Mothering Forum banner

Urban Homesteaders

901 views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  root*children 
#1 ·
Hey!! We just moved from our beautiful rural mountain home in Colorado to a home in the city of Asheville, NC! What a change! Our poor doggies are cooped up in a pen (shaded and all, but still, not like living in the country, ya know?), we have a SMALL garden space, and more yard around the house.

I'm thinking of putting chickens in the garage (it's on dirt, and won't work for a car anyhow). Not sure yet where to put a clothes line, and all that necessary stuff. But that's about all my ideas for taking a country lifestyle into the city.

Are their any others who use country living skills in the city? If so, I'd LOVE to hear your experiences... what works and what doesn't.
 
#2 ·
Gotta watch the chickens-- some cities have zoning etc. laws that would prohibit them. Where I live, compost heaps are illegal, for instance.

We're not really urban, but kinda suburban. I live in a rented row house with almost no yard, but my place backs up onto a nice little patch of woods. Despite being only two miles out of the city, we see more deer and woodchucks than other people. But there's no ignoring the fact that there are skyscrapers only two or three miles away.

The one aspect of "country living" that we've hung onto is growing our food. I grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables including tomatoes, peppers (hot and sweet), zucchinis, cucumbers, romaine, squash, gourds, sunflowers for the seeds, potatoes, radishes, raspberries and strawberries, and a large variety of herbs.

We have very little garden space, and what we do have we don't own; I have a fairly large portion of our vegetables planted in spackle (sp?) pails placed along the sidewalk, and trellisses ( sp? again-- having a bad spelling day, I think) going up the brick walls of my house for tomatoes and peppers and all that. Potatoes grow in barrels, and radishes in wooden window boxes. All the gardening tools, etc., have to fit under the deck, because I don't have room even for a small shed. Basically, we've dug up every inch of lawn that belongs to us, and a fair bit of what doesn't really exactly belong to us (pretty tolerant place) to plant food and herbs.

We have two apple trees, but they don't live at our house; they're planted on a friend's land nearby, although they're ours and we take care of them and keep the apples for ourselves.

I haven't tried keeping animals; I think they'd throw me out on my butt if I even tried. So only my cats, a turtle and some newts and fish, and that's it. Even they are not exactly legal, but nobody seems to care. Some people here have dogs. I wanted rabbits, but it's just not possible to keep them in the house and there's no room outside.

I also have two canoes that have to be kept locked to the deck rail outside.

Anyway, good luck with your move. It's a big adjustment to make...
 
#3 ·
Just wanted to say "welcome to NC!" At least you are in a great area of the country if you have to be closer to a city. I moved to NC from CO seven years ago. I hope your adjustment goes well!
 
#4 ·
Concerning the chicken issue--- just check out what you have to do in your city. In Minneapolis you can have chickens (maybe other animals too) if you get signatures from 3 of your neighbors sqaying it's OK. Our friend has 3 chickens for laying eggs. They have a fenced in yard and they just roam the yard most of the time and have their little coop in back.
We are also allowed to have compost bins, etc. in the back yard.

Just look into it.
 
#5 ·
Well, sadly looks like the chicken idea is out... in Asheville the zoning laws are you have to be 150 ft. from any neighbors house. Our yard just isn't that big
Which stinks b/c the cheapest good eggs I can find here are $3/dozen!

Our dogs are too used to country living, and have figured out how to release the latch on the dog pen and get out and roam the neighborhood. Thinking about making some kind of dog run with a long rope along the side yard.

Also, thinking about bees! I think if they were in the back corner of the dog pen, they wouldn't get in the way of anything.

ooohhh... longing for some good land again!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top