Archive for the ‘Homesteading’ Category

There are a number of different trees growing up on the Holley property.

Wolf plans to thin out a bunch of the pines near the house area, since they are the favored habitat of ticks and other nasty critters.

There are also plenty of hardwoods around, so things will still be plentifully forested.

But I also want to plant some food trees.

We’re planning to buy the biggest ones we can manage (financially and logistically), since we hope to not have to wait ten years for a mature, fruit-bearing tree. And we are hoping to start planting now, so that they have these couple of years before we move up there.

So, what would the ideal small homestead “tree farm” contain?

Here’s what we’ve been thinking:

• Apples. Good for eating straight, applesauce, cider, etc., etc.
• Sugar Maple. Syrup and sugar – the old-fashioned way.
• Pecan. Nuts are a good food. Pecan is not necessarily our very favorite, but I know it grows well in the climate there.

I also want to plant a couple of non-fruit-bearing pear trees, which has the most beautiful, sudden bursting into flower in the springtime, and allowed me to fall in love with Mississippi.

So, how many of each kind of tree? Just one, because how much can we eat? Two, for pollination, and you can sell surpluses? Three, because you want two and that way there’s a spare?

And what other food trees should we consider?

Now begins the quest for a simpler life.

My wife and I have been wanting a simpler lifestyle more and more over the past few years. We are both used to the big cities of California.

She has come to long for a simpler life for us and our children. I was born and reared in northeast Mississippi and hunted and fished and heard stories of farming and having animals.

We felt that if we could ever buy a decent-sized plot of land with running water it would be a dream come true.

I grew up spending lots of free time at “the farm”. My uncle had purchased upwards of 80 acres of land outside of town. After he died in the Air Force the land went to my grandfather, and when he passed away my dad got the land and eventually built a house there.

My father passed away on August 16th, 2010 and my brother asked if I had any desire to move onto the land when our step-mother moved away. She will stay for a while, but eventually retire to the town further north where her family lives.

I thought about the 80-plus acres with a creek running through it.

I think our dreams have just begun to come to fruition.

Our plans are to have an essentially self-sufficient life on a small homeplace. We have planned out little bits and pieces of it over the years; we have lovingly come to call this place “Contentment” after Paul’s description in the Bible.

I plan to document and pass on the things that work and the things that don’t.

The journey will begin now for me and my wife Tiffany (in our 40’s), oldest son Nick at 16, Jewel at 5, and R.T. at 2 years of age.

The following months or years will be planning and preparing the land.

On some undetermined date in the future we will move to the homeplace and start our new life … one step at a time.

So, here we go … on the road to Contentment.

If you’re looking for great homesteading information, be sure to visit The Homesteading Carnival, hosted this week at Walking Therein.

There’s a post from us, but also tons of other great resources for you to discover…

I recently ran across an ad that got me thinking: Survival Seeds.

Although I haven’t started yet because our housing situation is so uncertain, I have my heart set on starting a garden.

I want to grow a substantial portion of what our family eats – for reasons ranging from cost, to nutrition, to sustainability and independence, to teaching the children important life skills.

The Survival Seeds ad copy touches on a lot of “hot button” issues, but it also makes a lot of factual claims that I don’t know enough to know about.

I’ve often wondered why, for most plants, you hear people talking about either buying seeds to sprout or buying seedling plants from a nursery – over and over again every year.

Why can’t you just keep some of your crop for next year’s seeds?

Apparently, at least part of the reason is that so many of today’s food plants are hybrids, or “engineered” – and in many cases specifically designed to not be able to reproduce! They can make the fruit (or vegetable), obviously, but the seeds are sterile.

This can only be overcome by purchasing heirloom seeds or plants. Another good thing about these is that they are the original plants that God designed.

I’ve read elsewhere that you can have problems with cross-polination with the “modern” plants degrading your heirloom varieties, even to the point of sterilizing them. How do you keep your stock “pure”?

Survival Seeds also warns that these seeds are getting harder to come by, although it’s hard to tell if that’s just a scarcity tactic on their part.

So what is the value of these seeds – is it a good deal?

My cursory Internet searching turned up heirloom seed packets for an average of $2 – $3. Unfortunately, I’m not enough of a gardener to understand how many of those you’d need to plant your acre, so that doesn’t help me much.

I found a similar “plant a reproducing acre” kit from Sweet Corn Nursery, for about the same price.

There’s also a “Victory Garden” from Heirloom Seeds, which offers an optional “sealed in plastic” packaging – although this only claims to be good for three years’ storage, the cost is under $100. If you want to have it for “just in case” for the next couple of decades that won’t cut it, but for me to plant right now it could be the way to go.

And what about that long-term storage solution? Will it work?

I’d be very interested in hearing from any farmers or gardeners out there with your thoughts!