Looking for more resorces on home farming

Pasohorsegal · #1 07/19/11, 08:34 AM

Im looking for more sites on small farming ideas , gardening, and making a small farm more productive on a strict budget. Something like the Amish. I think we need to look at our own resources because I feel our g
Government is heading for a crash . Like the bible says, it will take a bag of gold to buy a loaf of bread. I buy my flour in large sacks, make all my own baked goods , have chickens, a garden , trying to budget for a cow ... I need to find more sites with home farming info... Thanks

tkmdfarm417 · #2 07/19/11, 09:18 AM

Do you live by Amish? My neighbors are Amish and we barter with them alot. Last week they gave my husband 10 laying hens & 2 roosters because he was going to town and took them with him and they had too many so it worked out. Yesterday another amish family brought us a baby pig for $20. They have trained our horses to buggies in exchange for a horse, they have plowed my garden with their horses just because we are neighbors, tought me how to make laundry soap, told me what to put on my garden for bugs, brought me produce from their garden,etc. So if you do live by them they are great resources for local information and how to do things .

There is another site called Keeping a Family Cow you might try there. God Bless

Pasohorsegal · #3 07/19/11, 03:48 PM

No, No Amish here and I so regret that I would trade several of my registered horses for an Amish horse & Buggy and The know how to better my 10 acres... You are very Bless to have them as neighbors.. I do know about the family cow site .. Thank you for your response.

Callieslamb · #4 07/19/11, 05:34 PM

have you checked with your extension service? Or your state? Some offer help/education for small farmers. Or go to the homesteading part of this forum - lots of help there.

springvalley · #5 07/19/11, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Callieslamb

have you checked with your extension service? Or your state? Some offer help/education for small farmers. Or go to the homesteading part of this forum - lots of help there.

Callie, you must have a differant extension service than we do, ours knows questions about big time farming. They often tell people to call me so I can help them out with small type farming questions. I stopped in at the office out of the blue one day to get something for the 4-H kids, and somebody stopped by and had a question about horses. The extension agent saw me come in and gave me a yell and said "Hey Marc, this guy needs a question about horses answered" so good luck with asking them much. > Thanks Marc

Pasohorsegal · #6 07/19/11, 08:30 PM

We know the extension agent here but their too busy with bigger fish , like the big land owners in the country . There are VERY few small land owners here .Tiny plots of land are few and far between... But thanks any way!

Callieslamb · #7 07/20/11, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by springvalley

Callie, you must have a differant extension service than we do, ours knows questions about big time farming. They often tell people to call me so I can help them out with small type farming questions. I stopped in at the office out of the blue one day to get something for the 4-H kids, and somebody stopped by and had a question about horses. The extension agent saw me come in and gave me a yell and said "Hey Marc, this guy needs a question about horses answered" so good luck with asking them much. > Thanks Marc

My guys here are a waste too, but the ones in TN were a big help. The ones in Iowa also (I worked in the office there of they gave GREAT help!) LOL!!!! The Extension service is focused towards the big farmer, but they have information for the smaller guys. They know of classes going on from other groups, etc. Of course, they are going to get you to answer for them if they don't know the answer. Good for them rather than making up one!! LOL!!! Maybe you should have them put you on the pay roll?

Callieslamb · #8 07/20/11, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pasohorsegal

We know the extension agent here but their too busy with bigger fish , like the big land owners in the country . There are VERY few small land owners here .Tiny plots of land are few and far between... But thanks any way!

Here are some links my Extension Service sent to me last year. I have better luck with the state people that the locals.

http://smallfarmconference.com/
http://www.smallfarmtoday.com/tradeshow/
http://tinyfarmblog.com/

Here are some small farm blogs that I like.
http://www.roosterhillfarm.com/journal/
http://jsfarm.blogspot.com/

You can do a google search and find information that applies to you in your location.

francismilker · #9 07/21/11, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by springvalley

Callie, you must have a differant extension service than we do, ours knows questions about big time farming. They often tell people to call me so I can help them out with small type farming questions. I stopped in at the office out of the blue one day to get something for the 4-H kids, and somebody stopped by and had a question about horses. The extension agent saw me come in and gave me a yell and said "Hey Marc, this guy needs a question about horses answered" so good luck with asking them much. > Thanks Marc

Marc, I get the same in my area. Especially when it's dealing with milk questions. I'm no authority about it, but our agent is fresh out of college and comes from a corporate farming background. A very nice guy and great friend to answer agronomy questions, just no authority on homesteading.

Pasohorsegal · #10 07/21/11, 09:05 AM

Thank you guys for the info. Keep it comming Im sure many will use this info !

tonyb · #11 07/21/11, 06:07 PM

As far as gardening goes, I enjoyed the book "Gardening When It Counts" by Steve Solomon, former owner of Territorial Seed Company in Oregon. It just seemed to have some unique information compared to other books. There is also quite a bit about survival gardening, gardening without irrigation, etc.

almostacowgirl · #12 07/22/11, 07:28 PM

You might want to see if there are any community supported agriculture (CSA) in your area by visiting this link. Many of them are helpful. http://www.localharvest.org/csa/.
Another thought are local churches or maybe some community services. It might be a bit of a stretch, but they may know someone. Are there any feed stores or co-ops? That's another place to look. Any livestock auction yards? You never know what you might learn from any of these places. There are a lot of very helpful groups on the Yahoo groups and other sites like that. I belong to a few homesteading groups, and they are usually made up of very knowledgeable and helpful people.

Good luck in your search. There is a ton of information out there, it's just taking the time to gather it that sometimes is the most difficult to do.

almostacowgirl · #13 07/22/11, 07:40 PM

Another thought, are there any Amish/Mennonite in your area? I know there are a ton over here on the other side of the mountains from you. Colorado State University has a college in Pueblo, you might try there, as they are still an agricultural college. I don't know for sure what courses they offer there, but it may be worth looking into. Are there any local colleges? Some of them offer evening adult classes, or at your local high school maybe? Or maybe garden supply stores?

Pasohorsegal · #14 07/23/11, 03:20 PM

Wow lots of feed back thanks guys! The problem here is we are VERY rural I believe the whole of Baca county has a population 4500. As far as I know there are no Amish in the County . Lamar college is an hour and half drive from here..I did find a great gardening site ... I have a peculiar garden situation as The elm tree spider roots allways find my watered plants and choke them out even with cultivating.. I since use Proteen lick tubs for my plants and have them sitting on tin so the roots won't craul into the tubs through the drain holes. I have to fence in the garden as the cotton tails will eat everything I plant... I started gardening this way three years ago as an experment . I have had trouble this year as the heat is so intense.
The gardening book sounds like a goos idea too.
Im realy getting into being self sufficient .. I want to get a young cow for milk and calves for meat as soon as I can afford it. Then mayby a pig or two If I can get the pen built. My husband is on oxigen 24/7 so Im it as far as building stuff... I have my cow pasture made a a converted horse barn for the cow when I get it I have some layng hens so thats nice and ofcorse 11 non productive horses BUT I LOVE THEM..... so that my story and Im sticken to it!

Catalytic · #15 07/24/11, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pasohorsegal

Wow lots of feed back thanks guys! The problem here is we are VERY rural I believe the whole of Baca county has a population 4500. As far as I know there are no Amish in the County . Lamar college is an hour and half drive from here..I did find a great gardening site ... I have a peculiar garden situation as The elm tree spider roots allways find my watered plants and choke them out even with cultivating.. I since use Proteen lick tubs for my plants and have them sitting on tin so the roots won't craul into the tubs through the drain holes. I have to fence in the garden as the cotton tails will eat everything I plant... I started gardening this way three years ago as an experment . I have had trouble this year as the heat is so intense.
The gardening book sounds like a goos idea too.
Im realy getting into being self sufficient .. I want to get a young cow for milk and calves for meat as soon as I can afford it. Then mayby a pig or two If I can get the pen built. My husband is on oxigen 24/7 so Im it as far as building stuff... I have my cow pasture made a a converted horse barn for the cow when I get it I have some layng hens so thats nice and ofcorse 11 non productive horses BUT I LOVE THEM..... so that my story and Im sticken to it!

A pigpen is nothing special, I made a portable one in a couple of hours. If you don't have the land to move it around, you can make a permanent one pretty quickly, too. I used cattle/combo panels, and for the portable pen I used last year, just clipped them together. Drove a t-post at the halfway point of each panel for stability and ran a single strand of hotwire about 4-6" off the ground inside. (I used the u-shaped nails, can't think what they're called, to tack 2x4s onto the cattle panels at the right height for the wire and then ran the wire on that. This year someone told me they have electric insulators that will attach directly to the cattle panels, so I could have skipped the 2x4s)

Anyway, the portable pen worked great, but I have an able husband and several teens to help pull the t-posts out of the ground (I am not physically able to do that myself). We're raising more pigs this year, family and friends wanted us to do some for them, so we made our pen permanent this year and quadrupled the size. I'm sure it could be done cheaper with just fencing, but I was a total greenhorn last year, and that was the idea I got from another forum for a pig tractor.

Our pen now is a total of 8 cattle panels, set up in a square, with 4x4s sank 3' deep in the corners and where the panels meet in the middle. I took bolt cutters to one panel and cut off 4' of it, framed it with wood and made it into a gate. The whole pen, not including the fence charger was under $200.

Anyway, I know this is the cattle forum, but I would highly recommend getting a couple of pigs right away, the pork is FABULOUS from home-grown, and the pen is easy to build.

Best of luck to you, a cow is next on my agenda, and I'm jealous you have pasture already...I have woods that I'm slowly using the pigs and goats to clear and then one day I will be able to afford to fence them LOL.

Pasohorsegal · #16 07/25/11, 03:39 PM

I think I allready have a hog wire panel ( thats what they call it here. I have a building and another solid projection so all I would need is to panel two sides and a gate. Im wondering how big a pen should be for two pigs . I know they need to wallow when its hot and need a shelter for winter ..Guess you would need to grow them for 6 months?? .. what about shots worming etc... We have a small live stock auction once a months so I have seen little pigs there....

SCRancher · #17 07/25/11, 04:16 PM

I thought Joel Salatin at http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ used just hot wire for his pastured pork operation.

So could be as simple as hot wire set to the correct height with push in pig-tail posts.

Pasohorsegal · #18 07/25/11, 05:35 PM

Hummm, I never thought about Hot wire for a pig pen... Green horn I guess! Have a hot wire for my stallion though.

tonyb · #19 07/25/11, 05:48 PM

There is a homesteading school about 2 hours away from us called Tillers International (www.tillersinternational.org). Maybe search for something similar out your way. I never knew such schools existed until after we bought our farm.

Living history farms might be another place to get ideas.

linn · #20 07/25/11, 07:39 PM

May I suggest Carla Emery's The Encyclopedia of Country Living? This is a great resource. The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn also has great ideas on saving money.