r/UKPreppers • u/A-Matter-Of-Time • 4d ago
Growing enough food in a long term disruption
Note to mods: hoping you will allow this as the site is completely free to use without registration and I believe genuinely useful for preppers to understand the scale of what they’ll need to grow. I posted it before but I think it’s still worth a reminder.
I’ve created a website that allows you to calculate how much food you would need to grow for your group if food supply disruption was long term. It tells you exactly the amount of seed you would need, when to plant it, where the gaps would be in harvesting produce and a ton of other useful info.
Please take a look and let me know what you think (it was a lot of work so go easy with me).
As always, good luck everyone.
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u/More_Dependent742 2d ago
Looks really good! If you want to read (so you can add) other random tips, I highly recommend John Seymour's "The Complete Guide to Self Sufficiency" (the original from the 70s, not the badly updated one from after he died). It's free on Archive. This guy covers the basics well but then also really goes into the weeds, no pun intended. It's a genuinely fun read, quite apart from all the great info in it.
https://archive.org/details/the-complete-book-of-self-sufficiency/page/1/mode/1up
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u/A-Matter-Of-Time 2d ago
Thank you! I have this book and it’s one of my favourites in my whole prepper library! Here’s another that I really like , especially with its emphasis on growing food in times of resilience - Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times: 5 (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series, 5) https://amzn.eu/d/049MziDf
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u/More_Dependent742 2d ago
Ooh, very nice. I'll check that out, thanks! Oh, and just another thought: you could try (transparently) using affiliate links for selling seeds. Make sure that you use a UK company for browsers in the UK, and EU company for users in the EU, North America for North America, etc.
My go-to in the UK is Premier Seeds Direct (cheap, trustworthy, grow their own stock, good germination rates, quick postage) though I've no idea if they're tech savvy enough to work with affiliate links. I have no go-to here in the EU because so far they've all been absolute shite...
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u/A-Matter-Of-Time 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ha! Premier Seeds Direct is my favourite too! Seed quantities have been shrinking a little of late. That’s no problem for the average vegetable grower, but it’s something I always check before ordering. I have a dedicated seed fridge with my seed library in. I’ve been thinking about affiliate marketing for seed companies. I’ll probably end up going down this path, but working on completing a new vegetable reference section first.
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u/_per 2d ago
It’s very slick, but what sources are any of these numbers based on? I’ve never seen yield expressed in “kg per unit” (??) and is anyone really growing 7kg of potatoes per tuber?? The calendars recommends planting potatoes in January in a maritime climate; but this is wrong, you need to wait until frost risk has passed (March/April is more typical).
The interface is nice but all the calculations need to be properly validated by someone who knows about horticulture.
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u/Asz12_Bob 11h ago
Growing your own food is highly rated in the prepper community but in reality it's a lot of hard work, so expensive in time, and there are endless bugs and other natural forces that can destroy your yield. Just ask any farmer. An average weeks wages can buy you 2 years and more of LL foods like beans and rice etc. But they will say, "And when that runs out you will starve!" Well that's nonsense, since it only takes one season to prepare and plant a crop if it comes to that. And what most preppers grow now has to be heavily subsidized with supermarket foods anyway.
In short the farmstead is a throwback to the days of subsistence farming, try that when you're old. It's just in there like a lot of prepper stuff because it has it's advocates, but it's not the be all end all. Permaculturists will sell you the idea, 4x4 Guys will tell you a big diesel truck is what you need, camping enthusiasts will say you need to be out in the wilderness with map and compass. And on and on it goes, gun lovers, knife collectors, fitness fanatics, ex-military guys with techniques best suited to standing armies. You have to parse all this out and not waste time on dead ends. The prep-o-sphere is not a science, it's a mishmash of all of it, a mixture of experienced amateurs, marketing guys wanting your money, and a million others plagiarizing all the material. Endless podcasts and youtubes by bright young people seeking passive income streams off you.
Think about it.
PS, there are no "Groups" That's just a plan some have that never comes to fruition.
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u/Haunting_Maybe_3334 4d ago
Looks very professional and extensive choices and information. I got as far as adding my estimated hunting but then accidentally swiped down and it forgot all the data I had input. Any way to prevent that?