How Does One Homestead?

[ziggette]

My husband and I just bought a 1/2 acre with a nice 3 bedroom house and a large shop. Couple of fruit trees and enough space for a very, very large garden and we have well water. This is my first ownership and I am already in my 50's. My aging mother moved in with us so that I may take care of her before her passing. My question is, how does one homestead, what does it mean, and can I get a piece of the action? I am willing to work for that piece, after all, my property is shaped like a piece of cheesecake ! I know how to garden and I enjoy the farm setting. I even have access to horse manure for my garden to get it ready for this spring's planting. This is my first posting and I am not sure what goes on but I am ready to become one with the earth! Thanks for any answers one of you might have for me.

[wyld thang]

HI Zig! You've got a great start with the garden. Are you in a rural area, or a more suburban area? You'll get lots of great ides,but here's my two--get chickens (they are so much fun, easy, they have personality, and the eggs are yummy), and make a nice patio area so your mom can have a nice place to set while you're in the garden. Does your mom like the country environment?

[wy_white_wolf]

Sounds like you already have a piece of the action. Even if it is cheesecake shaped.

Welocome

[Windy in Kansas]

The term homesteading has many different meanings, it just depends who you pose the definition question to. I am more of a purist and hold to the old idea that it was a way to acquire land. Most on here consider it a lifestyle and I accept that.

Homesteading is therefore a lifestyle of ones own choice to achieve their individual goal. Those goals may mean being as self reliant as possible through gardening, hunting, barter, cutting needed firewood or whatever. It also might be what we often think of as small scale farming.

Since you have plenty of garden cropland and an orchard, albeit small, you are already a homesteader of sorts. Add a few hens to help with insect control and food production and you are on your way.

Welcome. Greetings from Kansas Windy in Kansas

[james dilley]

PLZ Don't get upset ,But Take A shhet of Paper and write down What you want to do. Think of Ideas. A half A dozen Hens and if Allowed A rooster, Meands Eggs and the sounds of country living. If you enjoy the Garden Think of How much of your food you want to raise. And Think about Small grains. A 10X50 plot can grow A bu. of corn, A 10X60 A bu of wheat. And by All means Get the FREE fertilizer the Manure offers. But Also Take your time constraints into Account.. You might decide you want to Try raising Fish too. Then theres Rabbits for fertilizer And Meat. Just A few thoughts..

[jen74145]

With that size, I'd probably have a veggie garden ( I love heirloom varieties) a few hens for eggs, and rabbits for meat. Check out pathtofreedom.org, they've done some amazing stuff on a teeny piece of earth.

I have 3/4th of an acre myself and do the same as above, but there's room for a couple mini goats if I'm careful. Have to decide whether I'd rather have them or the big garden, with space limited as it is. I might get a pair of potbelly pigs for meat someday, too.

One book I love that will help you with that first garden is Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew. Rareseeds.com has a great selection of heirloom garden seeds, too. You've got plenty of time to read and decide what you want before seed starting time... I'm already drooling over next year's garden plan, though.

If you do decide to try raising some small animals, start slowly and do it right the first time, get your coop/cages/whatever set up, decide what breeds you really want, and go from there.

[Windy in Kansas]

Be sure to read the Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. Seek it through library loan or Inter Library Loan. I expect you will wind up buying a copy after perusing it.

[comfortablynumb]

Pretend you are desperately poor and call it homesteading, not poverty.

[botebum]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

Pretend you are desperately poor and call it homesteading, not poverty.

Who's pretending?

Doug

[Madroaster]

Originally Posted by jen74145

Check out pathtofreedom.org, they've done some amazing stuff on a teeny piece of earth.

Should be pathtofreedom.com

[Beeman]

The fact that you've taken your mother in to care for her shows you have your priorities in order. I don't think you will have any problem figuring out the rest. Just don't think all of the rest is more important than your life and family.

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by botebum

Who's pretending?

Doug

not me for sure... lol

[doulanobles]

Chickens, rabbits, garden, a few dwarf fruit trees, herbs (sell the extra). Do it by the following motto:
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!

Good luck! I started on 3/4 acre and had a big veggie garden, 12 fruit trees, chickens andraised cut flowers and herbs, used them in my soaps and sold some to all the people around me who had $ to burn.

[FarmboyBill]

You first should have your buildings in place. A barn, for housing hay, straw, grain, feed, tools, garden tractor, perhaps a place to milk a couple goats, or whatever. a chicken house around at least 8 wide by at least 10 long for one to two doz chickens. Portable is way better. take 4 cattle panels and make a square out of them leaving 2 openings opposite of each other. If you can find a regular farm community sale where everything for the farm is brought in by farmers to sell, buy as many rabbit hutches as you can hang from the top rod (wired to the top rod) and braced from the bottom of the fence to the outside edge of the hutches by hardwood 2 X 4s. 4 X 4s are better. I have around 2 doz hutches hung at the top along the permeter, and hutches running down the center. This will supply you with all the meat and manure you will need for your garden. Keep 5ft or so between the cattle panels and your border, so as to be able to burn off the loose hair that gathers occasionally on it. Seed this area in clover, and you have an close area to go pick some clover for your new mamas who will love the treet, but feed very LITTLE each time. Build another square without the 2 openings and build a small 6ftsq buiilding. buy a wiened pig and feed up to 275lbs thereabouts, or say from spring to late fall, then have it butchered. You could then do the same again from fall to spring Garden. Devide your total garden area into 2 areas and only plant into one area each year, growing the other in alfalfa, or clover, or at the very least rye. Move your chicken house from one area to the other each year, or have it permanently built to where you can open one door and they go into one area, and open another, and they go into the other. plant 4X4s into the ground say 10ft apart in a row or two with 1 1/4 holes in them around 1ft or 2 apart. Make them above ground around 7ft with the top hole at 6ft. Put pipe or rod into the holes. Oilfield rod is a natural. Then hang pots from them. Plant strawberries in the pots. The vines will trail down instead of out across the garden area and you wont lose so much space, not to mention weeding is WAY less. I would recommend making 2 rows, and replacing one every other year. If you do this, pick the blossoms off of one row and eat the berries off the other, The rows will be much hardier if they have the blossems picked off the first year, Learn to grow potatoes in barrels or tires. Saves space and weeding, but you must have plenty of water. Grow cucumbers up a border fence. Plant tomatoes in concrete reenforcing wire hoops around 2ft dia. these and other tricks will enble you to use the maxumium amount of garden space and utalize your rabbit and chicken manure to the fullest. make your barn with a large hay mow, then go around and collect bags of clipped grass that city people throw away at curbside. You can give the rabbits and chickens, and even the goats a winter treat when you open the bags one at a time to feed the HAY. Machinery. First, as I said, build a real, old time looking barn. Then youll really feel like you are living on a real farm, abeit a small one. Next, and this is only my recommendation, Buy a restored David Bradley garden tractor. You can find one by subscribing to a magazine called Vintage garden tractor Club of America Or, if your good at it, find one and rebuild it yourself. Youll feel prouder about that, and get to know what makes your tractor tick. Then buy the plow, disc, harrow, mower, rake, planter, seeder, and build you a small flatbed trailer that you can put sides on. Now you have the equipment of a real farm mostly, again abiet on a smaller scale. But, you can get in here in the springtime and talk about your plowing, discing, planting problems, and get help from many other farmers in here who are doing the very same thing. I would install a cistern made from a BRAND NEW NEVER USED septic tank near the barn, and catch the runoff from the barn. That way you have fresh cholorine free water for your plants at drouth time when they might not let you use city water for gardens. On top of it I would put a hand pump made for a windmill. You can tell which ones are made for a windmill as they will have a rod sticking out at the top which goes up and down as the pump is being operated and a 4ft dia tank. PREFERABLY MADE OF WOOD. A place that builds saunas might make such a tank for you. On top of the cistern I would place a small windmill. They make such, say 20ft tall that are real. If you hunt online you can find such, used, antique, and for sale. OR buy one of the big ornamental ones. Theyre the same or higher in price. You might have to paint the origional, You wouldnt necessarily need to buy the tower, You could buy the mast head and build you a tower out of 4 X 4s cut from a sawmill and make a tower. You need to consider where you can keep all of the produce you can so as to keep it from freezing . Well, that is a start, and I imagine it would keep you busy and broke to build such, and plenty busy operating it. But, i would say, from my point of view, youd sure be homesteading,

[Shirley]

Welcome, Zig!

[piglady]

Sounds like you already have some great ideas on here. The only one I might add is raising cornish cross chickens for the freezer. We raise them a 100 at a time. The meat is so much better than you can buy and in just 6 weeks, you can put 400 pounds of meat in the freezer. We use a 12X12 movable pen that we move across the pasture (can use your lawn) at least once a day so they can eat grass and bugs. By the time they are ready to process (it's really not as bad as you may think) they have moved over 672 square yards. You have way more than that available and it will leave behind the best fertilized lawn ever. Other suggestion would be to get a freezer (store those garden goodies) and a pressure cooker. Learn to can and freeze. Some things are better canned (tomatoes) and some are better frozen. Do only what you feel like doing though and don't overwork yourself. Good luck and welcome.

[gardenlily]

Zig you may want to try your hand at raising bees for that sweet tooth. I, too, am in my 50's and we have just moved on our land about six months ago. I haven't gotten my bees yet but they are still on my mind. Welcome!

[Marilyn]

Hi Zig,
There are a lot of us in our 50's, it's a great time of our lives to be doing this. The kids are raised and on their own, etc. Every time I hear a canning jar "ping", I feel blessed (and tickled).

[paintlady]

Welcome Zig,
My advice would be to start slowly and figure out what you want and what you have room for. Where are you located because if you live where it snows you are going to need insulated buildings to house chickens or whatever. Do you know how to can? You might want to look around for canning jars before next years canning season. Garage sales, swap shops etc. It is a good way to stock up on that sort of thing before they are priced for the season. Same goes for garden tillers- try to get one out of season. Just take it slow and enjoy your " cheesecake"!

[Pony]

Welcome, Zig!! How nice you found your way here!

My husband and I are 'steading in the 'burbs. We're on about 1/3 of an acre, but still have a good sized garden, a couple fruit trees, berries, and rabbits. Once we figure out how to get a couple hens or ducks installed without the city being any the wiser, we'll have fresh eggs too.

We put up a lot of our own food, and try to be as self-sufficient as possible.

Best advice I can give you is to read books (I second the recommendation for Carla Emery's encyclopedia -- get it on Amazon or borrow it from your library), read magazines (Countryside and Backwoods Home are two good ones), read this wonderful forum, and ask questions. Then get out there and do it!

All the best to you on your excellent adventure!

Pony!