Precious info that you share ! Thanks for being an oasis of proven example of simplicity and hard work in this crushing crazy times we live!
Norbeto, peasant/campesino, jibaro from Puerto Rico
The Subsistence Gardener Weekly blog features a mixture of gardening advice, thought-provoking articles, cartoons, drawings and sometimes photos. It is edited from our small farm here is Brittany, France, and is the fruit of what we have learnt, and are still learning since 30 years.
The blog is completely free, and is a response to a growing desire on our part, to share our knowledge and to respond to the dynamism and generosity of a subsistence farm, which continues to endless inspire.
You can read some of the latest articles here: Subsistence Gardener weekly blog
If you want to subscribe, please send us your email address, name, (and country if possible!) via the form below:
Love love love your letters.
Caroline Kloppert, South Africa
Some of the Older newsletters (August 2023 – March 2026 can be visited here. We have also printed compilations of the newsletters from 2024 and 2025, and there will be more printined complitations in the months to follow.
I write this letter to the Lewis family to thank you for the newsletters, the books and the videos. They have been crucial in introducing me to farming by hand. I know little and you teach me a lot.
I write this letter to the Lewis family to thank you for the newsletters, the books and the videos. They have been crucial in introducing me to farming by hand. I know little and you teach me a lot.
Amalia, Blekinge county, Sweden
Example newsletter (from the 4th week of April 2026)
Land – and the subsistence gardener
In order to grow your own food, you have to have some land, and for most people who dream of being at least partly self sufficient, getting that land is the biggest obstacle that they see in front of them. It may seem to be inherently unfair that we are not each allocated enough land on which to live, grow our own food, and harvest our fuel – but a brief study of history shows that it is not an injustice unique to our times. For example, most people in Britain, and particularly in England, had very few land rights indeed for all the centuries after the Norman invasion in 1066, and the situation was not much better in large parts of feudal Europe. So it is not surprising that land-ownership laws that emerged from the colonial era, and devised by the British and other European governments, favoured large landowners, and cash crops, over individuals and self sufficiency. Since then, the rise of capitalism and the global economy has consolidated this trend, but, paradoxically, from an historical perspective, in some ways it is easier to get land now than it has been in the past; you do not need to be a member of the aristocracy, or of a ruling tribe, you just need to have enough money.
Pitfalls
That in itself, however, comes with multiple problems, the most obvious of which is how to get the money, particularly if you want to get it ethically, and without causing harm to others, or to the natural world. Another, less obvious, problem is the nature of the title that you have over the land when you buy it. Societies that have had a history of looking after their land well, have had systems of shared ownership, in which people have had the right to farm an area of land for their own benefit, but only in accordance with rules agreed by the whole community – which crops to grow, which trees to chop, and how often, how much water to use, etc. In our current system, when you buy some land, you can do more or less what you want on it, no matter what impact it has on your neighbours, and they can do what they want, no matter what impact it has on you. Furthermore, even though ownership appears to give the ultimate right to do what one wants on one’s land, modern society places economic pressure on everyone, in every area of their lives, and the more land one has, the more tempting it is to try to monetise that land to meet society’s demands. This is the trap that has drawn generations of subsistence farmers into the modern agricultural system; in many parts of the world, including in parts of Europe, there were communities of subsistence farmers living quite comfortably right up until the middle of the last century; the pressure to pay rent, local taxes, school fees, social charges, etc., led them to try to boost production, sell more, acquire more land, and mechanise their farms. Most of today’s family farms originate from smallholdings that were largely self sufficient just a few generations ago; people buying land today with the idea of paying their bills with money earned from the land itself, risk a similar fate.
Realities
So, there are certain realities that have to be faced by anyone who has decided to take up subsistence gardening. The first is that it may be necessary to move to a new location. Most people now live in towns and cities, but the price of urban land is determined by global property markets, and bears no relation to what an ordinary person can afford. Moving to an area that is key to the modern farming industry is probably also not feasible: prime agricultural land in such areas is expensive and highly sought after by big farmers, corporations, and hedge funds. Neither is it a good idea to move to a remote location, where farming has always been marginal, or impossible. The ideal is to find an area with a long agricultural history, but where the topography does not suit modern farming methods, and which has therefore become depopulated, and some land has been abandoned. The second point to recognise is that it is only possible to work a relatively small area of land by hand, and to still enjoy oneself; thus it is a good idea to resist the temptation to buy more than a hectare, or two at the most. Half a hectare may be more than enough. Also, ideally you should be able to live on, or within walking distance of, your subsistence garden. And thirdly, the project should be such that you can pay your bills without having to deplete your land.
Gareth Lewis
