How Much Garden You Would Need to 100% Survive On

> If you’re going to survive on a garden, you won’t be eating meat.

I'd recommend at least raising chickens, for the eggs, poop, and some meat. I would also add a couple geese to help defend the chickens. Rabbits are an option, too--they taste great, they fertilize the ground, and their pelts are useful.

Venison (deer meat) is another healthy addition, and because we humans have squashed wolf populations across North America it is our responsibility to either promote wolf recovery, do what wolves do (selectively kill deer), or both. Deer overpopulation leads to disease (as in urban rabbit populations, too) and changes in the land (see what the reintroduction of wolves did in Yellowstone National Park--beavers might have been critically important there, too).

Whatever environment you find yourself in, do what you can to increase the biodiversity of the nearby land. If the fungi and plants are part of the local web (and not some useless decorative or parasitic thing) they will confer increased resilience as climate changes (might carefully consider introducing quasi-local lifeforms depending on what the likely changes will be). Swapping grass lawns for a perennial mix of native prairie plants, for example, will bring more pollinators and smell/sound/look nice. Dandelions don't go back thousands of years in Washington state (that I'm aware of) but unlike daisies they are both edible (root, leaf, and flower) and minimally invasive.

In any case, tweak things so that nothing burns out; keep few enough chickens so they don't turn the ground to bare dirt, for example. Might need to cooperate extensively with neighbors.

I like how the article just hand waves away the 4,000 sq. ft. figure by saying "but you probably don’t need quite that much as long as you’re efficient" like somehow magically you can make it work in 200 sq. ft.

You can't.

Article says that gurus think you need 4000 sq ft per person but then article changes tunes and, without citation, it says you need only 200 sq ft per person.

Let’s calculate ourselves. Currently 50M km^2 of land is used for agriculture. Divide that by world population and we get 76000 sq ft per person.

choosing what you grow would be incredibly important. I've calculated the yield of most vegetables and fruits per square foot and I can tell you there's quite a bit of variability. At the top of the list you have Cassava, Yuca, Sweet potatoes, potatoes and surprisingly: Sunflowers. Dont forget about sunflowers. first of all, sunflowers grow up and thus take up vertical space instead of horizontal space. what makes them so incredibly high yield is this one thing most gardeners overlook: Most vegetables and fruits have a caloric density of about 0.2 to 0.8 with potatoes being 0.8. Sunflowers, as a seed are 5.7 cals per gram because their mostly fat! So, you get 10 times the yield per gram for sunflower seeds than fruits and veggies. And, even better, sunflowers are actually very dense with minerals and vitamins. And, not only that, but sunflowers can pass mustard with even the most greedy HOAs as most people consider sunflowers decoration and not food.

Another way to calculate yield would be based on the amount of time or water it takes to grow each thing.

Also, don't overestimate protein. People don't know because it's never marketed but actually, the vast majority of plant based foods already contain quite a bit of protein in them, much more than you need to survive. I've done a bunch of calculations already about the amount of protein per 200 cals or 3000 cals: https://kale.world/very-highest-protein-foods-from-each-food...

the size of garden is only one aspect.

the amount of labour required; the cropping capacity of the land is not inexhautible, and must be borrowed from elsewhere [fertiliter] if you use the same land for succesive crops.

if average human lives 70 years thats 70 crop years times acreage of 1-2acres required. either the same piece of land is farmed and reamended 70 times or location changes periodically when a piece of land becomes crop barren.

certain crops such as corn will decimate the soil content, and have to be grown in rotation with soy or others

I wish there were more people doing this with hydroponics or aeroponics, because gardening in dirt is super inefficient in terms of water and space usage. You also have to worry about yields, pests, and crop failures, which can be totally negated in a controlled environment. With GMOs (Perhaps with crops that are engineered to use more efficient C4 photosynthesis), and a finely tuned system, I imagine a person could survive on 500 square ft. or less.

I feel this topic is incomplete without considering preservation and storage strategies.

If this stuff is interesting to you, I can't recommend "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" enough.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622637/the-encyclop...

This is one of those endeavors where you think you know something until you really try it (and I mean really try, not just grow a few things), and then you find most of it turns out to be the opposite of conventional wisdom.