Homesteading & Self Sufficiency

[pap11y]

My initial plan is chooks 6-10, goats 1-2....

Plenty of fruit trees including apple, mango, avocado, lemon, lime and mandarin (to start)...

I can also have a really decent veggie garden but will keep it manageable as I want to enjoy all of the tasks in maintaining everything without it becoming overwhelming...

Also we are putting a dam in and I am looking in to what fresh water fish can live happily, eat mosquito larvae and be plate-able

 

[sami12]

goats will ring bark your trees, i would be cautious on allowing them to free roam. same as some horses.

vegie beds are fun i will take some pics of mine, but the trick i have found to have rolling crops is to plant them up in two week lots, then you will have constant harvest. allowing a few stronger plants to go to seed to plant for future.

RE: mosquito larvae, if you have solar and a aerator pump you should be ok. they love stagnant still water, so if you keep it moving you are in luck. also there are some natural enemys of mosquito larvae i think called nematodes..

i could talk for hours on this stuff

 

[pap11y]

goats will ring bark your trees, i would be cautious on allowing them to free roam. same as some horses.

vegie beds are fun i will take some pics of mine, but the trick i have found to have rolling crops is to plant them up in two week lots, then you will have constant harvest. allowing a few stronger plants to go to seed to plant for future.

RE: mosquito larvae, if you have solar and a aerator pump you should be ok. they love stagnant still water, so if you keep it moving you are in luck. also there are some natural enemys of mosquito larvae i think called nematodes..

i could talk for hours on this stuff

Congrats to you too.. Good to know about the goats. All of this stuff is very helpful actually.. Any ideas on what fish could live in the dam (in NSW) and be eaten??

Feel free to go nuts talking about this stuff if you like as its of benefit to me and anyone else who reads this..

 

[sami12]

here is a good article on fish type and taste etc etc.. http://www.seqfish.com.au/4.html
i am looking into a dam myself but the lie of the land points towards the neighbours house if the dam broke so not sure on the engineers signing off on it.. ill have to review this setup more.
are you getting a dam liner? or natural clay style?
with dams/fish etc, the aerator is required. especially if the area see high temps which then means lower oxygen levels in the water for the fish.

when you move i would suggest looking at a good second hand tractor to help or dingo or something to help save your back! i am currently using a 45hp tractor at the property and it helps for moving and slashing, making fire breaks etc (i am working on the property but not moving for a while.. long story)

 

[pap11y]

here is a good article on fish type and taste etc etc.. http://www.seqfish.com.au/4.html
i am looking into a dam myself but the lie of the land points towards the neighbours house if the dam broke so not sure on the engineers signing off on it.. ill have to review this setup more.
are you getting a dam liner? or natural clay style?
with dams/fish etc, the aerator is required. especially if the area see high temps which then means lower oxygen levels in the water for the fish.

when you move i would suggest looking at a good second hand tractor to help or dingo or something to help save your back! i am currently using a 45hp tractor at the property and it helps for moving and slashing, making fire breaks etc (i am working on the property but not moving for a while.. long story)

Thanks... I'll read up on the fish. A family member has a tractor with slasher for us so we kind of lucked out there.

My sisters fiance also has a mate who has an excavator so he will be digging the dam for us. I have to research more about what is possible with our land and the council requirements..

 

[Jeepcreep]

I have a 45 acre former tobacco farm,I had a small pond built a few years ago,but now I realize it's far to small.This spring/ summer,I will be draining and prepping for a much larger one.My goal is to stock with 3 different food fish,and 1 control species,a pond/ lake will up the value of a property,making building one a very good investment.

 

[Le Loup]

This is something I wish to do in the near future & I haven't found a thread on it yet.
I'm sure there's many out there wanting to learn more about homesteading and being Self Sufficient and I'm sure there's many out there who already practice this.
I thought I'd give the subject a push with this thread. I for one would love to hear how people go about the things they do to live a Self Sufficient lifestyle.
Subjects I'm interested in are listed on the cover of this book. A lot of things can be done without land the grow huge quantities too, start in your own backyard with vegetables for a start.
Who grows their own food ? what do you grow to save money at the shops ? Got ideas or dreams of living a self sufficient lifestyle, I know there's a few here, tell us

We have been living off grid for a little over 40 years, some of that time in the Territory, but most of the time here in New England NSW. I can't see the image you posted, so I don't know what you are interested in. Yes we have our own gardens & grow most of our own food; brasicas, pumpkins, zucchini,corn, beans, button squash, strawberries & raspberries, mulberries. Our house is completely off grid & off all services. We supply our own water & electricity, & our toilets are composting.

Two 5000 gallon cement water tanks for the main house. Two 1000 galvo tanks for the cottage.


A 1000 gallon poly tank for the house gardens, & water from Cattail Pond serves both house & cottage gardens.

240 volt solar power on the main house, & 12 volt solar power at the cottage.
Cooking & heating is supplied by a wood fired stove & heater. The stove also heats our water. We live in a forest so wood supply is no problem.
Keith.

 

[Aussie123]

Nice setup. Thanks

 

[Le Loup]

This year we started producing our own chutney & sauces. We will also be changing the design of our lower gardens. Less paths & more growing space. Our old rooster has been replaced & we have young roosters for the pot. I have also extended the chook run so they can free range with a little more safety. We have also installed another 5000 gallon water tank, this one is poly & it supplies our outside laundry & the second house.

The relatively new outside laundry with an outside double sink for washing vegies( you can see our old cottage just up the hill).

The new poly water tank that feeds the old cottage & the outside laundry down at the main house.

The new clothes bar for hanging items on clothes hangers. The cross bar has hole drilled in it so the hangers will not become detached in a wind.

The new workshop built onto an existing garden shed. Bush poles & second hand roofing iron & windows.

I installed a new electric water pump to pump water from the lower catchment tank to the upper tank that feeds the main house. We have the 240 volt solar power so I couldn't see the point in running a petrol powered pump. The casing for the pump is a converted storage trunk.
Keith.

 

[Outventures_WA]

Amazing stuff @Le Loup, very inspiring. I'd love to have my own bit of land one day and have a setup like yours. Fantastic

 

[Pom]

Thankx for the input guys, keep it coming.

Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall is a bit like my mentor, I started setting up for my own "Escape to River Cottage" around the same time he started his very first venture from London to Dorset many years ago.
I moved from Sydney to the Tweed Valley, Murwillumbah to be exact to get a feel for getting back to my roots (My grandmother used to live there also many years before) so I knew the place & surrounding areas.
Things out of my control happened and I ended up back in sydney living in suburbia again And then I had a major health injury which stopped me dead in my tracks.
I've watched all the series of River Cottage and know them to the detail almost, he has done what I wish to try to get back to (life got in the way) his show's first few series of "River Cottage" were very inspirational to me and a long the same lines I was taking, I felt like he was doing exactly what I tried to do many years before..
I also watch Alaska: The Last Frontier among others, Mountain Men. I grew up on a farm of sorts just out of suburbia in southern sydney, we had chooks,ducks, geese, goats, horses, but my parents never grew any of our own things to eat which I could never understand, we had 8 acres to play with which we rented for, wait for it . . . . $60 a week, from 1971 until 1988 when my parents moved out, I'd always wished they could buy it, we used to slaughter our chickens or ducks for food at christmas time and I learned how to do all that from my father. btw the place I grew up has since been bulldozed and subdivided so I have nothing to look back at now except for my memories. One day I'll get back to where I wanted to be one day. I also had an aunty that lived at Bellingen on the far north coast of NSW and they ran a dairy farm which we used to holiday at every year when I was younger, so as a kid I used to get up with the farmers and help milk the cows, feed a calf or 10, feed the pigs, we also used to harvest corn, pecan nuts, it was a place I loved and I've always struggled to get back to. I'm seriously thinking of selling up and doing a serious "River Cottage" type venture soon.

Bezerker.

The River Cottage series both in the UK and here in OZ and even "the Good Life " TV series growing up where always an inspiration to me, but I didn't know how much at the time, thats for sure
Duplicating it now!! We sold our property in Lidcombe, 600sqm block, And now Living on acarage in SE NSW, in the Shoalhaven, growing the veg, keeping the bees, dealing with bushfire aftermath and having to learn new Bushcraft skills, to have the land paying for it self in 4 years....Great journey. Keep wanting it Bezerker..

 

[ProfessionalAmateur]

Hi, my 10c worth:

Pick one staple food and start with that. Get yourself fully self sustaining in that one food then add from there.

One of my favs for folks new to the concept would be sweet potato. Many cultures are built on it and will grow like a weed in many parts of oz. The whole plant is edible. When harvesting if you dig down and snap off the tuber and the plant will keep going. One store purchased tuber has now taken over a decent chunk of my garden.

Lots of different things you could do. Most important thing is to just start, make mistakes and learn.