How did you get started before you got started?

Hey all!

I have had a long standing interest in becoming self sufficient, but due to many decisions I myself made in the past I never got to it. Now I am finally in a position where I can actively financially grow towards owning a little bit of land myself (though being in Western Europe that requires some amount of saving!).

Whilst doing this I am reading through the threads here, reading books, watching videos and so on. In the process I am getting a little lost in the beautiful, but vast, array of options! To avoid getting completely lost I want to get some ideas on paper, but without knowing where exactly I will end up, what kind of property and land I'll be able to afford when the time comes, I am unsure how to go about planning this. I'm thinking of starting to write down what interests me and I will pick what is feasible and strike off that which isn't.

I am curious how (or if!) some of you prepared (well) before you got the opportunity to actually get stuck in 'in real life'?

Thanks!

Start with where you are. Think of it as mini-experiments toward your goal. For example, in what ways can you source your food more locally—farmer’s markets? foraging? grow sprouts? grow plants in containers? cook from scratch? The Permaculture for Apartment Dwellers wiki can give you a great way to get started right now!

Honestly, this is where I started. I read books on urban agriculture. I tried some things. I discovered, with that, where my interests and abilities were, what would be a stretch but was do-able, and what were the types of things I was either not interested in or physically unable to tackle. That helped me shape what I wanted in a place that we would buy so that we could balance that with our other needs and our budget. We have only four-tenths of an acre now, but it’s amazing what can be done even in this smallish space! There is no reason to put off starting with something, right where you are, and building on it.

I don't know if there's a clear starting or ending point for me (and many people).

My big 2 are learning to grow food and reducing waste.

I think learning to grow food is valuable and important for so many many reasons, so this is where I put a lot of my energy. It's been surprisingly difficult and wrought with way more challenges than I expected, but I get some food. In retrospect I would have started a smaller garden than I did.

I should have just started with container gardening in zone 1. Then as I became more confident and experienced built 1 garden bed at a time, and focused on managing that well. I built 6 4x10 hugel beds all at once and tried to jump in that way, but I can never stay on top of all of them.

Perennials are great, but they tend to take a long time and don't require much attention compared to annual gardening. They also require you to have some garden space.

In reducing waste we started thinking about the full lifecycle of our consumption habits. So then we could begin weaning off of unnecessary things. Trying to reduce our consumption and purchasing habits. We still have way more waste than I want, but we are way more conscious of it now, especially when making purchases.

Niels van Wensen wrote:

... interest in becoming self sufficient...

I'll echo Shawn & L's suggestions above about starting where you already are, growing whatever food stuffs you can, even if it's a few plants. Do you eat eggs? If where you live now allows a couple laying hens or ducks, you can learn a lot about keeping birds for food, and possibly even discover it's something you don't want to do later when you move. You say above your interest in self-sufficiency, and, to me, that is a much broader view than just putting food on the table. Are you mechanically inclined? Do you currently make your own automobile repairs such as fixing brakes, replacing belt-driven engine components, replacing shocks and struts, or replacing steering tie-rods, knuckles and wheel bearings? Can you do your own electrical and plumbing repairs in your home such as replacing a light switch, outlet, or a sink, toilet or faucet?

When things need maintenance, or break and need repair, being able to do such things yourself without needing to hire someone can not only save money but time too, not having to wait on anothers' schedule, and I can say that I find it satisfying and rewarding. If for example you have the knowledge and aptitude for such things but lack the tools, quietly amassing tools now from others that they no longer want, or buying a piece or two here and there when they're on sale can mean having the ability to be closer to self-sufficiency and self-reliance when you do make the move to your own land and start your dream.

Shawn and L Johnson have both brought up some great points.

Start learning before buying land. And the link that Shawn posted is a great place to start or at least get some ideas.

And L Johnson's "My big 2 are learning to grow food and reducing waste." might fall within that link.

I have learned two very important lessons since moving to where we live now.  We did not move here to live a self-sufficient lifestyle.

We are past that when we sold the homestead.

The first lesson I learned here is to "reduce waste" as we have no garage collection.  

The second lesson I learned is that even if you amend your soil that every place in this world is meant to grow food.  In fact, I read an article about some folks who have moved back to this area after growing up here, and one comment was "growing up we did not have many fresh vegetables".

Research whether the land you are looking at will grow food.  Is there a water source since you can't grow food without water.  Is the soil rich and fertile?

Best wishes for getting started.

Niels van Wensen wrote:I am curious how (or if!) some of you prepared (well) before you got the opportunity to actually get stuck in 'in real life'?

In some ways I had prepared well, in some ways not. I grew up in a housing-tract lot in a modest-size city. I learned how to mark & saw boards, and in summer I worked in nearby orchards and also as a "yard boy" (mowing lawns, etc). With a friend my age, I put together a small motorscooter from spare parts. I received an academic-oriented education, though one year in high school I elected to take an "auto shop" class.  By chance, I learned to use a few woodshop power tools at a most elementary level.

Once out on my own, I rented a cottage on a farm and grew my first organic garden — and as for livestock , within a couple years I'd had my first flock of laying hens. When I got my own land, I have to admit I sometimes felt like I was learning what a 15-year-old boy is learning from his dad, on a country place! LOL But it all worked out.

A lot of what one does on a homestead involves manual skills, such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring (mainly for buildings), fixing water systems, small engines... building & repairing fences & gates, dealing with invasive pests. And food-preservation methods. It's true that what's available through web sites like this one and from Youtube can help the learning process quite a lot. For instance, I learned much of what I can now do with welding by watching Youtube 'how-to's' (and practicing, practicing). But nothing completely substitutes for making friends in the countryside where you settle, and having real live people show and explain to you how they do things.

One other area I'll mention is that, in my experience (and that of most people I know who moved from town, city, suburb to rural land) you can't count on earning much money from efforts on your place itself in the first years. For a valuable discussion of this kind of topic, go to this thread: https://permies.com/t/80/62005/don-job

Beyond echoing all the above, I also highly recommend learning now, how to cook & preserve whatever food you can manage, on any scale you can manage it. Growing food is a big part of it, but then, you need to know what to do with it, to carry you through the off seasons and emergencies.

Learning first aid is a good idea, too.

Shawn Foster wrote:Start with where you are. Think of it as mini-experiments toward your goal. ...! There is no reason to put off starting with something, right where you are, and building on it.

^Yes, this. Put a shovel in the ground and everything starts to change.  

Niels, it would help if we knew a little bit about where you are in the world - only approximately, but gardening zone is always helpful - and what your current living situation is, as that would suggest parts of this big question that might resonate with you.

That said, the question is, "How did I get started before I got started?" That's easy - my dad was an environmentalist before the word existed. He grew up in Britain during the war and realized the waste that war represents, and how much damage it did. I remember as a child him complaining that Helium balloons should be banned because Helium is a non-renewable resource that should be reserved for critical uses.

So what that really says, is that for me, step one is attitude. An attitude of using things until they're done, repairing before replacing, upcycling the old before buying new - I'm sure people could add more to that list. All of those things can be done without land.

When I was single and living alone, I always cooked for 4 and froze 3, so the idea of learning to cook from scratch, learning to can, dry and freeze foods are all "good ways to start" as mentioned above. However, I'll add that learning to forage in my ecosystem is something I'd wished I'd started earlier. If I'm making bone broth, I try to add herbs and a leaf or two of dandelion to improve the nutritional punch. I've become much more aware of how much North American food is high in calories and low in nutrition.

As a teenager, my dad started gardening in a friend's back yard. I found out how much better home-grown beans are than store-bought. This is why I asked what your situation is - can you get an allotment? -can you find an elderly neighbor or relative who would love you to garden in their back-yard? - can you raise rabbits for meat (would you even want to?) All of these things would teach you skills you can apply in the future.

As a teenager, I also watched my dad repairing cars and fixing other things. Nowadays there are "Repair Cafes" and "Maker Space" one can join or volunteer at to observe and learn basic skills. In my 20's I helped my sister swap out old electrical sockets for new because former owners had painted over them  so many times that the holes were half plugged! This is not rocket science, but many humans have never done it.

Here on permies, I would definitely suggest you visit the PEP/PEA program and find things you could try. There are foraging badges, herbal remedy badges, growing sprouts on your windowsill badges to name a few that might be useful. I've made raised beds by using Heat Treated Packing Pallet wood, and hand sewn myself underwear out of a friend's damaged cotton t-shirts, so there are things that don't even require much money or equipment beyond a hammer and a hand saw, a needle, thread and sewing scissors.

I would be cautious about "planning where you will be" and instead "plan for where you are" first. Things can change in a heart-beat - an illness, a natural disaster (I'm in an earthquake zone on an Island that's been under water several times in it's geological history but hopefully won't be again in my lifetime!), or hopefully not, a war. Try to find ways to learn "resilience in place" as a first step, because those skills will go wherever you end up, and still put food on the table!

If you really don't have any practical skills, then, yeah, maybe you should learn some. But I think what's most important is being willing to work hard, try unfamiliar things, and learn.

My husband grew up fixing his own dirt bikes and building stuff out of wood. He's got an engineer's brain, so he likes figuring out how things work - physical and abstract.

While I was growing up I liked experimenting in the kitchen and garden, taught myself to sew (badly) and crochet (semi decently). When I was five, I announced that once I was eight I'd be moving out on my own. I had a spot up the hill behind the house that I figured would be a good place to live. So I was independent.

That's all the preparation we had before buying our property. It's worked out well.

Good soil was mentioned. I would love to have good soil, but I don't. I can still grow food, when the gophers don't get involved 😡

I also recommend learning food preservation techniques before you have the large garden full of produce that needs to be dealt with.  
Starting now will give you time to acquire the tools and equipment and storage containers slowly as you learn the process.  
Canning, pressure canning, dehydrating, and fermenting all have a bit of a learning curve till you get the hang of it.  Starting before you have a garden also allows you to start finding the various things you need second hand or free if you are lucky.

Learning to cook from scratch and how to adapt recipes to use what you have on hand is very useful when you are producing a bunch of you own foods.  Meals tend to be more seasonal and recipes often need to have items substituted to use what is on hand. Understanding basic cooking principles goes a long way to avoiding last minute trips to the supermarket.  

Niels van Wensen wrote:I am curious how (or if!) some of you prepared (well) before you got the opportunity to actually get stuck in 'in real life'?

Let me add my voice to the chorus -- build your skills! Skills are satisfying, portable, admired, and build the better world.

I suspect that people with actual skills (and not just stars in their eyes about "communing with Mother Nature") are in demand in various communities that already have access to land.  

I was lucky/unlucky to grow up on a working farm. Lucky, because of the tons of skills and experience I gained. And simultaneously unlucky, because my personal life path had no room for taking over the family business. However, I have learned that no skill or experience is ever wasted -- it's just a spare puzzle piece waiting for you to discover how it fits into the big picture.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I have learned that no skill or experience is ever wasted -- it's just a spare puzzle piece waiting for you to discover how it fits into the big picture.

How true this is. It's amazing to me even now in my 30s how skills I thought would certainly be useless have come back to serve me in unexpected ways. Sometimes just the perspective they give you can be tremendously valuable in decision-making.

Wow! Amazing responses! Thank you all so much 😊


Some general info to add based on the responses:
- I should have been a bit more detailed, I am interested in self-sufficiency, but have over the years also become a bit more realistic and have added ‘semi-‘ in front of that term...
- I live in a (very) small apartment in the city centre of Strasbourg, France
- I had applied for an allotment recently, however it looks like life will be taking me elsewhere within the next 12 months, and as such I decided to not yet accept the offer.
- With the right guidance I think I can get handier. I have previously replaced car brakes, a starter motor (on a large van I lived in), try my hand at some welding and like to (badly) build my own bits of furniture.

L. Johnson, I can find myself in your first comment. I often worry that if I do get access to anything I will immediately build 7 greenhouses, a hundred hugel beds and keep 18 bee hives only to realise that is too much. So I will keep in mind to really not bite off more than I can chew when the time comes.

James Freyr, No space to keep chickens just yet, though it is high on my list. Somehow I don’t think my girlfriend would appreciate chickens in the apartment 😉 I will aim to accumulate some more tools here and there. I have currently got some, but could get more without a doubt. I wouldn’t yet try my hand at plumbing or electrical repair, though for the latter I do have someone nearby who I could learn from.

Anne Miller, Provided I can get the money together for it, I should be ok for soil and a water source in North Western Europe. But yes, even here I am sure I could end up with land that ends up being completely useless! Reducing waste should be possible, as I like to be frugal where I can, and I once moved from a house into a van 😊

Joel Bercardin, I had to google what ’housing-tract’ was. I am looking to use at least some of my holiday days (it’s France, so we get plenty) on joining people on their day to day life in this kind of world (wwoof etc) and taking class room classes in the things that interest me. As mentioned before, I have a lot to learn particularly about plumbing and electrical wiring! Building/repairing fences I learned at college/uni (countryside management) so I count myself lucky there! With regards to earning money with it, I would look to include a more mainstream income with it, such as a B&B or a small camp site. I have some experience running a B&B already.

Carla Burke, Kate Muller, I will! This seems like one of the things I could quite easily do, even in a small apartment! I often pick out the deals when it comes to fruit and veg, so to be able to pot/can/pickle this would be very useful.

Jay Angler, My aim would actually be to move back to the UK, though all things considered it is more likely to become Brittany or Ireland. For upcycling, I just happened to walk past one of those repair places yesterday. It opens on Friday so I will pop by!
The cooking multiple meals in 1 go is always best. Also because it’s great for those times you don’t have the time to cook.
The “plan for where you are” is a good idea!

Jan White, I am always willing to work hard (admittedly in the right areas, office work, which is what I do most, drains me of motivation. The moment I am outside the energy comes back and I can work all day!). Sewing badly might be something for me, as I just spent 20 euro to get some trousers fixed at the most delicate point. Which isn’t much and it saves me money buying new trousers altogether, but still. I’m guessing gophers aren’t good eating so? 😉

Douglas Alpenstock, I think I was lucky as I got to make that choice myself and ended up at an agricultural college (though not studying agriculture), so got some healthy exposure to things, even if that was a while ago now. Wish I could go back and kick myself in the butt to learn far more.

All in all it made me realise I am not as hopeless as I thought I might be, with enough room for improvement still.

Once again, thank you all so much for your messages!

On overwhelm: I read and studied so much from books and internet, and now that it's time for Real Life Action ( since 1,5 years ) I bit a bit more than I can chew - the overwhelm has been real this summer, and not the least with trying to water the veggie garden in the hot, dry months - normally just August, this year it began half way June - along with renovating the house, caring for chicken and quail and getting our teenager son into a better homeschooling flow (delegating, outsourcing!).

Niels, Wwoofing... check out this one : https://lesjardinsdepaillis.com/  

I found this thread very informative, and would like to add:  follow the flow of your own interests, and collaborate with like-minded people.
I'm a believer in "we all came here for a purpose" and in helping each other out with our skills. So not everyone has to know everything - it's fun and rewarding to help each other out

(adding an image to post profile pic > )

On the subject of “plan flrst where you are”. That gives you experience, and the chance to learn slower than the omg-now-what. Network, network, network. For example: where I live there are 5 different culture/language groups (3 native First Nation + 2 immigrant communities). Taking a language class, especially at one of the Culture Centures, allows you to both connect/build relationships and learn skills that may be lost in one generation. Language teaches your brain a different way to look at things. Plus knowing a different language than the majority is an invisible skill that no one can take away from you

Back to your original post, Niels, "How did you get started before you got started?"  I could write a book, but I'll try to keep it to one chapter.

I grew up in Maine (NE corner of America, with Canada to the north and east) on small subsistence farms with one cash crop or livestock.  Chicken farm, dairy farm, potato or sugar beet farm, apple orchard or blueberry farm.  We moved often.  At 17 I joined the Army Reserve during my last year of high school.  I went on active duty as soon as I graduated.  Three years in the Army I dreamed of having my own farm, but I wanted to raise a little bit of everything.  This was in the 1960's before Mollison and Holmgren coined the word Permaculture.

I finished my tour of duty and went back to Maine for college on the GI Bill (a tuition subsidy program for military veterans).  During those three years I spent a lot of weekends at my best friend's family farm where they raised Appaloosa horses, sheep, chickens, hay, and had a large garden growing everything they liked to eat, and an orchard with several varieties of fruit.  They traded for milk from a dairy farmer neighbor.  So they were food self-sufficient.  Most of their income came from the sale of horses, sheep and wool (both raw and spun).  They also boarded and trained other people's horses.  His mother made quilts and sold some of her canned goods, jams and jellies.  Both parents worked at the local toothpick factory during the winter months for extra money to pay the college tuition of their three kids.  I loved that farm and dreamed of owning one like it.

Upon graduation from college with a teaching degree, I decided I didn't really want to teach in the government run public schools, so I accepted a commission in the Army and went back on active duty.  I saved a good portion of my pay toward a down payment on a farm.  Then I fell in love, got married, and while stationed in Germany, we had a son.  I requested relief from active duty to the Reserve, but my spouse stayed on active duty.  We came back to the states and bought our first house (3 BR/1-1/2 bath) on 1/4 acre near the post where we were stationed.  I'd gotten a second degree in Accounting while in Germany, so I took the CPA exam in Virginia and passed.  Since I wanted to work nights and be home with my son days, I started my own accounting firm and gradually built it up.  After several months of repairing, repainting, and insulating the attic and crawl space, we started a garden in the backyard, planted a few fruit trees and figs, and built a small shed for garden tools, mower, and other stuff.  All of which was learn-as-we-go.  No Internet in the 1970s, but we had "How to" books from the library and my father-in-law's welcome assistance.

When my mom moved in with us we no longer had a guest room for my in-law's visits, so we found a larger house (4BR/2-1/2 bath) in need of repair on 1/2 acre, sold the first house at a nice profit, and completely rehabbed the second house over a period of months.  Then we put in a larger garden, planted more fruit trees, built a larger shed for a riding mower, tools and bags of potting soil, peat moss, lime, etc., with a fold down potting table on the sunny side.  We produced more than we needed and sold some at farmers' markets and gave to friends and neighbors.

After 7-1/2 years of conflict, we divorced.  She got the assets, I got the liabilities, so I was broke and on my own again.  My CPA practice had been shut down twice when I was called up for six month active duty tours in 1979 and another in 1980.  I had to turn over my clients to other accounting firms while I was gone and try to rebuild each time I came back.  In 1982 during the divorce, I accepted another six-month active duty tour developing accounting software for the Army.  My job was to analyze requirements, write the specs, build the flow-charts, and turn them over to the programmers to write the code, but I learned COBOL on my own so I could double check the programmers work.  When I got back, I found a programming job with one of consulting firms around Washington, D.C.  I was promoted rapidly and spent the next 17 years in IT, mostly writing accounting or financial software for various federal government departments, the Navy, and Fortune 500 manufacturing companies.  The work was generally in cities where I had no access to land, so all I could do was dream about my future farm and learn various skills that I thought would be handy.

I did a lot of traveling during that 17 years and beyond, both around America and dozens of other countries.  Mostly I eliminated places I wouldn't want to live or farm.  I retired in Reno, NV, and spent six months on a lavender and gojiberry farm where I cared for chickens, sheep, llamas, and two large Great Pyrenees.  I also put in 18 raised beds, wired and plumbed the owner's workshop/honey shed/distillery where she extracted lavender and other essential oils, and helped her build beehives.

Eventually I returned home to Maine and bought a run-down old Victorian house built in 1903.  I spent a year and a half rehabbing it as a fix-and-flip during which time I built a few raised beds and tried my hand at gardening and foraging, but after shoveling snow from Oct to May two years in a row, I couldn't wait to sell the place and move to a more temperate climate.

I was looking for enough land to support a small intentional community and already had one family of four who wanted to join me.  I made several trips to Tennessee and Kentucky and finally found a 30-acre fallow farm in southwest Virginia (the western tip sandwiched between TN and KY).  It had originally been a tobacco farm, later converted to a hog farm, and finally to a horse farm.  The last owner had died and his daughter had inherited it.  She wanted to rehab the old house trailer and restore the farm along Permaculture lines, but found it to be more work and needed more money than she was able to tackle alone, so she put it on the market.  It was priced at the top of my price range, so I passed on it, but I couldn't find anything I liked better at a lower price.  In Oct 2018, I got an email from Zillow (an American online real estate listing company) that there had been a price drop on the property.  It put the farm well within my price range.  I called the listing agent and put a full-price offer on it with the only contingencies being my onsite inspection (to make sure nothing significant had changed) and availability of financing.

I immediately drove the 1,200 miles from Maine to Virginia to finalize the deal.  I hauled a truckload of stuff with me and put it in a local storage unit.  I was able to obtain financing through the local Farm Credit agency with 20% down payment.  Since the trailer was ineligible as a "residence", it was treated as land only which usually requires a 50% down payment, so 20% was a great deal.  I had 13% + closing costs, and the family provided the remaining 7%.  We closed in Nov, so I hauled another truck load of stuff and put it in the trailer and barn.  I had to go back to Maine for the closing on the house there.

Since I hadn't been able to find a qualified buyer, and the market in the area was depressed due to the closing of the paper mill that employed most of the workers in the town.  There were more houses for sale than there were buyers, so I sold it to a young couple with a small down payment and monthly payments on a land contract.  Under that form of sale, the deed remains in my name until they pay off the note at which time the deed is transferred to them.

I headed back down on Dec 3 with my last truckload, leaving in a blizzard with near whiteout conditions which turned to freezing rain further south.  It was slow going until Pennsylvania, where I had intended to stop for the night, but since it was nearly sunrise due to the lost time and clear, I decided to keep going for awhile before the storm caught up.  Bad decision.  I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes the highway was curving off to the left and I was veering off the right side.  I hit the bottom of the swale with a bang and the shattering of glass.  The truck cap had come loose from the truck bed and spun off one corner at a time tossing stuff around in a wide circle.  A convoy of heavy cargo trucks smashed everything that landed on the pavement and dragged boxes a half mile down the road.  My dining room table top spun like a discus and landed at the edge of the woods, papers sailed on the wind and caught on trees, and my stuff was spread over a couple of acres.  I first dragged stuff off the pavement before the next traffic came through.  My new scoop shovel looked like a pizza spatula, microwave oven was crushed but the glass turntable was unbroken, shop vac and pressure washer flattened.  Several items were on the other side of the highway four lanes and a median away.

It took several hours to gather up the stuff.  I put the trashed items in the upside-down cap and the undamaged stuff in the bed of the truck.  A couple of college kids stopped to help and tried to gather up some of the paperwork, most of which was blank paper from a new ream that had split open and taken flight.  They had to leave to get to classes, but the truck bed was about full by then.  Finally, a PA State Police car arrived and the officer helped me add some more debris to the cap and told me I was responsible for cleanup or I'd be fined for littering.  I told him I needed to get the truck to a repair shop, but I'd be back to finish the cleanup.  He seemed satisfied and drove off.

I drove the truck in the swale along the highway until I found a spot where I could climb back up to the highway.  The back wheels were splayed and running on the inside edges of the tires, so I took it easy with my safety flashers on.  My GPS found the closest Ford dealer and I drove it in for an evaluation, then I called my insurance company and reported the accident.  Since I needed to wait for a claims adjuster, I walked to the motel near the Ford dealer and booked a room.  I slept the rest of the day and most of the night.  Adjuster came the next morning and totaled the truck (cost to repair more than value of truck).  Insurance would cover the balance on my truck loan but no more.  Offered rental truck for up to 14 days to get my stuff to Virginia.  Truck arrived shortly after.  I transferred stuff from old truck to new, removed my receiver hitch and a few other items that were undamaged, and drove back out to accident site and found a few more usable items and put more trash inside the cap and covered it with heavy stuff to hold the light stuff down.  Then I headed south again leaving the cap and "litter" as was.

Over the next 2 weeks I got the electric turned on, figured out water pumps, framed in the open end of the trailer, installed a large insulated window in that end with the help of a neighbor and his son, and insulated the inside which seller had gutted down to the studs.  Installed more electrical outlets, porch lights and switches, weather stripped windows and doors, caulked or foamed gaps, and generally made it weather tight.  Drove to local storage unit and retrieved stuff and terminated my contract there.  Then I headed back up to PA to turn in the rental truck and pick up a used truck I'd found online with 0 down financing.  Back to the crash site and nothing had changed.  I picked up more trash and found several more usable items along the tree line.  Headed back south and figured PA Dept of Transportation would eventually pick up the cap and take it to a dump.  The paper was biodegradable so it would eventually work into the soil.

Over the next six months I finished rehabbing the trailer (drywall, trim, wallpaper, etc.) and making it livable with new kitchen cabinets, used stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer, window curtains.  In late May the family arrived and we shared the trailer until they could build their dreamed of shed-to-tiny-home.  Unfortunately, they had spent all of their remaining nest egg on solar panels and equipment to set up a huge solar array that they didn't know how to hook up to the trailer's circuit box, so it only powered the well pump and a charging station for batteries with extension cords plugged into the inverter.  They traded four solar panels with a homesteading family in NC for a sofa, two coolers full of home butchered beef, pork, and chicken, and 12 laying hens and a rooster in a makeshift cage.  When they arrived back home, I quickly threw together a temporary chicken coop in one of the end stalls in the barn until I could build a Justin Rhodes Chickshaw.  I ordered a portable electric chicken fence and solar energizer package from Premier1.com.  Next, they came home from an outing with two potbelly piglets for the kids.  Again I quickly built a portable pig shelter and surrounded it with welded wire fencing and t-posts I had on hand until I could order another portable electric fence package for them.

The family proved to be more a liability to the farm than an asset due to physical and mental disabilities I was unaware of before selecting them.  I tried to work with them, hoping that just being out in the fresh air and eating better quality food than they'd had in Boston would improve their lives, but I ended up doing all the work, paying all the bills, and they just sponged off me as long as they could.  I eventually had to borrow the money to buy them out and sent them packing.  They are now situated on a quarter acre in an established off-grid community in western TN.  They are living in their dreamed of shed-to-tiny-home with solar, rainwater collection, composting toilet and graywater system.  They are living on welfare and getting lots of help from other members of the community.  I hope they will be happy there.

Meanwhile, I've been scavenging all kinds of materials: dismantled an old porch and a wooden fence in another town for the lumber, picked up left over steel roofing panels, poly-carbonate clear panels for greenhouse, PVC pipe and odds and ends of fittings, chains, tools, etc.  Finding a few bargains on Craigslist.  Took down most of the top 2x12x16-ft boards from the horse stalls in the barn to build 4 raised beds in the garden area.  Salvaged corrugated metal panels from an ancient collapsed log barn on the property.  Replaced some rotten purloins in the barn roof and installed steel panels with poly-carbonate clear panels for a skylight (really brightened up the inside of the barn).  I want to do the same thing on the opposite corner to light up the stall we use for the chickens during the winter to give them more sunlight.

Got my PDC in 2020 and used this property for my final design assignment.  Cut in my first of several swales on the hillside and planted 5 fruit trees in the lower berm as the start of a food forest.  Planted or soon to plant 4 kinds of grapes, 2 varieties of blueberries, Brown Turkey figs, and hardy kiwis.  Brush hogged or mowed the entire 10 open acres twice each year, raked hay by hand.  Good hay to the barn for winter bedding, spoiled (rained on) hay to the compost bins and garden mulch.

Gradually I am making progress, but at 76 I'm starting to slow down, so I put out a few ads on Permies and other websites looking for compatible families and really lucked out with the next family I selected.  The family that joined me in Jun 2022 could not be better.  He's a carpenter and all around mechanic, she's an avid gardener and herbalist who is always looking for more work to do, grown daughter is just like her, and son not much interested in farming, but he willingly helps when asked.  They brought a 4WD truck, a fifth wheel RV to live in, lots of tools, a Case excavator that has already proved essential, and years of experience.  Plus, where I see something that needs to be done and put it on a list, they all see something that needs to be done and do it.  I feel blessed.  A couple more families like them, and this place will become a Permaculture paradise.

So, Niels, my advice is just do it now.  Don't wait for everything to be just right.  Don't procrastinate.  My only regret is that I didn't do this 30 or 40 years ago while I was still full of energy and strength.  If you don't have the confidence or financial wherewithal to do this on your own, find a community or a local farm needing help and jump in.  Find a friend with similar goals and join forces.  If community isn't for you, find a small piece of land, preferably with a livable house or cabin that you can afford, and start trying different things.  You can always go larger later on.  Most of the work and materials you put into a small farm will increase the value of the property so you'll be able to sell it for a profit.  Experience is the best teacher.  Yes, you'll make some mistakes, but that is how you learn.

Fortunately this family has cared for elderly parents and understands the aging process and the limitations of seniors.  They don't expect me to work alongside them or keep up with them.  They are happy that I'm willing to share the land with them and give them credit for the work they do toward equity in the land.  So it is a symbiotic relationship.  A win-win.

Good luck and God bless with whatever you decide to do.

Along the lines of plan first where you are....

You can grow a LOT of veggies indoors under lights for a slight increase in your power bill and initial purchase of the gear using very small cultivars. The whole rig could be moved with you if you had to move. The Barrina LED lights on Amazon have worked best for me so far but we're a different voltage here in the USA so that would have to be addressed. Get the white plant light ones, not the "Burple" colored ones for the sake of your eyes and being able to inhabit the same space as the plants comfortably.

Micro dwarf tomatoes - https://renaissancefarms.org/product-category/tomato-categories/micro-dwarf-tomatoes/      also Secret Seed Cartel in France has awesome quality seeds for some of the best of these.    
https://secretseedcartel.com - my personal favorites are Mohamed for big output and great taste, Red Robin, same, Pinnochio on yellows, and undecided on larger yellows.

beans -
https://territorialseed.com/products/bean-mascotte
https://territorialseed.com/products/bean-hickok

Lettuce - Mixes grown in a 10x20 nursery tray for cut and come again. Johnny's is expensive, but perhaps the very best quality seeds available here. You get what you pay for.

Peppers - These are more towards dwarf height (3-4') but narrow and high output - https://www.rareseeds.com/banana-pepper
There are smaller pepper plants too.

There's lots more that will grow indoors but I'll leave it at those few for now.

my experiments with all this resulted from not having a full summer or winter grow season outdoors here in north FL due to heat and cold.

Fertilizer for these could be Steve Solomon's Complete Organic Fertilizer which you mix for yourself from common ingredients.  His books are some of the very best, particularly his last two, Gardening When it Counts and the Intelligent Gardner.

What I do is sit all the plants in bakery trays or some other kind of tub with their feet submerged in water. Look up Kratky hydroponics on Youtube for explanation of why this works well. Professor Kratky himself has a Youtube channel with some good simplified explanations. You could automate watering but that's another layer of much greater complication.
I use my home mixed potting soil which is very light from being heavy on small pine bark. Commercial mixes will work fine also.

I use the Masterblend hydroponic solution for mine as it's very close to being organic, simple to mix, and works very well. I also use sea salt in the mix, see the sea-90 website for more info there - https://seaagri.com  
I know putting salt on the plants seems counter-intuitive but it makes them taste wonderful and delivers full range of minerals to you via the plants. There are some posts here from people who have tried salt with excellent results. It does have to be that specific sort of sea salt intended for agriculture, not table type salt. I believe Bryant Redhawk, who is a soil scientist, commented on it.

Where I started was learning about plant life cycles while still very young, maybe 7 or 8 years old. My grandmother grew up on a farm but loved flowers. We would visit the nursery for bedding plants (already started plants), or seeds for nasturtiums. But that was my start before I got started! We also had peach trees, and mom would make fresh peach cobblers and we did a bit of canning around my 10th year.

As a young adult with children I had a yearly garden and a plum tree that I worked at to produce both food and hands-on experiences for my children and myself. My husband at the time sold over 40 lbs of plums out from under me as I gathered the jars and other supplies needed to put up some jam. He left our lives shortly after that. I grew sweet potatoes in discarded tires, watched a couple of my bell pepper plants sink into the ground from the resident gopher eating them from the roots up, had several really nice Crenshaw melons "tell me" they were ripe by the smell from 10 feet away, and Big Max pumpkins between 25-80 pounds. Those got to tour the kids' classrooms as a show and tell!

I've raised chickens, turkeys and rabbits while my kids were young, and we had a Nigerian dwarf goat as a pet. Most of this took place on a tiny piece of land less than a quarter acre. My advice is everything mentioned by others that you can attain, and as you go keep evaluating where you want to head next, always increasing your knowledge base, experiences, and aiming towards your ultimate goal. That goal won't be achieved until you have spent years on the land, learning what it is capable of.

A note about rabbits, the manure is perfect for use in garden beds as is, no composting needed. Maybe you like eating rabbit, maybe you keep fiber rabbits or just a couple pets for the use of all the weeds they like that as you remove those weeds get fed to your bunnies to reduce the cost of keeping them ( feed), and the poo going to improve your grow beds.

However you choose to move forward in your quest, this is a great place for guidance and ideas!

Have ideas and watch your land.
Seasonal changes tell you about rainwater run off paths, show you what what is growing where.

Avoid mistakes by reading in the web what others did wrong.

Then prepare first steps like if you have time pot some trees and grow them.

Any plant you grow, google (and books) know the do and don't do.

Ask again and again other permies here in the forum before every step you want to do...

Stick to one step at a time, also in the preparation phase.

I am now in year 8 of "the before" and this winter I feel I am ready to start..

Niels,

There is so much good information here that it almost steals the thunder, but I will throw in my experience.  But first a bit of background.

I have had Permie leanings long before I even heard of Permies and the idea of homesteading always had a romanticized place in my heart.  So I guess you can say that for most of my life I, probably like you and most people on this site, have simply deep down always wanted to do the homesteading lifestyle.  It’s in our blood, so to speak.  But I am not now, nor will I ever likely be perfect and that’s OK.  Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough .  But on to my story.

So once I got my 1st job in my career, (not a part time job), I knew I wanted to be on the path to home ownership ASAP.  I saved conspicuously.  I lived in virtual poverty even though I earned a respectable salary.  I was saving for a down payment for a house.  I was also getting married so some other purchases took priority, but I found our first house—a brand new spec house on a 1/2 acre lot (I thought I was a king!)—right at the beginning of our marriage.  We actually lived in my last apartment for 5 days.

At that house I planted my first (very small) garden and was hooked!  I always wanted to grow my own food, but what a reward to actually eat food I grew!  Amazing!  I expanded my garden, experienced some challenges, failures, but plenty of success and wanted more—especially more fertility without adding chemicals which felt like cheating.

But this was a starter home, we had our first child and the house that was great for two of us was suddenly overcrowded for three.  My wife’s career was advancing and we knew we needed a new forever home.

As luck would have it, we found a great little spot in the country but not too far from town.  We sold our first home for a profit (hugely important for raising money) and built our forever home with as many energy saving features as we could afford at the time.

At our new home I broke ground on new garden beds and used as much natural and organic material as possible to build soil.  I eventually discovered Permies and the rest was history.  But in short order I did the following :


Save copiously, even if living in near poverty

Buy a starter home

Look for land or a homestead (you could be flexible here, I was under a time crunch).

Raise a garden, chickens, etc. even before starting out for good—why not get practice

Hugely important here—Have a financial plan!  I can’t emphasize this enough.  We had some clever financing to get our land built and house purchased


I could go into greater detail, but this post is already long enough.  If you have any questions, please fire away.  This has been a great topic!

Eric

Cimarron Layne wrote:Back to your original post, Niels, "How did you get started before you got started?"  I could write a book, but I'll try to keep it to one chapter.

Wow! I am not even sure where to start with responding. That's quite the twists and turns to get where you eventually got to! I'm glad you got there though And particularly that you found a family that suits you and the land!
Interestingly a friend of mine recently told me to get into COBOL as well as there's still work in it. But whilst I like a bit of gaming, I am not sure IT is it for me, I'll stick to mechanical stuff

I will have to wait a short while, as I have contemplated joining forces with people to buy somewhere to start a community but I believe this isn't for me. So then the issue of finance comes in. I am hoping this will resolve in the next year or so, at which point there should be opportunities! Until that time I have recently applied for an allotment in the city I live at the moment.

Dave Bross wrote:Along the lines of plan first where you are....

Thanks! A few years ago I did grow hydroponically with some LED lights and an automated (in so much that it was angled and water pumped up at the top and back round again) bin. This did work very well for the plants. So will look into implementing that again!

I'll also take a look at getting my hands on those books! It never hurts to have more books

Cindy Haskin wrote:Where I started was learning about plant life cycles while still very young, maybe 7 or 8 years old. My grandmother grew up on a farm but loved flowers.

However you choose to move forward in your quest, this is a great place for guidance and ideas!

Thanks Cindy! It's good to see, also over the past 3-4 years, that it doesn't require huge tracts of land to go in the right direction.

If you ever want to go larger scale on hydroponics, this works like a champ.

I've got a 10' x 36' greenhouse running like you'll see in his videos and it works great.

The only things I do differently are use fine pine bark for the grow medium, dial in the ferts by PPM and PH reading via an inexpensive  meter and include sea-90 sea salt in the mix..

https://www.youtube.com/@mhpgardener

I love this thread.  

SkIP is another great way to get started.

Paul Wheaton has this awesome (and free) framework for building skills and maybe eventually showing that you deserve to inherit someone's land.  Check it out!

Rather like Cimarron, my whole life was "how I started before I started". At age 60 I retired from an office job in New York City, sold my suburban NJ house and bought 20 acres of undeveloped woodland in SW Michigan.
For several years before retiring, I focused on learning permaculture design and the universe of skills needed to do it adequately ;) I bought a scythe and got rid of my lawn mower. We got chickens. I built hugel mounds in the back yard. I learned to carve spoons - it's a terrific entry to green wood working and that's a very useful skill set to have. I had a wide range of skills in terms of basic home maintenance - minor plumbing and electrical work, carpentry, tile, roofing. I was more than competent in a kitchen, able to cook from scratch, follow recipes or not ;) baking. That was all stuff I had learned over my lifetime.

A major aspect of my focus when preparing to really make the leap, was learning about how to work with different kinds of land. Having the skill set to develop and grow in a variety of conditions, because you probably won't be able to pick your perfect site. Instead, you may find, like I did, that a very good opportunity appears, but with challenges. Much of our site is low lying land with a water table that comes above ground level seasonally ;) If I didn't know how to choose plants for the conditions, and ways of changing the conditions to provide opportunities for other plants, this site would not work for us.

Something I did not do enough of was learning plant identification. It's incredibly valuable and you can do it starting now ;)

When people talk about "self-sufficiency" there's a really fundamental problem in those words. They're unqualified. Almost everyone using those words really means something different.  They mean "self-sufficient at" something. Like self-sufficient at growing their own food, or perhaps sewing their own clothes. Maybe energy self-sufficient. And within these qualified categories some of these things are achievable. But the gardener growing all of their own food probably is not also making all of their own tools. The tailor probably doesn't make their own needles and scissors, nor are they very likely to be raising their own fiber, spinning and weaving their own thread and cloth.
We all rely on interdependence and it's important to remember, recognize and rally around this idea. It takes a village ;)

Back to starting before starting - you mentioned writing down ideas about what it is you want to do. NOTHING you can do is more important than building your own personal clear vision of what it is you want to achieve. Identify your goals, examine paths that lead to these goals. Break down your overall goals and identify the elements that you will need to achieve them. This will show you what skills you should focus on achieving, what tools you might work toward acquiring. It will give you mile markers along your journey. And being able to look at your notes, your plans, your roadmap to your goals and see that you can check off these mile markers, even while still living in apartments working in the conventional societal systems, will energize you and keep you moving toward your goals.

See Hes wrote:Have ideas and watch your land.
Seasonal changes tell you about rainwater run off paths, show you what what is growing where.

Avoid mistakes by reading in the web what others did wrong.

Then prepare first steps like if you have time pot some trees and grow them.

Any plant you grow, google (and books) know the do and don't do.

Ask again and again other permies here in the forum before every step you want to do...

Stick to one step at a time, also in the preparation phase.

I am now in year 8 of "the before" and this winter I feel I am ready to start..

Thanks very much! Once I have some land I'll be sure to take some time to watch the land before getting stuck in straight away. And take those first steps I can do without immediately making permanent decisions (like plating trees).

You can be sure I will be pestering everyone on here

S Rogers wrote:I love this thread.  

SkIP is another great way to get started.

Thanks Rogers! Going to take a look at this in my next lunch break

(Also, I do play poker, so might buy some of those permies poker cards )

Peter Ellis wrote:Rather like Cimarron, my whole life was "how I started before I started". At age 60 I retired from an office job in New York City, sold my suburban NJ house and bought 20 acres of undeveloped woodland in SW Michigan.
For several years before retiring, I focused on learning permaculture design and the universe of skills needed to do it adequately I bought a scythe and got rid of my lawn mower. We got chickens. I built hugel mounds in the back yard. I learned to carve spoons - it's a terrific entry to green wood working and that's a very useful skill set to have. I had a wide range of skills in terms of basic home maintenance - minor plumbing and electrical work, carpentry, tile, roofing. I was more than competent in a kitchen, able to cook from scratch, follow recipes or not baking. That was all stuff I had learned over my lifetime.

A major aspect of my focus when preparing to really make the leap, was learning about how to work with different kinds of land. Having the skill set to develop and grow in a variety of conditions, because you probably won't be able to pick your perfect site. Instead, you may find, like I did, that a very good opportunity appears, but with challenges. Much of our site is low lying land with a water table that comes above ground level seasonally If I didn't know how to choose plants for the conditions, and ways of changing the conditions to provide opportunities for other plants, this site would not work for us.

Something I did not do enough of was learning plant identification. It's incredibly valuable and you can do it starting now

When people talk about "self-sufficiency" there's a really fundamental problem in those words. They're unqualified. Almost everyone using those words really means something different.  They mean "self-sufficient at" something. Like self-sufficient at growing their own food, or perhaps sewing their own clothes. Maybe energy self-sufficient. And within these qualified categories some of these things are achievable. But the gardener growing all of their own food probably is not also making all of their own tools. The tailor probably doesn't make their own needles and scissors, nor are they very likely to be raising their own fiber, spinning and weaving their own thread and cloth.
We all rely on interdependence and it's important to remember, recognize and rally around this idea. It takes a village

Back to starting before starting - you mentioned writing down ideas about what it is you want to do. NOTHING you can do is more important than building your own personal clear vision of what it is you want to achieve. Identify your goals, examine paths that lead to these goals. Break down your overall goals and identify the elements that you will need to achieve them. This will show you what skills you should focus on achieving, what tools you might work toward acquiring. It will give you mile markers along your journey. And being able to look at your notes, your plans, your roadmap to your goals and see that you can check off these mile markers, even while still living in apartments working in the conventional societal systems, will energize you and keep you moving toward your goals.

Thanks very much for your response Peter!

I can definitely start on improving plant identification now.

You statement about self sufficiency is logical. Compared to my 16 year old self's dream it has become more realistic. I certainly have no will for forging my own scissors.

I like the idea of writing as a way of energising, not just keeping track of your thoughts!

Certainly, everything everyone has mentioned is important. Learn as many skills as you can, gather needed future tools, acquire knowledge, practice, practice, practice. Do all of that. Get as ready as you can for your new future life. It'll all make the doing easier.

But, once you get your land, or perhaps even better, before you acquire a particular property, ask the land what it wants. Does the land itself want to have happen what you are planning to do to it? Do the Nature Spirits and Faires and trees and plants want what you want? Consider if what you bring to a piece of soil will make it happy, just as you hope that earth will make you happy?

We humans tend to just bumble around doing as we please, paying no attention to what has gone on before. If there is something in our way, well then, most generally that thing has to move. But that kind of doing may often upset everyone, and no one ends up happy. So ask. Simply ask.

We are the second oldest intentional community in the U.S. We have been here longer, doing what we do, than almost anyone. But it's not just that we have been living this sort of community life longer than most anyone else. It's also that in all the history of anyone living in this particular spot, we have been here the longest. Oh sure, Original Peoples lived in this area for thousands of years, the boat people have been here for hundreds. But the villages and graves and Ceremonial Mounds of those earlier peoples are down the hill from us. But in this particular spot, drinking from that particular spring, no one person or group has lived longer. No one has for so long carried their fingernail clippings, or cut their hair, and intentionally taken them out to this land to place them in the soil, so that the land becomes us. Just as the land grows the food we eat, that turns us into that land. No one has spent as much time asking, as they have been doing, as we have. So in all of this, this is something we have learned. Ask.

We have many dozens of people that come here, every year. Sometimes hundreds. Over the many decades I suppose that number has grown rather high. They come to learn. Sometimes just to live. Some marry. Most move on to their own land. We do quite a lot with them, teaching and learning and doing, while they are here. But the first, first thing we ask them to do when they arrive, is to just sit. Go wander around over this land. Find a place to sit. Then just sit. And observe. And listen. Feel the breeze. Feel the vibration. And ask.

We have had many people here who want to jump right in and start pulling weeds, or maybe paint something (for some of them maybe they think that will prove their intent and value). But, instead, we just ask them to take a day, sometimes two, to just be still. And try to hear the land. And maybe the land will say, it doesn't want them to pull those particular weeds today. Maybe that tree doesn't want to be cut yet (even though to our human eyes it appears to be dead). Maybe the Nature Spirits would like you to walk a different path than the one you thought.

So. Maybe the first thing to do, before you begin all the projects you thought and planned, before you start that first nail or dig that first hole, simply ask the land, "What do you want?" "Does my plan for siting the house agree with what you would like?" "Where do you, Land, think the garden belongs?" If you can do all of that, maybe in years down the road, the land will be as happy, care for you as much, as you have loved that land.

Niels,
While I agree with the previous comment for the most part, I would like to point out something that in my opinion has to come before that. You mentioned self-sufficiency. Here in the US (maybe other places too) it is understood as individual self-sufficiency. And yes, I guess technically it is not impossible but requires 100% of your time being solely dedicated to mere survival, not letting any time to enjoy some of the other aspects there are to life on this planet. Not to mention that even then you are straddling the line between survival and not.
So what you have to decide first is how you want to do it.

You can create a business, where you hire people to do some of the job, and of course it has it's own benefits, but what you are really doing is to create a business that probably to a certain extent will rely on outside factors, therefore it is not really self-sufficient. Not to mention that this approach does not bring anything new or better to this world.

You can also choose to allow some people in as "community members" where the operation as a whole might be self reliant, if you can involve those people in some common chores in return for the right to live on your land. But again while this is a less exploitative way of interacting with others in order to accomplish group self-sufficiency, it is still vey much dependent on the willingness of people who have only a loose interest to be and stay part of the operation. In this model (lets assume that the level of exploitation is reasonably low) if one person finds a better arrangement elsewhere, the self-sufficiency of the group can be jeopardized.

As a third option you can decide that the land and all of it's proceed should be shared equally between the people who are part of the self-sufficient group. This model eliminates exploitation, everybody is directly linked to the benefits and directly involved in the creation of those and those all together shape a stable group where the group self-sufficiency exists, is stable and thriving.

Of course don't take all these as solid facts, it is more like an experience based opinion of mine, and different structures work for different people differently.
Also I am sure there are other models than the three that I have outlined here, but the three things I am certain of are these:
1) Individual self-sufficiently is close to impossible, and doable only with very high cost and relatively meek rewards
2) Group self-sufficiency is historically tried and proven, and it has many models that can be considered, depending on your own value system
3) Deciding which one appeals best to you and how you want to make it all happen should be the No1 decision before anything else.

The good news is that if you decide one way, you can always change your mind later if that way proves to be less appealing than you thought it would be.

Going back to the OP, I flipped a couple of houses (long before flipping was a term).  This helped to give me the building skills I needed to build my cabin from the ground up.  It also provided needed extra cash.  We also kept a garden and heated with wood.  Prior to that, we had a significant level of backpacking experience (as in living for months on the trail).  I kept a decent day job to help stockpile $$$ prior to the jump. This money vanished quickly as building supplies were bought

I did not work an outside job for the first few months after we arrived on our property (we moved from Illinois to MN).  This gave me the opportunity to get the cabin and property established.  

Mistakes I made included not having even more cash ( It is much better to be rich and healthy than poor and sickly).  I should have put up much more firewood the year prior to the move.   I did not appreciate the importance of good neighbors.  I ended up with some very difficult neighbors. One lived a mile away and still made a point of being a problem.

One thing I did very right was that I did not go to the local lumber yard to buy wood for building. I went directly to a mill and made a bulk purchase that saved a great deal of cash.   I also had a well drilled prior to our move.  Water was never an issue.