how much land is enough?

[dirty]

how much land is enough?

i don't plan on having herds or flocks of any animals. I'm thinking the only animals I'd have that would take large areas would be two or three sheep or goats. my main reasons for space would be privacy and an inexplicable desire to poach a deer for food once every year or two. digging a small pond is also in the :)thought process.

currently I'm looking at 20-40 acre plots mostly wooded. however if i could talk myself into something in the 10-15 acre range, i could actually have a house instead of a shack.

[kitaye]

There are only two of us and we have decided that 5-10 acres would be sufficient but 20-30 would be better as long as 1/2 to 2/3 of it is woodlot.

[dlangland]

Unless you already have, Dirty, if I were you, I would try to read the book by M.G. Kains, Five Acres and Independence, A Handbook for Small Farm Management. He talks about most everything. It makes a good resource book and is rather inspiring if nothing else. Myself, I believe it's more an issue of proper planning then how many acres a person has. I sure wish you the best of luck. ;D Deb ;D

[bbird]

Grandpa always said you need enough property to be able to take a leak whereever you want without the neighbors seeing.

My opinion....Get as much property as you can afford. It's much easier to live in a small house and be able to spend a little money here and there to make it bigger. If you get a smaller amount of land for a bigger house it will be much harder to buy land to make your land bigger. I'm big on privacy at home.

[bergere]

If you just want a big buffer... will depend on the area.

We have 14 1/2 acres... there is a buffer of two different tree farms on 3 sides of us.
Only close neighbor is sort'a across the road from us and they are an Elder couple. Can't see their house from our house..which is really nice.
Is nice to have this kind of buffer.

Small acreage can work if you do your home work and check out the area many times at different times of the day and week. That way you can see what goes on in the area. IE.. noise...who the busy bodies are and all that.
Also try to find property that has buffer's.. tree Farms,,,and the like. Would be more private.

[dirty]

dlangland said:

M.G. Kains, Five Acres and Independence, A Handbook for Small Farm Management.

i actually have the book 'five acres and independence'. I'll have to check out the other book.

[dlangland]

dirty said:

dlangland said:

M.G. Kains, Five Acres and Independence, A Handbook for Small Farm Management.

i actually have the book 'five acres and independence'. I'll have to check out the other book.

Sorry, Dirty, that 's all the same book, just the one title followed by the rest of the title. I didn't mean to give the impression it was 2 books. I have a lot of inspiring books, but I doubt they talk about anything you don't already know. Successful Small-Scale Farming, (An Organic Approach) by Karl Schwenke is right along those same lines, just not as extensive. I am big into organic, but most people don't care. Bet you could find a lot of information right on the internet, but sometimes it's fun to read in bed instead of sitting at your your computer, unless you are lucky enough to have a laptop. I'm not. Also, the county extension agents/offices in the areas you are interested in usually have a weath of knowledge and would mail you some stuff to read. Bet you could find their addresses and phone #'s on the internet. Deb

[kitaye]

mljjranch said:

Grandpa always said you need enough property to be able to take a leak whereever you want without the neighbors seeing.

I like your Grandpa's idea and it makes good sense too.

[mogrrrl]

We're struggling with figuring out how much land is optimal, too. We are several years from buying land, but I would like a larger area just to have the space. Of course, I also want to stay close (45 minutes) to our urban area. I suspect we won't farm/garden more than 5 or 10 acres, but we would like to have some livestock, a pond and some woods. If we ever make this dream a reality, I think it will depend mostly on our budget.