Property for Homesteading...

[Happy Wags]

I had emailed Cody a while back (before I realized how crazy his volume of correspondence is) to ask him some opinions about homesteading property needs. Now that I have a wonderful forum in which to ask, I thought I would post it to the community so here goes...

1) How much land do you think is necessary for a proper homestead? How much do you feel is needed for crops? How much for timber/firewood? How much for animals?

2) What do you feel are the most important aspects of a piece of land? Water? Terrain?

3) Are there specific requirements you expect to have on a homesteading property (must have a creek, must have a well, etc)?

4) How possible is it to be as close to self sustaining on a homestead in your opinion?

Happy

[Modern homesteader]

A lot of these questions are answered if you know what you are looking for accomplish with the homestead. What kind of crops will you be growing? What sort of animals will you be raising? Is the goal just to save some money on groceries or are you looking to make it your sole source of income? How much time will you be able to dedicate to the homestead?

1. I believe the quality of the land is more important than how much (to a degree). You can get a lot more land that is full of rocks on the side of a mountain than lush pasture. The health and type of soil will be important for sustaining any type of life, be it plant or animal. Right now I homestead on 11 acres, probably 3 acres of it is hardwood forest, the rest is pasture. Its a good start and plenty for me to deal with working a full time job, but if it is going to be your only source of income you will need more. I think 50 acres is a minimum I would feel comfortable with if I was going to attempt to make a living off of it. Again, thats 50 acres of the right land.

For a small family garden, 1/4 acre is fine, and if you can/dehydrate you should be able to really raise most of the vegetables for the year. That doesnt include orchard space. Thats the size of mine and using only hand tools its still a lot of work. I have a tractor but I enjoy gardening by hand.

Animals are very different. Chickens and pigs dont require much space at all. A lot of people raise pigs in very small spaces, and they produce a lot of meat. Cattle will run you about 1-2 acres per cow on good pasture. Can run you as high as 10 acres per cow on scrub. Sheep, goats, and other small ruminants will also provide a decent amount of meat on small acreage. I raise Dexter cows and we can run probably 2 per acre because they are smaller and we have good pasture.

2. Most important for me is soil quality and ample irrigation. If it has a good well or a stream/pond then no difference to me. I just need to be able to get water where I need it. I would NOT be on any type of city water system. Healthy, well draining soil is important for so many things. Good soil means more food on less land. Hills are ok as long as animals can graze on them and wont wash away. Flat is convenient, especially for building fences and driving on it, but rolling hills are prettier.

3. Best soil possible, ample irrigation, usable terrain. Being low on space I try and use every last inch of my land for something, so if there is a hill to steep or something its wasted land that does nothing for you unless you can grow timber on it or something. I would look for versatility in the land and its ability to produce things for me. The land is what will make this possible. Homesteading in the desert would be next to impossible I would think.

4. Self sustaining is a very subjective term I think. What are you expecting from the land? Just to pay for itself? Its going to take a lot of time and patience but it can be done. Choose a state with lax laws on selling farm goods and it will make life much easier. Spend time with the community and network. Hope you are good at marketing yourself. Knowing people is half the battle.

[Head Dynamics]

Water, water, and water.

[JC-DRAGON]

Most everything MH mentioned is really what you need to keep in mind. It really depends on how self reliant you are trying to be. It's great to have everything you could possibly need, but that would take a lot of time, effort, and of course land. Cody isn't raising livestock. They are focusing more on fruits, berries, and veggies.

So before deciding on where or how much land you would like, decide on what commodities you're planning on producing. Then decide if those commodities are to offset your expenses or be your business.

The next step would be to decide if or how far off grid you want to be. Also how you're planning on heating and cooling your home. You can homestead in the middle of a city (depending on location and laws on food growing and animals ) but obviously there could be major freedom restrictions. However you have the convenience of power, water, and sewage and trash services. In the country you might not have these available through a utility or service without major expenses. But back to home heating and cooling. If possible, I recommend using geothermal heating and cooling. You can do it anywhere in the world and it is super efficient. This would eliminate the need for needing large forest land for cutting cords of wood. This would help limit the acreage you'd need.

And to MH, I love in the NV desert and it's not as hard to homestead as one would think. Nevada may have the least amount of surface water than any other state in the union, but we have the greatest amount of ground water. You just need a deep well. The hardest thing is water retention in the soil and lack of organic matter. But after watching the Back to Eden movie Cody linked a while back, it's made things much much easier.