Things you wish you knew when you started

Rebecca Blake: regarding your onions, are you sure you're growing a variety suited to your latitude? There are short day, intermediate day, and long day varieties. Here's a map showing which you should grow based on where you live in the US (if you're not in the US, let me know and I can probably find a similar map for other places).

https://www.dixondalefarms.com/onion_plant_daylengths

Faren Leader wrote:**GROW YOUR HOMESTEAD SLOWLY.**

Don't overload yourself with so many projects that you burn out. Do NOT convince yourself that you're going to buy property, build a yurt to live in, get chickens, get ducks, get milking goats, plant a garden, plant fruit trees, install water catchment, etc etc etc all in the first year or two. Even if you already have badass food growing skills, don't plan on growing/raising/canning/storing more than about half your calories in the first year or two.

I don’t have badass food growing skills so I wasn’t hoping to do much early! A house would be nice to start lol. I’m thinking I may start some terracing and clearing yucky trees if I have time- without stressing over it too much.

On the onions... I knew I needed to get a certain type for my climate but I apparently still ordered the wrong kind. Oops! Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Any guidance on what to do with my long day onions if I live in a short day climate? (Texas) lol
I planted them in the Fall so they’ve just been sitting there all this time. They’re finally growing layers so I guess I’ll see how big they get before it’s too hot.

If you keep them watered, and maybe give them a little shot of nitrogen (I favor diluted fish emulsion, or diluted urine) soon, you'll get big beautiful scallions that might bulb out a little bit at the bottom in May. Nothing wrong with that! Maybe plant something tall next to them soon (corn, tomatoes, whatever) in a direction that will give the onions some afternoon shade into June and July, and you can slowly harvest the onions as you need them.

Faren Leader wrote:If you keep them watered, and maybe give them a little shot of nitrogen (I favor diluted fish emulsion, or diluted urine) soon, you'll get big beautiful scallions that might bulb out a little bit at the bottom in May. Nothing wrong with that! Maybe plant something tall next to them soon (corn, tomatoes, whatever) in a direction that will give the onions some afternoon shade into June and July, and you can slowly harvest the onions as you need them.

Go figure, the ones that are big scallions now are the ones that had a urine test :)
I’m a bit sheepish to use that when other people are home- which is almost always. But I’ll try to remember it when I’m alone. Or I’ll get fish emulsion. Thanks!

Nature really doesn’t like to cooperate with your plans. My revelation today is that the invasive grass and weeds, gophers, hungry deer, weather and other natural things that get in your way and waste massive amounts of time and energy don’t care that you’re trying to do things right. Nature is just a free-for-all of everybody battling for survival, and the toughest things merrily reproduce and do their things while ruining all the nice stuff you’ve planted.
Also, there’s a reason permacultures almost universally look like shit. Because nature is messy, and unless you have a LOT of time, money and help, or you start off with a neatly groomed yard in a suburb with no invasive weeds or “critters” anywhere in the area and create your garden by taking out one small piece of turf at a time. Oh, and it helps tremendously if you live in a place with good soil, regular rain, sunlight that’s not too harsh and at least several useful and edible native species that would love to grow in your soil and climate. You can use those as an easy foundation for your planting while you fill in with things that are more difficult to grow. Otherwise, everything is tough to grow, which is why you so rarely hear about successful permaculture in areas like where I live (north edge of the Great Basin), where there has never been year-round human habitation. There’s almost nothing useful or edible that grows her naturally.
I’ve been at this for four long years, and ready to throw in the towel. Unless you have an entire village of people or army of groundskeepers like Martha Stewart, you’re likely to end up with something that looks and functions really half-assed. Somehow the perma gurus get huge native trees to grow from tiny seedlings in the desert with nothing more than a couple of applications of cow poop and watering once a week. Entire ecosystems are miraculously rejuvenated from dead hillsides with nothing but some free seedlings, saved seed, a bit of manure, some rocks and a bit of elbow grease. I have yet to see any permaculturists discuss what to do when the weeds and non-native grasses, destructive rodents and other pests invade, when the soil is too crappy and sandy to grow anything useful unless it’s amended year after year after year with fantastic quantities of compost, or when veggies bolt and go to seed too quickly to be eaten but scatter all over and come up everywhere in subsequent years. Apparently these are problems unique to me as nobody else ever seems to mention themI’m trying to create a compromise between an overgrown, out-of-control foraging free-for-all that most permacultures are, and something nice enough that you can feel proud when the gardening club comes over. I’m seeing that it takes a LONG time and a LOT more work than one person can do, at least when starting from scratch.My advice? Plant a conventional lawn, and remove it piece by piece as you install your perma plants. Keep your design really simple and focus on small areas each season. Also, think carefully about placement of things (like, I got a piece of equipment INTO this space, but can I get it OUT again when it needs repair? I’ve read a lot of permit blogs and watched a lot of backyard permaculture videos and the design mistakes many people make leave me cringing (like, planting a jujube tree near the foundation of a home 😖). So, there’s a LOT of bad advice out there! Good luck with your pursuits, though, and just know that when you hear people bragging about how fantastic and cheap and easy their perma came together, “other people’s results may not be the same as performance for YOU”!

Instead of 6 strand high tensile for sheep and goats, I would have used sheep and goat sized woven wire with a strand of barbwire on the ground under the fence, offset hot wires on the inside, outside, and one at the top.  Expensive, but dogs and/or coyotes have really set me back. With the woven wire, I could have gotten by with a less expensive charger, as they have been killed by lightening half a dozen times.  I'd also spend less time on maintenance, as right now, I keep the fence spotless to keep the voltage at max.

Rebecca,

This is a great thread you started and I am loving the answers.  I actually have 2 things I wish I knew:  one is a very Permies principle, one slightly so.

First off I will echo what Leigh already said about soil being an ecosystem.  I am afraid that I started my garden beds by roto tilling.  I added in huge amounts of leaves and other organic matter but it just seemed to disappear into the clay soil.  Eventually I sold the tiller, found Permies and got hooked on mushroom compost.  I never really understood how soil is an ecosystem until I saw my Wine Cap hyphae wrapped around the roots of my tomatoes and I could see with my own eyes that they were feeding each other.

The second thing I wished I had (actually I always knew this would be a good idea) was having a tractor right at the beginning of owning the land.  They are just so useful and save the back so much ache and pain.

Also, neighbors can be absolutely golden.  Most of mine have.

My 2 cents,

Eric

I wish my sense of esthetics and appreciation for "weeds" hadn't taken so long to evolve.  I was just outside watching my ducks eat the florida betony, spiderworts, wild lettuce and grass and thinking how all that would have been mowed over by now in past years.  I had just been thinking that betony was getting a little too shaggy and time for a trim, but they are just starting to bloom and the bees like them at that stage. Besides, those root tubers are pretty good for snacking on.

Howdy y'all!

My name's Dennis, and I'm new to this site. Stumbled across it looking at ideas about powering a generator with ethanol. And, while bio-diesel seems now like a more viable alternative, I've found a very interesting community existing here.



The ENTIRE world is continuing to head in the craziest of directions. Everything is filled with uncertainty, and the idea of abandoning all of it for a more simple and self sustainable life is becoming more and more appealing. If for the purpose of helping me personally, or anyone else who might stumble down the rabbit hole of living more self sustainably,

What are some things you wish you had known??

It'd be great also to have an understanding of your circumstances as well! Like, what are you doing? what's the kind of area you're living in?

Anything to help out someone who hasn't quite put an idea together of what to do, or how to do it. What's something you wish you had known?


Any response is appreciated! I'm really curious to see what kind of message board I've stumbled upon, who all of y'all are, and what you do

Much respect,

-Total Noob

Oh my, the list is endless - but I've been at this a long time.

Have you tripped over the SKIP program here on permies?  https://permies.com/wiki/skip-pep-bb
This is a great starting point because many of us don't even realize how many skills are necessary to be more sustainable - like repairing things instead of buying new.

It's a bit hard to know what might be useful for you without knowing a little about your "growing area" and your current living situation. This doesn't have to be precise, but identifying your climate zone, major weather patterns, urban, rural or big city, etc give people a sense of what might be relevant.

Dennis, welcome to the forum!

My best suggestion once a person has shelter and water for drinking and irrigation is to start slow when adding to the equation.

What is most important learning to garden or learning to grow animals?

With my family, it was growing vegetables then building a shelter for chickens.  Another year it was cows, etc.

Some other good thing to consider is making compost and growing mushrooms as these will help build your soil year after year.

Hi Dennis and Welcome!
Things I wish I'd known (earlier)
Landraces: https://permies.com/t/139843
Soil: https://permies.com/t/63914/Soil (etc.)

I've got a little bit of windswept hillside on Skye and I wish I'd known how much better the self sown trees (native stock) would grow. I also wish I'd moved away from the "day job" years earlier (I still get strange dreams about working at Jaguar...just last night I dreamt I couldn't find my desk in the open plan office).

Life is not a rehearsal - we're all just making it up as we go along!

EVERYTHING. COSTS. MORE. THAN. YOU. THINK.

Costed everything out perfectly? Oh no you haven't you forgot the trailer hire to get it home, that one specific tool that you'll probably never use again, oh and XXX broke just as you needed it on a Friday evening meaning a 2 hour drive to borrow one.

Not only does it cost more than you think, but it takes longer to. Think you'll dig the garden on Saturday in time for planting on Sunday? nuh uh, it rained all week and there's no chance of even walking out there until next week.

Always underestimate your ability and overestimate the time things will take.

Start small and add things when you have the last thing under-control.

No matter how much of a loner you are, no matter how independent you are, neighbors have a great deal to do with how successful you will be.  Neighbors can be constructive or destructive.  

I wish I had known ... to start planting trees.  Immediately.  And don't stop.

I moved to this present farm in 2010, and planted ... I think all of *six* trees the first eight years here.  The four that made it, all look very nice, wish I had 40 instead of just the four.

Plant trees.

I wish I had known ... that Life will keep moving the goalposts. In all your planning and efforts, always consider resilience, adaptability, and readiness for change. For change will come.

I think most of my failures were needed so I can grow. I regret expending too much time in the garden and leaving my wife aside when she most needed me, but alas, the kickback maybe was what I needed to become who I am now.

That said, regarding gardening, there are a couple of tidbits that should have come handy:
- The local growing seasons: Fall (oct-nov), Winter (Dec-Jan), Spring (Feb-Apr), Summer (May-Jun) and BEACH SEASON (Jul-Sep).
- How to grow seedlings in a wet tray.
- Waiting until the soil is moist before digging.
- Thistles are annoying but edible. Some are even tasty.
- If I refuse to do some work, the ecosystem evolves to adapt to the work I do. This involves losing some species, and living with the ones who thrive on my inputs. For example, if I don't figth bugs, some plants die, but predators appear. If I don't irrigate, some plants dry, but some others propagate with ease (like tasty thistle). This works for everything in life!! Given enough diversity, do just what makes you happy and the world around you will evolve to adapt for it.

In other words, I do the work that makes me happy (prunning, digging, foraging), refuse to do what I dislike (weeding, figthing bugs/diseases, irrigating), I plant/seed a big diversity, and let the system respond. Did I mention I don't feed too much from the garden? X'D

If you are buying a house in a snowy area, get one with a steep pitched roof that will shed snow.  Do not trust that the local people who built it necessarily got it right!  At age 72 I am still climbing on my almost flat roof to shovel it off after major snow storms.  Someday you too will be be 72 or older.
Also, beware of long winding tree lined driveways which look lovely when you see them in July.  They can be a pain or a major expense when they need to be plowed after 2 feet of snow.
Plan for when you are 90.

Gary Numan wrote:I wish I had known ... to start planting trees.  Immediately.  And don't stop.

I moved to this present farm in 2010, and planted ... I think all of *six* trees the first eight years here.  The four that made it, all look very nice, wish I had 40 instead of just the four.

Plant trees.

Totally, absolutely, undoubtedly sound advice. 15+ years after moving to 15 acres of barren pasture land (llamas) surrounded by timberland, one of my biggest regrets is not planting more trees sooner.  By now, I've planted over 400 trees including about 150 fruit trees and I still continue to plant more. Sure, we can't eat all the fruit, but friends, the foodbank, and the wildlife take care of it all (no llamas). Elk and beavers have taken their toll on the trees, and I have to cage all the fruit trees while they're small (trunks of all permanently for the beaver), but it's worth the effort for food, firewood, and watching the wildlife.

"Work smarter not harder" is a great mantra that I wish I focused more on earlier in life.  

I wish I had known more about the wild edibles in my area and encouraged more to grow on my property sooner.  Zero work involved, endless bounty and a way to continue to eat off our land as we grow old.  

If you like asparagus plant a large patch.  Deer don't bother ours and early Spring they are the first crop we get to enjoy and new shoots literally grow in time for dinner the next night.  

We also tried a dozen different deer fence configurations that all failed.  Long thin garden plots was the answer in the end.  Our small kitchen garden is just 7' X 30' with one  raised berm down the middle - we simply planted on top of a pile of felled trees and cut branches topped with soil as our raised bed.  Deer won't jump a fence if the back fence looks too close or if they feel that after the jump that they will be trapped in and not have room to jump back out.  If only we had figured this out sooner.

And finally, discovering hemp hulls took me over a decade of researching and testing different organic mattress fillings - which I have based my cottage business on.  Hemp hulls seriously make the best DIY mattress simply poured into a mattress cover with some stretch and layered over a soft forgiving base layer.  If I had only found them 12 years ago!!  

Nature truly provides all we need, we have just forgotten where to look.

Lynne Cim wrote:

We also tried a dozen different deer fence configurations that all failed.  Long thin garden plots was the answer in the end.  Our small kitchen garden is just 7' X 30' with one  raised berm down the middle - we simply planted on top of a pile of felled trees and cut branches topped with soil as our raised bed.  Deer won't jump a fence if the back fence looks too close or if they feel that after the jump that they will be trapped in and not have room to jump back out.  If only we had figured this out sooner.

Should one be inclined to have an odd looking fence, research has shown that deer won't jump over a 5 foot fence IF the fence is installed at an angle of 55°. As stated in the quote, they want to know what is on each side of any vertical obstacle they plan to jump. I am always amazed at how an animal as big as an elk is, can just seem to spring over a 5 foot fence. When elk started jumping a section of our fenced garden that was about 6 feet high, the rest is higher, I dumped a lot of larger plastic pots along the inside of the fence. This landing spot uncertainty was enough to deter them until I raised the fence.

Paul Young wrote:

Should one be inclined to have an odd looking fence, research has shown that deer won't jump over a 5 foot fence IF the fence is installed at an angle of 55°. As stated in the quote, they want to know what is on each side of any vertical obstacle they plan to jump. I am always amazed at how an animal as big as an elk is, can just seem to spring over a 5 foot fence. When elk started jumping a section of our fenced garden that was about 6 feet high, the rest is higher, I dumped a lot of larger plastic pots along the inside of the fence. This landing spot uncertainty was enough to deter them until I raised the fence.

Oh very cool note about the garden containers!  I wonder which direction would be best for the fence to be angled, in toward the planted area or out toward the approaching / jumping animal?  

Hi Lynne,
I read the fence research some time back, but I'm pretty sure it was angled outwards. I'll try to find it again.

Lynne Cim wrote: Oh very cool note about the garden containers!  I wonder which direction would be best for the fence to be angled, in toward the planted area or out toward the approaching / jumping animal?  

 Pictures I've seen always had it pointing out towards the jumping animal. A search for images will likely give you a number of options. For me, I would go for the "vertical fence with a brace coming out at about 4 ft high with several wires on the brace" version. This way I can access under the fence for management - otherwise Himalayan Blackberry would invade and I'd have no way to discourage it. Also, our soil gets sooo... soggy in the winter, I would worry about a 55° fence gradually sinking to a lower angle. One's exact ecosystem is a factor with choosing designs!

I agree with Skandi, everything costs more and takes more time than you think.

I tried planting trees early, all but two died. Our environment is harsh. Now I don't plant anything that isn't protected from wildlife and able to be watered. Even native species require watering at first, nature gets around this by planting so many that only 1/100 or 1/1000 lives. I can't afford that, either in time or money.

I have had great luck with deer fencing. My raised bed garden has a 6' chain link fence. Other areas that I have fenced have 7' field fencing. I've never had a deer jump them. But there are plenty of other areas for the deer so maybe they just don't feel the need.

Trust your instincts. I've had others out to my property to advise and after much consideration, I've discarded most of their advice. Many suggested putting all of the livestock in the pole barn, but it's not near the houses, and not set up for livestock. I've decided to have more dedicated areas for different species each with their own housing closer to where I can keep an eye on them. The pole barn will be used for entertaining mostly. My youngest is having their wedding reception there.

Like you, Stacy, I would not use a 55° angled fence - too many cons, including all those you mentioned. I spend a lot of time removing blackberries without having to deal with a 55° fence. For the elk, people tell me to get a dog or shoot them. I won't do either because 1) they were here before me, and 2) I enjoy watching them. I chose to take the effort required to protect (not always successfully) individual trees and other plants scattered across the property. For most, protection from elk is only until the trees is big enough, except for 6' of the trunk they like to debark with their antlers - and then there are the beavers, too. The elk, standing on their back legs, can readily reach, and break, branches up to 8' to 10' so a fruit tree needs fairly long term protection.
Back to the original topic - you can't go wrong by planting trees as soon as you can, lots of them.

Abraham Palma wrote:I think most of my failures were needed so I can grow.

I totally agree that I appreciate my failures because of what I learned from them. Especially when I failed on some smaller things that helped me do better when tackling some larger thing later on

Abraham Palma wrote:
- Waiting until the soil is moist before digging.

😂 Oh yes, definitely this. So much wasted energy and unnecessary blisters. Also that the same hole can be dug with much less effort by giving a group of kids some hand shovels and daring them to dig a hole they can sit in. I did that the last time I had a bunch of trees to plant. I just marked the perimeters of the holes by removing a ring of grass and let them at it. In fact some of the holes ended up too deep!

Abraham Palma wrote:
- Thistles are annoying but edible. Some are even tasty.

What kind of thistles are you eating and how are you eating them?! I have tried eating the stem after peeling and it was very unpleasant tasting.

Abraham Palma wrote:
- If I refuse to do some work, the ecosystem evolves to adapt to the work I do. This involves losing some species, and living with the ones who thrive on my inputs. For example, if I don't figth bugs, some plants die, but predators appear. If I don't irrigate, some plants dry, but some others propagate with ease (like tasty thistle). This works for everything in life!! Given enough diversity, do just what makes you happy and the world around you will evolve to adapt for it.

I am learning this too. I lost some trees last year to disease and rather than planting the same type again, I'm going to plant a completely different type. If I'm working too hard and things die when I can't do that work for a few weeks, then I'm fighting too hard against nature. I'm learning to work with nature instead.

Dennis Coyle wrote:

It'd be great also to have an understanding of your circumstances as well! Like, what are you doing? what's the kind of area you're living in?

Anything to help out someone who hasn't quite put an idea together of what to do, or how to do it. What's something you wish you had known?

I wish I had known that trying to "do it all" is not a good way to get things done. This led me to writing this https://permies.com/t/156318/hour-week-job-making-home. Also reading the books "Early Retirement Extreme" (Here is a link https://permies.com/wiki/ere ) and Paul Wheaton's book "Building a Better World in Your Backyard" (here is a link https://permies.com/wiki/122611f426 ) I feel better about how I live.  For me there is no pressure in trying to emulate other who want things that have no use.  For example, why do I need to drive a truck to work if I do not need a truck to get to work. Or why get cable with 100s of channels if I do not watch any of them.

Try this:

Homesteading is a full time job. You're on call 24/7/365. It does not pay overtime, and often nothing at all. No pensions or benefits. Vacations are very difficult to arrange. If you want to complain to the boss, look in the mirror.

If you are still reading this job description, you are either certifiably insane or a member at Permies.com.

Ahh, but the real pay, though not bankable, makes it all MORE than worthwhile. And, I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.

It really would not have changed anything, but health does not necessarily last forever.

Eric

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I wish I had known ... that Life will keep moving the goalposts. In all your planning and efforts, always consider resilience, adaptability, and readiness for change. For change will come.

In a similar vein to this and not to sound all "woo-woo" but as the decades have passed, I've come to know many who knew 'themselves' better than I knew myself.  We all  unfold on a different caldendar, but I think there is a lot of merit to really knowing, to the extent that you can, who you really are at your core and starting to face that as early in your adult life as possible.  There is an appreciable amount of waste around me at the homestead that represents what I thought was "me", but not infreqeuently turned out to be some culturally fashionable idea that I took as my own.  Perhaps some of this waste might have been avoided with a bit better insight into my "id"-entity in earlier days....

John - I like what you have to say, and many others. Some things that I learned early in my adulthood, like being a mother, have held true. Other things like keeping up with the Joneses were never my thing, it was something I indulged in because it was important to my ex. Identity has always been a difficult thing for me. I do what I must to survive, but I'm a mother. I've always been a mother and I always will be, to my own children and many, many others. It, more than anything defines me, but I feel like this thread is digressing. Not that I'm not enjoying it.

What kind of thistles are you eating and how are you eating them?

The best one is Scolymus hispanicus. I didn't find them, but I'm going to seed them now.

What I've found is one from the carduus family that has the flower at ground level, but I couldn't find the name. In summer it loses all the branches and only the flower is visible.
I remove the thorny leafs from the stems, boil the stems and eat them with fried with garlic or in an omelette.

I could eat also Eryngium campestre, though the flavour is too strong, so I use it in small quantities to add flavour to the pottage.
I have also Carduus marianus in the field, which is a common edible weed, but I haven't tried it yet. Supposedly the flowers are eaten like artichokes, picking them before the flower opens.

Water: too much (flooding,  no storage), not enough (limited rainfall, drought, well issues), not usable (contaminated).

Rules and Regs: just because you want to does not mean you can.  Oil, gas, minerals (everything subsurface) may well NOT belong to you; you may only own the "surface" of your land.

Location: is this for "right now" or forever?  If forever always plan and build with future-proofing in mind.  What is simple at 40, not necessarily at 70. 20 miles down a dirt road is no biggie in summer, but may be impassible in the wet.   Being off-grid is great,  but in the future access to the grid MAY be wanted for some services, if only for backup.

Access to a town for supplies,  medical services, etc.

Neighbors,  knock on doors before you buy.   The perfect property could be hell if you have neighbors who suck.

Buildings and services:  skip the "pretty stuff and focus on the "bones": structure, roof, insulation, windows, plumbing pipes, septic, electrical.  All these systems are costly to replace or upgrade. Fencing is either backbreaking or expensive.

If just choosing a property location and existing level of buildings and services would be my deciding factors.

Lastly,  grow what you love ❤️ not what everyone says you must.

Paul Young wrote:

Gary Numan wrote:I wish I had known ... to start planting trees.  Immediately.  And don't stop.

I moved to this present farm in 2010, and planted ... I think all of *six* trees the first eight years here.  The four that made it, all look very nice, wish I had 40 instead of just the four.

Plant trees.

Totally, absolutely, undoubtedly sound advice. 15+ years after moving to 15 acres of barren pasture land (llamas) surrounded by timberland, one of my biggest regrets is not planting more trees sooner.  By now, I've planted over 400 trees including about 150 fruit trees and I still continue to plant more. Sure, we can't eat all the fruit, but friends, the foodbank, and the wildlife take care of it all (no llamas). Elk and beavers have taken their toll on the trees, and I have to cage all the fruit trees while they're small (trunks of all permanently for the beaver), but it's worth the effort for food, firewood, and watching the wildlife.

Please tell me how to protect my baby trees from the local elk! It's almost criminal to pay the price for good fruit trees just to have the elk decimate them.

Paul Young wrote:Like you, Stacy, I would not use a 55° angled fence - too many cons, including all those you mentioned. I spend a lot of time removing blackberries without having to deal with a 55° fence. For the elk, people tell me to get a dog or shoot them. I won't do either because 1) they were here before me, and 2) I enjoy watching them. I chose to take the effort required to protect (not always successfully) individual trees and other plants scattered across the property. For most, protection from elk is only until the trees is big enough, except for 6' of the trunk they like to debark with their antlers - and then there are the beavers, too. The elk, standing on their back legs, can readily reach, and break, branches up to 8' to 10' so a fruit tree needs fairly long term protection.
Back to the original topic - you can't go wrong by planting trees as soon as you can, lots of them.

What kind of fencing is effective for elk?

Wish I had researched earlier how to identify native growing fodder and weeds. Cause only now just realized that the one field is littered with snake root and that there’s a LOT more work to be done to get that stuff out. Would have been nice to jump on the ball to get that stuff out a year ago.