Urban Farms?

[2happymamas]

Does anyone else here have an urban farm? DW and I live on 1.5 acres in Indianapolis. We feel really fortunate to have this much land in the city. We are both about 15 minutes from our jobs and our daughters school is less than 10 minutes from our house, which is really nice (private school, no buses). We have created some really great connections in this community of like-minded individuals and have recently started bartering with some of them. It's pretty cool.

We have a decent sized garden and try to can as much as possible. We added an extra 25x15 bed this year solely for tomatoes, expanded our strawberries with an extra 100 plants this year, and got three new blueberry bushes. We also grow cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peppers, bok choy, lettuces, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, cilantro, sunflowers, watermelon, basil, potatoes, onions, garlic, thyme, kale, cauliflower, dill, and mint. We have a root cellar in the basement and store what we can for the winter.

We have two bee hives, 12 laying hens, and we raise 40-50 meat birds per year for chicken. We tapped 6 maple trees this year and got almost a gallon of finished sap. We also recently purchased three mini-nubians (2 FF and one wether) for dairy and hope to make cheese, butter, cream, cheese, cottage cheese, and soap from the milk.

Even with all we do, we feel a strong desire to do more in effort to be more sustainable with respect to our food source. We plan to add some fruit trees next spring. I am not sure that rabbits would be something we would do (we've never even eaten rabbit and the thought of hitting a rabbit in the head makes me shudder, lol).

With all that being said, are there other things we could do? This is definitely the life for us and we love it. It teaches our girls so much about responsibility, compassion and respect for our animals, and work ethic. Our four year old knows that it is her responsibility to gather eggs and feed/water the hens regardless of weather. She recently educated her whole class about how to dispatch a chicken and make maple syrup, lol.

We have looked at larger properties and have strongly considered a more rural move on 5-10 acres. At the end of the day, we really love our 110 year old farmhouse, the connections we have made within this community, and the convenience factor to work/school.

My question(s): Is there anyone else here who has an urban farm? What all do you do on your property? Finally, is there anything else you can think of that we can do to be more sustainable and self-sufficient on the land we have?

Finally, here is a link to our mini-urban farm.

[1sttimemom]

I grew up kinda like that. In southern california and we had about an acre. We had fruit trees, large garden. At various times we raised hogs, rabbits, goats. Always had chickens and I even had horses. We were in an agriculture rich area with lots of dairy farms and orange groves.

[2happymamas]

Originally Posted by 1sttimemom

I grew up kinda like that. In southern california and we had about an acre. We had fruit trees, large garden. At various times we raised hogs, rabbits, goats. Always had chickens and I even had horses. We were in an agriculture rich area with lots of dairy farms and orange groves.

I would LOVE to have a couple feeder pigs, but they are forbidden within city limits and they would be really hard to hide. Besides, my lovely wife is not crazy about the idea of pigs here. I think she's be more onboard if we had more acreage, but not here.

[mickie8]

i am completely jealous of your urban farm! we do have an urban farm but much smaller than yours - we are down to 3 laying hens after losing 2 this spring but are getting 2 more this weekend - we have 7 raised beds and lots of non-raised garden area, 7 blueberry bushes and some gooseberries, grapevines, cherry tree and just planted a fig tree - all on 1/4 of an acre! we wish we had room for goats and meat birds but 5 is the max allowance for hens in the city limits (oregon city, or) and our lot is too small for goats. as much as we love our little mini-farm, we both knew that we didn't want the urban life long-term (we are new-ly empty nested) and just bought a few acres in the mountains on a river for our future homestead.
like you, i am not sure i am quite ready to raise rabbits for food - we are starting to look into ways of encouraging wild small game to "hang around" our land for a sustainable future food source.
i think your idea of adding fruit trees and even adding nut trees would be a good idea - they take several years to produce but if you are going to stay where you are it'll be worth it.
i'm not sure how much more you could do that you aren't already doing - it sounds like you have a great thing going! good luck!

[2happymamas]

Originally Posted by mickie8

like you, i am not sure i am quite ready to raise rabbits for food - we are starting to look into ways of encouraging wild small game to "hang around" our land for a sustainable future food source.

I am not *completely* closed to the idea, but I need to make sure I like rabbit first. I have made a local connection through an urban homesteading group and he is raising meat rabbits now. I am going to trade him some raw goat milk for a rabbit or two so I can see what we think of it. The trick will be to not let DW know she is eating rabbit, lol.

[Maura]

You could find someone who raises sheep and get a year old lamb (one year to 1 1/2 years old) in the fall. Just make sure they don't "finish" the lamb on grain. You want pasture raised meat. You don't have to do everything yourself, and buying meat on the hoof is much cheaper than buying in the grocery store, and of course supporting another farmer. The farmer will bring your sheep to a slaughter house (packing house) to be killed and cut up. You get the sheep in the form of frozen packages.

It sounds like you have the best of both worlds, but I am surprised you are allowed to have fifty chickens. We are moving to town and they don't allow chickens. I'm so bummed.

[FarmboyBill]

+ Go to U TUBES, and click in Urban Farming/and backyard farming. Youll get ideas like building a board wall around the permeter. Hanging guttering to it around a foot below each gutter. Fasten them at a slant and drill a hole at the lower end. Close off both ends. plant strawberries in them. If you put in too much water, it will run down to the next one and drop in it to where it might be used. Hang flower pots from the top of the wall. have the hangers come out at least a foot. Hang the pots at different highths so that you can reach the strawberries or whatever in/on the wall/gutters. have the hangers nore more than a foot apart.
IF you get rabbits, Youll want to get around 10 does and 2 bucks for plenty of meat, and for selling spares.
Fence off underneith the cages, into a long run. Let your chickens in there to scratch around and dry out the manure for use in the garden. They will find feed the rabbits have dropped.
Make sure the wire is removeable so that you can easily scoop out the manure when you need it.
IF you dont have a well, put in a cistern, and guttering on the house to catch water for the garden.
Build a greenhouse.
IF you find you dont like goats milk. Might try to find a mini jersey

[COWS]

I used to love the taste of fried, wild rabbit when I was young. I didn't like the taste of domesticated rabbit as well and have never tried to raise them. Yard raised chicken and eggs are great tasteing.

COWS

[2happymamas]

Originally Posted by FarmboyBill

IF you dont have a well, put in a cistern, and guttering on the house to catch water for the garden.
Build a greenhouse.
IF you find you dont like goats milk. Might try to find a mini jersey

Good ideas. We already have a well. We have plans to build a barn greenhouse next year from the plans linked. We have had goats milk and are good with it.

[2happymamas]

Has anyone ever tried tilapia farming? We have also considered adding a small tilapia experiment next year.

[Taylor R.]

I wish we were as established here as you are! We live in town in our county seat, where there are ordinances banning any and all livestock. I'd hate to go to the trouble of building a chicken coop, runs, raising hens to laying age, and then having the city inspector come tell us to take it all down. We've already had problems with the neighbors being freaked out with the idea of a compost bin.

It seems to me like you've pretty well got your food needs covered. Have you considered a way to fit in a small grain plot to provide food for the animals or to mill for yourselves (though if you have to buy one thing, grains are easy to get in bulk and are relatively cheap). Also, do you grow any winter squash? I love that they don't really need preserved, and therefore become easy, homegrown produce in the winter.

[FarmboyBill]

Taylor, where you at in Kansas. IF grain is cheap, Ill think about comeing up and buying a ton bulk LOL. I was born raised between St Joe Mo and Atchison Kans.

[Taylor R.]

It's only cheap compared to most fresh organic produce . I'm about an hour south of Kansas city. I also have the ability to buy direct from a responsible farmer (who happens to be family), though, so it is not too pricey. I've got a friend in Atchison, so I've been around there a bit.

[snowcap]

bees?

[tabbidawn15]

Originally Posted by 2happymamas

We have two bee hives, 12 laying hens, and we raise 40-50 meat birds per year for chicken. We tapped 6 maple trees this year and got almost a gallon of finished sap. We also recently purchased three mini-nubians (2 FF and one wether) for dairy and hope to make cheese, butter, cream, cheese, cottage cheese, and soap from the milk.

I live on 2 acres and would love to see your set up. We tried goats here but those little escape artists caused so much trouble we decided to wait until we could figure out a better pen/ shelter situation.

[TheMartianChick]

I'm quite jealous of the amount of space that you have in the city! I live on 3/4 of an acre in the middle of a mid-sized city. I do a lot with permaculture: raspberries, asparagus, mulberries, herbs, volunteer potatoes, kiwi, etc... I also raise quail. We don't eat rabbit, but they would be easy for us to include since we had pet ones in the past. (You don't have to hit them in the head to kill them!) Chickens are illegal here, but there are ways around that and there are plenty of city chickens here!

This year's project is supposed to be the tilapia that we always planned to install but things always got in the way. Crayfish are another possibility for water critters that do well in confinement, but we don't eat those either!

Bees are illegal here, though I've heard that the laws may change soon. It won't make a difference for us because hubby is allergic, so we won't raise bees.

Some other easy additions would be more unusual perrmaculture, like jerusalem artichokes and acorns. (I like the idea of acorns for flour!) Mushrooms would also be a good addition.

[Alice In TX/MO]

This is in Australia, but it is inspiring!
http://www.geofflawton.com/fe/33812-...e_number=10006

[Chucknbob]

We've got 3 acres just outside of Cinci. It's not in the city, but close (I commute to the city for work daily). We just bought over winter, so we're still working. We have chickens, will be picking up sheep this afternoon, and will have a garden if it ever dries out enough to till. We also planted blueberries, grapes, and apples.

I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's quiet, the few neighbors we have are great, and I'm only 1/2 hour from downtown if I want to go see a baseball game.

[amandaleigh]

I consider our family to be suburban homesteaders. While we won't be able to reach the level of self-sufficiency that those with larger properties have, we focus on maximizing the land that we do have. Right now, our food production is limited to a large garden, a ton of wild berry bushes, and a few nut trees. Are there any non-food projects that you could work on, such as decreasing utility use or building a solar oven. Maybe there is another skill that you could make use of to improve your bartering capability (my husband does yard work for a relative over the summer in return for getting half of the grass fed cow they purchase each fall).

[Maura]

That greenhouse is meant for Alaska. I think it is for table grown plants, since any plants in the ground are going to miss out on a lot of sunlight. Our greenhouse is made a little differently. I'll see if I can find a link or a picture of it online.