Who are the one acre homesteaders?

[Calliopia]

Yeah our little 1/2 acre holds a lot. The good thing is that it is ALL usable. It's on a very gentle slope with a couple of good flat spots.

The goats are on 1/10 of an acre approx and the chickens have an old shed converted into an aviary and will soon have a 15 x something scratch yard off of the back.

I do a lot of condensed gardening in raised beds. And we're working on making most of the landscaping edible - either for us or for the animals. And most of our indoor plants are herbs or lettuces.

I already have a spot designated for the greenhouse and that's being put up next month hopefully.

I also dehydrated fruits and veggies all summer to supplement the goats through the winter.


I'm very grateful for having started this project on a small property first because when we move in about 3-5 years we are going to sell our place as a fully functioning micro-farm complete with goats and chickens and I will have a MUCH better idea of the possibilities for even 2 acres of land.

 

[sammileah]

i have a 1/4 acre in a hamlet. now i cheat. part of our back yard not added in is RR i have a garden on it. we also have a lot thats just under an acre that we have use of thats where the hay gets stored and 4 goats graze on plus 20+ chickens. my goats and chickens share a 6x14 shed in the winter.
I have a 2 gardens, 2 dogs, 2 cat, 4 kids, 1 hubby, 4 goats, 20 plus chickens.
I also coop garden with my neighbor.


I wish i had more.

 

[msjuris]

We have 1/2 an acre total for 4 adults, 1 child, 4 dogs, 2 cats, an orchard, a garden, a greenhouse, 3 goats and 14 chickens. Amazingly it all fits.

That's enough inspiration for me to add more goats.
And I thought I was pushing the limits on an acre. I can double everything.

 

[msjuris]

I wish I had a magic wand that could get it all done, right now!

I'd like one of those magic wands too. It just seems like the projects never end. You'd think with smaller spaces, we'd have fewer projects. Then again, I still have a few sq. ft that don't ahve anything on them yet.

 

[msjuris]

Edit to add that I could easily do all of this on 1 acre with the right topography and layout. And I could do SO much more with this if I didn't have crappy neighbors...

ditto . . . topography and neighbors really impede upon what you can and can't do on your property.

The only flat spot we have is in the front. The whole back and side yards are sloped anywhere from 10 degrees to as much as 30-40 degrees. Not fun in the winter carrying a 5 gallon bucket of warm water down hill 2x daily to the goat pen. Its a good thing they are so cute.

 

[julieq]

We're kinda on about one also. We actually have seven here but the next door dairy blows their filthy pivot line on the pasture area, so we don't use it for the goats or horses either. House, huge vintage dairy barn, vintage cement block dairy house, small shop and large chicken coop all here. We have nine adult ND/mini goats, 13 buff orphingtons, two horses, multiple barn cats and our GS dog comfortably arranged. Small garden area and huge lawn (which is really too big and takes too long to maintain in the summer months). We're looking for a smaller CLEAN , more usable acreage, perhaps one to two acres, but haven't decided on Southern Idaho or Southern Nevada.

 

[jason_mazzy]

I have 2 acres, but about 1/3 an acre fenced off for the chickens and goats.

 

[Calliopia]

I have to admit we really lucked out with this house. The house divides easily into 2 sections that we share with a couple and their child. It has several rather small bedrooms with large common areas.

All our dogs get along (they had 2 and we have 2). We have a 2 car garage that once I clean all my various accumulated craps out of it will house the hay storage and a rabbitry and a workshop. In addition to the freezers.

I have 6 dwarf pear and apple trees outside along a fence line. The garden wraps around and amongst the trees as they don't provide much shade. We have several additional fence lines that will have berries started on them this spring and we hope to train grapes over an arbor leading to the orchard area.

The yard was already mostly fenced in chain link so I just ran electric on the inside of that and cut off a section for the goats. I lucked into an 18x10 shed free on Craigslist if I moved it with in 3 days so I pd 200.00 to a truck hauling guy to grab that with his flat bed. We converted one of the old sheds into a chicken aviary with a small attached coop thing for them to roost in when it's cold. (basically stripped it down to frame and covered it in wire and hardware cloth.

We have an old flat spot along the back of the property where a pool was and there are no trees around it so the greenhouse is going there. The pool has been gone for 5 years now and weeds are growing again so I'm running with the assumption that all chemicals are pretty much gone. I'm going to drop a load of manure and then topsoil on it just in case though.

We have an area about the size of what we have for the goats out front that has trees and flowers and the kids play stuff and our picnic table etc. The back yard has dog running space and the cats are inside only.

It all works out if you are willing to plan a bit and carefully overlap certain things.

 

[Oat Bucket Farm]

1/3 of an acre. We have LaMancha goats, chickens, 4 rabbits, three large garden spaces, two nut trees and three fruit trees.

 

[themrslove]

Hubby and I are on 3/4 acre! (Looking for more, though!)
We have 6 little goaties, 5 precious dogs, 5 chickens, and 4 little kitties!
Moving soon, but we have been making it work for a year like this!