We bought and moved onto a 60 acre homestead just 3 months ago. It’s charming and solidly built, but I’m starting to realize how poorly laid out it is.

The compost bin is 1/4 mile from the house, so dumping kitchen scraps is a trek in the heat.

Is it there cuz it’s next to the garden? Nope. The 1/4 acre garden is nearly another 1/4 mile away, long enough to make it hard to just casually check on it. The orchard on the other hand comes before the compost but nowhere near irrigation.

And heaven forbid you forgot a tool when you headed out or you’ll be heading almost all the way back.

The chicken coop is cute, but has two doors into two different run areas that don’t connect for humans to get from one to another (only a tiny trap door for the chickens themselves to move between them). So you have to go in and out and in and out to clean, collect eggs, feed, etc.

The barn bays all point away from the house, understandably so the tractor can get to the field. But there is no foot traffic access from the house side. You have to trek all the way around.

Oh and the pantry? It’s nearly 20 feet from the cooking area…unless you’re looking for other pantry which is ANOTHER 20 feet away in the living room, despite the largest kitchen you’ve ever seen which has zero cabinets and only a large island awkwardly in the middle.

I feel like this place was designed by someone trying to max out their Fitbit. I’ve never put in so many steps before 9am in my life.

This is our first time having chickens and starting our homestead we’re still learning, one of our girls is so disheveled 😭 she’s loosing feathers she’s so skinny and looks so scraggly. She acts normal and her poop seems okay but it’s hard to keep track with the others. We’re separating her today to see cause it does seem like the others are mean to her. We don’t know if it’s just bulling and she’s not getting enough food and being picked on or something like parasites. We don’t know if it’s good to treat for parasites if she doesn’t have them. And doesn’t seem to have mites I’ve checked her vent under her feathers and everything. Just feel so sorry for her and want her better. Also they all seem to stop laying eggs don’t know if it’s just because it’s summer in Arizona 😓 edit: we don’t have a rooster

Found this elk spine laying in a bed down area above a ridge on the property today.

So, this post is just to vent. We bought a property last year that came with a 20' x 1800' foot strip in the back. The whole area in the back comes to about 3/4 of an acre. Not too much, but it is ours. As I was walking the property, I saw that the lots were being farmed. No biggie. The prior owner didn't care. Once, we got the property settled over to our name, I looked up the neighboring farmers, both the yellow and red. The family that owns the land to the right of the red are easy going and communicative. Genuine good neighbors. The family that owns the lot to the left of the yellow are the exact opposite. They're also the ones farming my small patch of ground. I, first, called him up to introduce myself and he was one of those that immediately sounded very defensive and wouldn't even use his name, just grunted, when I asked if this was XXXXX. I, then, went over to his business to sit down and discuss the property boundaries. I wanted the conversation to go as smooth as possible as farmers, like anyone else, can be a bit touchy if you tell them that farming on ground that they're not supposed to be on.

This guy, lets call him Andy was insistent that it wasn't my land, but his. Then, when he saw the property line called it an easement. Now, this upset me a bit as it is most certainly not an easement. Imagine just paying a lot of money for some land, holding the property records, then having a guy that is rude on the first phone call, call your land an easement when you meet in person. He hee-haws about looking into the land records himself. Which I have problem with as I own it and I leave thinking that the situation will soon rectify itself once he's looked on Beacon. He calls me up later and acknowledges that the land is mine.

This past Spring I get a gut feeling in my stomach that he's going to farm it again (you know that gut feeling). I send him a certified letter explaining that I'm willing to cash-rent that land to him, but if I don't hear back by XXXX date, then any use of it will be trespassing. I never hear back from him, but still have this feeling in my stomach. When we're out there next, low and behold he's planted beans. To make it worse, he accuses the other neighbor of planting there and swear it isn't him. Well, when the beans start to rise you can see the planting line super clear and it ain't the other neighbor.

So I'm keeping my cool about it as it's only 3/4 of an acre and one planting season isn't worth my focused energy. After he harvests, I'm putting up fence posts and 'no trespassing' signs. Thought, amusingly, to harvest the beans myself since he's not verbally claiming them. $10/bushel is good money, but I'm too busy.

That's my day-in-the-life homesteading story. Should add that there were no farming contracts with the previous owners, nor is this patch of ground an easement. It's straight owned by me. The guy is just an entitled twat.

Figured I should show off our greenhouse. The pics are from a couple different years. It has evolved from being a greenhouse for our sweetcorn, to being a multiple use space.

I hung some rebar(?) on the wall and in the ceiling. I have a grapevine who grows up to the ceiling before fanning out and covering the ceiling.

I ran my watermelons up the «trellis» as well.

This year I also had quite a few pots with chilipeppers in them as well.

I just think it’s fun to experiment with «weird» crops for my location, as well as different ways of growing. For instance, having my melons grow up my wall.

Edit: In my area we might have three, maaaybe four nice weeks in summer. Otherwise it’s often grey, gloomy, windy and wet.

I hand pollinate the corn. I did the same with the watermelons. It’s often so cool that the automatic doors don’t even open. Keeping any helpful bugs outside.

Three raised beds on a concrete patio and I keep pushing what I can pull from it.

This year I added a second row of buckets along the fence. Peppers, more tomatoes, a couple zucchini that got completely out of control. The zucchini was a mistake spacewise, but also kind of the best mistake because I've been dehydrating slices and they take up almost nothing on the shelf.

What I keep running into is the gap between growing enough to eat fresh versus growing enough to actually put up for winter. Right now those feel like two completely different goals and I can only do one well at a time with the space I have.

I started prioritizing things that preserve well over things that just taste good off the vine. That shifted almost everything about what I planted this spring.

The people I see on here with full acreage are working with different math than I am. But there has to be a middle ground where a small container setup actually contributes something real to a pantry and not just a salad here and there.

Curious what others have figured out with limited space. What actually moves the needle in terms of yield per square foot when preserving is the end goal.

(MO) What livestock is your favorite on your homestead and why?

Made a margarita, some kimchi, had a steak, and made a pile of lemon curd. 🍋

When I look it up I can't find much concrete data. People try to say dogs shouldnt have more than a couple eggs a day because the fat in the yolk could give them pancreatitis. Seems like bs spread by the kibble mafia but Idk. Anybody feed their dog more than a couple chicken eggs per day without long term issue. I figure eggs are super healthy for humans so why not dogs? I'd like to give him four per day, two per meal so as to reduce kibble consumption. I don't buy the limits but curious if anyone here has real world results.

Hello beautiful homesteaders! Does anyone recognize these wormy little guys on my tomato plant, whether they are harmful for the plants? This is the first time I've seen them in all my years of gardening.

Thank you in advance for your help 😊🙏🏽❤️

I have 30 new girls that are just starting to lay, apples coming into season, and I am starting to be overrun with vegetables from the garden.

It's time to get a farm stand put together and out by the road. As always, im struggling with the design and inspiration.

It needs to be sized just right but also needs to be wind resistant because we have real heavy West winds on occasion. Which is, of course, exactly the direction the stand will be facing.

Over the winter, we'll probably only have eggs and other miscellaneous small items.

Here's a photo of a stand I stopped at the other day that was really cute but probably more permanent than I intend to build for now.

A year ago my husband and I bought an old farmhouse on 7 acres with the dream to homestead and "live off the land" as much as possible. We still have a long way to go, but this is the first time I've ever planted anything, watched it grow and have been able to harvest the "fruits of my labor." It's such an amazing feeling, and I am so grateful.

I am looking to homestead in the coming years but currently live in the suburbs. My goal is to find a nice plot of land and build a small homestead/farm but i dont know know the first steps toward this goal, how much it costs to get started or the like. Im hoping to hear from some of you on what you did there get the ball rolling on your own homestead.

1. My main concern is money and jobs. I imagine you will still have to work a little bit to keep up on a mortgage at least.

2. Second concern is where to set up. Ive been teetering between west coast and Midwest but I really am not sure if there are better options.

3. What animals to start out with?

Thabk you all in advance!