Mini-Ecosystems on Our Mini-Farm

At our place, when our mini-ecosystems are running as they should, the goats, chickens, ducks, worms, catfish and tilapia, all work together to feed each other and us humans.

The chickens like to get to the fresh goat manure as soon as it comes out of the goat. They peck it open to get to undigested seeds and, we presume, parasites. In the process, the chickens scratch to turn the manure into the straw bedding of the goat pen. Thanks to the chickens the composting bacteria begin their work even before we muck out the pen.

The straw and manure from the pen go to one of several compost bins or piles until the composting action cools. In the meantime, we dump kitchen scraps on top of these piles and let the chickens and ducks have at them. They add manure to the piles as the chickens scratch and turn the compost, speeding the decomposition.

 

From there the cooled, but not necessarily completed compost goes either to the garden as mulch or to the worm bin to become vermicompost (worm castings). The worms go to feed the fish, ducks, and chickens. Most of vermicompost goes to the garden, some goes as tea to feed the duckweed, while a bucketful (with worms) goes to the bottom of the empty compost bin ready to receive more muck from the goats.

The fish eat the duckweed, and in moderation and for variety the following: garden and kitchen scraps, chicken and duck manure (and the flora these encourage), worms, chopped offal from the duck and chicken butchering, and raw scrambled eggs.

The ducks and chickens receive the fish offal, greens from garden and the aquaponic grow beds, and duckweed (the ducks like it wet, the chickens like it dry).

Solid fish waste is filtered out of the fish tanks to feed the garden and to help heat up the compost as needed.

Goats get leafy greens from the garden and aquaponic beds.

The humans keep it all moving and healthy. In return we get veggies, fruits, nuts, herbs, eggs, milk, meat, and fish.

67 Self-Sufficiency How-To's

1. Raising Ducks 101 
2. How to Save Seeds
3. Preparing for Cold and Flu Season With Probiotics
4. Ultimate Chicken Care Guide
5. How to Process Meat Rabbits
6. How to Make Reusable Food Wrap
7. How to Make a Clothespin Bag From an Old Pair of Jeans
8. How to Flash Freeze Green Beans
9. Restoring and Seasoning Rusted Cast Iron
10. How to Can Peaches
11. 5 Favorite Ways to Repurpose Feed Sacks
12. Predator Proofing Your Coop
13. How to Make Tomato Powder
14. Making Venison Jerky
15. How to Trim Your Goat’s Hooves
16. Permaculture: Integrate Rather Than Segregate
17. How to Build a Chicken Tractor
18. How to Braid Garlic
19. Aquaponics Intro
20. Canning Butternut Squash + pressure canning primer
21. Canning Grape Juice and Jelly
22. Cinnamon Coconut Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
23. DIY Elderberry Syrup
24. DIY Flock Block
25. Home Brew on the Homestead
26. Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk
27. How to Store Onions
28. Mulch Cover Crops for Organic Gardens
29. Nourishing Soups for Cold and Flu Season
30. Satsuma orange farm
31. Stinging Nettle and Its Health Benefits
32. 5 Awesome Apple Dips
33. 10 Benefits and Uses of Apple Cider Vinegar
34. Putting Chickens to Work in the Fall Garden
35. Curing Olives
36. Homemade Applesauce
37. Extend Your Growing Season
38. DIY Inexpensive Easy Food Drying Rack 
39. How to be an apartment homesteader
40. How to Fix Soil Nutrient Deficiencies
41. Seed Saving 101
42. How to Prepare for Butchering
43. Freezing Tomatoes
44. 10 Best Herbs to Grow Indoors
45. Canning Tomato Soup
46. Root Cellars 101
47. How to Make Apple Jelly
48. How to Can Peach Salsa
49. How to Grow Garlic
50. Growing Garlic
51. How to Freeze Mixed Vegetables
52. How to Butcher a Whole Pig for a Pig Roast
53. How to Make Hard Cider
54. 9 ways young kids can help in the kitchen
55. Basics of traditional foods
56. Best cold and flu fighters
57. Direct composting
58. Financial realities of homesteading
59. Food storage
60. Heating with wood
61. Homemade chicken broth
62. Homemade citrus extract
63. How to make buttermilk
64. How to make infusions, decoctions, tinctures
65. Natural stove cleaners
66. Rural homesteading: four things to know
67. Teaching children food preservation

Time to Plant Seeds Indoors and Out

It's time to plant seeds for your fall garden. Actually, any of the summer or fall crops can be planted now in our Southern California garden.

Today we're seeding kale, cabbage, broccoli,  and cauliflower indoors. And seeding okra, squash, carrots, beets, chard, collards, rutabagas, onions, cucumbers, nasturtiums, and some herbs. Lettuce is a good fall crop to start directly in the garden now.


Here is a mix we are planting:


 Lettuce, Looseleaf Blend--five favorites in one pack. 
By the way, Burpee has weekend special: a flat shipping rate of 4.95 on any order. Use promo code FLT222 in cart; expires midnight 8/12/13.

Any of the summer heat-lovers (cukes, squash, peppers, tomatoes, etc.) can be planted now as either direct seed (early varieties) or transplants. Seeds that typically take a long time to germinate in the spring come up faster now in the summer heat. Many of the cole vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, etc.) taste better after a light frost--so the plan is to start them now in the warmth, let them mature in the cool of the fall and be ready for harvest just after the first frost.

How We Grow Tomatoes

Introduction

It seems that everybody grows tomatoes, or at least most gardeners do. It is the most popular vegetable grown (...it's actually a fruit...), and there is no wondering why--there is absolutely no comparison between the pink-orange, cardboard-textured, flavorless, plasmic blobs sold in many produce sections as tomatoes and the vine-ripened-to-perfection, just-picked, home-grown, real-life tomatoes!

There is nothing like a vine-ripened tomato for taste or texture, or for satisfaction of having grown something wonderfully made by our Creator.

And besides, tomatoes are one of the easiest plants to grow. They are at home in the garden, in containers, and even in the hydroponic greenhouse.

 Read More >>

Raising Chickens

Our chickens give us more than enough eggs each day for our family. They also provide manure for the compost piles and garden.

Reasons to Raise Chickens

When we started to raise chickens, we had only one main reason: Cacklefruit! We wanted the eggs, and not just any eggs, we could more easily get those at the grocery store. We wanted the healthiest eggs--we wanted complete control over the quality of the eggs we eat. Since we began our small flock, we have discovered other reasons for having our feathered friends.
  Read More >>

Our Compost System

We've used just about every method of composting: sheet composting, the 14-day method, vermicomposting (earthworms), and the make-a-pile-and-leave-it-alone-for-a-year-or-two method, and combinations in between. We still have some piles and bins with compost in them from a year or more ago. We still use and like vermicomposting.

But we've decided that all that pile-building and turning and watering and hauling is too much work. Instead, we ... Read More >>

Building A Self-Sufficient Mini-Farm

Building a self-sufficient mini-farm can be a daunting task of you try to do it all at once.

We began our project several years ago, and we couldn't say exactly when we started. We can tell you however, we knew when we had built one. Last March, we were picking up a mail-order of some day-old ducks and geese at the post office, when the clerk asked, "Do you have a farm?" We said, "We do now!" We hadn't really thought much about it up until that point, but we knew that answer to the question when asked.

In an urban or suburban setting, it is difficult to imagine a completely sustainable mini-farm. It is not difficult to imagine a mini-farm part, just the sustainable, or completely self-sufficient part. But we can approach those goals. We like the way self-sufficiency expert John Seymour put it, “You do not need five acres and a degree in horticulture to become self-sufficient ... self-sufficiency is about taking control and becoming an effective producer of whatever your resources allow.” And then there is Teddy Roosevelt: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

We had had a vegetable garden for many years, when about five or six years ago, we decided to grow as much of our food as we could in our 800 square-foot garden area. And why not? We were already doing much of the work. A little planning and a bit more work and we thought we could attain our goal.  The first season included all of the usual favorites (inspired by our Friday night pizza custom): tomatoes, peppers, corn, zucchini, pole beans, bush beans, herbs, and so forth in the spring and summer; in the fall we had broccoli, beets, cabbage, peas, and some other cool season crops. The difference between this garden season and previous years was the amount of each crop.

We planned and planted with an eye to putting up enough to get us through the winter (especially the tomato sauce). We had purchased a food dehydrator several years previously, but had only used it sporadically. We started using it weekly, if not daily. We bought a stock pot and jars in which to can tomato sauce. We bought a pressure cooker and more jars to can other parts of the harvest.

The next year we expanded our garden area and planted some more of the stuff we wanted: okra, cucumbers, and loofah gourds to name a few. Fruit trees came next. We started three worm bins to convert our kitchen scraps into compost.

Somewhere in there we bought some chickens for the eggs, remodeled our pigeon coop to be a chicken coop, and started collecting the eggs.

We were pretty happy with the fact that we were raising our own veggies and gathering our own eggs, so we started looking around for what might be next. We realized that we were buying milk at the rate of about a gallon a day for our growing family. Hmmm... Cow or goats? We ended up with goats. Milk started coming in. Now we had veggies, fruit, eggs, and milk.

We also had plenty of manure  and straw to make into compost for the garden. In previous years, we went begging to the neighbors for leaves, lawn clippings, and horse manure to add to our own share of yard trimmings--we had pretty good compost with all of that. Now however, we had our own sources for great compost. This is were a good bit of the "self-sufficient" part of the farm comes in. With all the animal and fish wastes, we have plenty to sustain our plants. But we have only a quarter acre to live and work on, so our space is very limited.  Although our back lawn has become the pasture on which we feed our birds most of the year, and they get first crack at the kitchen scraps every day, we just don't have the room to grow the forage for the poultry year-round, let alone the goats. We bring in feed for them.

Water is another issue for us. We are not permitted to dig a well. We bought 3 IBC totes (275 gallons each)  to collect rain water (just a small step toward self-sufficiency here). It does rain enough in Southern California to easily fill these with runoff from the roof of our house. But one or two  weeks of watering the garden in the summer time used up our stores. To make a long story short, the totes became the fish tanks and grow beds for our aquaponic system--a much more efficient use of resources since aquaponics uses much less water than a similar-sized conventional garden. In a 48 square-foot area of our patio we can grow all the fish we would like to eat, plus bunches of veggies. At this point we have veggies, fruit, eggs, and milk, and fish. Not enough to meet all our needs all the time, but we are getting close to that goal.

Eventually, we decided to buy some more chicks, and a friend gave us some eggs to incubate and hatch out. Of course, about half of these were cockerels. Since we had them, we thought it would be a good opportunity to raise them out for meat. We did. It was a great idea!  About that same time, we received from some good friends some fertile Marans (chicken) eggs. We incubated this brood of chocolate-colored eggs and hatched out about a dozen. We kept the hens, ate all but one of the cockerels, keeping the best one as our rooster. For a couple of years now we have had a constant supply of chicks for layers and meat birds. We've recently added Pilgrim geese, Campbell ducks, and Muscovies to our poultry flock. We've eaten some Muscovy, and we're getting ready to eat some ducks. The geese haven't laid any eggs yet, but will soon. When they do, we'll be raising a Christmas Goose!

What this means for us now is that we are able to produce a good bit of our food needs--veggies, fruit, eggs, and milk, fish, poultry, and meat from our goats if we want--on the piece of ground we have. We know we can do more and are constantly working to improve and increase our self-sufficiency. We have to purchase our water and most of the feed for the animals, but from that minimal investment we are able to feed ourselves, exclusively if need be.

We want to encourage you: if we can do it, so can you! Start small and work your way up to your goal slowly. Set a  modest goal to attain. Once you have achieved that goal, and are consistent in meeting it, add another. Over time, you'll be able to accomplish more than you would have though possible.

We recommend this book to get you thinking about the possibilities and to get you started:

The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

February in the Garden

February is just about the last chance to plant peas. Also plant mesclun, lettuce, beets, cole veggies (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale), radishes, Swiss chard, turnips, carrots, and potatoes.

Choose the Right Carrot Variety for your Soil
When choosing carrot varieties, consider the heaviness of your soil. Sow short, stubby carrots in heavy clay soils and longer, tapered ones in looser sandy soil. Tips of the tap roots will grow four to six inches further down than the edible portion.

Plant bare-root asparagus, horseradish and artichokes.

Prune fruit trees if you haven't already. Feed them. Mulch avocado trees.

Make a compost pile.

Start seeds indoors for:

• Cole crops (Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage) -- 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost. That would be the first part of February. These can be transplanted into the garden two weeks or so before the last frost.
• Tomatoes -- 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost. That would be mid February.

Do You Want to Be a “Master Composter” ?

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

San Diegans could reduce trash by up to a third by composting yard trimmings, leaves and fruit and vegetable matter, according to the Encinitas-based Solana Center, which is offering workshops.

The center has teamed up with the cities of Carlsbad, Encinitas and San Diego to teach composting techniques at community centers and schools, and to offer discounted compost bins for participants.

The workshops explore backyard composting and vermicomposting, which uses worms to break down food and yard waste. 

[...]

The center offers discounted compost bins for $40. 

It also offers a five-week “master composter” class from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays from Feb. 23 to March 16 at the Water Conservation Garden, 12122 Cuyamaca College Drive West, El Cajon. Participants in the class, which covers in-depth training in composting techniques, are asked to complete 30 hours of community service....

Read more at http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jan/22/tp-learn-composting-through-workshops/

Thank you to Bernie for the info!

Starting From Seeds

It’s time to plan our Spring garden. For some gardeners, planning is about all that can be done until the weather warms up. For us, the last frost is expected in mid March or early April. My grandfather, whose real-sized farm was only a few miles from our mini-farm, used to plant corn every two weeks or so starting in the middle of March so that he could harvest corn for celebrations on the 4th of July and on thru the summer. He planted Golden Bantam (as do we) which is ready to harvest about 80 days after planting.

The first decision to make in garden planning is what to grow. All plants are easy to grow if you know how. Our advice is that you grow only what you plan to eat. If you don't eat beets, don't grow them--at least at first (beets are very good for you, by the way). Start with a few things that you consistently buy at the produce market. Tomatoes are the most popular home-grown vegetable, but if you don't eat tomatoes don't grow them. (A tomato is actually a fruit, but defined by the government for tax purposes as a vegetable; see Nix v. Hedden)

Knowing how long your plants need to mature will help you know when to start them in the garden. Seed packets and catalogs usually give the number of days to harvest from the time you transplant the seedling into the garden. So you work backwards from the time you want to harvest your crops, keeping in mind the frost-free date. 

To raise transplants from seed--like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc.--find out how long the seed needs to germinate (also found on the seed packet or in the catalog) along with the number of days or weeks required for the seedling to be ready to transplant (usually four to six weeks). Add these together and using a calendar, work backwards from your frost-free date. 

Organic Gardening Magazine has a chart to help with your calculations here.

Here is our schedule for starting seeds indoors. Our target date for setting out plants is the first week in April (the last expected frost). We'll start planting seeds for:

• Peppers and Eggplant -- 8 to 12 weeks before the last frost. That would be now.
• Lettuce -- 8 to 12 weeks before the last frost. That would be now. Lettuces can be transplanted into the garden a month or so before the last frost.
• Cole crops (Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage) -- 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost. That would be the first part of February. These can be transplanted into the garden two weeks or so before the last frost.
• Tomatoes -- 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost. That would be mid February.
• Cucumbers and Melons -- 2 to 4 weeks before the last frost. That would be the first part of March. These are transplanted out two weeks or more after the last frost. 

We like to grow our plants from seed for at least two reasons. First, we can more easily get seeds for the varieties we want to grow (Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash, for example). Second, we choose open pollinated and heirloom varieties (not usually available from the nurseries as transplants) so that we can save seeds from year to year. 

However, if you are new to gardening, you may want to wait until the weather warms up and buy plants from the nurseries or garden shops. Nurseries tend to stock only tried-and-true varieties. These will be ready to set out in the garden, are disease resistant, suited to your area, and in most cases will not appear on store shelves until it is time to plant them, give or take a couple of weeks, depending on the weather (frost). If you choose to start seeds, we suggest you start with varieties that germinate easily: basil, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, leeks, lettuce, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. 

Our favorite online seed catalogs:

Seed Savers Exchange http://www.seedsavers.org/

Territorial Seed Company http://www.territorialseed.com/

Both of these offer printed catalogs available upon request. 

Territorial Seed Co. has pretty good online "Growing Guides" for each variety of veggie. Although just about every online or print seed catalog offers information on how to grow various varieties, some have more detailed information than others. Park Seeds (http://parkseed.com/vegetables/c/vegetables/) has on most of their detail pages a "Growing Information" tab that offers planting and growing instructions, tips, special considerations, potential pests and solutions, and so on for each variety.

Our favorite book on starting plants from seed is The New Seed Starter's Handbook by Nancy Bubel. It's main sections include: Starting Seeds Indoors, Moving Plants Outdoors, Special Techniques and Situations, Saving Seeds and Making Further Plans, and an Encyclopedia of Plants to Grow from Seed (the info you need to grow each variety of garden plant). 

Starting Seeds Indoors

1. Gather your materials. Get your seed flats, milk cartons cut in half down the middle, small pots, or what ever it is you're going to plant your seeds in. You'll also need some potting soil or seed starter soil mix (recommended over potting soil), or make your own mix with equal parts sharp sand, peat moss, and perlite or vermiculite.
2. Prepare your work space. Put down some newspaper or other suitable cover on your work surface. You're going to spill some potting soil.
3. Review seed packets and make labels for your plantings. Popsicle sticks, strips cut from plastic milk jugs, ready made labels from the garden store, or simply a label taped on the side of the flat will do. Oh, and don't forget your seeds. If you're new to starting seeds and identifying seedlings, labels are must. If you have lots of garden experience, you'll know that a super-hot pepper plant looks the same as a mild-hot pepper plant. It is very easy to confuse plantings in similar looking flats or pots. Labels are a must.
4. Prepare the medium. Use a watering can or a spray bottle to moisten the potting soil or seed starting mix. It should be damp to the touch but not soggy. If you start with moist soil, you will not have to water your seeds once you after you plant them. There is enough moisture in the soil to sprout the seeds. If you are planting very fine seeds, even the finest mist can dislodge your seeds and cause them all to clump together in the corners and along the edges, making separating the seedlings for replanting difficult if not impossible.



Containers to use for starting seeds indoors. Some ready-
made, some re-purposed.

5. Prepare the containers.  Remember this planting is only temporary. As soon as your seedlings have their second set of leaves, you can move them to individual pots or packs (although you could start with these keeping in mind that they will use more starting mix). Fill your container with moistened starter mix and press it down gently. Top it off and press again so that the mix is within a half inch of the top.  Airflow, and in some cases light, is important to seed germination. A planting surface too far below the rim of the container can interfere with these.
6. Plant the seeds. If you're using a small container (like the bottom two inches of a plastic milk jug), you can scatter the seeds over the entire surface of the planting medium. If you're using a nursery flat, you can place the seeds on the surface in rows, spacing the seeds according to size (tiny seeds at least an eighth of an inch apart, medium seeds a half inch, and large seeds an inch). Remember that you are going to be transplanting the seedlings later. Separating the roots of seedlings planted too close together can be difficult if not impossible without damaging the plant. If you're using a pack with cells, put a couple of seeds in each cell. The extras can be thinned later by snipping them off with small scissors.
7. Cover the seeds. Except for the very finest seeds or those few varieties that need light to germinate (the seed packet or catalog will tell) which can simply be pressed into the medium, the seeds will need to be covered with more starting medium. A general rule of thumb is to cover the seed to a depth 3 to 4 times its size. For example, a seed that is one-eighth inch in size would be covered with three-eighths to one-half inches of cover. We tend to stay toward the shallower depth when starting seeds indoors. This cover layer of mix or vermiculite does not need to be wet. It will absorb water from the moist layer below. You will not have to water your seeds until after they sprout. There will be plenty of moisture available for them.
8. Cover the container. If you're using ready-made seed starting trays, put the covers on and your seeds are ready to go. If you're using re-purposed containers, you can place a piece of damp newspaper or burlap over the surface of your container. Or (our favorite), you can slip the whole container into a plastic bag, or use a plastic sheet (trash bag), tucking the edges under your container. You could possibly use aluminum foil, but we have never tried this. Clear plastic allows you to see what is happening without letting out the moisture around your seeds.
9. Put the container in a warm place. Your seeds have moisture and they will need warmth to germinate. Put the covered container in a warm place, but keep it out of the sun! You don't want to steam your seeds or new seedlings. The top of the fridge might be a good place. Near the stove in the kitchen. A shelf over the dryer in the laundry room or a shelf near the water heater. We've sprouted seedlings on the dining room table and on the patio table (in warm weather). Most seeds will sprout more quickly at temperatures between about 72 and 86 degrees, but have a good germination rate at around 70. In other words, a comfortable temperature for you will be good for your seeds.
10. Watch and wait. As soon as most of the seedlings emerge, they will need their plastic tent removed and to be moved to a sunny place, not necessarily in direct sunlight at first. In a future post, we'll talk about what happens next.   

January in the Garden

Today is home-grown and home-made meal day at our house. This morning we had eggs (from our chickens), sausage (made Saturday), biscuits, and milk (from our goats).  

Tonight we are planning Rosemary-Lemon Chicken, roasted cabbage, snow peas, butternut squash, and our home-made soft-drink.  Oh, and home-made ice cream for dessert! All food ingredients but the squash were harvested in the last few days or will be later today. The squash was harvested in summer. The ingredients for the soft-drink are not home-grown, but we do make it ourselves. The vanilla extract in the ice cream, is not home-grown, but it is home-made.

Several cabbages are ready to harvest, which means that we'll be making sauerkraut in the next few days.

January is time to plant garlic, onion, and shallot bulbs.

It's time also to prune roses. By the way, if you have plants that have been damaged by frost (like our kiwi vines), do not prune off the damaged parts. They may be ugly, but they'll help protect the rest of the plant from further frost damage.


Rake your lawn and/or your neighbors' lawns for leaves for your compost pile.

Once all the leaves have fallen from your fruit trees, you can prune them. While you are pruning your deciduous trees you can also trim your conifers.

Purchase and plant bare-root roses, fruit trees, vines, and veggies. Camellias and  Azaleas, too. 

Spray your roses and deciduous trees with a dormant spray.

Order seeds and supplies from seed catalogs (more on that in the next post).

Dreams and Goals

It has been our dream to have an efficient, "sustainable" means of food production. For us, it started with the garden and has expanded steadily over the past few years.

In an urban or suburban setting, it is difficult to imagine a completely sustainable mini-farm. It is not difficult to imagine a mini-farm part, just the sustainable, or completely self-sufficient part. But we can approach those goals.

On our mini-farm we have the animals we need to provide manure--chickens, ducks, geese, fish, and goats--so there is no shortage in this department. We have at least three or four compost bins and piles going at any given time, as well as some worm bins to turn the manure, garden trimmings, and kitchen wastes into usable compost. We plan to add a bin for black soldier fly larvae next year to help deal more quickly with the kitchen waste and to provide grubs for the chickens and fish.

The snag for us in becoming self-sufficient or completely sustainable is that we are having to bring in feed for the chickens and goats. While our poultry are as free-range as we can make them, there just isn't enough "range" to completely provide for them just yet. We need to find the balance between available forage and number of birds.

The ducks and geese forage for themselves with the occasional treats of leftover fruit and greens from the table, and an occasional sprinkle of grain.  Our chickens have free access to a couple of compost piles, so they get whatever leftovers from the kitchen they want along with all the grass, weeds, seeds, and bugs the can find, but they still need extra feed to maintain egg production. The goats are given grasses and hay from bales we purchase in addition to the garden and tree trimmings and other home-grown forage we provide. We grow sunflowers specifically for the purpose of feeding the seeds to the birds (and goats) and the rest of the plant to the goats. We  also have grown mangels specifically for goat feed.  Swiss Chard is a hit with just about everybody on the farm, except some of the people. Kale, too.

To be able to eat fish from our farm once a week throughout the year, we have to purchase fish food. The black soldier fly grubs will help here. We have also been experimenting with other available foods. Tilapia have been reported to eat raw scrambled eggs. We have not had success in getting ours to eat this, but will keep trying. We do grow duckweed to feed our tilapia, but not nearly enough. More pond to grow it in would be nice, but not practical at this point.

Now to the humans on the farm. We can grow for ourselves all of our fruit and vegetable needs. We have eggs, milk, meat and fish in enough quantity to meet our needs most of the time.  We can and do make our own yogurt, ice cream, and cheeses. But if we want beef, pork, or grains we have to buy them. Do we need them? No, at least not all of the time.  So it is entirely possible for us to eat well with only animal feed coming into our farm. This is one of our goals. We'll start with a week or two and go from there.

At this point, we don't make many trips to the grocery store. We buy our staple goods in bulk.With these we make our own bread, soaps, and soft drinks. We can make our own pasta, toothpaste, shampoo, cleaners, and deodorants. Does all this save money? It sure doesn't save time, and time is money, right? Well let's see.

We spend about $300 per month on animal feed, and about twice that much on staple goods (organic if possible). We have a family of eight. That works out to less than $1.50 per person per meal. Our food is real food, no additives or sedatives. No chemicals you can't pronounce. No GMO. Our homemade cleaning and personal care products are the same way. We spend less than two hours per person per day working the farm and the kitchen.

We have a way to go, but we're getting there. Some say that the journey is more enjoyable than the destination. We're having a lot of fun getting to where we want to be. If we can do it, so can you. Start small as we did, working your way up. Start now.