Reply #32: It depends on locale. First thing to do is check with your local ag agent...

[arendt]

they will know about growing season, crops, soil conditions, pests and predators. They can also test your soil and suggest amendments.

Once you have an idea what to grow, you have to decide if you are growing many things to supplement your own diet or a monocrop to sell at the Farmer's Market.

There is some organization, whose name escapes me, that helps you plan integrated organic farming (where you set the pigs lose in the cornfield stubble, then turn lose some other animal that eats the big droppings (yuch), and so on.) The idea is to maximize your yield from the land by creating an artificial ecosystem. Sounds like a life's work to me.

Of course, I overplan everything. You could probably just plant whatever grows in your area and that would be a start.

arendt

P.S. I don't get that "too smart" stuff because I work and socialize with nothing but arrogant, urban techies. With them, its all about one upping each other and not looking stupid or un-cool. It gets pretty tiresome when every conversation is a verbal knife-fight for pack dominance.