Practical 1-Acre Staple Foods?

Mike Jay wrote:PS. I second Todd's comment about deer and turnips.  I haven't seen them eating them myself but I know they are a major component in deer plot seed mixes.  Possibly the deer only eat them after they've frozen and the other easy eating food is gone but I wouldn't risk them outside a fence if I wanted to get a good yield.

Turnips are not always grown for the root vegetable. Turnips are also grown as a seed oil crop(Rapeseed is named after the latin word for turnip(rapum) ), and as a late fall fodder crop. The green tops are eaten first, then as the season gets later, they will start to pull out the bulbs. Since turnips are relatively cold hardy, they continue to grow(though slowly) even later in the fall. So the foliage stays green where grasses might have turned brown.
Brassica fodder crops for fall grazing
High quality feed at a good price: Oats and Turnips for fall grazing

Adding turnips to your grazing pasture is easy, since they make like a gazillion seeds.

Chris Holcombe wrote:I did some rough calculations and added up square footage. I think one person could be sustained on about 1/4 acre with the following:

1 Person’s worth of trees (730,000 calories)
4 chestnuts = 221,970
2 honey locust = 300,000
3 hazelnuts = 170,690.4
4 elderberries = 50,736
3 persimmons = 47,565
2 apples = 22,500
10 black currants underplanted = 27,780
2 mulberry = 12,000

The fields here are number of trees, type of tree and total calories. This is based on 365 days of 2000 calories per day.

The numbers that went into that are:
Apple is .5 calories per gram
225 calories per lb
11,250 calories per tree @ 50lbs per tree

Mulberries are .5 calories per gram
6,000 calories per tree @ 25lbs per tree

Elderberries are .7 calories per gram
12,684 calories per bush @40lbs

Black currant is .6 calories per gram
2,778 calories per bush @10lbs

Hazelnut is 6.28 calories per gram
2844 calories per lb
113793 calories for 2 trees@20lbs per tree.

Persimmon is .7 calories per gram
15,855 calories per tree @50lbs

Chestnuts are 2.45 calories per gram
1,109 calories per lb
110,985 calories for 2 trees at 50lbs per tree

Honey locust yields 96-400lbs per tree of pods.  Approximately 1.1 calories per gram.
500 calories per lb
75,000-200,000 calories @150-400lbs per tree

I tried to build a tree set that might be a decent diet without giving you scurvy or eating nothing but nuts. I also tried to include some things that dry well like persimmon and some fresh eating things. This doesn’t have any redundancy built in so anything less than perfection means starving which obviously is bad.

This was an interesting exercise! Thanks for posing the question.

Relying on trees and shrubs would have varying effects here depending on where you did it.

Almost fifteen years of experience planting trees and shrubs on two combined 16 acre grassland properties (mine and my moms) has left us with few food producers. To date we have currents, haskap, gooseberries, seaberries, buffalo berries, carmine jewel cherry, rose hips, and possibly nanking cherry producing some fruit, I have a single sand cherry, I used to have a whole row of European bush cherry- I may have one left. We have a single limber pine that could make pine nuts. We have also planted or attempted to plant apples, plums, pears, cherries, chokecherries, hawthorns, mountain ash, and elderberries. These have either not matured yet or died largely from pocket gopher atracks with a little work by deer as well.

In town on two properties my larger family has ten apple trees, four crabapples, two cherries, multiple currents, mulberries, pin cherries, three elderberries, a pear, wild grapes, hawthorne, rosehips, plums, mountain ash, chokecherry, and nanking cherry. On another hayfield property my parents have there is a couple acres with some old tree plantings and there are apples, crabapples, plums, and mountain ash there as well. There are no nuts as my dad has a severe allergy to most tree nuts.

In the right habitat I think you could come close in this area, riparian or naturally forested areas. 20 miles to the north is a small commercial sweet cherry growing area, there you might have success with the whole list Chris made. To the south in Dixon Montana there is an area of microclimate and sand soil with historic wild plum stands. A fruit-nut forest would grow there potentially as well. Michael Pilarski has written about some excellent fruit and nut forests in Idaho. I've visited some such areas in Idaho and Montana and the habitats were definitely naturally amenable to growing trees.

On my difficult site microsites are changing as 10 year plus ponderosa pines are maturing, that may change the math. However the math may be 10 to 15 years for windbreaks to mature than another 10 to 15 for fruit and nuts on a naturally hostile site. Even on a really good site it would be awhile before production was high enough. So my solution would be to use non tree crops to fill in that time gap however long by gardening between or on adjacent land to the trees.

My point is that starting conditions and natural habitat, are going to affect what grows where in the landscape. This is why some of permaculture can be earthworks which change habitat and make different growing conditions, though even then there may be limitations and unintended side effects. Like I've heard terracing can deprive riparian areas of sediment leading to downcutting.

The OP might be on historic forest which would validate a forest strategy in his situation.

I agree that small is better. It is alot easier to "defend" and intensively garden just 1acre that trying to defend 16+ acres of land. In fact some counties have laws that say that one can only use their well to water 2acres. So if someone where to try and water/farm all 16acre in said county they would not have enough water and the governement would fine them. But if they were to intensively farm just 1 or so acres, they could fence it, water it and affordable add inputs to get it started.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I grow gallons of sunflower seeds every year. I don't know how to turn them into food.

What the Romans did with their olives is squeeze them. Most things of theirs were copied from the Greeks, but the one big thing they came up with was oil. They used a screw press, but you could probably get away with using just a simple lever.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I grow gallons of sunflower seeds every year. I don't know how to turn them into food.

Somewhere I think I still have a little booklet from Rodale Press (or maybe Mother Earth New....) It was about self sufficiency and such and gave numbers for the area of sunflowers needed to grow for oil. It showed how to process them with home built tools. A grain grinder with the stone set just far enough apart to crack the shells of the seeds. Then a winnowing box, I think it used on old vacuum cleaner motor, some how it separated the shells from the seeds.  Then a small press to press the oil out. I dont' remember any more of the details but if I find it I'll let you know.

If you just wanted to separate the shells from the seeds you could crack them in your grinder then put in a bucket of water, the shells should float off and the seeds should sink. Then spread out to dry. You could add to granola and trail mix, breads and crackers, sprinkle over lots of different kinds of foods. If your grinder can handle oil seeds or you have a food processor you could make sunflower butter and of course your chickens will pick them right out of the flower heads and turn the into meat and eggs ;-)

Acorns! :)

"The yield of acorns per acre compares well with grains. When the long-lived, deep-rooted oaks can reach sufficient water; acorn production can be very high, with yields of more than 5,280 kg/ha (6,000 pounds/ acre) (Bainbridge, 1986). High acorn yields can be maintained on hilly lands where annual grain crops cause severe soil erosion" -David A. Bainbridge, 1987


Grandmother Corine Pearce's Acorn Love Style is roughly as follows:
0. Put that 1 acre that the OP mentioned in a bunch black or red or tan oaks because they're badass fatty gumdrop makers.  And/Or plant those oaks around the region.
1. Cause ocean stuff (seaweed, oyster shells, wet stuff) to land on oaks somehow and tell them how much you love them.  (This was salmon's job... butt dam)
2. Help the birds plant acorns in the fall.
3. Ride your bike to collect hella acorns in spots you can tell some are not ganna be eaten anyway.
--[Collect extra in the 20% of years that they have bumper crops]
4. Dry them in shallow layers in greenhouse or that car parked in sun... for weeks
5. Keep them dry for... basically forever. I've eaten 8 year dried acorns.  Great taste!
6. When you're hungry: whack to crack the shell, mac.
7. Remove the thin, papery protective inner layer.  Most white people don't. Most Pomo do and think its kinda embarrassing to leave it.
8. Pound or grind or blend or meditate on them hard enough to get them into a "flour" particle size.
9. That's not fine enough.  Grind it more!
10. Put a collider in the sink, put a clean t-shirt over the collider, secure the t-shirt like tight like a drum head if possible.
11. Put the *fine* flour (only) onto the shirt drum.
12. Drip water on the acorn flour until its yummy and not acidic (4 to 14 hrs)
13. Squeeze out the last water by spinning the mound acorn mound up in the t-shirt
14. Dry fully and store like flour for a month or so.  Or store in fridge and use fresh in a week or so.
15. Cook them up with some greens! Cook them up in some bone broth, bro-stallion!
17. Invite Corine and I over for dinner!


Nutrition Facts

Acorn Flour
Amount Per 100g
Calories - 501 Calories from Fat - 272
Total Fat 30.17g
Saturated 3.92g
Polyunsaturated 5.81g
Monounsaturated 19.11g
Cholesterol 0mg
Total Carbohydrate 54.65g
Dietary Fiber 0g
Sugars 0g
Protein 7.49g
Vitamins and Minerals
A 3µg C 0mg
B-6 0.69mg B-12 0µg
D 0µg E 0mg
Calcium 43µg Iron 1.21mg
Magnesium 110mg Zinc 0.64mg
Potassium 712mg Sodium 0mg

Calorie Breakdown:
Carbohydrate (41%)
Fat (54%)
Protein (5%)


References:
Nutritional Facts: https://your-calories.com/acorns-flour
Photo:  https://deborahsmall.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/seaweed-salmon-and-manzanita-cider/
Corine's Basket Website (she's a master weaver too): https://www.craftinamerica.org/artist/corine-pearce

You could easily make a pig pen with a deep litter system. if you dedicate a 60ft square shed you could more than make enough grain fodder.  Pigs are an animal that can do well on 100 percent of their diet as fodder. But I would supplement with veggies and commercial  grain. Here is a list of a bunch of grains with different applications for fodder

Alfalfa
 Alfalfa is a highly palatable legume that has been grown as livestock feed since the fourth century. It is valued for its high nutritional quality and is an excellent source of essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Hydroponically grown alfalfa fodder is more digestible than its field-grown, dried hay counterpart, increasing feed efficiency and reducing the need for concentrates.
 
Barley
 Barley is a cereal grain that is commonly used in the finishing rations of cattle in the United States and Canada. These sprouts are high in protein and fiber, and are naturally balanced in protein, fat and energy. Compared to corn, barley fodder has 95% of the energy and higher digestibility. Barley fodder is one of the most nutritious sprouts and is full of essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Feeding barley fodder will improve the overall health and wellbeing of your animals

Millet
 Millet is a grass that is rich in B vitamins and high in fiber. It has been grown as a staple feed for thousands of years and is one of the world's most important cereal crops. Millet fodder sprouts are highly digestible and nutritious. They are high in minerals and essential amino acids. Millet is similar to corn and is low in protein compared to other feedstuffs. Millet is also fairly starchy. It is commonly mixed with other seeds, such as oat or barley, to provide a more complete ration.
 
Oat
 Oat is a cereal grain that is one of the most important sources of livestock and animal feed in the world. It is commonly fed to horses and ruminants due to its excellent nutritional qualities that aid with maintaining optimal rumen and hindgut function. Hydroponically grown oat fodder is high in fiber and low in starch, making it an easily digestible feed. Oat is also rich in nutrients and essential minerals and is one of the richest sources of protein compared to other feedstuffs.
 
Read wheat
 This cereal grain has garnered attention over the last couple of years as an alternative to feedstuffs with fluctuating prices that are used in livestock rations, such as corn. When grown hydroponically, red wheat fodder has many nutritional advantages. Of all the classes of wheat available in the United States, red wheat has the highest protein composition. It is also high in energy and the starches in wheat ferment quickly in ruminant digestion.
 
Ryegrass
 Ryegrass is a highly palatable and protein-rich grass that is grown primarily for pasture and silage. It is valued for its high nutrient composition and digestibility. Due to its excellent nutritional quality it is commonly used as pasture for lactating dairy cows. Sprouted ryegrass fodder contains many of the same benefits of its more mature, pasture-grown counterpart and the feed value of ryegrass fodder is highly comparable to corn.
 
Sorghum
 Sorghum is a grass that is rich in antioxidants and high in fat. There are numerous varieties of sorghum and it is grown all over the world as a staple for humans and livestock. In the United States, sorghum is grown primarily for its grains that are used in livestock rations. Hydroponically grown sorghum fodder has many nutritional advantages and, in fodder production, it is commonly used as a supplement to provide more fat.

I copied and pasted from a website. sorry for how wordy it is

+1 to adding chickens or some small livestock that works in your area. The advantage of a chicken, rabbit, dwarf goat, duck etc is that they add a really great free material for producing bigger crops (fertilizer) + they will ensure your garden calories are consumed. If you have a bunch of kale in the season, its a lot easier to share with livestock that produces eggs or other foods for you than to try to eat all the kale.

The biggest reason in my mind is you can keep animals with no loss in garden footprint and they will dramatically increase your calorie density production. A flock of chickens will give eggs + meat. A single goat in milk with kids or a companion will provide an unbelieveable amount of calories in the form of milk which gives you more options.

S Bengi wrote:Leafy Vegetables (Kale family, Spinach family, etc)
Nuts (Hazelnut, etc)
Root Vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc)
Fruits/Dehydrated Fruits
Mushroom (Oyster, Wine Cap, etc)
Honey (2 or 3 warre bee hive)
Eggs
Fish
Chicken
Goat Milk

Famine grass seed
Beans

I like this idea of having a greenhouse with fish, chicken/egg, mushroom, vegetables, edible algae/seaweed also)

I like this mix ...and if you're in a hurry for nuts:   will peanuts grow in your area.   I eat a lot of roasted peanuts when i'm too tired/lazy to cook!

Also, i'm a fan of sweet potatoes over regular spuds because you can eat the greens from the sweet potato, and they are not a night shade.   Sweet potatoes go great with nuts.   Maybe its not a permie thing, but grafted nut trees will usually produce faster than (from seed) native trees.

I've seen mention in only a couple of posts of small grains.  It might be worth trying the Marc Bonfils method of growing winter wheat, which is sparsely seeded into an established bed of perennial white clover (some top seeding may be required to maintain, though my clover bed seems to have done OK on its own).  It is probably as close to a perennial wheat culture as you can get at the moment; it does need to be planted every year, but it's very Fukuoka-like.  Marc reported yields as high as 150 quintals per hectare.  Since Marc wrote in the 1980s (in French, and my French is school-boy French, nearly 40 years stale at this point), I am pretty certain this was metricate quintals (hundredweights), so 100 kg per quintal.  Maybe one of our French correspondents could weigh in more definitively on this usage of quintal.  If 100 kg per quintal, that's 15 metric tonnes per hectare, which isn't far off the most recent world record for broad acre mechanically intensively cultivated modern ag of 17 metric tonnes and change per hectare (a farmer in New Zealand a few years ago).  Marc's method is only conducive to small scale hand planting and harvesting (well, maybe harvesting with a small research scale combine would be possible, but the very - very - sparse planting makes it more suited to scythe with cradle or reaping hook harvesting).  I have not tried this yet myself, though I have been establishing a white clover bed to give it a go, and if the sewer company will stop digging things up, I can get my Banatka seed planted next summer.  This is planted very early (summer solstice) for a fall sown grain, which taken together with proper selection of variety (a heritage long straw) and a suitable climate (Marc was in the French Pyrenees) made his high yields possible.  The deep roots will also allegedly build a deep soil profile (Marc reported roots up to 3 meters deep).  I don't know what yields could reasonably be expected by the new practitioner, however.  But, I aim to try to find out.

Duborskian (dry land) rice may be worth a look, even if only planted in buckets on the patio.  Rice was probably originally a dryland cereal, before being selectively bred to tolerate paddy culture (rice and ducks together in paddies being a very ancient combination).

Rice needs a rice huller.  There are DIY huller builds, either using the Corona style masa mills (rubber sheets facing circular metal plates in place of the stock burrs, as I recall) or counter-rotating wood rolls (again, with sheet rubber cladding and variable roll spacing).  A winnowing operation would also be needed (but that's true of small grains, generally).

These hullers, with some adjustment/modification, might work for shelling sunflower kernels, as well.  So far, we've only grown sunflowers along the northern margins for the wild birds, and because my wife likes to see their cheery faces - the sunflowers, that is.  The chipmunks plant more sunflowers than we do, I think.  But, the chipmunks are house cat television, and she's a good mouser, so it all seems a reasonable trade-off.  The Piteba oil press shows pressing the sunflower seeds in the shell, as I recall.  If I dig, I may be able to track down instructions for making a screw style oil seed press from an old wood auger.  If I remember correctly, it was a Dutch fellow who'd built it, and he was using wind power (very Dutch!) to drive it.  But I could be muddling two different oil seed press builds together.  A friend of my father's grows lots of sunflowers as chicken feed (along with other small grains - he has 40 acres, so lots of room to try things).

Fall-sown rye was customary in the swidden (slash and burn) agriculture of the Forest Finns, along with field peas and turnips, among other crops.  Sepp Holzer uses cereal rye as a soil builder, for animal grazing and eventually as cereal grain.  Again, I've not played with this yet in my town-lot gardening area, but you can allegedly graze (scythe) the rye down for several years, to cyclically increase root mass and then force die-back to build a deep soil profile, before finally letting it go to seed for cereal harvest.  Again, I've not yet tried it, but this is well-attested by reputable sources.

In this thread ( https://permies.com/t/215186/Tanning-Hides-Business-Opportunity ) I made reference to and attached a recent paper discussing extracting tannins from acorns to facilitate fermentation.  Tannins inhibit oxydative phosphorylation, which is why they are a preservative, but also inhibit yeasts from turning starches into other stuff.  In the case of this paper, the researchers were interested in making ethanol fuel.  But, they use three "waters" of a 40% ethanol aqueous solution (i.e. vodka), at 60C for three hours, to extract the tannins.  The three washes resulted in an 80% reduction in tannin content.  They also report a process for recovering the extracted tannins as a marketable product and of reusing the ethanol (some losses, I'm sure, given the azeotropic nature of alcohol/water mixes).  So, red oaks may be viable as food for humans (not just deer, goats, pigs and squirrels) in areas where lower tannin content white oaks do not thrive.

All of these seem to be options worthy of consideration for "base load calories", depending on climate and circumstance.

I’m in zone 3a northernish Alberta. Clay soil. Not as dry as southern Alberta/prairies were in the boreal forest. About 100-120 growing days. It’s a new climate for us since we moved from coastal BC, zone 8b, 211 growing days, temperate coastal rainforest. Our plan is:

Potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes. They grow well here and store well and we like them a lot.

Dry beans. Lots of varieties and we like to eat beans a lot in all sorts of dishes.

Winter squash. Everyone around us grows them and they seem to do well. They keep well and we like them.

Corn. We don’t have the heat units for a lot of corn, but there are shorter seasons varieties. We wouldn’t rely on this entirely as if we still don’t get the heat we’d be in trouble.

Jerusalem Artichoke because my husband and I can both eat them without the gastric issues many have. We ate a lot of them back in BC. I’m not sure about our kids yet.

Sweet Potato. There are some varieties that are being developed for shorter seasons. I wouldn’t rely on this as my main calories because of the chance it could fail catastrophically in our climate, but we do like them a lot and they keep well.

If we wanted to get into grain, which I don’t even though we have 70 acres and could, because I don’t want to be scything and a combine is too expensive. But if we wanted to the ones grown around us (so that would presumably do well) are: rye, oats, wheat, barley.

Meat & eggs. We have 70 acres including 15 acres fenced pasture (only half of which is pasture the other half is trees) and 15 acres hay so we have highland cows and chickens currently. We also plan to add sheep (grazing the orchards so we don’t have to mow), pigs, and maybe ducks, emu, and turkey. However when we were on 1/4 acre lot we had meat rabbits and ducks. There’s still options that can fit on smaller properties. We also hunt and have lots of deer, rabbits, grouse and even moose coming through.

A quick mention of ruminants’ ability to convert cellulose into nutrients seems appropriate here.  On this acre of yours, a lot of crops are going to create a lot of cellulose as byproducts.  Cellulose is not something humans can digest, nor can our microbiome.  Cellulose can be composted, but can also feed ruminants who have fed and clothed humans since prehistoric times, and then once the ruminants have had their turn, the degraded and digested  cellulose can still be composted, and feed soil microorganisms.

Cellulose converted to milk and meat and fiber and fats by ruminants.  Though they aren’t ruminants, rabbits also perform this miracle.

It’s been mentioned on this thread how few fats can be had directly from plants.  Geese are grazers…. eating primarily grass (correct me here folks, if that’s only some breeds of geese).  Some people raise geese solely for the fats… and get an alarm animal into the bargain.

I’m just thinking how so much food is produced seasonally.  Share the feed when it is abundant, then if necessary eat the animal you fed last summer instead of starving.  

The biointensive method was mentioned: here is a image of one persons vegan diet on 4000 sq feet growing space.
Unless you are following the method, I would take the square footage with a grain of salt, since the whole point is to grow in very little space. However, their percentages are useful, and they have thought about carbon biomass for composting, since the method is supposed to grow its own fertilizer.



http://growbiointensive.org/60%2030%2010%20circle.pdf

It is also worth noting that some staple crops have more than one yield if you know how to harvest.
For example, squash and gourd leaves are edible, and part of African cuisine. I have eaten both.
The leaves of African/southern/cow/blackeyed peas are also edible, and high in protein. I don’t know about other types of bean. If you grow 1/10 acre if black eyed peas, you would get around 150 lbs (or more, depending in spacing) of dried peas plus a summers worth of high protein greens.
Pumpkin and squash seeds are edible, and a good source of fats. Toasting them is probably the easiest preparation method, but you could probably shell and grind them too.
Sweet potato leaves are also a hood green. Amaranth can be grown for both grain and greens.
I am sure there are other examples…

 





Here are two videos about a professor growing three staple crops and a vegetable patch- there are links to scientific papers as well. Favas, Wheat, Olives, and vegetables. You could theoretically get the vegetables by foraging. Hereabouts you would need a different oil crop than olives. Perhaps sunflowers or some kind of tree nut such as pine nuts, walnuts, or hazelnuts. Wheat and Favas grow great here though I would probably need to be able to fence out or control the local Hungarian partridge population to grow a small wheat plot successfully.

I think it is also extremely important to grow foods you know you eat and like. That doesn't mean you can't learn to like new ones- but if you like potatoes grow potatoes! I think the staple foods I grow best and accept best both culturally and comfortably are beans, peas, wheat, corn, and potatoes. For vegetables it is probably sweet corn, squash, and tomatoes. I haven't successfully grown oil crops for oil but can grow good crops of sunflowers- just haven't processed them into anything. I grow Favas but don't actually eat them- at least not yet. Trying new foods is a very slow process for me personally.

First thing coming to mind is to discover what other gardeners have had great success with locally.
That list will vary a lot depending on where you are.

Go for low maintenance fruit trees, as per the book Tree Crops by J. Russell Smith.
In my area that gets down to mulberries, figs and persimmons.

https://archive.org/details/TreeCrops-J.RussellSmith

I'm currently experimenting with dwarf versions because I'm working with less than an acre.
Best so far are World's Best Mulberry and Fignominal fig.
Persimmons are a bit trickier to get going. If you want dwarf varieties you'll have to raise American Persimmon rootstock and graft on Asian scions...or buy them ready to go.
I have access to a REALLY good American Persimmon (they are quite variable in quality, some need cross pollination and some not)  but they grow huge and I just don't have the room and I'm old so the time to grow out rootstock and select doesn't appeal.

https://floridafruitgeek.com/2019/11/28/the-turkey-lake-american-persimmon-free-fruits-scionwood-are-available-in-gainesville/

Root crops would be the second thing coming to mind.  Everyone else covered that very well. Again, good local stock makes a difference here, and so does experimenting with different varieties.

I've grown a purple sweet potato bred by a guy over in St. Augustine FL that seems to be both quite bulletproof and tasty without the involved pre storage rituals. I crate 'em then put them in storage.
Murasaki is another one that does above and beyond here.
Particularly the ones I can buy from the local discount grocery for a little over $3 a pound.

https://martianpotatoes.com

Kuroda carrots do above and beyond here.

The Japanese turnips are tasty little things as well as growing well in winter here.

https://www.rareseeds.com/store/plants-seeds/vegetable-seeds/turnip-seeds

Daikons are bulletproof. They use them locally on farms as a cover crop.

I'm trying this this winter, attempting a cover crop that outputs food. Growing nicely so far but the jury is still out. My mix on this was kale, turnips, chard, sugar snap peas, oats and winter rye grass. If I've figured this correctly it should mostly self terminate once it gets hot.

https://blog.nutri-tech.com.au/cocktail-cover-crops/amp/?

I have an inexpensive 10' x 35' greenhouse built from 8' steel t posts, frames of those carports you see everywhere, fence wire, and inexpensive greenhouse plastic from Ebay.
This keeps me in tomatoes, cukes, peppers, seed starts most of the year (the heat here becomes an issue in the summer) and is just a great addition.
Automated watering happens via buried 40 gallon totes, fountain pumps, timers, and a tubing network of the irrigation stuff I use otherwise.
I hand watered it the first year and that got old in a hurry.
I run hydroponic solution in it but you could do it with organic ferts and water instead of the nutrient solution.

I also grow things in containers and grow bags in kiddie pools to keep them watered.  Mostly kale, chard and onions in these for the winter.

I'm too flat for effective swales but have plastic lined trenches wide enough to hold bigger nursery pots which simplifies keeping all that watered.

Some day I'll try the Bill Mollison's gley  technique, making an anerobic slime to seal trenches and swales to see if I can do away with the plastic.

https://simplingforall.blogspot.com/2015/10/gleying-pond.html

Thekla McDaniels wrote:It’s been mentioned on this thread how few fats can be had directly from plants.  Geese are grazers…. eating primarily grass (correct me here folks, if that’s only some breeds of geese).  Some people raise geese solely for the fats… and get an alarm animal into the bargain.

Wild Canada geese are certainly grazers.  They do like golf courses and other large expanses of grass that are available, particularly in urban areas where there are few predators.

I see this is an old post but...
First of all, I DO have to do all my food growing on one acre, and I live in zone 6 (West Virginia). My leasehold is probably 10 to 12 acres bur my land, like that of everyone else I know around here, is 90% steep wooded hillside. I have a one-acre clearing on the ridge.
Second I'm in strong agreement with the several people who questioned the obsession with calories. Yes, you need a certain amount of calories but you also need protein, fat, vitamins and some trace elements. Cindy Conner's book Grow a Sustainable Diet goes into this--and she's in VA, maybe zone 7.
i grow about half the food for my two person household, and I don't use the whole acre--I have a main garden that is 40 X 65 feet, and flat space for growing corn and sorghum and rotations of tomatoes (the only part that gets tilled) that is about 25 X 50 feet, and another plot with six more 12 foot beds (the main garden has 24 of these). In addition I have a chicken coop and an orchard, some persimmon trees--some wild and some grafted. The surrounding woods supply firewood and the shade is good for one crop--mushrooms.
I consider the most important staple crops to be potatoes, because they're full of nutrients (including calories), easy to store, and can be cooked so many ways. Sweet potatoes are also high calorie and very easy to store. Tomatoes are important for us, we eat a lot of spaghetti and pizza. The chickens are close to a must. I also grow onions and garlic and other alliums; hot and sweet peppers; bok choy and kale; dent corn mostly for the chickens; pole beans and sometimes dry beans; cowpeas; strawberries; lettuce, spinach and radishes; sugar snap and snowpeas; summer and winter squash; celery; swiss chard; sunflowers, for the chickens, plus I grow a few herbs and allow some wildflowers to remain in the garden (I also have a flowerbed). I have blackberries and raspberries at one end of the flat plot. I have a few apples and pears and peach trees, and have had problems with squirrels stealing the fruit. I've had no success with any kind of nuts except peanuts--I expect if I did get a crop the squirrels would take them. I also have two goumis in the orchard, partly for nitrogen fixing. Wild birds take some but my chickens don't see that interested. I use them for syrup.