Ways to "Live off the land", share your ideas

Here is a closeup.

Who would have guessed barb-wire would make such a beautiful Christmas tree ?

Hello,We are new to this forum. Our desire is to live off the land someday. PeggieK we only live a few miles northwest of you. We have one child left at home for about two more years and we hope to have quite a few things in place to be living off the land by the time she leaves home. We have 40 acres of river bottom ground with 3 ponds on it that are stocked with fish. We also have about 25 producing native pecan trees that we don't do anything with as of yet. If we were to sell the modern things that we can do without( Cars, Boat,Shop equipment, etc)we could pay off the mortage on the property and have no bills. Got a few years to go before we can get social security so we would have to do something for an income. We have horses (to work the land if need be) and sheep already but we would have to get some cattle,chickens, and pigs to raise for our own use. I want to work long enough to purchase solar and or wind power as well as a green house for our own use. My wife and I have been in sales and service all our working life and am just getting very tired of the fast pace of it all. We have been talking about doing this for a long time but now we can see that it is within reach. Any help that you all may give would be greatly appriciated. Thank You

Muskrat52..........Howdy Neighbor ! Yes you are just a hop and a skip from us. And welcome to the forums. You'll find it to be a great wealth of information, as well as a whole bunch of nice people.

Looks like you have some nice advantages with the land you have. I have a friend that lives up by Winganon that has land with pecan trees also. She gathers them each fall and sells them there in Claremore and makes enough to fund her Christmas most years. I know that sounds like a small thing, but all the small things add up and save so much money in other areas. She dosen't work all that hard at it, but just wants enough to help stretch Christmas. If she really worked at it, it could be some sizeable money. By adding that to some chickens for eggs, a vegetable garden and some fish, homemade electricity and the other things mentioned, and it sounds like and excellent goal and plan.

After being on this property for 7 months now, I am beginning to get a feel for what's possible here. Soon I will start putting in semi-dwarf fruit trees and nut trees along with the beginnings of some berry patches, and my vegetable garden will grow larger than just the 6 tomato plants last summer... all with the paid help of a neighbor boy to do some clearing and planting.

I am still contemplating how best to harness the water from my spring to gravity-feed my garden. The spring is at the lowest point on this hillside so I'm thinking of a solar panel & pump to a reservoir up the hill as soon as I win the lottery. Actually I can do it for under $1,000 but I only have social security to live on, no savings, and can only put $75 a month into anything besides bills until my sister moves here to share expenses. Right now that $$ is going towards getting a veggie space ready to plant when it warms up.

I've added Gene Logsdon's books to my Amazon Wish List, thanks for the suggestion.

darius, have you thought of a rain-water collection system for the garden (don't know how far it is from your roof top to the garden)

Actually, yes I have, Dyson. However it still entails the problem of getting water uphill to the garden.

ooops sorry darius, thought the garden was down-hill from the house, my space between the front of the house and the garden patch is fairly level. So I was also trying to think this problem out. As of yet I don't have any gutters installed - they are on the list for when I hit the lottery.

I hope you buy tickets more often than I do! (None this year so far.)

I'm not buying them either - trying to get out from under some debit.

darius If you have a handy man around take a look at this site look any way there may be something youn could use http://journeytoforever.org/at_waterpump.html

Wow, Dave! That's quite a site. I know what I will be doing after the sun goes down today, LOL.
Thanks!

In addition to the Journey to Forever site, you may also enjoy the DeVraes Path to Freedom site. They are homesteading in an urban environment.
Lots of useful and interesting information between the two sites.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/urbanhomestead/index.shtml

Thanks... Lots of good information cropping up! I came across using rice hulls for insulation surfing somewhere... cheap and very effective. You might want to Google them.

Notice to those of you with postings who have mortgages on your residence or business - I represent a company that shows you how to pay off a mortgage in 1/2 to 1/3 the time and I will be pleased to give you my webpage if desired.

Notice: I posted a ntice a few minutes ago and then realized that all of the posts I read are very old and perhaps this site is not active. Because I don't come here often I may not be aware of someone answering my post. Feel free to e-mail me at bvston56@aol.com.

I've been gone for a while, but I'm still here..... barely. hehe

Since my first posts...... with all my high hopes and expectations, many things have become evident to me. And I'm still learning.

The first year, our garden did so-so, and I was so encouraged that we could actually realize enough to suppliment our grocery bill more than has actually been possible.

The second year, voles took over the garden, and ate more than we did.

The third year, it rained and flooded so much, it washed out our garden and stayed so wet until August, that everything either rotted as seed or it was so muddy all the time we couldn't even get into the garden to weed and care for it. And caring for the chickens was always a muddy, messy chore with not much reward. I just felt bad for them because it rained so much for so long. And winter has been just about as wet.
Even my peach trees drowned. I had 4 that were in their 2nd year and doing great. 2 of them died from so much wetness.
I'm wondering if my flower bulbs I set out have rotted too. Sigh.

Needless to say, this has certainly dimmed a little of my romance about the vegetable garden and it's possibilities, at least for the moment.
The weather forecast is for a dryer and warmer springtime this year.
It's still cold and gloomy now.......... but maybe spring fever will hit me all anew when it starts getting prettier out. I love the springtime !

But, all that said, I guess my point is.......... To be able to live off the land, you really have to be prepared for setbacks. I think I was not mentally prepared for as many as we had.... all in a row. I may not be all as tough as I thought I was...........eh ? Could be a couple years older and a little less energy this year too. Just getting over that nasty flu........... ugh

I still love it here, and wouldn't want to be in town. But it's a good thing we still have working incomes....... we would be awful skinny by now. hehe Maybe we'll have a fat year this year for a change. I think we're due.

Back being active on DG helps a lot. The more I read, the more excited I'm getting though. I have a feeling this year will be better.

Even if I just get a couple of tomatoe plants to make it........ it's gotta be better than the $ 2.28/ lb. I've been spending lately for tomatoes !

Keeping it real. Love you all, PeggieK

Peggy, so glad you are back! You are one of the gals that I felt like I had a lot in common with, when I first joined Dave's. I find I get so much encouragement here and can keep better focused, which is a huge help in reaching my goals.

Sorry to hear about your not quite so impressive years with the garden. Our first year garden here was quite a disappointment, too. Tomatoes wouldn't even grow...come to think of it, nothing really grew! The land is mostly clay, so didn't drain well. We'd be ankle deep in muck just trying to walk. The next year we moved the garden to an area that was a little higher situated. We tilled and amended good, raked the soil into raised rows and mulched heavily. Our walkways are well packed and the rows are easily worked by hand now. My biggest problem is weeds, that if not kept up with will be waist high in no time even with a heavy mulch!

We don't have a problem with voles, but moles are another story. I'm growing castor bean plants this year, which are suppose to run both of those little critters off. We've tried the mole-repel stuff (and it has castor oil) but way to expensive for as much area as we need to cover. Don't know if this will work for voles, but I read somewhere to try pinwheels in the garden for moles. Appears to be working, as there are no tunnels in the garden.

Hope things are much better for you this year! Robin

Ahhh Peggy... what farmer or gardener hasn't experienced setbacks? I think if we persevere despite ratty-seeming odds, we DO get to learn and grow. Last year was a bust for me as I was dreadfully ill from May through the summer and fall. Like Robin, I've started some better ways of doing things to increase my garden this year and hopefully for the next few years.

DG is a great place to learn, and to find encouragement.

PeggieK

It is so good to have you back! Sorry to hear your gardening has not gone well. Mine hasn't been great but it's my own fault. I put things off too much. My tomatoes would have done much better last year if I had actually gotten around to getting the supports put up. I am going to try and do better this year. I planted some of my seeds yesterday. I usually end up doing that too late, too but I am doing better. I planted 6 cups of broccoli, 3 cups of peppers, 3 cups of yellow straight neck squash, 3 cups of canteloupe and 3 cups of cucumbers. I also want to get some eggplants going and tomatoes. I have to get the seed and I have to find my yellow tomato seed I saved from last year. I was looking this morning but no luck yet. I also need to make some more paper cups from newspaper. I learned that from Dave. It's handy and very easy. I'll try to take a pic of my efforts. Maybe I will also keep up with the garden journal. A girl can dream. LOL

You are all so inspiring! We are still looking for our homestead acreage. In the meantime, we are doing what we can on our little lot in town. Last year our garden barely produced anything despite our best efforts. Our soil has a lot of clay in it and our garden spot has a lot of tree roots, so we are thinking about putting in raised beds. Plus, our research says that raised beds are much more prolific than row gardening. I like the idea of not straining my back so much while weeding and harvesting.

My question is what to use for the construction. I would love to find an inexpensive idea and better yet that maybe recycles something. Any ideas?

Angie

Hi, Angie,

I have high rows in my garden, some as high as 12" with the row being 24" wide,s others only 12" wide and 10" high. We also did a couple of 3' x 4'mounds for carrots. We have a lot of clay, too. We just added lots of amendments when we first tilled it (haven't had to till since) and just raked it up to make the mounded rows. I use lots of grass clippings for mulch and don't have anything to actually hold the soil in place, and they hold up well. Everything seemed to produce well. It's really nice to be able to dig for potatoes with your hands. We have a wooded area on our property, and I had thought of using some of the downed tree trunks to "box" in my rows, but thought better of it, because of the potential for bugs.

When it was weeding time, I'd lay a small runner rug in the path and just crawl along it to pull weeds. Sure saved my back and knees of my jeans!

Check out Homesteading Today... it may interest many of us.
http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/

I think the key is making it all work together. Instead of havine 20 different components with 20 different needs, make they work for each other as much as possible.

Have those chickens fertilize the blueberry beds, rake the leaves from the peach trees every fall under the blueberry bushes for mulch, let the chickens roost in the peach trees before fruit sets to eat potential pests. Give rotted or deformed peaches to chickens. Save the pits and sprout some little trees to sell. Sell chicks. Sell small blueberry plants or seeds. Sell compost made from chicken manure.

I think a lot of farming magazines and books would have us try every farming niche available, but I really think less is more. If everything is used efficiently, and seen at one big design working together, it doesn't get to hectic, and you can fit another component in; say bees, quite nicely, knowing what impact they will have on your little 'ecosysem'.

Darius, thanks for the "Homestead" link. Explored it a little last nite and really liked the info.

TG4P, great thoughts and ideas on making things work together!

Row/mounds would be more simple msrobin. We did the row/mounds a few years ago when we lived on 5 acres. And used the grass clippings. It worked pretty well. I like simple. Good insight ThankGod4plants. It is about challenging our cultural mindset. Everything is promoted as disposable and there is a product for everything. You really have to shut off the cultural input and think for yourself about how you are using everything and how they could work together.

I think in my past life I must have been an old farmer...doing what you can with what you have! LOL

"You have to have a vehicle and you have to buy gas and maintain the vehicle not to mention insurance premiums."

This is one of the main reasons I moved from the country to the small city where I live now. I realized that I would never be really self-sufficient out there because of the necessity of a vehicle. After I moved into town, I got rid of my vehicle entirely. That has freed up a lot of money and has also made me much more efficient in terms of what I do buy. I rent a vehicle now when I need to, but otherwise I get a lot of stuff online that is cheaper and that is more of what I need and want instead of just settling for what's within driving distance. I have refigured how I think about growing as well. I had no necessity for livestock anyhow, being a vegetablarian, but with much less land to grow things on, I have become much more efficient. I am working on becoming self-sufficient in terms of growing food. I know I have a long way to go, but I feel that the small amount of land I am on forces me to be more focused about it, to make better, more productive choices.

One thing I would encourage people to consider is some kind of online business that involves selling something you yourself produce. The great benefit of such a business is that you can live anywhere, and it also is a way to engage in a deep niche where you have no competition. This is what I do. It is no cake walk, and you won't get rich--it took me three years just to become self-supporting with an online business--but you can create a business that your locality would never be able to support, one that suits you and your living situation, one where you have little competition. Just because it isn't what they did in the 19th century doesn't mean you shouldn't do it now. One book that inspired me is "Blue Ocean Strategy," which has nothing to do with homesteading and everything to do with carving out a niche in a business that frees you from competition. It really works online.

We are building a house on 45 acres
i have 9 acres that are a tillable land.
I plan on raising chickens ,rabbits, hogs, goats and sheep.
I also plan on doing market growing, egg sales, chicken meat sales along with baking sales.
and maybe someday my book will get published LOLOLOL :) ( wipes away tears while laughing ) anyways ....
I have been reading books and magazines and doing alot of research, also having DG to seek help on other matters and advice on gardening. :)
i m sorry your first yr was not a successful . Im going on my 3 rd season with a garden and my first two were well ....... not very productive, so i hope this yr is ok.
I read
Hobby Farms
Hobby Farm Home
Grit
Counrty woman and Backyard poultry and have a few books from Joel Salatin that i have learned alot from
my fav is Poultry Profits and Everything i want to do is Illegal
those really helped me out alot
also a good handy book is the medical book of veternarian care
oh i think Mother Earth news mag is a good source of info too
Peggy Keep in going with your quest , it may take another yr or two to really get the hang of it. Then somthing will happen again and you'll wonder "why am i doing this again ?" and then somthing will happen in a yr ot two and you'll say " oh yes thats why were doing this and i love it " its a roller coaster of a ride out here in the country . Im learning that too. Im a city girl and still think i m nuts !! so do all of my freinds. :)
but my mom just sent me a realtor page of a house on her street and how much it cost for a 1,640 sq ft house on a 6,000 sq ft lot in the city she lives in and i couldn't believe the figure over a million !!!!!!!!! Ha i got me 45 acres for under half that Ha i may not have a starbucks or a fancy mall but i can do with out that .
sorry i took to long a post :) i just ramble on at times
hope it helps
sue

Ahhh, it's so good to hear from all of you.

When I posted, I think it was an extra cloudy dreary day. So hard to see the veggie garden for the clouds sometimes. All of your posts cheer me up and give me hope that, yes this will be a better year ! Gotta be, right ?

Now that daylight savings time is here and we have more sun at the end of the day, it seems like we might just make it after all. I like the longer periods of light at the end of the day.

The ground is still really wet...... clay soil drains so slow. But at least there are getting to be longer stretches between rains lately. Maybe DH will be able to till the garden before much longer.

Sue, I agree........ I'd much rather be out here in the country on my modest little place than back in the city.

This spring will be the 4th garden effort here. I can think of several changes I can make that might help too. Now if I can just get the fire re-lit under DH......... we can get it all done. All his blueberry bushes drowned too, so he's a little less eager to jump on the gardening bandwagon this year.

I love all the magazines you mentioned. They are so interesting and informative. The year before we moved out here, I read all of them I could get my hands on. I couldn't afford to subscribe to all of them, but they have most of the ones you mentioned at our library, along with lots of back isssues. I love em. Second and third year, same thing.
I really want to be more self sufficient, and I think we do pretty well per sey, but realistically, I think the piece of property we have is more challenging than I thought at first. But, like I said, I'm learning...... that too.

I still love our little place and the life it offers us. I'm getting more and more excited to see springtime. If the garden won't work, I'm going to try some Earthboxes. Ordered 2 so far. Can't wait to try them out ! Yippee !

Love to you all, PeggieK

Winter is rough out in the country isn't it :( i still don't do very well with it . LOL this yr is expecially hard with it being so cold in March.
But there is a light at the tunnel
Glad all of our posts are helping :)
sorry to hear of your blueberries flooded
what are you growing this yr ?
have you had any luck with your garden's
i have done them for 3 yrs and i still don't get much luck. Hahaha i am hoping lucky # 4 too
Eb are great i have heard
sue

Awww...., I sure can empathize. My blueberry crops have dwindled, perhaps from catbirds moving in and eating everything, or maybe I should be pruning my huge wild blueberry trees....for the first time ever I had trouble with tomatoes - grew some cool heirlooms last summer but no disease resistance....coyotes got one of my hens (only 1 hen and 1 rooster now). The neighbor's kids stole 3 of the 4 peaches. The wild trees keep getting bigger and the roots grow up into the gardens and into the compost pile....the bees are hanging in there but I've become allergic so rarely dare go into the hive....the eggplants didn't do too great and everything else did worse.... OK I'll stop whining now! It's still freezing here and we're getting over the flu. My daylily seedlings are growing well and HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL as they say. It's always a lot of fun to plan your garden. The truth of the matter is that I expect constant change in weather and farming results, gardening and life can be a crapshoot! I live for spring and have so many blooms and new leaves to look forward to. And my S.O. bought electric fencing to try to keep those pesky deer out. :)

I have had some wonderfully productive gardens in other locations (especially on land right over swamps!). I implore people thinking about homesteading to buy good land, not like my pine barrens on saltmarsh. I may eventually be able to cut trees down and build up the soil but it will be a constant battle. I should be rotating my gardening plot. Most of my problems are related to neglect; I concentrate on daylilies and they have made lots of nice seed for me.

Hang in there, all, we will all find our "niches" and what works for us, it will take some trial and error, that's all! Hope spring comes soon for all of us.
Juli

Juli
Human hair clippings are said to keep deer away.

This is a very discouraging time of year as far as gardening goes...it's cold and wet and the days are still so short, trying to get over cabin fever and hoping spring fever comes soon. But we're getting closer day by day!

Peggy, the earth bags sound like they may be answer for you. I've heard good things about them. I've seen pictures lately of where people have just layed out bags of compost, cut a few holes in them and planted potaoe, flowers, etc. We tilled our garden the first year, added some bags of compost and then raked it up into mounded rows. I lay lots of grass clippings on the rows as mulch. We haven't had to till since and the soil is still good and loose. Rotaing your crops through the rows not only helps confuse the bugs, but takes less toll on the soil and things like peas and beans even help the soil. (I'd like to take credit for all that knowledge, but learned it all right here in the pages of DG! LOL!)

All of you might consider strawbale gardening, too. There's a forum here at DG that gives all the directions. It's pretty simple and the vegetables grow well. Much easier to harvest, too. The hardest thing about this technique is getting the strawbales home. I haven't tried it yet, but plan on setting up a few bales to try.

We bought some "windmill molechasers" from Harbor Freight. The list price was $9.99, but we bought 4 on sale for $5.99 each. They are also suppose to help deter deer, rabbits, etc. I wonder if they would work for coyotes, too. Something to consider...

Hang in there in and hopefully spring will come in soon, so we can get to gardening sooner.

I am a bale gardener. Learned it here from strawbaleman. He is a wonder. A friend told me last week about growing potatoes in a feed sack. He fills the sack with dirt, lays it on it's side, cuts a couple slits in the bag and plants the potatoes in the slits. He waters through the same slits. When it's time to harvest he just slits the bags open and sorts the potatoes. I have lots of plastic feed bags so I may try a few this spring.

Hi, Cajun, that was the point I was trying to make...there are some really simple ways to garden successfully, when you have poor soil. I think a lot of us gals would really appreciate the strawbale gardening, as it cuts way down on weeds and picking is so much easier with the plants up higher.

I tried the straw bale gardening method last year, with mixed results.

I, too, have poor soil, plus I am on a hill and until I can afford to have massive amounts of fill dirt/top soil brought in, I needed to come up with an alternative method.

So, I "googled" straw bale gardening last year and followed the directions I found there: treating the bales with ammonium nitrate, then fertilizer, etc.

Before placing the bales, I put down newspapers, empty feed bags, old carpeting, whatever I could come up with to discourage the growth of grass, etc. around the bales. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of that stuff and had to just place the a lot of the bales on top of the vegetation.

I also tried to utilize my space as efficiently as possible by placing the bales back-to-back, two deep, end to end, in each row. That was the wrong thing to do because that, plus the growth of vegetation up around the bales, created a haven for slugs.

I couldn't keep the slugs under control no matter how much I salted and how much beer I put out. I have ducks, but had to keep them out of the garden at that point because they would've eaten the tomatoes, etc.

Then I got hurt in the middle of July (on-the-job) and that really set me back physically and mentally.

So, will I do it again? Yup. That's my plan, but with some adjustments. For one thing, oat straw (which is what is available in this area) is up to $8.00 a bale. And last year, I had a heck of a time keeping the little oat sprouts pulled. So, this year I'm putting the word out (i.e., Freecycle) that I will pick up hay that's not suitable for animal consumption (I've had one response already) and try that. The reason I didn't do that last year and chose to buy straw was because I was concerned about weed seeds, but since I had the problem with oat seeds, anyway, I'm going to see what happens with the hay bales. Free is a much better price than $8.00, anyway!

Also, I am not going to try and pack the bales so close together. In fact, I'm going to have them spread out away from each other.

I have also let the ducks (and chickens) into the garden since last fall and I've noticed, in the last couple of weeks, they've been spending an awful lot of time in that area, hopefully finding baby slugs.

I've also been stockpiling every newspaper, feed bag and Diet Coke box I could get my hands on since last summer. These will be spread on the ground over the area the bales will be placed in. I also covered part of the garden in plastic and will lift that and place newspapers, etc. down where the plastic killed off the vegetation.

One thing I noticed (and it's a good thing) is the bales from last year have pretty much broken down. The chickens are spreading it around pretty well and I figure that will all end up someday as nice fill.

Janis

Strawbale gardening sounds interesting. I did see a forum on it, but never really thought it would be something I'd be interested in. However........... upon learning what I have this past season, maybe I'm going to be lots more interested in it this year.

I guess one reason it didn't appeal to me is because of the experience I had with using straw for mulch in my garden 2 seasons ago. I got straw or maybe it was hay, that was FULL of seeds. What a mess I had ! Grew a great crop of whatever it was. But it was way worse for my garden than no mulch at all had been the year before.

I had 4' x 6' raised beds, and the sprouts even jumped into them and took over. My neighbor uses a spray to kill grass-type plants in his garden, but I wanted to be organic so I didn't. Even though I am against it, I may re-think that idea this year, much as I hate to.

I think I will try the raised beds again this year, along with the EB's.
I bet something will grow.

I can tell I'm about to give in and be hopeful again......... I walked thru the garden area at Lowe's today and they had their broccoli, cabbage and lettuce plants in. It made me almost forget I was bummed about last year's garden. Notice I said "almost" ? hehe. Naw, I'm just kidding,........ I'm now begging DH to till as soon as it's dry enough.
Am I a glutten for trouble, or what ?

My, what a difference a day makes. Especially one that is sunny and 80 degrees ! Today was gorgeous !

Today, I'm ready to put out a couple of broccoli plants. By next week I'll be thinking I'm ready to go bear hunting with a fly swatter.

But isn't that how all of us .....that choose this country life and homesteading idea are ? I guess that's what keeps up trying. Either that............or short memories. :-)

I better call it a night. Supposed to be sunny and warm again tomorrow. I'd better get lots of rest......... the bears are gathering and I have to re-locate my fly swatter. :-)
Nite Nite to all.................. PeggieK

LOL Lurker here and I do believe I can relate to all that has been said. There IS hope in numbers after all. I am a gluttin for punishment and plant my veggies every year. Some years are better than others. Dang good thing I don't farm for a living! I admire those Farmers. They Rock!

The thing I like most about DG is the encouragement and inspiration from other members! It's all a learning process and we country-living folks just keep on learning! We'll probably never be able to make a living either, but it's kinda nice dreaming we can.