What I have to work with

[treshay]

Hello everyone. I am new to the forum and just posted something similar to this in the Hello section but wanted to post it where more would see it.

I currently live in Mebane, NC outside of the city limits in an area that has a few farms, a few subdivisions, and a few homes like ours, neither farmland nor "community" We have a little less than an acre of land, most f it is wooded and we are planning to clear what we can of it but still leave some wood for privacy. We also have neighbors on both sides of us, rather close too. I am VERY interested in becoming as self sufficient as I possibly can, but not sure what I can do with what I have. I did go ahead and order some guinea fowl eggs and they will be here soon. I would also love some chickens. We are considering a goat for it's milk in the near future but don't really know if we will be able to do all of this in our backyard.

Are there others out there who homestead and don't live on acres of land? Just wondering if it's possible and what tips you all might have on how to do more for ourselves in the small space we have.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from everyone!

[Catalpa]

What's your zoning? If you have neighbors that close, you'd best be prepared for them to start complaining if you get chickens and goats - make sure there aren't restrictions before you start.

Are you on septic and well? You'll have to make allowances for isolations from the well and septic to barnyard, garden, etc. For instance, you don't want your garden right over the septic, and you don't want manure/fertilizers near your well. If you have an acre, and your house/garage/drive/utilities are not spread over the lot, you probably have room for a good sized garden.

There are books available about small homesteads; I've seen them advertised in BWH, and many other homesteading magazine/website type places.

Good luck to you!

[kawalekm]

Hi Treshay
I can recommend a book you should read, "Country Life" by Paul Heiney from DK publishing. It has plan suggestions for different sizes of homesteads, beginning with a 1/4 acre one.

Do you have kids? If so, you may be allowed an exemption to keep small animals on your land if it is for a 4-H project. If not, you might want to introduce yourself to neighbors that have animals and ask them specifically about regulations in your area.
Good luck,
Michael

[LeatherneckPA]

Close neighbors and guineas seem an unlikely match to my mind. *You might be able to get something noisier, like peafowl, if you're really trying to drive the neighbors away.

[walls0stone]

if you want to drive off folks, get a desented skunk..great for keeping unwanted company off the welcome mat.
I'm finding that telling people what I'm doing here, is getting new friends. I told a friend how many pepers I planted, so she planted tons of somthing elts. we will get together and work together. the other day, I made a ton of home made root beer, and this fall I'll make a few 100 gallon of cyder...in all this, I'm swaping and sharing work with folks in my click who have other tallents. One friend is a way better butcher than I am..another friend has rebuilt a smoke house.

One factor of the old way of agg' was working together on each others farms.

[HockeyFan]

My advise is to get out of debt and stay that way. As far as homesteading and self sufficiency, start little and grow from there. The birds are a good start.
I'd also suggest not removing any more trees than absolutely necessary, because if you decide you need more space, you can always remove more, but it's a little slower to plant new ones to replace ones if you decide you removed too many.
Also, make sure you get a dog or two, because they're good at keeping out intruders that might pilfer.
I'd also suggest a couple of geese. Geese are good burglar alarms. They're protective. And they will attack a human being if they think they are intruding. Geese can put quite a pinch on a person that leaves a good whelp. In fact, dogs learn really fast to leave geese alone.

[treshay]

Hmm, I guess I figured I'd pose the question here because I was under the impression that this was a forum in support of homesteading - not impressing neighbors.

I've contacted the local Dept. of Agriculture and they are fully in support of raising poultry of all types in this great state that I live. Two houses down we have a cow farm and somewhere nearby is a rooster - I can hear it. Either way, our neighbors made a choice to move into a farming district, if they don't like my birds they can move.

I'm a tad disappointed as I thought I would get some productive ideas from others who started a homestead on smaller land and not be insulted for thinking it was possible.

Close neighbors and guineas seem an unlikely match to my mind. You might be able to get something noisier, like peafowl, if you're really trying to drive the neighbors away.

[Cowgirl]

I'm sorry that I cannot get really excited about guineas. I hope you have good luck with yours. I've had them in the past, but personally I prefer chickens. Guineas are noisy. They make roosters seem quiet by comparison. But aside from that, they are difficult to keep alive - they are difficult to get into a roost at night, and so become treats for the local owl and raccoon population. They are tasty if the owls and raccoons leave you any, though! If you want dark meat, and I'm figuring that may be why you picked guineas, pheasants are also very good and they are much quieter - I found them easier to keep than guineas. Ducks are also good dark meat. They are very messy, though.

With under an acre, I'd focus on a large garden first. You can produce a lot of food in a surprisingly small amount of space if you plant intensively in wide beds.

Chickens are great. Depending on breed, you can get a profusion of eggs and meat. They will go into a hen house at night by nature, and are easier to keep.

Goats can be kept in small areas, but you'll need more than one. They are a herd animal. Unless you have access to someone's buck, you will also need a buck. I have people ask if they can "borrow" my buck, but I politely refuse. I buy only clean stock, and I test for disease - if I loaned out my buck to a herd that didn't practice that level of prevention, he'd quite possibly come home with CAE, CL, etc. and infect my herd. Anything that leaves my place does so with a one-way ticket. I will sell a buck, but I don't provide stud service to folks with a backyard doe. Most goat people I know have similar policies.

At any rate, you can do a lot on as little as an acre. Good luck!

[humbug]

I currently live on a 1/2 acre.
I have chickens, and goats. I also have a large garden and an orchard with dwarf trees. I think that it is important to use all of your space productively. I may also add turkeys next year.
I heat with a woodstove and have found many places to get wood in a state not known for timber.. ;D ;D I live in the desert.
I think that the best you can do is come up with a list of your needs. What you cannot produce yourself find wholesale outlets for. I doubt that their are very many homesteaders that can produce all of the things that they need. Times have changed....but it doesn't mean that you can't be as independent as possible. I wish you luck and happiness on your journey.

[Av8rTx]

Check out this guy: http://www.freewebs.com/clarkshomestead/index.htm
He will probably chime in on this.
I garden, keep some chickens and rabbits and currently a few pheasants in town on a standard lot 50X100. It can be done.
If you have the patience to wade through all my random musings you can read up on it at: www.freewebs.com/av8rtx

[Faye]

I live in the country but in a small community. I had guineas but they like to go visit the neighbors and the neighbors did not appreciate them as much as I did. They will not stay home. They are bug eating machines so to me if would be pointless to have them if you had to keep them shut up. Mine disappeared. Go figure.

[Catalpa]

"I'm a tad disappointed as I thought I would get some productive ideas from others who started a homestead on smaller land and not be insulted for thinking it was possible."

Flying off the handle a little quickly, aren't you? No one was trying to insult you, and I saw nothing to discourage you....just some folks sharing their thoughts since you asked a question. And maybe sharing a little of what they've seen and learned... a lot of folks have run into problems due to neighbors who don't care for the 'country lifestyle'.

And don't be so quick to think they'll move away! Those types move in, and then raise all sorts of cain until they drive away those who were there first. I've seen it happen as clueless suburbanites move out into the country, and then complain and file suit until they manage to shut down the farm next door.

There's lots of info out there on small homesteads, and some people have made it work. Good luck to you.

[Dawgus]

Welcome treshay,

We live in Ohio on just barely over an acre, and do as much as we possibly can. We aren't in a tight "neighborhood" either, but we sure arent out as far as we want to be....YET.
Our garden started off here 9 years ago as 20x20 feet, now it's 45x60, plus strawberry beds, (8x32 and 6x24), 32 feet grapes, 32 feet "commercial" blackberries, and another 32 feet transplanted wild blackberries. Also a 30 foot round flowerbed is now melons and the mrs's gourds. We can almost everything, including making spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and more.
As far as other than fruits and vegetables, I hunt and fish, which keeps the freezer rather full. We also go in with friends on cattle (ok 1 steer lol) and a pig, all the way to butchering costs, which devided up still works out pretty good in our favor. I got my first meat rabbits last month, and our first 3 laying hens last week. I made a combination chicken tractor/coop on wheels so I can move it all over the yard, and then into the garage in winter. Hehe squirrel food all summer=easy pickin's when season rolls around too.
We considered a goat too, but as of now, we're drawing enough attention to ourselves here. You'd think the Clampetts moved in next door when I dug up a garden and put in clotheslines! Besides, if we had one goat, they get lonely and make noise, so then we'd have 2...add that to a 5 dog mix? No thanks lol We get goats milk from a friend when we want it, usually swapping for homemade candles or sewing items.
It takes time. We didn't do all this in the first year, it's taken nine. Decide what you want, and what you will get out of it. It all looks good at first till you realize the amount of work it may take to do it all, especially if you both work. Don't try to rush into everything at once, list it out, make goals for each week, each month, and each year, and it will happen.
There's lots of good reading out there, try your local library or used bookstores online. Someone suggested Clark's webpage too, great info there too. I found another one a while back, these people do a LOT on less than 1/14 of an acre, pretty impressive stuff.
Good luck on your new homestead

[becomingmyself]

We have dairy cross goats. We used electric fence to divide off almost an acre (of our 3) for our herd of 6. We have very good grass, filled with clover, fescue & timothy plus a few mulberry trees, a walnut & a maple. They have a lot of browse and so much room that they don't wear out the ground.

You could probably have 3-4 dairy goats on half your acre, but hay & grain will be needed. I see that you are not worried about what your neighbors think about the noise, but even I was surprised at how loud and insistent a doe can be (all night long) when you separate her from her kids so you can milk her in the morning.

Also, you'll want to find someone near enough to take your doe(s) to breed. Because bucks have to be housed separately, you'll probably not want to waste space on keeping just to breed your doe(s) once a year.

We selected does to start our herd that are half dairy (alpine, la mancha & nubian) and half boer, we will be breeding these does to a boer buck. The cross does should produce plenty of milk for what we use and the kids (being 3/4 boer & 1/4 dairy) will gain rapidly and produce plenty of meat when they are slaughtered. This dual purpose goat production would make good use of the area you have available.

I think you'd also do well with chickens on that size piece of land. We've got a flock of 13 chickens which free-range. They really keep the ticks at bay & are happy to clean up most table scraps & any stale bread.

You do have plenty of room to have a good garden with lots to can for the winter, spring & early summer. Consider also planting berry bushes.

A garden shed can provide plenty of room to raise meat rabbits. You can use leftovers & much weeding waste to supplement their diets. Then compost their waste to increase the production of your garden!

The great thing about doing what you can with what you have - much of what you can produce can easily be used in trade/bartering for those things you haven't got room for!

Good luck!

[LeatherneckPA]

treshay, I used to frequent a discussion forum on The Simple Living Network (http://www.simpleliving.net/forums/). There were some pretty good ideas there, but they just couldn't seem to keep the political crap out of their allegedly non-political forums.

One thread I remember in particular was titled "What could you do...." and the subtitle was "with one acre or less". It was fascinating to read the responses. So much so that I actually printed the thread off one night. And I'm glad I did, since I can't seem to find it there now. At the time that I printed it off, the responses ran to over 50 pages. And all very doable. I look through my archives and see if I have the web address for the thread on the printouts. They were largely responsible for making me re-think my 50+ acres and consider that my goals could probably be met on a mere 5 acres with proper planning.

In the meantime, if you can stand the Lefties and the Bush-bashers you should check them out. As I said, there really is a lot of decent info there.

[LeatherneckPA]

treshay,this (http://www.simpleliving.net/discussionforums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39629&SearchTerms=with,one,acre ,or,less) is the article I referred to on the Simple Living Network that goes by the same title. And it still makes interesting reading.

Now, as they say in New England, "You can't get there from here". At least, I don't think you can. I think you have to be a registered user to access that particular forum. Funny thing, my username and password still worked.

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Treshay,

Howdy, Treshay!

One possibility for limited space would be to raise vegetables and herbs in containers. I had done it with tomatoes years ago before I moved into an apartment and now Mom does it at the apartment where we both have units. I'll be taking up the practice again when I get a house and land and a little more time.

Not merely can you grow tomatoes or peppers in a 5 gallon bucket, but if you had barrels with drainage, you could also grow massive quantities of potatoes and onions.

Also, it is encouraging to note that something like 80 percent of the food in China is produced by small, privately-owned 12'x12' plots of land owned by individual peasants. With some study on Chinese intensive, raised-earth techniques, you could have yourself a great bumper crop!

If you wanted to quietly thumb your nose at potentially nosy neighbors, you could raise tropical fish, hamsters, gerbils, and mice indoors and sell them via classified ads.

Another quiet, unobtrusive type of livestock is earthworms, which you could raise to harvest their humus, which is the richest natural fertilizer on the Planet, and you can raise the earthworms to sell for fishing bait, again using classified ads.

Or, if you wanted to get some added cash and publicity, you could learn some about Recombinant DNA experiments and break the Guinness World Record for the world's largest earthworm.

The possibilities for homesteading in a small space are very broad with imagination and determination.

[EarthMother]

Another site is
www.motherearthnews.com
They are not like this site but do have some good info. They have been around since the 70's.

[MooseToo]

every answer to an open question is valuable - even if the response is not what you wanted or expected - as you see, folks are quite ready to share their knowledge - it's your job to sift through it -

[Terri]

I live on an acre.

We have a 50' by 50' garden, several fruit trees, Christmas trees, a bee hive, blackberries, a home made greenhouse, a bought potting shed, and a tiny hen house with 5 chickens. They usually give enough eggs for my family.

That takes up about half of the acre: the rest is in a large lawn and a few big trees.

If zoning would allow it I would add a dairy goat and a sheep. I have grazing for them, but I would have to buy hay for the winter. Alas, I cannot have them!