How Much Food Could You Grow in an Urban Yard?

In our latest video, we take a look at the small yard of an old house in Hannibal, Missouri and make a guess at the potential productivity:

This is a topic that has fascinated me for years. I used to own a small house in Hollywood, FL back in 2003. This is how it looks as of the Google Maps image from 2021:

I am reasonably certain I planted at least one of those coconut palms!

In the six months I lived there before moving to Tennessee because of a better job offer, I planted about ten fruit trees. Unfortunately, all of them were cut down by subsequent owners, including, very sadly, a lychee and a tamarind, both of which would be highly productive mature trees by now.

You can really do a lot with a small space. Though we own some acreage now, not all of it is being used for growing food. In fact, most of it is not! We have a few acres of unused lawn, plus lots of wooded space that is just filled with oaks and popcorn trees and less-useful species. This will be remedied over the years, of course, since we’ve only lived here for a year.

Our current garden is about 1/4 acre. This is the yield thus far in 2023:

1,139lbs of produce, plus 1,897 eggs.

This is really exciting. Having decent soil makes a difference, plus we’ve really started to get the Grocery Row Gardening system working. It will be interesting to see if we hit 2,000lbs this year. Ezekiel’s watermelons have been half the yields! Once the cassava and yams come in I think we’ll be up at least another 300lbs. Also, the sweet potatoes. And there are at least 30 pumpkins waiting to be harvested.

But I digress.

Suffice it to say that you CAN grow a lot in a small space, particularly if you pay attention to soil fertility and focus on the crops that grow well in your area.

And look… I’m just a piker at this. 1,100lbs is nothing. We have all kinds of space we don’t use in every garden we’ve ever built.

If you want to see insane productivity in an urban space, check out The Urban Homestead. Or read Paradise Lot by Eric Toensmeier and Johnathan Bates.

Use what little you have, pray over it and dedicate the space to The Lord, then roll up your sleeves and get to work. You can do it.

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