Urban Homesteaders

[Latestarter]

We just moved from the heart of St. Louis City to a semi- urban neighborhood just outside the city border, and started our adventure with chickens. I often find myself to be lost on the forums because most people live in the middle of nowhere. We are confined to close quarters, and a small backyard, so the chickens leave not much room for... well... US. Glad to see that there are some others who can enjoy having backyard poultry as pets (or for the meat) that live in more urban areas.

Hey there @urbanfarmer135

Greetings from the front range in Colorado.

There's a LOT of folks on these forums in similar situations to yours! Don't feel like the lone stranger! There's a gent on here @ChickenCanoe who is also in the St. Louis area. I know he frequents other threads, but I know of him from "TheOldFolksHome". Drop by and visit us if you find the time.

 

[lorelei71221]

I would love some creative ideas to give my urban chickens more room to be chickens. I just gave away my old birds and am getting 4 new pullets this weekend. They have a coop and about a 45 sq. ft. run, plus a second story with a high roost in the run. It's technically enough space, but I know they get bored and I am gone a lot. The rest of my property is all paved patio, gravel and raised flower/veggie beds--no grass or dirt anywhere. I wouldn't mind letting them into the raised flower beds (maybe with a chicken tractor), but I'm worried they would be too destructive and/or eat something poisonous.

Another option--don't laugh--might be to let them out on long leashes attached to their ankles, but they would need to be supervised so they don't get attacked by critters or hawks. I also don't want chicken poop in the gravel and on the patio, but I bet they would mostly stay in the beds.

I'm also worried that if I only let them out occasionally, they will get even more discontented when they are back in their regular run. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[caeti21]

Hello everyone

I live two street from main street Zephyrhills lol right smack dab in the middle of town , but I have 12 chickens , 7 new Zealand rabbits , 7 contunix quail , 2 dogs, 2 cats and a ferret and we are about to add tilapia to our pond , i also have 2 composting worm bed

I also have a good size vegetable garden with squash, tomatos,carrots,broccoli, lettuce,pumpkins,grapes,blueberries, lol and plenty more not on the list, my husband makes his own organic wine,we have lowered our food waste 100 percent and paper waste paper products go into worm beds , and of course veggie scrapes , and all other food waste gets distributed to other animals , we make our own fertilize soil of course with help of worms and rabbits, we have a wonderful supply of honey bees which provides us with delicious honey , all this is just a tiny block in the middle of a busy neighborhood,most our neighbors have no idea that we pretty much have a farm the ones that do love it and we trade items and products with eachother its great ,and its lots of fun ,so I think we could fall under the urban homesteading category, but we love learning about different things and ways , we are about to install some rain barrels and are in love with the idea of solar panels but we are just taking it a day at a time and enjoying our mini farm and learning more and more every day , we love meeting other people who do the same type of things

 

[Jackschicks]

Hey all, glad to meet up with a bunch of like minded folks. It is so great to read what other folks are doing and how they are doing it and so interesting that its from such diverse parts of the country (and even a few folks from outside the US). My DH & I have a very small old farmhouse on 1 acre just a few miles outside of the Houston, Tx city limits with a large garden and 20 chickens. I started out with 5 chickens about 5 years ago (funny how that chicken math works) and now have a mixed flock of 20. I feel that life is a constant learning experience! The Houston area is flat & flood prone with a very poor clay soil but due to our weather we can keep a garden year round. My organic garden feeds our family of 5. We try to get the most out of our little piece of land. We have started an orchard and are firm believers in recycling & reusing as much as possible. My daughter & I preserve the garden surplus by canning, freezing & pickling. This year for the first time we raised some chickens for meat. Next on our list are bees & a small greenhouse.
Currently in the garden we have 2 kinds of peas, carrots, turnips, swiss chard, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, onions, leeks, spinach, lettuce, radishes, eggplant, beets and I am trying rutabagas for the first time. I have a few tomatoes and peppers left from summer and I can usually keep them going until around Christmas if I am diligent about covering them when it freezes. I, too, am in love with the idea of solar panels but haven't been able to convince the DH it is worth the expense.

 

[caeti21]

That's awesome , I do want to ask you about your organic garden , how do you keep the bugs under control? I am have a horrible time with keeping the catapillars and snails off my veggies , I was lucky enough to harvest two one pound pickling cucumber off without any bug damage but I'm at my wits ends I don't know what to do

 

[Jackschicks]

What's the old saying -- the best fertilizer is a farmers footprint?? I think if you garden organically, you have to spend a lot of time in your garden. I spend a lot of time hand picking caterpillars and snails off of my plants. I just go along with a little bowl and pick them off and then feed them to the chickens. The chicks love tomato worms and cutworms but will not touch a fuzzy caterpillar for some reason. I also use a LOT of Diatomaceous Earth and garlic & red pepper spray. I grow my cucumbers, cantaloupes and watermelons vertically on a fence and keeping them off the ground seems to help (at least as far as the snails, slugs & pillbugs are concerned). I grow a lot of nasturtiums, marigolds and herbs around the edge of the garden which repel some kinds of bugs. As a last resort, I spray with Spinosad which is a beneficial bacteria that kills caterpillars. It is classified organic but since I am not a chemist I have to take their word for it.

Squash vine borers are the bane of my life. The first few years we were here, I would plant 20 squash plants and maybe get enough squash for a few meals. I have been spraying with Steinernema (beneficial nematodes) every year now for several years and although it has improved a lot it is still a struggle to raise squash. Now the squash vine borers only get half my crop instead of all of it. The steinernema nematodes help with cutworms which were a problem for me too.

I want to be as self sufficient as possible but thank goodness we have a pretty good little farmers market in town because sometimes things just don't work out. My first few years of trying to grow squash here is a good example. We either had to buy squash from another local farmer or do without it completely. Last year, we had a bumper crop of tomatoes - I think my daughter and I canned 280 pints of tomatoes and probably froze that much as well which was a good thing because this year it was too wet and tomatoes did not do well at all. This year, we were overrun with okra and cucumbers. I think even the chickens got tired of the cukes.

Sometimes it is just a matter of trial & error until you find what works for your particular patch of ground. In our previous home I had a very small garden with a huge rabbit problem. This patch of dirt seems to be infested with cutworms and squash vine borers. It will take some time to find the balance and what works best here. I just keep adding compost, the better my soil gets the fewer my bug problems seem to be.

I noticed that you are in Florida so you have different soil but probably deal with a lot of the same bug problems we have here in Texas. The unfortunate side effect of a year long growing season with few freezes is year long bugs. I guess that beats having 6 months of winter. One of my sisters is in Wyoming and they have snow already. Hope this helps you with your garden - just keep trying until you find what works for your particular patch of ground. Good luck!!

 

[caeti21]

I'll see if the garlic and red pepper spray will work , I was thinking about mums too I wasn't sure if that would really work, I try to pick them off the best I can , Ill be out there all day just to come out the next morning and find eggs and half eaten leaves and vegetables it's horrible, I was using worry free organic spray but it seemed to damage my leaves so I stopped using it , I also have the cucumbers and squash growing upward cause I let my chickens into the garden during the day to help with bugs lol , but it's still an issue my one cucumber plant is a pickling cucumber and I got about 4 cucumbers off two were pretty big but my plant now looks like it's ready to die , I have expanded my garden space to another section of yard to see how cucumbers and watermelon, squash do there that section their going be on the ground , I figured I might as well try and see what happens, it all really is trial and errors

You do a lot of canning, we love canning , two years ago we lived in new York and we went around to the neighbors and ask if we could pick apples off their tree and we would share our homemade applesauce and applebutter it was great thou after a bit I got tired of seeing apples lol,we are getting ready to can more applesauce and apple butter, and apple pie filling, we loved in Texas for a year too orange Texas , it was different growing weather for sure compared to new York and Florida

 

[FrugalmamaTx]

Peeking my head in here - is this thread still alive? Anyone still around?

Newbie here, just starting my urban homestead. I'm in San Antonio TX and have a small lot - just .17 acres- so space is at a premium! Last summer we started with compost, and this spring we started planting with potatoes in containers. Not sure they are going to make. Still composting - I never realized before starting composting just how much stuff breaks down - I can have our barrel nearly full, and go out in a few weeks and it's almost empty {but converted to good soil}. We also are getting chickens this week, so hopefully by this fall we'll have eggs too. I'm also toying with the idea of rabbits - the compost would be lovely. I'm ok with raising them for meat but my daughter isn't, so probably we'll end up selling any babies.

My goal is to convert as much of the backyard as possible into garden and chicken area. Garden will be all on one side, chickens in the middle, then a row of dwarf fruit trees on the other side. Going to rip out the hedge in front of our home {it needs removing due to overgrowth} and replace it with some type of berry hedge hopefully. And when the trees in the front yard finally come down, they'll be replaced with more fruit trees.

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome to BYC! Looks like others have already welcomed you on your intro post. It seems with this thread, one or two folks chat for a bit then it dies off for as while. This site isn't really designed to cover the homestead issue in its entirety... more specifically for chickens. There are sister sites though that deal along the lines of what you seem to primarily be interested in, or at the least, complimenary: http://www.sufficientself.com/ and http://www.theeasygarden.com/
You could check them out as they talk about all aspects of gardening, and self sufficiency. Glad you joined us! Hope you find the site as valuable as I have

 

[caeti21]

Peeking my head in here - is this thread still alive? Anyone still around?

Newbie here, just starting my urban homestead. I'm in San Antonio TX and have a small lot - just .17 acres- so space is at a premium! Last summer we started with compost, and this spring we started planting with potatoes in containers. Not sure they are going to make. Still composting - I never realized before starting composting just how much stuff breaks down - I can have our barrel nearly full, and go out in a few weeks and it's almost empty {but converted to good soil}. We also are getting chickens this week, so hopefully by this fall we'll have eggs too. I'm also toying with the idea of rabbits - the compost would be lovely. I'm ok with raising them for meat but my daughter isn't, so probably we'll end up selling any babies. 

My goal is to convert as much of the backyard as possible into garden and chicken area. Garden will be all on one side, chickens in the middle, then a row of dwarf fruit trees on the other side. Going to rip out the hedge in front of our home {it needs removing due to overgrowth} and replace it with some type of berry hedge hopefully. And when the trees in the front yard finally come down, they'll be replaced with more fruit trees. 

Sounds like a great plan , I raise rabbits for meat but I also sell extra babies matter of my one new Zealand white rabbit Chewbacca just had ten babies on Friday ,and yes the compost from them is AMAZING lol