1 Priorities
Grow calories, not salad
Lettuce and tomatoes are nice. Potatoes, beans, squash and grain keep you alive. Plan the garden around energy per square metre and food that stores through winter.
An adult needs roughly 2,000–2,500 kcal a day, more when doing hard physical work: about 900,000 kcal a year. Most vegetables give 100–300 kcal per square metre. The staples below give 800–2,000. A garden that feeds you is mostly staples, with a smaller patch of greens for vitamins.
The first year is the hardest: you have no compost, no saved seed, and every mistake shows up as missing food. Start immediately, even small, and keep stored food as your buffer until the second harvest.
Secure seed now
Open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seed of potatoes, beans, peas, squash, maize or wheat, kale, cabbage, carrots, onions. F1 hybrids grow fine but their seed does not breed true. Seed saving
Pick the sunniest ground near water
At least 6 hours of direct sun in summer. Close to the house (you will weed and guard it) and to a water source or rain barrels.
Break ground without digging everything
Smother grass with cardboard and 10 cm of compost or manure, or dig beds 1.2 m wide so you never step on them. Soil
Plant potatoes and beans first
Most calories for least skill. Add squash and maize after the last frost, winter kale and leeks in summer.
Start compost on day one
Fertility is what limits yield from year two on. Every scrap, leaf, urine and manure goes back to the soil. Compost
2 What to plant
The crops that feed you
Typical yields in decent temperate soil with care. Beginners on poor soil should expect half.
| Crop | Yield per m² | kcal per kg | ≈ kcal per m² | Stores | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potato | 2–4 kg | 770 | 1,500–3,000 | 4–8 months, dark, 4–7 °C | Best calories per area and per hour of work. Blight in wet summers: plant early varieties, rotate. |
| Maize (flint/dent, dry) | 0.4–0.6 kg | 3,600 | 1,400–2,100 | Years, dry | Needs heat and nitrogen. Grind to meal. Nixtamalise (cook with wood-ash or lime water) or you risk pellagra if it is your staple. |
| Jerusalem artichoke | 2–4 kg | 730 | 1,500–2,900 | In the ground all winter | Perennial, grows almost anywhere, spreads. Causes wind; introduce slowly. |
| Wheat, rye, barley, oats | 0.25–0.5 kg | 3,300 | 800–1,600 | Years, dry | Needs space and threshing work but stores longest. Rye tolerates poor, sandy soil. Grain by hand |
| Parsnip, carrot, beetroot | 2–4 kg | 400–750 | 800–2,000 | Months in sand or clamp | Parsnips are the richest. Leave in the ground and dig as needed where winters are mild. |
| Winter squash, pumpkin | 2–3 kg | 400 | 800–1,200 | 3–6 months, 10–15 °C, dry | Cure 10 days in sun first. Seeds are edible fat and protein. |
| Dry beans, peas, broad beans | 0.15–0.3 kg | 3,400 | 500–1,000 | Years, dry | Protein. Fix their own nitrogen, improve the soil for the next crop. Always boil dry beans 10 min: raw ones are toxic. |
| Sunflower, flax, rapeseed | 0.1–0.25 kg seed | 5,500 | 550–1,400 | 1 year (oil goes rancid) | Fat is hard to grow. Eat seeds whole or press oil. |
| Kale, cabbage, leeks, onions | 2–5 kg | 250–400 | 500–1,500 | Kale and leeks stand in winter, onions and cabbage store | Vitamins C and A, minerals, flavour. Kale and leeks are the winter greens. |
| Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce | 2–6 kg | 150–200 | 300–1,000 | Days (unless preserved) | Pleasure and vitamins, not survival. Grow a few. |
Potatoes and beans together cover most protein and energy needs. Add greens for vitamin C (scurvy starts after 1–3 months without it), squash or carrots for vitamin A, and some fat: sunflower seeds, nuts, animal fat or eggs and meat. Plant nut trees and fruit bushes in year one: they take 3–10 years to bear.
- Green potatoes and potato leaves, stems and berries contain solanine. Cut away green parts; discard very green or bitter tubers.
- Raw or undercooked kidney beans cause severe vomiting. Soak, then boil hard for at least 10 minutes. Slow cookers alone do not get hot enough.
- Rhubarb leaves are poisonous; only the stalks are eaten.
3 Area
How much land per person
Rough numbers for temperate Europe. Use the calculator for your own household.
| Goal | Area per person | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh vegetables only | 30–100 m² | Three or four beds of greens, onions, tomatoes, beans. Calories still come from stores. |
| Half your calories | 250–500 m² | Half the area in potatoes, the rest beans, squash, roots, greens. |
| All calories, skilled grower | 500–1,000 m² | Intensive beds, heavy compost, potatoes and roots as staple, grain in rotation. |
| All calories, beginner | 1,500–2,000 m² | Expect losses to pests, weather, weeds and mistakes. Grow twice what you think you need. |
| Everything incl. animals, fallow, orchard, firewood | 0.3–1 ha | Grain and hay for chickens or goats, a fallow year in the rotation, fruit and nut trees, a woodlot. |
One person can manage about 1,000–2,000 m² of hand-dug garden alongside other survival work. Beyond that you need more people, animals for traction, or wheeled hand tools (wheel hoe, broadfork, scythe).
4 Ground
Soil: read it and feed it
Good soil is dark, crumbly, smells of forest floor and is full of worms. You can make almost any soil good in 2–3 years with organic matter.
Squeeze test (texture)
Wet a handful and roll it. Sand feels gritty and falls apart: drains fast, dries out, needs lots of compost. Clay rolls into a shiny ribbon: holds water and nutrients but compacts, work it only when not wet. Loam forms a ball that crumbles: ideal.
Worm count
Dig a spade-deep cube. More than 10 worms: healthy. None: the soil needs organic matter, is waterlogged or very acidic.
Rough pH test
Soil + vinegar fizzes: alkaline (chalky). Wet soil + baking soda fizzes: acidic. Neither: near neutral, good for most crops. Correct acid soil with wood ash or crushed limestone in autumn, a handful per m².
Drainage
Dig a 30 cm hole, fill with water. Empty in under 4 hours: fine. Still full next day: build raised beds or ridges, or grow on another spot.
Breaking new ground
No-dig (lawn or weeds): cut the grass short, cover with overlapping cardboard (remove tape), wet it, pile 10–15 cm compost or old manure on top. Plant straight into it. Grass dies underneath in 6–8 weeks. Fast and the soil life stays intact.
Digging (compacted or stony ground): lift the turf, turn it upside down into the bottom of the trench, loosen the subsoil with a fork. Heavy work: do one bed at a time. After that, never walk on beds again, so you never need to dig again.
Beds 1.2 m wide (reach the middle from both sides), paths 40–50 cm. Mulch paths with wood chips, straw or cardboard to keep weeds down.
What feeds plants
| Source | Gives | How |
|---|---|---|
| Compost | Everything, slowly; structure | 2–5 cm layer every year on the surface. Make it |
| Urine | Nitrogen, potassium | Dilute 1:10 with water, pour at the base of leafy crops, grain, maize. Fresh urine from healthy people is nearly sterile. Stop 4 weeks before harvest. |
| Manure | Nitrogen, organic matter | Compost or age it 6 months first. Fresh manure burns roots and may carry pathogens. Chicken manure is strong: thin layer only. |
| Wood ash | Potassium, lime | A handful per m², not on potatoes (scab) or alkaline soil. Only from untreated wood. |
| Legumes, green manure | Nitrogen | Beans, peas, clover, vetch. Grow, cut before seeding, leave on the surface or dig in. |
| Comfrey, nettle tea | Potassium, nitrogen | Pack leaves in a bucket of water, cover, 3–4 weeks. Smells terrible. Dilute 1:10. |
5 Fertility
Compost: turn waste into food
Mix roughly two to three parts brown (dry, carbon) to one part green (fresh, nitrogen), keep it as moist as a wrung-out sponge, give it air.
Greens (nitrogen)
Kitchen scraps, grass clippings, weeds before they seed, manure from plant eaters, coffee grounds, urine.
Browns (carbon)
Dry leaves, straw, shredded cardboard and paper, wood chips, sawdust (untreated wood), dead stalks.
Keep out
Meat, fish, fat and dairy (rats), diseased plants (blight, clubroot), perennial weed roots unless drowned first, dog and cat faeces, treated wood, coal ash.
| Problem | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Smells of ammonia or rot, slimy | Too much green, too wet, no air | Mix in dry browns, turn it. |
| Dry, nothing happens | Too much brown, too dry | Add greens or urine, water it while turning. |
| Warm only in the middle | Pile too small | Build to at least 1 × 1 × 1 m, insulate with straw. |
| Rats | Food scraps exposed | Bury scraps in the centre, mesh on the base, no meat. |
Human faeces can carry worms, hepatitis, cholera. Compost them separately, at least 1–2 years, and use only on fruit trees and non-root crops, never on salad or root vegetables. See Sanitation.
6 Timing
The year: when to sow what
For central and northern Europe with last frost around mid-May and first frost in October. Shift two to four weeks earlier in the south and by the coast, later in the mountains.
| Month | Sow indoors / under cover | Sow or plant outside | Harvest and work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | Onions from seed, leeks (late Feb) | - | Plan, order seed, chit seed potatoes (from late Feb), repair tools, prune fruit trees |
| Mar | Tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, lettuce | Broad beans, peas, onion sets, spinach when soil is workable | Leeks, kale, parsnips from last year; spread compost |
| Apr | Squash, pumpkin, maize (late Apr), more brassicas | Early potatoes, carrots, beetroot, parsnips, spring wheat/oats/barley | Weed early and often |
| May | Beans in pots | Main potatoes; after last frost: beans, squash, maize, tomatoes out | Earth up potatoes, protect against slugs |
| Jun | - | Kale, cabbage, leeks for winter; more beans; swede | Early potatoes, peas, broad beans; water, mulch |
| Jul | - | Carrots and beetroot for storage (early Jul), winter radish, fennel | Garlic, onions, grain harvest, save pea and bean seed; watch for blight |
| Aug | - | Spinach, lamb's lettuce, winter lettuce, green manure | Beans, tomatoes, maincrop potatoes as tops die; preserve |
| Sep | - | Winter rye and wheat, garlic (Sep–Oct) | Squash (before frost, then cure), maize, main roots, apples |
| Oct–Nov | - | Garlic, broad beans (mild areas), plant fruit trees and bushes | Clamp or cellar roots (how), mulch beds, collect leaves |
| Dec | - | - | Kale, leeks, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes from the ground; check stores |
Beans, squash, maize, tomatoes and potatoes above ground die at 0 °C. Watch clear, still nights in May and September. Cover with fleece, sheets, straw or buckets overnight. Kale, leeks, parsnips and winter rye survive −10 °C or colder.
7 Staple
Potatoes: the survival crop
1 kg of seed potatoes (8–12 tubers) gives 10–15 kg. Plant whole tubers the size of an egg; cut big ones into pieces with at least two eyes and let the cut dry for a day.
Growing potatoes
- Chit seed potatoes: lay them eyes up in a bright, frost-free room until short, dark green sprouts form.
- Plant in a trench 10–15 cm deep, 30–35 cm apart, rows 70 cm apart, sprouts up. Early varieties from April, main crop in May.
- Cover with soil. Add compost or aged manure in the trench, not lime or ash.
- When shoots are 20 cm tall, pull soil up around them into a ridge, leaving the top leaves free. Repeat 2–3 weeks later. Covers frost-bitten shoots and stops green tubers.
- Early potatoes: dig when flowering. Storage potatoes: wait until the tops die, then 2 more weeks so skins set. Dry a few hours in shade, store in the dark at 4–7 °C.
Brown patches with pale edges on leaves in warm, wet weather, spreading within days. It destroyed the Irish harvest in 1845. As soon as you see it, cut all tops to the ground and remove them (do not compost), wait 2–3 weeks, then dig. Grow blight-resistant varieties (Sarpo types), plant early varieties, never grow potatoes or tomatoes in the same bed two years running, and do not replant tubers from blighted plants.
8 Soil health
Crop rotation: move every year
Pests and diseases build up when a plant family grows in the same spot. Divide the garden into four areas and move each group one step on every year.
| Family | Members | Keep apart because |
|---|---|---|
| Nightshades | Potato, tomato, pepper, aubergine | Blight, eelworm |
| Legumes | Beans, peas, broad beans, clover | Root rots, pea moth |
| Brassicas | Cabbage, kale, broccoli, swede, turnip, radish, mustard | Clubroot survives 20 years in soil |
| Alliums | Onion, leek, garlic | White rot, onion fly |
| Umbellifers | Carrot, parsnip, celery, parsley | Carrot fly |
| Cucurbits | Squash, pumpkin, courgette, cucumber | Mildew, can go anywhere with compost |
9 Care
Water, weeds and pests
Most crop losses come from drought, slugs and weeds, not from exotic diseases.
Watering
Crops need about 25 L per m² per week (25 mm of rain) in summer. Water the soil, not the leaves, in the morning or evening, deeply twice a week rather than a little every day: roots follow the water down. Mulch 5–10 cm of straw, grass clippings or leaves halves the water needed and smothers weeds. Critical times: seedlings, potatoes when flowering, beans when flowering and podding.
Common pests without chemicals
| Pest | Signs | What works |
|---|---|---|
| Slugs, snails | Holes, slime trails, seedlings gone overnight | Collect by torch after dark or rain, beer traps sunk in soil, boards to hide under (lift and collect each morning), ducks, strong transplants rather than direct-sown seedlings. |
| Cabbage white caterpillars | Leaves stripped to veins | Fine net over brassicas from planting, squash eggs under leaves. |
| Aphids | Clusters on tips, curled leaves | Squirt off with water, soapy water spray, encourage ladybirds and birds. |
| Carrot fly | Rusty tunnels in roots | 60 cm tall barrier or fleece around the bed, sow thinly, sow after late May. |
| Birds | Peas, seeds, brassicas, fruit eaten | Netting, strings with rattling cans, cats. |
| Deer, rabbits, boar | Whole plants grazed, ground dug up | Fence: 2 m for deer, 1 m with 20 cm buried and bent outward for rabbits. A dog helps. |
| Mice, rats in stores | Gnawed tubers, droppings | Metal bins, mesh, traps, cats. See root cellar. |
10 Grain
Grain by hand
Grain stores for years and needs little care while growing, but harvest and threshing take many hands. 100 m² of wheat gives 25–50 kg: flour for about 1–2 months for one person.
Sow
Winter wheat or rye in September–October, spring wheat, barley or oats in March–April. Broadcast about 20 g per m² evenly on raked soil and rake in, or sow in rows 15–20 cm apart (easier to weed).
Harvest
When stalks are golden and a grain dents with a fingernail but does not squash. Cut with a sickle or scythe on a dry day, tie in bundles (sheaves), stand them in stooks of 6–10 to dry for 1–2 weeks.
Thresh
Beat sheaves on a clean tarp with a flail or stick, or against the inside of a barrel, until grain drops out.
Winnow
Pour grain from one bucket to another in a steady breeze or in front of a fan: the chaff blows away.
Dry and store
Dry until a grain cracks between the teeth rather than bending. Store in sealed metal or food-grade containers. Dry storage
Grind
Hand mill, or two flat stones. Grind only what you use in a week: whole-grain flour goes rancid.
Hard purple-black spurs replacing grains in the ear, mostly on rye in wet years. Highly poisonous (hallucinations, gangrene, death). Pick them out by hand or sieve and float the grain in salt water, which floats ergot off. Do not eat grain from heavily infected fields.
11 Next year
Seed saving: close the loop
Without saved seed, every garden ends when the seed packets run out. Start with the easy ones in year one.
| Difficulty | Crops | How |
|---|---|---|
| Easy (self-pollinating, seed in year 1) | Beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, wheat, barley, oats | Leave the best plants to mature fully. Beans and peas: let pods dry brown on the plant. Tomatoes: squeeze seeds into a jar with a little water, ferment 2–3 days, rinse, dry on a plate. |
| Clones | Potatoes, garlic, Jerusalem artichoke, onion sets | Keep the best, healthy, egg-sized tubers and biggest garlic bulbs back for planting. Never replant from diseased plants. |
| Cross-pollinating | Squash, pumpkin, maize, rye, sunflower, spinach | Varieties of the same species cross. Grow only one variety per species or hand-pollinate and tape flowers shut. Maize: save from at least 50–100 plants to avoid weakening. |
| Biennials (seed in year 2) | Carrots, beetroot, parsnips, cabbage, kale, onions, leeks | Store or overwinter the best roots and heads, replant in spring, let them flower. Insects cross them over hundreds of metres: grow one variety of each. Save from 10 or more plants. |
Select
Save from the healthiest, earliest, most productive plants, not the leftovers. After a few years you have varieties adapted to your ground.
Dry
Spread on paper in a warm, airy room out of sun for 1–2 weeks. Seeds are dry enough when big ones snap rather than bend.
Store
Paper envelopes, labelled with crop, variety and year, inside a sealed jar with a bag of dry rice or silica gel. Cool and dark: a cellar or fridge. Each 5 °C cooler roughly doubles seed life.
Test
Before sowing, put 10 seeds on a damp paper towel in a bag in a warm place. Count sprouts after 1–2 weeks: 7 sprouted is 70 %; sow more thickly to compensate.
| Seed | Years viable (stored well) |
|---|---|
| Onion, leek, parsnip, maize | 1–2 |
| Carrot, pea, bean, pepper, spinach | 3 |
| Beet, cabbage, kale, lettuce, radish, wheat | 4–5 |
| Tomato, squash, cucumber | 5–6+ |