Grow That Food !

You want to produce your own food out there, and there are a lot of ideas and sources that can help.

In addition to what most of us think of as traditional gardening and farming, explore new evolving ways of thinking.  

There are lots of topics:  Food Foresting, soil regeneration, permaculture, hydroponics, alternative greenhouse designs, and more. 

If you are just beginning to offgrid/homestead you will probably want to start with what seems familiar and straight forward. That just makes sense. However you begin, you will also want to learn more as you go.

Food Forests

This involves growing foods that mingle well together and that layer - in the same way growth in a natural forest does. (see illustration at the top of this page)  

This is a hot topic with growers all over the world, in many cases producing tremendous abundance, for less work and worry, and increased overall resilience.  

Permaculture

This differs too from most old-school farming in that it involves looking at the whole land in a way that you might not have previously. And applying new techniques to improve results. 

For example, let's imagine you want to grow food on a slope that you haven't worked before. Your thinking might start with terracing, swales, and water retention. You might mix your chosen crop plants with other kinds to prevent soil erosion, applying guilding methods to achieve that. (neighboring plants together that are known to benefit each other.) 

That particular idea may not be new to many people - the point is that it not just digging and planting. It is an example of adjusting to the slope with plants that serve that purpose. 

Permaculture methods and concepts are about adjusting to all the surrounding natural conditions.  Working with the land more harmoniously than simply tilling planting and hoping. And anyone growing food can probably benefit immensely from researching those ideas in depth.

That is where we have just one note of caution:  

You can easily discover thousands of relevant sources.  There are more books, web sites, videos, and courses on those subjects than you can possible go through in a lifetime. We've followed more of those leads than we can count, and hardly know which to point to!

• Courses pop up in ads online as soon as you investigate these topics. We've found they often begin with an invite to a free start, that leads to a sales pitch for a very expensive program. And a barrage of emails.  The bottom line on those - take the free beginning if it appeals to you. Those do offer insights some of the time. We have not jumped at any of the paid programs, which may or may not offer value in your circumstance. In fact, we have written to several of those sources out of exasperation - after being promised useful info and finding only a dubious sales pitch.
• Youtube and websites are a better bet to start. Try three or four on each of those topics and see which ones provide information that is useful to you.  And on the positive side you will find that some resonate and offer insights. From there, the leads to more information will be endless.

All of the above applies to indoor gardening too - alternative greenhouse designs, hydroponics - there are thousands of sources that are easily found and some are very worthwhile.

We started with that for now. And with a few related mentions on the 'reviews' section we are compiling. We will add much more on this site about growing food, preserving food, and and we hope you will be a part of that;

• Please let us know if you have taken any of the many courses available on these topics and and how you feel about them. Or, if there are particular videos or web sites you recommend!
• We also welcome tips, tricks, or off grid recipes you care to share! Please share to kellyann@offgridcentral.org  

     Thank you!