Planning your field: how much grain, maize and potatoes

In short

• An adult eats roughly 100 kg of bread grain, 25 kg of maize, 6 kg of beans and other pulses and 80 kg of potatoes a year.
• Wheat grown by hand gives roughly 0.3 kg of grain per m²: bread for one person needs about 330 m² (about 3,500 sq ft).
• Potatoes give about 2.5 kg/m², so one person needs about 32 m².
• A laying hen eats roughly 34 kg of grain a year: ten hens need almost as much field as bread for the family.
• Split the field into four parts and rotate: potatoes, grain, pulses, maize. In the first year start with a quarter of the plan.

What's inside

Chapters

1. The household first, then the field
2. Animals eat more than the house
3. Yield: what a square metre gives
4. How much you can work
5. Where: which field for what
6. Rotation in the field: four plots
7. Heritage varieties for the field
8. Seed: how much and where from
9. Machines and tools: what you really need
10. The first year: start with a quarter
11. The plan on paper: how to fill in the appendices
12. Common mistakes
13. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Grain and potato calculator
• Area and seed calculator
• Field sketch and four plots
• A year in the field
• Seed and supplies list
• Field log