Urban Homesteaders Tribe

[jessimonster]

Who here is farming in the city? Or in the suburbs?
I'm just getting started with some hard core urban homesteading. I have a large garden (8x40 feet), three fruit trees, and a good edible landscaping set up. We're starting bee keeping this summer, and I'm looking into raising quail for meat and eggs. I'm learning how to hunt, and I bake bread and make my own cheese. My boyfriends mom is going to teach me how to can food this year too. Very excited!

[Magelet]

in the future I hope to be. for now, we're in a 3rd story apartment without even a balcony. We're trying to get a plot in a community garden, or an apartment with access to a yard we can garden in (and maybe keep chickens and/or bees)

[Pixie26]

Wow, you rock my world. That's awesome! My DH and I are living w/relatives and plan to move get our own place w/in the next year. At which point, we will have a ginormous garden. 2 years ago I had a 30x40...Last summer it didn't work out so well b/c we were moving, everything got blight, etc...We also want chickens for eggs and maybe meat, and DH wants alpacas. This summer I will in suburban NJ and hugely pregnant and uncomfortable (I'm betting) so I will perhaps do a little gardening but nothing huge...

[simple living mama]

I'm in the burbs, well, kind of. I live in a subdivision with about 40 homes built fairly close together. But once I pull out of the subdivision onto the highway, I don't run across anything for 8 miles one way and 20 the other. Meaning it just National forest or ranch land.

Anyway, trying to do what we can with this little bit of yard and so far I have a pretty high yielding garden and medicinal and edible herbs everywhere else. Trying to make as much food as we can from scratch. We almost make the goal of not buying processed foods. I love my Snyders pretzels!

When I think of homesteaders, I think of little waste so we are always tweaking our life to get it as environmental as we can. We got rid of our dryer about a few years back and are using indoor drying racks where the dryer used to be. Got rid of the dishwasher and replaced the space with a recycling center.

It fun to think, "Okay, what's next?". Nice to meet all of you.

[insahmniak]

Yay! I'm happy to have found this tribe. Here's to more folks coming out to play!

We're on about 1/4 acre in the midst of a capitol city. And in a HOA to boot. We have our work cut out for us. When we first moved in the HOA pres came right over to let us know we couldn't keep our three chickens. Then he introduced himself. Nice piece of work he is. My daughter broke down and sobbed right there in the doorway. Beyond the silly HOA rules (which are not enforced), his reasoning is that they are a liability. "They could get out." Of course his enormous, neglected Malamute is ok. But what would urban homesteading be like without colorful neighbors?!

Moving right along... we have 12 raised beds ranging from 4x4 to 4x16. A huge raspberry patch and strawberry patch, a beautifully producing peach and a young asian pear and a nectarine. We're adding another row of raspberries this year, along with a plum, another pear, apple, hazelnuts, currants, and an arctic kiwi.

My laundry pulley setup from Lehman's came in the mail this week. Hope to get that set up soon so I can hang right off the back porch. We have solar hot water and PV energy generation and we're just about net-zero in that department. We're tweaking the hot water (sheesh, is it ever complicated!). We've been in the house just under a year, so still lots of things to do...but mostly outside. I hope to get the strawberries divided and replanted, and greens started under hoops this weekend. Wish me luck. Weekends always seem to fly by and I never get it all done.

Oh, and as for the chickens...they were adopted by some loving friends who have built a beautiful palace for them, complete with chandeliers, and who feed them plenty of oatmeal and scratch. But we are hatching plans to get another set of chickens. We're employing a two-pronged approach. One is to put out strong intentions for this laid-off young man to get an amazing new job in another state. The other involves simple cheerful defiance.

I'm excited to be inspired by this tribe. There are definitely things I could do much, much better.

[almadianna]

i have moved this to the country living forum you should have that will "come out and play" in this forum.

[mattemma04]

I have been slowly filling up my yard with more edibles each year.We got 6 hens last year,and we still have 3.Red sex link girls that have given me eggs all winter.

Our lot is under an acre.Lots of open space,but the back floods.I want to add a cloths line this year.Also either collecting rain water,or re-guiding the gutters to beds instead of the underground pipes.

I do bread but only in the bread machine.Just bought a juicer and the pulp I give to the worms or chickens.Only thing I canned so far is fruit preserves.I would like to can something hungarians call lecso.I remember my grams making this,and it was great with the fresh bread.
http://www.whats4eats.com/vegetables/lecso-recipe

We have neighbors close,but with our property line fence installed I don't think anything we do will cause issues....except if we get a rooster or goats.Neighbors do think I am crazy as I dig out another and another plot for edibles.I hate digging but I love my plots.

[lobster]

We've been slowly moving towards urban homesteading and plan to go all-out this year.

In the past few years that we have lived in the city, we've started a guerrilla gardening collective (http://wggc.resist.ca), joined a community gardening project, and have kept a backyard garden as well. We make our own bread, and my husband has made batches & batches of tomato sauce that we jar & freeze to keep through the winter, made from our home-grown tomatoes.

Right now we're getting ready for spring. On Monday I will be starting the seeds for our garden (in our area we can't plant in the garden until mid-May). We've ordered a bunch of heirloom seeds that should be arriving soon - tomatoes, beans, squash, zucchini, corn - in addition to all the varieties of seeds we have kicking around from last year as well.

We plan to keep chickens this year and will be going to pick up our chicks from the feed store soon. Our city does not allow backyard chickens, so we will likely keep them at my parents' place in the country, although we're toying with the idea of breaking the by-law and keeping them here anyway (shhhhhh! Don't tell!).

We're also adding rabbits to our household, mainly for their glorious poop which will be used in our gardens & added to the compost. In fact, DS and I are going to pick out our first rabbit this morning! Hooray!

Our yard previously was unsuitable for line drying our clothes, due to being horribly overgrown with nowhere to hang anything, but over the last year DH and my brother have worked at tearing out a lot of the overgrowth and we now have a nice open area to hang dry our clothes. I'll be putting up a clothesline in April and we'll start hanging the laundry.

I've been very excited for spring to arrive, and decided to blog about our urban homesteading adventures: http://farminginthecity.wordpress.com

[AutumnW]

I've gardened for many years but am just this year starting to really move toward urban homesteading. We live in Indianapolis about 10 minutes from the center of downtown, but in what is still considered downtown indy. We have what I would estimate to be about 1/10 of an acre maybe a little more. I've got a blog that I've started putting my plans on and will be adding more as I accomplish them. The only animal we have/will have this year are honey bees but I hope to add angora bunnies in a couple of years for my sons to take care of and to collect their fur for spinning. I would love to eventually have a couple of goats or alpacas but I'm easing dh into the farm animals, lol. He is adamant about not having chickens as our neighbors have them and they drive him nuts but my parents are going to get some soon so I can have their eggs.

[Pepper44]

We are experimenting with some urban homesteading around here.

We have a garden that produces more than we can eat in the summer. I want to learn more about canning and preserving!

This year I'm planting: multiple kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of zuccini, yellow crookneck squash, okra, green beans, broccoli, carrots, peas, radishes, spinach, swiss chard, bell peppers, habanero peppers (for DH), sweet corn, pumpkins (for DD), watermelons, and I might pick up a few started melon plants of some kind from the feed store later in the season when they're on clearance.

I also have lots of herbs started that I plant in various places around the yard.

We ordered four dwarf apple trees this year, just waiting on them to come. I'm going to start them in containers on our back porch.

We have a self-pollinating semi-dwarf pear tree in the front yard that I planted last year. I'm not sure when it will make fruit or if it needed another self pollinating tree of the same variety next to it...I bought it on a whim in the clearance at Lowe's.

We also have chickens--about 30 of them including two roosters. No one has complained about the roosters, they really aren't that loud. 1/4th of our backyard is a big chicken pen with two coops my DH built. I sell the eggs locally to cover the cost of feed.

I want to try honey bees, but DH isn't quite convinced yet. I also want to set up a compost bin or pile somehow, but still getting DH on board with that also. He's currently getting used to the fact that we have 30 chickens...it's been almost 3 years but he's a 100% city boy.

One day if we can ever get the money I want to move to a small farm (3-5 acres) and have a dairy cow. I'd love to have a small CSA or sell at the famer's market. Ideally I'd have organic veggies, honey, eggs, and "for pet use only" raw milk.

[Pepper44]

Forgot to add...we also have 5 raspberry bushes planted last fall, about 6 ever expanding blackberry bushes, two small strawberry patches, and some thimble berry bushes that I planted last fall...those disappeared and I'm not sure if they'll start up and grow into healthy bushes this spring or what.

[AutumnW]

I'm getting excited for spring. It's almost 40F here and is supposed to stay in the 40s for the rest of the week so we went out in the garden and enjoyed the sun today! I drew up plans for my garden this year and the big change I'm making is trying to grow winter veggies after my summer crops that will hopefully last through most of the winter. This means lots of root veggies that I've never grown before, so I'm hoping it goes well!

[PAflower]

Originally Posted by insahmniak

a beautifully producing peach and a young asian pear and a nectarine. We're adding another row of raspberries this year, along with a plum, another pear, apple, hazelnuts, currants, and an arctic kiwi.

I have a peach and apple tree and couldn't get them to grow fruit for the past two years. do you have any tips?

[PAflower]

Originally Posted by lobster

We're also adding rabbits to our household, mainly for their glorious poop which will be used in our gardens & added to the compost. In fact, DS and I are going to pick out our first rabbit this morning! Hooray!
http://farminginthecity.wordpress.com

I've never heard that rabbit poop is good for compost...interesting thought!

[insahmniak]

Originally Posted by PAflower

I have a peach and apple tree and couldn't get them to grow fruit for the past two years. do you have any tips?

How old are they? When ours are 1-3 yrs we pull the flowers off so they won't put energy into fruit production, but into growth instead.

I don't know if it's true for all peach, but ours is self-fruitful. Apples typically take an additional pollinator, though. So in case you are not getting fruit out of a mature tree you might want to add a pollinator for the variety you have.

Also, on heavy pruning years we don't fertilize because fertilizing after pruning is supposed to give you lots of unfruitful waterspouts. Where did you get your trees? You might consult with them. I'm certainly a newbie at the fruit tree thing. I find myself consulting the interwebz and orchard books quite a lot.

[insahmniak]

You know you're new to urban farming when......

....you excitedly finish putting up your new fancy schmancy pulley clothesline, but when you go to hang the clothes you realize it floats right over a glorious new pile of goat manure you picked up last weekend. You are too excited and hang the clothes anyway. Needless to say I have to wash them all over again. The pile is getting moved this weekend. Nothing but flowers next to my clothes from here on out.


Off to change my shirt....

[ihugtrees]

Ooo, I'm excited to join this tribe!

We are about to move into our first home, which has a 1/4 acre backyard...soooo much space for a garden & chickens, too! The only thing is, we really are in downtown, & a train runs right behind our house...I'm worried smoke from it will kill my plants, or the sound will scare the chickens into never laying eggs! Well, we will see I guess!

I am excited to grow my first garden, but I may hold off on the chickens until next Spring, as my DH will be deployed April through the following March-ish. Don't want to overwhelm myself with TOO much work...though I'm reading chickens really aren't that much work!

We also plan on hanging a clothes line, though we will still have a dryer because I like to put my DD's diapers in briefly to soften them up. Going to compost for the first time as well...the previous owners already started that for us! And, we want to set up a rain barrel as well...here in WA we get plenty of rain

[goldingoddess]

Subbing

[newbymom05]

I'm working on our urban homestead slowly but surely. We're in the suburbs with a tiny lot. So far we've got a dwarf peach, 6 blackberries which did nothing last year (too much shade) and a raspberry that did well. We usually have 2 raised sq ft veggie beds during the spring. This year I'm going to bite the bullet and use our tax return to take out the ornamental pears in our yard which will help with the shade problem and allow me to increase the veggie beds. I'm thinking about adding some dwarf apples, not sure where yet since space is a premium. I've been trying to talk DH into chickens and am almost there, just have to get him to make the run. That's the biggest problem--I need DH to do the heavy work and he thinks I'm nuts!

Oh, and I make all our on bread, yogurt and jam, but on this board that seems par for the course.

[ambersrose]

I wanna join! We live in a townhome in a small mountain town. The backyard has terraced planter boxes, a small grass area and a medium sized patio with planting beds along the edges. We have chickens and I do a spring, summer and fall garden. I would love to raise bees but for now my husband doesnt think we have enough room . I grow sprouts, make my own sourdough bread, yogurt, and other cultured foods. I need to learn how to can this year (and convince my DH that we do have enough space for bees ).