I still REALLY need input from ... gardeners to be able to sort out the garden section properly. They need only to give suggestions of how they mentally factor in the growing process in their heads to get from plating to harvest...watering, weedng times....(I dunno as you can see 😆 ) I just want to make it as accurate as the other sections have become.

In the "prefect retreat" topic some of this came up.

Location changes everything due to water, soil, and climate considerations (flat plains, clay, sand, boggier/marshier, rocky, terracing; frost-prone, dryer, colder; 3-mo. season vs. 6 mo. season)
Also, previous land use changes a lot, because what was there before a garden goes in can have an effect on how much plucking you do and what will thrive.

Growing style/type changes things as well:
-Mulch (water and weeding go down), mulch type (soiled rabbit bedding goes straight to garden in perfect ratio, heavily soiled goat/horse/fowl bedding needs composted, but less soiled can go out)
-Chemicals (to store) vs. companion planting for pest control (seeds, space)
-Till vs. no-till (nutrient cycling, commonly biomass and microbe activity within soil greatly altered)
-Bed (raised or in-ground) vs. row cropping
-Swales, hugel beds
-Perennials vs. annuals, wild/weed edibles (especially natives) vs. European crops, shrub-tree crop vs. herbaceous

Livestock (and what kind) affect the garden and time spent on it too (chickens, rabbits and goats make use of a "waste" and create a secondary product or a byproduct that is useful, all also mow; chickens and ducks do part of the labor in many cases; tractored livestock vs. free-free range).

There are all kinds of "plant this" guides that are a ROT, but none is a perfect fit for me and I have serious issues with some of them.
One, I eat a lot of salad.
Two, they by necessity have wide ranges of plants to put in (due to various cultivars and management schemes).
Three, I don't actually like all that many veggies.
Four, they're low on calorie staples routinely (and some admit it).
Five, they regularly are designed for fresh eating, not year-round.
Six, the numbers sometimes make me laugh (we'll do beans by themselves in a minute).

Back to Basics has a list, with yield and plant number suggestions, in at least three of the editions.
Here are others:
This is about my favorite: http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/guide.html
Close second (yields-space use only): http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-331/426-331_pdf.pdf
Not terrible: http://www.growingvegetablegardens.com/planHowMany.html

Other yields:
http://bonnieplants.com/library/how-much-do-i-plant/
http://www.yellowfarmhousegarden.com/?p=1091
http://www.fromscratchmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Estimated-yields-for-vegetable-planting.pdf
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/~/media/295A54F778854C39B455F7B7DB4F4C82.ashx

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetable1/a/How-Much-Plant_2.htm
http://www.vegetablegardenplanner.com/garden_calculators/family_feeder_all
http://www.harvesttotable.com/2011/06/vegetable_crop_yields_plants_p/

This is why I hate them: http://www.wellfedhomestead.com/how-much-should-you-plant-in-your-garden-to-provide-a-years-worth-of-food
Corn - 12-40 per person (Huge range, and spacing means you could be getting 1-2 ears per stalk, or 3-4 ears from standard long-season full-size varieties; and it's presumably sweet corn for "veggie" eating, not grinding/parching or feed corn)
Lettuce - 10-12 plants (We go from huge range to very shallow range; a COS romaine produces a lot more slowly than a simpson, even cut-and-come-again, and what about mescluns and iceberg?)
carrots - 10-40 (Who only eats 10 carrots a year? Are they mini's, mediums, or monsters?)
Lima beans - 10-20 (you need anywhere from 4-8 plants to make about .5-1 cup of dry baby Henderson lima beans, year to year)
Spread for pole and bush: 10-20 each (for fresh green beans/veggie, or for staying on to dry for a protein?)

Most of them really only do the veggies, as well, expecting your staples to come from elsewhere.

2# of wheat seed can cover a 20x50' plot, 1000 sq ft, and give you anywhere from 40-60# of grain in return, plus straw, at about 1500-1800 calories per pound.
So that plot and starter seed ranges from 60K to 108K calories.
Big variable, before you even consider which density you prefer, if you're going to do a legume underplanting, organic or chems, RR or pre-suppression of weeds.

I will hit you with a "bean" rant sometime later.

Meant to throw in this staple crop article from MEN:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/staple-crops-zm0z13jjzsto.aspx#axzz3AqTmV1FK

Meant to throw in this staple crop article from MEN:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/staple-crops-zm0z13jjzsto.aspx#axzz3AqTmV1FK

Ah...more brain food! Thanks Mrs Prep. I figured you'd come to the rescue again 😀 I'll have to study all that you included and see where my mind wanders to after 🙄 Eventually it correlates the data into a tidy little mess in some corner of my mind, thus creating a dust cloud from this disturbance which then causes brain farts to invoke random thought that induce nerve impulses through clumsy fingers resting on a dusty keyboard. How it eventually becomes organized thought I'll never know....

Three biggies and a general list…

Time differs by:
Mulch/no mulch (to include paper and cloth covers, or plastic covers)
- type, depth of mulch
-time spent gathering & chipping it,
-time spent raking in amendments to the top layer, or moving it to plant and replacing it
-time spent raking out top-blown weeds, time spent pulling weeds from under it or from the soil
-time spent watering

Sub-irrigated planters/olla irrigation/drip lines over or under mulch/catchments with or without immediate drips
-time spent watering (slow soaks, spray and pray drive-by’s, fill a bigger reservoir in a long marathon or shorter daily chore with a small or no reservoir)
-amount of water needed (evaporation, runoff, water catchment containers or swales)
-time spent hauling water past hose/pump reach
-Species and cultivar (squash v. tomato, drought-tolerant grain v. corn or buckwheat, sloppy soil or fast-draining)

Refurb of nutrients (especially for square foot gardening or density growing)
-chems/mineral fertilizer (till-in, top-dress, or spray on)
-Or … cover/compost crops for fields and beds, mulch+manure or mulch+compost or mulch+chipped legumes feeding for beds or plots, with regular harvest and spread or sporadic
-Or … fall dig-out of livestock pens and winter “set”
-Or … fall/spring dig-out of compost heaps
(another “lot of work in one span, or less work but more often” segment)

Other time considerations:
-Loam and larger carbon water sinks that slowly release (water less, but better drainage too)
-No-till crop like radish or turnips or dandelion before fruit & leaf crops or grain crops or potatoes and carrot root crops
- Hand-tilling or push tiller or small tractor (days to an hour of variance, fuel availability, mechanics; also depends on how worked soil is before hand and how sharp or easy-to-use tools are)
-Ducks or guineas for bugs
- Kids to pluck bugs
-Cover crops for weed suppression (and type/height of cover, competition of cover, edible or livestock feed cover)
-Goats & chickens for grazing and pre-tilling plots with tie-outs or tractors
-Spray-on chems (backpack or wagon type; type to go in large irrigation spreaders or smaller versions for hoses; pumping for pressure?) (spraying for mildew, mold, insects, fertilizer, weeds)
-Bacteria (helps beans make and leave behind excess nitrogen; inoculated seed, mulch bed or no-till that doesn’t need inoculant, near-finished compost of leaf mold or woods loam to spread thinly and provide microbes)
-Companion crops (especially traps like radish, nasturtium and hubbard squash or predator and hummer attractants like borage and buckwheat or repellants like marigolds and feverfew; require additional care in their spaces so they can provide their benefits)

There are other considerations for time sucks. That’s what I came up with offhand in a few minutes.

And then there’s harvest, processing for canning or dehydrating, and the time for pressure canning vs. water bath canning (water bath not applicable to the beans rant, but beans can be pre-cooked and dehydrated for faster use later, although they don’t store as long that way – for me, anyway).

A smallish garden or one heavy on self-seeders or perennials, especially shrubs and trees or “wild” natives, especially with spreading companions and good mulch around “orchard” crops, you could be looking at just a few hours a week, averaged over the year.

A large bare-dirt garden that needs watered 3x a week, and you could be out there an hour or two almost daily in the growing season just weeding.

Commercial-sized operations using RR crops and machines, and an hour a week, really, caring for lines and equipment and using ring-wheel irrigation and sprayers.

Time is hard to put your finger on.

Yield is even harder to put your finger on, because in some cases it’s up to specific cultivars and in some cases the growing style considerations and the time invested in them.
Give twenty of us the same tomato, even tip layer one so it’s a total clone, we’ll get a different number of pounds off it depending on how we grow, how we prune, our climate and microclimates, the amendments we use (especially available calcium but it's a heavy feeder anyway), how much we take green for roasting and chutney (faster, so faster to make new flowers), how much competition and space it has, whether we water correctly or it's a rainy or dry year, and whether or not we have preexisting pests and how we choose to deal with them.

Beans rant - AKA, why I hate "you need this many" charts for beans

I love beans and peas, let me say that first off. They're pretty plants, they come in HUGE varieties, they have fabulous flowers, they play well with others (some more than others). Some are more durable than others.

You have several main categories of beans: Runner, pole, bush, broad, lima, tepary (not an issue for you), and lentil.
Cow or crowder beans/peas are sometimes separated as well, and should be, since they're a totally different family (Vigna unguiculata).
Lima is actually its own species, Phaseolus lunatus as opposed to P. coccineus or vulgaris, and lentils are Lens culinaris.
And then there's Vicia faba, the broad or fava bean.

Plus, pea-peas: Pisum sativum, which come in field/split pea, sugar snap, snow, and "garden" or English varieties. The split/field peas kind of count in my "bean" world along with lentils and limas and cow peas, since they're dried for soup and more a protein-fiber crop than a veggie.

They developed in several parts of the world and as such, some are more and less tolerant of clay/sand/loam, heat/cold, dry/wet conditions.

However, despite the world of differences to be found in them, most of the world sees beans as pole/vining or bush, something long that climbs or something short that doesn't.
Within these broad strokes, you have vining and bush limas, and their yield differ hugely. Same goes for black turtle beans, navy/small white beans, and red beans that are available in either growth standard.

This might be why yields and planting suggestions range so much with them.

A bush gives its yields faster, but not as much overall even among the ones that can be harvested for a green cutting bean and then regrow a dry bean, or the really precious Hendersons that give me two dry-bean harvests per year and seems totally clueless that legumes can have soil diseases and should be rotated. Smaller yields than some, yes, but steady and reliable and a "go-er". Plus, wicked pretty.

But if I plant 10 of my Baker Creek heirloom Hendersons, we're barely getting a meal for two and re-seed crop off them, and rarely from pods harvested at the same time. Even 20 means there are barely enough at once to do succotash, although I could cut them green (and sometimes do).

The idea of getting the same per-pound yield off my lima bush beans as my Great Northern bush is kind of laughable. Likewise, the Great Northern bush gets spanked by the White Emergo runner.

My Midnight black turtle is a tall bush, easily 2' to 2.5' instead of 18", and outproduces my cannellini by 20-50% annually - in the established beds; it doesn't do well with newly broken ground and it is likely to languor if it follows peas inside 18 months or beans inside 3 years.

The scarlet runners are gorgeous, make fab-o green cutting beans and okay dry beans, but get outproduced by the Vermont cranberry and the painted pony poles grown solely for dry beans.

However, it does make a better dual-harvest (green veggie, then dry protein pods) than the painted lady runner, maybe because it beats the painted lady to a good "green" harvest by 2+ weeks every year, every climate we’ve all been in together, Japan to SW US to MidAtlantic coast. It's still got lots of good nutrient cycling and somewhat wetter weather than the painted lady, and maybe that helps it make more flowers per plant, more pods per plant and then more seeds per pod.

The painted lady stumbles hard for new growth in August and her second time around (for the dry harvest), the pod size is .5 to .75 of the "green" harvest, with slightly decreased pod counts as well on the second go-round.

When you take her pound-for pound for just dry beans and skip the green bean harvest, the painted lady is a monster akin to the Trail of Tears black pole bean.
She’s not as pretty as the scarlet runner, though.

Then you have a whole series of beans like purple queen and “top crop” bush varieties that are solely meant as green cutting beans.

You could grow them out to dry beans, but they’ll produce more of the veggies, then more after harvesting, and still more, and they do it starting in 50-55 days and continue for weeks. So you can grow them at the base of something, and ultimately get more yield out of the smaller, faster bush than you could the slower-growing vine variety, if the vine is grown for green cutting bean veggies.

But inside that higher yield is actually fewer calories and almost no protein.

And that’s something else that makes me crazy, and that led me to the assumption that almost all of the charts and lists I provided above are talking about these things solely as green limas and green cutting beans – the veggie versions.

They don’t specify it, but although potatoes are on many lists, they just don’t have enough corn or beans to provide meaningful calories and protein even over the harvest months. Almost none of them provide any guide for other staples like barley, oats or rye. They’re meant only to give you your veggie side dishes.

And even those have a lot of wiggle room.

So they all have to be taken with a grain of salt, even the good ones, and seriously tailored not only to what would actually work in a given climate and but also growing scheme.

To wind my bean rant to a close, it's about knowing the individual climate and microclimate, soil to sun, and the varieties that work well.

I get different pea yields than a woman just two buildings down from me, because we grow differently.
I get more green beans from pole and vining plants that will then make me a dry bean, and they stay in place longer than another buddy, because she grows bush beans solely for green cutting beans and they rarely have a second blush - just enough for her to get seeds.

Compare the yields from my slightly cooler climate to those in AL, my hard-won cultivated, living, bug-rich loamy soil to fairly dead, largely moderated clay soil, and yields change again.

On the other hand, I can't grow the tepary beans I loved in AZ at all on the coast, even when I heavily modulate with sand. And although they are more protein-packed than other dry beans or lentils, I needed more of them because they were smaller beans, smaller plants with fewer pods, and there was no such thing as two harvests - they produced and then died pretty much immediately, and they had abysmal green cutting bean potential because they were tough and stringy and bitter.

The differences in yield between types of beans is big enough, way before you get into cultivars. Forget the lentils and dry/field/split peas. Even set aside limas, since some do list them separately (and forget that limas can come in both “usual” plant habits).

The yields from different cultivars of beans just vary too much, really, for a good breakdown using just the "pole" and "bush" and "lima" categories that so many of the plans call for. You’d have to be able to break it down almost by variety, and even that has wiggle room.

Which is painful, I know, but it’s one of the reasons it’s SOOOO important for anybody who believes in sustainability or self-sufficiency to go ahead and get started growing, even if they’re only testing 8 plants in pots, 2L and 3L jugs, and buckets in windows (although ideally, outdoors).

A simple planter bed made out of a free filing cabinet or bookcase that can be set up in front of a shop to get a better idea of what pests steal seeds and dig near roots, what weeds blow in (especially if the top 1-2” is from soil that was dug up), how much extra water plants need, and how individual cultivars react to local conditions.

God knows, there’s a huge difference in field growing than beds, planters and containers, and a big difference in growing outdoors than in windows, but it can help.

Anything is better than nothing.

Even though yields might be too low to do anything meaningful with on their own, they can be mixed in with usual grocery sources. The smaller samplings are there to answer questions, refine estimates, to avoid wasted labor and lost seed later, when it’s important.

It’s the only solid way they have an idea of how long it takes and how much the plant will produce with their sun, their rainfall, and their temperatures, and ideally, their soil (even scooped into containers) so they can see which fertilizers and amendments work best for them, and which kinds of aerial and ground pests might exist.

Other alternatives include CAS or CAS-like labor trading, talking to locals about how their days-to-harvest and yields-per-row or –plant stack up against norms and published data, and finding out which varieties work best there, what kind of irrigation is used and how much, and what kind of weed suppression is used.

Even with just bean crops, my labor differs from my mother’s (same USDA zone) and my neighbors.

Knew there were other charts saved (canning vs. growing):

Granny's fresh + preserved:
(Gives you the pints + quarts if you grew the amount called for - but crunch the numbers because sometimes she's a head scratcher; reading the fine print helps explain some of the differences, but some are ... out there)
Missouri totals: http://migarden.msu.edu/uploads/files/Table%204.pdf
(Again, read the fine print for how we multiply by four and come up with the numbers we do)

I'm a Tide fan, but Ugly Uga hooks us up here: http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=C780
It's how much fresh produce goes into X amount of certain processed/canned items, plus common volume-to-weight conversions (in pounds again, sorry, dude).

And I found a staple crop guide, using commercial production standards for growing, for almost any staple crop you'd like to include:
http://www.gardeningplaces.com/articles/charts/chart-06-calories.pdf
http://www.gardeningplaces.com/articles/charts/World-Staple-Crops-2009.pdf

Thanks for all the input Mrs. Prep and I've been busy revamping the program due to this new data. I'd post the progress but there'd be too many errors as I had to change my ways.... 😮 😥 😀 Your input has kept me on this venture as I'd likely have called it done a long time ago otherwise.

Did you check out my work on the meat section? Any suggestions? This sheet seems to have a life all it's own as there are so many considerations that affect ones food stores. The livestock aspect is another that I know I can't squeeze in with the 256K limitations allowed. Also this subject is another department I know little to nothing about. You farm gals seem to have alot of figures that you likely do daily as 2nd nature, that the rest of us never spent a moment even considering.

We'll likely never know, but someday even this spreadsheet may help others out of a pinch by avoiding some grave miscalculation they were unaware of until too late. It is why I continue to do this and likely why you do too. Instead of just damning all that we see wrong around us, it's nice to think maybe we can provide a light to show the way a little more easily.

Here's what I'd do, in the interests of space and user friendliness: break it apart.

Leave most of what you have in the "food supply" spreadsheet. It's a tally for what somebody has in storage, right?

Make a second, totally separate document for the other segments, meats and plants.
What they're growing, raising, foraging, and hunting is not in storage yet. Counting chickens before they hatch.

Knowing how many pounds of whatever fills X number of jars is useful, if you opt to use the "yield" and "jar" counts from granny's guide and Uga. Not only for producers, but also for people shopping at You Picks, farmer's markets, or just by seasonal sales.
I am probably not the only one who got starry-eyed and miscalculated how many jars, lids and rims I actually needed cleaned.

Same goes for meats, hunted or raised. Good to know, fabulous to have the weight-serving-nutrient information, but until it's in a jar, it's not in the storage rotation, really.

Easy enough to transfer info over as people put things into storage, since it already has to be transferred from those initial calc's anyway.

So you have a "production-to-yield" doc and an actual "food supply" doc. And more wiggle room for each.

When you get to livestock, the meat info is fabulous as well. Other sections might include:
- Feed needs (daily, annual)
... differs by: laying hen, meat hens, heavy/standard/bantam breeds of chickens, small/standard/large ducks (and maybe runners) for eggs or meat or facultative/multi-use breeds; winter and growing season needs; forage space available (changes by nutrient density) or pure pellet/dry feed
... also differs by milking/nursing/late-pregnancy stage and "dry" stage for rabbits, goats, sheep, cattle
... also differs by: pigeons and doves (also changes by provided feed or supplemental with daytime foragers)
... different formulas for young and laying hens from the "game/exotic" poultry genres
... draft, draft-mix, standard riding, compact riding horse stock
... mule and donkey stock
*Winter needs change from summer needs, with some serious differences depending on housing situations sometimes; graze space, forage quality, hay/feed quality and scrap/garden waste feed always matters

-Bedding/Housing needs (stall, nest box filler straw or bedding + adult/base stock space req's + weekly/seasonal/annual scrub-down needs + raise-out pens/kennel space)

-Heat lamps (bulb life, power drain, power source, possible battery charge-discharge life/#)
-UV lights *If desired (same options)

-Insulation, curtaining, plastic for winter; or indoor housing

-Livestock specific needs (grit, extra calcium for layers, young poultry protein needs, liniments and meds or herbals, wormers/mite dust or herbs, wraps/blankets, shoe/filing hoof issues, spur and horn concerns, supplies for cutting if raising out some kinds of livestock)

Really what would work there is for you to provide space and others can track their monthly use and come up with their own, then use that as a standard for stocking if they plan to expand their breeding/laying base stock "later" during a crisis.

And on a separate note, relating to the meat section:
A couple of decades ago, I hunted with a guide who could give a pretty good estimate of the amount of fat on a bear (because bear fat is good stuff, just like duck fat) gauging by it's weight and head size, as well as the meat. He could do it even for the young bears where the first 2 and sometimes 3 years they have such different meat-bone-total weight ratios compared to what they'll have as autumn adults.
Fats being something pretty important for long-term sustainability, if you find that, it would be awesome to include. If you find it anywhere (I'm struggling there), could you post the original source as well?

If you do a livestock tracker, it might also be helpful to include a section where people who haven't raised before can track weight-gain by dam-sire combinations and # of weeks, with % meat/meat weight and %fat/fat weight, especially for rabbits and ducks.
Might be useful for hogs, too.

Goats could use a butterfat % section as well as milk production (sheep and cows, too, theoretically).

If you choose to track breeding, you might also eave a space to track how many males and females a stud is throwing (has its uses).

Laying can also be something to track, as well, and egg size/weight can be found with some to many breeds.
Metzer farms has a pretty good chart for their domestics in waterfowl and chickens, assuming the 1-2 years of peak production and a pellet diet. I think they also track winter layers (at least for waterfowl).

Wild duck and hog fat-to-weight ratios can be pretty different from even free-range domestics, and I'm trying to find a good chart there for you for both.

And a last note on meat:
The "Field to Table" dressing and cooking guide for game meats has a chart/table on page 103 that lists some of the common dressed weights of wildlife (notable absences on ptarmigan and crow, and total absence of duck and geese, although separate searches can be run). She uses hard numbers with very few ranges. It might be useful input for the hunting section, how much to expect.

🙂
-P

Other meats:
Groundhog (bookmarked page; earlier slides offer some things like mnt goat, craig sheep, antelope, different deer/caribou/moose venisons, turtle, and small game and game bird info), likely on or close for marmot and guinea pigs: http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/hunting/2013/02/wild-game-nutrition-guide-organic-meat/?image=24
Beaver: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/lamb-veal-and-game-products/4622/2
Coon: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/lamb-veal-and-game-products/4651/2
Squirrel: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/lamb-veal-and-game-products/4653/2

Channel cat: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4255/2
Perch: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4087/2
Bass: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4210/2
Rainbow trout: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4142/2
Steelhead, boiled: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/9998/2
Steelhead, dried: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/9997/2
Carp: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4035/2
Blackfish: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/8086/2
Bourbot: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4212/2
Drum: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4217/2
Pike: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4226/2
Tilapia: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/9244/2

Mussels: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4187/2 (only one I could find, might be close on other types)
Clam: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4182/2 (same disclaimer)

Roe: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4098/2 (can vary greatly)
Pike livers: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/8116/2 (guide, but should be close for other fish livers)

Consumption guides for game and domestic stock:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wat/wq/reference/foodandwater.html

Feel loved?

Wow, I'll be here till this time next year if I tried to sort thru all that.... 😀 I'm just finishing those links above back where I said crap about a dusty keyboard. 😕

My overall goal was to show a newbie how big his garden would have to be to feed X number of people. So he then gets X yards of earth, X packs of seed and plants X rows to expect X lbs of crop. In this way, a fellow can hopefully pre-plan for having enough food reserves to last long enough to get a sustainable garden growing. Add in some forest foraging, fishing, a little hunting and maybe a newbie can make himself self sufficient without having to take from his fellow man. And if they start the garden now, they will need less food reserves to meet their goals.

There are then issues such as preservation of collected foods. By mentioning and suggesting each option, they can weigh how long each amount can last before spoiling. Thus they can plan ahead by setting up for canning and dehydrating.

Even I am used to not spending any time on many of these considerations. If my freezer is full, I often give a large % of the moose and fish away as the wife doesn't care much for it anyways. We fill coolers every time we visit the kids and give them free food to counter their city diet somewhat.

I wrote this program on the basis that folks can measure how long their present food stores can last with allowances to change calorie intake due to individual energy output. This way you can accurately determine how long the stores will truly last. I then expanded to include hunting, gathering, gardening and fishing as a means of showing how one could improve their odds further by doing so and even running scenarios to prove it. My main objective is to help folks prepare better for bad times so they don't have to become part of the problem during bad times by stealing from others.

Many could start a garden tomorrow and not have to mow so much lawn as their garden takes hold. I think many folks will have to consider this option soon, so why not give them a slight push down that path...

Your right that I would have to break it up to add so much more info as livestock and such. I am trying hard to keep the gardening included as it ties in items to maintain a balanced diet. This is priority as health would be a must in bad times. I have simplified it alot so folks can use it without much effort. I have kept it in a basic format to allow it to run easily on cellphones and tablets.

I seem to envision my kids needs as I write much of this and so it hopefully suits many who city dwellers too. The hunting aspect is also for those who haven't thought out what they will do after they have dropped some large game. Without this consideration, much might go to waste. Suggestions are there to hopefully enlighten them in a subtle way. But size is definitely the measure of where I must end this program.