Can It Be Done On One Acre?
 

Can homesteading be done on just one acre? Anyone here doing it?

Thanks!

Rean

research path to freedom,,,site,,

There have been some really awesome threads on this subject in the past.

Here is one:

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=240570


You won't be able to have a huge herd of large livestock, but you can do a lot of things on an acre. I think the Seymour book (Self Sufficient Life?) has a drawing with a possible one-acre set up.

What are you wanting to do?

Kayleigh

You have to define "homesteading." If you mean total food and energy self-sufficiency, then no. You can however do most of what people consider "homesteading."

Take a look at the book Living-on-an-acre-a-practical-guide-to-the-self-reliant-life

I believe you can do some of the aspects of homesteading while living in a highrise apartment in the middle of a large city. Granted... raising livestock in your living room will probably be frowned on, but canning grocery store discount produce, sewing your own clothes and things like that can be done.

To me, "homesteading" is more a state of mind. Is the next door neighbor with a dairy farm, and large garden and a few pigs homesteading or farming? Decide what you can do, what you WANT to do, and go for it.

The traditional meaning of homesteading ended when The Homestead Act of 1862 was repealed in the 1970s. You can no longer move somewhere, develop the land, build a house, and then take ownership of the land because of that work.

Michael

Do a search for "urban homesteading". It's completely amazing what some people are able to do with much less than an acre.

Also go to You Tube and look for the Garden Girl videos.

Thanks for the info, great places to start!

Yes. Minimize the foot print of your buildings, paths and such. Skip the lawn totally. Maximize the density of plantings. An acre is even enough space to have a few chickens, a pig or two, a goat. Do intensive rotational grazing and use the spaces left cleaned by the animals for gardens. Above ground heavy feeders will do great there.

Look into square-foot gardening, lasagna gardening and the like. You're going to be going for intensive cultivation. Some greenhouse space will extend the season effectively enlarging the space you have to grow since you'll get more time in the same physical space.

Have some fruit trees, on your northern side, and go with dwarf varieties which can be planted more densely. Berry bushes can also be used along borders.

You will likely need to bring in hay, animal feed and such to a larger degree than if you had more space but it is doable. You can provide a lot of your own food and some of the animals' food.

There is a book, Five Acres and Independence you might want to read. Here's an Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Acres-Ind.../dp/0486209741

So you'll be making it even more intensive. Have fun. Enjoy the process.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

Sure. Bees, small stocked fish pond, rabbits, chickens, a goat or two, pigs, big garden,fruit and nut trees... why not?

You can grow a lot of vegetables on one acre. If you build yourself a small greenhouse you can produce for yourself year around. Just be aware of local laws though. Where I live, you can't have livestock unless its zoned agricultural.

Garden Girl TV is great. I really like how efficient she is.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GardenGirltv


Enjoy.

Once you're into growing and raising your own food, suddenly irrigating, fertilizing, poisoning and mowing grass for the purpose of having a pretty ground cover stops making any sense. ;) Lawns are for suburbanites - out in the country we call them pasture.

I know this sounds crazy, but we have 3.5 acres now. It's too much for us. The kids are growing and grown. 2 are on their own, and 2 are still at home. My son and I talk of how small can one go. His ideal is a camper on the back of a truck. My ideal is one acre, an off the grid home, living as frugally as possible.

Thanks for the info and links! I am heading over to the poultry area to ask a question for my hubby.

It sort of depends on what you are after. 1 acre to a Chinese was a full, commercial farm but they double cropped and ate less meat than we do. I do not know what they are doing now: this book was very old (Farmers of 20 centuries).

I can TOTALLY see rabbits, chikens, and a pig and/or dairy goat in a pen. Beef might be a bit of a problem unless you buy feed!

Lastly, if 3 acres are too much, why don't you just get a big riding mower and mow the back 2 acres twice a month? Personally, I am TIRED of moving, it is no fun at ALL!

I had a little over 1/4 acres in a climate that was pretty good growing- I had vegies and fruit to give away. Almost everything I grew was edible except on the front street side- too much traffic and pollution to want that.
But in the back I had a little barn and paddock, 13 raised beds, 14 semi-dwarf fruit trees, blueberries, currants, kiwi. I even grew water chestnuts in a little pond and ginger on the front proch. I had cold tolerant citrus in a warm micro climate area between the driveway and house. With water and good sun, you can do a lot on a lot.
With the exception of having to buy grains and/or hay, you could do everything else. And before I moved I was toying with grain production- at least enough for human consumption I hoped but never had time to tinker with that

In NW Iowa?
You're going to be very limited.

Had a story on t.v. a while back about this couple that lives in Oklahoma city. They turned their front lawn into a flower garden/orchard and the back yard into a vegetable/orchard. Plus built a sunroom on to the house so the could raise vegetables in the winter. They did all kinds of things to save and raise money on that little city lot.

So if they could do all that on a little bitty city lot, you could surely do a lot on a acre.

I live on two acres, and some of the responses to your question surprises me. I have a pretty good size garden and just got some dwarf fruit trees. Last spring we got chickens. Saturday we're going to look at a nanny goat and her twin kids, both does. Yet when I asked in the goat and pig forum it was almost like people were discouraging me from getting the goats or pigs because of the lack of land. We do have a place prepared for the goats if we get them. We're getting pygmies because they're smaller, but still give meat. If all goes well with that we'll be trying to find a small breed of pigs to get. So, I said all that to say this, try different things and see what works for you. We've had wonderful luck with what we have so far. For future livestock it's going to be trial and error to see how well I can take care of them on just 2 acres with supplementing feed.

I totally agree with this statement. I love reading these threads, because they keep the dream alive. Well, two dreams actually- being and staying debt free and having land (other than my subdivision lot) to homestead on. Sometimes to have both, something might be compromised. In our case, it is probably going to be the amount of land that we eventually purchase. There are tons of websites and books that show space saving ways to create a little farm on small acreage. For all those who are sitting in their suburban HOA neighborhood right now dreaming the dream and then looking at the price tags- do not despair! One, two and three acres go a long way!

So try limiting yourself to an acre this year to see if it suits you.

With the right crop, a good niche market, and lots of hard work, a very lucrative legal living can be made from one acre or less.
There are dozens if not hundreds of plant and animal species out there just waiting for somone to figure out their culture techniques.
People need to get off their couches, unplug their TVs, and get to work.
Do some research, get some training, become the expert, and don't listen to anybody who says "it can't be done".
I think it is un American and un Homesteader to sit around and gripe about the poor economy. The American Homesteader way is to get off your butt and get busy and WORK on your dream and make your own great economy.
nuff sed.
Phrogpharmer

i think in any part of iowa that would be possible. this year i am going to live in a camper while we build a house. we have dairy goats and horses, and i will be making a couple raised beds to try out gardening in the new place. you can do that too--just do something small the first year or two, til you know if it works for you. nothing says you have to go all out the first year!

and to sonshine--i dont' think so many were trying to discourage you from doing goats, but from doing pygmies for milk. they just aren't 'known' for dairy. and i was looking for you to suggest trying kinders! they are a mix of pygmy and nubians. from what i read, good for milk and meat, and can be bred year round! i find that very appealing!

well said

Check out John Seymour's The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It. There are several diagrams for different size homesteads, one of which is one acre. It may give you some inspiration.

Blue

Right now an acre would feel as big as a hundred to us!

Pelenaka and I need to post more here..

My wifes blog: http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

Yes. Homesteading can be done on one acre, and we are doing it on one acre. It can be done on a lot less than one acre, if that's all you've got.

I'd write more, but it's already past my bedtime, LOL!

Kathleen

The Garden Girl videos are great fun... and a great motivation.

We are also "homesteading" on a little over an acre. We won't ever be off the grid or completely self-sustainable, but we are able to do quite a lot with the space we have.

A bit of creativity along with proper prioritization of what's important to you is key.

Thank you all for your replies. The videos are great and I've got some book shopping to do! :0)

start with your library :)

i love that blog, so many ideas for small but effective gardens. thanks so much for posting that

You might wan to check out The Have More Plan book. Try "look inside this book" on page 7.

I agree 1000000%. We have about a 1/2 acre lawn (because the other 1/2 acre is garden ) and I can't stand mowing it. We are getting 3 sheep to do it for me ;) and I will use their wool for clothes and their milk for cheese. I really do miss raising sheep, they are comical.

in planning our new home/ranchette, i am not planning for much yard, i also think woodsman is correct on that point! i plan to have a small patch around the house only, mowing will be fine iwth an old style rotary mower with no motor (or noise, geesh i hate that noise!) the rest i plan for raised beds, fruit trees or goat pens.

Providing the zoning allows for it you can do a LOT on an acre. Big garden, orchard, chickens and Nigerian Dwarf goats would all be very doable.

Since you need to have at least two goats, Niggies are a good choice. They may not give a ton of milk (about 2 quarts a day on avg) but they do breed year round so you can stagger breedings to keep you in milk. Their milk is rich and sweet, and most of them are little love bugs that would love to be lap goats. :)

My chickens free range with my goats (I have the chicken feeder up high where the goats can't get at it) and they all get along quite well.

Millie & her favorite hen

We only have a half acre but we haven't had to mow since we got a pair of Pilgrim geese. We also have several varieties of grass which stay pretty short, too. Our climate is such that we don't really have any annual die-back so if we were out mowing a lawn it would be a year round chore. The geese are really happy to keep the grass short for us and they also alert us to anything going on around the place. They are also a lot more fun to watch than a lawn mower.