Become food self sufficient

Mulch it more!

No cost/low cost alternatives

• Plant seeds from plants you’ve eaten (almost all my fruit trees)
• Use your land resources for borders or bed building
• Mulch with your grass clippings/palm leaves/cut plant matter
• Compost from your plants/animals
• Propagate plants from yours before they finish their life-cycle

Use your resources/terrain

• Dead Trees
  • Borders
  • Slow release of nutrients if placed in garden beds
  • Mulch if debarked/chipped
• Lava Rocks
  • Borders
  • Plant holder-uppers

Start small

• Start with one garden bed that you can maintain and don’t start multiple beds you cannot maintain
• Don’t clear areas unless you have plans that you will start right away and will maintain
• Careful those weedy plants grow fast!

Research plants before planting

• Pick the right spot for them, sun tolerances, size at maturity, shape, planting distance etc.

Plant starches and super plants first

• Since starches and perennial plants take time to establish themselves plant them early
  • Sweet potato, cassava, yams, taro
  • Turmeric, ginger
  • Choko (Sechium edule), winged bean, moringa, gotu kola (Centella asiatica)
  • Papaya, banana, breadfruit

Eat what grows

• I love stone fruits (plums, apricots, peaches), onion bulbs, garlic and many other things that will not grow in my climate. So I’m learning to live with replacements
  • I can grow green onions, chives or leeks
  • I can grow society garlic and garlic chives

Plant native plants

• It’s a sad reality that native plants are being displaced. Help them out by creating spots for their natural beauty in your garden

Never plant invasive plants!

• It’s not worth it to sacrifice the native ecology

Plant carefree hardy plants

• I can plant cassava and forget about it completely, and come back to it ready to harvest leaves or roots months later.

Plant beans everywhere!

• They fix nitrogen and if I forget to harvest them it will reseed and I’ll have more plants later

Get creative

• • Too many of a single fruit? Preserve it so you can eat it when the plant isn’t producing!

The possibilities are endless – get creative and teach someone your tips

Minimize waste/recycle/upcycle

• I put paper product waste in my garden. If its glossy and inked I will place it under a path for weed suppression. If it seems nontoxic I will use it for weed suppression in my garden beds
• Got spare wood around from another project? Build borders for planters or beds, build a garden table, build a solar dehydrator for food preservation