Urban Homesteaders

[CarolinaHen]

My wife and I will be starting our own little urban homestead in about 45 days. We just bought an acre of land down south in Atkins Texas (don't even ASK how much land is going for......) and our house should be finished by mid May and in place. Plans include cutting down some trees (there are just a shade under 100 oak trees on the place ranging from 4" diameter fence posts up to 2' diameter keepers), keeping the largest ones for shade and making the others into fence posts and fire wood. We also need to fence the back part of it, we're planning on having 9/10ths of the land behind the house since we don't do much "front yard" stuff. I've got to level and seed the back yard with Bermuda grass for the sheep we'll be getting (2 Dorper ewes and 1 Dorper ram). The sheep will be raised and processed by me to supplement our diet. Currently I kill several deer a year and we eat that meat instead of beef. We'll be getting chickens of course. Hope to get 6 laying hens and a rooster and then 6-8 meat hens that will see us through the year. My wife has plans for a large garden area that will be fenced to keep the critters out. I'd like to do raised beds since the soil we have is almost all sand and I have access to free/cheap compost out of a local mushroom farm. I'll not list the plants we want in the garden since I can't remember all of them. I'm also going to put in strawberries, blueberries and blackberries along the back part of the place and we have a half dozen avocado trees that have got to go somewhere.

Other endeavors include a 300 gallon water catch system for animal and plan watering. A well if I can sneak a truck in there to punch it and a solar array to power the house and out buildings. The solar will probably be on of the last things we do since it'll be the most expensive.

We have time though. I just started a new job as a civil servant and will be here for at least the next 18 years, should have 20 years as a CS and 30 years military retirement by the time I hit 62. That same year my daughter will be 18 and headed to college. Her mother and I hope to be 100% self sufficient by that time, sooner is better of course.

Sounds like you have a great plan!!!

 

[RustedOak]

Keeping an eye on this thread as I'm a newbie to all things homestead. I live in central Texas in a little town called Waco. We live in a quaint little neighborhood on the outskirts of town where one direction is farm lands and the other is subdivisions. I'm currently composting, both with red wigglers and a three bin compost system, growing tomatoes and strawberries in containers. I'm building an A frame chicken tractor and raised garden beds from reclaimed lumber (going with sheet mulching/lasagna gardening method), and trying to get some jalapeno seeds to sprout. I'm also building a small scale aquaponics setup with bluegill that I caught in a minnow trap when they were fresh spawned. Future plans include a hoop greenhouse/water catchment/canning/maybe raising some rabbits for meat. We reuse/recycle everything we can. One day, I'd like to get a few acres in the country, but for now, I'll do what I can, when I can, where I'm at...

 

[RichnSteph]

Keeping an eye on this thread as I'm a newbie to all things homestead. I live in central Texas in a little town called Waco. We live in a quaint little neighborhood on the outskirts of town where one direction is farm lands and the other is subdivisions. I'm currently composting, both with red wigglers and a three bin compost system, growing tomatoes and strawberries in containers. I'm building an A frame chicken tractor and raised garden beds from reclaimed lumber (going with sheet mulching/lasagna gardening method), and trying to get some jalapeno seeds to sprout. I'm also building a small scale aquaponics setup with bluegill that I caught in a minnow trap when they were fresh spawned. Future plans include a hoop greenhouse/water catchment/canning/maybe raising some rabbits for meat. We reuse/recycle everything we can. One day, I'd like to get a few acres in the country, but for now, I'll do what I can, when I can, where I'm at...

Just making the decision and getting started is an enormous leap. Sounds like you've got things well in hand so far!

 

[RustedOak]

Just making the decision and getting started is an enormous leap. Sounds like you've got things well in hand so far!

It's not happening near as fast as I'd like it to! Definetly a lesson in patience... Hard to juggle all that with a 50hr work week, being a working local musician after hours and a family. Somehow, I manage though

 

[nayeli]

@huggstaff13 how is composting with the worms? I want some but they are a little expensive, especially if they die! Do you sell them? How many do you have?

 

[RustedOak]

@huggstaff13 how is composting with the worms? I want some but they are a little expensive, especially if they die! Do you sell them? How many do you have?

It is very easy and low maintenance. No, I do not sell them (YET) as I just got into it at the beginning of the year. Hard to tell how many I have exactly but I'd guess somewhere around 2000+ at this point. I bought mine locally at our farmer's market for $15 in a bucket filled with roughly 1000 in different stages of development plus a ton of cacoons in finished vermicompost. Unfortunately, they only sell locally, no shipping.

 

[nayeli]

Your lucky. It will cost me around $30 for 1000. I'm just worried conditions may be wrong for the worms since I compost rabbit poop, pee, food, hay, food scraps, etc. Everything goes in the compost!

 

[biga]

i don't know if i qualify as an urban homesteader or not. it all started with planting a squash in the flower beds out back. next year it was in both flower beds. next year green beans in the beds. next year i built an 8x8 raised bed. next year it was 8x16. next year it was 16x16. i still wanted more garden but didn't want to buy a ton of top soil. so i spread out what i had in the 16x16 into a 20x40!!! i planted everything this week. 8 large heirloom tomato varieties, 7 romas, 2-40' runs of pole beans, 40' of purple hull, 40' of zipper cream peas, 2 squash, 2 zucchini, 2 green bell, 2 red bell, 1 yellow bell, 1 orange bell, 3 jalapeno, carrots, onions, romaine, watermelon, all the herbs i can stand... and i STILL have some more room to put a few things! and i have the 8 chickens and a coop of course.

which brings me to my question for you guys/gals... do i need to coop the chickens up to keep them out of the garden? i would think they would MURDER the lettuce and tomatoes. i have some bird netting i could put up but i'm not sure if i have enough to do the WHOLE garden. any suggestions? right now i have them on lock down.

 

[kocho]

We live in the city. We garden in the summer. I have two composters, a rain barrel to water my garden, bat boxes that I have to get my hubby to hang up and now 6 chicks. I grew up on a farm and we raised all our own beef and pork and had other animals off and on through the years. I don't want to go all out farm, but my son would love it.

I also did cloth diapers with my daughter and loved that. And I work as a breastfeeding counselor. I'm all about using what we make ourselves!!

 

[RustedOak]

I'm a complete newbie to all things homestead/gardening/chickens etc so although I'm sure this is laughable to those who are a little more learned in these things, I'm completely stoked! lol