I've just started delving into this site. It's under construction and far from complete, but it's pretty interesting thus far.

When I think about wanting to move out to the country to homestead, I always start thinking in acres upon acres of land. This Pasadena California man and his family are "urban homesteaders" and only have 1/5 of an acre to make use of. And make good use of the land they do.

Path to Freedom

Yes, people dream of acres and acres of land, but the usual thought is: If you can't keep a quarter-acre under control, what would you do with fifty?

Of course, more land keeps the neighbors farther away...

Sue

Don't believe them, it takes FAR more time, effort and water (not to mention land) to grow enough to feed yourself and your family than most people realize. Also consider the fertility and topography of your property (is it even close to level? how are you going to cultivate your crop(s)? Spading fork and shovel? Rototiller? Plow? Who's going to pull it?
Also, why hasn't the site been updated in more than a year?

My folks did a pretty good job of keeping our family supplied with food using a 1/4 acre of land. I'd say 65% of the fruits/veggies we had growing up came from our garden. The meat came from the surrounding woofs, fields, and lakes. I remember spending days in the fall canning stuff or freezing it, depending on what it was. Sidenote: the only power tool used was an old rototiller. Every peice of waste plant matter was composted, and we used sprinklers and rain water to keep everything hydrated. This was in central Minnesota. The soil was great but the summers could get dry.

I don't know about meeting all the needs of a family, but I think if you are willing to put in the labor you can make a good dent. I'd STRONGLY reccomend taking full advantage of your local Master Gardener's group.

-Blast

The square-foot gardening technique that they are using is surprisingly productive/sq foot. I didn't notice any credits to the originator:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

I have used this technique with great success in the past when I lived in a city home.

When I was a kid, and uncle had 1/2 acre, most of which was covered with pine trees 'til I chopped them down. Just about enough land for him to grow enough blackberries for a few good cobblers. I can not imagine trying to grow enough to live on that little land...

I agree.
Supplement...yes.
Self-sufficient...not even close.

About 5 acres seems to be the absolute minimum for self sufficiency, providing you make use of all the modern technical advances available, and supplement with wild game and fish, or buy your meat elsewhere, and you choose the right type of land and plants.

It is going to be one of the most strenuous jobs you will ever have trying to get that amount of land to produce enough to feed a family for a year, but it can be done.

Done right, it should provide at least 4 months of fresh produce a year and allow for an additional 1,000 quarts canned. It should also produce about 100 bushels of wheat. A good root cellar ought to allow for an additional 400-800 lbs of storable produce (pumpkin, winter squash, certain root vegetables, apples, etc).

If you hunt and fish, you should be able to garner another 1,200 lbs or so of meat, depending on where you are in the country. To be that successful will take a fair investment in equipment and practice, as well as finding the animals. Domestic livestock would cost more in resources than they will provide, so best if you can get it wild. In my heyday, after amortizing the cost of all my hunting and fishing gear, I could usually bring in 1,000 lbs or more of meat a year on less than $500. Most of it was fish, but I got my fair share of birds, and the occasional deer and elk filled the deep freeze to capacity.

Yeah, I dream of working 3 to 5 acres and having about 50 more between myself and the neighbors.

If you take a moment to look at the section Path Project/At a Glance, you'll see in there that they don't claim to provide all of their own food, and at best only 80%-90% in the summer. Also, at several points in the site they mention the fact that since they decided to make money on some of what they produce, they've gone boutique in some ways. This means growing more garnishes and spices rather than sustenance plants so, the percentage of what they provide for themselves may have even gone down since that post.

Also, you are correct about the main part of the site not being updated in more than a year. However, if you take a look at the Journal Section there you'll see that the site appears to have taken a turn for more of a Blog type page and is very active. There were 5 posts on leap-day alone including an interesting look into the family's diet for a week. As with Blogs, some posts are fluffy filler, but others have some great info in them.

Whoever designed their website does nice work....very professional.

However, to calling what they are doing "homesteading" is kind of a stretch.

IMO and experience, Ben's thinking is more realistic on all points.

How did the neighbors feel about you guys eating "woofs". Gives hot dogs a whole new meaning...

I couldn't help myself.

Oops, my mistake. I meant to say "meows".

-Blast

Thanks for the link. I'm always interested in other people's experiments in this direction. Makes me feel less of a lone wolf. Keeping a time- and labour- intensive enterprise like this going takes a community of like-minded people to help, admire and encourage.

I have urban friends who want to dabble with this sort of thing, but when I look at their places, they have bit elms lining the streets and privacy fences in their back yards. Translation: not enough direct sunlight for food production.

On the other hand, there's that nice, open utility corridor just down the street, and if they could get permission from the city ...

I know that the newer advances in solar, hydro, and wind energy might reduce or eliminate the need for a woodlot, but generally, the further north you live, the bigger your woodlot needs to be. I've read that 25 acres is about the minimum a family of four would need to provide needed heat year-round.

I believe they are called "wolves" or "coyotes" depending on the specific breed...

I do agree with the rest of your post... We are setting up our 0.2 acre with a dwarf-fuji apple and a dwarf Cox's Orange Pippin apple tree (that was hard to track down) they cross pollinate and their crops over lap just a little so we have a longer period of apple harvest vs. a ton all at once. We also picked up an orchard mason bee box to help with the pollination (works better than "miracle grow"). The garden is small right now - only 12 foot by 35 feet but it will grow over time as we get the hang of doing it our selves.

I have a bunch of rhubarb growing along the side of the house we never use - it loves it and I don't have to mow there now.

Planted a bunch of herbs in the mow strip instead of grass because the CC&Rs say we need a 'lawn' but do not specify exactly what a lawn is.

We are not self-suff. with this set up but now we buy roughly 15-20% of what we used to. (Oh we also hunt/fish/crab/clam too)

Some of our neighbors have a handful of chickens as pets... they don't like the eggs so they give them to us. We give them the green compost for the chickens to eat.. so it balances out.

I like the way you think! Any response from the HOA?

-Blast

"Some of our neighbors have a handful of chickens as pets... they don't like the eggs..."

Let me guess... the yolks are too yellow and they don't look insipid enough, like store eggs.

Sue

Yeah, and they don't TASTE insipid enough, either. I mean, these eggs have FLAVOUR. Eggs aren't supposed to have flavour, right? What's next, tomatoes with flavour? Really, who wants that?

(This from Doug who grew up on farm eggs and has a closely guarded source for same.)

I've seen the website and enjoyed it. I don't think that a family with less than 5 acres could be self-sufficient. However, it certainly makes sense to take small steps reduce total dependence upon society. One could always acquire and practice useful skills required to greater self-sufficiency. Besides, if I work harder with my outside skills, I could burn off more calories and lose weight in the process.

Just a dumb question. How much square feet in 1/5 of an acre?

According to my handy-dandy conversion program, 1 acre = 43559.66 square feet.

1/5 of that would be 8712 sq.ft. (or 31 yards x 31 yards).

Thanks! It seems that I would be trying to homestead on 1/20th of an acre. Better save my pennies to buy more land if I want greater self-sufficiency.

Even using the 1/20th of the acre might make a difference. Using it would give you some experience when you did get more land, and you might have seedstock for something that you knew grew in your area.

BrianTexas, you would be surprised at how much fresh, top-quality food you can generate from a tiny, intensive garden. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, fresh herbs, etc. etc. etc. -- a mouth-watering variety that your local supermarket can't match, quality-wise. I have a number of friends who are doing all of this -- and in a Northern climate to boot.

But if you're looking for more land, for (say) root vegetables, beans, a handful of wheat or barley and such, you would be surprised at the possibilities. (None of which involve buying more land.)

The key to all of this is Community. Networking. Conversations across the fence that build trust. People who know you, who can talk to people they know. Six degrees of separation, as the phrase goes.

There is a lot of under-utilitzed land out there. The back-yard gardens of your neighbours who can't keep up (just share the loot!). Small land-holders or acreages that will give you 0.2 acres if you will do occasional work on the other 0.8. Farmers who have a corner that's too wet to plant in spring, but will produce all sorts of garden loot for someone with hand tools and the reliability to keep the weeds down.

(Holy cow, I'm going on and on. This is just my 2-cents' worth, FWIW. But I think it holds true. I'm one of those acreage folks. Bring a hoe, and I'll fire up the BBQ.)

We planted a garden one year, just a few things and had way more than what we could eat or give away and it was just a small half circle about half as wide as our house. We planted a row of squash, didn't follow the spare requirements just poured the whole seed packet along the widest part of our half circle. Put lettuce and tomatoes, cauliflower in the next, onions and carrots in the outer row. Put a couple sun flowers next to the house and they got so tall I had to tie them to the gutter to hold them up, he squirrels got them before we could.
Look into raised bed / square foot gardening, then hydroponics and vertical gardening. combine them all by building up some sort of walled area and put the bigger crops there (raised bed), then suspend the small stuff over that in water piped (hydroponics) and then vined plants can grow up the sides of the raised bed or the sides of your house.

When people say it takes at least 5 acres to feed a family of 5, they must be talking about crops in single rows. Anyone with any sense does wide-bed gardening (3 or 4 ft wide), unless they're exceptionally fond of weeding.

An open tank in a plastic greenhouse can grow fish and food all winter. The tank is a solar collector that warms the greenhouse. A few chickens can add their body heat (approx 50 BTUs/chicken/hr), produce some eggs, and keep the bugs down.

Learn to can and dry food for the off-season.

Renting land is MUCH cheaper than buying land. Just keeping the weeds down usually costs the property owner money.

Find a way, find a place, and start learning.

Sue

Yes, it would require maximum allowable crop density to get it done. It'd be the only way to grow enough food to get the job done, and yes, it'd be a lot of work. In fact, maintaining the crops would be a full time job for every able bodied member of the family. You would not get a suitable yield from wide bed cropping on only 5 acres.

I've done high density gardening with another on an acre. We each spent an average of 20 hours a week and the yield was considerable, but I don't know as I'd want to do that amount of gardening like that ever again if I didn't have to. It's like you couldn't ever do anything else except what you had already worked into the routine, and for 6 months of the year that was rough, and a lot of it was done with a hoe and a small Mantis rototiller. We sold most of the produce at the farmer's market on the weekend, and I figure for the time we put in we probably each made about a dollar less than minimum wage for our effort, if you discount all our expenses first.

We did learn an awful lot about basic gardening. Mostly, it is time consuming, tedious work that'll make your back ache.

Sure, it's like real work! But you know how to do it now, and could do it again if you had to. That's the difference between you and most of the rest of America.

You can probably clean and load your guns blindfolded, too.

You just never know when knowledge will be useful.





I know the lyrics to the theme to Gilligan's Island.

Sue

More importantly, I know how to direct someone else to do the gardening now, heh heh heh.

I think I can still probably field strip and clean most of my arsenal without looking, but I am probably a lot slower doing it these days.

I used to do Amazing Grace to the tune of Gilligan's Island while in the church band. I got a wicked scowl from the pastor, but I busted up the congregation pretty good. I've since learned there's a more appropriate time and place for such antics than right before the sermon.

Try it out and you'll see, the tune actually fits the words pretty darn good.

benjammin, that is HILARIOUS. I'll have that song running through my head all day. Thanks for my daily chuckle.