try growing a garden, 10 foot line a fortnight, next spring; The high yield of green beans.

Seriously, if you have land, consider getting a shovel and digging up a 10 feet line of soil per person in your family and plant green beans in double rows every 14 days. Where I am we have (or had) a tick problem, and when it was being discussed about spraying them-well to save the other insects, I dug up a plot of land and turned it into a garden to create a barrier. spotted 6 butterflies today on our mint plants. 8)

I have 8 double rows of green beans (and many other things growing in the garden), variety blue lake 274. Or essentially 16 rows of green beans is about 8 rows worth of space. Though our garden is late in the year, especially for our geography, a 35 foot row has produced well over 30 lbs of green beans-enough to provide the vegetables for my family of 3 for over two weeks, while giving away pounds and pounds more. We have about 7 more double rows here to get in before the first frost. So that it likely another 210 lbs of green beans if they come in. I think I am averaging about a quarter pound of food for each bean planted. A pound of blue lake 274 is about $15, and that is all that I planted in terms of beans. The instructions say to thin (basically to plant too close together and pick out the weaker plants is the idea behind thinning), but I space the seeds far enough away so I don't have to.

To avoid confusion, the double row should be two rows of beans 6 inches apart. If you grow another double row, try to leave 2 feet between the double rows.

If you really want to, between your rows (your rows should be 2 feet apart) of green beans, you can fit in greens such as turnip green, or beets. Possibly others, but I never had any luck with lettuce here. you can buy seed packets of beat sand turnips probably at a dollar store for a quarter when they are in season. Even in the norther part of the USA, you can plant them in the spring, and again in early august. So even if all you see them for is a buck a package, it is still a deal.

I know cans of green beans and frozen beans dirt cheap when they are on sale, but you are in control how they are grown, and they will be garden fresh. Even wal-mart charged about $2-4 for a pound of kind of fresh green beans, about $3 for a bundle of beats with greens, and $4 for turnip greens.

But for a very little effort you can be eating fresher and presumably healthier food while saving money at the same time.

I ideally I would like to get to the point of not needing a grocery store other than for milk, cheese without animal rennet, and eggs, or some specialty things. Next year maybe I will try growing wheat or oats.

My dad says that the grasses you grow for grain tend to die each year-That the practice of having a green grass and mowing started well before he was born. How sad when you think about it; We could be a country full of free food growing everywhere around us but we have chosen aesthetics and unnecessary labor (or expenses) often letting gasoline emissions into the ground. Traditional grass should be seen as a weed to get rid of. I am no environmentalist, environmentalism is mostly about force. Force is bad. The poor could be fed for minimal effort instead of through taxes-the ability to tax is backed by the force of government. There is a lot wrong with this world, and I think that if we go back to (non-industrial) vegetable gardening/farming, and of course studying the origins of law especially Roman Law, that our nation would be a better place having identified what is it like to be in nature and what is the purpose of government that we are to sacrifice a great percentage of our crop to. I am not opposed to industrial vegetable farming either, they do a great job doing what they are doing and they are vital to our economy-more so than money.

And besides, when the age of automation comes or a civil war....skills like this will become imperative. Sure you can plant things in the ground for food, but if it comes to survival you got to ensure that you manage what you plant properly else it may go to waste and you make not have the surplus to get you through the winter. Our ancestors likely grew Squash and turnips for the winter, and reportedly carrots can be picked even in November-but I never had luck with carrots in the first place. But I think I wrote enough.