It begins | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

Hello everyone, I am QuinTheEskimo. I'm a redneck from west texas who is dreaming of growing all of my own food right in the middle of town. I have a wife and two young sons so I'm going to need to learn to grow ALOT of food when those guys start growing.

My first step last summer was to get ahold of a 3000 gallon tank and bury 2/3 of it in the corner of my yard. This tank will serve several purposes. It will collect all of the rainwater from my house and greenhouse that I can funnel to it. It is my backup water source and will soon be the home of my tilapia. I will be installing solar pumps to pump nutrient laden water out to my garden, plus whatever fish waste I filter out will go straight to the compost pile. I hope to produce as much as a hundred pounds of tilapia a year out of the tank. Finally the tank is only buried 2/3 of the way down. What is left sticking up will be covered with black plastic in the winter to collect heat and help me stabalize my greenhouse temp.

Once the tank was in place I built a frame over it for a 600 square foot greenhouse. With our moderate winters and a few clever tricks I hope to keep it up to 70 degrees all winter long. I haven't even purchased my plastic yet but summer is just around the bend so I'll be waiting until the fall to cover it.

Today my wife and I built our first raised bed. It is only 10x3. We filled it with miracle grow organic garden soil and our home made compost. At the end if the day we stole kvrs trick and covered it with black plastic in the home of killing of any weed seeds that might have been in our home made compost.

In a few weeks we will be putting in a couple more beds and laying out grids to try the square foot method. My main reason for posting it curiosity about what kinds of yields other posters have managed to get from this method. I read the mel bartholomew book andnhonestlybhave trouble believing the densities he claims you can get away with. What have ya'll seen? What plants went well what plants needed tweaking?

Here is a picture from just before the plastic went down.