They each have very small, very active and productive bits of land. Anybody else out there? Hey, maybe Heather (the suburban homesteader blogger) is on here because from her blog she seems like a sling wearing, attached mama.
I hesitate to call myself a homesteader, but we're trying really hard to move toward that direction!
We have a very, very tiny city lot.
We plowed up the back yard and converted it to raised bed gardens (square foot style), wood chip walkways, and a compost area.
This year I added raspberry & blueberry bushes and pulled out the flowers from my front flower beds and replaced them with herbs.
My plans for next year include digging up the small amount of grass we have in the front yard and replacing it with an herb garden and maybe some more berry bushes.
We can keep chickens, but only if the neighbors don't complain.
: We have a really nasty neighbor to our south and I'm afraid to invest the time in building a coop, etc. only to have him call the city and complain.
DH and I have been discussing the possibility of keeping rabbits for meat, though. There isn't an ordinance for nasty neighbor to use.
I am in a semi rural area in the desert southwest..so far we have chicks & a rooster (I have plans to start selling chicks and eggs within the next year, also adding ducks soon!). My 3yo DS keeps begging for rabbits
I am also working on getting a small orchard and gardens going right now. I also really would love milk goats too eventually!
Though, sometimes I feel odd calling myself that, as we are on almost an acre and a half of land, and to this city girl, that's a WHOLE lotta space!
So far we've been there for a year, and all I've gotten in has been four square foot gardening boxes. Once I'm working for home fulltime, we are going to add animals (chickens, guiena fowl, rabbits, and maybe a couple goats), and an orchard.
We are wannabe urban homesteaders. We live on a very small plot. We compost of course. This year we are planting two square foot garden boxes. We also got a couple raspberry bushes. I also plan on doing some canning this year. I want chickens, but my DH is not comfortable with that in town. Rabbits could probably work for us, but I just don't think I could do it. We still have a long way to go before we are really self sufficient!
Glad to meet you one and all! Wannabe suburban homesteader here! Although there is some doubt about whether this is really suburb or rural. We do have deer and bear and live on the edge of a state forest. We have many trees in our lot (about 3/4 of an acre) so gardening has been a challenge. I recently got into reading about permaculture and forest gardening so I have shifted my perspective quite a bit (and very rapidly, too!). I have been having a great time learning about medicinal herbs and edible weeds, too! In fact, I have this giant, gorgeous dandelion growing in the middle of my veg bed because I plan to harvest the root this fall and tincture it. In the next few weeks I plan to inventory the existing plants on my lot. I "think" I have the right kind of shade to grow some woodland medicinals like ginseng and goldenseal. But I also have a bit of sun. Anyway, we probably won't ever be self-sufficient, but I am having fun!
I'm having fun, too. Wannabe homesteader in small suburban town, here.
We had to start over w/our garden (the power co. ran over our beds last summer
) ... so we have (2) 4x4 sq.ft. beds & (2) 3x3's. We got chickens this year, that's been pretty neat!
We've been composting for a few years. The only paper product we bring in to the house now is coffee filters, which we compost... I'm proud to be an all cloth household!
We've got clotheslines inside & out so we're not running the dryer anymore.
That's all I can think of for now. We're trying to stay on top of the garden & build a tractor for our chicks & then we'll look into something new to add to the repertoire. We reaaaaally wanted to start some fruiting trees & berries this year but it wasn't in our budget w/all of the other projects we started.
It looks like we will be going this route too. Our initial living in the country plans have been thwarted by funding my son's education so we have to stay close to the school.
Right now we are renting though and it doesn't look like home buying is in our near future with the state's economy. Anyone renting and trying to "homestead" at the same time? I'm embarrassed to say that we don't grow anything because I don't know how long we will be here and anytime I try to grow something in a pot it outgrows its home in no time and I keep having to buy more pots!! Any suggestions?
We are already very energy conscious. I am slowly eliminating appliances (tv, microwave, etc.). We have a washer only because it was a gift to us but I would like to get a jamestown washer and we already line dry everything. I am also getting in the habit of trying to make more food from scratch.
We are packing up our cabin in the woods (well , the contents of it) and moving to town. Spring is a horrible time to move from our spot, but we are opening up a restaurant (using local/sustainable produce/meats) and will be moving so we can a) walk to both work and school b) actually have sun to grow things.
Living in the woods is peaceful for the mind and great exploration and BEaUTIFUL, but there are things I'm looking foward to about town life.
-people to talk w/in the winter
-clotheslines (w/allergies it seems impossible to dry our clothes on a line in the woods, and takes forever)
-not getting in our car 3x a day at least.
-community feeling
-and much more I'll soon discover.
I'm trying to get myself really stoked up about it, because there are so many things I'm sad to leave. I know we will be back to a rural life when the kids are older, but it will be a new adventure!
I don't know if I will ever call myself an urban/suburban homesteader, but when we bought our house last year, we found the largest piece of land we could "afford" so we can do all the things we want to do, such as food crops, etc. I have a baby, so I've started with one square foot garden for this year, and we're digging out the old raised bed on the south end of the house and we'll have a much larger/longer SFG with some trellises and stuff at that end, probably next year. We have a nicely landscaped almost 1/3 acre, and we're putting in things for our kids too, like a play structure, and we'll have a SFG box for them next year, etc.
We can't have chickens or other food animals, but I'm hoping to add blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries or blackberries, maybe fruit trees, and within a few years, produce our food year round, including cold frames and maybe an unheated greenhouse. DH found mache which is a cold green and tastes even milder than spinach, and it grows very very early, and I'm hoping to do it in cold frames in about February ...
This summer we want to make a solar oven as a project with the kids to bake or cook using solar energy. I have a little baby and 3 other kids, and it takes a lot of energy to do stuff day in and day out, but our electric lawnmower is in for maintenance and we bought a manual lawnmower to see if we could maintain with manual tools! We still need an alternative for edging along the fence ... the manual lawnmower doesn't get close to the fence very well at all. Probably we'll do a combination of manual lawnmower and electric once that one comes back, but meanwhile, my arms are getting a great workout! I want a scythe, but don't think it's safe with very little ones around, so I'll wait a few years for that tool.
HI There! We live in a rural area but are located in the city with a very, very small plot. So far we have two 10 x 3 ft raised bed with another one planned and a two bin compost system in the making. We are also going to get two angora rabbits for wool spinning and compost. I plan on vermicomposting with worms under the rabbits and create some worm castings for the garden. We also line dry when possible and hunt and gather in surrounding state lands (but we have to drive to most of these places). We share and swap tools and skills with friends and neighbors. We would love chickens but I just don't think there is room. I do hope this is only the beginning!
smack dab int he middle of the city for us. Lot is .05 acres, very small indeed, but front yard is herb garden, strawberries, raspberries and four small routating boxes. Back yard has about 10 boxes, a small deck, three bin compost, water harvesting and verimcomposting. No animals other than two cats.
We also have an solar dehydrator and making a solar oven this summer. Fun but it seems like a LOT of work for the amount of space we have. Since we are constantly tripping over everything it's more work.
We also have a woodstove for heat, finding place for the wood can be a bit tricky. We also help out on a friend's farm occasionally and in return get access to hunting land and a place to forage for wood. If you dont' have land, its good to network
I am reading Bill McKibben's new book DeepEconomy. He mentions in there that almost 1/3 of the world's food supply is grown in urban areas. I was startled by that! Much of it is small farms and food grown at home, I assume. McKibben's book is fantastic -- he is a big supporter or local economys, slow food, etc. He is a brilliant mind trying to see our world through peak oil and global warming by some envisioning of more local economies.
That is something I am working towards. DH says I can have the front yard (which is growing a thriving selection of herbs and veggies this year!). He wants the backyard for playing in and landscaping with ornamental grasses and flowers, oh and fruit trees. So, I have done my best with what I have. And yeah, I will be sneaking lettuce into his flower beds and carrots in the back, ect...
I own a big yellow labrador who would love some fresh chicken to eat! (so, uh no chickens here....)
jess
We have a rather large garden that we manage biointensively and compost whatever we can. We have raspberries but if we are not quick enough in the spring our dog chews them down. Strange, I know given the little prickers on them but he doesn't seem to mind.
:
We are preparing to move so our chicken plans are on hold as well as the other fruits I was planning on planting around the yard. Hopefully this house will sell quickly and we will move into our new one while I still have time to get a few things in the ground. We are planting a few things in our vegetable garden here despite selling as I don't want to go even part of the summer without fresh vegies. Plus I am not sure the backyard would look so good with a big empty garden filling up with weeds. It seems bad enough keeping the weeds down around the vegies, but to do it for an empty garden? no way.
We're in suburbia--about an hour outside of NYC. We have just under a half acre of SHADE, SHADE AND MORE SHADE!!! I can't take down all the trees because they keep the house (130+yo) cool (no a/c) and break the wind in the winter. But three of the tiny trees are coming down to make room for some dwarf fruit trees.
We can have chickens and to that end, we finally ordered a coop (sick of waiting for time to build one) and chicks. We're expecting the 8 chicks week after next. I have the old garden space behind my garage that never got enough sun in most of it. That's going to be the chicken area.
Just pulled my blackberries last year and killed them before I could replant them. (family emergency kept me away from gardening just long enough!
they were AWESOME producers!). My two blueberries are JUST hitting production this year and this is the first year they're LOADED!! Lost one of my three red currants and of the two remaining, one is huge and loaded--the other struggles. Also lost one of my three grape vines--which suffer the same as the currants: one of the two remaining thrives while the other struggles. Hmmmm... need to investigate THAT!
Pulling out the thorned raspberries to install thornless. My blackberries were thornless and worth every penny and effort (with a 3yo--priceless). And looking to expand the strawberries that are now in a half-barrel.
This year, I joined an organic CSA for food while I rework plans for the property. I have a good strip of yard that gets full sun. It's about 11'x32'. I'm going to make it a true potager (french decorative intensive food garden) with hay paths. I can't wait. Front garden beds are going to be planted with shade-tolerant herbs. Starting a formal compost this year, too.
Installing gutters on our porch and garage to harvest rainwater this year.
Seriously considering a small pond if I can figure out a size that will allow me to breed fish I would actually eat. Any ideas?
One project at a time, we are trying to make our little life here more sustainable, but we have a long way to go...
We haven't earned the label homesteader, but we do manage to compost and grow herbs and veggies on our suburban .05 acre lot town home. We also use manual mower and clippers for grass areas.
we just ed moved to aplace with a huge back yard that already has 2 apple trees and 2 pear trees alos raspberry bushes and srawberries..so were on to a good start!
We rent so there is only so much we can do..luckly our landlords are very sweet people and let us dig a garden and are also letting me make small little herb gardens next to the house... This year we are growing lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, chives, garlic, spring onions and carrots. For herbs I've got a vunch of differetn mints, lavender, rosemary, basil and sage. We also have a huge laundry line so I've haven't even used the dryer since we moved in last month!! I'll be watching this thread for more ideas for sure!
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