedy and vigorous in a small slimy pond. Seeds, tubers... the whole plant is edible.

Creeping cucumbers.  The fruits are so tiny harvesting might be considered more trouble than they're worth but they are such vigorous easy growers.

Horseradish. Another dual use with the greens and the roots.  An absolute tank of a plant.

I'd put asparagus on here too but its harvest season is so short you can easily blink and miss it.

Kale has its pests, like any brassicas here where I am (54N, Germany).

Slugs, any time it's wet.
First in the year come the cabbage aphids - so nasty tasting that pretty much no predators eat them.
Then flea beetles. A well grown brassica will shrug them off, but small ones are vulnerable.
Whitefly next.
And 2 long waves of cabbage white caterpillars (both kinds, the stripy, hairy ones are the worst). They have eaten all of mine by now (mid October). The slugs come back to finish the job off.

Jerusalem Artichokes are tough as hell, but even with all the tricks, most folks get bad wind eating them, even me, who is a vegan used to very big fibre and can eat beans and anything else with zero issues.

Even normal spring (green) onions spread, ditto garlic.

L Anderson wrote:...
Hence, my question: how to define staple crops?
...
Bottom line:  my staple crops will be:
1. those which provide the greatest variety of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and all that other good stuff that others take pills for but I’d rather get from my food. So: maximize variety for good nutrition.
2. Those that I can find space for, or create space for, that I can manage (physically) while aging in place.
3. Those that are good for the ground and the air and help support birds and bees etc. And don’t require crazy amounts of water (it no longer rains here in summer), and can tolerate ever increasing heat.
...

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you L. Anderson too. I think my conclusion about staple crops is much like yours.

In my garden(s, front and back yard, and allotment) the three Paul mentions are already growing and doing well. Because I like more variety, and I have plenty of garden space (it's all for me, to give away and for 'biodiversity'), I have lots of edible perennials, berry bushes and I experiment with all kinds of (annual) vegetables.

I found out there are some very easy vegetables, doing extremely well in my climate. They aren't high in calories, but in vitamins and minerals.
The first one I want to mention is a 'leaf beet'; I think it started as 'Swiss chard', then reseeded and reseeded and got back to its roots (pun): it gives me edible leaves / leaf stems AND an edible 'beet' (a thick white-ish root with a sweet taste). The original chards, in rainbow colours, grow very well too; for sowing once I get several years of leaves with colourfull stems, during most months of the year.
Last but not least are the 'greens' I never sowed but they came 'as weeds', together they grow year round (not all year the same green vegetable, but always at least one of them): purslane, miner's lettuce, lambs lettuce and lamb's quarters (including 'tree spinach' or other Chenopodium species).

photo of my harvest not so long ago, including the 'leaf beet'