SS in Montana

[BarredBuff]

Based on what you know, do you think this would be a good backwoods, homesteading, place to move one day?

Im just curious, Im planning my future. I have a few career ideas at the moment so Im just curious

 

[Wannabefree]

Should be as good as anywhere else.

 

[BarredBuff]

Should be as good as anywhere else.

Im just wondering.....

 

[hqueen13]

I dunno, the thought of grizzlies isn't quite so appealing to me....
But I guess it would be as good as anywhere.

 

[moolie]

Montana is just south of us, nice state. Similar weather to us, long cold winters and short summers/short growing season. Lots of snow in some areas, also has some very arid areas like southern Alberta where I live. Communities are fairly spread apart, not really any major cities. Don't know about grizzlies (?) unless you are way up in the mountains. No idea about the water situation--if you want a well you need to research where the aquifers are or rely on surface water. Some areas are quite windy, so you could rely on wind power if you are into that. Any livestock would need to be winter-hardy breeds or kept in protective/heated shelters.

 

[Doozerdoo1]

Montana is just south of us, nice state. Similar weather to us, long cold winters and short summers/short growing season. Lots of snow in some areas, also has some very arid areas like southern Alberta where I live. Communities are fairly spread apart, not really any major cities. Don't know about grizzlies (?) unless you are way up in the mountains. No idea about the water situation--if you want a well you need to research where the aquifers are or rely on surface water. Some areas are quite windy, so you could rely on wind power if you are into that. Any livestock would need to be winter-hardy breeds or kept in protective/heated shelters.

Lots of folks moving here and crying about the cold lol, if you do not plan to grow much, like lots of snow and below zero temps, see 5 months of sunshine out of 12 months well come on over ! and that's stretching it! It's snowing in October and still snowy in June some times!

 

[moolie]

Montana is just south of us, nice state. Similar weather to us, long cold winters and short summers/short growing season. Lots of snow in some areas, also has some very arid areas like southern Alberta where I live. Communities are fairly spread apart, not really any major cities. Don't know about grizzlies (?) unless you are way up in the mountains. No idea about the water situation--if you want a well you need to research where the aquifers are or rely on surface water. Some areas are quite windy, so you could rely on wind power if you are into that. Any livestock would need to be winter-hardy breeds or kept in protective/heated shelters.

Lots of folks moving here and crying about the cold lol, if you do not plan to grow much, like lots of snow and below zero temps, see 5 months of sunshine out of 12 months well come on over ! and that's stretching it! It's snowing in October and still snowy in June some times!

Yeah, you guys often get worse winter weather than we do--we've just had 4 weeks of near-spring like weather (temps above freezing, no snow, sunshine and blue skies )

Do you get Chinooks down there? I know they do in Colorado, but I wasn't sure about Montana. They're what makes winters here bearable, we get them about every 2-3 weeks.

 

[BarredBuff]

I would want to be able to grow my own food, and raise livestock.

 

[framing fowl]

BB, One of your largest challenges will be water. You can do hoop houses and green houses but I think the avg rainfall is right around 12" to 14" per year. Compare that to KY's 40" to 50" per year. BIG DIFFERENCE! There's a reason wars were fought over it. There are generally two main areas in MT sort of like KY. The western part is more mountainous and has a bit different climate than the eastern part which is very arid and full of sagebrush.

Up near Kalispell there is an area that is actually quite well known for it's cherries. Montana is a great place for raising cattle if you can afford to buy land but it takes quite quite a bit of acreage to support a cow/calf pair depending on what part of the state you are in.

There are a few cities, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula, Helena, and Billings but most of the rest of it is small communities. There's jobs in the towns if you're willing to work for minimum wage but not a lot elsewhere as far as I know for supplementing income.

Winters -eh, you learn to deal with it.

Hope that helps.

 

[moolie]

I would want to be able to grow my own food, and raise livestock.

Based on life here in southern Alberta, with very similar landscape/weather/situation to Montana so I'm assuming that much of our local experience will apply:

For food crops, get ready to adjust your thinking from a zone 7 to a zone 4. We moved out here 13 years ago from southern Vancouver Island, which is a zone 9 and considered a "temperate rain forest" and we really had to change our thinking fast.

For livestock you just need to research what they do locally and ensure you have hardy breeds that can handle cold winters. As I noted above, water is a huge issue and you'll need to check into what's available where you are thinking of locating. Surface water can be brackish and therefore useless, so carefully check over any property you are interested in. Some surface water sources dry up in the hot months, so that is a huge issue as well.

We do just fine with most food crops here in southern Alberta--corn can be tricky and you need just the right location for it, you won't be able to grow more southern crops like okra or southern peas at all unless you baby them in a hot hot greenhouse (not even sure that will work), but most other veges and legumes will be just fine. Not sure about garlic, or at least about starting it in the fall due to the cold winters because we've never grown it. Never grown eggplant either.

We regularly grow potatoes, herbs, carrots, asparagus, rhubarb, onions, peas, beans, cukes, zukes, radishes, beets, turnips, summer and winter squash, tomatoes (started indoors or from nursery plants), cabbage and Asian greens/cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, lettuce and most greens, spinach, kale etc.--the basics. We've had difficulty with sweet peppers but hot peppers do fine (again started indoors or from nursery plants). We also have apple trees, raspberries, strawberries, and locally we find lots of serviceberries (called Saskatoon berries around here--they're like big blueberries) and sea buckthorn (orange berries).

Frost-dates are all over the map and we've come to accept that you just can't put anything not cold-tolerant out before the first week of June, and then you still have to provide cover until the nights get warm. Frost can happen in any month of the year, and comes early--end of August most years. Snow can also happen in any month of the year, not as big a deal as frost because of its insulating qualities, but freezing rain/sleet can be bad.

Animal-wise, chickens will do fine if their water doesn't freeze, rabbits will need to be indoors during the cold months (half the year), beef cattle do just fine--again need access to water that doesn't freeze, dairy cattle are not common but I'm sure hardy breeds would be fine, no idea about goats although I do know they are kept around here--just no personal experience with how they are in winter. Ducks and geese are just fine and lots of people keep llamas/alpacas/guanacos as well as sheep for wool. You could do really well if you were to set up elk or bison ranching because the meat is really popular and the animals are already suited to life here, plus they are easy to raise (well, bison are easier than elk).

Hope that helps!