In our map, we have five 100 m2 fields to grow food. Five fields for the necessary crop rotation to ensure the soil recovers and does not get depleted. Because self-sustainability also includes minimising dependence on other outward inputs. In this post, let’s concentrate mainly on the crop rotation.

I personally consider these crops to be essential for growing in the fields each year in this rotational order:

1. Potatoes – 1 field, estimated caloric output 308 Mcal p.a. with 4 kg/m² production on average. This is the heavy lifter each year, guaranteeing enough carbs for bare survival, if not actual sustenance.
2. Soy/Beans – 1 field, estimated caloric output 100 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. These produce both carbs and proteins, and they fix nitrogen into the soil at the same time.
3. Oats/Wheat/Spelta – 2 fields, estimated caloric output 230 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. Again source of both carbs and protein (in combination with beans/peas, a complete protein), plus bedding straw for animals.
4. Alfalfa  – 1 field, essentially as a rest to fix nitrogen and to grow some high-quality hay to feed the rabbits. Also, part of this resting field could and should be reserved for the composting of both chicken and rabbit manure, as well as any organic scraps that cannot be eaten by them.

This way, the five fields could produce, in my estimation, 641 Mcal p.a. That means two-thirds of the yearly needs of one person living an active lifestyle. And let’s make one thing clear – trying self-sustainability is not for someone who does not like potatoes and exercise.

The remaining third of calories would need to be provided by the rest of the garden, and about that next time.

 

It is again that time of the year when, whenever the weather allows it, I have to cut and prune all the trees in my garden. Above all, the coppice. If I wait a bit longer, the trees start to pump sap into the wood, and it will be more difficult to cut, as well as the cuts would be more dangerous to the trees. I am not doing a full harvest this year, but I did cut most of the maples and some of the thicker poplar and willow poles. Together with the pile of raspberry and Symphoricarpos twigs, it looks impressive when piled up.

You have already seen the front pile. The middle pile is the poplars and willows, and the rear pile is the maples. It looks big in the picture, but it is not much wood. As I said, the first pile is not worth much as firewood and thus will be mostly shredded and used as mulch. Today, I started de-branching the other two piles, and the work is progressing slowly.

Some of the thicker and straighter poles will go towards growing beans over the summer, and thus they will be processed into firewood in the fall. The rest will be cut into ca 50 cm pieces that fit whole into my oven. The thinner twigs will also be cut into 50 cm pieces or shredded into chips, depending on what is easier. These are dense enough to be worth burning (together with the thicker Symphoricarpos twigs), but I might use them as mulch too. It depends on the amount.

And a little cross-over with the self-sustainability posts:

Each time a poplar or willow is cut, they sprout an overabundance of thin twigs in the spring. Most of them die off in the same year due to overcrowding and overshadowing. I am currently thinning these dead twigs because they make other works, like mowing grass or even walking through the coppice, difficult. But if I had rabbits, guinea pigs, sheep, or goats, these could be pruned in early summer when still green and fresh and fed to them. They could also be dried up as “tree hay” and fed to them in winter. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why an omnivorous diet would beat a vegan diet in the self-sufficiency game, because only herbivorous animals are capable of converting inedible plant material into edible protein, thus utilizing slightly less land overall.

I am currently using my coppice as a vegan would. It is a conscious choice on my part – I am not attempting full self-sustainability (I do not have enough land for three people anyway), and the additional workload connected with having to care for the animals is not worth it to me personally. So I am buying all my animal products, and I concentrate on maximizing the plant-based outputs of my garden.

I wrote last year about my sewage cleaning facility  –click-. I actually designed that system myself, and I think it is a good design for a self-sustainable land plot. For just one person, it would not even need to be as big as mine is, although it is about twice the size on the hypothetical map. Here is what I think would be ideal to do with that space.

1. A 5 m³ underground, anaerobic, 3-chamber septic tank. This is the first stage of cleaning, and it separates all the liquid and water-soluble stuff from insoluble sludge. The sludge needs to be pumped out once a year with three people; with one person, it would last much, much longer. And since this structure is underground, it is not accounted for in the map – only the third fourth stage is.
2. An underground sand filter or biofilter. Which one to use depends on the local geography. Sand filters need a bigger slope, and biofilters deal better with being constantly submerged.
3. A 70 m² gravel field sown with reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea. Why this particular species and not the common reed Phragmites australis that I use in my own cleaning facility? Because unlike common reed,  reed canary grass can be mown two to three times a year for hay to feed the rabbits, whilst being just as effective at cleaning the water with its roots throughout the year. With a gravel field this big, I think the water would be even cleaner at the end than mine is, which is pretty clean.
4. An 8 to 10 m³ underground cistern, into which goes not only the clean water from the sewage cleaning facility, but also all the rainwater from all the buildings.
5. A small pond between two rows in the coppice, into which would go the overflow from the cistern. If there were a well somewhere on the property, it would need to be at a distance that a hydrologist determines as safe (in my case, 30 m was seen as ample).

That way, the sewage would serve a secondary purpose as a reservoir of utility water (mostly for watering the garden) in a drought.

Removal of insoluble sludge is the one thing that cannot be dealt with legally in a self-sustainable way where I live, but that does not mean it cannot be done safely, just that the laws are a bit overcautious (for good reasons). In the part of the coppice that is furthest from the well (and neighbour’s well), it could be safely disposed of on the ground once a year, ideally in the spring, in a pile of old, dead leaves or wood chips or both. It would be smelly for a bit, but nature is really good at dealing with shit, and one person does not produce so much of it to cause any trouble. After a few months, that pile of leaves would decompose and transform into compost safe enough to recycle nutrients to the fields. Which are the most interesting parts of all this, IMO, so that is the part about which I will write next time.

Edit: corrected numbering typo.

Let’s talk about some nice, long, hard wood. Sorry, hardwood.

The coppice is divided into five parts for a reason, and for the same reason, it would actually take five years for it to reach its full potential.

In medieval times, this is exactly how they grew firewood. They did not have chainsaws, and cutting a trunk as thick as your forearm is way easier than one as thick as, ehm, trunk. It also dries quicker and is easier to handle allround. So trees were either pollarded or coppiced, with firewood being cut and bound into faggots for transport, then dried, and subsequently used for heating and cooking.

The difference between a pollard and a coppice is mostly the height at which the trees are cut. A coppice is cut almost at the ground level, and a pollard is cut at shoulder height or higher. In both cases, the goal is to get a tree to branch out and create several upright trunks. When these trunks are then cut, the remaining stump creates new ones again. Some trees deal better with being coppiced (hazel), some deal better with being pollarded (basswood), many just do not care that much, and many others are not suitable for this at all.

Almost all softwoods are unsuitable because they will not survive the technique. The sole exception is yew, which was sometimes coppiced for bowstaves, but not very much because it grows extremely slowly, and it was usually cheaper and easier to plunder the wild forests (end of a tangent).

In our self-sustainability attempt, it would be best to plant most of the coppice with fast-growing poplar hybrids. I get ca 1 kg/m² on average with difficulties and suboptimal maintenance, and Google tells me that 0,7 kg/m² yearly on average is essentially the minimum. Therefore, I conclude that 2000 m² coppice should easily produce over 1,5 tonne of firewood yearly on average, and that should be enough to keep one human in a small, well-insulated domicile alive all winters and comfortable most, at least where I live. In colder climates, a bigger coppice would be needed, and vice versa, of course.

On the very north end of the coppice, I think it would be good to plant one-two wallnut/hickory trees, and a few hazels for nuts. And throughout the coppice, any native hardwoods that sprout there should be encouraged in addition to the planted poplars. Eminently suitable are ash (Fraxinus), maple (Acer), birch (Betula), hornbeam (Carpinus), and wild hazel.

How would one go about setting up such a coppice? In the first year, the whole area would need to be planted with circa 30 cm long twig cuts from poplar trees, buried at 50 cm intervals in north-south rows 1,5 m apart. In the second year, before sprouting, they all would need to be cut down at the desired height (I am cutting mine at about waist height, because that is the easier height to use the tools). In the third year, four fifths would need to be cut, and one would be left intact. In the fourth year, three-fifths would be cut, and two would be left. In the fifth year, two fifths would be cut, and three would be left. And in the sixth year, finally,  only one fifth would be cut, and that would be the way to go forward – always cutting the longest growing fifth of the plot. This would maximize the harvest of firewood about the thickness of a human forearm.

But that is not all, the coppice could also serve as a source of food all that time. It would be full of insects, and thus it would be eminently suitable as a pasture for chickens and rabbits. There would not be much grass growing under the trees, but there would be some that could be either grazed or made into hay. And lastly, the trees would sprout an overabundance of twigs each spring, from which only some survive and become firewood. Many of those twigs can be harvested throughout the summer and used as fodder for rabbits, either directly or dry. I estimate that together with other supplements to be discussed later, it should be possible to feed five egg-laying hens, a rooster, and one male and two-three female rabbits to provide their offspring yearly for sacrifice on the kitchen altar. If that makes you uncomfortable, I understand, but that is the best way to make the most out of the coppice.

I will write about the sewage cleaning facility next.