Vanorio - Kick the Grocery Store Goodbye: Three Years to Food Self Sufficiency

This book is a hands-on, user friendly guide that offers guidance in planning for your food needs. My plan is realistic and affordable. One of my personal pet peeves is seeing articles in modern homesteading and garden magazines that are not realistic for anyone on a budget. Articles such as Build an Energy Efficient Greenhouse for only. or Become Self-sufficient in One Year. When you read the article you find out the cost is many thousands of dollars, youre expected to have a foundation already in place or the fancy technique is unrealistic and not practical. In a nutshell, self- sufficiency is the epitome of doing it yourself in a low cost manner that helps you on your path to independence- A. Vanorio 2013

This book is a mix of narrative based on my twenty five plus years of living self-sufficiently and step by step processes to guide you towards decreasing your reliance on the grocery store and increasing your own food production. I have developed a plan so that you can efficiently be producing 75% of your food needs in a three year time span. That means if you normally spend $100 in groceries each week you spend only $25or less! And have the benefits of fresher more nutritious food and food security. This has numerous additional benefits such as better physical health from exercise and a healthy diet. Plus getting out in the garden is a great stress reliever. Growing your own food and providing for your family gives you an immense sense of satisfaction. Each year is broken down into months with strategies to help you to plan, organize, plant, raise, and enjoy your bounty.

My experiences have taught me that setting goals and making a plan will help you enormously in this endeavor!! My very first year of homesteading was a blur of home building, starting a garden, livestock acquisition, and homeschooling! Not only was I a frustrated and impatient woman but every part of the homestead was incomplete! I will help you write realistic plans to achieve your goals.

I have assumed while writing this book that you have some experience in gardening and/or have read a good intro book such as The Vegetable Gardeners Bible by Edward Smith or The Square Foot Garden by Mel Bartholomew. Kick the Grocery Store Goodbye will give you tasks and projects to complete if you chose. Every project is something that I have done, sometimes repetitively. At the end of the book I also show my planting schedule and what foods I eat when. Each year we will grow your garden to achieve more food without becoming overwhelmed. If you have time and money you are encouraged to plant more BUT keep realistic expectations for how much you can accomplish. You will just get frustrated if your garden gets out of hand.

Read this book all the way through to give you an overview. After reading you may decide you have done much of year one and decide to start with year two. After you have read through the book go through month by month following the guidelines for that month. Gardening is much like math it builds on what you have done before. The trick is to keep adding more things (slowly) so that you are growing more plants and more varieties.

My approach is unabashedly organic. Organic gardening is healthier for you and your land. I also use heirloom varieties because I feel they have the best taste. Heirloom varieties reproduce true to form and you can save seeds for future plantings thus giving you more independence. Modern hybrids are bred to ship, not to eat. Any store tomato will teach you that lesson. Furthermore you cannot save the seeds from hybrids because the seeds are sterile. So each year you must purchase more seeds and/or plants. Just another way that companies like Monsanto seek to control you.

If you are a vegetarian you will want to skip the projects involving meat animals. Vegetarians may choose to raise female chickens (hens) for eggs only thus not producing meat birds. I will give hints on growing more plant based proteins to enhance your overall health. Vegetarians will want to incorporate more legumes (peas, beans), greens such as kale and spinach as well as sweet potatoes in their garden plans. Another easy to grow source of protein are seeds such as pumpkins and sunflowers. Nuts will figure predominately in your perennial projection.

All gardening time tables, prices, and energy information reflect my zone 6b and residence in Falmouth, Kentucky. You may need to make adjustments based on where you live. Find your garden zone - http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

Its also imperative to know your average first and last frost date averages. You can find this on the Farmers almanac site:

http://www.almanac.com/content/frost-chart-united-states/zipcode/41040

This is Book One in the series

If you are interested in furthering your path to self sufficiency:

Book Two: Build a Green, Off Grid House for $25,000

Book Three: Making a Living From the Farm

I have also had requests for books focusing on more specific topics such as organics and fruits trees. Those are in the works.

Your comments, thoughts, and reviews are greatly appreciated. There is a Discussion Section on my Amazon Author Page. You can email me at