The latest Mother Earth News grabbed my attention last night:
“Start a self-sufficient One Acre Homestead” the cover proclaimed:
I bought it, because I’ve had an interest in growing as much of our own food as I can the past couple of years.
Now I grew up on a real working farm
240 acres
Small dairy herd
I know how to milking the cow by hand
farrowed pigs
butchered chickens
farm fresh eggs
baled hay
Pitched manure by hand
filled the silo
The whole enchilada, so I’m not stupid when it comes the basics of living on a farm.
The article had this cute little diagram :
Having tried to grow as much food as I can on our little acreage the past couple of years I have to say there are some major gaps in this article.
Tilling the soil
They talk about “plowing” the sod every 4th or 5th year…that means you will either have to invest in a tractor and small plow or borrow your neighbors…unfortunately, they are not cheap, and most real farmers today in my neck of the woods, farm 100′s of acres, their equipment is too big to use on a small patch of ground. Their rigs can’t even fit through the opening in the fence, let alone just plow a small swath.
If you use just a regular tiller to break up un-plowed ground, you’re going to end up with a lot of weeds and grass because you can’t turn it over enough to smother out the grass roots.
If you do spread manure on the ground (to give it fertilizer) you really do need a plow.
If you don’t have a tractor and manure spreader, you have to figure out another way to get the manure out to the field. (wheel barrow?) Ever done that with more than a couple of trips? You will sleep like a baby after a day of that 
Critters
Then you have the whole battle with the other creatures of the wild that have a keen interest in your crop.
Rabbits. they love your garden as much as you. Unless you have a fence fine enough to keep the rabbits out, they will nibble off your beans and other hard earned crops in short order. I don’t care how much you respect the earth and earnestly desire to go green.
If you do invest in a rabbit fence, better figure on spending several hundred dollars if you intend to fence in 1/2 acre of ground.
Deer
they are thick here in Eastern Iowa. You’ll need a fence that is 8 ft tall to keep them out. A few years ago, we planted 40 young apple trees..they were looking awesome that first month…long luscious branches…then the deer found them, and in 2 nights they ate 80% of the new growth, stripped them right down to nothing. We did invest in an electric deer fence that does a pretty good job of keeping them out. Probably had $900.00 invested by the time we fence around just the apple trees.
predators
We currently have (3) chickens. We get two eggs a day, which is about right for the two of us. We have to buy the chicken feed @ almost $10.00 for a 40# bag. Those eggs are not cheap if you do the math.
As much as I would like them to be “free range” they wouldn’t last a month. Chicken hawks and owls would make short order out of our little flock. Lost several chickens several years ago to a raccoon that kept breaking into a locked chicken house.
Farm animals
The article discusses whether or not to have a house cow, pigs, chickens. You better be prepared to spend a lot of $ keeping your 1 or 2 critters with feed because you are not going to be able to raise/ keep enough food to get you through the winter. It is not cost effective to own a tractor and hay baler for 1 cow and 1/2 acre of hay
We had (1) pig a couple of years ago. Tried to get by just letting her forage off the pasture. Didn’t put on any weight, and as we got into Winter, things were tight financially, I really hated to start buying feed..stopped by a pumpkin patch after the Halloween season was over and hauled home 4 pick up loads of pumpkins. That got us by into the middle of Winter. Then I was able to get some ear corn from a couple of farmers who hadn’t gotten their crops picked before the heavy snow. A lot of busy work trying to keep one pig supplied with feed on a shoe string budget.
Water
It averages $30 a month per heater to keep the water thawed for out door livestock. That is a major drain on your budget if things are tight. I did come up with a couple of ways around the water heater issue. If you’re interested, let me know.
So here’s my question..is there anybody out there on a small acreage, able to raise 90% of their own food for the year, that hasn’t spent thousands of dollars on fancy hobby farm equipment?
Talk to me…I want details
I would love to give you some space on the blog to write a series of “how to” pieces.
Close with a picture some of you have seen more than once..its a picture of Winston our pet pig and myself, taken last year:
(The reason I have such a serious look is because I knew the next day, I was going to have to load Winston up on a trailer and send her to the locker. We had donated her to a local camp for the handicapped and they were going to have her butchered. 
)
I love that picture of you and Winston, I do remember seeing it before. She looks like she is happy and smiling. You sure have had some great experiences living on a farm!
Doug – this is really excellent ‘food’ for thought. I often wondered the realities of this lifestyle. We all dream of it (at least I do), but even my rudimentary understanding of what it takes for me to just keep my tiny garden producing makes me know better than that photo of the ideal acre. The weeding alone makes me crazy!
Thank you for this! I too was intrigued by the Mother Earth article and read it online. The article itself is somewhat contradictory – the title states “self-sufficient”, yet also wants you to buy in a minimum of 1 ton of hay to feed the cow through winter! Ummm . . . what?
I do wonder though if perhaps something like what they are describing would be more possible with a few tweaks. For instance, they did suggest perhaps a couple of dairy goats could be successfully raised without the huge amount of hay buy in for winter (possibly none/little???). From my research, it would seem that a single standard-size dairy cow might produce far more milk than a small family would ever need. If you’re only trying to support 2-5 people, perhaps dairy sheep pr goats would be a better livestock option.
Also, you mentioned all of the wildlife issues and expenses you encounter. Perhaps a slight change of location would be a way to circumvent some of these issues? (not you personally, I’m saying this more for someone looking for a new place to make this work). For instance, growing up, it was not uncommon for the standard yard to be between a third and half an acre. My friend who lived less than a mile away lived on just barely under an acre, and her yard was pretty standard in her neighborhood (it was a tad on the large side of average, but not by much, and there were more than just a couple surrounding homes with same size or larger yards). Please keep in mind, these are pretty ordinary middle class suburban neighborhoods. This is not a “rural” area. Just some older middle class neighborhoods. If, for example, you were to purchase my friend’s childhood home, you’d have just under an acre of land which already has a 4′ chain link perimeter fence around the back yard (probably 2/3 of the property). You’d have a nice but not huge house (4 bedrooms, 3 baths) with a great basement (food storage, anyone?). You’d have some nice mature trees, including 2 nut trees and 2 oaks, but still plenty of open land for animals and plants. Your rabbit problem would still be real, but nothing like in a rural setting. Your deer problem would be non-existent. Many areas now allow poultry and goats, although it’s best to check.
One last thought – the breeds chosen for your livestock may make a huge difference. Some heritage breeds were developed specifically for their ability to forage and grow almost entirely on what they could glean for themselves. Many of the more modern industrial breeds just cannot do this. I’d be curious to know if you have any first-hand experience with how this might or might not affect the amount of purchased feed required?
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Lis, let me give that last question a little thought. Thanks for taking the time to comment on this post! Always fun to hear from reader. DM
Oh, I had to laugh when I was reading all this! I feel your pain – earlier this morning I was thinking that I should blog about ‘the dream vs the reality’. We have about 4-1/2 acres in the weeds of central Kansas, trying to do the self sufficient thing.
…we can compare notes. DM
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Marianne, let me know if you write that post…I want to read it
We have been working on this idea now off and on for 14 years–it is much more complex than the article in Mother Earth News or any other makes it appear. The real limiting factor in all of this is TIME! if you can afford to be on the land, investing your time and energy without having to work off site for a living, then it is a totally feasible idea. However, if you are working off site and/or raising younger children and/or suffer any kind of long-term illness preventing you from working hard, then you will not be able to become self-sufficient. But to the degree that you and your family are less dependent on others, you have gained something valuable:)
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Melanie, thanks for stopping by! Appreciate your thoughts on this one too! DM
I actually came across your blog right after reading the article you cited. While I didn’t grow up on a farm, I did spend tons of time on my mom’s friend’s farm as a child. The first thing I thought while reading the original article was ‘how in the world could you keep all that livestock on one acre?’ That, of course, ends up being less than one acre due to the home lot, and all the food gardens. There would be no way to keep your cow fed when there’s no pasture to send her out.
As far as keeping the water thawed – I have a coop with 9 chickens. During the winter I keep a smaller tub of water and change it out 2-3 times/day. I’m a stay at home mom/author so I have the time and luxury to keep going out. You mentioned you had other ideas of keeping the water thawed. Care to share?
I came up with 2 ways to get around the $30 per month electric bill for the water heater…Way #1 We have a room under our front porch w/ a window that faces to the south…only way to access it was through the basement…so technically, it is part of the basement but not really…the temperature down there usually stays above freezing (except when it’s really cold) so I put the chickens down there a couple of winters in the row… Way # 2…I put in a large widow in the south side of our old barn constructed a small room/ insulated the ceiling and sides w/ hay bales…most days the solar energy would warm up the area enough again to keep the water from freezing.. Thanks for asking. DM
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Yep I will share
Hey DM 90% is a pretty lofty goal! MEN is selling an lifestyle idea…fancy notions. I used to like the magazine much more than I do these days. We grow those items that are most expensive to buy organic.
Nice article.
*anna
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Anna, Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this post! DM
We live on a couple of acres and raise much of what we eat. We have 50 chickens, a milk goat, a cow. I have found that a garden is so much better at feeding us, along with chickens. The goat does give us milk, but it takes grain ( at 14 dollars a month). Chickens we have raised free for years ( thanks to a local food bank that we get all their leftover bread). We have raised and butchered hundreds of chickens and find it is cheap and not to hard. We get chicken manure for the compost. Cows take lots of our lands resources, we have an acre in pasture and the goat and the cow keep it mowed down. In the winter we have to buy hay, but we give the cow and goat bread and corn stalks, carrots and whatever else they will eat. We raised 7 children living simply and it has been a good life for us.
I had the same reaction when I read that article. It is based on a section in a book I own, I think it’s “The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency” by John Seymour? One of the original back-to-the-land books from the 70s.
John definitely lived the life he wrote about, but he had more than one acre. My guess is that section of the book was scaled down from what he was familiar with, and it really assumes that nothing ever goes wrong. I think most of the people who bought that book were armchair smallholders, who just enjoyed reading about the good life and poring over the intricately drawn farm plans
.
Just noticed – there was a more realistic follow-up article after that one was published: http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/one-acre-self-sufficient-homestead-zm0z11zkon.aspx
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Awesome….Darren..thanks for the tip! DM
“Your deer problem would be non-existent.” LOLOL!!! Wow you don’t live in my suburb! I routinely have deer (as do my neighbors) come browsing into my yard, all the way to the back of my suburban acre — behind the house! One year, my dog killed a porcupine in the back yard, and we routinely have skunks and marmots. So there are real problems with wildlife in suburban areas, too.
I read the Mother Earth article and got tired just thinking of the amount of work involved with keeping it all together.I live in the tropics(Fiji) on half an acre and I suppose i am almost self sufficient sort of maybe.I have fruit trees and a vege garden and 130 chickens(free range) for eggs that i sell and 30 broilers for meat that I eat and sell.Most of the people around me are self sufficient but here I think it’s called subsistence farming which sort of means poor but happy making babies.
It must be hard living the way you guys are talking about with water freezing and all those wild animals to contend with, the only thing we have here are rats and mongooses which are bad enough.It never gets cooler than 15 deg celcius and not more than 35 so that makes things a lot easier straight off eg no heating and not much clothing.Things grow prolifically the biggest challenge is slowing down the growth.
My thoughts are that it is good to grow things but no person is an island and you will need to have some money so it is really a matter of balance and another thing is you don’t want to work yourself to death that ain’t no fun.
Another thing I have noticed about this self sufficient thing is a lot of the people who are into it want to get away from other people,what’s that all about.When you do farming like this you really need other people to help,there is a lot of work and what if you want to go away for a bit or you get sick then what.Many hands make light the work and who really wants to eat all that food by themselves any way. What.s the point.
Excuse my spelling and hopefully I haven’t offended anyone,just some thoughts.
Cheerio for now
Jim
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Jim, I love love love your comments…words of wisdom from someone who is actually doing it. Appreciate you taking the time to check in.DM
Doug,Thanks for you kind words it is always nice to know that there are other people around who feel and think the same way you do otherwise you can start to think that you are going a bit nuts.
It really is a bit of a funny old life.
Over here where I live in Fiji they grow mostly sugar cane on small farms(10 acres)the land is ploughed by oxen and harvested by hand.People still ride horses to work or town or catch the bus.Town has a market which the farmers sell there produce in everyday bar Sunday.Everybody pretty much knows everybody else so going to town is a bit of a social occasion and for some from the remoter areas it is a real treat.Some of the people here would really like to live somewhere else overseas with shopping malls and suburbs and such like because they have grown up with this life but want something else which they think is better.Now for some of us who grew up overseas and had the city suburban life with shopping malls etc we now just want to grow stuff ,watch chickens and kid’s for entertainment and go into town and talk about the weather.Like I said it is a funny old life.
The trick I think is to just do what you can where you are at now with what you have and be happy with it, otherwise you are never really going to be anywhere but living in the future some place.
Just some more thoughts from the South Pacific.
Cheerio for now
Jim
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Your words reminded me of an account I read today about Michael Jordan http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/02/21/when-greatness-meets-emptiness-michael-jordan-at-50/
The article talked about how unhappy he is. His whole identity is wrapped up in his past. He does not know how to find peace now that he is no longer the center of attention.. Last night as I was enjoying a meal of steamed potatoes, onions and green beans, I thought there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be @ that moment. .Peace of mind is a priceless gift. DM
Although I think the article simplifies it too much, we are able to do some of the suggestions in a budget smart manner. We barter a lot or trade labour. All the hay for our goats was “earned” by spending a day helping another neighbour hay. I mix my own chicken feed, which is much cheeper than pre-mixed crumble. Live traps help keep critters down and a dog certainly helps keep varmints out of the gardens. Our fencing was made from mill-ends (sawmill waste wood from the sides of the logs) that we got for free, or a wattle fence that we made from saplings on our property. No fancy heating for animal’s water….just trudging out to the barn several times a day during the winter to toss out the ice and add more water. Stale bread can be gotten for dirt cheep from the bread factory outlet. Appropriate kitchen scraps go to the hens, rabbits and or goats.
Kate
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Thank you Kate for your comments! I LOVED the details. DM
I subscribe to MEN and Grit. While I do find some of their articles useful, I think sometimes they are a little misleading. A couple years ago, we decided to give up the urban life and move back to the family farm I grew up on. We have about 40 acres to work with and while we are not yet farming on that large of a scale, we are working on it. We grow enough veggies to eat fresh in the summer, share some with family and “lay by” as my grandparents would have said for the winter months. We have at least an acre in veggie garden space (and adding more this year). We plant mostly heirloom seeds except for sweet corn (just cant help loving some peaches and cream) so we can save seed from year to year. Even with saving seed, we still spend $50 or so a year on seed.
This year, we decided to add an orchard to the homestead. We set out about 15 fruit trees, some blueberry bushes and muscadine vines. That is at least another acre. Granted, that will provide far more fruit than we will need as a family, and we are hoping to be able to sell some in a few years when the trees really start producing good. We are hoping this will at least help pay for some of the other farm expenses.
We have a 12×12 permanent chicken coop (not the fancy ones, just wood, tin and wire) with a large run that currently houses 7 laying hens and 2 roosters. We are getting 5-7 eggs a day which we use and share with family/friends. We have 10 black copper marin chicks and 10 amauracana chicks that should be laying by fall (the hens anyway
) so we are hoping to have enough to start selling eggs as well. We use the deep litter method, so we get plenty of good compost from the chickens to use in the garden.
We also have rabbits (mostly white new Zealand) that we breed and sell. They are currently housed in cages in an old shed, but we are working on getting a colony built for them. With the rabbits, we get LOTS of manure for the garden, and since it doesn’t have to age, we can take it straight from the shed to the garden.
We haven’t ventured into cows, goats or pigs yet. It seems a little uneconomical to have a dairy cow since you cant really sell the raw milk and we don’t really use that much milk. We have considered dairy goats but just not sure I want to deal with goats.
We have a 42hp tractor and all the implements we need to work the garden and mow the fields that are not yet in pasture/crops. I inherited this from my grandparents, so no initial expense, however, its an older tractor and upkeep can eat into the pocket book pretty good. I have thought about buying a new tractor, but we are trying to do this without any debt and I cant afford to pay cash for a new one, so I just keep on fixing the things that break on the old one.
All this to say, while I would like to believe one could be self sufficient on 1 acre, we are currently using at least 4 acres and I still work a day job to pay the bills and supplement the farm. Granted, we are only in our second year and we are already reaping the benefits of the first year (seeds, compost) I am not sure I will ever be able to just “retire” to the farm. My grandparents worked this land (and much more) raising corn/soybeans, pigs and veggies and my grandfather still had to work a day job. I am blessed with being able to do my work from home, so I can help out during the day with the farm chores and do part of my “day” job at night. I cant imagine trying to do this if I had to commute to work each day. I am also blessed to have family land, so we didn’t have to go into debt to get started.
Even with all these advantages, we are still upside down as far as farm expenses go. I am keeping records, so hopefully I will know when (if ever) we actually break even.
Sorry for the long reply, but you did ask for details
Blessings,
Keith
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Keith, thank YOU for the long detailed reply. Practical stuff. You’re doing what many of the rest of us are thinking about doing. DM
Hi Keith and DM
Like DM said about your comments/reply good practical stuff,no head in the cloud’s dreaming but plenty of bent back and sweat.Keep going it’s only your second year it will get easier and the door’s will open and opportunities will start to present themselves.Keep on with the chickens and rabbit’s they will prove a winner in time to come,like I say over here if you look after your chickens they will look after you.
All the best to you both and your families.
Cheerio for now
Jim