Self sufficient gardening
karachigardener
11 years ago
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pnbrown
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Winter Reading
Comments (16)"Gaia's Garden," by Tony Hemenway. It's about using permaculture systems to make your garden stronger, and the new second edition is full of drool-worthy color photos. I love "Farm City"! I got it just before Christmas and I'm already re-reading it. Another great farm book is "Little Heathens," by Mildred Armstrong Kalish, which reads like the Little House books updated for the 1930s. :) Seymour is amazing. I constantly re-read his "Self-Sufficient Life" book--the illustrations are magical--and I just got "Self-Sufficient Gardener" for the first time. My chicken book of choice is currently the incredibly charming "Keep Chickens" by Barbara Kilarski, but if we actually take the plunge this spring (we're thinking about), I suppose we'll get the Storey guide to keeping and raising chickens....See MoreFavorite Heirloom/Self Sufficiency Gardening Books?
Comments (1)I am loving Animal Vegetable Miracle. It should be required reading for any gardener....See MoreRoad to self sufficient living
Comments (18)I am really sorry to hear about your community. It sounds like you wouldn't want neighbors that short sighted and oblivious anyway, would you? Me, I'd love to have you as a neighbor. :) You are dreaming big but I honestly would suggest you pick a place, move there and rent for a while to see if it suits you before embarking on a homestead project. Since I am currently planning a green home and have been fixing up this rural property, I may be able to help with estimates a bit, but local costs can vary widely, particularly with utility service. So these are just general numbers. On that 80 acres, going off-grid might be cheaper than pulling utilities in if you want to get back off the street a-ways. Providing, of course, you can generate sufficient energy in your location. Out in the boonies, you just need power, and maybe phone and cable. If there's even cable access -- otherwise you'll need satellite internet/TV. And there are always cell phones. You'll have a well and septic system for water and sewage disposal. First, you CAN move homes. Purchasing a small older house is often cheaper than the actual fees moving it to the property. You could use that as a base of operations while building a new home, and then it could be the guest house. The boys can fix it up as part of their free room and board. :) Alternately, people always want someone to come and get rid of an old trailer. Not high class accommodations, but as a temporary home it would be fine. You do want to be nearby while the house is being built to keep your eye on things. In my area, construction costs for stick-built un-energy efficient homes are about $100/sq ft including lot cost. ICF construction with Icycene roof is about $115/sq ft including lot costs. (I don't yet know the raw figures without lot costs, but I just purchased 1/3 acre, unfinished, for $30k and it will be $50-$55k by the time I put a building pad in. FWIW.) Those prices can vary a lot depending on the finish level you want and how much you do yourself or if you act as your own contractor. Which, unless you've done it before, I don't recommend. Or at least get a good consultant. I can't recommend ICF as a construction material enough, especially if you are in a tornado or hurricane prone area. ICF will also work for bermed houses and daylight basements extremely well, and be completely dry inside. A typical ICF home uses less than half the energy of a comparable stick frame home -- and even less if you try harder. SIP construction is another energy efficient building method -- also a premium price over stick frame. Don't forget to look at passive solar home designs. Choose a pro; a poorly designed passive solar home is an uncomfortable nightmare. My chosen architect has a web page at http://www.sunplans.com with many of her plans online for viewing. Passive solar homes don't have to look funky or ultra modern. Digging a well is about $5k-$10k or more, depending on depth. Plus pumps, tank and trenching up to the house. There's no guarantee you'll hit water when you dig but you have to pay anyway. When I looked as restoring my well, the well was good and clean and very wet, but the other bits would cost about $2000. Solar hot water heating is not very effective for radiant heating and when you include the backup systems are usually not energy efficient at all. The people I know that have it have 3 problems -- 1) it heats the house in the summer much better than in the winter, 2) the hot water for showers is never hot and 3) the amount of solar capacity needed to really heat the house is just too much. In most areas, an electric geothermal heat pump is more cost effective and works better. You'll have to do core samples to find out if it's suitable for your land, but you can also lay the lines in a nearby pond even more cheaply. I'm not sure if that's compatible with livestock using the pond, but I would guess not. If you have a PV array to supply that electricity, all the better. Stand-alone solar hot water without the heating, provided you have the proper exposure and required sun, can be a big energy saver. Before getting on the solar bandwagon, be sure the property is in a latitude and climate where solar is effective. Many places in the US are just not good for active solar, either hot water or PV arrays. (Passive solar works anywhere, as does daytime solar space heating.) That goes double for wind power. Unless you have a strong, unidirectional prevailing wind, putting up a windmill is going to be more pain than help, and windmills take a lot of expensive maintenance. They are generally not effective at the home level. Outlying greenhouses are fairly cheap to build if you aren't going to a fancy glass or acrylic one. You do need to replace the plastic every 2 or 3 years. In reality, most climates don't need a greenhouse to produce food all year round. Come down South and you'll prefer winter gardening when there are no bugs. :) Or, design the home with the greenhouse attached (a conservatory) and enjoy the benefits of the plants all year round. Just provide pollination. Making a pond will not be too bad. You just need a local operator. It's cheap to hire a guy with his own backhoe; often cheaper than renting one and attempting to do it yourself and taking twice as long. Call it $500 a day. He'll probably dig a 2nd pond, then at the end, break the dam between them. However, if the pond is fed from groundwater or an underground spring you may not be able to go very deep because the equipment won't be able to operate in the water. Of course, if the water table is that high, a daylight basement is out of the question unless you have a convenient hill. Septic tank costs depend on the number of bedrooms in the house. In most areas, expect now to build an engineered mound system; ~1000g gallons for a 3 bedroom house. $20k-ish. Do consider coming down South. The climate is mild and many people here are not far from their rural roots, if indeed they ever left. Most places are livestock and farm friendly and hunting and fishing are just normal recreation you can do nearby. Land prices are still affordable but unlike what you may have heard, the place is not filled with gun-toting Klan members. (But yes, all your neighbors own shotguns and you will too if you don't already.) It's suitable for solar, and most of the unincorporated areas don't have building codes and inspectors so you can do anything you want provided it clears the health department. I think that's enough for now......See MoreWhat are you doing so as to be more self-sufficient?
Comments (52)Wow - that was a lot to catch up on, but worth it! I think about self-sufficiency a lot, but don't follow through enough. So, I do garden and compost. We feed our dogs a raw food diet, that includes vegetables, so I've grown a lot for them. And in fact use some of the less desirable produce that might otherwise get thrown away in their diets. When we moved into this house we bought energy efficient washer and dryer. So not as small a foot print as some of you, but at least consuming a little less resources. We reuse plastic grocery bags for kitchen garbage and dog pooper picker uppers. We just finished making a large new bed in our yard (photos to come soon) via the lasagne method - everything recycled. We did buy some manure; but that's recycling too - right? Both our cars are paid for. One is a big truck, but it's 7 years old and we will keep it till it falls apart. Our other car is an '89 Volvo station wagon with 221k miles on it. We bought it this spring to replace the '90 Corolla I wrecked last fall. :( We plan on driving the wheels off of this as well. Our housing footprint is excessive, per Digit's research. We have 2,200 square feet. But it is a 30+ year old house, so that's "reusing" in a sense too. We don't buy all our clothes at the thrift store, but we do shop there often enough. The only time I shop at Walmart is when I received a gift certificate last year. I hate what they've done to local, independent retailers! I do always carry a small bottle of water around with me. But I will reuse the same bottle for weeks. We do have a gas lawnmower, but rake our leaves the old fashioned way. Also snow shoveling and tilling are done with manual labor. Finally, Skybird, I love the Lehman's site. I've looked at that before and it totally fascinates me. I think that I would do a lot more things "by hand", including preserving, but I'm just not organized enough (or energetic enough), to work full time and do that too! Thanks for starting this thread Digit. It's a lot of fun to see what everybody is doing. Also inspiring me to do more....See Morepnbrown
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karachigardenerOriginal Author