Homesteading in the city?

Green thumbs are made, not born. Plant what you want to plant, where you think it will work. When things go wrong, check with experts. Tear out the things you planted in the wrong places and put them in the right places the next year. Lather, rinse, repeat, and before you know it, people will be coming to you for advice.

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Peace, tremulous, unexpected, sent a taproot out of nowhere into Morgon's heart. -Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind

Maria,

While it's tempting to want to get "livestock" like a pot-bellied pig now, I would encourage you to wait until you get the farm. The reason is that the pig will need lots of space and will pretty much eliminate being able to use your backyard for anything else. If I were you, I would focus on building your basic skills like others have mentioned. These skills require time to hone and will serve you well the rest of your life. Growing fruits and vegetables, in particular, requires LOTS of time to perfect.

One book that I'm going to recommend is the "12 Months Harvest." This tiny book is a goldmine of information. Even though it's from 1975, it can't be beat for providing just the information you need at this point. It covers all of the skills you should perfect and is succinct. Yes, Carla Emery's book is good but this little gem has about 750 fewer pages and isn't as intimidating for learning the skills.

The only thing you shouldn't follow in these older books is the canning directions. Canning directions were changed about 15 years ago to make things safer so don't ignore those guidelines. For goodness sakes, do NOT follow directions handed down from others unless it mirrors the information in the newer books. Get yourself a copy of the Ball book - the standard source of reputable advice.

Here's some suggestions for now:
* Read (and practice!) all you can about basic skills. Start a homesteading library.
* Get some berry bushes and plant them among your other landscape. Read up on their pruning, watering, fertilizing, etc. needs. When you move to the farm, fruit trees and shrubs should be the first thing you plant as those require the longest to mature.
* Start a compost pile to provide a source of nutrition for your garden and to reduce your need to throw out stuff. Paper, kitchen waste, and yard waste can beome the basis for your garden next year. If you don't generate enough lawn debris now, look on Craig's list for leaves (some people patrol neighborhoods for these too). Learn about vermicomposting.
* Learn how to water bath and pressure can as well as dehydrate foods. In my city, there is a business that teaches classes on food preservation. It's always full.
* Start making things from scratch. My mom made all our bread (which is an art in itself!), cottage cheese, and butter from scratch. Even if you use a breadmaker, learn how to make bread from scratch.
* Make your own soap.
* I would suggest that you take the online study course for home preservation.
* Make your own sauerkraut, pickles, and other foods preserved by vinegar and salt. Even if you don't like these, you can barter for other things. I happen to love them both but still swap with other for things like more canning jars (1 jar of preserved food is worth about 6 empty jars) or other food that I don't grow. I love Sandor Katz book on wild fermentation. I just picked up some Koji yesterday so I can make miso (the product, not the soup) at home.

I'm sure I can go on and on. By learning these skills now, you will be able to focus on building fences and chicken coops and taking care of your goats and pigs. You will be far ahead of others that move to the country!

DH and I close on our first home on Wednesday(!!!!!), and we originally wanted a farm in the country. After careful consideration (financial and otherwise) we decided that a farm would be too much of a strain on us. DH likes his current job and there is potential to work from home in the future so we bought a home on 1 acre, and though I had thought I would definitely need more than that in the begining I've realized that this is really all we need.
I have family that owns a farm, so we will be buying our beef from them. We are allowed to have caged birds and rabbits in hutches, so we're going to do a rabbit hutch and hen house both with runs that will look something like this. We're also going to get bee hives, plant fruit trees, and we're considering petitioning the town council for pygmy goats. We'll see about that one.
I'm big into gardening so I'm going to plant everything I can! You have such a hot area that you can really garden year round if water allows. I would hit the library and see if there are gardening books about what grows best in your area, and try to visit other gardens in your area to see what they're growing. There are probably some great websites out there as well. I think someone mentioned your county extension office. They are always a great resource.
If you can't go out try to go up! See if you can check out CL and FC for some fencing or trellises or even just some posts you can string up to support vines. You could even try to build something up over your patio to hold some of your vines. Wouldn't that be pretty!?
I get A LOT of inspiration from Path to Freedom which someone mentioned earlier, that is one of my favorite websites! They're super nice people, too! I asked if they would post a sample of what they eat in a week because they are almost completely self-sufficient and they started posting what they eat every day! They really want to help others live the kind of life their living. They also have a lot of animals on their 1/5 acre and they have a special fenced area for them to run around in. Maybe something like that would work for you!

My favorite books are The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live it
and Country Life. In the front they have ideas for how to lay out your farm based on size. I especially love the one in the front of Country Life that shows a farm grown on 100 x 50ft property.
I think the smartest thing to do is think ahead. Get some graph paper and draw out your property with everything in place and make up a plan for where you would eventually like to be. Even if some of it is really pie in the sky at least plan for it so that as you go you know that you're reserving space to do that if you can someday.
If you decide to get some pigs you can post on CL that you need help butchering them and someone may respond. You also may be able to find someone here on Homesteading Today that would barter butchering services for something you have.
Keep thinking big and taking small steps and you'll get there. You can do alot more with what you have than you've probably imagined, I bet you'll get lots of inspiration from Path to Freedom.
Keep us updated!

I'm coming to the end of over 5 years of city homesteading, since DH and I are going to start looking for our homestead/small farm in the spring. Many of the suggestions I would have have already been mentioned by other people, but one thing I always did in the city is make jams & jellies & preserves from fruit I harvested in the 'wilds' of the city! City parks have an abundance of fruit-bearing trees that most people just ignore, but I would come along with my bag and harvest cherries and apples and crab apples and rosehips from the trees and bushes in the parks. Your area will probably have different types of "free" food in the parks, but it's sure to have some! This is also a great way to learn about preserving & canning if you don't have a large garden.