Recently I was reading the book “The Zero Mile Diet.” It’s basic premise is that the closer to home food grows, the better. Another take on this is the “100 mile diet” where all food consumed is sourced within 100 miles from home. With lock downs in 2020, a lot of what my family ate ended up being sourced within the local community. However, as uncertainty still lingers, I want to grow as much as I can of my family’s food.
Just getting started with gardening? Here’s a few quick start ideas to get you moving.
While the book “the zero mile diet” was good at laying out the various stages of the yearly garden, I found it less useful on the practical side of creating a zero mile diet garden.
How much do I actually need to grow to feed my family?
In a zone five climate and city lot, how much can I grow?
How much Food to Grow?
For a zero mile diet, growing in your yard comes down to how many calories you can harvest. Most fruits and vegetables are not high calorie foods, but they are nutrient dense foods. Seeds, grains, corn, beans, potatoes, and peas are some of the higher caloric value foods you can grow.
One person needs approximately 730,000 calories per year.
There are 341 calories per pound of potatoes, 1574 calories in a pound of dried beans, 367 calories in a pound of green peas, 2422 calories in a pound of flax seeds, and 1728 calories in a pound of flour corn.
Seeds like flax, or grains like wheat take a lot of space to grow a year’s supply. Corn is a bit easier to fit in, if you’re growing flour corn. Never grow sweet corn and flour corn at the same time, they will cross pollinate and mess each other up, grow one or the other. Corn does take up a lot of space still, each planting needing almost 1 square foot of ground.
However, corn can be used in a “three sister’s” planting, with corn, beans, and squash. The recommendation is to seed corn first, and when the corn is six inches high, plant bean seeds at the base of the corn stalks. Then, plant pumpkins or other vineing squash around the edges so that they will vine into the corn plantation and smother weeds.
Growing A Zero Mile Diet: The Math
As an example: If beans were a main protein source for 5 meals a week, I’d need 1/4 cup of dried beans per serving. With three people in the house, that’s 3/4s cup per meal, and 3.75 cups per week, or 2 pounds of beans per week, and 104 pounds of beans per year.
If an average bean plant produces 20 pods, with 6 beans per pod, it makes a total of 120 beans. Depending on variety, beans per pound can be from 600 for large red kidney, to 3000 for small black turtle beans. If we suggest an average per plant yield of 1/2 pound, then I would need to grow a minimum of 208 plants of various bean types to have enough dried beans for a year.
Okay, maybe I’ll aim for half or a quarter of that amount for this year!
If you have enough garden space, or enough time to run a lot of numbers. Calculate how much of a given vegetable you consume in a year, by weight, and figure out how many plants you would need to grow to reach that amount.
Example: for carrots, I’d need to harvest 800, 6 oz carrots to meet my family’s carrot consumption for a year.
Growing a Year Round Garden:
Anther topic that “the zero mile diet” didn’t fully address is the ability and desire to grow food year round. I’ve been also reading “the winter garden” and several other year-round gardening books, and have been fascinated by the determination to grow food no matter what.
The main, simple, year-round technique that “the zero mile diet” covered was sprouting. Sprouts have been amazing this winter, and there are a wide variety available to grow for pennies per serving. Joybilee Farm has a great article on this, and on microgreen growing too.
Mushrooms are another year-round option, that wasn’t mentioned, if you can get them to start during the autumn, you can encourage mushrooms to fruit during the winter.
Zero Mile Diet, or just Local?
The more we can buy locally, in times of uncertainty, the stronger our community food web will be. I am fortunate enough to live in an area with dozens of organically growing farmers, organic beef, chicken, eggs, and dairy, are all available within my community (15 mile radius!). However, even though I have this abundance within my community, I still want to grow as much of my food as I can.
You may wonder why I want to do this work. Well, crop failures happen, family emergencies happen. If the farmer’s I rely on have challenges, I need to be able to fall back on what I’ve grown. If my crops fail, I can fall back on my community of farmers, ranchers, and more to feed my family, local food without worrying about our just-in-time and imported food system.
Is the Zero Mile Diet possible? Yes, with a lot of work, planning, and if you’re growing in zone five or higher.
Back to You:
Interested in growing your own food in small spaces? Have kiddos that aren’t sure veggies should be eaten, or maybe you’re not sure on if veggies will agree with you? Get my exclusive guide “12 Kid-Approved Veggies to Grow, Ninja Style” and start your gardening journey today.
