Terra do Milho

Author: Monique Volkers

  • Start your vegetable garden in only three weeks time.

    Start your vegetable garden in only three weeks time.

    What could you do to become more self sustainable? Well, start your own vegetable garden.

    These are not easy times, things are not as they used to be and nobody knows what we can expect in the coming year.

    What keeps us going is that we can become a bit more self sustainable on our homestead. And so can you, I will show you in a bit.

    This year we were not going to do so much in our vegetable garden. We have our goat cheese project going and we needed to upgrade our tourist accommodations. Since we thought that would be a lot of work already we decided not to grow a lot of vegetables this year.

    But it all changed. There will be no tourists coming this year, the ones that booked cancelled their bookings.  Apart from that we fear that prices for food will go up in the unavoidable economic crisis that will follow.

    So there we were. We had to go a step back, or maybe it is a step forward in a way. We dug out the garden tools, filled a lot of bags with the compost we had made from the goat manure and off we went to the vegetable garden. Now our garden down on the river terrace on our land is planted with a lot of small vegetable plants. Hopefully they will grow and we will have plenty.

    For us this is just a little move back to self sustainability, we’ve been there done that and now this comes in handy.

    But what if you’ve never done anything like that? Where and how could you start?

    Here is a simple guideline how you can start your own vegetable garden!

    Well, its a bit of an effort, but imagine you’ll be growing your own food!

    To make it doable I broke it down into weekly tasks.

    Week 1

    Pick a place for growing your vegetable:

    in your garden in the soil or on raised beds. Or if you have no space around your home, you could rent an allotment at the edge of the town where you are living. Go to the allotments and ask the people that are working there on a Sunday morning. They will be able to tell you where and how to rent one of the allotments.

    Get yourself some tools,

    like a haw and a spade and some handtool to clean up the place and get rid of the weeds.

    Look for some compost or manure.

    Ask the people from the allotment where to buy it. There might be a farmer in the neighbourhood that wants to get rid of some manure. People that are keeping horses are often a good source of compost or manure. If you can not get hold of it buy a bag of sheep manure pellets or something similar. A garden center will have it. And when that’s closed try the places where they sell animal food for sheep or cattle, these places often have a department that sells gardening stuff as well.

    Week 2

    Divide your vegetable garden into plots

    in 1.20 m wide beds with 60 cm path in between.

    Enrich & prepare the soil

    of your cleaned plot with the compost, manure or pellets. Don’t overdo it. Two or three buckets of horse or cow compost per m² will do. When you bought pellets, a hand or 5 per m² will do fine. Work the compost or the pellets well into the soil.

    The end result should be nice loose manured soil.

    When the soil is sandy and soft, mixing the compost or pallets into the soil well will be sufficient.

    With compacted soil: till the compost or pallets into the soil. This is how you do it:

    • push a spade or a fork into the soil vertically (with your foot or even by standing on the edge of the spade),
    • push the handle down to push up the soil on your spade or fork,
    • then simply flip the soil back into the hole upside down,
    • if the soil stays in one block: break up the block.

    This way you turn the first layer of the soil. You are doing 2 things at a time: working the manure into the soil and loosening up the soil.

    Tom my husband is showing a haw and a spade.
    Tom is showing you a haw (left) and a fork (right).

    Week 3

    Buy plants for your vegetable garden.

    Really, that is the easiest way to get good vegetables fast.

    You’ll save time growing them from seeds. And growing plants from seeds is more complicated.

    Why?

    Because you have to know how they look when they sprout and you will have to take the weeds from in between the tiny plants. It’s a risky business and something you will have to practice over time. For a starter who wants quick results it’s much easier to start with plants that you buy.

    When buying plants is not possible try your friends and neighbours that already have a vegetable garden, they often have too many plants seeded and are likely to give you some since they find it hard to throw away plants that they have grown from seeds.

    Plant your plants in the beds.

    Look up the distancing of the plants on the internet. Tomatoes need a different distance from each other then beetroots.

    At the beginning the plants look tiny in their big space, but no worries the space will fill up. Properly distanced plants will grow better.

    Don’t go into fancy gardening methods.

    Plant e.g. all tomatoes together in nice rows. Do the same with the other vegetables. Over the years you can start experimenting, but give yourself a chance to get started.

    Fancy gardening methods can be complicated for a starter and instead of making gardening fun it can become a nightmare with no results. So: start simple!

    After that: Keep your garden clear from weeds.

    Believe me: there are no gardening methods that save you from clearing weeds.

    No escape, you will have to do it.

    What we find the easiest is using a haw. You can use the tool standing upright. Important thing with a haw is that you weed very frequent, like ones a week. The trick is that you weed the weeds when they are still tiny, do not let them grow big. This way weeding will be easy and quick and no big effort.

    Tip: to avoid weeding your vegetable plants by accident do not use the how around the plants but use your fingers to clear away the weeds around the plants.

    Water the plants when needed.

    This is what I do to know whether the plants need water: I stick my finger in the soil right next to a plant. When the top 2 cm are dry and i feel just a little moisture at the tip of my finger I water the plants.

    [success icon=”fa-picture-o” ]If you have doubts about starting to grow your own vegetables or need any help or advise: send me an email and ask! Really I do not mind at all to get your email. I am looking forward to get it. I really hope you will start to grow your own food and enjoy its results.[/success]

    Do you want to know more about vegetable gardening?

    Here are some of our other blog posts:

    Where To Start Your Vegetable Garden, Some Things To Consider.

    How To Analysing The Soil From Your Vegetable Garden.

    Two Ways of Making Compost

    Prepare your Vegetable Garden with Chickens

    Our Vegetable Garden in Monchique

     

  • What Feeding Goats Costs

    What Feeding Goats Costs

    Do you want to buy goats for your homestead or small scale farm? Do you wonder if it would be worth doing so and what it would cost you to feed goats?

    Well, here is how you know what feeding your goats would cost you.

    Feeding goats is the main cost factor of keeping goats.

    Sure, you will have to make some investments when you start keeping goats, like in making a goat house or putting up fencing but feeding goats will be the lasting expense. That is why it is important to look into it well.

    And guess what? There are even some possibilities to cut some of the costs, we will look into that as well.

    Let’s go and calculate how much feeding your goats will cost you first. After that I will show you some options how you can cut the costs.

    What does it cost to buy goat food?

    You might guess: it depends on where you are in the world. But no worries, we will get that clear for you.

    There are two types of food that you, very likely, will buy for your goats:

    1. A grain mix or pellets. You don’t need to use both of them but you can choose one of the two. Why you would use one or the other depends on things like, the price, the nutritional value or how natural you want to feed your goats.
    2. Hay.

    How much does a bag of goat food cost?

    In the Netherlands A bag of 25 kg (55 lb) organic goat food costs about 18€ (20 USD on 11/10/19).
    In Portugal we pay 10€ (11 USD on 11/10/19) for a 30 kg (66 lb) non organic pellets. Organic pellets are not available and have to be imported from Spain.

    In the USA it depends where you are and where you buy. I asked around in one of the Facebook groups I am a member of. Here is an indication of the moment (11/10/19):

    • Bags are 50 lb (23 kg)
    • Bought in a local shop or coop, non organic: Grain mix 15 USD/bag; Pellets 11-13 USD/bag; Local shop or coop organic: 30-35 USD/bag; Organic grain 27 USD/bag
    • Tractor supplies: non organic 15-17 USD/bag; organic 23-28 USD/bag
    • Runnings: non organic 15 USD/bag
    • Purina (from Purinamills) goat chow: 22 USD/bag

    The amounts of grain mix and pellets that you need to feed your goats are usually mentioned on the package.

    The costs that are given here are just an indication so you get a briefe idea. If you make a proper calculation it will be better to check the prices in your neighbourhood, as we will see further down.

    The costs of buying hay.

    It is very hard to give a standard price for hay. It does not only vary per country but very much per location as well. A neighbour might be selling hay for a good price to you, or the hay has to come from afar to a much higher cost.

    Whether you have to give your goats free available hay the whole year round, no matter what, is part of an ongoing dispute amongst goat keepers and even amongst researchers.

    We follow the recommendation from our vet to give our goats hay all year round. This is why: When goats eat something wrong or when there are sudden changes in their diet hay can save the goats.

    Goats also need long fibers for their digestive system and hay will provide this for them.

    what do goats eat and how their digestive system works

    What about Supplements?

    Grain mixes and pellets do not always cover all the goats needs. Goats also need minerals. A so called salt block or “licking brick” can be hung in their free range zone so they can freely lick the minerals that they need.

    Why not mixing your own goat’s food?

    Can I be totally honest with you? Mixing your own goat feed will take you into complicated tables and calculations.

    Collecting and mixing the different ingredients can also take space and time. In the end the product that you will feed your goats might not even be cheaper.

    So as a starter I would not recommend going there. Start simple and than when you have your goats system going, go look deeper into feeding details if you like. Than you could start mixing goat food yourself.

    If you can not resist to look into it: I put a link in the resources at the end of the blog.

    How to calculate what feeding goats will cost you? Step by step.

    Now you know that prices can vary, depending on where you live, let’s see how to make a calculation of what your goats would cost you in your area.

    Step 1: 6 tips for getting the right data together for making your calculation.

      • Check this out first: what and where are the agri-shops, local coops or agri-chains around you? Agri-shops are shops where you can buy things that are related to agricultural activities. Try to find them on the Internet or ask around. Do you see people with goats in your neighbourhood? Have a chat with them. Ask them where they get their goat food from. People who have goats usually like to chat with each other about goats. They can spend hours doing so. What is better than a goat keeping friend nearby?
      • Where can you buy hay? Ask at farmers and agri shops in your surroundings. Check for price and quality. Hay should be dry and not look or smell mouldy for the minimum. Farmers that make hay especially for their own cattle or other commercial farm animals, usually sell a good quality of hay, since it has to meet their production standards. Don’t forget to ask how much a hay bale costs and how much it weighs. You will need the weight of the hay bales later on, to calculate the costs. Make a choice what your best price/quality option is.
      • At the same time as you make your round for hay, find out about pellets or grain mixes. Check the amounts you will need for your goats on the packaging. It should be specified for dairy goats in milk, pregnant goats and goats that are not in milk and not pregnant. When it is not indicated on the package ask the shopkeeper, he will have the information.
      • Don’t forget to ask the shopkeeper for the ‘salt blocks’/’licking brick’ as well. If they don’t have it there might be an alternative way of adding minerals.
      • Take a notebook with you to write everything down. Prices, quality, location of the shops or farms. Take the distance and time that you have to travel for buying the goat food into account as well.

    Step 2: making your calculation.

    Now you have chosen what you want to buy and where you want to buy it, you can calculate what your goats will cost.

    I will guide you through the calculation and give you an example of what feeding goats on our farm costs based on our own situation.

    Are you ready? Let’s go for the next step.

    How to calculate hay costs.

    To know how much hay you have to buy you can use this simple calculator (click on the link): Livestock Winter Hay Needs – Hay Calculator

    What is the weight from a goat?

    goat breeds

    The amount of hay in the calculator depends on the weight of your goat. Since you might not know what a goat weighs I will give you some figures on goats weights so you can fill in the calculator.

    An adult Saanen type dairy goat weighs around 95 kg (209 lbs).

    A goat of a smaller breed like an Alpine goats weighs about 60 kg (135 lbs).

    When you already have a goat here is an easy way to find out what it weighs without using a scale (click on link): How to Calculate Sheep or Goat Weight

    Using the hay calculator

    Through the calculator you can find out how many hay bales you need. You will need to fill in the weight of the hay bales that you can buy.

    After that you can multiply the number of hay bales with the price per hay bale that you have found and written down in your notes.

    For example: On our farm we need to feed our 5 goats on hay for two month during the dry summer. During the winter month there is a lot of pasture available so the goats will hardly eat the hay, but we do give them free available hay.

    From filling in the calculator we learn that we will need 35 bales of hay for the dry month. A hay bale costs us 3.50€, so in a year we will spend 3.50€ x 35 = 122.50€ (136,51€ on 12/17/2019).

    In our case we also give the goats freely available hay during the green winter month which would add another 10 bales. This costs us an extra 35€.

    Which brings our total spending on hay to 157.50€ (174.51 USD on 12/21/2019)

    How to calculate grain mix or pellets costs? An example.

    Since our farm is located in Portugal, a bag of 30 kg (66 lbs) of pellet feed for goats costs me 10€ (11 USD).

    According to the information on the bag my goats needs 600 grams (1.3 lbs) per day when in milk. This means one goat will cost me 0.20€ a day during the milking times.

    The goat will produce milk during 10 month a year, from halve way of February to halve way of December, which comes down to 304 days. So feeding pellets to one goat during the milking period will cost me: 0.20€ x 304 days = 60.80€

    During the milking break  one goat gets halve a portion of pellets per day, 300 grams (0.65 lbs). This will cost 0.10€ a day.

    The milking break takes 2 month which is 60 days. So during the milking break the feeding of one goat will cost me 0.10€ x 60 days = 6€.

    So for the whole year I will spend 60.80€ + 6€ =66.80€ per goat.

    We have got 5 goats so in total I will spend 66.80€ x 5 = 334€ a year on buying pellets.

    Supplements

    As a supplement on the feed and the hay I use a a so called salt block licking brick it is cheap and easy and the goats can serve themselves. They like it a lot.

    I buy a salt block about one time a year, it costs about 10€.

    Total costs of feeding goats

    To feed my goats the year round I will spend:

    Hay, 157.50€

    Pellets, 334€

    Licking brick, 10€

    So the total costs of feeding my 5 goats will be: 501.50€ a year, which equals 41.79€ a month.

    Keep in mind that these are only the feeding costs, it does not include other costs for keeping goats. Other costs at my location are connected to the housing, fencing, some small stuff like buckets and laces and the vet.

    Feeding goats, cutting costs

    How to cut on feeding costs for your goats.

    Now you know what keeping goats will cost you, let’s look into how you can cut on the feeding costs.

    Here we go!

    Herd your goats

    This is the oldest way of keeping goats. And it costs hardly anything to feed them. The goats will collect their own food while taken out for a walk.

    Back in the days in our area a group of farmers would hire in a shepherd to herd their goats. Each farmer would buy some goats which would then be put together in one herd for the shepherd . The costs for the shepherd would be divided amongst the farmers. In return the farmers would get milk and meat to sustain their families. This way the costs for keeping goats were kept very low.

    How can you herd your goats to cut the costs?

    Herding goats for the whole day would take a lot of time and most of us don’t have that amount of time.

    Another thing that is needed is: free range wilderness, either your own or your neighbours. You can not walk your goats through an area with a lot of gardens. But even in such an area there can be options.

    Some options to herd without a lot of time or land.

    Although taking your goats out all day to vast areas of land surrounding you, might not be an option, you could still save feeding costs by taking them out for one or two hours a day.

    Maybe you have a son or daughter that loves to take them out after school together with some friends. Or maybe someone else in the family who wants to save some money on the gym and take the goats for a good walk every day.

    Land wise: There might be a paddock or piece of wild land fenced in down the road where you could take the goats. Of course you will have to check first with the owner if it’s alright to take your goats there.

    Just another idea….During the winter month, that is when the rain falls in our climate, we herd our goats through our orchard. Most trees have no leaves. The goats are not interested in the leafless trees but they will eat all the upcoming weeds.

    Cutting costs on feeding goats

    A Paddock system

    When you have a piece of land surrounding you, you can fence it in and divide it into sub areas. Each area can be fenced in so you can rotate the goats through the areas.

    The areas do not need to be grass fields. Goats love to eat vines, shrubs and trees and it is very healthy for them too.

    How do you figure out what size of paddock system you will need?

    It might seem a bit a sidetrack to talk about the size of a paddock system here, but in order to know whether having your goats in your paddock system is an option for you, I will shortly go there.

    The size of the paddocks that you need will depend on things like number of goats, soil fertility and annual rainfall.

    Let me show you how extreme the difference can be:

        • In Holland, where we originally come from, the soil fertility is very high. Above that there is a lot of annual rainfall. When you live in an area with the same conditions you can keep 10-15 goats on a hectare of land. With the same hectare you can feed your goats young offspring. It will also provide you enough space to take hay from the land for the winter month.
        • Here in the south of Portugal where we live now, we can barely keep 5 goats on a hectare of steep mountain side. Keeping their offspring with them already is too much for the shrubs to regrow let alone to use the same hectare for growing hay.

    Conclusion: when you are living in a place with fertile soils and substantial rainfall, you can easily run a paddock system for your goats with less than a hectares. In other areas you will have to slowly figure out how much of an area you need. Either by trial and error or by asking people around you with goats.

    How can you save feeding costs with a paddock system?

    When you give your goats free available hay, like we do, you immediately notice that they use less hay when their free range area is getting green during the winter rains. The goats eat far less hay. This way we will need to buy les hay.

    The other thing is that they stop finishing their daily portions of grain mix that I give them. I can almost cut the amount down by halve.

    Mind you, some goats will gobble their feed down anyway regardless whether they need it or not. In which case you can manage their food intake by a tool that is called body condition scoring. Body condition scoring is a good tool to manage how much you have to feed your goats. Check this link if you want to know more about it: Body Condition Scoring For Dairy Goats, Made Easy.

    Combining herding goats with a paddock system.

    Because of our goats free range area getting green, and because of two hours of herding we do with our goats, we can cut down our costs on hay and grain mix substantially.

    Yet another way of cutting costs: bring greens to your goats.

    During spring we clear our orchard terraces. Out comes: a lot of pruned branches, cut back shrubs and cut grass with a lot of herbs in it. The goats love it all.

    Bringing greens to your goats also provides them with food, so it will save you buying food. At ours it cuts the costs of buying hay.

    Caution, caution, caution with garden clippings

    When you are bringing your goats greens from your garden, there is some caution you have to take with using garden clippings:

        • Don’t give the wrong garden clippings to your goats. Many ornamental plants are poisonous for goats. Especially when it is the only thing the goats eat. They can easily get an overdose of some poisonous plant.
        • Goats can also die when given too many grass clippings. A few handfuls mixed in with other things is okay, but giving them all the clippings of your lawn can be dangerous for them.

    Keep your goats for free: Milk your goats and make cheese or other goat products

    Yes, it’s true! By milking your goats and making cheese you can have your goats and home produced milk and cheese for free.

    How? By producing your own milk and cheese for your household you can save money on buying it. When you sell part of the milk and cheese you can get some income to cover all the costs that you have for your goats. This way you can keep your goats for free and have fresh milk and cheese as a bonus!

    Other goat products you can use and sell

    Here are some more ideas:

        • Make soap based on goats milk.
        • Breed for goats meat, eat it and sell it.
        • You can make candies like fudge or toffee, based on goats milk.
        • The whey, which is a by product of cheese making can be used for making drinks.

    By using and selling goats products you can either save on your household budget or earn some money to cover the costs on keeping your goats.

    If you want to sell goat products check the local regulations on selling animal products.

    Resources:

    Body Condition Scoring For Dairy Goats, Made Easy  This blog will explain how you can manage the amount you feed your goats by Body Condition Scoring.

    Feeding Goats, Some Things You Didn’t Know  This blog will tell you about what goats eat and how their digestive system works.

    What Not To Feed Goats To Avoid Accidents  Here you will find information about what not to feed your goats and how you can find out which plants are poisonous for your goats.

    Livestock Winter Hay Needs – Hay Calculator   An easy calculator to calculate the quantity of hay you need per year. You can also use it when you need hay over the summer. By the way, we do not sell these company’s tools, it is just a very practical calculator that we use.

    How to Calculate Sheep or Goat Weight  This shows you how to calculate the weight of a goat without having to use scales. A practical tool that is commonly used, described on the site of Washington state University. 

    The Langston Interactive Nutrient Calculator   This is the most simplified and best calculator I could find for you. It’s from the American Institute for goat research at Langston University in Oklahoma.

    Useful Facebook groups were you can meet other goat keepers, you will have to become a member: Goats and Goat Lovers and Homesteading and Sustainability.

    Infograf

    Infograf What feeding goats costs

  • What Not to Feed Goats to Avoid Accidents

    What Not to Feed Goats to Avoid Accidents

    Where does the myth that goats can eat anything come from? And does that also mean that you can feed goats anything?

    Fact is that goats are not only picky, but goats can also eat wrong things like plastic, chicken food and poisonous plants.

    Don’t you believe me?

    You will only need to check the fora on the internet to know what people’s goats have eaten that they should not have eaten.

    In this blog I will give you a complete deal of tips on how you can prevent feeding accidents for your goats. So after reading this blog you will know how to prevent these accidents from happening. This will save you a lot of time and trouble in keeping your goats.

    Goats have an individual taste.

    Goats have an individual taste and are a bit peculiar in what they eat considering wrong things.

    Our goat Bianca eats black agricultural plastic when she gets the chance. None of our other goats are interested in the same plastic. Our buck Putin loved electric wires, luckily he was the only one on the homestead. Don’t worry, he is still alive, we sold him after he had done his job well.

    Not all goats will eat things they should not eat. They might also not eat wrong things for a while and then suddenly pick up this bad habit. So better be safe than sorry and prevent your goats from eating wrong things.

    Cutting through the 3 most dangerous myths on goats eating habits.

    Let’s first start to cut through some of the 3 most common myths about goats eating habits. Then we will look deeper into how to prevent goats eating the wrong things.

    Why are these myths dangerous? Because it is very misleading and can lead to accidents. Being aware of the dangers of these myths you can avoid accidents and a lot of trouble with your goats.

    Myth number 1: Goats can eat anything

    On the contrary: goats are very picky.
    You can clearly see this when you see goats foraging. They eat something here, then walk some steps and take a few bites there. They would not start at one end of the field and then work their way through the field to the other end.

    In different times of the year they will also eat different things.

    When feeding your goats they will get used to the feed you are giving them. After that it is not always easy to change the brand of the goat feed.

    Why are goats so picky? It has a good reason.

    Goats have a very sensitive digestive system that needs to stay in balance and does not take sudden changes . For that they have to be picky.

    So when you are feeding your goats you can not just give them anything, you will have to be careful because of their sensitive digestive system.

    Changing your goats food suddenly or giving your goats food that is not meant for them can be live threatening since their sensitive system might not take it. That is why this is a dangerous myth.

    Myth number 2: Goats will not eat what is not good for them.

    Yes, goats are picky for a reason. But does that mean they always pick what is best for them?

    Here on the Homestead we do eat a lot of healthy stuff, you probably do to. But man, I really like those sweet cupcakes from the supermarket and I find it hard not to eat them. Or the nice chocolate pralines from the chocolate shop. They are so good. Do you recognise that?

    It’s a bit the same for goats. They might not go for cupcakes (although some might…), but they do not always pick out the things that are best for them to eat. This can be cupcakes or plastic or poisonous plants with a sweet taste or many other things.

    When goats eat to much of something that is bad for them it will disrupt the balance in their digestive system and can therefore be dangerous for them.

    Myth number 3: Goats will never poison themselves, because they know what plants are poisonous.

    The way goats forage can be misleading to us considering poisonous plants for goats.

    When plants are poisonous for goats it does not mean they will drop dead when they take a bite. Not all plants are equally toxic, the goat needs to eat a certain amount of a certain plant to get poisoned.

    When goats are foraging they take a bite here and a bite there, including bites from plants that are poisonous to them. But because they forage the way they do, they will not eat a lethal dose.

    It is only when poisonous plants are the only thing out there to eat for them when they get poisoned. This can also happen when goats get clippings served from a poisonous plant. There is a chance that they will eat it and get very sick or even die.

    The misleading thing is that one might think goats will eat a certain poisonous plant because one sees them eating it. But then in the end it is not edible in larger quantities.

    Examples of these plants are: azaleas in general especially rododendrons.

    Then why do goats avoid eating plants that are poisonous plants for them?

    Like for example foxglove?

    Poisonous for goats

    Goats do not have a mysterious sense for knowing what plants are poisonous for them. They smell and taste plants and then they judge whether they like to eat the plant or not.

    Plants that do not want to be eaten and eliminated by the goats have a taste or smell the goats don’t like. Some plants go even a step further and make the goats sick if they get eaten by goats. And if the goats never the less keep on eating it, the goats will die.

    Foxglove has a bad taste for goats. If you have ever seen a goat taking a bite of a foxglove leave you will have seen that it spits it out strait away. This is because the foxglove warned the goat: ‘hey I warn you! Do not eat me, I taste bad’. Even so bad that the goat will never taste it again.

    Plants that do not warn goats that they are poisonous are e.g. azaleas (there might be others in your region). That is when the goats misjudge and eat it.

    Still when there is lots around the way they forage will save them. But when e.g. the azaleas would be the only plant around or would be served to them, they would take a dose that would make them sick or even kill them.

    That is how goats can poison themselves.

    How to prevent accidents feeding your goats

    As a rule of thumb: You have to be careful and keep the non edible things away from the goats until you are sure no one in the goat family eats or drinks it.

    Even then be watchful. When goat kids grow up or new goats are added to the herd they will eat what the older ones eat. But that does not mean they will not eat what the older ones don’t eat. So don’t think the job is done when your herd does not eat bad things when new goats are added to the herd…

    Let me show you how to avoid feeding related troubles with goats to start with.

    In any case: make sure your goats have fresh water and hay available all the time.

    Fresh water and hay are not only the basic food necessities, they can also help in case of poisoning.

    By drinking lots of water the goat can sometimes neutralise a light poisoning.

    Hay is for goats what brown rice is for humans. The fact that brown rise is a starch is not the important part in this case, what is is that It stabilises our digestive system when something is wrong. That is what hay does for goats, it stabilises their system. When something is wrong there is a good chance that hay will solve the problem.

    Do not change the goats feed from one day to another. It can be lethal to goats.

    Why? Because their system can’t deal with it. As you have learned earlier in our blog “Feeding goats, things you didn’t know.”,  make link goats used to eat what the seasons would bring. Since the seasons gradually change from one into the other the diet of the goats would only slowly and gradually change as well.

    what do goats eat and how their digestive system worksThe millions of bacteria in the goats stomach that help the goats to digest their food are not just one type of bacteria. There are more than one type of bacteria present in their stomach at any moment. Some types would be good at digesting grass, others in digesting grains. When goats eat only grass, the grass digesting bacteria will be the fast majority and if the goats would only eat grains the grain digesting bacteria are in the fast majority.

    So what would happen if a goat that has only been fed on grass suddenly gets grains? It will not be able to digest the grain. Their digestive system will get into serious trouble. So much trouble that the goat can die from it.

    Hey helps as a safeguard

    Here is where the hay can help with the problem. When goats have hay available all the time it will be a substantial part of their diet.

    In that case they would not only eat grass, but hay and grass. If you then change the grass for grain there is still the hay in the food that is the same. Still it is better not to make even this change from one day to the other.

    How to change your goats feed safely

    The way to change feed is to always do it gradually. Mix in some of the new food with the previous food, then every day make the mix with a little more new food leaving out a bit more of the previous food. After a week or so the previous food will be replaced with the new food.

    When your goats are living in a barn during the winter month and you feed them on hay and feed mix, it can be tricky to put them out into the green in spring. If the change is to quick they might get diarrhoea. It would be best to only let them eat the greens for a short time at the beginning. You can let them eat the greens a little longer every day until their system gets used to it again.

    Bottom line is: never change a goat’s diet to quick.

    Another thing: be careful making your own hay

    Imagine what it would be like to be on your own field on your Homestead and harvest your own hay. Then dry it during those view dry days in the wet summer, turning it over and over with the whole family helping.

    Smack! You suddenly realise that there could be poisonous plants packed into the hay….

    And the trouble is the goats will not recognise the poisonous plants in the hay. Remember?  Goats select what they eat with their smell and taste. Some dried plants lose their smell and taste. So the goats will not recognise them any more as poisonous.

    How to make proper hay

    The solution is simple but can be very labour intensive: you will have to check the field and if you find poisonous plants you will have to remove them before making hay.

    After having done this for some years poisonous plants that seed themselves like Foxglove will not come back.

    Plants that are propagating from their roots like Arum and Bracken are much harder to remove. You probably have to plough the field to get rid of them.

    You might be lucky though and have no poisonous plants in your field….bit better check it.

    Maybe it is a bit annoying to you that there is so much to know about what goats eat and so much to read about.

    But see it like this: after you have read it all you are sure you will be doing the right thing with your goats. And avoiding trouble makes life with goats a lot easier, believe me.

    What plants are poisonous for goats?

    The poisonous plants that are growing in your area can be totally different ones then the ones in my area. So be aware that any list given can be incomplete.

    So how do you find out what’s poisonous?

    Here are some tips based on how I deal with this:

    • Research on all plants that are poisonous for humans whether they are poisonous for goats. I know goats can handle more than humans, but it gives me an indication.
    • Mistrust all ornamental garden plant that are used for hedges and as climbers. So before I give garden clippings of those plant to my goats I research them first on toxicity.
    • When you thin out herbal plants from your ornamental garden always research on them before you give them to your goats.
    • Talk to goat keepers in the neighbourhood and ask them what is poisonous. But keep in mind that, unless their family has been raising goats for generations, people might not know everything. Some goat keepers might be relative newcomers like you are.
    What not to feed your goats
    Rododendron, lethal clippings for goats.

    How to research on poisonous plants?

    There are some apps available that will help you. You take a picture and the app tells you which plant you are dealing with. Once you have the Latin name of a plant you can research in details on the internet.

    A bit more complicated but still good is a plant guide. Look up the Latin name and you can do further research.

    Check on one of the beautiful goats peoples Facebook groups and ask goat keepers what they are using. People are very helpful on these platforms.

    Important extra warnings what not to feed your goats

    • Since this is poisoned goats reason number one I can’t stress it enough: don’t give the wrong garden clippings to your goat.
    • Don’t give goats too many flowers to eat. It is okay when the flowers are in a field where they brows, but when you give them a bunch of flowers in their feeder they will most likely get a bad diarrhoea or even get bloat.
    • You can give your goats grains and grain mixes (only the ones for goat and sheep), but never give them weet. When you give your goats weet there is a bigger risk that they get bloat. Bloat means that they get air trapped in their system. If you have ever had that yourself, you know it is far from pleasant. For goats the problem can be lethal. Grains that cause no problems when given in moderation are: barley and outs.
    • In some areas in the world copper deficiency is an issue, contact your local vet to ask if you are in such an area and what is best to do. Be cautious of self medicating, in this case self medicating can also harm your goats if not applied right.
    • Don’t give goats mixes or pallets that are not for goats, never ever. Especially no chicken feeds. It will cause bad diarrhoea.
    • Try to use only plants in your garden that goats can eat. Some goats are master escapists and they will end up in your garden at some point. Pro’s of edible plants in your garden for goats is also that you can give them the clippings as a treat.
    • Never ever give goats meat, candies, sweets and similar goodies that are meant for humans (and not good for them either). It will destroy the balance in their sensitive digestive system for sure.

    So that’s it for now.

    I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and to see you again.

    Subscribe to this blog or connect to our Facebook or Instagram to stay posted.

    Links for more information about goats eating habits and their digestive system: feeding goats, things you didn’t know

    Infograf

    What goats do not eat

    Resources

    Het graasgedrag van de landgeit in Nederland, en verkenning (Grazing habit of the country goats in the Netherlands, and reconnaissance) Anneke de Vries & Nick van Eekeren,© [2007] Louis Bolk Instituut, the Netherlands.

    Goat health – copper deficiency  NSW Department of Primary Industries, Australia, September 2017.

     

  • Feeding Goats, Some Things You Didn’t Know.

    Feeding Goats, Some Things You Didn’t Know.

    Can you give me the name of a country were there are no goats?

    No? Why not? Because they are very flexible in their diet.
    Does that mean goats eat everything? No, definitely not.
    How does that work?
    Let’s look into goats natural eating habits and how their digestive system works.
    Why would we look into that, what does that have to do with feeding goats? Because knowing about goats eating habits and their digestive system means that you will easily understand what to feed and not feed your goats.

    Where do goats eating habits come from?

    Wouldn’t it be great if we would be able to travel back in time and see how goats used to live in their natural environment?

    Just imagine a world in which small numbers of humans live. Many grazers were inhabiting the world, amongst them goats. The goats lived everywhere on our planet, from the poles to the tropics. Roaming around on steppes, on open spaces between the dense rain forest, on freezing mountaintops and many more places.

    What do goats eat naturally?

    The diet of the goats would change with the seasons. They are flexible in what they eat so they would have had a good chance of surviving.

    They would eat shrubs, herbs, grass, trees, vines, bark, twigs, fallen leaves, berries, fruit, pods (like alfarroba), aceorns, chestnuts and much more.

    Goats would find something to eat in any season.

    In this area where we live, around the Mediterranean they would eat fresh herbs, grasses and shrubs shoots in the wet and mild winters.

    During the long dry summers they would have to put more effort in gathering their food. They would have to walk up to 9 km a day to fill their stomachs and eat seeds, bark from trees, twigs, bushes, hay and other dry forage.

    Can you picture what they would have eaten where you live? In summer and in winter?

    Goats have to watch out!

    Since there were predators all over the place, they would not eat all day.

    During the hours of sunrise and sunset they will go quickly into the open fields to forage as much as they can, then when the sun rises more up, the goats would withdraw into the wood edges to hide and ruminate their food.

    At night they would do the same, they would spend the nights hidden in the shrubby wood edges and not make a sound. Silently ruminating.

    Hang on…what is ruminate?

    The way the goats digestive system works is perfect to quickly eat as much as possible and then after they have filled their stomach draw back into the scrubs and start ruminating.

    The digestive system of a goat: Goats are ruminants and they ruminate.

    Goats have a stomach that has 4 parts. The first part of their stomach, they can fill with very roughly chewed material. This way they can eat large quantities in a very short time.

    This first part of the stomach pushes the food plus a load of saliva back up into their mouth. Then the goats take their time chewing it properly. This is called ruminating.

    Digestive system goats

    After that the well chewed food is swallowed again and digested by millions of microbes: bacteria, fungus and yeasts that live in the second part of the stomach.

    The red and blue arrows in the drawing show the route that the food is taking inside the goat.

    The microbes live in a symbiosis with the goat: the goat provides them with raw food material that is well chewed and the microbes provide the goat with their waste which is digestible for the goat.

    Feeding goats means feeding a sensitive ecosystem

    In the goat’s stomach the bacteria, fungi and yeasts form a sensitive ecosystem that needs to be treated with care. The numbers of the different bacteria, fungi and yeasts colonies are carefully balanced. A sudden change in food for the goat would cause an imbalance that can make the goat ill because the microbes would not be able to deal with it. An imbalance can even kill a goat when it gets too extreme.

    So when you are feeding your goat, you are not only feeding your goat, but also this sensitive ecosystem. You will need to feed this ecosystem with care.

    To maintain this ecosystem you will need to give your goats food with enough long fibers, which are mainly present in hay and grasses. The goats can only be fed grains (starch) in moderation. Greens of all sorts will provide vitamins and minerals to the goats as well.

    Do not feed goats food that is not suitable for goats. The microbes will not be able to handle it. Giving goats feed that is for sheep is still acceptable, but it is the only one.

    what not to feed goatsHay can be given at all times and can be freely available. So can greens, when goats are used to them. If goats did not eat greens for a long time, like in winter, you will have to start with small portions. If not you will disrupt the ecosystem in their stomach.

    Changing food for goats is a sensitive story. You will have to change their food gradually so the microbes can adjust.

    What happens after the food has been in the second compartment of the stomach.

    After being in the second part of the stomach, the food is then digested in two more steps in the third and fourth part of the stomach. After that is is taken through the intestines where nutrition is taken out of the digested food. What is left goes out at the other end, where we can see it again as the little poop pellets that drop out of the goat.

    When their poop comes out in little loose pellets this means the digestive system is working as it should. When it is sticking together or comes out in the form of diarrhea there might be a too sudden change of food or the food might be too rich. It can also have happened that a goat has eaten something that it should not have eaten, goats do make mistakes.

    Do goats just eat anything they can get?

    Oh, no!

    Despite of the quick eating the goats would still be picky, they would first explore the field they are in, sniffing the food that they are going to eat. Thinking: “do I like this? Is it mouldy? If it’s mouldy I will not eat it. Does it taste wrong? I will spit it out”.

    After some exploring they will go ahead and eat, with confidence, as much of the good stuff  they found.

    Goats can also get too picky, so picky that they do not meet their nutritional needs by eating. Sometimes they can also pick out things that are not so good for them. Pretty much like we humans do, by eating too many muffins and not eating enough fruit and vegetables.

    Goats have a preference for woody plants, but they do well on grasses, herbs and shrubs as well. They especially love the fresh parts of the plants.

    Watch the goats picking and browsing their food in the video below.

     

    What do goats eat when we keep them?

    When we keep goats we usually contain them and controle their food by feeding them. That is fine.

    Goats have preference for variety in their diet, this will keep them healthy. This does not mean that you will have unhealthy goats when you keep them and controle their food. They are after all flexible in their diet too.

    The cooperation between man and goats.

    Long time ago humans and goats decided to work together. It was a mutual interest.

    Goats would be provided with safety, shelter and food and humans would also have more food security because the goats offered them their milk and offspring.

    Feeding goats like a shepherd.

    For long shepherds would walk around with goats and still today goats are kept in that way.

    Shepherds would take the goats through the landscape for days. Maintaining the landscape and feeding the goats at the same time. Whether the landscape was poor or rich, what was there was all that the goats ate.

    Taking goats around like a shepherd does not always mean that the goats will get everything they need. It depends a lot on what is available. And even if everything is available goats can be picky against their own interest.

    Apart from herding goats, additional feeding of goats can be a good thing. This can make the goats stronger and makes them give more milk or better meat. It can also prevent the loss of goat kids at an early age.

    The industrial way of feeding goats.

    In more industrialised areas goats are often kept inside in big barns. The feed these goats get seems to be far off from the diet that they used to have.

    These goats are often fed hay (free available), alfalfa hay (substitute for greens) and pellets or grains.

    The pallets and grain mixes that are fed to these goats are based on what goats used to eat and how their digestive system works. The composition of these feeds are based on studies on what goats can digest. Tables and calculations preceded the production of these feeds.

    Goats are very flexible indeed.

    How to apply what you have just learned on feeding your goats

    Only give goats feed that is suitable for goats.

    Goats are ruminants. Ruminants live in symbiosis with the microbes that live in their stomach. The microbes digest the food that a goat eats for the goat. Feeding a goat means feeding her stomach microbes. The microbes in the stomach form a sensitive ecosystem that has to be treated with care e.g. by not changing food abruptly or not giving the goat food that is not suitable for goats (like chicken feed or pork feed). Feed that is for sheep is still acceptable.

    Never change a goats food too quick. It can be dangerous for goats.

    • In a natural environment the food that goats eat will change per season. Since the change from one season into the other happens gradually the food that the goats would eat will also change gradually. The goats digestive system is designed for slow changes in food. The microbes that digest the food can only adapt slowly to the food changes.
    • Goats will also be fine without greens e.g. in winter when they live indoors. Always gradually introduce your goats back into eating greens. A sudden change from no greens to a lot of greens will heavily upset the microbes in the goat’s stomach. Sticky poop or diarrhea can be the effect.

    Points where you should evaluate the goats feeding.

    • When the goat is fed properly and the microbes in her stomach are happy, the goat poops are loose pellets that do not stick together. When a goats poop is sticky or is diarrhea, the goat has eaten something wrong, the food was too rich or there was an abrupt change in food.
    • Goats might not be able to meet all their nutritious needs by eating, they can be too picky or do not get the variety they need. When there are losses in the herd in kids or adult goats it is a sign the food should be evaluated. Giving some pellets or grain can already solve the problem. In some cases additives are needed, for this I would consult a vet.

    Do not overfeed your goat with grains and pellets, make sure there is hay.

    Goats natural diet contains a lot of long fibers, there is not so much starch in it. Grains mixes and feed pellets contain short fibers and lots of starch. These feeds should not be given in big quantities. This will make the microbes in their stomach unhappy.

    Hay also has a lot of long fibers. It is good to have hay always available for your goats.

    Providing a large variety of greens to your goat would be a good thing.

    Goats like fresh greens because they contain a lot of energy. Fresh greens are healthy for goats. It contains fibers, vitamins and minerals. When given in a large variety it is good food for goats, it will provide them with all their needs. A pasture or shrub field with a good variety of herbs, shrubs, trees and grasses provides good food for goats.

    Goats can be fed in different ways,

    but the way their digestive system works has to be taken into account. E.g. goats can live on a diet of hay, alfalfa hay and pellets for ever. As long as there are no sudden changes in this diet and the food that is given is suitable for goats. The food that is given needs to be of a good quality so the goats nutritional needs are met.

    Goats have their own eating rhythm.

    In a situation where there are predators goats will eat in the early morning and evening when predators are less active. In a save situation like on your property they can adapt the rhythm to the circumstances.

    This can be a rhythm of eating for 2 hours and resting for halve an hour. This can even continue during the night.

    This means that goats like to walk in and out of their shelter to get a bite. When they are free ranged. When goats are living indoors or staying indoors at night for safety reasons it is nice for them if they have hay free available, this way they can eat whenever they like.

    Resources:

    How does a rumen work?  The system of all ruminants works basically the same. Goats, sheep and cows are all ruminants. This video, which is about a cows stomachs, explains in more detail how the rumination process works, it also stresses the role of the microorganisms in the stomach. What is explained in this video also counts for goats.

    Digestion in ruminants.  A detailed description of the whole digestive system of ruminants. The symbiosis between the micro-organismes and the ruminant is explained in detail.

    Ruminant stomach-structure and function. Short explanation of the ruminants digestive system.

    Rumen microbial fermentation. The ecosystem and the importance of it’s balance in the ruminants stomachs in detail. What is described also counts for goats.

    Het graasgedrag van de landgeit in Nederland, en verkenning (Grazing habit of the country goats in the Netherlands, and reconnaissance) Anneke de Vries & Nick van Eekeren,© [2007] Louis Bolk Instituut, the Netherlands.

     

    What do goats eat?

  • How to Start a Homestead

    How to Start a Homestead

    Do you want to know how to prepare for homesteading? Are you up for a major change in your life? To break free and realise your dream? Is your dream starting a homestead?

    Do you want to know how to get there? Well, here are the first steps you can take.

    When you have read this blog you will be able to set the first steps towards homesteading. These steps are a foundation for your future homestead.

    What’s one piece of advice you would give before starting a homestead?

    Whether you want to start an Urban Homestead or move into the middle of nowhere, there’s always this advice: prepare yourself for homesteading very well before you start. Gather knowledge and skills, organise your finances and make a solid plan.
    The question however is how do you prepare yourself? What do you need to prepare yourself for? What knowledge do you need? And what skills?

    These are the questions we want to look into in this blog. Because the answers to these questions depend very much on what you have in mind as your own unique Homestead. If you do not have a clear picture of what your own unique Homestead will be like yet, don’t despair. We will cover that one.

    To prepare yourself for homesteading, however, you will need to get a clear picture of the homestead that you want first.

    What would be the first step?

    So, the first step, even before you start your preparations, would be to get a clear picture of what your dreamed homestead would look like.

    Why is a clear picture of your homestead so important?

    Because there are many different homesteads. Everybody has his/her own project with its own characteristics. And every type of homestead needs its own preparation.

    When your homesteading dream is to move out into the countryside and go completely off-grid you might need to research into solar panels and windmills. Your lifestyle might have to become very basic. For building your home you might be totally dependent on your own skills.

    But when your homestead dream is an urban homestead that is on the grid your emphasis of preparation might be on learning how to make as much out of your vegetable garden has you can. You might not need to build your own house and for repairs you might just hire someone from the neighbourhood in exchange for some vegetables.

    Getting the picture of your own unique homestead clear.

    There are two steps towards getting a clear picture of what your homestead would be like:

    1. What is your story? Why would you want to go homesteading?
    2. Picture your homestead.

     

    What is your story? Why do you want to homestead?

    To explain what I mean by “a story” I will tell you my own story and then get into how you can make your story.

    My story has a lot of similarities of what you would call a prepper nowadays. A prepper is someone who wants to prepare for when the big crisis comes and the world colapses in some way or another.

    What also drives me is that I want to show the world that we can live with nature instead of against nature. That is the way I keep my goats and treat our vegetable garden.

    These are two reasons why I wanted to start a homestead. It is like my background story, it is what drives me.

    My story. Why I wanted to homestead.

    I have been dreaming about my own homestead long before I started one. When I was at university, at the beginning of the 80th I had the idea of moving into the Pyrenees. This is a mountain range between France and Spain. I wanted to live in a community that would be independent and resilient to crisis like wars and global financial break down.

    Born in the year of the Cuba Crisis and grown up during the Cold War between the “West” and Russia these crisis were always a possibility, I thought. So my feeling was I had to be prepared when it would happen.

    To be prepared, for me, meant to be resilient, to be able to grow my own food and be able to live from foraging. I also wanted to be able to survive with little means.

    On the other hand I loved to be out in nature. My favourite things were sailing a boat, riding a horse and going for a hike in the mountains. I was also very much interested in the biology of plants.

    The two things combined, the wish to be resilient and my love of being outside in nature, made me want to move out into the countryside one day and start my own small self-sufficient farm.

    On my small farm I wanted to grow my own vegetables and fruit trees, have some chickens and a goat or two. That would cover my needs, I thought. The basic idea evolved since then and I grew older and wiser. To be fair some luxuries were added to the basic idea, still I did not go very far from it.

    To get some practice I rented an allotment back in the 80th and started cooking from scratch. Later as a student I travelled through Europe and met like minded people. I visited the communities where they lived, in France and Spain.

    My first though was to start a small farm in the Pyrenees but then when I visited Portugal I discovered that I would love to go there.Years later my parents and I bought a piece of land in the south of Portugal where we started to develop our own small 9 acre homestead farm: Terra do Milho.

     

    Your story might be totally different. There are so many different reasons why people want to homestead.

    A friend of mine who lives a mountain ridge to the north, some 30 minutes driving from here, moved out into the countryside with his partner because he can not stand the noises of suburbia. Apart from that he absolutely loves to work in the forest. So they live in a very quiet place with an amazing forest.

    Another friend moved out into the countryside because she wanted a quiet place to make her paintings and to grow her own food. She has a lovely place in a small hamlet.

    The reason you want to start your homestead could be that you admire nature’s patterns, like Henry David Thoreau.

    Your story is what drives and motivates you. It will also influence your homestead. The things that will be part of your homestead and where your homestead will be.

    From knowing what drives you to start your homestead you will be able to know what activities you want to develop on your homestead.

     

    An Exercise

    So the first thing you could do is think about your story and try to get it on paper. Writing it down will help you to get your story clear. Some people prefer to make a Mindmap, I think that would also work. Just take some time and put it on paper.

    This exercise can be done on your own, but when you are going to start a Homestead with your family it might be a good idea to do this together. You could talk about it at the kitchen table. After that you could make some notes as a memory support.

    Tip for a group or family (in een kadertje zetten): With your family, you could also make it into game by letting everybody put 3 important things that drives him or her to go homesteading on a posted (1 posted per thing). Than order this on the kitchen wall or on a whiteboard.

    You can do this more or less intuitive, on lose pieces of paper that will get lost, like I do. I just use the writing down to bring some order in my thoughts. Ones that is done I do not need the written stuff any more.

    Some people like to make a notebook where they write down everything so they can look into the process they have gone through in a later stage.

    What will work for you is good. Feel free to find out what works best for you. As long as you sit down and put it on paper.

    Try to make your own story by answering the following questions:

    1. What motivates you to want a homestead? What moves you?
    2. Why is it important for you to start a Homestead?
    3. Read my story if you need some inspiration.

    Take your time..

    Picture your homestead

    Picture your homestead.

    Now you know your story you will know what is important to you. From there it is another step to get a clearer picture from the homestead you want. Let’s try to get a clear picture from the homestead you want based on your story.

    Say that you do not want to eat treated vegetables any more because you think it is not healthy for your kids. That is why you want to grow your own vegetables and have your own chickens. This means that growing your own vegetables and having chickens will most likely be part of your homestead.

    If it would be the case that this is the only reason that you want to start a homestead you might just start one where you are. Stuffing your backyard with vegetables and turn your home into a thriving urban or suburban permaculture homestead.

    But maybe living in the woods is also one of your important wishes to start a homestead. In that case you might need to find a place in the woods where you can grow your vegetables and have your chickens.

     

    An Exercise

    Try to get a clear picture from the homestead you want based on your story by answering the following questions:

    1. Make a list of 3-5 most important reasons why you want to go homesteading. E.g. you want to eat healthy organic food, you want to live self sufficient, or because you love silence to meditate, it could be anything. You can check your story.
    2. Make a list of 5-10 most important activities you want to do on your Homestead. Things like growing your own food, canning your own grown food surplus, keeping chickens or other animals or running a restaurant or s small dairy factory.
    3. Try to relate 1. and 2.

    Write it down or make a Mindmap.

    Here is an example:

    My 4 important reasons to start a homestead are that I would love to:

    1. live self sufficient;
    2. live in the countryside;
    3. work with goats;
    4. to sell my own products.

    The important activities on my homestead would be:

    I want to live self sufficient and I love goats so: (1) On my homestead I will grow vegetables (2) keep goats for (3)milking and (4)making cheese and I will (5) keep chickens for eggs. I also want to fill my pantry with food when there is none in the garden so I will start (6) canning my vegetables and fruit. For the fruit I will (7) grow fruit trees. (8) I will run a restaurant to sell my own vegetables, fruit and cheese.

    My list of activities would be:

    • Growing vegetables
    • Keeping goats
    • Milking goats
    • Making cheese
    • Keeping chickens for eggs
    • Canning
    • Growing fruit trees
    • Running a restaurant

     

    Prepare yourself for your unique homestead.

    Now you know what activities you want to have on your homestead you can start researching on those activities. You can research on what skills you will be needing to be able to do those activities. You can actually start preparing for homesteading.

    When one of your activities would be to have a vegetable garden than you can investigate on that topic. What skills do you need for vegetable gardening? What does it take to have your own vegetable garden? Which things do you need to know? How to start a vegetable garden? What tools do you need or want to use?

    There is a lot of information on the internet about starting a vegetable garden. You just need to type in your question into the google search bar and google will go and look for you. You can find many blogs on the topic and you can also find books for starters.

    Or you can check my blogs on starting a vegetable garden: Where To Start Your Vegetable Garden, Some Things To Consider. Click here to go to the first blog of a series.

    You could do the same internet  and book research on any other activity you want to develop on your homestead. Like with keeping chickens or running a restaurant.

    Practising homesteading skills

    Apart from internet research you could also go volunteering or even get small paid jobs to practice.

    My friend, who wants to start working with goats here on our farm, organised herself a job at a goats cheese maker on her free Saturdays. This way she not only learns about the types of cheeses but also gets to know people who are keeping goats, since these goat keepers are part of the cheese makers network. This way she can gather a lot of information by talking to the cheese maker and the goat keepers. And she even gets paid!

    It can really be fun to get all the skills you want or need, for your homestead together. All along the many years I learned myself a lot of skills I thought I needed to have when I would move out into a community or to start a small farm for myself. From carpentry, building skills to gardening, cooking from scratch and preserving food. And I enjoyed it a lot since those were the things I wanted to do on my future homestead. Which I was looking forward to.

    The whole preparation towards homesteading was not so much done in one go, it was a slow process. When I started I was at university in the 80th, when I moved out into the countryside it was the year 2010. Many years I was just living in suburbia while I was practising my homesteading skills.

    Catching your homesteading dream

    Tips to break away and realise your dream right now.

    When you have a picture of your future homestead and you have your list of skills that you need to practice, you can start right there. You do not need to have a homestead to start learning homesteading skills. Start doing what you dream about, right where you are.

      • By doing research on every question or doubt that pops up you will gather a lot of knowledge as well.
      • Start with small steps and keep on going. Take your time. When you sit down and look at your list of activities you might think of other things you can start doing right now.
      • By starting to do things right now you are going in the right direction. Step by step you will get closer to what you will need to start your homestead. Slowly you will transform your lifestyle into a homesteaders lifestyle.

    Start your vegetable garden.

      • Small scale or big scale, there are so many options. In pots on a balcony, in your backyard or in a rented allotment.
      • This way you will learn about growing different vegetables and also how to use garden tools. By the time you will start your homestead you will own most of the garden tools that you like to use. This way you will not only learn new skills but also learn what you need to get the job done.
      • Find out more about starting a vegetable garden by clicking here: Where To Start Your Vegetable Garden, Some Things To Consider.

    Learn homesteading kitchen skills.

      • Start canning with bought seasonal fruit and vegetables that you can buy for cheap. With 2-3 kg of fruit you can already make a few jars of jam. This is a very good way to learn how to make jam. You can do the same with making chutney from vegetables. Look up recipes, find out what you need by researching on the internet or talking to people who have the skills for canning.
      • Start cooking from scratch, you will learn how to use vegetables from your own garden.
      • Find out more about homesteading kitchen skills by clicking here: 4 Easy To Learn Homesteading Kitchen Skills For Starters

    Become a handy(wo)man in the house

      • Start making your own furniture to practice carpentry. When you need a chair in your backyard, why not make your own? Pick some simple design from the internet and try it out. You will learn a skill and also learn what tools are best to use. Especially with carpentry using the right tools is very important.
      • Repair everything that needs to be fixed yourself. This is a way to learn many skills. Repairing your plumbing, flush toilet, doors, desks, windows, lights and more, will make you skilful in many things. They will all come very handy when you have your homestead.
      • While you are repairing things in your house you get a good idea how things work, from there it is only a small step to designing your own thing. E.g. when you know how a flush toilet works you will know how to build part of your own aquaponics system. This is a system in which plants are grown in water with a soil-less media. You could then build a small aquaponics system on your balcony. Just as an example how you can learn to build complex self sustaining systems by just repairing things in your house.

    Get experience.

      • Get a Saturday job in a restaurant to see what it is like to run one. Or get a weekend job on a farm. Any farm that comes close to what you want to do yourself on your own homestead.
      • Start volunteering at a local small scale organic farm where you can learn many homesteading skills like taking care of farm animals or growing vegetables. Small scale farms often need an extra hand. Many things on small scale farms are still done manually and not with big machines. They can be ideal places for learning. Besides this you might also find like minded people that are willing to help you to develop your ideas about homesteading.

    What will be the next steps to prepare for Homesteading?

    After the first steps there is much more to investigate and to prepare. Especially when you want to move out into the countryside.

    When you want to stay in the urban or suburban area it will save you some steps.

    The first steps that are discussed in this blog are more like a foundation on which you can build. Build on that foundation you can continue to prepare for your own homestead.

    Here are some topics that will be useful to look into.

    [info icon=”fas fa-info-circle” ]Some of the topics are already covered in our blog, others will be the coming month. When you do not want to miss any of the new blogs please subscribe at the end of this page.[/info]

    The Best Homestead Location, What You Need To Know.

    Something that will take some time is to look for the right location for your homestead. The right location would be a location that fits with your ideas about your homestead. If you want to grow vegetables you would want to have good soil, enough sunlight and lot’s of water on your location. For keeping goats your location might need to have totally different qualities. So what will be the best location in your case will depend a lot of what you want to do with your homestead.

    If you want to know more about how to find the right location for your homestead: click here.

    Building your own house or using an existing house.

    Some homesteaders build their own house, others bought a piece of land with an existing house and added some things that they needed. When you want to rent a place, you are most likely going to use the existing buildings on the site. In that case you would probably not change a lot since it is not your own. All these options have their pro’s and con’s and are worthwhile looking into. Even the option of staying where you are and turning your site into a homestead can be worthwhile looking into.

    Off grid / On grid

    What does it mean to be off grid? Well it can mean that you do not take electricity or/and drinking water from the grid. I use “or/and” because it can be both or just one of the two. We are off grid with our drinking water. Not that we wish to, but there is no grid where we live. Our friends some valleys away are off grid electricity wise and water wise because there is no electricity grid either where they have their small farm.

    In some cases there is a grid available but homesteaders do not want to use it because the idea is to be self sufficient even on electricity and water. There are pro’s and con’s to this approach. For us it is not affordable to be off grid with our electricity, it is a costly affair. But when money is not a limiting factor, or if you want to live where there is no grid, it might be a good option for you.

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area.

    This brings me to a related topic. How far away from everything do you want to be? Some people like to stay close to their kin, others want to live in the middle of nowhere and off grid. It depends very much on what you think is important for your life and your homestead.

    I made a blog on this topic to discuss the pro’s and con’s of this topic. Click here to read more.

    The financial side of starting a homestead.

    • What budget do you need to start a homestead?
    • How can I make money on a Homestead?
    • Can I make money with my homestead or combine it with a job?

    You might have one of these very important questions. The answer goes to far for this blog post but they will be addressed in the very near future. Subscribe to this blog if you do not want to miss it (scroll down).

    To give you an idea: this is briefly our own situation. We started a homestead with hardly any budget. We already had our house more or less build before we moved in. My husband is a comedian who works in Holland and goes there whenever he has a gig. Additional we sell some of our products. In the near future we want to sell goat dairy products, we are developing a project on it now.

    Some people in our area took a different approach. They sold their previous house for good money and from that money they build up their homestead here in the serra.

    Starting from a more well of situation is different. It does not only have pro’s. When you start with a small budget you might end up making better investments since you will have to think twice before you spend your dear money.

    Speeding up things, because you have the money to invest in you pocket, can be an advantage in some cases but in other case it is better to take more time for a decision.

    I think there are possibilities for both situations, for people with a small or with a big budget.

    Preparing yourself for your homestead will be a process.

    Looking back at the questions we started with: How do you prepare yourself for your future homestead? What do you need to prepare yourself for? What knowledge do you need? And what skills? Should at least be partly answered by now. Some questions will take some time to answer.

    As you go on researching and preparing you will find out things you had never heard of or you mind run into things that you do not like doing at all. In that case you might have to change your plans a bit (or even a lot) and take it from there.

    You might start with the idea of moving out into the countryside and end up with a plan for an suburban homestead or vise versa. That is perfectly okay. It only means that you have done your preparation very well.

    I wish you a lot of fun and luck preparing you homestead. Please feel free to post your questions down below in the comment box.

    How to prepare for your Homestead

     

  • The Best Homestead Location, what you need to know.

    The Best Homestead Location, what you need to know.

    What is the best location for a homestead? What should we consider? How do we know if this place is good for our dreamed Homestead?

    Buying a piece of land to live from is not a light decision to make. After all it is quite an investment in time and money. That is how we felt when we were looking for a piece of land many years ago.

    I still remember roaming the area. We decided to buy something in the south of Portugal. Then we became more specific and wanted a piece of land in the Serra de Monchique.

    One of our considerations was that we wanted something in the middle of nature.

    Starting a Homestead in a Remote Area

    Friends of us had moved to the Serra de Monchique, a mountain range in the south of Portugal. They chose for a very remote place.

    I stayed at their place for almost a year. In the evenings it was absolutely silent. You could hear the train running into the Saboia station 30 km away, not a sound would interfere. During the days the Serra was filled with humming bees and other insects collecting honey, the sounds of all these beautiful creatures together was one big loud hum. It was incredible.

    The views were amazing and the air was clear and healthy. Everything was lush and green. I loved it and dreamed of living the same way.

    In the last month I was staying there I was looking for a piece of land for me and my parents. My parents had agreed to buy a piece of land in the Serra de Monchique to stay on after their pension. I wanted to live in nature, so we chose to go to look for something together.

    A remote area is a challenging place

    Living in a remote place can be a great adventure, but it also has it’s challenging sides. After many years, we bought in 1995, I am happy that we compromised on a site that has a remote feeling but is actually not that far from the small town of Monchique. I found it very tempting to buy something very remote, but now I am happy we did not.

    This might be different for you, or maybe you haven’t decided yet. Even if you are thinking of going to live very remote it will still be interesting to know what you have to take into account. It’s always good to be well prepared.

    Based on our and our homesteading friends experience I wrote a blog in which you can read about the challenges that come with living in a remote area. Like the distance you will have to travel to shops, doctors and schools. Or even to the marketplace where you want to sell your surplus.

    Click here to view the blog: “Starting a Homestead in a Remote Area”.

    Starting a Homestead In a Remote Area.

    Finding a Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    While we were looking for our land we made more friends that were very helpful to us. Without their tips we would not have been able to find Terra do Milho, our beautiful piece of land in the Serra de Monchique in the Algarve.

    One other tip that we got is that we have to look for a place with sufficient fresh water. Enough for our household and for irrigating the land. Although de Serra de Monchique is known for its water in general, some places can still be dry in summer. The summer can be long and dry and sufficient water for irrigating is very important for producing food, let alone for running a household. Since we wanted to produce our own food we would not be able to do so without enough water.

    It all starts with finding out how much water you will need and end with how to get that amount of water.

    In my blog about finding a Homestead Location with good and sufficient freshwater you will find all the tips that helped us so well when we were looking for our homesteading location. It will also give you some tips how to find out how much water you will need.

    Click here to go to this blog: “Finding a Homestead location with good and sufficient Freshwater”.

    Finding A Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Our neighbour friends down in the valley have an amazing piece of land. It is situated between two creeks that meet at the very end of their land. In the summer the place is nice and cool.

    But there is also a dawn side that our friend regret. It is facing north. I the hot summers from our mediterranean climate living at a north facing location is very pleasant. Especially when the sun takes a while before it rises above the mountains and hits the soil. In winter however it is cold and there is not much light to change a solar panel.

    Our pieces of land are only half a km apart, yet their fruit ripens two weeks later. In summer our friends can grow lettuce in their garden, something we can forget about, because we are facing south.

    So there are pro’s and con’s on both sides it is good to know in advance what you can expect. In this case both locations are beautiful to live on. Sometimes sites can be so deep in valley and shaded by mountains that living on them becomes a challenge because there is not enough sunlight in winter.

    When you choose a location it might be in the middle of the summer. How are you going to find out if there will be enough sunlight in the winter? For your solar panel or for your wintergarden?

    In my blog “The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun” I will give you the information you will need to find out. Click here to read the blog.

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Things To Avoid When Picking Your Homestead Location

    Besides things to look for there are also things I would avoid to have on my homestead location.

    Little creeks can become destructive small rivers. A place with an amazing view in summer can be hidden in the clouds from the whole winter. Soil pollution can be best avoided and wildfires can be a reason not to move into an area.

    In my blog “6 Things To Avoid When Picking Your Homestead Location” I will discuss 6 things to avoid. Click here to go to the blog.

    6 Things to Avoid When Picking Your Homestead Location

    A good start.

    All together the 4 topics in this blogs will give quite a complete idea what to look for when you are choosing a location to start your own Homestead. It will help you to get on your way without buying something you would regret when you are getting started.

    No location will be perfect but at least you will be able to rule out things that are really in the way of living in your homestead with some comfort.

    I wish you all the luck of the world to find your dreamed homestead location.

    Find out more…

    Find out more about starting your own homestead on our Terra do Milho website. Click here and go to Homesteading For Beginners.

    Pinterest Pin for the best Homestead Location

  • 6 Things to Avoid When Picking Your Homestead Location

    6 Things to Avoid When Picking Your Homestead Location

    When you are looking for the right place for your Homestead there is a lot to think about. In this series of blogs we will cover the major things.

    Apart from things you want on your land like enough sunlight and good quality fresh water, there are also things to avoid when you are picking the right location for your future Homestead.

    In this blog we cover some of the things you’ll be wanting to avoid.

    It is not always possible to exclude all the risks that are described in the topics below, but it is good to realise that the risk is there so safety measures can be taken.

    Too Much Water

    At some time of the year, at some locations there is too much water. You might not see it right away.

    Creeks and rivers can overflow and do damage to a site. Water can run down the mountain into a house. Terraces can be swept away. Whole pieces of land can be taken by a big river. There are all sorts of “too much water” problems.

    Too much water is not necessarily going to be a huge problem as long as it is manageable. And the potential to manage the water has to be available on the Homestead land. Like at our Homestead.

    Our Homestead is on a steep mountain slope. Above the house there is a big rainwater drainage channel that deals with too much rain water. It prevents the rain from running down the mountain into our house. As long as we keep it unblocked the water will stay away from the house. It needs maintenance but is manageable.

    Drains, dikes, overflows are features that will help to manage too much water. Emergency systems for a whole area can warn you when there is a danger for floods.

    How to check if the location has a “too much water” problem?

    Small Creeks Become Rivers

    During or after heavy rains small rivers and creeks can rise rapidly in the mountains. High up in the mountains it might not be a big problem because the creeks are very steep and the water will wash down quickly. Further downstream the water from all the small streams will collect in bigger streams, that is the point where the trouble starts. Small streams and creeks can become violent rivers.

    This is what you can do: check creeks and rivers. At the sides of the creeks and rivers that overflow you will notice that there is straw and sometimes plastic and rubbish hanging in the lower parts of the shrubs and trees. Based on how high the rubbish is hanging in the trees you can see how high the water rises.

    Now you can check if the buildings on the site are above the high water line or whether there is enough higher ground to build your Homestead.

    High Water Marks on Buildings

    In areas where there have been frequent floods you can sometimes find marks on buildings. Finding these marks in close by towns could mean that you find yourself in an area with frequent flooding.

    Research About the Area

    Other ways to find out about flooding problems in an area is to google the area. You can google something like floods in (your place). Or floods in (local river).

    Historical maps can also reveal were rivers used to flow in the past. Some big rivers like the Mississippi, shifted a lot. Taking away whole farms and making new land in the old river beds.

    Easiest is probably going for a local meal or coffee and ask the people from the restaurant or bar. Pictures on the wall from such places can also tell you stories about the surroundings.

    Houses Below a Water Dam

    Something I am always a bit cautious about is the presence of a water dam. Small or big, to me they always seem a risk. Some big dams are obviously strong build but I would always check for warning systems and safety overflows.

    Some dams, like in our area, are small but still carry enough water to swap away a house. Since these dams are not tested in any way I would never build my house below one and always be sure that the water would run through a safety run off when it would break.

    When you are living in the US, the state you want to move to will have some information about safety issues and dams. It would be wise to check it out.

    My Friend The Wind

    Something to be aware of is the amount of wind exposure a location has. Wind can be a help if you want to generate energy. It can cool a site and make it liveable. But too much wind can also spoil your dreams and bring in wildfires.

    A good source to find out more about the wind direction on a location is the weather forecast. When you have a crush on a location it might be a good idea to follow the weather forecast for the area. When you follow the weather of an area a year or longer you will get a good impression of the prevailing winds.

    Another thing you can do is to look carefully at the trees. Trees that are standing in the wind that comes often from the same direction will grow in the direction of the wind. You do need to find some trees that are standing alone. The more wind from one direction, the more bent the trees are.

    Homestead wind trees

    In the mountains wind directions can sometimes be surprising. We live in a valley that is directed east west. So we get the easterly and westerly winds. But a heavy wind that is blowing from the south we might not notice at all.

    So when you plan to buy some land in the mountains: check the mountains around you. How sheltered are you from the heavy winds (check the weather forecast which winds these are). The higher you are above the surrounding mountains the more exposed you will be for the winds.

    Most of the time you will be able to create wind shelters but you have to keep in mind that it can take many years before a wind hedge will have grown to a proper height.

    Some friends of us nearby bought a very windy place without knowing it. For many years they could hardly sit outside in front of their house. Now they have a very sheltered place with high hedges and some walls and it is wonderful.

    Living In the Clouds

    Some areas on the mountain that we live on can get a lot of clouds. During wet winters some houses are in a cloud all winter long. Despite of the amazing views over the ocean in summer, there is no view at all in winter.

    Living in a cloud means living in a very damp place, everything gets wet and keeping the house dry is not at all easy.

    Homesteading

    Clouds are most likely to appear high in the mountains but some areas along the cost can carry the same burden. Where cold sea air and warm land meet, fog can occur for longer periods as well.

    How do you know if a location is at such a spot? Best is to ask around in the local bar or shop. People who live there will know. The previous owner might not tell you…

    Pollution

    Pesticides, herbicides and other cides

    A good friends of mine has an organic farm in Holland. Sometimes it is really complicated for them that their neighbours spray pesticides. This is not an unusual situation since the bigger part of the farming world uses pesticides. Sprayed by hand or, even worth, by plane.

    Even if you do not want to officially certify your produce, you might want to grow them x-cides free. So you might want to check out if there is any interference with the pesticides that neighbours use, or if they use any. Best is to politely ask if the neighbours are farming organic.

    Some guys around here even spray herbicides on river banks, although not allowed nobody checks it. I think this is very sad, but it is hard to convince them not to spray so close to the river. Big yellow patches along riversides and in fields can indicate the use of herbicides.

    Cattle and Pig Farms

    Nearby where we live, along the Monchique river there are many places where pigs are raised. Although not allowed, farmers that raise pigs sometimes dump the pig shit into the river. It has improved a bit the past decade. Before that the water in the river was always black, now it is occasionally black. Some of the smaller rivers have the same problem.

    When you chose a piece of land with a river on it you can check what is happening up stream. By walking or driving up the river. Another way to check it is by using google earth. You can see if you find anything suspicious and then go there and check it out.

    Hidden Pollution

    One day I read on the internet about a family that moved out into the countryside. They started a vegetable garden and happily lived for some years. Until they, with a shock, found out that they were living on an old dumpyard and that the soil was polluted with heavy metals. I do not remember exactly how they found out, but I remember that I was shocked too.

    Best is to try to find out something about the history of the area. Was it an old industrial area? In the past industrial waste was just dumped in the landscape, people did not know about the consequences or did not want to know because of the costs involved to properly dispose the waste.

    Some chemicals can stay in the soil for a long time, heavy metals surely do. Some areas where areas with facturies. The factories might have disappeared and it looks like nature has taken over again making pollution invisible. The soil can be polluted not by the dumped waste but just by the fact that the production process was leaky.

    Wildfires

    From the time that we bought our land we knew that wildfires are natural in this area. what we did not know is that policies would change and more blue gum eucalyptus trees would be planted on the mountains we live in. The combination of changes in the climate, the natural occurrence of wildfires and the blue gum planted densely together form an explosive combination bringing about very dangerous wildfires.

    Homesteading

    We managed to keep our farm in one piece and could save all our animals from the last wildfire in 2018. It is manageable to a certain extent. Still when you buy a piece of land in a wildfire risk area you will have to take into account that the wildfire might happen one day and you have to be prepared.

    For some of my friends it meant that they did not move into the mountains of Monchique, where we live. They chose not to take that risk. You might want to think about it whether you could deal with the risk of wildfires.

    No Place is Perfect

    It will be very hard to find a place that is perfect. Our friends that did not want to live where we live because of wildfires now live in an area that has a higher risk for desertification. On riverbanks and in valleys you will find the best soils for gardening, but then your garden might be flooded sometimes.

    Sure you would avoid pollution in the soil and a neighbour that sprays x-cides close to your organic garden. But sometimes we also have to compromise. As long as you know what the risks are you will be able to prepare yourself for the worst. So avoiding might not always be realistic, being prepared is.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area

    Finding A Homestead Location With Good And Sufficient Fresh Water

  • Finding A Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    Finding A Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    Having good quality fresh water is essential for your Homestead. Water is essential to life. You will not be able to survive on a location without water. Water is needed for cleaning and drinking, for us humans and for our animals and plants.

    From our experience we know how essential it is to find a location with sufficient water. In this blog you will find the information you need to find a Homestead Location with good and sufficient fresh water.

     

    Resources of water you can find on a location

     

    On a Homestead there can be a view resources of water:

    • Rainwater that is collected: rainwater can be collected on a roof or any other clean flat surface. This rainwater can be stored in a big tank for use.
    • Surface water: spring, creeks, rivers, lakes: water from these resources can be stored in a tank for use.
    • Water that is pumped up from deeper level through a borehole: in some areas there will not be enough water on the surface or not be sufficient rain. There can be underground sources like an aquifer. You can tap into these aquifers by making a borehole and using a pump to pump the water up.
    • The grid: some places will be simply connected to the grid of a town or village.

    You will need one of these resources on your homestead as a basic minimum. It will be securer to have more resources available at the same time.

     

    What do you need the water for?

     

    On the Homestead you will need two types of freshwater

    1. Treated fresh water of a good quality for your household and for animal husbandry.
    2. Untreated fresh water for irrigation. This water does not need to be potable but still needs a good quality for not poisoning your crop. When your water resource provides a good fresh water quality you can also use the water for animals.

     

    How much water do you need to run a Homestead?

     

    How do I know how much water I need?

    From your water bill you can easily read how much water you are consuming. The amount can be rather shocking.

    Are you going to use the same amount of water on your homestead? You might. When you think that you can bring down your water consumption try it while you are still where you are. This way you can practice and see where you will end up when you do your best to save water. Doing so you will know what the minimum amount of water needed for your household will be. It will also be useful to figure out what uses most water.

    Now, your household will be one thing. Running a homestead with trees and a vegetable garden will be another thing. You might even want to keep animals that will need water too. A Homestead household will most likely use more water than an apartment. The irrigation of a vegetable garden and trees takes much more water than a household.

    That does not mean that the ecological impact of living on a Homestead is bigger than of living in an apartment in a town. A lot of the water consumption of living in a town is hidden and not direct. The vegetables that are consumed in an apartment were watered too. It just does not appear on your water bill.

    Any way, the thing that is important to know is that you might use more water for your Homestead then what you would expect.

     

    The influence of climate zones on water consumption

     

    The amount of water that you will need in your orchard or garden will depend heavily on the climate that you will be living in with your Homestead.

    In Holland, which has a temperate climate we would never water the fruit trees. In Portugal, where we live now, in summer we have to water the fruit trees twice a week. Portugal has a mediterranean climate.

    The amount of water that you need depends on the annual rainfall and evaporation.

    In Holland it rains all year round. There are some exceptional year in which you might have to water your orchard. But it never used to be the standard.

    In Portugal it rains during the winter and the summers are dry. The evaporation in summer will be much higher than in Holland because the temperatures in summer are much higher in Portugal. That is why we need to water the trees in summer in Portugal.

    For the vegetable garden it is a bit different. We did water our vegetable garden in Holland sometimes. In Portugal we water it a lot.

     

    Water Consumption and soil

     

    The climate you will be living in will be the main influence on the amount of water that you will need for your Homestead. However the soil will be of an influence too. Sandy soils will consume a lot more water than clay-loam soils.

    To find out more about soil click on the link:

    How to Analysing the soil from your vegetable garden.

     

     

    To get an idea about the numbers in water use

     

    The Orchard

    Here in Portugal each tree, each time, gets something like 20 l (two buckets). When you have 100 trees it means you will need 4000 l a week. The summer without rain lasts up to 5 month. Well, that is about 80.000l of water in a summer.

    If you would use rainwater catchment in Portugal, you would need a tank of 80 m³ to collect enough water for the whole summer, to provide that amount of water. Since we have a small creek that flows the whole summer we can use a much smaller tank for daily use. Our irrigation tank for the vegetable garden and orchard is 6 m³, we empty and refill the tank twice a day.

    The size of the tank that you will need depends a lot on the inflow and use of water.

    The vegetable garden

    I do not have measured figures of what our vegetable garden needs but this is my estimate: 6 m³ per week for about 400 m². That is another 120 m³ added for the whole summer. I am sure you can bring this number down by watering more efficient, which we will do in the future.

    The total use of water for irrigating

    Still if you could bring the number down to halve, being 60 m³ you will still need 140 m³ of water for the orchard and vegetable garden together in a summer for 100 fruit trees and 400 m² of vegetable garden.

    This is just to indicate that you will need a lot of water when you are growing things in a Mediterranean climate, which usually has wet winters. You will need a serious water recourse to run your homestead. Especially in areas where there is a high evaporation in summer.

     

    How do you know whether the location you want to explore has enough water?

    Surface water resources

    It is important that rivers and creeks run all year around, especially in the summer month when you need most water. A small creek like we have can be enough.

    Water from some lakes can be used as fresh water. You might be lucky to have excess to such a lake. Lakes however have to be big. I am not talking about something the size of a big pond, but a real huge lake. The water quality of big ponds can be very questionable for fresh water use. However some big ponds size lakes can function as a rainwater collecting tank. This water can, in some circumstances be used as fresh water when treated.

    Rainwater

    Rainwater collection can get you a long way, but you need to be sure that there is enough rain in the climate zone you want to start your homestead in. Since the weather is never predictable years ahead I would never solely depend on this water recourse, but combine it with other resources.

    Important is also that you have enough surface to collect the water and a tank that is big enough to store it. Our neighbors are very happy with the rainwater collected from their roof during winter. They store it in a big tank below the house. The collected rainwater is enough for the household in most years, but never enough for irrigating their orchard and vegetable garden.

    For the location you want to buy, you will have to check the annual rainfall to know whether you will have enough rain for your household. Don’t forget these are averages over many years. So there will be years with more or less rainfall.

    Although very coarse, this map gives an indication (also check the evaporation map):

    http://www.waterandclimatechange.eu/rainfall/average-monthly-1985-1999

    Boreholes

    Concerning boreholes you have to measure if they deliver enough. Boreholes can also run dry depending on the source they tap in. Especially when they are not deep enough.

    Borehole pumps can break and they are costly to replace.

    When you have to make a borehole check what the costs are, it can be very expensive. I personally would avoid having a borehole. But maybe you do not have a choice.

    The grid

    A grid would most likely provide you with enough water. But it is better to check it out.

    Water from the grid can be cheaper then having your own water. This will not be true for all areas in the world. But it is for us.

    The water quality of our creek is very high. However we do need even higher standards for drinking water because we have a rental place on our land. We rent out a holiday house during the summer month. This requires a licence on the water quality, meaning that we need some expensive filters to make top quality drinking water. Although it sound romantic to have your own fresh water resource, making your own water filter system work can be quite an effort and costly.

    Water from the grid might not sound “homesteady”, but is definitely worth checking out. If we would have excess to the grid I would use it. This would have made our renting out a lot easier.

     

    Water quality: salinity, minerals, pollution

    Salinity

    Water in coastal areas can be saline even when it comes out of a borehole. With an increasing water usage in a coastal area, fresh water levels can drop. This can result in more salt water from the sea pressing itself into the underground.

    Even some inland areas can have problems with salt water in deeper levels.

    I areas where hardly anything wants to grow, salt water can be a problem.

    Minerals in the water

    Another mineral that can decrease the water quality is iron. You can recognize this when a creek has loose rust colored flakes at the sides. This means that the springs can contain water with a high iron level. This problem can be solved, but it would be better to have a none ironed source as well.

    On our land we have a spring that contains iron, we will only use it in case of emergency. It needs to be heavily filtered. The filters need a lot of maintenance. Normally we use water from a clear spring or from our creek.

    Chemical pollution

    Water pollution can also be a worry when choosing a site. You will actually have to take a look at the creeks and lakes near the site you are checking to know.

    Water from resources can be best tested when in doubt. There are some do it yourself kits on the market to make a quick test on chemical pollution.

     

    Water, water, water

     

    We have talked about the main resources of water that you can find for your homestead. From there we looked into the amount of water that is needed to run a homestead and also how you can recognize whether a site has enough water for your needs. We briefly looked into some water quality issues.

    Seen from our experience, these are the main things around the topic of fresh water to consider when you are looking for a Homestead.

    When you still have some questions about this topic please leave a comment below in the comment section. We will try our best to help you out.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area

    Homestead and Freshwater

  • The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    The sun is important for a lot of things. Your vegetable garden will not thrive without enough direct sunlight. The use of solar panels is only worth the effort when you have enough direct sunlight at the right angle. Light in your house during the day is desirable.

    Knowing the position of the sun on your location is key to whether you will have enough sunlight on your Homestead.

    At the other hand shade can also be important in places where it gets very hot in summer. Having to much hot burning sunshine in your vegetable garden will not be good for your lettuce and radishes. These crops, that need a lot of moisture will not grow in the burning hot sun.

    Your house might heat up to much, instead you would want some coolness in the house in hot summers.

    The latitude and the position of the sun

    Why is it important to consider the latitude where you are? Apart from that the latitude partly defines the climate zone you are in, it also defines the height of the sun and the number of sun hours per day.

    The higher the latitude the lower the maximum height of the sun. At a higher altitude the days will be longer in summer and shorter in winter.

    The lower the altitude the less this difference in length of day and night get. In the tropics the days and nights are always almost equally long.

    What you need to know about the sun’s position on your location

    How to use this knowledge when you are looking for your ideal Homestead location?

    There are two ways to use this knowledge for finding your Homestead location.

    The first research behind your desktop

    You can either look it up on a map and figure out what the position of the sun is on a location. You will have to look up the position of the sun in different seasons to get a complete picture. This way of figuring out the positions sun on a location might be useful in the first coarse surges for a location. Like when you are still working out a location behind your desktop. You will find out more about this at the end of the blog.

    Checking out the sun´s position at the location

    Once you have fount an area and you are going to investigate pieces of land the other way of inquiring the suns position comes in.

    While you are standing at the location you want to check out, imagine that you are the center of the universe and picture the following things:

    Picture the sun´s arch

    1. Where exactly on the location does the sun rise and where does it set? Midsummer and midwinter, since this can be very different.
    2. How high does the sun rise? Midsummer and midwinter. This is something you will have to look up and estimate or ask for specifically (scroll a bit down to “Looking Deeper into the Position of the Sun”). Knowing the altitude where you are can help you to find out.
    3. You will have to picture the arch that the sun makes midsummer and midwinter. This way you will get an idea how much sunlight you will have in both seasons. In summer you will have the maximum amount of sunlight and in winter the minimum amount.

    Where is the sun and where is the shade

    Once you know the sun´s arch in summer and winter, you can go a step further. The next thing will be: what time does the sun appear and disappear in midsummer and midwinter at the location? It seems to be something you can look up in a calendar.

    Yes, you can. And it will work on flat terrain, but it will be different when you are looking somewhere in the mountains for a location. Mountains will be blocking the sun and will make a big difference in the amount of sun hours that you will get on a specific location.

    Apart from mountains you could be checking out a location for other obstacles that can block the sun, like buildings or large trees. Where do these objects shade the location in summer and winter.

    The location that you are checking out might be a larger area. Walk around on the location and see what differences there are on the location at any specific point.

    How does your homestead fit in?

    • How would that work out for your garden or for your solar panels?
    • What would it mean for the heating of your house?
    • Will the winter sun still heat up your house? Will the house be warming up to much in summer?
    • At what time in spring would the sun hit your house or vegetable garden for the first time?
    • You will have to position all the objects you will want to have on your Homestead and figure out what sunlight and shade means to these objects. It can be anything like: house, chicken house, barn, vegetable garden, orchard, guesthouse, etc.

    Looking Deeper into the Position of the Sun

    The position of the sun per season

    This video made by the University of Nottingham gives a deeper inside about the position of the sun in different times of the year and in different altitudes.

    The exact position of the sun on your location

    For those who want to dive in even deeper this a tool that shows the exact position of the sun on any place on earth. It does not take the obstacles into account though. Based on the graphs you can picture it in real time. Although there is a tool that calculates the length of a shadow.

    Click on the link below for the tool that shows the exact position of the sun:

    SunEarthTools.com

    Being sure that your location is right for you

    I hope that this blog will help you to find the right location for your Homestead. Finding out the position of the sun can be of great help. Both methods of finding out about the amount of sunshine on your location, behind your desktop or on site will be useful in combination.

    The video and site that I found will help you a little further when you are interested in making a technical effort on the subject.

    If there is anything you would like to know more about the topic of the blog, do not hesitate to leave a question or comment below in the comment area.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    Finding A Homestead Location With Good And Sufficient Fresh Water

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area

    Best Homestead Location

  • Starting a Homestead In a Remote Area.

    Starting a Homestead In a Remote Area.

    Once you have decided to start your own Homestead one of the questions will be: where are we going to start our Homestead?

    Are you thinking of starting a Homestead in a remote area, please read on.

    Sure, I would not want to stop you from doing so. We did move out into the countryside, far from the city buzz and pollution. And we enjoy it very much.

    There are some things you really should consider though. Making the wrong choice here could make your dream more challenging than you thought. If you do choose for remoteness you better be prepared for the challenge.

    So when you have this itching tendency to get away as far as possible from where you are now, this is why you should not follow that feeling blindly.

    By the way: our place is about 6 km (15 min) from a small town and 20 km (45 min) from a bigger town with more facilities and shops. The roads are of a good quality. The area is very low populated. We are just far enough to have the remote feeling and close enough to have excess to what we need.

    The Long Way to the Shop

    Ones you are out in your Homestead you will be self-sufficient, that is why you do not need a shop any more. Wouldn’t that be ideal? Yes, I agree. But how realistic is it. Just look around in your house and you will know.

    Screwdrivers, screws, plates, jars, batteries, solar panels, building bricks, hinsches, saws, they do not grow in trees. And even if you are a handywoman like me, you will not be able to make everything yourself.

    Especially at the beginning. You will be lucky when your vegetable garden is a success in year one. Your just planted fruit trees will only carry enough fruit after about 6 years. How are you going to get your trees for planting? What are you going to eat those first years?

    The remoter you are the harder it becomes to get your Homestead going. Being in the mountains or living on the water can make it even harder.

    Even if your ultimate goal is to be totally self sufficient you will still need a shop every now and then when that time comes.

    It is an illusion to think you will never attend a shop anymore when you move out. The contrary might be the case. In the first years we travelled many kilometers to find all our building material.

    We have a big vegetable garden, but some years we simply do not manage to maintain it well enough because of all the activities on the farm. Like improving the goat shelter, making fences and taking care of our fruit trees. So some times of the year we use the vegetable shop to keep us fed.

    Although we have a lot ourselves, we still buy things from the supermarket. Every month we spend some 200€ in the supermarket. It might not be a lot, but we still have to go there.

    The same counts for the animal feeds, it is very hard to get all the feed from our farm, so we buy extra. It all pays back at the end. Which brings me to another consideration.

    Market stall

    Selling Products From Your Homestead

    Whether it is milk, cheese and eggs or handicraft. You will have to travel to the people to sell your products. Even if it is only to the local post office to ship your goods to your clients.

    If you want to live from your farm and sell some products you will need some clientele that lives not to far away from you.

    Being on a remote Homestead might mean you have to travel long distances to sell your things, which might not make it worth doing. In that case making a living becomes a real challenge.

    II am very happy our farm is just a 15 minutes drive from the small town of Monchique. This makes running a market stall every Friday to sell our produce very possible. We combine it with a Friday social lunch in one of the towns lovely restaurants and it makes it into a pleasure.

    Neighbours and Job Opportunities

    Many Homesteaders in the area where we live do small jobs for others. Like land maintenance, rental management, garden work or dog sitting or other things. Maybe you had something similar in mind.

    If so, consider living not too far from the people you want to work for. Here in the mountains the windy roads consume a lot of traveling time. A friend, whose land I can see from the top of our land lives 45 min driving (walking takes even longer) away.

    When you live in a big city, driving to your work in 45 minutes is not an exception. But be prepared to find the same kind of driving times to your work in the countryside. Going too remote will make these kind of jobs very hard to persevere.

    I gave up my rental management activities because the driving from one property to the other simply costed to much (unpaid) time. Now I am running my blog partly from home and partly from an office in the small town. My internet is too costly to run it all from home. There is always hurdles to take when you live remote, but I am happy as it works now.

    Internet & mobile phone

    A thing that might have crossed your mind is selling stuff through the internet. Which is very possible if you are doing some sort of affiliate sales or if you provide a service.
    You do need to make sure that there is internet reception in your place. There are some pretty good satellite facilities. But they will most likely be more expensive than the internet provider that you are used to.

    Ones you have internet you could also run your mobile phone on it. But do not expect any phone reception in remote areas.

    Cat

    Doctor and Vet

    When you want to live remote it is all going to be far away.

    A doctor and a vet (in case you want animals) can be needed in an emergency. It is a good thing to check whether they are around.

    The very friend that lives 45 min drive away, one time was unblocking her water pipe with an iron rod. It got stuck in the pipe and she tried to pull it out of the pipe. It suddenly came loose and drove right through her knee sticking out the other side of her knee. She managed to get it out herself and drive herself to the hospital. She was incredibly lucky. With a bit less luck she would have died in her remote place. Which is in the end only 10 km from the small town. Imagine being really remote.

    I realise this is a shocking story, but it is a reality to take into account. Working with a chainsaw or even an hand ax is not without danger. I will never use my chainsaw when there is nobody else on the land.

    I also realise that the distance to the small town which has an ambulance increases my chance of surviving an accident. The example with my friend shows that you do not need a chainsaw to have a bad accident.

    I was also very happy that I could drive one of my goats to the vet quickly after she had eaten very poisonous rhododendron.

    Very remote means you will have to deal with these life threatening things all by yourself. I would find that very stressful.

    Kids at School

    When you have children, a daily drive to school can be an effort when the school is far away. It is just another time consuming thing. Time that you would rather like to spend on your farm.

    Homeschooling is an alternative, but do not underestimate the time that it takes either. Sure it are your kids and you want the best for their future. Homeschooling however can be quite intense when it is combined with running a self-sustainable place. When you are very remote it might also be hard for the kids to meet other kids. Something the kids might also appreciate at a certain age. Some parents around here got really fed up driving their kids around for miles to other kids.

    Cabin fever

    Ever heard of cabin fever? Sometimes you just have to get out. Go to town, see and speak to other people. You get so restless that you just have to go. This is called cabin fever. It is well known amongst remote living Homesteaders.

    I always notice when people have cabin fever. They come by and drink a cup of tea at ours. And chat, and chat, and chat, endlessly. Then they say goodby and go into town just to be among more people. I do not know anybody around here who does not have it every now and then. You might have it too.

    Some people also like to be involved in social things in town to avoid the cabin fever. They are a member of a church or an association and do some good work in town.

    So again, being remote means being far away from social activities you might not like now, but also might miss ones you are remote.

    Wanting to move out

    Coming from a town’s life in a very busy country I do know the feeling of wanting to move out. I had that feeling. And I did move out.

    I had the feeling that I moved into the middle of nowhere, that feeling changed as things improved around us. It was very funny.

    When I came to live on our Homestead I had the feeling I was living very remote. My husband was a lot in Holland still to work and I was a lot on my own.

    Now my feeling is completely different. The road got improved, neighbours moved in, we have a much more suitable car for this area, we have a proper internet connection, many things have improved. Knowing what it is like to live remote as was the case at the beginning, I am so happy with these changes that brought me closer to the community.

    It gives me the opportunity to run a business. To be able to sell our produce and run my blog makes our chance to keep on living where we are now, so much higher. I enjoy the place where we are a lot. I can see the sea on the horizon, hear the birds singing and breath clean air. It’s golden.

    Summarised & find out more

    If you want to move out into a remote place take the distance have to drive to all that still bind you to a community. Like the distance to the shop for tools or for groceries, the job that you make money with at your neighbours, the vet, the school from your kids and the social events you might want to join. We are more connected to the world we live in then we think.

    Moving out far is worth considering very careful. Being in the world we are in now moving as far away as we can might seem very attractive, but as it has good sides it has challenging sides as well. It is important te be prepared for this move.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Finding A Homestead Location With Good And Sufficient Fresh Water

     

    Starting a Homestead