Living off the land

[kjd]

Is there anyone else out there thinking they would love to get 100>acres and grow all their food and live off the land?

Me and the wife are so tempted at the moment.

[Harb]

It cant be done, but people tend to romanticise about it a bit to much.......its a lot of work, and unless you are pretty dedicated it can be a bit demoralising.

Getting a decent 100 acres can be very very expensive, and if you get a crappy 100 acres, living off it can be very difficult.

But if its in your heart to have a go......do so

[dhv]

Here's a tip.

Start small in your own backyard before you go buying land.

Set yourself the goal of providing 100% of one meal, once a week for a year.

That's everything including the fuel you use to cook it with and the water you use to boil stuff and wash up with and the herbs, spices, salt you use to enhance flavours.

And no labour saving aids like fuel or electricity. Walk to the bush and cut up the wood by hand and then carry it home.

I bet the dream doesn't last long

[makrand]

I and a few friends (two couples and one more woman) did it for four years on 45 acres in southern France many years ago.
It is entirely possible though you will still have to buy stuff like salt, tea and pepper (depending on where you are).
We had 15 acres of forest which we used for heating and cooking in a stove with a back burner.
Solar panel for hot water.
Kept bees for sweetener.
Grew all our own veggies.
Had ten horses/ponies which we used to cut the grass and for tourist trekking to earn some dosh.
Two cows for milk, cheese, butter etc.
Chooks of course.
Plenty of fruit trees. We even had a guy who came around once a year to collect our plums and swapped them for an incredible plum brandy made from last years collection.
We grew grains and corn, potatoes etc.

Had a great little Browning semi-auto .22 and a shotgun pistol, no license needed

We had friends come in the summer to help out. It's a great experience for city folks and they love to come and help.

It was one of the best experiences of my life, highly recommended, though it was very hard work, especially if you are not used to it.
It only ended because the core relationship broke up. We sold up and moved on.

[Tezza]

It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to maintain a job and could focus 100% on living a self sufficient lifestyle, I'd love to do it myself, but trying to do it whilst working a 9 to 5 would be a complete pain in the arse. I'd start small with just a basic vegie and herb patch, make that as productive as you can, you can get a lot out of a suburban garden if you put the work in, also it's a lot easier to make your soil fertile in a suburban backyard than 100 acres. Like Harb said, it's been romanticised a lot, there's a reason people took to living in villages and towns and started buying their produce from shops..........not poo pooing your idea Keith, like I said, I'd love to live a self sufficient lifestyle on acreage, but unless you can derive an income from it as well, or have an outside source on income in the form of some pretty robust investments with good returns, it's probably not that feasible IMHO.

[kjd]

It's a pipe dream at the moment, even if we did do it, My Mrs would probably leave the "farming" to me and go and work. I would also try to do some things on the side. Whether that be working remotely and/or maybe even get into the roo shooting/trapping business to supplement our income.
It wouldn't be a profitable life but I think it would be a rich life.

It wouldn't be a 100% live entirely on the farm thing, but grow a lot of veggies run some cattle, sheep, chooks and pigs and live the country life. Think more like River Cottage but obviously a more realistic version of that.

[Harb]

It's a pipe dream at the moment, even if we did do it, My Mrs would probably leave the "farming" to me and go and work. I would also try to do some things on the side. Whether that be working remotely and/or maybe even get into the roo shooting/trapping business to supplement our income.
It wouldn't be a profitable life but I think it would be a rich life.

It wouldn't be a 100% live entirely on the farm thing, but grow a lot of veggies run some cattle, sheep, chooks and pigs and live the country life. Think more like River Cottage but obviously a more realistic version of that.

If you are only looking to "supplement" your requirements, then its quiet possible....... and in a lot of cases quiet enjoyable.
The whole thing changes if you are not relying on it 100%

[curan]

The idea of getting a home garden going has the big benefit of the taste.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, sweetcorn, they all taste sweeter out of your own garden.

[stinkitup]

And the kids live it too....Not going 100% or anywhere near but growing as much as you can at home is great learning exp for you and the kids.

As far as power and water there's good options to do it without paying a supplier now too.

[kjd]

It's a pipe dream at the moment, even if we did do it, My Mrs would probably leave the "farming" to me and go and work. I would also try to do some things on the side. Whether that be working remotely and/or maybe even get into the roo shooting/trapping business to supplement our income.
It wouldn't be a profitable life but I think it would be a rich life.

It wouldn't be a 100% live entirely on the farm thing, but grow a lot of veggies run some cattle, sheep, chooks and pigs and live the country life. Think more like River Cottage but obviously a more realistic version of that.

If you are only looking to "supplement" your requirements, then its quiet possible....... and in a lot of cases quiet enjoyable.
The whole thing changes if you are not relying on it 100%

That would be too hard to rely on living 100% off the land I'd like to get 80-90% my own meat between farming and hunting.

Veggies would be 30-50%

Milk I would just buy

Eggs I'd grow 100% of.

I reckon both the mrs and I would be a lot healthier, happier and skinnier living like this!

[curan]

..............I reckon both the mrs and I would be a lot healthier, happier and skinnier living like this..........

You'll be skinnier if the crops fail!

[bimbo]

I reckon before you consider jumping in with both feet to get a good sized vege garden up and running pumping out food for 12months and see how you go. It will give you an idea of what sort of effort and planning will be required.

[kjd]

I reckon before you consider jumping in with both feet to get a good sized vege garden up and running pumping out food for 12months and see how you go. It will give you an idea of what sort of effort and planning will be required.

Without doubt mate, this won't be a short term thing. 12 months would be the absolute soonest we could do it and that is not really realistic so we will have some time to plan!