Aspiring homesteader! :)

[Kate_29]

Hi! I am moving in a couple months and am really hoping to live a more self sustaining life style. The home we are moving to is in town but on 3 large lots equaling almost a half acre. We live in a very small unincorporated town with almost no restrictions on the land. Anyway, we are planning on starting a small veggie garden this year, and hope to expand to a large one next year. We will be getting some laying chickens, and hope to expand to meat chickens as well. I am trying to talk hubby into 2 small milk goats, but he is being a little resistant, so I will have to put those off until later.

I am very excited but also a little nervous. I was raise in a convenience food/prepackaged food home. We used the microwave a lot, and grew nothing ourselves. I have a large flower garden and LOVE gardening, but I have never grown or canned food. So this is going to be a big change.


I am 29, married with 3 furrbabies. I am not sure where this new change of mindset came from but for the last year I have been trying to simplify my life. I have done a lot of decluttering, have cutout and or simplified beauty products, clothing, cleaning products, etc. (baking soda is amazing! )


Any ideas about what other smallish steps I can take? I don't want to get in over my head, but I also want to feel like I am making serious progress and want to learn how to be more self efficient. Any and all encouragement, advise, and constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. I don't have many people I can talk to where I live, they all look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them what I am trying to do...

Oh and I was thinking about trying the squarefoot gardening. Is it worth it?

[Debbie-cat]

Welcome to a more self sufficient lifestyle! You won't regret it. Take one skill at a time and learn it well. This will equal success and have fun while doing it!! A few things I have done which you might consider and I am sure others will add to the list!

- hang clothes to dry outside
- compost - will add rich nutrients to your garden soil next year
- bake your own bread and desserts
- use rain barrels
- learn to can and dehydrate your garden produce
- use the library - a wealth of knowledge on being self sufficient!

Looking forward to following your journey.

[Durgan]

Hi! I am moving in a couple months and am really hoping to live a more self sustaining life style. The home we are moving to is in town but on 3 large lots equaling almost a half acre. We live in a very small unincorporated town with almost no restrictions on the land. Anyway, we are planning on starting a small veggie garden this year, and hope to expand to a large one next year. We will be getting some laying chickens, and hope to expand to meat chickens as well. I am trying to talk hubby into 2 small milk goats, but he is being a little resistant, so I will have to put those off until later.

I am very excited but also a little nervous. I was raise in a convenience food/prepackaged food home. We used the microwave a lot, and grew nothing ourselves. I have a large flower garden and LOVE gardening, but I have never grown or canned food. So this is going to be a big change.


I am 29, married with 3 furrbabies. I am not sure where this new change of mindset came from but for the last year I have been trying to simplify my life. I have done a lot of decluttering, have cutout and or simplified beauty products, clothing, cleaning products, etc. (baking soda is amazing! )


Any ideas about what other smallish steps I can take? I don't want to get in over my head, but I also want to feel like I am making serious progress and want to learn how to be more self efficient. Any and all encouragement, advise, and constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. I don't have many people I can talk to where I live, they all look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them what I am trying to do...

Oh and I was thinking about trying the squarefoot gardening. Is it worth it?

Gardening can be a lot of fun, and the physical labor can be much reduced with the appropriate tools. All gardening is less effort if one is not too strapped for funds.

You are probably in over your head now. There are a lot of obstacles to overcome, and even with your best efforts, weather is often not accommodating. A lot is trial and error. It takes several years to establish fruit trees, and is hard work if planting is attempted on one year.

Where is you location? It is difficult to be self sustaining if the climate is not adequate for good growth on the average.

Anyway , Good Luck and keep trucking. Most people quit and go back to watching TV.

[Kate_29]

Thanks so much guys!

Durgan: I love gardening, my exsisting house has a huge flower garden. I am only going to grow a couple things this year and see how it goes for next year. I live in Northern California zone 8, there are a lot of crops that grow well here. I am not much of a TV watcher, we acctualy just got a TV after being almost 3 years without. I do read a lot though! I am really trying hard to start small! Its hard sometimes because I have been known to get overly excited about things (or everything!)

I am trying to start small so I don't burn out. Because I know myself all too well! lol

We were over at the new house today, we are replaceing the deck, all with free repurposed materials! I will probably start building the chicken coop next weekend.

[Durgan]

Thanks so much guys!

Durgan: I love gardening, my exsisting house has a huge flower garden. I am only going to grow a couple things this year and see how it goes for next year. I live in Northern California zone 8, there are a lot of crops that grow well here. I am not much of a TV watcher, we acctualy just got a TV after being almost 3 years without. I do read a lot though! I am really trying hard to start small! Its hard sometimes because I have been known to get overly excited about things (or everything!)

I am trying to start small so I don't burn out. Because I know myself all too well! lol

We were over at the new house today, we are replaceing the deck, all with free repurposed materials! I will probably start building the chicken coop next weekend.

Get your camera out. Would love pictures. You sure are in a great Zone. At least the season will be reasonably long.

[2_at_the_farm]

Terrific! So much to learn, so much to look forward to! And there's so much information and opinions on the 'net these days.

My first garden was compact gardening. Square foot gardening is a version of that, and yes! It's worth it. I got tons of veggies from a smallish space that first year. The next year wasn't nearly as good as the first, but that year everyone had a low producing garden. Where I live, it's not a guarantee, but we're used to it.

Plant what you like to eat, some stuff that will store well or can be frozen or stored or canned. If you start small, you won't feel so overwhelmed at harvest time. (That first year, I remember almost crying while I was sitting in the green bean patch. I had picked a 5 gallon bucket full, had more to go, neighbors didn't even want any more and had at least that much still in the frig to deal with! The following year, we got enough for maybe 5 meals and that was it.)

[Brat]

Start small and work your way up...

Square Foot is great..Cost up front but so worth it in the long run..

It is a lot of work but well worth it in the long run..

There are so many here and can help with any problems that you will run into..

Good luck..

[Kate_29]

The deck is almost finished. It was a 2 steps forward one step back kinda thing. lol I went to the local library today, it just opened back up after being closed for a couple years, they had almost nothing I was interested in but was informed I could now "order" books from a bigger library and have them delivered to our small local one! I ordered gardening books including square foot gardening, a couple homesteading books and a canning preserving book! I can't wait until they are in. I have gathered wood to build the veggie gardens and have gathered some for the chicken coop/run.

[freebs]

You can use regular chickens for meat birds also. I also recommend you check prices of meat at the store first too before you buy alot of birds to eat. I can get chicken on sale for .30¢ a lb i cant feed a meat bird to size for anywhere close to that price. I know it isnt growing it yourself but it sure saves time, no killing, plucking, gutting, cutting up, freezing, im pretty quick at it but still my time isnt free. Last time i figured with our grain/feed prices it was going to cost me more along the lines of about $1.75-$2.00 a lb to raise my own, then there is still the processing of it. I do process out any extra roosters that i have from incubating my own eggs, because i dont want to just kill them throw them away. We do alot of container gardening so if you run out of room thin flower pots or those storage tubs things like that! good luck!!

[2_at_the_farm]

Do some research for lazy gardening, too. I have never tilled, do very little weeding, etc. It's great and each year my soil gets better and better. Gardening doesn't have to be expensive if you use what's around you and scrounge for what you need.

I have two concrete troughs that I wanted to use for planting. I filled them most of the way with dried stuff from the yard, straw, whatever I could find (rocks on the bottom and a screen over the drain hole). Then I topped it off with a layer of garden soil and watered it. I had to add another layer of soil before I could plant, but I needed just a fraction of the soil that I would have used if I had done it in a traditional manner. I use chop and drop weeding, straw and grass clippings for mulch and it's keeping the troughs filled up. Now the soil there is really nice.

When we first moved here, I had no compost, crappy soil, lots of rock, weeds. I desperately needed something pretty to look at and something green! I filled another concrete trough with plastic milk jugs, styrofoam chunks, etc. Then dirt on top. Every time something floats to the top, I fish it out. I'm adding all the kitchen scraps to that one now, but I bet I end up adding a layer of soil next year. Thinking out of the box sure bought me some time to get some good soil without having to buy bags of compost or potting soil.

[Spirit Deer]

Inter-library loan is a wonderful thing! Our library system's card catalog is online and we can order books from all the libraries in our system online. It's very convenient. We can also download e books through the library website, including gardening books. You can read them on the computer if you don't have an e book reader. Your library may have the same set-up which saves time and gas, and allows you to surf their database for books at your leisure. You may be able to order gardening magazines to borrow, too. We can also download e books from the Minneapolis public library system, which is 250 miles from us. We love these resources and use the heck out of them! It's invaluable for me because I get a lot of books through ILL so I can look at them first to see if they're worth buying, in the case of things like cookbooks and how-to books. If I decide I want them, then I jump over to half.ebay.com and see if I can pick up a copy on the cheap. More often than not, I find what I want at a price I'm willing to pay.

Be sure you have a plan, so stuff doesn't get planted willy-nilly and you end up having to move it, or worse, rip it out and get rid of it. (I don't want to discuss how I know this tip. ) Draw it out on paper, after you make a list of the things you think you'll want to grow.

Think about what perennials you want, and get them started ASAP. Many take several years before they start to produce.

If you have an idea for something new that sounds interesting, see if you can buy any of it at the store or a farmer's market or somewhere, so you can taste-test before you go to the work and expense of putting in a perennial.

If your native soil is fertile, you may not have to build raised gardens. If all you need to do is rent a tiller and till under some of your yard, then till in something like horse manure, why go to the expense and work of building raised beds?

As mentioned, don't forget about container gardening. Self-watering planters are great, too. We made a bunch of those and even when we have hot summers, we fill them maybe three times over the entire season, and in the meantime the plants get uniform moisture. They're also up above some of the pests like bunnies.

Pay attention to the movement of the sun so you know which areas get sun all day long.

If you're planting perennials like fruit trees, be sure to space them far enough apart. They'll be little now, but much larger later on. Also make sure you have walking-around room, because you're going to have to pick the fruit and maybe prune things, etc. so will need working space for that.

Look for info online by searching for your county or state's extension office. Extension offices offer huge amounts of accurate info about all sorts of topics including gardening and preserving food. In the case of county offices, especially, the data will be geared to your specific area.

Request seed catalogs from Jung's, Gurney's, Burpee's, Park Seed, and any other place that looks interesting. Even if you don't order, it's fun to look through them and consider various possibilities. It will help you plan what you'd like to grow.

Plant short-term crops in staggered plantings, so you'll have a supply all summer. Like if you want radishes, plant about what you'd use in two weeks, then two weeks later, plant another batch, another batch two weeks after that, etc. Leaf lettuce is another crop you can do this with, or stuff like spinach or other fast-growing plants.

Be prepared to fence your garden! Deer, raccoons, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, and other wildlife all love fresh food as much as we do.

You'll only need one zucchini plant, most likely.

In addition to canning and dehydrating, don't forget about freezing. Arm yourself with info on this useful method, and start collecting appropriate containers to freeze things in. Recycled cottage cheese and sour cream cartons and stuff like that works fine to start with, till you see if you will use them enough to invest in something better. If you don't have a freezer but would like to buy one, buy the largest one you can afford and have room for. You'll find plenty of stuff to put into it. It's amazing how fast a freezer fills up, between meat sales at the store, stocking up on close-out cereal, buying milk on sale, and making ice for large coolers for your next camping trip. The list of uses for a freezer is endless.

If you're organized enough to do so, keep a gardening journal where you record what you planted, where, when, how well it did, conditions that may have affected it, etc. Over time, that'll help you determine what crops do best.

Ask the advice of the people at nurseries. They are often quite knowledgeable. And buy good quality nursery stock from a reputable nursery. This is especially important for perennials. If they're not robust and healthy at the start, things are not likely to improve. Nurseries tend to be more expensive, but for some things it's well worth it in the long run.

Freecycle for what you want. I asked for Egyptian walking onions a few years ago and not only did someone have some for me, but someone else also responded asking if I wanted some bunching onions as well, which I did. I've also given away some spare rhubarb plants on Freecycle, and the person who took them was happy to get them. Don't forget about eBay, either. I get all kinds of seeds from eBay, usually fairly reasonably, things I can't find anywhere else or that have ridiculous shipping fees for the one or two packs I want. I've also gotten live plants such as orchids and lilies of the valley on eBay, much cheaper than at a nursery.

If you've done well with flower gardening, then you already have the basics for caring for plants. That's a great knowledge base to build on!

[Kate_29]

Wow guys! Thank you so much for all the information!

freebs: We do want to get some meat chickens, we are just starting with laying chickens to see how it goes. We can get whole chickens pretty cheap here but not as cheap as you can! Wow! I have NEVER plucked, killed or gutted a chicken, so when I get to that its going to be interesting!

2_at_the_farm: I am planning on building raised beds out of the wood we salvaged from the old deck. We have about 40 35 yearold 18ft 2x6s. They should be more than sturdy enough for the gardens. I am going to get a compost pile started as soon as we move, the soil there isn't great but it could be worse. We have a lot of really good soil at our current house that I have saved or collected from other people. I am so glad I did because its going to grow some nice veggies!

Spirit Dear: I am having a problem with the planning part. The yard is over grown now. But it used to be a beautiful yard. There is a large flower garden area, large deck, concrete pads for a huge gazebo, a concreted in gazebo, another concrete pad I have no idea what it was for, a dry creek bed. It is really pretty! I am trying to figure out where to put my "useful" stuff with out tearing out all the prettys! There is a good chunk that gets good light, but I am going to have to move or tearout a gorgeous liquid amber tree.

I am having a hard time picking veggies, its so much different than picking flowers because you have no idea what they are going to taste like! I really want fruit trees but have no idea where to put them, there are a lot of trees on the property, they are beautiful but provide to much shade to plant many others. There is one cherry tree, I was told it was a type of sour cherry and that they weren't good for eating and never used them for anything. Should I replace it with a different cherry or is there something I can do with the fruit?

The entire property is fenced, I wasn't planning on fencing the garden. We have 3 dogs and I was thinking they would probably keep most the critters away.

A gardening journal is a GREAT idea! I never thought of that!

[Kate_29]

Oh! Whats a self watering garden? That sounds like somthing I need to build! It gets so hot here, and its dry dry heat!

[crafty73]

I sooooo want a veggie garden but dbf is utterly against it He says its for 'old ppl" and its been a topic of debate between us for a couple months already I said if that were the case, maybe I'll just rent a plot somewhere

[Spirit Deer]

Old people? *snort* Has he never tasted home-grown tomatoes and compared them to the flavorless store-bought version? Ditto just about any other truly fresh fruit or veggie versus the stuff from the store. Why would you have to be old to like good food vs. just-okay food? If he doesn't want to help you garden, then just get a few big pots and put in some tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, etc, that are easy to grow. Easier, cheaper, and more convenient than renting a plot.

We made some self-watering planters out of empty cat litter pails a few years ago. I got interested in Earthboxes but didn't want to spend that kind of money. Besides, we already had everything for my DIY version without having to spend extra money on anything but the dirt.

For instructions on how to build these, click here and then click the thumbnail labeled 'next' to the right of the larger pic to view each step in the tutorial. These were an experiment, but they worked out so great we made a bunch more the next year. I've modified the original version just a little. Now, I make the lids with the holes drilled as shown, but with slits cut all the way through at the back of the holes so the lids will slip around the stems of the plants. I also now make these with larger fill tubes to make filling easier. And I trim off some of the part on the lid that makes the lid difficult to remove, because the fill pipe keeps the lids from opening and it's easier to just be able to lift it off.