buying land for small family farm

question previously? About a month or so ago?

Let me start off by asking why Greenville S.C.?

I have done quite a bit of research myself on the small independent farm and here is what I have come up with:

1. Rural is better for a lot reasons but not too far out in the sticks. Finding a town like the one I live in (Franklin, N.C.) has about 5,000 on it's books for population, not to mention all the folk surrounding the county. It is small enough to retreat the potential chaos that might break out in more densely populated areas and yet big enough to support local farming, businesses and markets. Also the scenery is breath taking and the amount of wild edibles is in abundance. There are plenty of rivers within hiking distance, so fishing is quite accessible...no shortage on food in these parts. Plus the wild game that one can hunt around here is also an option.

2. Having your own water source is a must...a combination of a well and the ability to collect rain water using rain barrels is essential to self sustaining. I say this because you will need to manage your outgoings very closely and a water bill is the last thing you will want to worry about. Not to mention that being dependent on the city for water...is not a viable option should the grid go down and the potential for hyper-inflation kicks in.

3. Do not get more land than you can manage. Calculate how many people can actually help you with farming..take everything into consideration when planning for the worse. Illness, injury, pregnancy ect.
If it is just you and maybe your spouse part-time I would say that having anymore than 5 acres will be too much. There is a lot that one can do where all the essentials are met with regards to nutrition on a 5 acres plot and it can be managed by one person if need be.

4. Square foot gardening is the most effective method of gardening using raised beds. Also consider edible landscaping too...there a lot of options.

5. Livestock: Chickens, Earthworms, Goats and maybe Rabbits. Chickens for meat and eggs. Rabbits produce quickly and they are yummy to eat and the fur can be used. Goats will eat anything, so they are easy to manage. They will provide you with milk, cheese, and butter.

6. Find a piece of land with a natural spring head and creek on it...you can build a spring house to keep your perishables from spoiling. Spring houses were used before we invented the icebox ect. The water from a spring head is usually around 38-40 degrees. Cold enough. Should the grid go down or energy prices skyrocket, this is a great way to back you up.

7. Calculate what you need in terms of energy and comfort. You will be surprised what you can live without verses all the little extras. For example, change your lighting to low 2.5 watt LEDs (they draw no amps and are cool to the touch), get composting toilets to fertilize parts of your garden with, use tankless hot water heaters to heat your water for washing ect on demand or build passive solar water heaters, use laptops for low energy entertainment rather than televisions and all the other little add-on (also Desktops use 4-8 times more electric than a laptop), get rid of the land line and use an IP through internet provider and a cell phone for back up emergencies.

I could go on and on but this should get you started...the most important thing is to change how you think. So plan your work and then work your plan. If you need any more help, let me know. This process has already started for me and I am almost done.

Love Has No Opposite!

I created a separate post for all of the Global Gardener video parts I posted here yesterday. Also, the story of Peter Andrews from Australia is documented in the Of Droughts and Flooding Rains video. The Greening the Desert video documents a permaculture agricultural project in Jordan which was conducted under the most difficult conditions. You may link to all three videos from my tag line.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. :)

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The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

Of Droughts and Flooding Rains (Video)

Greening the Desert (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

Global Gardener (Video)

much surplus if you want to sell at a market or roadside with that kind of acreage. Usually just a small plot of land in the sun maybe 20X40, 30X50 feet is plenty for a family your size. Nice if you could hook up a pump to well water for irrigation. You could also have open pit compost to dump your organic kitchen waste, shovel on some dirt and cover with a rubber roof tarp held down with bricks/rocks. This will cook the waste real good and enrich top soil.

I recommend ordering seeds from Baker Creek heirloom seed farm in Missouri. go online to buy. They can trace their organic heirlooms to when the seeds were brought here. They have a 'survival packages' of seeds. I also think seeds will be very good to trade in hard times.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." Benjamin Franklin
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TAKE CARE OF WITHOUT A TRACTOR? The way I see it, TRACTOR=EXTRA EXPENSES if you are trying to have just enough food for a single average size family. Am I wrong?

Permaculture Design Course audio on mp3 DVD

Bill Mollison was the Australian man on the Global Gardener video parts which I posted in the comments below. Geoff Lawton, whose quote I mention below, was the designer in the "Greening the Desert" video link.

I have owned a set of these recordings for many years. It is a recording of the design course which I actually attended in 1983. They capture Bill in classic form - full of energy, enthusiasm, and passion. As a Permaculture teacher, designer and consultant, working on numerous projects around the world, I have found them to be an invaluable and endless source of reference information and inspiration.

Geoff Lawton,
Managing Director of The Permaculture Research Institute

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The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

GREENING THE DESERT (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

being originally from Michigan (Lake Odessa) now in California, (San Ramon) that it takes about 3 wooded acres, or 10 un-wooded acres to feel some distance from your neighbors.
If you can afford 20 acres, by all means get it. The more the better, but to answer your question, you can do it on 3 acres pretty easily...
1 acre if your willing to raise rabbits, dedicate almost all of your land to garden, and hunt and fish on public land.
With everything you've listed, I would suggest a 10 acre parcel

-If you are planning to make a partial living from the farm, get at least 20 acres. Plant corn. It's a hot property now; it will make money. So will wheat.

-If you are only planning to feed your family with the farm, get five acres. Plant vegetables, raise goats, a few cows, and poultry.

-If you have black gumbo soil, plant a pecan orchard.

-If you have red sandy loam, plant an orchard of peaches, grapevines, and other fruit.

-If you live in the desert, plant melons and Muscat grapes.

-If you live in a cold or mountainous climate, plant apple trees.

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Dryland Permaculture Strategies - Part 1
Dryland Permaculture Strategies - Part 2
Dryland Permaculture Strategies - Part 3
Ignore the Environmentalism.
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The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

GREENING THE DESERT (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

Tropical Permaculture Strategies - Part 1
Tropical Permaculture Strategies - Part 2
Tropical Permaculture Strategies - Part 3
Tropical Permaculture Strategies - Part 4
Ignore the Environmentalism.
--------------------------------
The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

GREENING THE DESERT (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

Temperate Permaculture Part 1
Temperate Permaculture Part 2
Temperate Permaculture Part 3
Temperate Permaculture Part 4
Ignore the Environmentalism.
--------------------------------
The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

GREENING THE DESERT (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

'The Encyclopedia of Country Living. "By Carla Emery. The massive book that covers living off the land like no other! Easy to use info and sources for thousands of items. Learn to grow natural gardens, seed saving, canning, raising animals, keeping bees and so much more! Carla has been working on this gem for 32 years, making it the king of all homesteading books and the largest book we sell. 885 Pages."

Link to Baker Creek website: http://rareseeds.com/

Baker Creek was the seed company that had a booth at the Rally for the Republic! I like to support fellow Liberty-minded businesses. So I ordered this book, requested a catalog and the magazine subscription. I also did some Christmas shopping--bought some music cd's for family members.

Urban Permaculture Strategies- Part 1
Urban Permaculture Strategies- Part 2
Urban Permaculture Strategies- Part 3
Urban Permaculture Strategies- Part 4
Ignore the environmentalism.
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The Road Less Traveled by George Strait

GREENING THE DESERT (Video) Water Harvesting Methods

Eliot Colman wrote a definitive guide to organic farming called the New Organic Grower. You can do it on as little as 2 acres with some creativity - and using his four-season approach keep fresh vegetables on the table for your family year-round. This is the approach I am taking although I am definitely a rookie.

Joel Salatin (fellow RP Supporter) also wrote a book "You can Farm" with some great suggestions (targeted towards a commercial venture). One was using other people's idle land initially (no $ outlay), and building from there.

Permaculture (Bill Mollison) is also another scientific approach that will help you effectively use whatever land/resources you have available. A subset of Permaculture theory is "square foot gardening" - with which many people have has great success, even on urban lots!

I would also recommend articles from Kurt Saxon's "The Survivor" series available at www.survivalplus.com, which deal with many practical issues of self-reliance from growing and storing food to home power generation.

Good Luck!
-LF

good information.

Here's a link I just posted in another thread that may be of use to you and others just starting out:

Beginning farmers/gardeners: look here

The topic of "how to find land for farming" may be covered in the sites linked to in that thread; I hadn't personally searched for such info, but you may find it there.

(Note: I don't mean to "spam" that DP link; it's just been relevant to a couple of active posts.)

Go to: http://www.bankhomesdirec...
you can search for foreclosed homes free. Just put in the location you want.

Detective Krum Investigates:
http://victory1project.wo...
http://v1-p.com/

Build a chicken coop large enough for 50 chickens. Put in a rack covered with small hole chicken wire that the chickens walk on and about a foot beneath it is a floor covered with corrugated fiberglass panels that angle down to a trough which feeds into an old wringer type washer. Every day take a hose and rinse the chicken shit off the fiberglass down to the trough into the old washer. Cycle it around a bit and then pump it into a horizontal methane digester where it will produce methane through anaerobic fermentation that can be used for cooking and heating and, if enough chickens are producing enough manure, to run a small generator. The excess from the digester would be fed to the garden to grow corn and other crops for people and for more chicken feed to feed the chickens to produce more poop to make more methane to grow more feed to feed the chickens to make more poop.

10 - 20 acres will do you'...
weee

If you can find a farm that is already established would be the best. You just need a field for growing crops and a barn. You really do not need a whole lot of acreage.
There are a ton of farms on the auction block here in Wisconsin.

should buy what you can afford to buy...you can make it work with Five, Ten, Twenty..and if you had too, you could make it work on three or four acres.

Do a search online for "five acre homesteads" "Ten acre homesteads" and you will find a wealth of information.

I read and duplicated a system one guy had done in town in his back yard. He raised catfish in 55 gallon barrells, raised rabbits, and worms.

Raise your rabbits, place bins underneath the rabbits to catch poo..fill the bins with soil and red worms, feed the rabbits your garden scraps, the worms eat their poo and give you "castings", with is the best garden soil you can get, and you feed worms to the catfish.

With acreage the possibilities are endless. Just keep it simple.

Also, if you can..keep with raised beds and use heavy mulching rather than a lot of tilling and tearing up the ground. You'll have a whole lot less work after setting it up, no gas for tractors, tillers, etc... you just heavily mulch like you would a flowerbed. Your dead leaves, grass, and poo will make great compost and mulch.

I believe this is the future of our country. It will save us. The more little farms and farmers we have the healthier we will be, the more "grounded" we will be and developing skills that are fully integrated with life and enjoyment.

We live in the city but are thinking about a roof garden, a greenroof to grow food. I don't think we need a lot of space. Right now it is still in the imagination stage. If we never make it to our long term dream of living in the mountains, we will at least try to get a foothold on our roof.

Just bumping this for the beauty of the idea. Good luck to you!

Check out this family who grows all their own food on a tenth of an acre city lot with enough left over produce to run a successful business.

http://www.pathtofreedom....

Modern traditional farming takes a lot of work and expensive equipment however these folks have proven you don't have to raise traditional field row crops in the traditional manner to make a go of it.

I myself would prefer as much acreage as I could get however I would still take some pages from these folks and keep most if not all my production to a very small area.

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Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. H. L. Mencken

Get Prepared!

My husband and I just spent 4 days checking out the area and we have decided to move near Murphy NC in Cherokee County it is surrounded by 3 National forests, plenty of rivers, streams and springs..great fishing and plenty of game! ( you may recall that town/ area as being where Eric Rudolf hid out for 5 years from the FBI !!)

Very beautiful mountain country but not too high of an elevation with plenty of pastureland and valleys! 2 hours to Atlanta, 2 hours to Asheville NC and 2 hours to Chattanooga TN!

Generations of farmers make up most of these communities ( before that and now still homeland of the Cherokee Nation) and they have great farmers markets for good organic local grown crops. We are looking for only 2 acres with water and garden spots since it is only two of us. For a family, I would think you could get by on 5-10 acres! I had a 25 acre farm once and even that was a full time job which required alot of equipment!

Keep in mind you dont need to grow "everything" or raise all your own meat/ poultry if you are in a community like this you can trade or buy from the others easily!

As an added plus most of the people there have a healthy dislike of the federal government! ; - )

We hope to be able to buy this spring...sure would be great to have some of you for "neighbors" !! We found plenty of nice log homes on 2 acres with water for under $200,000 !!!
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"Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave fast enough to be a new source of energy independence."~ samthurston

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Lancaster, SC, is a great place if you want to try farming but want the security of being close enough to a major city (Charlotte, NC) in case things don't work out and you need a regular job again. We have two tracts of land in Lancaster that might work for you - one is a 10-acre tract for $130,000 and the other is a 106-acre tract for $275,600. If you are interested in more information on these, contact Karen Franse at kfranse@comporium.net. Lancaster, SC, is only 30 miles south of Charlotte, NC. It is a temperate area, good for farming with lots of people running small family farms "out in the country" and both of these parcels are in the Buford community of Lancaster, the most desirable school district - another thing to consider if you have kids.

I'd say move to Estonia, all they have is a 20% flat tax, the land is dirt cheap and economically they are extremely free market oriented.

If you want to get more land for your money..I would suggest you try Inman or Chesnee SC...or cross over into NC and check out the towns
Caroleen-Cliffside-Henrietta-Six Points........all have good rich earth for growing....but..you want good farm and game land....check out Golden Valley NC....It backs up to Cherry Mountain...most there use well and spring water....deer are everywhere..careful driving at night..you would be a bit of a distance from town but if you go there you could buy about 7ac. and that should do you a lot of good...House & yard on .05ac...add to a spring and make a great pond...you could plant on about 1.5ac and the rest..woods-game-raise chickens-have a small barn...

Freedom is another way to God...A corrupt government is a straight way to hell.

I am not a farmer but want to recommend a book called "living the good life" by Helen ans Scott Nearing - they started homesteading in the 30's and did it till the 90's, they have some good suggestions and can give you an idea on how it is done, Check it out if you have a chance

We have 40+ acres in NH. We farm about 3 of them, the rest is woodland - we use that for firewood and hunting. I think you can make a go of it with a five acre lot ( not including firewood, if you need it ).

I've got neighbors with farm equipment who are willing to trade plowing/tilling for a day of work on their farm. This has helped on the cost of equipment. Also, I have a neighbor with a huge hay field - we buy cheap bales off the field from him every year.

Being resourceful and connecting with your neighbor helps.

why? do you plan on quitting your job? Because running a farm is a full-time job.

Even with tractors and equipment the 120 acre (60farmland) farm I live on takes half a dozen guys to run year round.

My husband and i are in NH doing the smalll family farm. we just got 15 chickens, who are laying and will be meat someday. Our first garden this summer gave us a harvest which fed us like a king and a queen, the best tasting food ever! Goats are next, and we hear that goat meat is a growing market, amung our Muslim friends and others. Going agrarian is THE WAY, if quality of life, peace, hard work, fun, is for you. We both still work, but with God's help we will one day be able to live off of this life which we are loving. We have about 5 acres cleared, there is a great old fashioned book called 'The More for Less Plan. A great help. Best to you, Welcome!

of family, extended family, and or friends and go together into this farm. Make sure they are like-minded people, and spell it all out first - who will do what. Just saves areas of disagreement later.

Do like the FLDS - share land, houses, chores, etc. All things are possible! What the mind can conceive, and believe, it can achieve! Napoleon Hill

if you raised multiple food crops unless you are one dedicated working fool. These twits saying you need 100-20000 acres have no idea what they are talking about. Unless you want to be owned by the Rockefeller clan (John-deere/Cat) by mortgaging all your land to them to have the equipment, you don't have a chance. If you don't have any better concept as to what agricultural involves, you would be better off working for someone who does.
Water, irrigation type, herbicides.pesticides, seed cost, mechanical needs and costs, land taxes, storage, soil type, soil depth, organic matter, fertility, etc...etc....
If you folks think you are going to run out of the city and become instant farmer/survivalists, you have another thing coming.
We shoots rats out in my country.

Here's some more.

*are you planning on raising your own crops to feed the animals? You'll want enough land to plant corn, oats, and wheat. Then rotate those crops. (remember COW - Corn - Oats - Wheat). What one crop takes out of the soil, it replaces a mineral utilized by the next crop, etc.

*if you are raising organic - not grain beef - you'll need some decent pasture room for it to roam.

*then the cost of equipment to plant and harvest is outrageios

My suggestion for a family of 5: 10 to 20 acres, enough for veg. gardens and a pond, Enough to raise one beef a year, to let chickens roam (gather their eggs and when they are done laying eggs, can butcher and eat - keep a rotation), one pig a year, some fruit trees and berry bushes (black raspberry and blueberry are highest in nutrients)

You'll want a tractor to plow and for other uses, such as mowing down the pasture as animals only eat the good grass - you'll have to mow down the weeds. You'll want to divide the pasture so when one part gets used (eaten down) you can put it in the other half and let the first one grow again.

I suggest you look for local farmers in that area and work with them. They will have the equipment and you can trade services. That way you can learn as you go. Farming is NOT easy nor for everyone. If you help one with dairy cattle, you can keep a cow there and get fresh milk. You can live on fresh milk alone, if nothing else is available.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." Benjamin Franklin
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48,000 sq ft(1.1acres) to feed each adult for an entire year. That includes grains and vegetables, not meats. I'd say a family of five should consider 12 acres total. 4 wooded, 2 water/pond, the other 6 for growing vegetables with room for crop rotations. Check out the biodynamic gardening method. They have everything about this pretty dialed.

Veggies, chickens, turkeys, (horse-?) Fruit orchards (for small income). Organic.

We were thinking 5+ acres. But my Question is how much of that should be wooded for home heating?

What's the best septic system?

Is it expensive to get a hand pump for water in an exisiting well with electric pump?

The trout pond is something I hadn't thought of.

Are wind mills worth the cost?

Are gas barrels still a common occurence on farms?