Aspiring "in town" homesteader!
 

Hubby and I are moving in a few weeks to a new home, it is still in town but in a very small unincorporated town with little to no land restrictions. The home is on 3 huge lots and is somewhere around 3/4 of an acre. I know we will never be a true homestead but are trying to make good use of our land and become more self sustained. We were both raised in convenience food homes, but LOVE the idea of growing our own food. I love my flower and rose garden but have never grown anything edible. We are planning on planting some dwarf fruit trees, berry bushes and grapes. We want to have a veggie and herb garden, it will be a small one this spring but hope to work our way up to a good size one, and I also want to get some laying hens. If all goes as planned we intend to have meat chickens, dairy goat or two, and a bee hive in a year or so depending on how I am handling this new way of life lol.

I am so excited and trying not to get ahead of myself and end up over my head! I think chickens and a small garden and some fruit is a good place to start. Do you think I am trying to do too much on such a small plot of land?

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know the basics of my plan. Any and all advise, encouragement and constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged!

I get so nervous when posting on forums… almost as bad a public speaking lol Yes, I am a little shy...

congrats...I think starting somewhere is better than not starting at all. IMO, anything you do to bring you and DH closer to self-sustainability is a good plan.

I recently purchased this book, you might enjoy it, it describes the how to start etc. The board has a lot of great info too.

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Homes.../dp/1603421386


We started small and now have a gazillion chickens, 6 horses(i know cant eat them..lol), and now two calves. We planted two huge gardens this year(b4 they were small) and we kill a hog every year. We arent living off the grid, but we do provide most of our food ourselves. Its very rewarding.

Good luck and have fun!

I have chickens, milk goats, a garden, and mixed sucess with fruit. I think you're smart to get your perrenial fruit in early. My Dad keeps bees, so he provides me with honey.

bees have gotten a lot more complicated in recent years with disease issues - find a beekeepers club and attend some meetings.

also, you can't have one goat. on 3/4 of an acre even two nigerians would be dry-lotted.

chickens however, are great for weeds, bugs, and fertilizer. check out some garden plans with chicken moats, or fence your garden in sections and let the chickens have acess to a different section each year. they will clear it and till in the manure. I usually follow the chickens with the tomatoes.

Milk is for taste, for calcium and for protein. You can substitute for the calcium and the protein. Any bones you get, cut to smaller pieces with a dedicated clean hacksaw or a sabre saw (steel mesh gloves like they use in delis and butchers are a REAL good idea in a kitchen anyway), and cook in a pressure cooker. That will extract the protein into the cooking liquid to make stock, and leave the bones soft enough to eat (like canned salmon). Some of them you can feed to pets, poultry and even pigs. You can whiz them up in a blender and return them for more cooking in the stock if you like (chicken necks, giblets and skinned chicken legs treated this way make an inexpensive and superlative-tasting soup). You can also blend acid into the cooked bones (citrus juice or other fruit juices, packet citric acid, or ascorbic acid (vitamin C)) to dissolve the calcium into a sauce. Soup or sauce takes care of your calcium requirements.

Can't help you with substitute milk taste, but often juice can serve the same purpose (like orange or apple juice on cereal, muesli or porridge).

Muscovy ducks breed like crazy, give a handy-sized package of meat that is like lean lamb or pork, not rich and fatty like the other ducks, and lay enough eggs to be useful if you can find them before they hatch them. They don't actually need much water either - they'll happily use more, but they only need enough so they can go soak their heads - really! No joke. They are so ugly you won't mind killing them either. :heh: Muscovies are well worth it for vest-pocket self-reliance.

Hello Kate, No I don't think you are getting in over your head. You may have a lot of homework to do and tons of searching for answers in your near future. But what you are talking about is very doable. IN a smaller space than you are looking at even. How do I know??? I am doing it on a 6th of an acre right on the edge of downtown Reno. Yes right in the middle of a fairly big city.
I have 7 laying hens and a Rooster in my back yard. they do have to stay in a pen so they don't end up in the neighbors yard. I am growing 32 tomato plants this year and we are canning all of our tomato products. the rest of the growing space (Used to be grass) was devoted to growing tobacco this year but could have been used as a garden to grow a lot more of what we eat.
I cannot feed my family in this small of a space, but I can make it lower our bills.

Just be careful, you can spend a lot more money trying to grow things than they would have cost to buy. but future years will show better returns if you do it right.

I also encourage you to look into square foot gardening type methods. continuous harvest as well as other ways to cut down labor and costs while increasing productivity of the space you have. You can have a beautiful yard and eat it to. what was a flower bed last year is now a forrest of tomato plants. they are still nice looking and taste better than marigolds.

http://www.gardengirltv.com/

I love Patti Moreno. I'm sure she has info on her website that you'll find useful.

Homesteading is a state of mind,not a matter of how many acres you have.Find a copy of "One Acre and Security" by Bradford Angier.You can do a lot in a small space.Welcome to a great site and congratulations on your new lifestyle. :)

Kate_29 - you will like it here on HT. You can search the site for questions you'll have, ask your questions, etc. Good luck with your move!

We have lived in a small town on 1/3 of an acre fro the past 7 1/2 years. We have always had large garden beds,fruit trees and vines, chickens,goats and meat rabbits for awhile. It can be done you just have to plan out your spaces well. Welcome to the site its is a great place to learn.

Welcome to HT, Kate 29. Either by choice or by necessity, many of us are doing small scale homesteading. Edible landscaping, small livestock like chickens and rabbits, and square foot gardening, vertical gardening (vines up trellises) and succession planting (squash following peas) all help to improve yields in small gardens. You may also consider not growing vegetables that are cheap, tasty and easy to find in grocery stores (like canned green beans, beets, etc.) and use that space instead for growing plants that are harder to find, more expensive, or just plain taste best fresh, like peppers and tomatoes. Corn is quite cheap at local farms and farmer markets in season and can free up a lot of space too. Most importantly, don't try to do too much at once or you may overwhelm yourself and lose interest. Keep it manageable and fun!

When you get the chance, go to User CP/Your Profile/Edit Details and type your state into "where you live". It will then show up on each of your posts. Knowing where you live can help others give better advice for that location.

Again, welcome to HT, and good luck to you.

I have about 3/4th an acre on the edge of a small town with few restrictions -- I think only hogs are restricted. I don't have livestock at present as I don't want to be tied down to twice a day feeding or penning, so I decided to go with fruit trees, berries, and vegetable garden. Now that I've met the neighbours, I'm considering going with chickens and ducks as two of the neighbours have offered to help with them when I'm out of town (2-3 times a month for an overnight).
You will amazed what you can grow/ raise on that much (little?) land. There is a website called "urban homestead" where the owners are completely self-sufficient on a small lot.
http://urbanhomestead.org/
Good luck to you.

3/4 acre is tons of room to have fruit trees, berries, grapes, and a very nice veggie garden.

If you want to raise meat, rabbits take up almost no room and are quiet and easy to care for.

Welcome to the forum! Yes!!! You can do this!! Do go slowly - it's easy to get ahead of yourself. One thing to consider with the garden - if you know you'll want it bigger some day. Till up what you'd like to have and plant a perennial cover crop like alfalfa or clover on it. Mow it a few times a year and when you're ready to expand your garden into that space, your soil will be SOOOOO good! (you can feed the clippings to the chickens or rabbits of goats or whatever else you decide you can keep).

Man, that's some serious room to work with! LOL. I say that because I live downtown on a lot the size of some people's garage. I have rabbits, chickens, and did have goats, but they proved too noisy for the neighbors. Actually, if the goats had had their own space (with the chickens and rabbits) about the size of my current yard, and noise wasn't an issue, they would have done fine. What they say about it being a dry lot is totally true, but no big deal. We had Nigerian Dwarfs and their feed bill was negligible, really. A little hay, a little grain and lots of back scratches and they were happy.

Actually, the only reason we had a problem was because they were SO friendly they would run to the gate and make a racket at every person that walked by because they wanted to be pet and fed!

Now that they are gone, though, we have a lot more options as far as gardens and such. I focus on things that can produce a lot in a little space. (No pumpkins!) Remember even dwarf fruit trees will throw shade and make the space under them negligibly useful for gardening, (unless you're in an area where heat and sun can be too much for some plants,) but perhaps good for the chicken pen or something like that.

Personally, I LOVE the challenge of finding systems and things that work symbiotically in the small space. It's half the fun for me, right now, and I know the efficiency that I am learning now will come in handy someday when I have a full-size homestead.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

Wow! Thank you everyone for all the wonderful responses! I wasn't expecting all the replies!

A little more about me: I have read, SFG, "Barn yard in Your Back Yard" and "Back Yard Homestead". It was the Backyard Homestead that made me realize that a bee hive in your back yard was an option. I am SO excited about the bee hive but pretty scared about it too. I will have to see if our Library system has "One Acre and Security" Sounds like a good one too!

We live in a zone 8/9 we seem to be right on the cusp and there are debates as to what our actual zone is, either way we have alot of options. My uncle grows almonds, walnuts, peaches and apricots, my brother has cattle and sheep, so we have access to those which is awesome! We are on city water, but it isn't metered so that is a BIG relief. Not that we will be overly wastefull, but its one less expense to worry about. Our soil is clay, so we are thinking it will mostly have to be raised gardens, probably something similar to square foot gardening.

There is a farmers market at a park about a block away from us from april-oct, if there was a way to make a little money and have some fun selling something at the market that would be amazing! Not really sure if thats realistic though.

We have 3 fur babies, Sarge, the 9 year old Saint Bernard, Penny the 5 year old bullmastiff, and Chloe, the 8 month old pom mix. They are all inside/outside dogs and spoiled rotton.

So now my life story is posted on the internet lol

The farmer's market thing is totally realistic! I do it here. I specialized in early season this year, plant starts, baby chicks, herbs, etc. Herbs are a good one for small lot market gardening, as are high value specialty greens such as swiss chard, spinach, cool mesclun mixes, etc. You can cycle through them quickly and don't have to wait a long time for them to mature, nor do you have a short window of production. Depending on how much honey you get, that's another good one. I also sold a fair number of rabbits. And I probably should have spent more time making jams and jellies and preserves to extend my booth's season, but I got busy. :)

Great ideas kate29! Small is better these days with unpredictable weather. Much can be grown in small places. Before having our farm we rented five years, On less than an acre we raised vegatables, goats, chickens and kept a work pony.Be sure to check by- laws before getting chickens and goats to know if they are allowed inside town limits.Good luck and have fun!

may I suggest picking up a copy of Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway (avail at most libraries)..it has some good urban gardening ideas as well as the entire book being wonderful

I just wanted to wish you good luck with your new way of life.
You will be amazed at what you can do with your property once you get rolling.
I knew of a lady who grew flowers and herbs to sell at the farmers market until the veggies started producing. She was on a lot smaller place than yours and did very well.
Carol

Square Foot Gardening is a must read. I think you will be able to do more on the 3 acres than you think.

Also, always remember that homesteading is a way of life, not an address. Make due with what you have...you'll impress yourself in a few years time.

Kate - I have been homesteading on 3/4 acre in a little unincorporated community for almost 40 years! This area was one big farm in the old days and then divided up and sold. We bought our property and put a mobile home on it in 1973. We DO have metered water from a community well but I have learned how to be careful with my water. :) I have a flock of chickens and 4 goats on 1/2 of the property. My raised garden areas are on the other half with the house. You can easily do it with 3/4 acre. I grow enough to can each year and give away to friends and relatives. It just takes planning and the will to WANT to do it!!! :)

Guess ill have to bring this up everytime onna somebody with small acreage brings a post as you have,

My dad had 120 acres. When I was home, we had a dairy. We milked around a doz cows till 60. We had the biggest milk check on the route and the second biggest egg check. At 1960 the milk company said it wouldnt take any more hand milked milk. Dad tried to find some bucket milkers, but couldnt, and sold them and after a few years he got into beef cows. He did keep around 3 milk cows all the time I was home. When me and my brother left home, he sold off all but 2 milk cows. Then, when he got to be 80, he cut down to 1 milk cow. He kept it in the lot. The lot was around 50ftsq. Not a blade of grass grew there. He fed it all that it ate. He kept water constantly there for her. He had got to where he didnt want to go get her, cut her out of the rest of the beef cows. He kept her till round the age of 80 when he quit milking altogether.

My point is, that you can successfully keep a cow on a min 50sqft area, provided she has shade, water, and her feed. In keeping a cow, and if you get one, get a Jersey. You will have to provide all her hay. You will need to have a barn built to store that hay in. You will need to have a way to get that hay to that barn/ Being as you live in a town. You may find there r regs to hinder building a regular say, barn, Some lumber carrying places have large already built hip roof barns,that are DARN expensive. But there nice. You could keep maybe 200 bales in it. Itall take around 1/3 to 1/2 a bale a day, and that needs to be alfalfa. itall provide more nuitrants than alot of other grasses. Youo will need to dedicate an area to milk her in. Also, you could build a leanto on one side of the barn to milk her in. You will need an area around 15ft sq. You will also need an an area for a pen, for a calf, although, if you keep her penned as ive said, the calf should be alright with her mom in the pen. You could build another lean to on the other side for garden equipment, a tool room, ect. Or for a chicken house. If you have a hay loft, you can buy bale elevators that are made of tubeing and are light, with a central spiked chain to elevate hay up into a loft from the ground. Its run from a motor. Building another building for a tool shed, tractor shed, grainery, gas storage area might make sense so as to keep anything that burns gas away from the main barn. CONSIDER looking at a G Allis Chalmers, with its attachments for your garden. Its also fun to take it to antique tractor shows. If you think its too big. Consider a walking garden tractors like the David Bradley with its impliments. Also a mid sized tiller. To big, it will be a henderance in running through rows. To small, like the one I have, will be too small to keep up on a garden your size. Definatly consider a Mantis tiller, or a good one of its type. If you can raise a hog, You could keep it in the same pen with the cow. Actually, if you fenced it good enough, and were able to do it, You could run your chickens with the cows lot also. They would get out any grain that escaped the cow. You will need a grainery, as you will have to supply the cow, AND hog if u get one to butcher, To keep the grain in. If you get interested in building one, I can tell you how I built the barn with a grainery with 2 areas for 2 kinds of grain, I built for my daughter. For the tractor, you will need a plow, disc, harrow, cultivator. You may feel the need for either a sickle mower, or a rotary mower. Possibly a cart to haul heavy things with the tractor. You might also want a small greenhouse. By keeping the cow penned, You have a ready, concentrated area to get manure from. Dad never fooled with it, But, you could build a shed to keep it in when not needed. It needs to be kept dry until used. And not watered down and leached away by rains. U need to build the barn at the far end of the property and keep your gardens in between the house and barn. That way, your always haveing to look at the gardens on either side of the driveway from house to barn. you could garden one side and let the other grow into hay grazer. The cow could help keep it down to around tween 1 and 2 feet. Mowing it in the fall before frost and plowing it under provides great green manure for the spring garden. Letting one 1/2 the garden rest year is a good thing. I notice you havent mentioned rabbits. Make the cagers and buy yourself a 12/ doz does, and a couple bucks. Good luck

Hi Kate! My hubby and I recently moved to an old house in a small town on a 1/4 acre lot, and it's surprising what you can fit in. This year we only had 12 square feet of garden, and lots of veggies in big pots. There was no garden space in our back yard so we have been adding in raised beds. We are going to have 30 square feet by next year, and plan for 40-50, more if we find we are still wanting more. Those who posted for you to check out the Square Foot Gardening book are right, it's a great resource. Husband is considering raising rabbits for meat next spring. (Chickens are not an option, which is a bummer. But we are in Amish country so we get our eggs for quite cheap.) I am going to start a small worm farm this winter so we can keep composting our vegetable scraps. The house came with concord grapes growing on a grape arbor so we do have some fruit growing on our property. I think you're wise to put your fruit trees in right off the bat. Have you considered grapes for wine or jam/jelly? Good luck with your new adventure!

blynn When you need advice about worms, Come into Singletree and talk to Shrek the moderator. He raises BUNCHES herds of them. He got me started.

I know I'm new here, but really have to speak out about this -- 50 sqft is less than 7X8' area -- smaller than a barn stall. I think it would be really cruel to keep any animal, but especially a cow, in an area so small. She wouldn't even be able to walk around. I'm glad your father got rid of the dairy cows if he was treating them so cruelly.

If I were going to keep a milk animal on 3/4 acre, I'd go with a couple of nubian goats. Or forgo the milk animial completely and raise meat animals like rabbits, poultry, and find someone with a milk animal to trade with.

Hi Kate

You can do this. :) I have all the things you have mentioned, on 1/3 of an acre. Careful planning is the key. I do buy hay for the goats to supplement the garden waste and trimmings they get fed, and grain for the chickens, ducks and goats.

I also have three dogs, and they all get along well. Again, planning is key! :)

Thanks FarmBoyBill, will do. :)

welcome Kate 29
 

Most everyone here is kind and love to help out us newbies. There are many great blogs out there on urban homesteading so yes you can do it and you would be amazed what you can do with a few decent lots.

Michael

Thank you everyone! I am even more excited now!

I am having a hard time finding dwarf fruit trees in California, I have found a few great resourses but non of them ship to California. Anyone know where I can get dwarf fruit trees?

Kate,
Check with Jung Seeds and Plants for dwarf fruit trees. I just looked through their catalog and found no restrictions for California. They have an incredible selection, too. Website is www.jungseed.com and phone is 1800-247-5864. Also, I would recommend you consider "lasagna" gardening for your raised beds. You can get them ready to plant quickly and absolutely free. We have been using this for years and are amazed at the results. My husband wrote a detailed article on it for our website, under "gardening". May you be blessed in your new ventures!

_____________________________

http://homesteadingstewards.com

I wish I had 3/4 of an acre....I could do so much MORE!

My husband and I live on a 1/10th acre lot inside an incorporated town that prohibits hooved livestock inside town limits. I have a veggie garden and an herb garden, chickens, rabbits, and ducks. My parents have some property about 5 miles away and I keep my goats there, and board my horses at a different location. I like to call what we have an "unconventional farm."

My advice is to start small. Don't try to get into everything all at once or you will become so overwhelmed so fast that you may end up hating yourself and wondering what in the heck you were thinking when you decided to try this homesteading thing.

Also, think outside the box. A front yard doesn't have to be a "yard." Plant herbs and vegetables instead of flowers, or do a mixture of both. Sunflowers are lovely to look at and can be used to feed rabbits and chickens. For that matter, almost all garden scraps are useful for feeding to something or other.

If you are concerned about garden space, explore some alternative gardening methods, such as square foot gardening, or vertical gardening. For instance, my garden is super small but I was able to grow cantaloupes and sugar baby watermelons by training the vines to climb a trellis (goat panel). I cut wide pieces of cloth to make sort of a hammock that, when tied to the trellis, supported the weight of the melons rather than allowing the melons to pull on the vines. My garden is maybe 10' wide at its widest point, and maybe 30' - 40' long. Sounds really small, but with careful and creative planning, I was able to grow cabbage, green peppers, several varieties of tomatoes, broccoli, 2 different types of beans, romaine lettuce, mustard greens, kale, spinach, yellow squash, zuccini, cantaloupe, watermelon, acorn squash, onions, and sweet potatoes. The potatoes aren't quite ready to be harvested so I can't tell you how successful they were, but everything else produced loads of food for us.

I SEE WHERE I NEED TO MAKE A REDACTION IN WHAT I SAID ABOUT DAD HAVEING HIS MILK COW JERSEY IN FIFTY SQUARE FT. BY THAT, I M E N T, THAT THE PEN WAS 50 FT ALONG ALL 4 CORNERS.

When we milked we would keep all the cows in it during the night so as to have them ready to milk in the morning.

Yours is about the same size as my little garden, 18 X 30. Itall grow alot when I get the rain. I have hog panels all around it, as I turn 3 pigs into it either at the end of the season, or a month before I will start in spring, They bring up any roots, rock, eat any old folage, plants, veggies that spoiled, went bad, slugs, ect. I plant my cucumber vins on 2 sides of the fence and let them climb.

U might try to find Dick Ramonds BIG book on gardening, specifically wide row gardening. I do it with my peas, beans, beets, carrots. U know the 5 tine weeders that come behind the old high wheeled push plows? Well, they also made them on the end of handles. I got one that has all but the 2 outer shovles taken off. I got one with the outer and center schovel taken off. In this way, I can get in those wide rows, and, although Dick just scatters his seed, I plant it in rows around 4 to 6in apart. When they first sprout, I use the wider one to work the ground yet stay away from the plants. As they get bigger and stronger, I use the narrower one for closer cultivation,

That makes a HUGE difference. 50 square feet would be more like 7 feet along each side.

We have raised just about every animal and grown almost every fruit and vegetable on our place during the past thirty years or so. I have one negative from our experience I'd like to pass on--bees. We kept bees, got rid of them, then started keeping them again, only to get rid of them again. From our experience they are expensive and time-consuming, just not worth keeping. I've found it to be much less expensive to purchase honey. There are a few people who do well with bees and most of the rest of us who don't.

Bees are great for pollination, though. So instead of honeybees we purchased some Osmia (orchard) bees, and they have established numerous little colonies around the place and pollinate our orchard very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchard_mason_bee

Sounds like you are off to a great start...good luck! I know that you can do a lot with 3/4 acre because so many people here have done so and continue to do so. We have raised sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and geese on 1 acre along with a vegetable garden and a small orchard. It is all in the planning (which I learned over time!)
Welcome...you are in a great place to learn and meet great people!

Just wanted to update, its been a while since I posted. It took a LOT longer to get into the house than originaly expected, but these things happen. We didn't not get a veggie garden in this year, or even the raised beds all built. We have done some interior repairs to the house, and got in some grapes, fruit trees, and berry bushes. I just got a FREE chicken coop on craigs list that needs some repairs but it is an amazing find for the price! We already have an enclosed run we also found for free! :D My grandma became very sick and I have been caring for her 14+ hours a day, for months now, and hubby is having a hard time finding decent work so time and funds are low but we are still here and plugging plugging plugging away! I hope to have chicks by my birthday on the 31st! Happy birthday to me!!! :D

Kate29~ Welcome back! It takes a while to get things done. I want to say it's very nice that you take care of your grandmother. Speaking as an old sick man with little family, I know she really appreciates it. I am here with my best friend and thought for a while that I'd have to give up gardening when the Bermuda grass took over the garden plot. She doesn't garden except for some petunias and I decided to try containers. I have them clustered by the back door and spend only a few minutes a day on gardening, yet we have quite a bit to eat fresh and freeze. 4 kinds of peppers(in 5-gal buckets) and 4 varieties of tomatoes (in 18-gal totes) plus we had bush cukes til the tomatoes shaded them out. I had onion sets that I pulled a few at a time for scallions, they're done now. What I'm getting at is you can grow a lot of garden in a small space if you want to. Good luck with your new place, keep us posted.

Bill,why would they want all that equipment for 3 city lots of land . 3/4 acre with the house and maybe garage on it take up room. In town usually the front yard is lawn.

I know on mine I end up with 50 ft deep and 100 feet lomgoom to pan or use. Rest is lawn house and cement parking pad and space for a garage. I have less use of yard then they have as I do not own the place. I have no say. She did okay two small flower beds in each corner of front yard. She has cement rim/curb around them. So no landscaping. One tree on the place.

50 ft by 100, I can put up my small greenhouse and have at least 20 4' by 8' small hen and pen house and a shed for storage. I plan on like only 3 hens. Town seems to allow that. Just me. I want two pet rabbits. If I can. But I can not build the shed and hen house to son moves his tin shed out. I can not get moved in tll have a shed put stuff. I am in a mess.

Kate 29 you are doing better than I hav. I been here 6 months. I am still waiting for the cross fence to go in. That is the next place they will run cement. THey been running cemnety next f door. Plugged in to me for electric to run the mixers. I couls not plant this spring. I have 4 bed frames and $25 worth plants plus seed. Nothing will grow in them. County agent tested too much nitrogen and lime. We did not put in any lime. Horse fert yes but not that much. Fill dirt? We used added dirt. Some plants act like weed killer on them.