jamius.com

I have a good sized vegetable garden, bees, two types of chicken, a goat and a sheep and a lamb, oh my! So that means I have fresh produce all summer and potatoes, squash, onions, beets and carrots for the winter, plus honey, eggs, chicken meat, milk and tasty lamb...well, as soon as the little lamb gets big enough to kill and eat, anyway. I am super proud of the work we have done and we have a self-sustaining system of manure based composting that keeps everything super high in nutrients and we implement rotational grazing. And! I have a super son who gets to grow up with animals and see where his food comes from! (I'm thinking that this will be really handy when he hits puberty and has an insatiable appetite.)

May i ask if you are using Permaculture? That would just make you uber cool lol.

That's really cool. What do you use to keep the pests away?

Okay, I may fall a little short of uber coolness, but, yes, my mini-farm is sustainable to a large degree. I still need to implement solar power and rely less on things like a heat lamp to keep my chicks warm, but I'm pretty sure that I need to sell this bit of land I'm on and get something bigger in order to build exactly the right homesteading situation.

@technotrousers: Oh, thanks! It is very cool. We're in Vermont and there doesn't seem to be the intensity of pests as I've heard about in other areas...at least in my experience. For insect type pests I have used just water with a drop of liquid soap to spray on vegetation, or a garlic/cayenne oil. For bigger pests like coyotes, I encourage my dog to lift a leg regularly around the place.

Those baby goats are sooooo soft. You guys have the best eggs too. I'm always mighty excited to bring home a dozen of them. They make store eggs seem like cheap imitations.
Ya... that little dude will probably eat like a garbage disposal pretty soon. My mom said that when i moved out, the grocery bill went down to about 1/3 of what it was.
How much food do you guys buy now, anyway? It must be getting pretty low.

Ah yes, having ones own garden is a relaxing thing indeed...
*stereotypical Englishman attitude off*
anyway, yeah sounds really good, we just got an allotment the other day and its really cool to have some nice fresh (as Jaimie put it) tasty "nomnom's" to eat! we haven't got chickens or anything, but we have loads of fruit, and a farmers market down the road!

jamius wrote:Those baby goats are sooooo soft. You guys have the best eggs too. I'm always mighty excited to bring home a dozen of them. They make store eggs seem like cheap imitations.
Ya... that little dude will probably eat like a garbage disposal pretty soon. My mom said that when i moved out, the grocery bill went down to about 1/3 of what it was.
How much food do you guys buy now, anyway? It must be getting pretty low.

Wait a second. Jaimie lives in Vermont, these people live in Vermont, Jaimie comments on goats and the eggs these people have....

Me thinks Jaimie knows these people/this person....

I'm on to you.

Jaimie knows people? I dare you imply that he has social skills!!!

I am finishing three new raised beds this weekend at my place. The 1000sqft garden we had last year was great but we are reducing the size and putting all the daily eats (lettuce, tomatoes, beans, peas, etc...) closer to the house in the raised beds and leaving all the long growers (potatoes, squash, celery, corn, etc.)in the ground garden near the shed.

We are also panning on building a coop as neighbours want to give us a few layers, and I just got a bunch of glazing units from my aunt cause she had her windows done over that I am planning on incorporating into a small green house.