How We Produce 80% of Our Food on 1/2 Acre Homestead

Are you wanting to be more self-sufficient on small acreage? We live on one half acre and supply 80% of all of our food. Does that sound impossible? I'll share with you what we've been doing for the last 35 years to make the most out of our small space and have a very productive garden, what livestock we have and how we make it all happen. Of course the very first thing that you need to have when homesteading and being self-sufficient is having a very productive vegetable garden. Our main garden is 3,000 square foot and it's very intensely planted. By intensely planting I conserve on water and I get higher yields and when you have small amount of acreage that space is very precious. In a three foot wide raised beds I'll put cattle panels on the north side and grow tomatoes up that and on the sunniest side the south side I'll either grow beans or carrots. This way it's more productive in a small amount of space with no wasted space. One of the biggest bonuses of planting this way especially during the hot summer months is that soil is totally covered with a vegetable crop and it keeps that soil cool and moist and that just ups your production as well. I grow in raised beds this was just a faster way for me to build healthy soil and the soil is where it all starts. Without healthy soil you don't have healthy plants and if you don't have healthy plants you don't have high production and pest pressure is much higher. Raised beds are also time saving for me. Weeding is much faster and I can hoe through the weeds quickly. I can run a hula hoe also known as a syrup hoe through all of my rows and I can actually weed the entire garden in less than 15 minutes and have it all nice and tidy. I focus heavily on soil health through building healthy soil with composting mulching and cover cropping. Healthy soils leads to higher yields and it also reduces the reliance on fertilizers. Not only does it save you money but you won't be having to deal with pests and diseases near as much you just reap the harvest. A compost pile is a great way to turn garden debris into food for the soil and it's the best way to build healthy soil. Our animals are also great contributors to making our compost more nutritious. To keep the food production going strong I do a lot of succession planting. I lay out my garden in January when I'm not as busy. I want to make sure that the ground is never bare. For instance I'll plant an early crop of garlic in October. It gets pulled in mid-May and at that point I'll plant winter squash and summer squash. Once we have a frost then I'll plant another winter crop like brussels sprouts maybe even another crop of garlic or even some spinach. For those winter crops if it starts to get too cold then I can just protect it with some frost blanket. This way we have a harvest all through the winter time as well. Greenhouses, high tunnels and cold frames can extend your growing season through the winter months. Even a small cold frame like this can produce a lot of greens providing fresh produce for your family at least a couple times a week during the winter months. Our high tunnel was fairly inexpensive especially what it does for us. In January I plant cool season crops like broccoli cauliflower and cabbages plus some peas and spinach and they're ready in just a couple of months and they taste far better than anything that I can grow outside plus much sooner. Cauliflower is one of the most persnickety crops that we can grow. By planting it in this high tunnel early on we get that jump start and it doesn't go to seed like it would if we were to plant it outside. When temperatures spike up into high temperatures and dip into the low that just makes that cauliflower want to go to seed. By planting it in the high tunnel we always get nice big cauliflowers. I won't be planting cauliflower outside anymore. I'll put a link in the description below of where you can get these high tunnels if you're interested. I grow a lot of high yielding crops like tomatoes peppers and winter squash. We use tomatoes in so many dishes because they're so versatile. Last year I put up more than 300 quarts of tomatoes. You can see where most of my summer is spent. I love roasting peppers and then freezing them. They freeze very well and they're great added to eggs Mexican dishes and several different types of soups. Winter squash stores for several months and it's so productive especially if your soil is healthy. I grow a lot of long keeping onions for winter use. Cipollini is one of my favorites even though they're on the smaller side but sometimes all I want is a little bit of onion. We've still got a few that we harvested nine months ago and they're perfectly fine. Garlic also stores very well through the winter months and it's excellent for the immune system. Peas come on early here and the more you pick them the more they're going to produce. Peas freeze nicely but I especially like them when they're freeze-dried. They seem to hold their flavor better. Those freeze-dried peas are excellent when you add them to a comforting winter dinner of chicken and dumplings. Preserving food all summer long is key to being self-sufficient. The garden in the wintertime slows down and in some climates it may not even be productive. Canning, freezing, freeze-drying, drying and fermenting all stores that excess summer produce for the off season. Preserving food is a skill worth learning if you don't already know how and I kind of feel like it's a art. Eat in season and store your food in season when it's at its peak. Dry beans are a great source of protein and store very easy with little work. During the summer months and early fall I don't have time to shell them but I can just let them sit in their dry ripened pods till winter when the garden slows down. Use companion planting of herbs and flowers to increase pollination. It may seem like a waste of space but when you enhance pollination your yields increase plus it the bees. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Many herbs can be dried all summer long for winter use for culinary and medicinal use and it's a big money saver. A little pack of herbs like this size can cost three dollars and up and dried herbs in the little containers are very expensive and oftentimes before they even reach the store they're a year old and their flavors are totally washed out. Nothing like you would grow at home and dry yourself. I make a lot of pestos with nettles and basils for winter use. It's just another way to add some more delicious flavor to our winter dishes. I always plant a diversity of crops so that we have a balanced diet and this reduces the dependency of a single crop because you never know when one might fail. If you have a crop that has a failure and it will happen you at least have a backup plan. I think one of the biggest things that I've done to keep my garden heavily productive is when I pull one thing out I don't waste any time I get something else in its spot. Why weed and water a spot that's bare when you can have something in that spot that's productive. We also have several raised beds sprinkled throughout the property. If there's a bare space or an open space guaranteed I'm going to be putting a raised bed in that spot. I also grow several medicinal and culinary herbs in pots in the flower beds and all around our fruit trees. I even grow tomatoes in an old ringer washer near our chicken coop just so that we have more space to grow things. Time is so precious when you're homesteading and creating a routine can really help manage a large garden. I like to take just a few minutes a day in the evening after I close the shop just to walk through the garden and see what needs to be done in the morning after milking chores. Just a few minutes a day can really help maintain that garden and keep it in tip-top shape. We have fencing all around the outskirts of our property and some fencing that divides the orchard and the garden and other areas. This is a very valuable area for growing small fruits that are vining and brambling like our grapes, boysenberries, blackberries, and even hardy kiwis. All of these crops do best growing vertically and we use this to our advantage by taking up less of a footprint on our property. All of these fruits will be bottled, frozen, freeze-dried, or even just dried so that we can have them during the off-season. By preserving in all of these different methods, it gives us a bigger diversity in the way that we can use them during the winter months as well. We have an arbor that we grow grapes on and under that arbor, I grow several different types of small fruits like currants, gooseberries, even rhubarb and honey berries. This arbor offers some shade which is what these small fruits need in our climate to be able to grow successfully. If your homestead is methodically thought out, it can be a complete ecosystem in itself, supporting itself efficiently and productively. We have 48 fruit trees and most of them are in the mean orchard area. We have several different fruits coming on at different times of the year, offering us a bigger variety throughout the spring, summer, and fall months. Some of the fruits that we have here on the homestead are cherries, apricots, plums, figs, peaches, loquat, apples, pears, pomegranates, persimmons, and quince, and some nut trees that are almonds and pistachios. Not to mention the 11 citrus trees, two olive trees, and two avocado trees that are in pots that I have to move into the greenhouse during the winter months. The citrus trees are actually a hobby, but it actually gives us a nice variety of something fresh during the winter months. Fresh always tastes best, but in the middle of winter, a bottle of peaches made into peach cobbler is the best. We dry cherries and they're great on top of salads. Dried apricots are great on a charcuterie board or just as a snack as well. We also make our figs into honey candied figs. These are great eaten just like that or added to your artisan bread. Under the fruit trees, I'll grow greens like kale or chard. Oftentimes, I'll grow winter squash or summer squash right under the base of these trees, allowing even winter squash to climb up the trees and this saves me space in the garden and they do just fine in the orchard without hurting the established trees. Chickens are a large part of our self-sufficiency. They're so easy to raise and they provide so much in return. We keep about 16 to 20 layer chickens. This keeps us in good supply of eggs and provides us a good source of protein. The chicken coop, goat pen, and hay barn are all positioned towards the back portion of our property. This makes the property feel like it's a lot bigger than what it is but actually, it's the most efficient use of our space. Chickens are great recyclers of garden debris and those massive zucchinis that I seem to grow unknowingly every year. You know how that goes. This cuts back on the amount of feed that they need, saving us money. Chicken manure is also very valuable for the garden and orchard. Composted chicken manure provides a rich source of potassium and minerals. These key components improve the soil structure while improving the quality and flavor of your fruits and vegetables and increase overall yields. When eggs are abundant, we freeze dry them so when they're not abundant, this is a good source of long-term food storage. Meat chickens are a large source of our meat. We feed them organic feed and let them free range. They grow so quickly we can process them in as little as six weeks. This is my least favorite part of raising our own food but it is very humbling and it's a part of our homesteading. It's very cost effective and we can produce a high quality meat that's not pumped full of salts or other unnecessary ingredients. We know exactly what goes into them. If we're going to eat meat, we want to raise them humanely and know exactly what we're eating. We respect and are very grateful for them for what they give us. Dairy goats are the perfect addition to our small homestead. Two dairy goats can provide us with milk year-round. We make a wide variety of different cheeses. We make kefir, yogurt, cream and the excess we end up freeze drying as well. We also have a couple of Angora goats. They can be a source of income through their fiber. You can sell their fleeces or turn that fiber into yarn or wear goods. They're a bit of a hobby for me but I think you should always have a hobby on a homestead. Whether it be for an extra source of income or just some relaxation after a hard day. Just like the chickens, goats love snacks from the garden as well and this way there is no waste. They produce lots of manure which again is made into compost for the garden. The combination of the chicken manure, goat manure and garden debris make a rich, nice, nutritious compost for the garden that is always being applied. It enriches the soil. It can be used as a mulch. It feeds those microbes and in addition to that it keeps that moisture in which actually increases our yields here in the hot summers. Mulching is extremely important and I truly believe this is why my plants keep producing through those hot summer months when we start to reach 115 degrees. Even on a small piece of land you can turn it into a highly productive ecosystem that works in harmony with nature. Ducks are great bug snackers. Even though our soil is healthy, bugs are just inevitable. But those ducks help keep those numbers of pests manageable. Ducks supply rich eggs for several months out of the year. They're just as good as chickens are and those duck eggs are great for baking. Entertainment is also much needed on the homestead and ducks provide that for you. They're a blast to watch We also raise turkeys. One turkey can provide up to 40 pounds of meat depending on the variety that you raise. They too can help keep pests down. I love turkeys personalities and how they socialize with us on the farm. They can be quite friendly and they're great guardians by alerting the flock of predators or when a stranger comes. We've recently got back into beekeeping. Bees are just another part of the diversity on the homestead and they're completely necessary for pollination. Even when we didn't keep bees I still planted for the pollinators and the bees. By attracting bees and other pollinators to the homestead you can improve the quality and quantity of your fruits and vegetables. To me the honey is secondary for what the bees have to offer our little homestead but it's a real bonus. Bees offer education and entertainment value. Our grandchildren and even visitors that come to our shop are all amazed at how relaxed these bees are going about their business. 20% of our food has to be outsourced. Things like olive oils, salt, flour, beef and some of the very basics. We try to eat within our means of what we grow and raise. Eat in season like God intended. Everyone asks us how we designed our property to be so productive and efficient and the answer isn't what you might expect it to be. We did it. We probably couldn't as much as we'd like to take credit. When we started it was nothing but a weed patch full of thistle, bindweed and foxtail. It evolved over time through God's divine inspiration in his time. Our hard work through God and that's why it works. Is it perfect? No, of course not. It's messy, it's chaotic, it's tiring but at the end of the day it's satisfying and fulfilling. Striving to be more self-sufficient is more than just feeding your family. It's a way of life. It's one of the best ways to raise kids. Teaching them where their food comes from and respect life. Remember, diversity is key and learn from your mistakes because they will happen. And thank God daily.