Things you wish you knew when you started

Build the best fence you can afford.  In our case, we built 6 strand high tensile.  It requires training to work.  Without it, pigs, goats, coyotes, and dogs will run right through it.  Too much of a pain to change now, but I had it to do over again, I’d used 42” goat mesh with a 3 hot wires.  One at the top and 2 at 16 inches or so, inside and out.  Might put a strand of barb wire down in the dirt underneath as well. (Premier recommends this).  As it is we have taken some heavy predator losses.  Could have used a smaller charger as well, vs the lightening box we have on 4 acres;). All of this is still cheaper than a dog.  Our small herd just doesn’t justify the expense of a dog.  

If you want to heat with wood and live in an area with lots of precipitation, build a very nice woodshed first.  Well seasoned wood produces a lot more heat and and a lot less creosote.  

Before you cut or graze anything, make an attempt to ID everything you possibly can.  No doubt tons of saplings and woodland plants were lost when we grazed everything off with goats.

Apples, peaches, cherries, and many plum varieties do not grow well in our area without intensive management (organic or conventional).  Mulberries, blueberries, and pears seem to do much better.

I’ll echo planting your trees early.  Nut trees take a long time to produce.

PVC conduit and fiberglass hold up a lot better than treated wood.

You can’t do everything.  Bees, mushrooms, and a greenhouse are on my shortlist, and have been for a long time.  Not sure if they will ever happen, but that is okay.

Can’t say for sure if I’d be in better shape or not, in terms of joint health, if I had used more equipment (primarily a loader and logsplitter).  Farming is good for the body and hard on it at the same time.  Just something to think about when you take on a huge manual task.

How to keep ag taxes.  every county is probably different though.

We wanted to be sustainable eating what we grew and the farm animals we raise.

When I went to file for the ag taxes they said I had to provide my income tax statement.  So we didn't qualify because we didn't sell anything.  Wich I had known that when I was giving away all those free veggies.

First and biggest lesson is plan for old age.  Things that were nothing in your 20's and 30's may be a real trial after you pass 50.

Build for the long haul where possible.  Taking short cuts nearly always comes back to bite you in the butt.  Be aware when taking risks.  How will you deal with them down the road many years later?  Build for long term simplicity and durability.  If building something different keep multiple copies of records of what you did. parts sources, changes in procedure etc.  Also take lots of pictures and videos.  I am finding things would be so much easier if I had a video log of things like exactly where trenches ran, wires ran, plumbing ran.  Be sure the photos include a few good reference points.

NEVER pour a concrete slab without burying hydronic heating tube under it.  Make your best guess as to how the zones might need to be laid out.  Ideally over lapping zones so a system can fail and be edited out without loss.

Plant trees as early as you can.

Plan ahead.

Oh yeah, don’t buy that corrugated galvanized steel roofing from the box store.  Buy proper steel roofing, it costs just a little more and easily lasts 3x as long.

Another thing, especially if you’re buying land that has Woods on it.
look up at the tops of the trees. If there’s been a tornado some of the tops of the trees will be cut. You would think it’s not that common but once you start looking around it’s common.
It doesn’t have to be the mile long tornadoes that destroy and pull up everything that you have to worry about. The little ones will mess up your day too!
A really good sign that it’s not a tornado path is having older established trees that are usually 300 years old. We have live oak trees, depending on your region the tree may be different varieties. always a good sign when you have older established trees.
Keep in mind I’m in Florida. Florida tornado patterns are different from The Midwest where that tornado goes were ever it wants. Florida has tornadoes all the time, but ours will be at the most F2s or f3s and pop from being on the ground to going back into the cloud a lot.

Hi Sam,

Yes, and if there is a house on the property, go in the attic and look up.   It will be obvious if parts of the roof has been replaced.

I have not always been a homesteader. The first 46 years of my life I spent living a lifestyle far closer to what is generally considered mainstream — suburban home, food from the supermarket and central heating.

Seven years ago, my wife and I moved from our Amsterdam suburb home all the way to the island of Tenerife (opposite the coast of Africa) and took on the steepest learning curve in our lives.

Our new roles as homesteaders taught us so many new things so intensely that we often felt as if we were on a curve so steep we might fall over backwards.

If I could roll back the clock and give myself a few pieces of advice, I would be sure to include the following major tips:

1. Homesteading is not cheap.
Raising our own food rarely saves money. Sure, there are instances here and there where we managed to save big. For example, we haven’t paid for summer fruits for years now. The plums, apricots, peaches, cherries and grapes keep showing up on the trees every summer. And we always have abundance of honey for us and to give away.

But since we can’t free-range our chickens (too many predators, and almost nothing to forage) - the eggs from our chickens cost us almost as much as those from the supermarket .

Even vegetables can be costly too. By the time we bought seedlings, built raised beds, bought ground cover, invested in tools, and amended the soil, we are probably eat ping the most expensive salads on the planet.

It will get better in time, as the big investments are often at the beginning and every year that passes lowers the costs of whatever we produce... but I wish I would have known that at the beginning.

2. Failure is inevitable, and that’s OK.
Murphy’s Law seems to have been designed with homesteaders in mind. And when you add Mother Nature and homesteading karma you have a recipe for great plans ending with not-so-great outcomes.

My point is, many of our ideas and projects will fail, but that is the only way we learn. Don’t ever let it get you down or make you want to give up. Instead, be happy that now you know something you didn’t know before.

3. Every victory counts.
I wish I remembered to celebrate those modest goals that we accomplished. Homesteading is tough work, even though we love it. There are daily, weekly,  monthly and yearly setbacks, especially early on. So I wish I knew to mark our victories whenever we got a chance.

I wish I took pictures of the first eggs we collected, the first tomatoes, the first honey we ever harvested… and then take the time to consciously celebrate those modest achievements.

I would love to hear from you… what are the lessons you wish you knew before you started your permaculture/homesteading journey…

Live fully, stay awesome…

Great post! Quick question, is that bar on the goat's head for riding him around??

I'm homesteading year three, and I think the best thing I can advise is to get a plant identification app so you can learn to take advantage of all the naturally growing plants in the area. I've become quite the herbalist this way!

I don't even have a smartphone. I use an android emulator known as 'Bluestacks' on the computer and get the google store app 'Plantnet' which is free. Then I upload pics to that app and figure out the names of the plants around. Then I google the name with (+medicinal properties or +Magical properties). I then look for the best post and copy the words into an expanding word document which has like 17 plants on it now with the pictures I have taken.

The results are quite profound. Every plant I have thought was a weed actually has a healing or spiritual benefit. Plus, whenever I am experiencing a physical or emotional problem, I can search the whole document (which is like 60 pages long now) for plants that treat that condition by simply using 'Ctrl+f' which raises Word's search function.

I don't have many insights into permaculture so far, but this one I think is a real game changer. Learning to identify every plant in your homestead is extremely rewarding, especially if you come from cities and parents that never taught you a lick about nature.

I wish I had known that HOAs can impose an astonishing number of restrictions on your land, and being way out in the boonies doesn't stop them from doing so. And your realtor will NOT tell you those restrictions voluntarily, you have to demand the list.

I wish I had known that, no matter how insistent someone is about helping, if they can't follow your instructions you're better off without them.

I wish I had known that my back would go out in 2007 and I would spend the next 3 years in a wheelchair. It happened one month after buying my property. After I had been saving for my own land since I was 9.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:I wish I had known that, no matter how insistent someone is about helping, if they can't follow your instructions you're better off without them.

I think that’s a good one for me too, Ellendra.
I hope that your back is ok now…

Everything will take much longer than you expect and will cost much more.

We are coming up on year 3 on our property and the only livestock we have yet is chickens. Granted lots of life stuff got in the way, but it can be disheartening. And yet, we have accomplished so much, just maybe not what we were expecting. It's important to be flexible and cut yourself some slack. Remember to enjoy yourself and your property. Breathe.

I wish I had known there's no point in buying pigs for meat in autumn (in the north of the UK) as they will use all their energy (i.e. the food you buy for them) to keep warm and come slaughter in spring  there's not enough fat on them.
I wish I had known I would develop a heart problem 7 years in to our homesteading journey having until then been a ridiculously healthy specimen. It means I am now unable to spend as much time working outside as I would like and the vegetable garden is showing it.
I wish I had known the restricted access means just that and unless you can get it here in an ordinary car there's no point buying it.

In reality I love it here and although circumstances mean we will probably have to move on in the next few years, we have been blessed by living here.

Start small

-Start learning things before you get to your homestead.
-Make sure there are redundancies in your heating, cooking, cooling systems.  
-Don't forget to learn new hobbies that make you happy.