Where do you start?

[lyncecelia]

So my husband and I live in the outskirts of Boston currently, but we are looking to buy a place in New Hampshire next summer with some land.

A big thing for us is that we want to try our hand at homesteading, but I don't want to overwhelm us too quickly and end up having to throw in the towel due to cost or frustration. I know my husband wants to continuing working in his field (he's a software engineer) so it won't be our only income. I, however, will be a homemaker and would have more time to contribute to homesteading.

So I'm curious what everyone would recommend for easing into it? Neither of us have a ton of experience, and I'd love to learn new skills to be able to do this, I just don't know where to start!

Thanks for your patience!

[jassytoo]

Just go slow, one thing at a time. I'd start with a garden and a few chickens. Read and learn as much as you can now. There are things you can practice before you move. Try canning and bread making for a start. Make sure before you start any animal project that the housing and fencing are in place. Not fun to have a years worth of chicken end up in a coyotes belly instead of yours. A homestead is never finished, it's a lifestyle that will keep you learning forever. Enjoy it, and if you screw up learn from it and move on. Good luck

[Lilith]

Homesteading loosely defined is a lifestyle of self sufficiency. It may not be what you are thinking of as homesteading, but I found I could not get into the meat and potatoes (literally) of homesteading until I was financially secure. So, I would start there now. Pay off loans and credit cards - spending no more than what you can pay for at the end of every month plus some for savings. At the same time, decide what self sufficient means to you. Start reading and planning, research can be your best friend. When you get a plan on a timeline - double the amount of time you think it will take you for the first two years or cut what you want to accomplish in 2 years in half. Be specific in your goals.
When I asked this question last year, I got some really good advice! The one that I wish I had followed the most is planting fruit trees, berries, and vines right away. I rent, so chose not to. Now, I have discovered that I CAN grow dwarf fruit trees in containers that can move with me if I have to move! I would be a year closer to fresh "free" fruit if I had only listened!

[lyncecelia]

Originally Posted by jassytoo

Just go slow, one thing at a time. I'd start with a garden and a few chickens. Read and learn as much as you can now. There are things you can practice before you move. Try canning and bread making for a start. Make sure before you start any animal project that the housing and fencing are in place. Not fun to have a years worth of chicken end up in a coyotes belly instead of yours. A homestead is never finished, it's a lifestyle that will keep you learning forever. Enjoy it, and if you screw up learn from it and move on. Good luck

I actually have always been the type to bake bread from scratch and have for years, so that's good advice to try to make that more of a habit than a luxury! Thank you! As for canning, I'll definitely look into learning more about that now while we are still here in the city, thank you .

How do you determine the best type of housing/fencing for different types of animals? Or, where do you recommend getting more info to learn more?

Originally Posted by Lilith

Homesteading loosely defined is a lifestyle of self sufficiency. It may not be what you are thinking of as homesteading, but I found I could not get into the meat and potatoes (literally) of homesteading until I was financially secure. So, I would start there now. Pay off loans and credit cards - spending no more than what you can pay for at the end of every month plus some for savings. At the same time, decide what self sufficient means to you. Start reading and planning, research can be your best friend. When you get a plan on a timeline - double the amount of time you think it will take you for the first two years or cut what you want to accomplish in 2 years in half. Be specific in your goals.
When I asked this question last year, I got some really good advice! The one that I wish I had followed the most is planting fruit trees, berries, and vines right away. I rent, so chose not to. Now, I have discovered that I CAN grow dwarf fruit trees in containers that can move with me if I have to move! I would be a year closer to fresh "free" fruit if I had only listened!

I know we won't be into the meat and potatoes (living 100% off our land) for a while, and I think that's better. Easing in seems like a lot better idea for us than to jump in. I appreciate the alternative point of view about concentrating on paying of debts, that's not a point I would've thought of thank you. We have been working on doing this (we have credit cards locked up).

Can you grow dwarf trees inside? We live on the second story of a two family, with no yard space, so that limits a lot of gardening here unfortunately .

[Wolf mom]

Keep reading here - and on the other HT forums. You'll find many answers to many of your questions. The gardening forum is great. Lots of knowledge there. Look in the archives - your question gets asked frequently.

You'll be surprised at how much you remember when you do get your land.

[jassytoo]

There are many books that give good info. Carla Emerys Encyclopedia of Country Living, John Seymours Guide to Self- Sufficiency, Foxfire Books and Tightwad Gazette are some I like. Also Countryside magazine and Backwoods Home magazine. When you find your property check out what kind of predators there are and build for that. Ask the neighbors what works for them. Also Jackie Clay has a good set of books available from Backwoods Home mag. She also writes for them. You can always ask on this site too. Lots of been there done that around here.

[Lilith]

You know, I don't know about growing them inside. I'm just starting to look into containers for dwarf fruit trees. That would be an excellent question to ask in the gardening forum like wolf mom suggested. If they can, I might be able to expand what I can grow by bringing them in for winter. mmmm, oranges grown in Idaho, that would be so awesome!

[7thswan]

When buying your land, look at the soil. Here in michigan, the soil varies greatly. I have gardened in all of it. While on any soil type,you can build raised beds-the soil needs to be good for those fruit trees and your pastures. My Mom has planted fruit trees in her hard clay, it took many years to get fruit and some of the trees literaly fall over because the roots can't get any depth. In sand, roots go far and wide to find what they need if you can't provide. The soil here was why I wanted this place, and the view.

[FCLady]

I learned gardening skills working next to my father many.... years ago!! lol Do your homework if you've never gardened before. Decide how you want to garden, but start small so you can FINISH what you start. Do you want raised bed or garden plot, mulch or no mulch. Sometimes those questions can't be answered until you're getting your hands dirty so to speak. Do you know what you can raise in that area easily? For example you may want to start with a small garden so you can keep up with the yard work and gardening AND canning or freezing your vegys at the end of the season. You'll probably want to start small enough for fresh tomatoes and an extra bushel to try your hand at canning, tomato sauce, salsa, stewed tomatoes or whatever YOU actually eat. It's of no benefit to make salsa if you won't eat it before next year...

I've been gardening all my life and still like to try something new every year. So do a little thinking about what you actually eat and how much you want fresh and/or to can. Some people say potatoes are too cheap to bother growing. I disagree with a family of 4 that eats a lot of potatoes... I also buy 2 bundles of Copra onions in the early spring, plant them and that is enough onions for us to eat until they are ready next year. So I pay maybe $3 for a year's worth of onions.

Chickens are an easy animal to start with but if I had it to do over... I'd start with muscovy ducks. They take much less feed and care than do chickens. Fencing isn't as big an issue either. They'll give you eggs all summer plus they are great mothers. Most people either don't eat duck because it's too expensive or exotic for most restaurants. We eat duck every week. Whole, duck breast and legs, ground into patties, gravy whatever, it's more like beef than chicken meat. Or, until you decide if you can or will butcher your own is there a market or auction house to sell the ducks.

Learn what it takes to MAINTAIN your property, then add slowly. Every year we add a new tree and/or bush. I've tried to watch the ripening time too. We have six blueberry bushes, two ripen early, two mid season, two late season. Nothing is worse than everything ripening at the same time and you don't have time to do ANYTHING else besides canning or freezing.

I guess in the nutshell, do your homework before you take the test... As they say, it's a lifestyle, you need to find what works for YOU. Don't burn yourself out and get disappointed in the lifestyle before you give it a real chance.

[MichaelK!]

I can recommend the path we ourselves took, and that was to purchase a remote property in ADDITION to the suburban home you already live in.

We bought our 40 acre piece of land about 9 years ago with a home-equity loan from the value of our in-town house. We have kept our professional jobs, the regular middle-class lifestyle, but become homesteaders on weekends.

In the years since we got the land, we first planted trees. We now have more than 100 apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, and chestnuts that are starting to bear.

I'm finishing a 1&half story Cape Cod styled cabin, which though is still somewhat of a rough shell, now has hot and cold running water, wood heat, and solar electric. Don't have a kitchen yet. We cook on a propane camping stove and still wash dishes outside. But, it's dry, cossy, and no signs of human habitation within eyesight of the cabin. Our nearest neighbor is about 1/4 mile down the hill from us, and we usually ride the ATV down the hill to see them.

I am happy to say that our financial model has worked for us. We have two mortgages, but we are now within about 36 months of paying everything off, free and clear. Virtually all of the construction materials were purchased with 12-18 month interest-free coupons, which we pay down religiously every month, so I am proud to say I have not payed one single penny of credit card interest to fund the construction (slow as it is).

Our plan is once the mortgages are payed off, we are free to do as we please, and it will be time to relocate to our homestead permanently. By then we will be able to continue a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, just living happily in the middle of nowhere.

In the mean time, what we have been doing at home is practicing all the skills we need to use when up there. I pressure-can our foods, and can rebuild a small engine carburetor. My wife can sew, and I can shoot/hunt/reload. I now have a great recipe for venison salami that doesn't require refrigeration. We chop enough Oak firewood to let it season a year before burning. Incrementally, we are learning all the things we'll need to know, so it's not going to be a horrid culture shock. If it had turned out that this wasn't the correct lifestyle choice for us (no, that's not going to happen) I suppose we could have re-sold the property and just continued living our lives in town.

[emdeengee]

Homestead now where you are. By this I mean that you can start now to learn all sorts of skills and new ways of living no matter where you live. We started our homesteading adventures in an apartment.

I don't know what lifestyle you plan (off gird or self sufficiency with modern touches) but you can practice for what you will be doing. It is always easier to learn new things when you are not under pressure. If you have never canned before then learning to can when the garden is going completely insane is not stress free and when you know that your canning better not fail because it is a huge part of your years food it is best to have some experience under your belt.

If you plan on changing your family's diet (moving from processed foods to whole foods prepared from scratch) then you can start now so that the transition is already completed and no one suffers from Pizza Pocket or ice cream withdrawal.

Same for any activities that you will be changing. If you will be washing using home made soap and other products hand powered methods then you should start now. If you will be living without technology then start cutting back on TV, computers, cell phones now.

And of course the big one is gardening. Grow what you can in your current location even if you have to go to container gardening. This will give you some valuable experience. If you will be using a wood source then buy/trade for some logs and learn to cut and split and set fires.

And of course take as many courses as you can that will benefit your homesteading lifestyle such as gardening, animal husbandry etc and find places where you can volunteer to get some hands on experience.

Nearly forgot about grocery and supply shopping. If you are going to be isolated or even just not going in to town all the time then it is a good idea to learn to shop once a month or longer. This takes organization, planning and of course getting your finances in order so that you can do this all at once. I was fortunate in that my neighbour raised 5 kids at a very remote outpost on the Alaska Highway and she got to order food and supplies once a year so she knew a lot about how to do it.

[Ozarks Tom]

Set your goals low, and don't try too much at once. Also, make certain you and DH have the same goals. I can't imagine living our lifestyle without DW on board completely.

If you're thinking of chickens, read the Poultry forum here, same for most any other animal you might have in mind, and don't be hesitant to ask "stupid" questions. We bought a book on raising sheep, and half of what we've learned we learned here. Books are great for basics, but asking people who do it day in and day out can't be beat.

Good luck!!

[Maura]

I think most of us start with a few chickens and free range them. After a few losses we then purchase electric netting. I suggest getting poultry netting (kencove.com, premier1supplies.com). It is portable and you can use it to rotate your animals. You can use the same poultry netting for sheep or goats, even horses. It has the benefit of keeping other animals out, like stray dogs. If you never get poultry or other animals, you can use it around your garden to keep rabbits out (overkills for rabbits, but just saying).

Don’t go overboard on your first garden. Look up lasagne gardening and build up a raised bed. Plant what you are most confident in. Instead of two tomato plants, try two each of six varieties. What grows well in my area may be a bust in yours. Plant lettuce in with the tomatoes to reduce acidity in the tomatoes. When you plant like that, you cut down on the amount of beds you need because some plants share well with others. Rather than a greenhouse, you can extend the season by tenting plastic over your garden. They make plastic specifically for this. You can extend tomatoes so you get more in the fall, you can extend kale a very long time.

[RichardsonFive]

We just recently swan-dived into this lifestyle. We knew if we kept talking about it and not make a move, then our ambition and gumption would stagnate and we'd never realize our dream. OzarkTom's plan has got to be the most ideal, if that is financially feasible. We scoured our area for what we thought was suitable for what we wanted to do. We grilled the previous owners on their use of the land. We were SHOCKED when we put our suburban home for sale (thinking it might take a year or better) and it sold within a month's time. Moral of that story: careful what you wish for! :-)

We immediately relocated our family to the Ozarks. My husband commutes 2.5 hours to the capital city to work his corporate job. 5 hr a day commute sucks for him, but we've been actively looking for a closer job, even if it means a pay cut.

We are working on reducing our debt (mainly paying the mortgage down) and then having him retire early so we can pour everything into this place. In the interim, I'm doing all I can to start stuff up here, while being SAHM to three toddlers. We are starting out small with a 30 x 30 vegetable garden, fruit trees, and we plan on getting chickens in the spring. Although we admire people who can utterly and completely live off the land, we already know that we are not the type of people who will ever be 100% self sustaining. We enjoy satellite TV, the internet, and many foods that we are not able to produce ourselves. I do not see anything wrong with having the best of both worlds!

[Jokarva]

Is there land anywhere near you to start gardening, a community plot or something? We have been on our property for 3+ years and I'm finding there's a very big learning curve to REAL gardening, as opposed to reading about it in a book or watching YouTube videos. It can be easy to wear yourself out getting absolutely nothing accomplished (voice of experience here ).

And, if you are true newbies please get some concrete knowledge and skills before getting any animals....it's a lot less heartbreaking to lose your whole garden than it would be to kill all your animals.

ETA - Also, if you're not in decent shape I'd work on that too...holes are tough to dig and everything is heavier than it looks.

[lyncecelia]

Thank you everyone for the input!

I'm curious, how do you check the soil when you're looking to buy? What exactly would we be looking for?

[Whisperwindkat]

A small garden with plans to increase size as you gain experience and chickens. Like others have said start small and slow. There is a steep learning curve and it is hard work. Work out the learning curves a little at a time and get one or two things established and going before adding something else to the mix. Blessings, Kat

[nobrabbit]

Decide what "homesteading" means to you. It's different for everyone and will help you determine how much land, what type of land, etc to look for. Not everyone is interested in raising animals, it may just mean gardening, putting up the harvest in different ways or cooking more from scratch.

Make friends with your local area extension office. Within 3 counties around me they are teaching home processing (canning), cheese making, how to cure hams, grafting fruit trees, master gardening, etc. Different county offices teach different things so check your surrounding areas.

[Filson]

Agreed on the deciding what "homesteading" means to you. For us, it's simply wanting to get out away from the town, have some acreage with some animals, small crops and so on... Our own little farm. While trying to be as self-sufficient as we can, within comfort.

We bought a old, recently updated farm house on 40 acres that had a new 40x40 shop built to replace a barn that had burned down a few years prior. We ended up buying an additional, adjacent 20 acres from the same previous owners that had the house, so we now have 60, that is roughly half field/half heavy timber. We have plenty of timber to harvest all the firewood we could ever need, however the previous owners have two fireplaces in the house, one being propane and the other wood pellet, which we are fine with leaving. I will be picking up a wood stove for my shop though, and utilizing the firewood out there.

The previous owners actually had a very large garden of raised beds (just about a full acre) that we struggled to keep up with in our first year here (spring will be our 1 year anniversary here) as we were busy still getting settled in and such. But we've done what we could, and got some stuff grown.

We also utilized a ton of materials that were laying around the place, and built our chicken coop and run, for a total of around $30 bucks (few hinges, screws and paint). 6 Buffs later, and we're getting an average of 5 eggs a day.

The large pasture needs a lot of fencing work, which will take some time, as both funds and free time are scarce (we both work, and I attend college full-time) but we'll get there, and once we do, we'll start raising our own beef. Pork will also find it's way around here one of these days.

We bought a 1952 Case VA tractor with a front end loader and a brush hog from a neighbor for $500. It had new tires and such but wouldn't start. I tinkered with it for a few hours and got it running, so now we have an old, but usable tractor.

Really the thing is though, is to just get started. Make sure you don't financially burden yourself by taking on more than you can afford, but as far as everything else, just start with the smaller, easier, cheaper stuff and go from there. Just like goldfish are often a kids first pet, because let's be frank, if they die, your out like 28 cents lol. Just start small, start learning and everything else will come to life as time goes on. =) Best of luck to you!

[geo in mi]

Ideally, you need space, good soil within that space, and assured water. I think your best bet might be to Google up some New Hampshire real estate. I would think that you may have to get pretty far away from Boston--where the suburban housing dwindles off, but before the forests and mountains close in... I did that the other day online, and didn't seem to find very much except overpriced places for the "out of town Bostonians" If both of you can manage, that far from Boston, look for good mellow soil, guaranteed(relatively speaking) water, decent amenities(roads, electricity, on and on), then see if you can swing it. I think all those quaint, pastoral NH towns and covered bridges must be all locked up in the storage vaults of the calendar companies.

In the meantime, keep up the visits here, get a library started, go to some festivals and/or farmers' markets in your chosen location, start eating in the diners on your visits, maybe, and if you are of that persuasion, go to church, try to make lots of discoveries.

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum.

geo