We have 40 acres,but my little "yard" supplies most of our food. The rest of our land is the hay fields and pastures that are for our cattle. We looked at a piece of property/house Friday so that we can sizedown, found out yesterday that someone else snagged it up. It's under a mile down our road. I'm actually kinda sad. But, I believe it's Gods will. So back to tending all of my gardens,and critters in my "yard". I'd list everything I have growing , but it's pretty much everything that has been mentioned in other posts. 32 fruit trees ,4 kinds of grapes,3 kinds of raspberries, ect. ect. I cann between 600 to over 1000 jars per year and dehydrate, we have 3 freezers(only 2 in use ,but 1 in case we have a extra good year hunting!) heat with wood etc. Really the only reason we need more than the "yard" is because I like to have distance between me and other people.
Last edited by 7thswan; 04/15/12 at 08:42 AM.
Reason: add word
I can't believe I forgot this vid, you can order her dvd off her website, Marjory's family has a large spread but the footprint they grow their food on is amazingly small. The DVD covers all the systems they incorporate into their homestead. For people down south I would recommend it, the challenges she faces in Texas is different then what we face here in Maine, but I did get a few good ideas from her.
We've done quite a bit of homesteading on our acre in Wisconsin, and if I didn't work full time I'm sure I could do much more! Chickens, apples, peaches, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, hardy blackberries, black currants, rhubarb, strawberries, jerusalem artichokes, and that's just the perennials I can think of.
It would not be hard at all to raise meat rabbits, given that we have a 45' x 45' outbuilding in which to house them, and tremendous soil that produces bunny greens at a prodigious rate.
Most of the human race that came prior to us survived on homesteads that were about a quarter acre in size.
There's some sort of misconception today that makes everyone think a "farm" has to be hundreds of acres with heavy equipment and feeding hundreds of families while earning the "farmer" a $40k a year income.
Produce enough food to feed ONE family (your own) and you've got a farm.
In Illinois I had 5 acres and we got by, even though I only actively worked about 2 of those acres. The other 3 were just grazing pasture for the livestock.
On 1 acre you can still garden, raise birds and rabbits for protein, keep bees, grow fruit trees.
AND here's a couple of added bonuses:
1. You'll live in your house surrounded by all of the agrarian things you love.
2. Your property taxes will be a lot lower and it will make whatever work you have to do for cash a lot simpler to handle.
Backyard Homestead is an absolutely invaluable resource. It doesn't get exceptionally specific about much, but it really breaks down the options and opportunities you have on a small property (barring zoning regs don't mess everything up for you..they don't make my life easy, that's for sure). The same publishing company also has a book about back yard livestock (which I haven't purchased since I can't have any anyways).
I grew watermelons on a lattice one year. When the melons formed, I made hammocks out of the mesh bags that produce comes in. So each melon had a hammock to support it. Worked a charm and looked so silly. They were mid-sized melons, not giants but not small.
Eventually if I stay here on my 1/3 acre, I'll have my backyard set up something like the diagrams, but without the pigs or goats or chickens. Zoning prohibits. Considering my backyard has grown up with blackberry bushes and brush, I'm tempted to sneak in a goat so I don't have to manually clear the sticker bushes.
My front raised "flower beds" usually have vegetables in them. I put some flowers around the edges, but squash, potato, tomato, melons, all look similar to landscaping if you're looking from the road. Just don't plant rows and no one thinks it's a garden.
I grew watermelons on a lattice one year. When the melons formed, I made hammocks out of the mesh bags that produce comes in. So each melon had a hammock to support it. Worked a charm and looked so silly. They were mid-sized melons, not giants but not small.
Eventually if I stay here on my 1/3 acre, I'll have my backyard set up something like the diagrams, but without the pigs or goats or chickens. Zoning prohibits. Considering my backyard has grown up with blackberry bushes and brush, I'm tempted to sneak in a goat so I don't have to manually clear the sticker bushes.
My front raised "flower beds" usually have vegetables in them. I put some flowers around the edges, but squash, potato, tomato, melons, all look similar to landscaping if you're looking from the road. Just don't plant rows and no one thinks it's a garden.
I myself have often wondered if I could talk the city inspector into believing a couple little milk goats were dogs. We have neighbors with chickens, and I've been meaning to go over and ask them if they somehow got permission, or if they're just rebels and no one actually cares.
I think I'd make my acre into a paintball course so I could make enough money to go buy a bigger property that would give me room to do all the things on it I want... like hunt and graze some farm animals..
1/4 acre at the homesite. Still large enough for several good sized gardens, brambles and blueberries, asparagus patches, one small nut tree, an apple tree (want to add more), peach tree (although the squirrels will most likely get those), and a spot for keeping some small critters that can be kept confined. There is room for a small pigeon coop, considering making one and getting back into pigeons. I also have several potted herbs and lots of flowers to keep bees around. There is room for a hive but I haven't taken that leap yet. I could put up a pergola and plant some grapes but that would put too much shade on the garden.
Most of my yard is shaded by a very large, very old tree. One I do not wish to part with. Besides, there really are a lot of food plants that grow and produce abundantly in that shade.
Our homestead here is just an acre. We are surrounded by the state forest and hunting camps (which for most of the year are empty). No neighbors that we can see. One guy lives up the road and we see him if he drives by, but just to wave. I garden in 11 raised beds, have a 2 story barn that my husband built from the wood he cleared from our land. We have 3 horses, and a beautiful lawn. From the forest I harvest much food, especially berries and medicinal plants. We have lived here for 14 years now, no electric or heating bills in all that time. Our taxes are very low for our overtaxed state and we are able to live very frugally here.
After all that I just said, I will say that we could raise smaller animals such as poultry, rabbits, pigs or goats, if we chose to do so.We have a big lawn and a good sized paddock for our horses who really don't use all that is available to them. We could grow more food in those two areas if we got rid of the horses and the lawn. I suppose it depends on where you live and how many people live with you. Just the two of us here and we don't want to take on the job of raising livestock. Maybe if we had started at a younger age. But you can do a lot with an acre.
Dig a one acre hole. Fill it with water, buy a houseboat and go fishing.
Though I do enjoy fishing, for me it would depend on where the acre is. Say Manhattan, sell it and buy some land on a river with a high point that I could build on and avoid flooding.
Then I would invite you over to use the boat ramp.
I myself have often wondered if I could talk the city inspector into believing a couple little milk goats were dogs. We have neighbors with chickens, and I've been meaning to go over and ask them if they somehow got permission, or if they're just rebels and no one actually cares.
I actually have neighbors who have some loose chickens. Apparently if they run loose, no one complains. If you have them neatly penned up, you're told you have to get rid of them??
Luckily for me, my aunt keeps chickens and I get plenty of eggs from her. I've briefly held a single goat here for maybe a week until it could be picked up or transported elsewhere.
I forgot to add that in my case, the state forest surrounds us, but anytime they could sell and populate the area. So packing up to move wouldn't be so hard I guess.
If I'm ever forced off my current homestead for some reason (a 30 year drought comes to mind) then I'd want to buy 1 acre out in the middle of nowhere, perhaps as part of someone else's bigger spread.
Then I'd take the "1 acre challenge" and see what I could do with it. Right now on our 10 acres, I could probably cram 100% of all of our life into that 1 acre.
The garden is only about a quarter acre. The workshop (which provides all my income) would take up a space about 12' X 20' along a back fence. The chickens could free range, so long as I was on the "right 1 acre" where I'm surrounded by a lot of empty land and the neighbors didn't mind. Rabbit hutches and fruit trees could be squeezed in there too.
The only reason I like lots of land is because I like to be surrounded by emptiness. I don't like being crowded up against other people. I also like to get out into the wilds quite a bit.
If I had some sort of arrangement with a farmer or a rancher where I could buy 1 acre right smack in the middle of their 800 acres of empty, then I'd be happy as a clam. I'm always curious why more people don't make arrangements like that. It would be advantageous to the larger landowner because they'd have somewhat of a permanent gillie to watch out for poachers or to feed and water the cattle.
I think too many people are just mired in the traditional methods of dealing with land ownership and they don't think outside the box.
I have a 6 acre homestead and I am driving myself nutz trying to figure out what to do.. we are in an exceptional drought and not much will grow anymore.. but we also have another 75 acres attached that we can farm hay or wheat that we are trying to partition. Love the ideas here..
I would recommend a small high tunnel maybe 24 x 48 feet (could be smaller). You can extend the growing season and using intensive techniques such as relay cropping or inter cropping you can produce multiple crops on the same plot. The tunnel is also insurance against crop failure.... Read Four season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
Imho, the trouble with having one acre is this........ it means that you probably have a neighbor on four sides of you, probably also one or so acres. A good neighbor can make their world a blessed place... a bad one can make it a living hell. Rock chunking distance is too close for comfort, even if they are Saints.
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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming
I started with 14 rented acres when I was 12. A small garden and a few old homestead fruit trees, rest pasture. I grew my farm to over 2000 acres, 1/2 pasture 1/2 tilled. Wife and 2 kids. Same size garden. I now am 57 and we have 1 acre, mostly pasture, a creek and a small greenhouse. Raised beds for most of the garden and a small traditional space for vining crops and some of the corn. Just my wife and I. Gardens are smaller than ever. We grow as much or more than ever but fewer and more easily grown crops. We start earlier and prolong production longer, grow some year around. We can and freeze less now than ever. We do dehydrate nearly the same amount. We store more and eat more fresh and in season. It is much cheaper and easier now than ever. We are smarter and have learned what is best to plant, easiest to grow, most productive AND what we like best. We spend way less time in the garden and live better than ever. We raise almost all we need and spend way less time, energy, resources and money than ever. Only reason we have gone to town in the last 10 months was for banking business because of our move, to check on my MIL in a care home and our 5 year dental appointments, he checked our teeth and said "see you in 5 years"....James
We have 3.5 acres. I have a huge garden, grapes, blackberries, strawberries, pecan trees, apple, peach, plum, cherry, & pear trees. (drives my aunt nuts that I planted them in the front yard ) I also have Nubian dairy goats, rabbits for meat, chickens for eggs. I also raise at least 100 broilers to butcher every year along with about 10 turkeys. We also have ducks & just got some geese to raise for meat. I have a few guineas for fun & a llama. I have also had some Dexter cattle, but recently sold them to build up my goat herd. I like the goats better. I would say 2 acres of ours is pasture. The rest is used as much as possible with very little to mow.
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sell it and buy some land on a river with a high point that I could build on and avoid flooding. 
