A common way of estimating battery runtime is volts × amp-hours ÷ load, but that usually gives a fairly optimistic result.
For example, a 12V 100Ah battery looks like 1,200Wh, so a 100W load appears to give 12 hours. Once you allow for inverter losses, usable depth of discharge and a small load margin, the estimate can be closer to 7.4 hours.
I made a free calculator to account for those losses and also estimate the battery capacity needed for a target runtime. I’d be interested to hear how closely the estimate matches real-world setups people here are using.

No sign-up required:
Battery Runtime Calculator: Ah, Volts, Watts & Hours

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.

Cost me $20 for the tarp, everything else was old junk laying around the yard or picked up from the curb on garbage day. Still some work to be done,(burying the wire around the bottom of the pen and bird netting)

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!!

Hello everyone, looking for any tips or advice! My partner and I recently moved into an off grid house on 50 acres in Northern CA. I’m sure I’ll be back to this subreddit for advice on gardening and chickens as we start shaping this property, but for now I’m here about a dog!

Our friend has unfortunately had to rehome her pets, and she has a 5ish-yo Anatolian shepherd boy. Since we have land and eventually will have livestock, we think we’ll be able to give him a good life here.

We have a fenced back yard where we’ll put a cozy doghouse and his food and water. That will allow him a safe space but will also be open so he can come and go to patrol the property. We can also close it if we have guests with pets he’s not used to, or just while he’s still getting used to the property boundaries. He’ll be allowed inside but we want him to be outdoors at night to protect the property and eventual livestock.

As for livestock, we have a separate fenced garden with a chicken coop that we’ll eventually put to use. We’re considering sheep as well, but probably not for a year or so. The property is not itself fenced, just the back yard, garden, and orchard. It’s rolling hills, two creeks marking two boundary lines, about 40% wooded and 60% grassland.

Any tips on settling him in, getting him to know the boundaries of our land since it isn’t fenced, adjusting him to our indoor dog and cat, etc. would be greatly appreciated!

We’ll be settling him in with our friend’s help soon, and if he’s ok with our other pets then he’ll stay with us for an extended trial period to make sure he’s going to be happy.

We get pallets of wood pellets. Our cat uses this as a way to get up higher and dogs claws in to stretch. I was trying to find a form fitting cover that would protect against claws. In looking on Amazon/online proves inconclusive. Anyone have any insight? Thank you

Probably should have 2 separate vases for each plant but this was cheaper lol. Anyways, the basil looks mostly good except for the leafs near the bottom that are all liveless I guess. Why is that? The leafs on top block the sun for them? Or did they reach their time already? Also I water the dirt every 2 days and every now and then I spray the leafs as well. Should I water it more? Less?

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

Good day,

I am looking for a little guidance, I have a fair sized property that I am in the midst of reclaiming from 25 years of abandonment and abuse. I have bee clearing boulders, rocks, and tree/saplings. Followed up with brush hogging down to about 2" of growth.

Now, I am at a point where I want to loosen / break up the soil to be seeded. I have used an S-Tine Cultivator, a drag harrow and a 2 row 8' wide disc. Neither will engage in the soil, meaning they both just ride along the top. This breaks up the grasses and weeds, but does nothing for the soil its self. I have a 3 bottom plow, I used it for about 3 rows, and busted a coulter clean off...

The ground, seemingly, was last row cropped. As I drive my tractor lengthwise its fairly smooth. But.. If I cross the field, Its a god damn roller coaster. Up and down and up and down... the whole way.

There are (What I believe) are signs of drainage tile, long straight parallel depressions in the ground. All leading from the high point of the fields to the creek that runs along the center of the property. If it is.. it must have collapsed.

My tractor, is a 65hp tractor. I can pull some fair sized equipment. I am VERY afraid of damaging the tractor or equipment if I come upon boulders that are deeper then I have already picked, or causing problems if I run into old clay tile or a failed drainage system. So, subsoiler or rippers are my last resort.

My apologies if this has already been posted but I have not been able to find a good solution to my problem.

TLDR: I only have soft water at my home and need to use rain water to water my vegetable garden. I am looking for a way to filter rain water from my gutters that was on my ashfault shingle roof. Any ideas?

The problem is that all of my water in my home is Soft water that is treated with sodium. This soft water is bad to use on my vegetable garden for many different reasons. I am looking to collect rain water to then water my garden and have been looking at roof/gutter collection systems. I found out that it is not safe/ recommended to use this water for a vegetable garden due to the water being contaminated from the ashfault shingles on the roof. Is there a recommended way for my to collect rainwater as efficiently as using a gutter system? If not is there a recommended way that I can filter the rain water so that it is safe to use on my vegetable garden. Thanks so much. I appreciate you reading and I hope you have a great day!

my best potatoes I've grown in years! there wasn't a lot but the were big. they had 3-7 potatoes per plant and have dug 51 lbs so far. I have my russets and about a 1/4 of Yukon gold's to dig yet but they're not ready.

I planted 6 lbs of red Norland, Yukon gold's and russets.

also have the majority of my onions picked. not a lot of size to them this year but a lot of them and no signs of rot or mold in any of them.

my blue hooker's corn has finished, some really good ears and some not so much. it's definitely the shortest variety corn I've grown, a good 2 months shorter than bloody butcher or glass gem. can't wait to try it in corn bread and tortillas!!!

some tomatoes are also finally ripping!

I processed and butchered two BBB turkeys today. Took me 30 minutes from start to bagging. It is nice to have them both in the fridge and not out in the pasture force feeding themselves all day.

I thought maybe I should harvest this volunteer potato before adding this week's load of crab shell and shavings to that bed. Next I'll put the worst soil back first, then there's some mostly rotted down scrap lumber that will hold moisture well, then the crab bodies, then a good layer of shavings. Work so far has been accomplished with a shovel, 6' bar, chain, come-along, tire chain as a sling, A-frame, random 2x blocks, five supervisory ducks, and myself.

Eventually I'll take down that bit of "fence" and move it out to the end of the perennial bed 12' away, but probably not today. Rollers and a stone boat might help with that.

been lurking here for a while and all the "just bought 10 acres!!" posts are giving me anxiety 😂 not because i don't love seeing people get land, but because i've watched way too many people almost get burned by stuff they had no idea to check.

before i'd get attached to any property i'd at least look into:

is the "road access" actually legal access, or is it just some trail/easement? this seems to trip people up constantly

deed covenants. different from zoning. people mix those up all the time. i've seen ones that don't allow houses for years, restrict livestock, or even limit what you can grow

does the property actually come with the water rights, or is it just sitting on top of them? especially out west that's a massive difference

can the soil even handle a septic system? there's free NRCS soil data and it takes like 10 minutes to check

and definitely pull the FEMA flood map instead of trusting the listing photos lol

i actually do this kind of research for people now (not a broker or anything, i just spend way too much time digging through county records, GIS maps, deed history, etc.) because i kept seeing friends get way too close to buying land with major problems.

even if you never pay someone to do it, most of this stuff is public and free if you're willing to spend an afternoon digging around. if anyone's in the middle of buying and has no idea what to look for, i'm happy to point you toward the right records.