Thinking of Starting a Backyard Farm?
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Thinking of Starting a Backyard Farm?
We’ve just purchased our first chickens and it has me thinking of the farm animals and gardens my family had when I was growing up. We lived on five acres outside of town and usually had animals of some kind roaming around. Besides the usual cats and dogs we also had sheep, goats, llamas, rabbits, ducks and chickens. Our yard also had a large garden with vegetables and fruit trees.
Backyard farming isn’t easy and I never thought it was something I’d want as an adult. The work put into keeping a garden pest free or animals fed and healthy is time consuming and can be expensive. Plus there’s no need to can fruits and vegetables or collect eggs from the coop in today’s modern world is there?
I’m starting to think yes. I think of backyard farming as being independent. Like a teenager getting their drivers license. I love the idea of having a garden to pick from for a salad at dinnertime and fresh eggs in the morning, so the thought of a mini-farm has been forming in my head.
Planning the Size of your Backyard Farm
We recently moved to a property that has enough land for a good sized garden. There’s space for farm animals and the fruit trees here are mature and ready for picking…but we’re renters. That means we really have to plan carefully how much time and money we want to put into our little farm because we don’t plan to stay renters forever.
To start we have four chickens that will take about a year to produce eggs. Our city allows backyard chickens so we can take them with us when we move. I don’t plan to raise animals for meat and I’m not ready for larger livestock, so at this point I think the chickens are it. Our backyard garden hasn’t even broken ground but I need to get busy if we want pumpkins and other vegetables to harvest this fall!
I’ll keep you updated on our progress here and if this backyard farm becomes a reality. For more updates you can follow my new Instagram just for diy.
