food needs

Food NeedsMichelle Kuckelman

Calculating food needs for my husband and I has been a valuable and eye-opening experience. It’s nice to have an easy and simple way to go from servings per year to amount of garden space needed for each crop. This really helps when planning since I have nothing to start with on my homestead site. Using these numbers to provide for our yearly needs seems more challenging. I imagine the transition from consumer to producer will be a slow one, happening in small steps over time. I would like to start by meeting all my needs of a few things rather than producing a little of everything. Starting with the crops I have experience with, I will work to gradually establish new beds and increase production. My homestead site is approximately ¾ acre which Peter Bane deems a Microfarm in The Permaculture Handbook. He writes that this amount of land “can achieve a significant fraction of self-provision with some surplus for local trade, barter, and supply to neighbors (p. 111).” One challenge will be keeping up with all the plants once I start producing most of my own food. I want my homestead to produce as much as possible while staying well kept and organized for visitors. The opportunity I am most excited about is using skills learned from this class and my own creativity to design different types of beds that are both useful and visually appealing.

Summary of Dietary Assessment

VegetablesCrop Servings/

yearPounds/year

Number of 100 square foot beds

Broccoli 104 34 1Carrots 104 37 ½ Garlic 52 1 *Green Beans 104 24 1Okra 52 10 1Onion 52 3 *Peppers 52 9 1/8 Tomato 208 90 1

* Requires a very small amount of space. I could just plant these crops at the edge of a bed or where there is room left over.

FruitsCrop Servings/

yearPounds/year


Apple 52 19 ½

Blackberry 52 13 1

Peach 52 15 ½

Pear 52 15 ¼

Strawberry 52 9 1/10

Watermelon 32 12 ¼

Calorie CropsCrop Servings/

yearPounds/year


Potato 104 37 ½

Sweet Potato

104 34 1

Corn 104 61 1 ½

LegumesCrop Servings/

yearPounds/year


Black Beans

208 14 3 ½

Cow Peas 52 4 1

Pinto Beans

104 7 2

Kidney Beans

104 8 2

“Permaculture applies a fundamental pattern to organizing living systems for people called zone-and-sector.” (Bane, p. 35)

This principle is especially helpful as I begin to design the production areas of my homestead site. Considering every factor that might influence crop productivity is difficult, so analyzing zones and sectors provides a starting point.

Permaculture Principle: Design from Pattern to Details

For example this chart on zones suggests that labor intensive crops be kept close to the house, fruit trees slightly further away, and staple crops further still. Combining this information with a sector analysis of my property will help determine where to place beds and specific crops to achieve a high enough yield to sustain my family.

Chart from The Permaculture Handbook p. 54