What can you do on about 1/2 an acre?

I wish we could! We're moving away from the Bay Area (THANK HEAVENS -- I hate it here!) up to gold country, but my husband is "married to the state" because of his job. We can go anywhere within CA, but we can't leave. Prices here are crazy, even with the market bottoming out.

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"Happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose."
- W. Cowper, 1782

You brought up some really great points about the cost in labor/removal/etc that I hadn't thought of! I had originally thought we might be able to put in raised beds on the asphalt pad, but I am afraid the beds won't drain properly. Do you know if this tends to be a problem? We were thinking of putting in some sort of low raised bed on top of the dirt once we had the asphalt up so that it'd drain, but if it will be fine without going through all the pain and expense of removing it, we'd much rather do that!

__________________
"Happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose."
- W. Cowper, 1782

On my 3/4 acre we have a hen house with 6 hens, a grape arbour, 2 peckham pear trees, 3 apple trees, a crab apple, ahedge row of 40 blue spruce trees, a 4 ft by 15 ft row of raspberries, a 15 ft row of blackberries a 25 X 25 "garden room" 2 elderberry bushes several shade trees, 2 largish sheds and plenty of room for a family picnic with lawn games if I want!

You could always make openings in the bottom of the beds, and allow them to drain directly onto the asphalt. I'm thinking that you could use a pvc pipe, covered on one end with a fine wire mesh and then landscaping fabric, that way you keep all of the dirt inside the bed.

Here are some of the things we did on our old 1/2 acre place. If you are willing to buy some feed you could really raise a lot of meat without turning the place into a feedlot by any means. I am pretty sure I could have fed a family of four off of the place if I had had more time!

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

The In Wine Country program recently profiled a small acreage organic gardener in Napa who used raised bed BISF to fufill the kitchen garden needs of a nearby restaurant. The restaurant also recycled the green wastes back to the gardener to be composted for use in the kitchen garden operation

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

keljonma here..

The Dervaes site is excellent for showing the possibilities. www.pathtofreedom.com

You may also want to look at Storey's book - The Backyard Homestead.
According to the book, you can get the following harvest from 1/4 acre land.... (depending on your zoning, of course).

1400 eggs
50 pounds wheat
60 pounds fruit
75 pounds nuts
2000 pounds vegetables
280 pounds pork
100 pounds of honey

I disagree with the goat thing. They love prickly things and tree leaves. They hate tomatoes. Our old male would try to horn them. The will eat your favorite stuff though. Just fence your garden in and you can have both.