Growing Your Own Food Off the Grid

This instructable shows how you can make your own garden and how to make it almost fully off-grid. I am an experienced gardener; I have gardened for over 8 years, and for 4 of those, I documented my gardening and showed my garden at my local fair. And every time I have shown my garden, it has gone to the Iowa State Fair.

The way that this garden is off-grid is very simple. The garden is centered on nutrient conservation while still producing abundant harvests.

When I reference my garden, I am talking about a small plot (15 feet x 15 feet) in my backyard.

First Year Supplies

Bin for composting (open top and bottom)

Whatever seeds you want.

I recommend getting tomatoes, peppers, corn, onion, and herb seeds.

Potatoes and other root vegetables should be bought every year due to their growing seasons and seed production for the best harvest.

Seed starting trays + growth lights

Maintenance Supplies

Urea

Potash

Gardening Tools

Tiller

Garden shovel

Tomato / Pepper cages

The first step to a healthy garden is to arrange the plants in a way that benefits them all. Even though they are all just plants, many can compete for the same resources, making a smaller harvest. It is very important to get the correct plants together for the best harvest possible. This type of gardening is called companion gardening.

Some examples of good companions are:

Corn and Beans - The beans produce nitrogen that goes into the soil, and corn uses that nitrogen for its grain. The beans also climb the corn, letting them get more sun.

Tomato and Basil - The basil odor deters the bugs that want to eat tomatoes. The basil is also short, while the tomatoes are tall, meaning they don't fight for sunlight.

Carrots and Onions - Like the previous plants, the onion odor deters the pests that want to eat the carrots.

Some examples of bad companions are:

Tomatoes and Potatoes - These plants are in the same family (nightshade family), meaning if one gets a disease, the other plant will probably get it too.

Tomatoes and Corn - Both plants are affected by the same pests, and they both also compete heavily for resources, often stripping the other of necessary resources.

Watermelon and Cucumbers - Like the tomatoes and potatoes, these plants are also in the same family. These plants, however, both fight for the same ground space, eventually leading to one plant dying from the other.

Since you know about companion plants, use that knowledge to your advantage. There are many more combinations than this, but I would just check your layout before you start planting. Also, make sure you have enough plants for what you want. If I want a couple of jars of pickles, I just plant one or two plants of cucumbers.

When checking your layout, make sure they don't fight over resources like sunlight, nutrients, and space. It is best not to put plants from the same family together, but it won't destroy your garden if you do; you just have to be extra careful.

For this type of garden, I also like to keep a small compost bin in the middle. I do this so if I have off-cuts or waste, I can put it in there and redistribute the nutrients back into the garden.

Also, make sure to have all of your plants spaced out; if they are too close, they can kill each other.

Some common plants do best when started early in the year. Some of these plants are: Tomatoes, peppers, onions, and peas. They like being started inside because they either have a longer growth season (Tomatoes / Peppers) or they are very sensitive to temperature changes / extreme temperatures (Onions and Peas).

The best way I found to grow them inside is to use seed starting trays. They are small trays made of either plastic or cardboard (plastic is reusable, while the cardboard isn't). I would throw a well-fertilized dirt mix (Here in Iowa we have great soil, so I just threw in a bit of compost as well) into the seed trays, then plant your seeds. Tomatoes, peppers, and onions get planted very shallow (1/8 inch), while peas get planted deeper (3/4 inch). I would then water the seeds and place them either in sun or under some grow lights.

The best time to plant inside is about a month to a month and a half before the last frost. Here in Iowa, our last frost is between April and May, but it can vary drastically between years and locations, so if you can, check.

Now that you are ready to plant outside, make sure the soil is tilled and prepared. I used a rototiller for my garden, and it works well and fast. I usually do a couple of deep passes to make sure the dirt is loose. If you have a small garden or just some plants you need to transplant, you might not need to till your entire garden.

For transplanting an indoor plant outdoors, it is a several-day delicate process. If you put the plants straight from a windless and temperature-controlled indoor environment to a windy and temperature-changing environment, it can be bad. The best way to ease your plants outdoors is to set them outside for an hour or two, and then keep them inside for the rest of the day. The next day, place the plants outside for a couple more hours, and so on and so forth. After the plants are acclimated, take the plants out of the tray carefully and try to fluff up the roots a bit; this will help the plants grow more roots. Then transplant and water like normal

For direct sowing, read the seed package for depth of seed and spacing, and just throw them in there how the package says. If you harvest your own seeds, you can look it up or read the original package for the information.

One of the important things to having a good garden is to have good soil. Thankfully, many places already have great soil, because in my case I barely have to fertilize my soil. I only add a small handful of potash and urea and spread it evenly. There are mathematical formulas for how much to use, but they are very specific to how much you need. A soil test will help you identify what nutrients you need to add back into your soil.

If you get bags of this size, they could feed your garden for a long time.

One of the things that kills most gardens is weeds. It is VERY IMPORTANT to keep your garden as weed-free as possible. Thankfully, you can employ some plants for this process. Plants like watermelon and pumpkin cover the ground so well that it is hard for weeds to grow.

There is also another good way of preventing weeds. You can cover the soil with grass clippings or a weed barrier. The weed barrier is more expensive, and you cannot reuse it, but grass clippings, however, are easy to harvest and grass is everywhere. Grass clippings also retain moisture much better than a weed barrier. Your grass must be untreated, though. If your grass is treated with pesticides to kill weeds, it might kill your garden and hurt you. It is also important to pull the weeds before placing the grass down; the grass prevents the weeds and kills small weeds, but it cannot stop big weeds.

You don't have to always water your garden, but if you are in a drought or you can see your plants starting to yellow, it will be good to water them. I use a slow drip hose to water my garden instead of a watering can. If your garden gets irregular watering, your tomatoes may develop purely aesthetic scars.

Above is a picture of my garden where you can see the grass clippings preventing the weeds.

Harvesting may be the simplest part of gardening. All it requires is patience. If you don't know if you should pick it yet, just wait another day to make sure. It is better to pick a day late than a day early. Here is how to harvest common crops

Tomatoes - Wait until the tomatoes are over half red and then bring inside to ripen fully.

Potatoes - Let the plant die completely, then harvest.

Onions - Let the plant die completely, then harvest.

Cucumbers - Check the package for the length of finished growth, then wait until the cucumber is roughly that size.

Green / Red Bell Peppers - For green peppers, wait until you can see the skin start to turn, then harvest. For red peppers, wait until the peppers are over half red and then bring inside to ripen fully.

Corn - When the silks start to brown and the kernels feel filled out, harvest.

Watermelon - Harvest when the closest curly vine to the fruit dies.

Basil - Harvest whenever you want; just leave enough leaves so it can live.

Garlic - Wait until the tips of the leaves turn brown, then harvest.

There are many plants I have not noticed, but these are plants I am familiar with and know well.

This part shows how the garden is off-grid. Now that you have harvested, you can use those tomatoes for seed. So you no longer have to buy new seeds. First, you freeze the tomato and then let it thaw. This makes it easier to take off the meat and the skin. Once you get the seeds by themselves, grab a clean glass jar and put the seeds in, followed by some water. Enough water to cover the seeds with room to spare. Then simply leave the jar open for a couple of days. This allows the goop around the seeds to ferment and fall off. After a couple of days, drain the water and set the seeds on a paper towel to dry; then you can store them in a small bag.

You can do this with many vegetables; with some, it is simpler, though. Some seeds are not covered by goop, meaning you just have to separate the seeds and then let them dry. If you want to save corn seeds, however, you need to wait for the corn plant to die; then you can harvest the seeds for planting.

I have been using this approach for four years, and I have recorded the harvests from those growing seasons. Over that time, my garden has produced:

93 lbs of Tomatoes

326 Ears of sweet corn

113 Cucumbers

13 Watermelons (2 years)

17 lbs of potatoes (2 years)

7 lbs of onions (1 year)

15 lbs of peppers (1 year)

2.5 lbs of garlic (1 year)

I harvested all of this while being able to reuse seeds, minimise the use of fertilizer, and spend less time weeding my garden.