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Well… I got to thinking… I was reading the Pathway to Freedom blog, from the Dervaes family in Pasadena, California… and they grow 6,000 pounds of food in their little 1/10th of an acre garden.   Wow….   Of course, they are using like EVERY square foot of their space for food mostly, nicely laid out and all, but still, just about every corner is being used.

So I got to wondering… how much space do we have?

On our lot… which is 90 feet by 50 feet…  we end up with 4,500 square feet of land.  The moby is 14 x 66 and that chews up 924 square feet.  (not too shabby… my house I was renting was only 980 square feet and it cost $1000 a month!  It did have a basement, but still it was really only a kid cave down there….)

That leaves us with 3,576 of land…  minus the shed…  about 3,500 square feet.

With our 6 raised beds that we put in…  we are under cultivation, 300 square feet.  I would estimate another 200 square feet are devoted to flower beds.

I plan to plant on the ugly side of the moby, 5 rows of 50 feet long sweet corn.   Next year I think I will put in raised beds on that side because, well, it’s ugly and the lot is empty and I doubt anything will ever go in there.   And it’s always hot and sunny over there… good place for planting!

We’re putting in 5 more fruit trees, apples mostly.  We have a little peach tree, but I’m not sure it will ever really be able to set decent fruit.  It’s just a little too cold here, not warm enough, long enough.  I had a peach tree in Perrysburg, and it would set fruit, but they didn’t mature.  Just got too cold.  But it’s a really pretty little ornamental tree, so it gets a place out by the front.

However, we have a great big orchard just down the road a mile or three and they do a dandy job with apples so I suspect our apples will grow nicely after a couple years.  (We’ll definately be doing some pick your own come fall…   we love apples!)

So, if the Dervaes family can grown 6,000 pounds annually… I suspect that we can do a nice little dent in our own family needs with our 1/10th of an acre!  And if you count the other two lots…  which I’m sure we can “borrow” as long as we do it tastefully and take care to not make it look, well, tooooo rough and homespun…   we will surely have a nice little place in a couple years!  Can’t wait!