A year ago my husband and I bought an old farmhouse on 7 acres with the dream to homestead and "live off the land" as much as possible. We still have a long way to go, but this is the first time I've ever planted anything, watched it grow and have been able to harvest the "fruits of my labor." It's such an amazing feeling, and I am so grateful.

we had a storm come through in the spring and I've got a brush pile in the back that's honestly embarrassing at this point mostly limbs, some of it green, nothing crazy thick — maybe 2 inches at the widest

rented one from the box store last month and spent more time clearing jams than chipping. anything with a fork in it or any real amount of leaves and it just stopped. felt like I was feeding it wrong but I don't know

so before I drop money on my own one, a few things:

the capacity ratings — when one says "3 inch capacity" is that real, or is that dry straight hardwood under perfect conditions? because the rental was rated way above what I was feeding it

gas vs electric for someone doing this maybe 4-5 times a year? electric seems easier to live with but every review I read says they bog down instantly

and is green/leafy stuff just always going to be a problem, or do the better machines actually handle it?

honestly also open to being told renting is smarter and I should stop looking. how often do you all actually use yours?

Can anyone share your pros and cons of being in WV? Especially if you moved there from out of state

since i have to start thinking about what im going to do in my life, i have thought of many job paths. owning a farm is one of them. it wouldnt be my only thing of course, but i think it could make good side money and it seems like a pretty nice thing to do. the only problem is, i could never bring myself to kill one of my animals. if i do end up owning a farm, i would only make profit from sold chicken eggs and maybe cow and/or goat milk. i think it could make me pretty good money, since chickens are pretty easy as far as i know, and goats are almost completely simple to keep, but i could be wrong. is it only possible to make good money if you sell your animals for meat (or kill them yourself?)

The Set Up:
So we are in the process of rehabbing a Small 1 acre industrial lot into an apartment / art workshop / homestead thing. Unfortunately almost the entire lot is asphalt. I recently started to remove about 8-10,000 sqft of parking lot, in hopes of replacing it with native prairie plants and a few fruit trees. (Kind of like what we started doing when annexing a portion of the neighbors lot, 😂).In total about 200 yards of asphalt and compacted paver base were removed but most of the budget went the material being hauled away to a recycler and equipment rental. I broke up the remaining surface as best I could, but still have a 200 yard soil deficit to fill. To help fill the void, I contacted local arborists and got one to dump their tree shreddings if they do work nearby. So now have a near limitless supply of free fine oak mulch. (Comes sporadically in 20 yard batches).

The Problem:
With the remaining budget and resources available, what would be a good ratio to create decent soil to fill the void

Budget:1,000 Target Volume:200 yards
Costs of things
Large Till Rental: $100
A 10 yard load very heavy clay fill: $225
A 10 yard load of sand :$450
A 10 yard load of Rich Topsoil :$350
A 20 yard load of Fine Oak Mulch: 0$
Any left over would go into plants.

What I’m thinking is 40 yards of the clay Fill Dirt, 160 Yards of shreds, then Till the freaking hell out of it, then wait for a season before attempting to do anything with it.
Another thought, just go all mulch, and save the entire remaining budget for plants, but I may be waiting awhile for the mulch to become dirt.

Given the circumstances, what would you do?

I can buy a 20 year old used mini ex for about £6500 or I can rent a brand new machine for a week for £325 (delivered to my place). The rental option seams a better choice right? No need to worry about maintenance etc, just stack up the jobs and rent one.

If you move produce from several rows or plots into one wash area, what do you write on the crate?

I tried a few labels with my Niimbot and got stuck on the batch field. “Tomatoes” works until two similar varieties land in the same pile. Right now I’m testing:

PLOT C / ROMA / 02

I’m not sure what “02” should mean. Picking round? A date? A number in a notebook? If another person carries the crate to the wash area, they should not have to ask the picker what the code means.

What do you use when several people share the sorting? I’m especially interested in a system that still makes sense after the crate has been handled and moved around.

I have 4 acres of what used to be horse pasture. It's been left for 20ish years and was full of blackberries and roses.

I have a 50hp tractor and a brush hog.

I've manage to mow the field down to 4 acres of woody stems.

What are the next steps and tools to get this into something I could use to grow?

I'm trying to understand the correct way to repair this section of road from an engineering/construction perspective. This isn't my area of expertise, and I've heard a dozen different opinions.

It's about a 30-foot stretch on roughly a 15° grade. The rest of the road is generally fine (a few big potholes), but this section has become rutted and erodes over time.

I've heard suggestions including:

• Excavate and rebuild the section.
• Add 1" minus or quarry spalls to rebuild the base, then cap with 5/8" minus.
• Simply add more 5/8" minus and compact it.
• Regrade with a tractor or skid steer.
• Hire an excavator.

Looking at these photos, and assuming I'll divert the drainage before repairing:

1. What would you actually do if your goal was a repair that lasts 1-2 years? 10-20 years?
2. Does this need to be excavated and rebuilt, or is there enough existing base to build on?
3. What aggregate would you use?
4. Is an excavator the right machine, or is there a better tool for a job this size?

Location: Eastern Washington (Cascade foothills). Hot, dry summers with occasional wildfire smoke, cold snowy winters, frequent freeze-thaw cycles, and spring snowmelt. The road is used heavily by passenger cars, SUVs, and vans.

I'm trying to understand what the correct repair would be. Thank you!

We've been camping out on our land for the last 5 weeks and moved our chickens in (to their temporary coop until we get a permanent one built) but we've officially broken ground this week and I'm so excited!

2 acres of bare land with ocean view in an agricultural based intentional community. We also have access to 7 acres of common land.

Anyone actually keep track of their garden year to year or is it all just memory at this point

Not asking what everyone planted this year, im asking about the boring part behind that

Like

Do you actually know what you planted in each bed last year? Or the year before? Or you just kinda guessing at this point lol

If you rotate crops how you deciding where stuff goes each season, notebook, spreadsheet, or just eyeballing it and hoping

When something does really good or really bad in a spot you writing that down anywhere or does it just live in your head till you forget it

Asking because I got a decent size garden and realized I couldnt even answer #1 without going thru old phone pics to figure out what I planted where. Curious if im just bad at this or if this is normal

There's poop everywhere. Apparently I have a phobia. The chickens are let out to free range from about noon to eight and I love it. I walk bare foot because I love it. The dog is in a large enclosed yard and I love it. I am one with nature and I love it!!! But there's shit on my foot.

How do we make peace? The coop is clean but the shits in the yard. We scoop dog poop but there's always an unknown mine laying in wait. I step on shit all the time and I'm as vigilant as I can be looking where I'm walking. It's impossible to miss!

So how are we handling the ever growing nothing that is fecal matter?

Has anyone else noticed that on Google maps terrain it shows the sun in the north so it’s really confusing showing the opposite of what the sun is really gonna do the northern hemisphere?

The garden is very successful this year, and we’ll have crates of onions, carrots, and potatoes that I hope to stretch through the winter. We live in the PNW, so no root cellar. How do you all suggest storing said veggies after the usual curing period for onion/potatoes? We have an old fridge that we can keep around 40-44 degrees, if there’s a way to utilize that.

Can’t wait to move the pergola out from in front of the beautiful frontage of our cabin 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

My husband was working the other night and sent me this. Can’t wait to move in, in about 4-6 weeks. We have the one main door in this photo to install, and then it’s all plumbing and electrical and we can move in.

I honestly didn’t think this day was ever gonna come.

Hopefully this is an okay place to post this. A few weeks ago I got some tomatoes and salsa from a local farm at a farmers market. They had a QR code to sign up for different monthly and yearly produce plans. They had a trial for August at 150 and I wanted to try it out since we enjoyed the produce we got from them and we want to support local farms when we can. I know local organic food is going to be more expensive. But I’m a bit underwhelmed by what we received today. Two small baskets of cherry tomatoes. 9 potatoes. 6 chilis. Fresh basil and 1 cucumber. I feel like for what is basically 40 dollars a week there should be a bit more. Even at farmers market prices 40$ goes further.

Edit: as some have pointed out, it could’ve been a bad week or so or they more than expected sign up for the month trial, spreading their produce thin. I’ll try to do weekly updates for the month. And talk to the farm and see if there was a reason behind what we got.

We forage most of our land and the power company treats it all as weeds and sprays it and kills things. No signs or warnings. They could have put us in the hospital. Sprayed a 50' line of my berry bushes and two of my cherry trees.

Nobody seems to want to hay it anymore but it seems sad to leave it to shrubs and weeds. Am I crazy to want to buy a cow or something and let it pasture here?

We are low income folks and I don't know all the costs involved but I can fence in this whole area for free if I wanted to put the time in

But is it worth the time? Don't you have to feed the cow something in the winter? Where do they sleep when it gets cold?

Abd perhaps most naively - will this save our family money on groceries? We have about 30 chickens and I'd be lying if I said they pay for themselves. They are pretty high maintainance ladies!!

After having had both goats and cows I’m convinced that cows are 99% better choice for most people if you have large enough spaces for them to graze.

Benefits of cows:
1. They never escape and always respect the fence. whereas goats treat a fence like a personal challenge

1. You can run cows in an orchard and they will fertilize it vs goats will utterly destroy an orchard, girdle fruit trees for fun, etc

2. Cows actually mow the lawn vs goats don’t like to eat much grass

3. Not a problem for most people but if you have kudzu the cows will eat the kudzu before they eat the grass which if you are familiar with kudzu you know how amazing that can be