Inquiring Advice on Site Layout for Future Homestead

Hi Everyone,

New to this site but loving the content! Would love some feedback on a future homesteading site layout I'm planning. My wife and I are 33 with 4 kids. We intend to build on our 45 acre lot and want to grow more self reliant, raise our own clean food, and be more part of the homesteading community. Drawing this all out in CAD. On the east side of the house there are many white pine trees that the kids will love running around in and a nice tucked away open area that I'd like to keep open as possible, hence why I've located many of the homestead features to the south and west. The topography to the south is steep wooded land filled with beautiful hardwoods. I'm open for any and all suggestions! Thank you in advance for taking the time.

Two attachments, first zoomed in site layout and second showing extent of property line.

Is it smart to have he water hens straddle the watercourse?
Can you catch rainwater instead of having a water bore?

Welcome to Permies!

What region of the world are you in? How well do you know the property? What direction do your storms usually come from? What path does the surface rainwater like to flow? What do you want your place to accomplish? Is this food for you and yours? Growing for market? A place for events?

Welcome to the forum!

I zoomed into 250% though I still could not read the small print.

Would it be possible to describe your placements?

Joylynn brought up some good points such as the path that rainwater takes.

Will you have a kitchen garden near the kitchen door?

Do you plan some flowers for their prettiness and for pest control?

How lovely to have 45 acres to make your own!

I can see you've thought about what you want to do, but maybe you want to think about your life there and how your days go. Permaculture design can help the flow of materials (energy) around the plot. My instinct would be to go away from straight square lines - maybe radial or circular paths would make it easier to walk around? Are you going to let the chickens eat the pests in the Orchard and fruit garden - perhaps the coop could be closer to (or even in) one of those areas. The barn is at the edge of the area - everything needs to move a long way to get there - is there a better place for that?

Just a few thoughts!

Welcome to Permies, Levi!

That's a lot of land compared to my single acre in a rural community.

I can't advise you on "this should go here, and that should go there" etc. All I can say is that you came to the right place for help, support, and a caring online community. I suspect that once you get out there on the property and begin to pay attention to what the land is telling you, you'll make a lot of smart decisions, and some that aren't so smart, but everybody reaches success through multiple rounds of failure.

Watch how the sun, wind, and water move across the property. Where micro-climates are. Get multiple soil samples and figure out what will do best when they're planted in specific spots. Start improving the soil. Identify where you can catch and store water. What places get the most sun, and which are in constant shade? Where are the "edges" and margins on your property. Pay special attention to them, because those tend to combine functions that you haven't even considered yet.

Permaculture asks these questions.

I hope this works out for you and your family, and I look forward to chatting with you here.

Jim

Nancy brings up a good point about the barn.

When we built our homestead, the barn was where you have the red boxes near the house.

That way if we had deliveries of bulk seed, feed, hay etc. these could be unloaded into the barn easily from the delivery trucks. or our truck and close to the driveway.

  When we built our homestead, the barn was where you have the red boxes near the house.
 

those red boxes are labeled 'barn'😊so in just the right spot in relationship to the driveway as you suggest.
If you can click on the picture it will reload with better resolution and the captions are clear.

My advice:
-locate the house and all building at the highest level spot that is practical
-position you well at higher spot than the buildings (and animal barns)
-make sure your main driveway will not get flooded
-make sure the dirt at the building site has good bearing capacity (low clay) and will allow for long lasting foundations
-for gardens pick the most fertile location
-for orchards a delicate slope is desired, so cold air pockets will not form
-if your location received too much sun, think about the natural shade if possible

a handful of miscellaneous thoughts on it...

* Sketch out what regions will get shade and sun when the buildings are all in place and the trees are at their mature heights. This makes sure you're intentionally shading what you want to shade and exposing what you want to expose.

* Consider the microclimates that your structures will intersect with the site to create. cold air falls downhill and pools; winds will have a prevailing direction that they prefer to come from. Make sure the relationships between your buildings are creating the microclimates that you want.

* consider the soil under everything, related to past uses of the site, any fill or excavation that's been done, side effects of groundwater behavior, etc. Go to the site and identify all the plants that are volunteering, and consider making a rough map of where you're seeing which volunteers. Current plant growth will tell you a lot about what will do well when introduced to a given location.

* Good work keeping your wood storage separate from the house but nearby. huge in case of wildfire. you're looking pretty good on defensible space in general; don't go planting anything flammable right up next to your house or anything. Photosynthesis is exactly the opposite of combustion -- plants store up energy from sun and water, and it only takes one year of unusually weird weather to turn "we don't have to worry about wildfire here" into "oh actually we're very worried" for a minute.

* where's the compost go -- just in with the chickens?

* consider the timeline of when you're adding which features. You may be able to pick up free benefits from having one thing in a temporary location while working on another -- for instance, you might want to run some animals on the sites where you're planning to put your greenhouses, to fertilize the soil and knock back any unwanted vegetation.

* as you plan for livestock, consider whether you want total segregation or more rotation flexibility. If you put up fences that can contain everybody, you can rotate which critters are in which area, which gives you finer control of how long each species' excrement rots before that species is eating near it again.

* think through where you're going to want electricity in the finished buildout, and bury what you need to bury when you're doing it for the house. I'll bet future you would be very, very grateful for a single outdoor outlet in that goat/pig structure, for instance. not even starting on electric fencing.

* Draw yourself a map that shows the windows of the house and the sight-lines from the windows. Assess whether the things that ought to be in-sight are in sight, and the things that ought to be less visible are hidden.

* what are your plans for water storage? it's nice to have a well as an option, but it's also nice to have as much rainwater as you can catch, for irrigation etc. Tanks take up a lot of room, and benefit from being sited uphill of where you'll want to use the water.

* keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to stack functions. I personally like having my garden share a fence with my chickens, so that I can throw their snacks right at them from it, and I can occasionally open the fence to run the birds through and reset/fertilize a garden area.

* consider any household pets that you have or might want to get. Out in the woods it can be very advantageous to have a perimeter fence to discourage predators from hanging out too close to the home. You don't have to build the perimeter fence first, but make sure you consider the possibility that you might want it later, and check that your structures and other fences are positioned in ways that'll benefit from rather than being inconvenienced by an eventual future perimeter addition.

* If I was farming in the layout you've drawn, I would feel annoyed that the solar is so far from the animals. Animals and solar-in-a-field go together really well -- the critters like shade and plants, and the panels like having the jungle get eaten out from under them before it climbs up and steals their sun. The shade produced by your solar panels is a valuable resource itself in the heat of the year, so look for ways to benefit from it. If you site a barn so that its roof pitch is right for solar at your coordinates, the roof shade from the panels can help keep the whole structure a bit cooler.

* do your gardens and greenhouses need/want their own storage?

Thank you all for the great feedback already! Apologies for the delay on responses.

John: Good thoughts! I will definitely explore rainwater catchment further. Thank you.

Joylynn: We are in Northern Lower Peninsula Michigan, Zone 5b.
We're new to the property but learning more about it with each trip out there!
Storms/wind predominantly from the west. Very shallow topography (topo lines in white, 1' contours), and the property drains to the west.
I'd like to eventually grow more self sufficient and work to have excess to share with others. Also, to feed the ever growing family. Possibly start a PMA or merge with another one in the area to support/contribute to the clean food movement.

Anne: I figure the garden being close to the back of the house (south) will help with chores and going out to collect eggs each day. Have not considered a kitchen garden yet but definitely open to it! Need to research that concept more.
I'd like to plant flowers more for pest control than aesthetics.

Nancy: I'm an engineer so straight lines run in my blood haha! But yes, I will definitely explore the concentric circles and make a few layouts with this concept. Thank you for the suggestion!
Good call on the chickens in the orchard. We have been letting our chickens free range at our current home so will likely allow them into the orchard in non-winter seasons. I'd like the chicken coop fairly close to the house to keep chore walking distance minimized but not too close obviously!
With the barn, I'll have a small tractor haul everything that's needed and can attached a trailer on as well. You're right though everything is far from the barn. I'll continue to ponder this as well.

Jim: Great advice, thank you. I will be going and digging up many soil samples over the next few weeks. I'll also, as many mentioned, document what plants exist and try to understand them better to work with them and not against them. Thank you again for the great questions to consider and appreciate the kind words.

Cristobal: Thank you for the great considerations. As we are working with our builder, I'll make sure these thoughts are on the top of my mind!

Amy: Very thoughtful misc thoughts! Thank you!
I need to understand microclimates more especially as they relate to an orchard so I'll be nerding out over this over the next few weeks, thank you for bringing this to my attention. The hills to the south (as you can see from the tight topo lines) are quite steep.
Thankfully not much historically has occurred here so now I simply need to learn more about the soil and plants in the area!
Good thoughts on the fire prevention.
Compost location still TBD but I was thinking between the garden and chicken coop.
Good idea, I'd like to have pigs right away for that purpose! But a lot of planning for sure.
Love that, planning to have electrical wires run all over the place!
Water storage, I will be putting some time into this too. Haven't fully thought through this one.
My wife is desiring a large LGD so that'll likely happen lol. But yes, great thoughts on the perimeter fence.
With the solar, my only concern is increased cost of cabling if I needed the energy from the solar panels to go far to the house. Hence I tried to keep the solar panels close but not too close. Maybe I can make a paddock there and rotate the goats into the paddock once in awhile to mow the lawn?
I've got a small garden shed drawn in as a small yellow box within the first 40'x50' garden area, but haven't thought if this will be enough yet. Good thoughts.

Thank you all for the help! Wonderful advice all around.