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

My husband and I are in the process of purchasing a home in a small town that sits on about half an acre. The yard is large and has a few trees on the southern side of the property, and it slopes gently from east to west. I love the property and the house on it -- of course, I'd really like to have much more land, but DH doesn't share my interest in homesteading! -- so here's my question:

If you only had a half acre of property, what would you do with it?

I'm interested in keeping bees and a few laying hens, and growing food. How would you divide your space? What would you grow?

First check to make sure what the land use laws are for that property. You should be able to have a nice sized garden, small orchard, a few laying hens and even possibly some smaller goats like Nigerian Dwarfs.

Find out what the land zoning is first. You may not be able to have any farm animals or chickens.

Read all about your growing zone. Lurk on the gardening forum. Read Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew for ideas for growing is a small space.. Make a list of what you like to eat. How to preserve it. Go slow.
Some of your questions can't be answered, as there are a lot of unknowns and everyone has their own preference for doing things certain ways.

Trees on the south may make for a lot of shade. Need to check that as vegies need sun. If not too much shade, I'd have a large vegie garden contoured like a flower garden. Some people like straight vegie beds. Your decision.

Good luck.

20 dwarf fruit trees, a few rows of blackberries, as many hives as the law will allow (ask animal control), some Christmas trees for fun, 4 hens and a rooster, flowers, a green house, and a vegetable garden.

And a riding lawn mower to make your work easier.

I have 4/5ths of an acre, and we do not use all of it but that is deliberate. I wanted room for the kids and pets and such.

Have LOADS of fun!!!!!!!!

Check out www.pathtofreedom.com and see what can be done on less than 1/4 acre then imagine the possibilities of twice the land!

Thanks for the responses!

Who would I contact in our town about land use laws? The county extension office is just up the street, but they don't do soil tests -- I asked :( Would the folks in the extension office know about the land use laws as well? A little more than half of the old homes on our street have been converted into businesses (dentist, day care, quilt shop, etc) -- our immediate neighbor on the south side is an acupuncture office, but the neighbor on the north side is an elderly couple.

The south side of the property is fairly shady, but the north side is sunnier. The previous owner paved the sunniest part of the property for RV parking, and we plan to rip up the asphalt in that section to make room for a very large vegetable garden.

your planning and permit folks would be the ones who would know the zoning for the different places in town

We have half an acre and when we had two geese and a dozen and a half chickens they pretty much grazed all the grass off it. It was a hot dry year and by the end of summer, there was no more grass. We've cut the chickens back to just six chickens and the geese live with some folks who have a larger yard now. So, for grazing critters, I'd suggest starting small and checking to see if you have enough grass for them all.

I have an acre and I have 13 chickens, 3 gees and 5 goats with no problems at all...plenty of grass for them, the chickens and geese keep the snakes away.

Given your area that half acre should bring you enough cash to buy about 30 acres here in Ky. I would sell it and move here. ;)

if there is any wind problem a windbreak on your prevailing side..then all the dwarf fruit trees you can fit in and maybe some dwarf nuts like hazelnuts for proteins, under them plant your perennial crops and herbs..herbs and some crops need the sunny side..some go well in shade..read up on french intensive gardening and go to some of the great permaculture sites to get information..there is a great thread on www.permies.com permaculture site that lists some good reading material. put the intensive stuff in close to the house and things that don't need so much attention at the farthest parts with the compost pile and animal houseing.

you might want to check out this web site..www.pathtofreedom.com It is a family in your state of California that do wonders on a smaller pieces of ground than you actually in the city !! Good info for any of us homesteaders. Good Luck !!

i only started with 1/2 an acre until i was able to afford the 8 or so behind me. that was all i had for 10 years. i dont know if what i did you would call homesteading. i just called it my hobby farm. i had laying hens, meat chickens. several geese and ducks. 2 goats. 1 tiny horse. a lamb or 2. 2 pigs. a few turkeys.couple pheasant. nice big garden. oh yes, and i did have 1 cow for a few months. ~Georgia.

If you plan on growing any sort of plants or a garden DON'T get a goat. Some how some way it WILL escape it's area and destroy more trees, shrubs, flowers, and garden plants in a shorter period of time than you can believe possible. And the more expensive, as in fruit trees and berry bushes, the better they like them. The pure aggravation and destruction it will cause in return for the little dab of milk you would get isn't worth it. Believe me, I know from bitter experience.

We have about half an acre. There are HUGE pine trees on the eastern side of our yard, about 3/4 of the way toward the south. There are a few other mature trees lining the path from our driveway to the house. All those trees shade the house and a fair amount of the yard but we still have lots of sunny ground. Some of that sunny space is reserved for our girls and possibly a swing set at some point. A lot of the shady space is used for the dogs to potty in. Our garden is about 50' x 35' for now, we will also add in a bunch of raised beds next year. Some things are also going to go in the front yard, like okra and sweet potatoes and sunflowers.

We have two mature apple trees for now, plus blueberries, blackberries, red raspberries, and black raspberries all growing. We should have a few grape vines and a strawberry patch but the plants we received weren't in great condition. Maybe next year? We have space set aside for wild plums, pawpaws, 4 more apple trees, a couple peach trees, 3 pear trees, a couple plum trees, and 2 cherry trees. The trees will all be semi-dwarf. Maybe a handful of hazelnut or almond trees too.

We have four ducks now, we did have eight but there were too many drakes. We raise meat rabbits. We have both coturnix and button quail in the house. We also have turkey eggs in the incubator. We'd like to add bees but there isn't a good location for them with the children. Even on our small piece of property we are trying to raise as much of our animals' food as possible. You can do a lot on half an acre! Just be sure to check your zoning, as has been mentioned.

Kayleigh

Check this article out, very cool

http://www.gardeningrevolution.com/files/Raised-bed.pdf

Before you do that, here's something to think about. It's possible that you'll end up having very poor soil under that asphalt. You'll be digging up a couple of inches of asphalt, and then probably a couple of inches of coarse gravel under that before you even get to the dirt. Then the dirt will be very hard from all that weight packing it down. You'll need to find a way to dispose of the asphalt and gravel, which may mean paying to have it removed. All of this could cost a lot of time and money.

Another route would be to build raised beds that sit directly on the current asphalt. For the cost and energy of tearing up all of that asphalt and gravel, you may be able to put in three foot high raised beds in the entire area. With raised beds, you could get your crops in earlier in the year due to the higher temperatures (especially with the asphalt between the beds increasing the temperatures) and you'd never have to weed the pathways because they are in essence paved!

It's just a thought, but you may find it cheaper and easier to go with raised beds.

Good fencing will keep goats where they belong. We have had Nigerians Dwarf goats for a couple of years now and have not had any escapes, other than the occasional newborn getting through the field fence. Solved that by putting up smaller mesh fencing.

Since the area you would have available is small and the possibility of dogs roaming loose is high, chain link fencing around the goat pasture would be relatively economical and provide a great deal more safety to the goats.

You can do a lot with 1/2 acre, check your zoning/restrictions first. If you are lucky with no zoning/restrictions, I would get the fruit trees in first. You can do plenty of gardening on 1/2 acre. Chickens and rabbits, if you are so inclined, would be your best bet. Check with your county clerk, they should be able to inform you of any zoning/restrictions with your lot. Good luck! My Grandparents had probably 1/2 acre in CA and they had cherry trees', persimmons and others plus a really nice sized garden, etc. Plan, plan, plan, but get those fruit trees in first :)

I agree with this. Just what I was going to say! Be thankful for the asphalt, and utilize it!

A half an acre is really quite a bit of land. In your climate, you should be able to garden almost year-round, even without much in the way of crop protection (greenhouse, tunnel, floating row cover, etc.), so a small (ish) garden should produce pretty much all your veggies. Plant some fruit trees and berries, and any nuts that will produce there, around the perimeter of the yard (grape vines on the fence?). Put the garden in the sunny center, and put your chickens (sans rooster if you are in town) in a tractor or two and move them around the yard. You should be able to keep yourself busy and productive on half an acre for a very long time!

Kathleen

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.

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!

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!

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...ay527/Farm.jpg
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...27/Farm005.jpg
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...27/Farm004.jpg
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...27/Farm003.jpg
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...27/Farm002.jpg
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...27/Farm001.jpg

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

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. :D Just fence your garden in and you can have both.