Hello rorschach;
There are some great books out on the subject and a few websites as well. I like these links;

http://northernbushcraft.com
http://theurbanfarmer.ca/resources/edible-plants-for-the-prairies/

The larger investment before the first seed goes in the ground is in time and materials to keep wildlife from enjoying the feast before the farmer does. In today's world with large crops everywhere, the animals can nibble here and there and when possible sneak into a yard with a garden as well. But after a SHTF that shuts down large scale farming, there will be far fewer choices for them. Many people who garden now may not be able to later because they did not save seeds or buy extra packages. Therefore your offerings will be highly sought after by our forest friends.

It will also be important to hide these plantings from people roaming around with empty bellies.

I would suggest starting with all your orchard type planting. Apple,pear,peach etc. You will have to "baby" them the first year until they are well established. Also all the bush type fruits like raspberries,saskatoons,bluberries etc. After the first year of love they will all do very well on their own and should produce well to eat fresh,freeze,can or dehydrate.

You could start rotted log mushrooms which are good in swampy damp forest areas.

Growing potatoes, garlic, onions, asparagus,cabbage etc should do well on their own if rain is reasonable and they don't get attacked by beetles,bugs,slugs etc.

I would still consider organic wheat and corn. If you have a hand grinder you can make flour. Your biggest issue is probably going to be things like deer and other animals that will eat all your crops. You may want to invest in really high fencing!! If you are not at the property enough watering will be an issue with low rain fall.

Excellent suggestions, thank you.

I guess even more basically ... given the above ... does anybody have any "back of the napkin" calculations for how much acreage is needed to support, say, 5 or 10 people? This would be with 5 or 10 of the crops mentioned above, using some kind of crop rotation / 4-square type system.

I'm hoping 5 or 10 acres, but I sort of pulled that number out of my rear end. Probably the staples would take up most of the space and work requirement. The idea would be setup the land / enclosure, and have small amounts of each desired crop such that I could maintain them reasonably well in the here and now, and then scale up as needed.

Along those lines, what is the cheapest effective fencing for this purpose? Standard 3 wire barbed wire with some kind of chicken (or other animal) wiring?

What about so-called "barrier hedges?" Are these feasible in our northern climate?

***

I guess the plan is:

Step 1. Plan types of crops (feasible for climate / land / work input / nutritional value) and placement.

Step 2. Determine area of land needed and relative crop proportions, along with rotation system.

Step 3. Prepare the land / plow / rototill whatever it is that farmers do to turn scrub brush into arable soil.

Step 4. Fence.

Step 5. Plant.

Realistically, I expect it to take 2-3 years to get to Step 5...

Sigh.

😥

Have you thought about growing quinoa? It appears that it grows best north of highway 16 and is quite drought tolerant. Might be interesting to research as it is a complete protein, which isn't common in a grain crop.

MorningCoffee,

I must admit, I thought quinoa was just "rich people food."

So I looked into it a bit after reading your post. I am surprised it likes to grow in our climates, seeing as it is apparently from south and central America. One source I found gave the following nutritional info:

185 g serving
222 kcal
4 g fat
38 g CHO
8 g PRO

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Micronutrients aside, You can clearly LIVE on just this food. Assume 2000 kcal / d. That gives you 72 g of complete protein. Using a conservative estimate of 0.8 g/kg/d protein requirement, this would support the protein needs (although not the caloric needs) of a 90 kg man.

Very interesting. I'll look into sourcing this. It does look like there is a significant PITA factor to harvesting / threshing / processing, but I guess I'll experiment and see what happens.

Thanks again!!

I'm looking at a similar circumstance, rorschach. Seems to me that (pricey) elk fence is needed to keep out the deer, and an automated irrigation system of some kind is necessary for unattended gardening. I've had good luck with container gardening, by placing a bunch planters in a tub, letting it self-water. If I could collect runoff, from a structure or surface, and drill a drain hole at maximum depth, even a small amount of rain will carry quite a few plants a long time.
I'm also thinking a 5-year time-frame is reasonable, I'll likely develop raised beds and cold frames, make good soil, see about getting Dutch Clover seeded to get some nitrogen into the soil for a few years. I desperately need to get some trees in the ground, but I just can't take care of them, all the watering systems that might work are pricey.
For fruit bushes, one option would be to over-plant, see what takes, thin it out in a few years if it needs it.

Here's one type of fruit bush I grow that I would highly recommend to others, Honeyberry/Haskap.

1. Native to northern Russia, Japan so great in cold country.
2. Honeyberries produce clusters of unique, elongated berries with a high level of antioxidants and a
sweet, blueberry-like flavor and get this: Plants live up to 50 years!
3. Tolerates drought better then most fruit bearing plants.
4. They can handle most sorts of soil better then most. In other words they are not as fussy as blueberries.

Raspberries is another, if you have the space for them.
They do spread out, but do produce a fair amount of fruit. So great for not having to go out and buy more plants. Never had one that didn't take and I am none to gentle with the new starts that I dig up. 😉
Again cooler area doesn't seem to bother them either.

Rhubarb is another plant that keeps on giving without all the fuss and cool weather plant as well.

I like plants that keep on giving without having to babysit then 24/7/365.

Hope that helps somewhat and good luck. 🙂

@OldTimeGardener, have you ever tried raising rhubarb in a winter greenhouse?
I was just given some rhubarb root, told it was a hardy plant, buried it in the ground, and sure enough, I've got 3/3 plants coming up. Apparently, it will take a couple of years before I can start harvesting, but certainly tough little buggers. Did not know they were a cold hardy plant, though, they'd be a fine fruit (well ok, technically vegetable) for winter consumption, if they are capable of cutting it in a winter greenhouse.

Nope never tried grnhse growing for rhubarb. We get down to minus 30s (sometimes more) and I sure not heating the grnhse.
I harvest enough in the growing season. I save my grnhses for toms, peppers and such.
We have an odd weather system here...really late freezes then on comes the really early freezes. Getting worse each year too.
If that's not bad enough, Ma Nature loves to toss in mega hail/wind storms just as the fruit trees get blossoms or tiny fruit on them, knockin it all down.

So guess depends on where you are and your weather for your immediate area.
If you try, let us know how it works out.

Morning Coffee...I'm glad that you mentioned about quinoa. I hadn't realized that it would be an option this far north. It's one of our family's staples and will definitely be looking into this more. Thanks.

I agree with the above posts regarding rhubarb and fruit bushes, ours are doing excellent without babysitting them. I too was under the "ass"umption that quinoa was a warm environment crop...hmmmm. I think we might have to try a couple of acres, strictly out of curiosity! Thanks.

Rhubarb can yo plant near everywhere, it is also planted in Northern Scandinavia (Norway Finnmark and Sweden Norbotten for example), Finnland and also in Murmansk in Russia. Everyone of them get sometimes more than -35° to -40° Celsius. Even some Hop Sorts from Northern Scandinavia triving in this cold places.
What you can plant near everywhere is also Root Vegetable and Cabbage, they are in big need of wet and cooler soil to trive, of course also Potatoes, but they need a dryer soil. As it comes to wheat, there are only two ancestor sorts (every wheat is a offspring of them, more or less), that you can plant and this are Emmer (black or white sorts) and Einkorn. The benefits of them is also, that you will not have problems with people with gluten allergies.
Both can be also planted in bad sandy or gravelsoil. Oat is a wonderful and very good grain, that you can plant also near Glaciers and in sour recultivated woodland. There also some old sorts of Barley, that you can plant, but they need richer good cultivated soil. Grown up at a arctic farm, farmersdaughter:-)

Almost forgot: Rye is also a grain for cold winters and sandy and sour soil.
Every grain you should sow, depending on the climate (and how cold) you're living, between early Aug. and in the third quart of Sept.. If the grain (Sweetgras) is evolving and growing before the winter begins, you should clipping it like a normal meadow.
Good luck:-))

@rohrschach Sadly my post don't appear. Here my sugestions for arctic and cold climate farms again, depenting on own professional expieriences:
- Plant root vegetable, cabbage and potatoes, they will trive. The fist to need a colder and wetter soil. Potaoes love slightly dryer humous soil, they also make the soil with every crop better.
Grain:
- Ur-weat as Emmer (black and white) and also Einkorn will trive at a good ammount. The soil can be very bad with much sand and gravel and also if you have salty soil, they will change the soil to better soil.
- Rye and Oat is also the absolute must, they are specialiced for to grow in colder climates, especially Oat will trive even near a Galcier! Oat has no special needs to the soil, but Rye need a slighlty better tilled soil with finer seedbed.
- There are also some old Barley sorts, that will trive in this cold climates. For the soil, you need the same seedbeds as for Rye.
- Rhubarb you can plant near everywhere. There are also some old Scandianavian Hop sorts they are available, there whitestanding -35° to -40°.

Grainplanting colder or cold climates:

- sow the seed between beginn of August and the 3th quart of Sept, depenting on your own climate
- when see the grass coming out and will be bigger than around 8cm / 3,14 inches, mow the planted grainlot like a meadow
Good luck and happy harvest:-)

I planted over 30 haskup bushes two and three years ago and was gifted with loads of Russian blueberries this year. I also planted about ten cold Hardy kiwi vines this year-THEY say that each (female) plant will produce 60-80 lbs of fruit per plant. I"ll let you know how they produce next year.