| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Dogwalker |
How much land do I need...if I want a fruit and veg gardenhens for eggs and meat dairy goat weaners for pork bees for me full time and teenage son in uni holidays and visitors. I'm planning to move later this year when youngest son finished A'levels. thanks Debbie |
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| Bebo |
We moved just over a year ago. We have an acre and have what you list apart from the goats and bees. We could have bees but neither of us is keen.
You could probably get away with only an acre, but my advice would be to get more. You can always start by cultvating a bit and then moving on to use more of it as time passes. You'll almost certainly find other things that you would like to fit in if you have more space. I wish we had more land, but we are very happy with where we are. |
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| chez |
You can keep bees in quite a small space - I've got a friend who keeps two hives in an urban garden in London.
I agree with Bebo - an acre or two should do what you want. But it does depend how many pigs / goats you want to keep and whether you're going to have the pigs permanently, because they churn up the land. Have you looked at Katie Thear and John Seymour's books? Seymour has a nifty bit where he looks at what you can keep in a large garden, a one acre plot and (I think) a five acre plot. |
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| wellington womble |
John Seymour's self sufficiency (a guide for realists and dreamers) has lots of useful information on this sort of thing. Also the River Cottage Cookbook (by Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall) is a very good read. How much you can use them as a manual, I don't know - they both seem very introductory to me (designed to be read by the fire at the planning stage, rather than taken out into the field! Having said that, I've never got past the sitting by the fier stage, so I don't actually know!) But you should be able to get them from the library, and take it from there.
Some of it might depend on what you want to do - for example, there are plenty of people that keep dairy goats in comparatively small yards, but buy in all their food (or forage for it) rather than grow whatever it is that goats eat most of. Don't fancy sheep, then? |
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| chez |
I quite like Seymour for butchery. He helped me with Pricey's rabbits  .
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| wellington womble |
Like I said, I don't know 'cos I haven't tried much of it - but the things I do know a little bit about (like spinning, or making jam) are sometimes rather more complex than he suggest. Or at least they can be, when I do them - we may have reached the nub of the matter, here!? 
Has Mochyn allowed you to reveal her address yet? Remember, I'm promising to send her Yarn. You know how much she loves yarn.......... it's very special yarn, too - cashmere, silk, sparkles and alpaca. Not that I'm impatient to see it as well, you realise, just trying to be organised (wanders off whistling with hands in pockets.....)
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| Bebo |
Even if I had more land I don't think I'd have sheep. They seem to be a magnet for every disease and / or misfortune imaginable. I would definitely have more pigs than we do at the moment (although we don't need more for our own use). If I had a spare couple of acres of pasture I think I'd have a go with Dexters. I was contemplating ducks or geese, but having just read about lotties experiences with ducks on another thread I think I've changed my mind. |
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| wellington womble |
But sheep make Yarn! Mother in Laws don't seem to be too bad. Occasionally they do stupid things, and they do seem to need more doing than other stock - catching, spraying, drenching, trimming, shearing etc etc etc. You're probably right, on reflection! | ||||
| Bebo |
Main reason I decided on pigs over sheep was that when I had a look in livestock books at the library the list of sheep ailments ran to several pages. The same list for pigs was very short.
I also enjoyed John Seymours book in the planning stages, although it includes loads of stuff that I'll probably never do. |
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| MarkS |
Thats obviously where I'm going wrong with my M-i-L. Got any tips for FiLs? Mine drinks all the booze. |
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| wellington womble |
Well, you could dip him. I don't if purple spray works for Father in Laws!
My mother in law lives on eight acres. It took her two years to get chickens and another three to get six sheep. She's got a river and is only now thinking of hydroelectric power. I like her very much, but find it rather frustrating to visit her! |
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| Dogwalker |
Thanks for all the replies so far.
I've got the John Seymour book and read several others. Was really wondering if I'm being realistic in my estimates. I thought probably 1-2 acres. Problem will be what I can afford really. I've wanted to move for ages and each time I plan it something disastorous happens so I won't believe it till I'm driving away from here. Youngest sons 18th yesterday so the possibility is looking more hopeful this time. |
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| wellington womble |
I was a bit like that, too - Oddly enough, I became very happy when I gave myself a stern talking to, to make the best of what I had available, and stop wishing for more. Ironically, I then got a lovely big veg plot (well, I would have thought so then, anyway) and some hypothetical land, and now I can't really cope with the veg plot, and haven't done anything about the hypothetical land to turn it into real land!
It might help to think of a sort of range - say, not less than 1 acre and not more than 5? It's unlikely even if you worked out you wanted 1.7598 acres (or whatever), that a plot would come up, and even if it did, I bet your plans would evolve a little bit, anyway. See what's out there, and work with what you end up with. Good luck! |
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| judith |
Re: How much land do I need...
We do roughly that on just over an acre, only I don't do bees as they scare me  and we have a couple of hebridean sheep plus their offspring (which should be going soon), rather than goats. We also have some ducks, and raise a few turkeys for Christmas.
I won't say do as we do, as 2007 was a litany of disasters, but in general it does work. You spend a lot of time obsessing about grass and worms, and strip grazing the sheep takes up quite a bit of time that could usefully be spent doing something else. On the whole it works fine in the summer, but we have had to buy in a lot of hay this winter - and I'm just about to move the sheep onto a friend's field, which will give mine time to rest. More land would be nice, and I am on the constant look-out for smallish fields for sale, but I suspect I would then only go and put more animals on it. That would mean having to find a market for them, and I'm not looking to be a farmer - I just want to provide for us. So, the upshot is, as others have said, buy as much land as you can afford, but you can do what you want to do on an acre if needs be. |
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| Dogwalker |
"buy as much land as you can afford, but you can do what you want to do on an acre if needs be."
Thanks for the encouragement, now got to work out what I can afford. Judith, let me know if anything cheap comes up in your area please. I need to be within an hours drive of Malvern so can't go too far into Wales. thanks Debbie |
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| chez |
Have you found 'rightmove'? You can search within a certain radius of your specified place. Also, there are links to the local estate agents. Morris Marshall and Poole in Welshpool do a lot of rural property auctions, as do Harry Ray. | ||||
| Dogwalker |
Yes thanks I have. or I had until my son decided to upgrade the computer to XP and reformatted the hard drive without saving 'my favorites' I'm gradually rebuilding the list.
I spend far too much time browsing and dreaming. |
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| chez |
. What about The Smallholding Centre?
http://www.thesmallholdingcentre.co.uk/ You've probably got them already, though, if you spend as much time online as I do .
It depends what your budget is, really - the further west you go, the more prices drop off; purely because of the travel times to 'civilization'. |
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| sean |
It's not just that, I think there's a discount for getting close to Aberystwyth too.
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| chez |
Why would that be, Sean? *looks round nervously for M-J and Ruby* |
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| sean |
I'm saying nothing. And hiding under the desk. With the lights off. | ||||
| Dogwalker |
My original plan was Wales, but now my Mum's on her own I need to be near enough to be 'helpful' if necessary | ||||
| Bebo |
try www.horsedata.co.uk
It has a section on estate agents. What is suitable for keeping a horse is usually suitable for a smallholding. |
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| chez |
It doesn't always follow the other way round though - and places where you can keep a horse without it needing to have one leg shorter than the other can be suitable for goats/pigs/terraced garden. And tends to be cheaper, too ... (You can't tell that I have spent a HUGE amount of time thinking about this, can you?) |