Day 8: Sample Farm Layouts Part II—Larger Farms

Dear Student,

Today we continue with sample farm layouts but on a larger scale…

A 1-Acre Farm

Low-effort suggestion for simple self-sufficiency. This design strives for minimal input and maximum integration and is ideally suited to warmer climates but can work anywhere with slight variations.

Power Possibilities

• Small solar setup
• Biomass

Animals

• Bovine:

Not possible with so little space.

• Ovine/Swine:

On a mere acre, raising sheep is optional and depends on your pasture space available. Two sheep of about 120 pounds are feasible on a quarter acre of pasture if you’ve got it.

• Poultry:

With this much land, the best poultry option is to raise ducks for their eggs and meat.

With 40 ducks (20 laying and 20 meat birds, plus 1 drake), you should yield about 410 dozen eggs and 1,100 pounds of meat per year. This total takes into account the reproduction you’ll see from your flock. Mature ducks reproduce and grow so quickly, you would be harvesting multiple times a year.

Grow fodder crops for your ducks on pond banks and other available spaces for them to free-range through. They will weed for you, eat the pests in rice crops (which is best grown in the watery land around the pond), and feed on small fish. They also fertilize the pond and the area around it when free-ranging here.

Aquaculture

In a smaller space, a quarter-acre of flooded rice paddy is one of the most efficient crops to produce. A 1-acre paddy should yield 6,000 pounds of rice, so with a quarter-acre, you can count on about 1,500 pounds of rice. The abundant residual straw that the paddies will yield can be used for animal bedding and mulch in food gardens.

With a small pond, you could raise about 300 pounds of fish, but the yield will be relatively small once your rice paddies are mature (as they will limit the pond space).

You should also grow some starch crop around the paddy edges (figure about an eight-acre for this). Transplant taro, water spinach, bull rushes or other water plants here as fodder crops.

This is all, of course, only possible if you’ve got a small water source to work with.

Farm Layout

Again, homes should be built with a passive design, taking full advantage of all your natural resources.

You’ll still plant your kitchen gardens in mandalas and make use of herb spirals right around your house, but they will be fewer and smaller. I’d say you could still manage four mandalas of just 130 square feet each.

Your food forest in this layout will account for one-quarter of your land. At that scale, you can expect 3,000+ pounds of food yield when it reaches maturity.

Another quarter-acre should be devoted to pastureland, though this is optional, only for sheep or goats should you choose to raise them.

Place sweet potatoes or other tubers in unused corners and crannies for consumption, sale, or animal feed.

About 20 moringa or mulberry trees should be planted all around and coppiced for fodder use. Both species provide nutrient supplements for humans, along with animal and fish feed.

A 5-Acre Farm

Productive, sustainable, fully self-sufficient farm with moderately low-effort needed.

Power Possibilities

• Wind
• Solar
• Water
• Biomass

Animals

• Bovine:

Milk cow and beef calf for personal consumption and potential sale.

• Ovine/Swine:

Start with no more than 6 sheep of about 360 pounds for personal consumption and potential sale. More sheep can be brought on as your fodder trees mature.

• Poultry:

Poultry farming is easy enough once you get a little experience. It would be the first feasible area of commercial activity for a beginning homesteader. Free-ranging or in tractors (a movable chicken coop with no floor), healthy organic food could be produced with little cost and effort once systems are in place.

A small commercial poultry operation (chickens, ducks, or specialty fowl) of 200 layers (hens raised exclusively for laying eggs on a commercial basis) could healthily produce up to over 3,800 dozen eggs per year.

What is the cost of fresh, free-range, organic eggs in your local market or the market you plan to homestead in? Odds are, you can make a good bit of pocket money on eggs alone.

Broilers (chicken that is bred and raised specifically for meat production) can be brought onto pasture at 3 weeks old, on rotation every 7 weeks to allow for exercise and foraging, plus a 10-week culling cycle—3 weeks longer than factory farms. (I won’t go into more detail on poultry raising here, but know that all these ideas will be explained in full detail in future lessons on poultry.)

200 broilers could feasibly produce a possible 7,500 pounds of pastured chicken. The only input you’ll need for them is starch, and that only if you don’t want to grow it all yourself or don’t have enough farm waste at a given time (5 pounds of starch x 200 birds x 7.5 cycles per year).

Again, fresh, free-range, organic chicken can command premium prices at the market.

200 hundred birds (layers or broilers) can be housed in 3 chicken tractors (mobile coops), requiring little effort to move daily.

However, you shouldn’t start out with so many. Start small and once you’re confident, add to your inventory.

Aquaculture

Quarter-acre sustainable aquaculture ponds can be self-sufficient and sustainable, managed with few costs except some emergency feed and ongoing labor.

Ponds can potentially produce several varieties of fish—up to 4,000 pounds per acre every six months (in warm climates) and more if some form of aeration and other on-farm feed sources are used. (Though this takes an elevated level of expertise and maintenance; if done incorrectly, it will lead to system collapse quickly.)

Plus, water plants provide food and fodder for humans, animals, and fish, and the pond will create mulch materials for the close by on-land fish-feeding plants and trees.

Farm Layout

With a farm of this size, you should make sure to plan out your zones carefully to save yourself time and effort.

• Zone 1: Home And Kitchen Gardens (1.25 Acres)

Home—Should be built with a passive design, taking advantage of all your natural resources.

Mandala gardens (x8)—Keep these close to the house. Ideal layout for easily growing greens and vegetables; you should produce more than enough to sell.

Herb spiral (x8)—These should likewise be kept close to the house and harvested to sell fresh.

• Zone 2: Rotational Grazing Pasture (2.25 Acres)

Pastureland—Fodder trees should cover 20% of the pasture, thus doubling your forage material without reducing the grass production of the land.

Crop garden—Small, intensively interplanted perennial crop garden (could be Zone 2 or 3). Allow a quarter-acre for longer-term crops and overwintering crops.

Aquaculture ponds (x4)—Produce several varieties of fish on quarter-acre sustainable aquaculture ponds, which can yield up to 4,000 pounds per acre every 6 months (in warm climates) and more if some form of aeration and other on-farm feed sources are used.

Storage—Plan for about a quarter-acre of general storage area for sheds, housing, etc. in this Zone.

• Zone 3: Fruit And Nut Trees (1 Acre)

Select several varieties of fruit and nut for your food forest and make sure to use all the “stories” available to you.

For maximum productivity, not all the trees should grow to the same height. Construct the forest in stories, just like you would a building, with bushes and low-growing crops thriving underneath of taller-growing varieties.

Another way to maximize your efficiency here is to plant tubers or sweet potatoes among the trees once they are fully established. Run pigs through them after harvest to get an extra crop of succulently flavored pork before winter.

Within 4 to 7 years of planting, your food forest will begin to produce food and will continue to do so for decades with little maintenance. Heavily producing orchards can earn profits and or feed you family with few inputs other than labor. (We’ll talk a lot more about this in a future lesson on food forests.)