Small out building projects?

[Jaxom]

I'm not going to rehash my situation here yet again. But let's say for a moment, I'm done with the estate sale I've been talking about. I've managed to stay as long as possible in my current home, taking on temp jobs and banking every dime I could. Now I've moved to a more rural are of my state. While I many not find my ideal home. I might find that ideal property. I could very comfortably live in a one room shack, so long as I have a few acers of land around it, so I can garden and such.

In "year one" after buying this hypothetical homestead, my first goal will to be to establish a garden. At the same time I'll be reviewing the one room shack to make sure it's energy efficent as possible. Now this first garden will be small, I'm patient enough to slowly build towards an ultimate goal. Now as time progresses and I've expanded my garden. Then later on I may have also added in a chicken coup, and I'm also hunting and fishing. If I'm not growing it, or raising it, I'm hunting it down and killing it. I will need some means of storage above and beyond canning and freezing these food resources.

Now, like may other's have said, I came her via the website backyardchickens.com. Because I have an interest in raising my own chickens for both eggs and meat. While I may not be ready right now to rent or buy a property. I know what things I should be looking for, so that down the road I don't run into issues when I can expand. So this thread is just like any other research. To gain information to be applied at a later date.

If I can build a chicken coupe, the next to projects I would like to gain information on shouldn't be all that hard. I would just like to see what other's have done, as well as hear about comments pro and con, or changes you would have done after the fact, so to speak. One project is a root celler. Now if I were to rent/buy a home with a basement this wouldn't be that much of an issue. To remain as flexible as possible, I have to be prepared to living in a one room shack or a small trailer. Niether of which will have a root celler.

I do realize that some crops, like potatoes or brussel spouts can actually stay in the ground or in the garden longer or even over the whole winter. Infact I've heard some actually taste better when you allow them to do so! But other's like say apples won't. My idea of an ultimate garden will include fruit trees. While I can can some to make apple sauce, apple butter, and so on. I may just want to keep some whole apples in storage for just plain eating. I know this can be done in a root celler.

Another small out building I would like to see, or hear comments about is a small smoke house. Yeah, sure I can build one out of a 55gallon drum using my welding skills. But what about a small smoke house??? I have an online friend that makes a nice chunk of change supplimenting his normal income as a teacher. He lives down in south carolina, he hunts. Every year he takes 3-5 deer and as many hogs. He uses the smoke house to age the deer in before processing into sausage, burger meat or roasts/steaks. He does make some venision jerky though. But his smoke house is mainly for curing the hogs. He then either sells or trades his smoked hams, ribs and stuff. I think he also mentioned doing turkey's too,but I'd have to double check on that.

So, again I would like to hear comments, suggestions and such on building one these as well.

Thanks,

Jax

 

[lupinfarm]

If I were to look for a property right this minute, one big concern would be finding a property with an established orchard (not puny commercial orchard trees, we're talking homestead type trees). Fruit trees take a while to get going and the benefits of purchasing a property with an established orchard FAR out weigh the benefits of planting your own, at least for me.

Crabapples are a fantastic tree to plant as well, if you get into the orcharding idea. If you buy crabapples and intend on canning, the crabapples have a lot of pectin in them (far as I know) so they'll make a great resource for canning other items. They're also awesome in pies. My mum picks crabapples and bakes them into pies which we freeze. Crabapple pie is just like Apple pie, but the crabapples don't go all mooshy.

I got nothing else really to say lol

 

[patandchickens]

Isn't all this pipe-dreaming kind of diverting energy away from CONSTRUCTIVE pursuits and attitudes? I.e. putting 110% of your energy into GETTING some money to buy or rent a property, as opposed to figuring out how to spend it if it should magically appear?

Anyhoo...

A root cellar and a smokehouse are really kinda luxuries. You don't need them. (200 years ago, in some circumstances you 'needed' a root cellar, but not nowadays). They are things to do once you have everything else under control.

How hard/expensive/effective it is to build a root cellar depends ENORMOUSLY on what kind of a property and house you end up having, if any. Honestly a lot of stuff can be stored in arrangements in a typical house, no root cellar needed. And there is a big difference between "liking" to have fresh homegrown apples to eat, versus *needing* a root cellar.

Smokers and smokehouses are not specially hard to construct, unless you are going large scale. Again, not one of the first few things you'd be building, though.

I'd suggest think more about learning to make do with what you HAVE (in terms of materials, food products, etc), not so much reading about things you HAVEN'T got and what you could do with them

Good luck,

Pat

 

[SKR8PN]

Smoking and curing meat is a science in and of itself. After a lot of studying, I decided against a smokehouse for a couple of reasons. First, they are not very efficient, heat wise. It takes a lot more wood to maintain say, 200 degrees in a smoke house, than it does in a more modern smoker. If you have welding skills, you can make a right fine smoker from and old 300 gallon propane tank or even an old air compressor tank. Lang made his smokers out of propane tanks for years before he updated his design. For that matter, you can make a right fine little smoker from a TRASH CAN!! http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/elecsmoker.html


Now....as far as a garden goes, big doesn't always mean better. Learning HOW to plant in the area you have, and building the soil, is much more important. It is always better to have to much than not enough. I am gardening about the same sq ft that I did when I first bought this place 25 years ago. 50 ft x 50 ft. It is more than enough to feed two people for a year.

Root cellar...........think outside the box. Get an old non working freezer(free would be good!) and bury it. There is your root cellar.

 

[hwillm1977]

Our house has a basement (dirt floor, rock walls) that has about 5 feet of height before you crack your head on the floor joists above... it works just fine as a 'root cellar' for storage. So your needs there would depend on what type of house you bought. Our house was built in 1883 and has potato bins built into the basement, which we use.

We grow our garden in raised beds which works great for us, we'd love an orchard too but because we don't intend to stay here any longer than 5 years there is no point in planting trees... they'd just be starting to produce by the time we're moving out and up to our dream farm... there is where we'll plant fruit and nut trees

I've never in my life smoked meat, so can't offer any info there

Have you read Backyard Homestead? It's a great book for how much you can do with not a lot of land.

 

[lupinfarm]

hwillm, we have a dirt floor "basement" too, except we have no access from inside. Well, we would if we could keep the hatch that is currently screwed shut but its in the middle of the bathroom floor lol. Has to go. Ours doesn't have potato bins, but we could probably put them in. Ours mainly houses utilities, furnace, pump, ect.

 

[Jaxom]

Thanks folks for the thoughts, well most of the thoughts anyways. I've learned one thing in the short time being here.... IGNORE ANY COMMNENTS MADE BY PAT!!!

I'm usually a very easy person to get along with and have rather thick skin when it comes to being insulted. But Pat you go too far. I know what I have to do and have set daily goals. More often then not I get more then I orginally planned done on any given day, I don't need any of your belitteling comments that you feel you must add to any converstation. I am done with you. Feel free to ignore any posts I make in the future we'll both be much happier this way.

For the rest, again, thank you for your comments. When I think of an orchard, I'm thinking more in the terms of a dwarf trees. They mature faster and even though they don't last as long, you can plan replacements more easily. For a family as small as mine I wouldn't need more then 1 or two of any given fruit tree.

I forgot to mention one of the other uses I would need a root cellar for. I have been brewing my own beer for well over 10 years now. I'd like to extend this out into wine and perhaps even mead as well. A root celler would be dual purposed for holding beer and wine as they age.

hwillm1977,
no I haven't but I'll add that to my list of books to look for when I sell what's left of the one's I'm selling. I've a list of other books I'm trying to find...like the foxfire collection, that I'm looking to expand. That will go right along with my Mother Earth News collection I've got going. Any other suggested reading?

SKR8PN,
I understand what you're saying. For a small make shift smoker cooker, I was going to build a "terracotta planter" smoker ala Alton brown's design for immediate use. Cost me about $75 to build and that's it. When planning things like this for future use, I'm thinking practicallity. Use that small flower pot one first, then build a smallish cold smoke house, then graduate to a larger more perminate cinderblock one down the road. I'm very patient don't have to do everything right away.

Gardening wise. When I think of a large garden, I'm also thing of things that you need alot of space for a small return. NOw that sounds bad, but really isn't. Example, spinach. You harvest alot, but once you boil it down, you don't end up with much. And I LOVE spinach. Another example is squash. I love all forms of it. Acorn, butternut, summer, pumpkin, ect. These take up a HUGE amount of space. I know this for a fact, had an acorn that went wild on me one year nearly took up our whole garden and yard to boot! Thankfully some companies like Burpee and other's have developed bush style squash plants. This should be a nice space saver. I also want to expand the varity of what I grow. I've read alot about growing potatoes here and that has me want to give that a try.

But I do agree, I'd start off small of course, develope the soil, build compost pile all that stuff. Good things do come to those who wait (or are patient and plan well in advance)

 

[~gd]

If I were to look for a property right this minute, one big concern would be finding a property with an established orchard (not puny commercial orchard trees, we're talking homestead type trees). Fruit trees take a while to get going and the benefits of purchasing a property with an established orchard FAR out weigh the benefits of planting your own, at least for me.Well all my teen years were spent on a fruit farm and the trees were far from puny! So what the Heck is a homestead type tree and where can I get some?~gd

Crabapples are a fantastic tree to plant as well, if you get into the orcharding idea. If you buy crabapples and intend on canning, the crabapples have a lot of pectin in them (far as I know) so they'll make a great resource for canning other items. They're also awesome in pies. My mum picks crabapples and bakes them into pies which we freeze. Crabapple pie is just like Apple pie, but the crabapples don't go all mooshy. First you need pectin for Jams and Jelly NOT canning! Does Mum peel & core all those tiny apples? AT least core them unless you like to eat seeds. If you select a proper cooking apple rather than an eating apple they won't go "all mooshy" Frankly I think you are blowing smoke...~gd

I got nothing else really to say lol

 

[big brown horse]

Lupin means "water bath canning" for jam or jelly, not pressure canning.


I also highly doubt her mother leaves the seeds in the crab apples before making pies.

I am also assuming a homestead type tree is an "heirloom" apple tree which is what I have. They are fantastic trees (full of delicious apples) that require little maintenance in the form of pestisides etc.

 

[VickiLynn]

A lot of the You-Pick orchards around here grow dwarf trees so that the customers can reach all of the apples. Maybe that's what she's referring to.