In our map, we have five 100 m2 fields to grow food. Five fields for the necessary crop rotation to ensure the soil recovers and does not get depleted. Because self-sustainability also includes minimising dependence on other outward inputs. In this post, let’s concentrate mainly on the crop rotation.
I personally consider these crops to be essential for growing in the fields each year in this rotational order:
- Potatoes – 1 field, estimated caloric output 308 Mcal p.a. with 4 kg/m² production on average. This is the heavy lifter each year, guaranteeing enough carbs for bare survival, if not actual sustenance.
- Soy/Beans – 1 field, estimated caloric output 100 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. These produce both carbs and proteins, and they fix nitrogen into the soil at the same time.
- Oats/Wheat/Spelta – 2 fields, estimated caloric output 230 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. Again source of both carbs and protein (in combination with beans/peas, a complete protein), plus bedding straw for animals.
- Alfalfa – 1 field, essentially as a rest to fix nitrogen and to grow some high-quality hay to feed the rabbits. Also, part of this resting field could and should be reserved for the composting of both chicken and rabbit manure, as well as any organic scraps that cannot be eaten by them.
This way, the five fields could produce, in my estimation, 641 Mcal p.a. That means two-thirds of the yearly needs of one person living an active lifestyle. And let’s make one thing clear – trying self-sustainability is not for someone who does not like potatoes and exercise.
The remaining third of calories would need to be provided by the rest of the garden, and about that next time.
My experience with bailing hay suggests that alfalfa is difficult to till under, so the hayfields are not part of the rotation but remain as hayfields indefinitely. The farmers in the area I grew up with rotated field-corn and soy, but those are commercial crops. Not precisely what you would want for self-sustainability. The fields of alfalfa would be sown about once every decade. In the first cutting we got a lot of grasses, mainly timothy (which was also sown every decade or so). Then in the second cutting it was mainly alfalfa. The season wasn’t long enough in Michigan to get a third cutting.
Do you anticipate a problem with tilling in the alfalfa and then having it still regrow the following year?
@flex, I write mostly from memory with sparse googling of details, and I know about alfalfa only what I remember from school. Now, a quick Google search did confirm that in CZ, it is often grown as a single-year forage crop in rotation. I have no personal experience with it, yet, and I have seen it sown and tilled under in one field around here only -- it is mostly grown at lower altitudes, and around me are mostly pastures and hay meadows. Since potatoes should go after it the next year, I do not think some plants regrowing here and there would be a huge problem, but I do not know. I might know next year, because I am planning to test it in my garden. We shall see.
It is a good point, and you have more experience. It might be wiser to change the last field to green peas. When they are ripe and shelled, the remaining plant matter can also be dried into hay (if the weather allows, pea stalks are watery). Or to plant bush beans for pods, which again can be harvested whole, with pods going to the kitchen and the rest to hay. Both of these could provide two harvests a year; they are nitrogen fixers, and rabbits can eat them. Presumably, it would be less hay than from alfalfa, but on the other hand, it would mean more food.
Heh, I wouldn’t call myself more experienced than you are at farming. I only have the observations of a dozen years of working on a hay crew in my local area. Things could be very different in other areas.
As I wrote above, in our area I found that in the first cutting the hay was mainly grass. I don’t know whether the early grass growth was choking the alfalfa or if alfalfa just took longer to grow. But the second cutting was mainly alfalfa and much denser, it wouldn’t dry as quickly and the bales were heavier. We would get about 100 bales/acre (very roughly) in the first cutting of mainly timothy. Then about 60 bales/acre in the mainly alfalfa second cutting. We took care in stacking the barn to layer then so that we would get a somewhat equal mix of first and second cutting to feed the cows. We also edge stacked the bales and salted them to help remove any pockets of unwanted moisture to prevent barn fires.
I am interested in the results of your experiment to test plowing under alfalfa to move a field to potatoes. I suspect you will have a good deal of the alfalfa crop up again, but I don’t really know. It sounds like a good thing to test.
Are you thinking of harvesting seed from your alfalfa? My impression is that alfalfa seed is pretty small, and quick google suggests they are about 1mm in diameter. Again, I am interested in how successful you are in harvesting enough seed to replant. I’m not saying it is difficult, or easy, I honestly don’t know and I’m interested in learning.
@flex, I do not know if I could harvest my own alfalfa seeds. They are indeed tiny, barely bigger than a poppy seed. But apart from that, at my elevation, it might not ripen reliably. It will probably be forever easier to buy the seeds than to faff with that.