Farmstead startup

I just purchased 10 acres of land in San Diego county and I'm looking into getting 5 acres shaped to manage water flow and erosion. How much should I be expecting to pay for this initial start up?

Looking for:

• initial design
• land manipulation
• planting of agroforestry system

Just looking for a ballpark idea of what this will cost.

Hi Alex,

Welcome to permies

What an exciting stage to be in.

There are a lot of variables involved in the earth works costs. The cost per hour of the operator is going to be a lot more in your area than in mine (depressed economically, rural). A good starting place is to find a person experienced in the work you want to accomplish. Maybe there is a fellow permaculturist in the area with the equipment? Somehow establish what the rate is for the machine and operator. Are you planning huge alterations, or thinking more along the lines of swales, infiltration basins and key lines?

Depending on the complexity of the work you want to accomplish, consider how much earth you actually want to move, and how many times. This will involve many variables as well, such as slope of the land and access, and how far you are from where the location of person & the equipment .

Where are you in your permaculture journey? I don't want to insult you by guessing you are a beginner, asking you if you know what you are doing. I'll just mention one thing people do with earthworks: hugel beds. You are in a very dry climate (as am I). It would not be a good idea to make a hugel mound, but you might want to bury the hugel material below ground level, maybe have water from somewhere fed to the buried material.

Being as you are brand new to this site, you may not be aware of the regional resources. Here is a link I hope will take you to your region:
https://permies.com/forums/f-38/southwest-usa

There might be people there who could help with finding experienced operators and cost estimates.

Good luck

Thekla

One more thought, have you read of Mark Shepards' New Forest Farm? Restoration Agriculture is the name of his book, and he is on several You Tube videos talking about his work. He has a lot of experience with Agroforestry and Silvopasture.

Thekla

Thank you for reply,

I am extremely new to the whole permaculture design process. I've done about 4 years of research while saving to purchase some land at a reasonable price. I've done small scare gardening but nothing like this before and it's really exciting but also overwhelming! I've read Ben Falk's book and I've followed Mark Shepard, Geoff Lawton and Joel Salatin.

Goals:
I don't have any crazy earth work goals. I'm shooting to put in Swales and a high pond and a low pond. I want to do an agroforestry system with ally cropping and grazing inbetween the Swales. I have a full time job so I'm trying to create a very diverse system to retire on but can feed my family and neighbors for now.

I have a blade and a frontend loader but I'm extremely inexperienced with the machine and the grade of the hill is a bit steep so I need to get familiar on how to run that type of equipment.

I'll attach a photo of the 10 acres.

Oh, great. Now I really am excited for you. I hope you'll find some great local helpers through the regional resources.

Thekla

Thank you! I'll be recording the whole process and posting it on YouTube. Hopefully I'll be able to help people my age get into agriculture.

Alex, if you are interested, there is someplace on this forum called "my project" or something like that. I am computer and web challenged, but I'll ask soeme of the other volunteers, and get back to this thread with the link. Lots of people have their project thread there, you can read theirs and share yours.

Another thing I don't knowhow to do here, but others do all the time is to post or embed videos.

My goats saw me get home from work and THEY think I should milk them before I get involved in any thing else. They are good girls so I'll be good to them.


Thekla

I have used my staff super powers to add this thread to the projects forum. It is now in both.

Great stuff Alex.

Thank you!