/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>768693
For the farming to pay for itself and all of your expenses you will need several acres of good land and it will have to be your full time job. We're not talking a 9-5 type deal. We're talking 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, even longer during harvest. You will do this every year for the rest of your life until your feet and knees and back are so ruined that you can't do it anymore. Either that or you will have to buy a lot of equipment. Equipment that will take years to pay off. Couple of bad years in a row and you will lose everything.

There is a reason we don't do substance farming in the first world; its a bad idea. Learn a skill, get paid good money and buy all the food you need from someone else.

>>768693

Look into John Seymor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seymour_%28author%29

He was one of the first proponents of self-sufficiency and wrote a whole book around this concept, with an additional book regarding only self-sufficient gardening using raised beds

A small lot of only 100 m2 can supply a family with vegetables for a year using crop rotation, all-year planting, combined with raised beds

>>768727

Additionally, you will HAVE to raise some kinds of animals, because you need their shit to act as fertilizer in your compost.

Without shit there are no plants unless you use chemical fertilizer

Chickens are the easiest and best animals to use for this. You can just collect eggs if you don't want to eat their meat

>>768693
Also, see,
>>>/out/451933

First off, don't listen at all to >>768713 He is coming from the 1950s methods of farming and gardening that are just "a lot of good old hard work". This is 2015, the fucking 21st century.

-You don't need equipment of any kind other than a few small hand tools.
-Farming is literally the laziest job you can choose when you know the proper methods. Most of the time, during the year, you don't do anything at all.
-There are no "bad years". Why? Because you will not be a monocrop moron. Don't apply industrial farming techniques to your farm. Doing that will bankrupt you.

You should know that "I want to be self sufficient, tell me how" is a terrible question. Do research online for a few months first, then come back and ask proper questions. Here's a few pointers,

Raise animals. Chickens produce eggs and those can be sold or traded. The chickens will pay for themselves with eggs and give you extra cash and trade product. They can be free range and the manure from their coop makes amazing fertilizer compost. You can grow food for them to tie them over in the winter, if you have snowy winters in your area. Goats and milk cows (look into miniature breeds to save space) both give milk which can be sold and traded. You can sell their offspring each year.

For vegetables, fruit/nut trees, and animals, you only need 3 acres max to be self-sufficient and technically, you don't even need that much.. You will most likely need to alter your diet. Most vegetarians get a tremendous amount of their fat, protein, and starch from highly processed foods. Whole food vegetarians make an easier transition to farming culture diets.

Research these terms and learn to combine them: Raised Bed/Hugelkultur, No Till, Greenhouse, Polytunnel, Composting, Black Soldier Fly, Vermiculture, Companion Planting, Crop Rotation, Cover Crop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

I'm a farmer. I grow a few tons of food a year.

You will have to not only be self sufficient but generate an income for things like rates and other expenses.

>>768713
People like you have no business posting on /diy/.

>>768732
>rates

What is that? A Euro term/thing or something?

>>768734

Maybe he means for the mortgage for the farm?

>>768734
Australia. OP says he is from here.

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ForResidents/ResidentialRates/Pages/Residentialrates.aspx

>>768737
Is that like rent or taxes or an additional payment? Like is it just another word for something we have in the USA or did someone go, "You know, they already pay taxes and rent, lets make them pay, 'rates' too."

>>768740
Does it really matter?
Gief moni plox.

>>768713
This is bullshit. I can't tell whether the people posting like this are trying to manipulate people to remain slaves or whether it is a butt hurt unhappy person that wants to discourage anyone from living a better life.

Your statements are absolutely idiotic and baseless. You can't say any of that shit with so little information on ops situation. You don't know how he wants to live.

>>768740
Yeah rates is a synonym for tax in Australia.

>>768747
This. That is some weird ignorant or manipulative shit he's saying. Farming and gardening can be easy and cheap. You just need to have the proper knowledge and attitude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE

>>768693
>The ideal, I guess, would be able to provide for myself + fiance year round,
You will never be able to do both without several dozen acres and machinery. You can be one or the other. I grow about half the food we eat around here. We sell eggs and veggies at the flea market in the summer too. At best we break even on the feed and get free eggs out of it. Still worth it though. Home grown food is the best food.

>>768693
>I am interested in knowing how much space you would need for a good set up?
About 1/3 an acre per person for a vegetable garden to be sustainable.

Look up permaculture

>>768772
>The ideal, I guess, would be able to provide for myself + fiance year round
>You will never be able to do both without several dozen acres and machinery

This is an outright ignorant lie. Stop saying things like this that are not true. There are many people that do this as a living every day on an extremely small amount of land without machinery. I happen to be one of them. The internet is full of them and they are usually well documented. There's tons and tons of websites on how to do it. How on earth can you not know this and still have access to the internet is beyond me. Learn to use google.com and educate yourself, please.

Case in point. Right now, I only have 17 chickens (down from 25 due to a daytime fox and a redtailed hawk, but that is fully taken care of now). That's 1 rooster and 16 hens. 2 of which are bantam breed hens. I get enough eggs to pay for all their feed (not much since they are free range) and make a tidy some after the fact (Last year, $1,050 gross, $810 profit after max feed costs 420 dozen eggs). Feed costs less this season since I'm growing extra feed for the chickens. Those aren't even specific egg laying breeds.

I'll be expanding my flock with 2 more roosters and 30 more hens this spring with an egg laying breed. I have more customers than I have eggs to sell, trade, or eat right now and they sell for $2.50 per dozen.

That is just eggs. I have an orchard, berry patch, and pond the chickens graze on. I have 3 garden sections. All in all I grow about 4,000 pounds of food each season and I'm increasing every season (about 1 ton is needed per person). I'm only using 1 acre of land and most of that is orchard, pond, berries, and chicken run. The gardens don't take up much land at all, eh around 4,500 square feet I think, but about 650sq' of that wasn't even used last season since I'm changing my methods to have more production on a smaller plot. I still have tons of space I can use in 1 acre to raise crops.

>>768747
Hes at least partly right though. IF you were to do traditional farming with all "organic" bullshit and the oldest seeds you could find (you don't any nasty GMO aka cross-bred plants), and invest zero in automation, it would be a fucking nightmare. Peasant tier life.

>I just realized that >>768731 covered this.

Anyway OP, if you're still here and do this, take pics as you go and come back to post them, we all like to see this shit actually happen.

>I'll be getting some land soon myself. My money maker will be 90% acorn fed hogs and pigs.
There are a few 5 star restaurants in the big city closest to me that pay ridiculous for pigs like this.

>>768835
Don't mention "organic". That has nothing to do with anything to make things more laborsome. If it does for you, then you are doing it wrong. The big problem here is using poor methods in the first place then using those same methods with "organic."

Same goes for "oldest seeds". That isn't even a proper gardening/farming term.

Please, no keyboard gardeners giving out "good information". Ask questions instead. You will be absolutely amazed by what you really don't know and what can be done.

>>768842
Sorry, heirloom*.
>Or legacy, or heritage, or even just "organic", depending where you are. Might as well call them retard seeds.
I think the whole GMO fear comparable to 9-11 truthers and anti-vax so I don't care to learn the terminology.

>>768848
Heirloom is a bit of a misnomer to many people. They think it means "old" but it really only means that the seeds you sand from those will grow a plant that is like its parent. This is not true of hybrids and some GMOs.

Heirlooms can be cross pollinated to create your own specific cultivars and hybrids. Some plants don't even exist as an heirloom due to the nature of how they they must be pollinated. Apples are like that. They need 2 different cultivars to produce good fruit. Which means planting more than one type if you want good apple harvests.

Saving the seeds of open-pollinated plants is the best course of action for most farmers. This does 2 things. It saves on the cost of buying new seeds and creates a heartier cultivar of plant as time goes on.

Check out stuff like "Painted Mountain corn" and how it was developed. It is pretty interesting to read,

http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/apr09/ancient_corn_solution_to_modern_climate.php

>I'm gonna susbsitence farm in Australia.
>nigga u dun
>omg un DIY, troll troll troll

When did DIY turn into a hugbox? If a family is making a go at independent farming two acres is about right. Enough to feed them and a little extra to sell. Going with less is a mistake.

... If he was not in Australia. In Australia he needs to work livestock, which how means he needs 20 acres and to hire people to help him work it, but now he isn't making any money and he needs to get on the au farmer dole.

Australia is one of the absolute fucking worst places in the world to farm. The only worse places are death Valley, some Andean plateaus used by NASA for mars mission training, and various salt seas.

No topsoil, no water, flash flooding...

No anon, don't do it. It is dumb.

>>768955
What are you smoking? Most of eastern Australia is rainforest.

>>768713
mowing my 1/3 acre front lawn is literally more work than i put into growing food on the back 2 acres

I would start a small backyard garden that is productive. I had 17 chickens, 11 were for meat and all but three have been eaten, the three are in the freezer. The other 6 chickens are for laying eggs and they will start here when it gets warmer. I have 20 more coming at the end of the month because I have fallen in love with them and diring the year it cost close to nothing to feed them. They are my alternative to pets I suppose.

When it gets warm again (I am in Michigan so it is harder here than in Australia, you have a better season) I will be starting a garden for vegetables and I'll see where I go from there. I had the same idea, but start small and then set your sights bigger when you have a handle on things.

I am not a robot

>>768959
>low soil fertility
You need to import all of your soil nutrition. It's very expensive.

Australia has no topsoil. Anywhere on it. Okay, rain forest? Rainforest also have famously terrible soil because all the nutrition is already locked into existing biomass.

There's no fallow fields in australia that are going to be brought back up to snuff by leaving them idle and letting some nice soil blow into them. Australia has no geological activity in recent history to keep its soil healthy. It is also part of monsoonal systems that wash everything off of it and into the ocean.

>>768986
>You need to import all of your soil nutrition. It's very expensive.

Compost and make your own soil. That is what I do. It works exceedingly well.

OP here again. Thanks for all the helpful replies!

I feel I was a bit to ambitious in post - I am intending to start small with a little vege garden, but as I said, I am looking into buying a house so want to factor in how much land I might need/can afford.

The other misinterpretation was the self sufficiency. I do not plan on being completely self sufficient, it is more of an experiment to see just how much I can do, to see how much I can manage myself and go from there.

>>768727
Thanks for the helpful post. Good to hear you can utilize a space as small as 100m2, in case we end up buying somewhere with not as much space as I would like!

>>768731
Thanks mate for all the info, and all the terms. It's research time!

>>768823
>>768835
Thanks guys. It's not a case of if I do it, it's a when I do it, and I will be documenting the process!

>>768981
Thanks. That's the plan,. start small and go from there! :)

Thanks for the the helpful replies, as I didn't come here to ask how I couldn't do it, I wanted to ask how I could!

Cheers

>>768977
>mowing grass is more work than germinating seeds, planting, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, etc.

Sure bro.

Anyone here ever grow peanuts?
How'd it go, suggestions, etc.
Thinking about trying some for the first time this season.

>>768693
>Even if I wasn't
*weren't

>>768731
Great vid! I've heard of that family before, quite inspiring for those of us that want to do that sorta thing while being closer to family in the city.

Any idea exactly what those clay pots he was using for irrigation were made of? That's a neat trick. Living in AZ with the drought that would be really useful.

>>768713
Is it just one person making posts like this in similar threads? It seems like they all have the same attitude and the writing seems eerily similar.

>There is a reason we don't do substance farming in the first world; its a bad idea. Learn a skill, get paid good money and buy all the food you need from someone else.
Very poor logic. There's always one or two posters like this in every thread. Sure it's okay to point out that they may not have enough land, or that it would be too expensive for the equipment needed to still be able to sit on your ass half the day in front of the computer. But to say subs[is]tance farming is no longer do able and we should all get 'real jobs' is silly.

Discount that most of us are in cities where if the semi's/trains/planes stopped for 3 days your magical stores that magically procure sustinance would magically be empty, and you still have people that would rather grow their own food. Whether it be to lower their grocery bill, to know where and how their food was grown, to have fresher food, or simply for the feeling of accomplishment at doing something like that (which is why most of us are on this board) there are those who want to do this kind of thing and are willing to put the work in.

IDK why people like you are even on this board unless it's to get plans for a 3D dragon dildo print or something. Maybe these posts are just coming from people who lack a green thumb and are trying to take it out on others?

>>768772
You clearly did not read the thread and just came here to shit on it. I'd ask why, but that might encourage you to keep posting on the off chance you're still here and didn't just post that as you browsed through the catalog.

More on permaculture. The idea is basically to let everything grow wild with as little maintenance as possible:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=what+is+permaculture

Imagine your own food forrest...

Op

>>769246
Thanks. At least it seems like the majority of people seem to get why someone would want to try this!

>>769266
That's pretty cool. Research time.

Thanks for all the resources, links and ideas! Lucky I like reading :)

>>768693
Hope this helps

>>769202
If you are using a push mower, it is a lot more work.

>weeding

lol You mean salad harvesting?

>germinating seeds then planting

You mean planting and forgetting about it right?

>fertilizing

Ew, use composted soil instead.

>harvesting

Yeah, but that is fun. Mowing the lawn isn't fun. At least you can bag up your yard waste and compost it right where you'll be making a new garden bed.

>>769242
>Any idea exactly what those clay pots he was using for irrigation were made of? That's a neat trick.

They are unglazed clay "terracotta" containers. The method is pretty old. The term you need to search for is, "Ollas watering system". The "Olla" can be any container that is water permeable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkNxACJ9vPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvKq5geEM-A

>>769246
It might be. Hence stuff like this >>768762
image popping up. I can't tell if they are just really ignorant or have an actual agenda against home gardening, farming, and sustainability. Or they are a contrarian curmudgeon just trying to troll.

>>769202
>mowing grass is more work

Buy goats, never mow again.

>>769435
>>Buy goats, never mow again.
And now your yard is covered in a fine layer of smell goat shit.

>>769435
Goats don't like to eat grass. They only eat it when there's nothing else the prefer left to eat. They will eat non-grass weeds, bushes/shrubs, low leaves on trees, briars then start on tree bark and finally go to eating actual grass.

If your goats are readily eating grass, you probably need to extend their foraging boundary and/or increase their feed or feed types.

>>769438
Free fertilizer once it is composted.

>>769435
You're thinking of sheep.

>>769440
Center Goat.
You can never go wrong with Satan

>>769440
#1 looks like he knows he's super sexy, and wouldn't appreciate you at all.
#2 looks like he'd forget his job and wander off after a butterfly or something.
#4 would be too busy masturbating.
#6 would only do it to be ironic, and probably quit half way because "this is lame."
#7 probably has Eddie Murphy's voice.
#9 is handsome and competent but probably more than a little mischievous, but I doubt he'd leave me in a bad spot so I'm gonna go with #9.

I've long wondered if there's a list somewhere of the best cost-savings crops. I mean sure you could grow something like potatoes but they're already cheap as fuck so why would you. I want to see more things like ginger which is expensive to buy but easy as fuck to grow.

>>769438
This is the goal, free fertilizer. High impact grazing involving rotating grazers over small sections of land with a portable electric wire fence employs grazers such as goats to mow the cover crop, and small concentrations of manure over each small section. By the time the grazers are rotated back to the first section (a typical rotation is around a month) the cover has replenished and the manure has been broken down by a healthy microherd.

This technique is incorporated into tree growing as well, its known as Silverpasturing. Basically a typical orchard, only with cover crop (usually some type of nitrogen fixer like clover) broadcast inbetween the trees. The animals are rotated through the orchard in sections, mowing the cover crop and dropping fertilizer inbetween the trees. This allows a harvest from the trees (anything from lumber to fruit) and a product from the animals (meat, milk) to be harvested for little additional cost.

>>769430
>harvesting
>Yeah, but that is fun
You must not harvest beans and peas very often then.

>>769692
>expensive to buy but easy as fuck to grow.

shiitake mushrooms fits that description

>>770070
Many bushels all my life. Get/make a bean sheller and your life will be easy.

Ever harvest blackberries or raspberries? Still fun.

>>769899
>Silverpasturing

It is "Silvopasture " actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture

>>770076
>Ever harvest blackberries or raspberries? Still fun.
You're a masochist bro. I think I should invite you over to my place so that you can come kill these blackberries for me. They're such a goddamn pain, not only are they spiky as fuck they're also super prolific.

>>768986
Importing your own soil nutrition is easy as fuck an Australia. There are signs and ads everywhere for free horse bedding, one of the best compostable fertilizers you can get. Council and subcontractor tree removers will literally turn up at your house and dump mulched trees anywhere the fuck you want for free, just to have somewhere to get rid of the stuff.

Yes, Australia is the oldest and least active continent. It has had billions of years to have it's soil blow off into the ocean, or be carried to New Zealand's due to bushfires. We don't have a lot of fertile soil compared to the size of the country, but we also have some of the most fertile land in the world in Victoria (Depending on where you are).

If you want an amazing garden and have shit soil in Australia;
Step 1: Dig a trench
Step 2: Drop in some free horse bedding
Step 3: Drop even more free lucerne hay and woodchips
Step 4: Cover the mound with the soil you dug out.

Then add some clover seed or other nitrogen fixing cover plant and start planting your crops as soon as the clover germinates. Maybe water it once a year.

>>770077
It was a typo, I'm aware of the spelling. Its a technique I employ on my few acres myself.

>>770170
Put some dead wood in that trench first! Hugelkulture fuck yes. I imagine the water retention and slow release from the wood when its dry would be very beneficial in an Australian climate. Plus the soil building that happens in a few years when the wood breaks down.
>>769692
Legal ones? Gourmet mushrooms, as someone mentioned earlier, Shiitake. All you gotta do is buy dowels (or make your own if you are familiar with sterile procedure or ameteur mycology to begin with) and hammer them into logs. A year later you have a crop of shiitake that will flush for months and give you a new harvest for years to come, until the nutrients in the wood is exhausting, this takes a loooong time. I've even read about a guy who isolated a particular strain of Shiitake on ag.r (google sectoring and strain isolation)that will even grow on COFFEE GROUNDS, which is amazing as Shiitakes are wood lovers.

Mushroom cultivation in general is a great skill to learn under the umbrella of "permaculture". Its VERY low maintenance, low input costs, since what you are using to "fertilize" your mycelium/mushrooms is decomposable waste you can find for free in a lot of places. The only difficult part is learning sterile technique, because inoculation of a substrate is the greatest risk for the entire venture, a single mold spore can ruin a jar of sterilized grain, the mold will win against the mycelium of a fruit bearing fungi almost every time.

However, there is also the option of outdoor growing of mushrooms in patches. I have a 4x4 patch of straw, dead leaves, and vermi-compost I broke up some contaminated spawn jars into, a month later I had a huge fucking crop of Pearl Oysters. In a non sterile environment such as in the outside soil an ecological equilibrium is achieved. Beneficial microbes and general microbial competition takes out various contaminants that would spell certain doom in a sterile jar of grain (trichoderma, aspergillis)

In short, I fucking love growing mushrooms.

>>770073
>>770512
Can't say I really eat shiitake but yeah I've been thinking of growing some mushrooms for a while. God knows there's room for it under my house, it's like a clay cave under there.
I used to have one of those "grow your own mushrooms at home" styrofoam kits but I left it at my family's house and someone thought it was rubbish and threw it out (at least that's the best guess since no one knows what happened to it).

>>770516
You don't have to like them, they sell for quite a bit. Get in with a guy who own's a farmer's market stall like I did, or apply for one yourself. Or just sell them to your neighbors. You can grow morels too. Even the lower priced mushrooms are insanely profitable compared to most plant cash crops. Since they require SO little maintenance (less payroll) and so little food input cost for the mycelium, its is potentially a very lucrative plan for a small farm.

I even use waste from my plants as substrate occasionally, some work better than others. Most of my neighbors will actually PAY me to remove dead trees and logs, and these make perfect shiitake fodder, depending on the species. You could also grow cubes in your basement if you just wanted to make money. I dabble in this a bit as well, helps to have emergency money.

Just made this image. Improve it if you want, I make infographs for /k/, used to make some for /tg/ and comic tie-in pages for /co/. (some of the pics I tie together get popular and I will never attach them to a tripname/tripcode)

Enjoy. Remember to research everything mentioned in infographs.

>>770555
What's that on the top left? I understand it's some sort of aquaponics but how does that system work? It seems different to the one in the top right.

If I could setup like 5 tubes like that I would have lettuce for life.

>>770562
You cut slots into PVC pipe then heat up the spot so you can push and tug at the cut to make slots. Fill with the right dirt. Make a drip at the top to water and at the bottom the excess/filtered water gets on the runway back to the fish.

You always make extra because of failures/corruption. More like 8-10 if you want 5. Elevated to be ant-free and out of reach of chickens(that eat the ants).

>>770565
So do you put some sort of fine mesh or something on the bottom to stop the dirt coming out?

Would something like that work just stuck into the ground instead of aquaculture? I don't care too much about raising fish and seems like having it in the ground might make it a little easier.

>>770593
You can do the same with those big blue plastic drums. Just make the slots so the openings are horizontal like a bowl, and fill that bitch with dirt.

Pic related, they seem to work well. Seems like the PVC pipes would be a pain in the ass to make in comparison.

Aquaponics. Geothermal. Substinance

>>770555
I've used the PVC pipe method before, with soil. Having them over 3 feet tall gave them terrible watering issues. The top dries out fast and the bottom becomes an algae/mold haven. But having them 3 feet tall seemed perfect and they also work well as a hanging pot that way.

>>770596
>barrel

I made one of these too. They are amazing. I love it. Here's what mine looked like the first year. It is more of a pain to make because the plastic is so thick. The PVC stuff is really fast and easy to make in comparison..

>>770626
Damn that looks awesome. I imagine a drill or dremmel of somekind would make it less annoying to work on the thicker plastic?

>>770596
>>770626
What's the bits of PVC piping in the middle for? Water distribution?

>>770634
Compost. You fill it up with compost and take out the soil it makes from the bottom where there's a cap holding it in. You have worms in the entire thing that compost it down fast. That pipe needs trimmed down though. It is a bit long. Just keep the amount of compost about 4-6 inches below the soil line and everything is fine. Only use vegetable matter in the compost. No "regular" food scraps, dairy, meat, or feces of any kind go in. Just weeds, vegetable/fruit cuttings, etc.

The soil it makes can be put back into the top or put into some other pot if the main planter is full. I suggest a 6 inch diameter pipe instead of a 4 inch one. You can get a ton more compost into it. Although, the 4 inch does take a lot of compost. I'll be emptying mine this coming season. It's been 2 years filling up the 4 inch pipe.

Some systems have a water recycling system in the bottom. Basically a catchment that you can take the water and rewater the planter with. Mine just has holes since water isn't an issue here and I don't want salts to build up over time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1C9zP5uJrE

>>770654
>>770626
When I constructed this one. I took a 2-3 inch section of the pipe, split it, and epoxied it to the main stem pipe near the bottom. This collar around the bottom where the soil will be kept the pipe from simply falling down through the hole in the barrel. The end cap is held on with a nail used as a pin through some small holes. I bolted landscaping timbers to the bottom so it would be easy to move around with a dolly and keep the bottom off the pipe cap.

There's self-sufficient living and there's farming for a living.

If you want to learn about farming for a living read Joel Salatin's stuff. You may want to check out his ideas for profiting off leased land.
> I am looking in suburban areas so the space would just not be there.
Read Ben Falk's excellent book if you're shooting for self-sufficiency rather than being a farmer for an income. He's said that 80% of what he does on five acres can be done on one acre.

I want to start composting in a tumbler, and build one myself since they're like $200 premade, anyone know where to get those big plastic barrels from in Australia?

>>768693
this thread is too awesome to go to the backpages

>>770657
very cool

>>768693
I've been trying to make a substainable foodforesty garden for years but I'm a lazy piece of shit. Heres some good advice that I will never take myself: stop reading. Stop asking for advice. Just go out there and do it. Grab your favorite seeds, plant that shit. Water it, protect it, and see how it actually looks. Then just keep adding onto it. You do need livestock, at the very least get chickens or ducks. Compost their eggs if you dont want to breed more or eat them, but chickens and ducks are great passive pest control. I dont know if a chicken is sufficient to deal with the lovecraftian abominations that inhabit the land of backward flushing toilets, but it's a must have for a farmer anywhere else.

Like the first anon side, this is not an easy thing. Either you nolife it and turn your hobby into a profession, or you invest in a lot of automated help which isnt cheap. Automated irrigation sounds like a great idea and its a huge labor saving device, but it isnt cheap. You need the chickens to do pest control if you arent doing pesticides, and you will quickly realize why agricultural cultures have 10 kids when you are on your hands and knees pulling up weeds and moving rocks.

Just start small. Divide your land into easily managable spots and focus on them. Then expand out. Will take you 5-10 years to do what you want to do if you stick with it.

>>768848
gmo fear is real, but not for the reasons usually stated. Genetically engineered seeds are a form of economic slavery. You dont own the plants you are planting and there is the potential for the plants you do own to become someone elses property. And in this same vien of thought, you essentially give the gmo patent owner a monopoly on food production if they some how convinece the entire community to switch over to gmo and abandon traditional cultivars. This is the real reason most countries have banned gmos. Of course, the average dirt farmer isnt smart enough to understand or even care about potential economic rape 10-100 years later, so an appeal to emotion was created to explain it to them in terms they could understand.

We really dont know, either way, if long term gmo exposure is good, bad, or irrelevant, but all of that doesnt matter because it's a really shitty deal for the farmer. Having to buy the seeds each year, being forced to buy expencive fertilizers an herbacide/insecticdes specially designed for those seeds, are all huge economic burdens and they all go into feeding the same companies.

It's basically the same scam that the insurance companies run in the united states. Pharmaceutical producers own the insurance companies which dictate the prices hospitals can charge their patients. This create inflated health care costs. Now, this is a terrible thing and it shouldnt happen, but its possible to go through life without getting hurt or sick or whatever so the average person can avoid being a victim of the healthcare industry. The same can not be said about FOOD.

If we were to convert to gmo seeds over night, food prices would spike because the seed producers would have a literal monopoly on seeds, fertilizers, incecticides, the whole works. They could easily cause prices to rise and fall on a whim and nobody could stop them. Just say no to gmos. They aren't anything special, they arent some magic solution to hunger.

>>769121
Composting is all well land fine but it would basically take a decade for someone to compost enough soil on their own to make enough to create farmable land for their family...

>>771452
thats not how purchasing seeds works at all in farming youre retarded.

>>770555
Updated. Still a WIP.

>>771467
It does if you do GMO.
The seeds are patented, you can't just replant what you have gathered.

Well you can, but be prepared for lawsuits.

>>771504
In addition to gene patent trolling, they also sell sterile seeds that will not produce viable children.
So whereas normally a farmer could set aside a portion for replanting and not have to buy seeds for the next season, they are now trapped into purchasing.
Even if trying to avoid it, these genes get into the non GMO/tradition/independant farmer"s seeds through crosspollination with their neighbors who do use them, forcing them to buy seeds every year as the one's they collect will not grow.
This isn't /pol/ fiction, this is happening.
And it's terrifying.

We are so fucked.

>>771517
This is why you have to rely on multiple crops instead of monocrop farming. Forget wheat, soy, and corn. They are not needed. There's tons of other crops out there.

One thing to remember, is that all crops propagated via cloning can't be contaminated with GMOs the way pollinated crops are. So, those GMO potatoes aren't going to infect your crops since you can use your own seed potatoes. There's also tons of non-industrially viable crops that will most likely never be GMO'd. Then there are all the old wild edibles.

If you have a farm and you are not growing at least 20 types of crops, you are doing it wrong.

>>771496
Those blue motherfuckers look creepy as shit.

Would it be possible to have salmon in an aquaponics setup?

>>771710
>soy
>They are not needed
What would you use for plant-based proteins besides soy?

>>771517
>they also sell sterile seeds that will not produce viable children
Do they? The technology exists, but even GMO bogeyman Monsanto have never made it into a commercial product. Also, in the western world most farmers are already buying their seeds and not collecting it from their own harvest.

>>771848
Well if you farm as a job, for money, and not for food, than it doesn't really matter, does it?

Either you keep seeds for replanting and lower your initial profit, or buy seeds and subtract from your profit.

>>771452
GMO dev please leave.

Most countries haven't banned GMOs: go buy some vegetable oil, and see if the plants it's made from are GM or not (protip: they are).

Terminator seeds don't exist outside of fiction.

You're talking about herbicide-resistant crops as if having to spray them with herbicide is an additional burden, as opposed to the whole entire point. The proposition's right there up front, and the claim is easily testable: paying for these seeds will allow you to produce more product, for less, and make more net profit.

Fuck you for implying that farmers are ignorant and stupid, can't do calculations like this, and need clever people like you to tell them what's in their interest.

>>771971
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top-five-myths-of-genetically-modified-seeds-busted

Dan Charles is Pro-Monsanto/Pro-GMO. Monsanto GMO is fucking evil. You are horrifically ignorant. GMO is made for 1 thing only, to make money. It isn't even made to prevent or stop hunger. GMO does not produce more viable harvest. This has been proven time and time again. But since you are a Monsanto Shill, it does not matter what anyone says or posts to prove you wrong. Because of shit just like in this image: >>768762

>>772011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice
Basing your arguments on lies does you no favours.

>>772113
>>772011
Let's be honest it's a bit of both.

The people who acctually make these plants, the scientist, genrally want to help the world. people paying for their experiments, the companies, are in just for the money.

Kind of like with pharma-industry.

>>771790
Researched. They must have water flow. Constant water flow. This means motors working 24/7 with fresh sea water the entire time.

They go to fresh water sites to die.

>ctrl-f
>subsistence
>nothing found
You guys need to go to school first.

>>772145
see
>>769246
>subs[is]tance

bump

>>771451
The best automated irrigation is ponds, swales, and hugelkulture. Fuck wasting money and time on rubber hoses. Let nature do the heavy lifting for you like it has for millenia, imo.

>>771453
Israel has some very exciting de-desertification projects going on. One program turned a patch of absolute desert into a verdant oasis of life within like 5 years IIRC.

So if you live somewhere that's less shitty than desert, it would take even less time. The key is introducing and growing the microbiology in the soil.

>>771504
Most GMO mass production crops are engineered not to produce seed for this reason, so the farmers will always have to buy more from Monsanto and the like.

>>771790
I highly doubt that would be possible. Unless you could someone recreate the Salmon's breeding/migration pattern.

>>772689
Salmon farms are a thing, used to know someone whose family ran one in Tasmania. I don't know how they work though, form the response of the other anon it seems like it require some sort of constant flow of water so you need motors and shit running.

Not something that would be economical in my regular sized back garden.

>>772692
Yea, you'd have to recreate the flowing river conditions their breeding requires, at least for Red Salmon.

>>772692
yup. they actually just farm them in the bay. that's how it works. fresh water constantly flowing in. they do create spawn indoors though in protected conditions. look up tropical fish tanks and all the effort that is required to maintain them.

>>768693
Small spaces ask for high volume/area crops. Forget grains..
My bets are potatoes and cassava.
Greenery can be grown hidroponically without any trouble or in small pots lying arround it isn't hard.
But it would be very challenging to grow all of your needs in a small space and without full time devotion

>>772683
>not studying agronomy
Not everything is about microbiology. It's quite a big part but soils have qualities.. I lived in a place with extremely fertile soil but naturally acid. Every company and farmer had to use alkaline solutions to fix it

>>773045
Here on brazil poor as shit farmers who don't sell their crops live on
>cassava
>beans (they can grown on cramped spaces, vines hue)
>corn
>tomatoes
Make sure you prepare your cassava well or you'll rip

And composting shit soils to death is completely possible. Altough very troublesome without full time dedication. Search for Terra preta on the internet. Brazilian indians composted an area larger than britain to support their large population on the amazon. The amazon has shit. SHIT soil. It's 100% sand

>>768693
first thing is check out this documentary about gardening https://vimeo.com/28055108 then look into learning to make cob for building living and other structurs. and good luck

OP. If you really wanna be self suficient. Check Opensource ecology on the internets

>>771792
Beans and rice are a staple food pairing for a reason.

I recommend a book called "Carrots Love Tomatoes." It's about how you can maximize production and flavor and minimize pests by planting certain plants near each other. Companion gardening.

I found a free digital copy on mIRC on one of their two main book channels. Forgot which one. You could probably torrent it as well. Great book.

>>773593
I only know of bookz on undernet.
What's the second?

>>768734
Local government tax that is based on the value of your property and pays for things like rubbish collection, parks, road maintenance.

Basically a land tax.

>>768955
>Let me tell you about your country

>>768955
>retards on /diy/
Why
>flash floods on a whole country
Literally wat

>>773436
Good video except for all the bible stuff. I use most of those methods now, thankfully.

>>773881
>and pays for things like rubbish collection, parks, road maintenance.

Wish it was like that in the USA. Here it pays for shitty road projects that get cancelled and earmarks.

>>773516
>Beans and rice
Yeah they're great if you don't mind a shittonne of carbs with your protein, nuts are also great for protein if you don't mind a shittonne of fats with it.

Soy is where plant-based protein is at.

Is there some kind of book or manual with all the stuff I have to know to go full self-sufficient tribal yurofuck?
Everytime I use google for research I feel like any result I pick is going to be the worst one and lead me to ruin.
Can you recommend me some good sources to start from scratch?

bumb

>>768693
I saw your pic and a tiny piece of my soul was temporarily at peace, OP.

>>768693
OP, I would suggest an indoor hydroponics system.

You can create or purchase your own combination of plant foods to add to the water. Being in Australia, you can incorporate enough cheap solar panels to accommodate any pumps you may need. They require very little maintenance, and since they are indoors, you can determine the amount of sunlight they get. So long as you design it well, you should need no more than a quarter acre.

I'd estimate the initial cost at $500-$1000(USD).

Why are you here instead of Youtube/Google?

>>768802
My nigra, tfw no land.

How do I get into this world without having to bear with liberal fucktards, ultimate hipsters and new age cunts?

>>775346
Best I've found is this thread here and I only found it recently. Mostly you jus

>>775346
>>775356
See,
>>>/out/462233

>>775359
Thank you
it's weird to be redirected to /out/ unironically

>>775359
Woops thought I was in that thread. When I said "best I've found is this thread here" I meant the /out/ thread.

>>775364
Yeah I thought I was on /out/ already and was wondering why they would use redirecting to /out/ as an insult on /out/.

Not OP, but do you -need- bee keeping, either yourself or someone close to your farm, to have a healthy farm? I stumbled across this today, and it seems like it would be another source of income as well as helping pollinate everything.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive#comments

>>774851
>this essential things for life are okay except the part where it's mixed with this other things essential for life

>>775371
Quantity is key

>>775372
Yeah, the literal billions of people eating beans, rice and steak around the world including me are wrong. It's bad for health because it is

>>775373
What the fuck are you even going on about? Contribute to the thread or take your epic memearrows on /b/.

>>775374
The proteins on beans and the carbohydrates of rice are literally one of the best things you can have without the shitty growth of soy, it's low volume/planted area in comparison to beans, the fact that it tastes like shit and has hormones. OP said he has little land he doesn't need a cashcrop to feed himself.NOBODY I literally mean NOBODY does that.

>>775375
The post you replied to was clearly about nutrion though, not about farming.
He just said that one of the best sources of proteins is soy rather than beans and nuts which contain respectively lots of carbs and lots of fats, and that is correct.

>>772011
lol people like you are responsible for the death of millions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM0iHTnzdeg

pretty much you.

>>772685
how else do you suggest they recoup the research costs

>>775373
>>775375
I was talking in general not for self-sufficiency. The post was acting like soy is pointless and should never be grown.
>and steak
Cows aren't a plant though.

Also even /fit/ knows soy hormone myths are bogus.

>>775380
>best sources of plant protein*
To be specific. If any protein source is fine grab a couple chickens for eggs + chicken meat and a goat/cow for some milk. What I'm really interested in is entomophagy, wouldn't mind having a box of high protein insects to chuck in the oven or something.

>>775389
Check online forums for keeping frogs/reptiles for insect breeding

>>775389
Dem delicious fried locusts

>>775365
lol

Best books for selfsufficiency farming? Aquaponics, farming veg and wheat, farm animals, etc...

as a market gardener of 6 years the COG crop planning handbook is probably the most useful text i've ever read. once you learn how to actually get the veg to grow out of the ground (eliot coleman writes about this very well, or just get out there and start making mistakes like i did), next step is figuring out the dreaded ~numbers~. this book helps you to start thinking hard about planting/operation schedules, record keeping, crop spacing and ultimately how much yield (aka calories/$$$) you'll be getting out of a square foot

https://cog-shop.myshopify.com/products/crop-planning-for-vegetable-growers

>>775549
thx for this

>>775549
I've been using this book for the past two years.
Their technique is fucking top notch for planning your first large garden.

>>773885
Okay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity_in_Australia
http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/Counprof/Australia/australia.htm "Australia is the driest inhabited continent with some of the world’s oldest, shallowest and most weathered soils."
"Scientific agriculture began late in the 19th century with the establishment of experimental farms, which during the early 20th century helped to promote a consolidation phase comprising new techniques of dry farming, purposeful wheat breeding, superphosphate fertilizer and mechanisation (Barr and Cary, 1992). To counteract the depletion of soil organic matter, a technique of ley farming with annual pasture legumes was developed for slightly acidic soils in Victoria (with subterranean clover, Trifolium subterraneum) and alkaline soils in SA (with annual medics, Medicago spp.). However, because of the depression and then war, there was little change in on-farm practices and outputs between 1930 and 1950, and land degradation (erosion of croplands, overgrazing of pasture lands with livestock and rabbits) continued. A highlight during the 1940s was the discovery of several trace element deficiencies (copper, molybdenum, zinc and cobalt) that affected the growth and nitrogen fixation of legumes on large tracts of soils in coastal SA and WA (copper, zinc and cobalt) and in south-eastern Australia (molybdenum) (Williams and Andrew, 1970)."
http://www.travel-australia.org/kakadu/monsoon.html

okay, so, like, good luck. I recommend sheep herding and learning survival skills from a bushman.

>>773047
Fair enough, but I am I just really into micro organisms, I culture mushrooms as well so that's why I suppose. Within a certain range, plants can interact with the microherd to actually change the soil pH around the roots of the plant. I grow a wide pH range of plants in the exact same soil, from poppies to blueberries. No pH related nutrient lockout to date.

>>775367
Bees are not the only pollinators available. A properly multicropped permaculture will have species that are there specifically for the purpose of attracting local insects and birds, including bees.

Plus, hand pollinating isn't THAT much work unless you have a lot of land.

>>773673

I believe it is #ebooks on IRCHighway.

>>768959
leftist pls go.

farming in australia takes dedication.

self sufficient farming is doable though, need a good bit of land but it IS doable because it IS the 21st centry.

I would like to show my support for >>768731

>>775808
>farming in australia takes dedication.
You aren't bullshitting there. That whole herding cattle with helis flying a few meters off the ground thing is absolutely amazing.

>>772113
Golden rice isn't for stopping world hunger. It is specifically for propaganda. It is also barely even used.

We already have enough food in the world. We have had it for 100s of years. The problem has not been growing it. The problem has been transporting it to those who need it. And, that isn't actually a technical problem. We can do that very easily. We just choose not to do it because there's no profit in it evidently.

>>775387
No, not at all. If you know how the world actually ran you'd understand what was going on. Companies control people through food. The reason some areas are starving is because they have no money and no one with real power or money wants to do anything about it on the proper scale. Good thing too. We don't need people like that in the world. There's already too many people.

>death of millions

Kill 2 billion now please. The human race needs this.

>>775853
The human race doesn't need to kill more people, population is going to stabilise by itself at around 12 billion and we'll be fine.

Simply transporting food to the affected regions doesn't help them much it just puts the ones actually trying to farm out of business and most of the food ends up in the hands of the rulers and strongest. For shipping in food to be viable an area already needs a vibrant economy (see: large cities), shipping food to villages just creates a village of people with nothing to do.

>>770565
daily reminder that pvc is carcinogenic and you should never use it for growing things you plan on consuming.

>>771971
>You're talking about herbicide-resistant crops as if having to spray them with herbicide is an additional burden, as opposed to the whole entire point. The proposition's right there up front, and the claim is easily testable: paying for these seeds will allow you to produce more product, for less, and make more net profit.

It is an additional financial burden. And it doesnt produce a bigger or more viable crop. If you grow plants in the traditional manner and provide them with the same amount of fertilizers and water, then they will produce the same amount of food, if not more. But if you dont carefully tend a traditional field that has tons of water and fertilizer on it, then you have to put in the extra effort to squash bugs and pull up weeds.

It's a trade off: slightly more convenient farming methods in order to be a slave. And it really doesnt make any kind of financial sense, because unskilled labor is the lowest it has ever been in the modern era. There is no reason what so ever to shift your finanical burden to gmo seeds, gmo fertilizers and gmo insecticides when you could just farm normally and pay some kid to do the bitch work for less.

>>775997
I thought that's a myth, my water tank's pipes are PVC.

>>775950
>stabilise by itself at around 12 billion

Then start declining like a bitch.

>>776033
Nah, that's including third-world countries having their birth rates drop as they become more "advanced" and have longer life expectancies and better education.
At least that's the estimate according to some expert who I can't remember the name of or I would link them.

>>776008
No scientific study has the patience to actually go through a comprehensive study of multiple lifetimes worth

>>775997
Well yes, technically it is carcinogenic. However, that does not mean said carcinogens are rubbing off into the water that flows through them. PVC is used to supply water all over major urban areas and in almost all houses built after 2000, we would not be using if the risk of water contamination was even remotely possible. If you work in a PVC production facility and you never wear a respirator, sure, you will most likely develop lung cancer or various other exotic cancers.

Drinking water that has been supplied through PVC plumbing or eating plants that have drank said water is not carcinogenic in the slightest. However, some manufacturers will reinforce their PVC with lead, which can and will leach into drinking water and cause health issues and eventually death with prolonged exposure.

Overall, PVC is durable, time proof (compared to lead, steel, copper, its not going anywhere for a looooooong time), flexible, and last but not least, cheap as hell. Calling the company who made the PVC to see if it has Lead in it wouldn't be a waste of time though.

>>776080
>we would not be using if the risk of water contamination was even remotely possible.
lol, ok
>time proof (compared to lead, steel, copper, its not going anywhere for a looooooong time)
yeah, that's straight up wrong.

>>776008
It's not a myth. What you have to realize is that the government looks the other way on a lot of things that dont pose an immediate health risk. The both the fda and epa routinely ignore things that are classified as 'chronic' toxins. In states like california, you'll see warning levels for carcinogens all over the place and people roll their eyes because they can't understand how something could be toxic but also legal to use.


>>776080
>we would not be using if the risk of water contamination was even remotely possible.

All the people who are dying from asbestos exposure would like to have a word with you. All those idiots that tricked into drinking industrial waste would also probably say something if their pineal glands havnt been calcified yet.
I don't want to go all /pol/ on you guys but the united states in particular uses a lot of toxic waste as 'government approved safe :DDD' building materials and foodstuffs which are outright banned for import in other countries.

And furthermore, you guys are advocating heating/melting pvc to make neat little aquaponic thingamajigs, you are basically exposing yourself to pvc particles in their most dangerous form when you do that.

Pvc is fine for shorterm use, or to bring water to retards in the inner city, but I really wouldnt recommend using it for you or your family, especially not in a permaculture setting. Avoid all forms of plastic if you can. They aren't the safe, indestructible materials you've been trained since birth to believe they are. Spend the extra money, get ceramics or something similar that will actually last a long period of time and not pollute your local environment.

>>776106
Well they also roll their eyes because california overdoes it. They label things that would require huge quantities over a lifetime and you'd have to be using the product wrong for it to be carcinogenic.

When you say everything causes cancer without regard for the different likelihoods then no one will listen to you.

>>776106
>people roll their eyes because they can't understand how something could be toxic but also legal to use.

No, people roll their eyes because it's on practically anything that isn't food, and I'd put a small sum of money that there's at least one thing that IS food and has the label.

(Side note: How the fuck did you even come to that as a conclusion when it's universally known that 99% of cleaning products and similar would kill you if you drank them?)

>>776080
>reinforce their PVC with lead
I thought lead was the plasticizer. PVC cables = much ungood.

>>776113
>one thing

>>776128
He said food.

>>775666
>Australia is the driest inhabited continent with some of the world’s oldest, shallowest and most weathered soils.
What is average

>the rest
What is irrelevance

Australia is not the Ukraine but neither is it the Atacama. Australia is both and many more. Australia is huge.

You're an idiot.

>>776113
personally, i think its a conspiracy by the tobacco companies to label everything as cancer.

>>776250
>that quote

That's a bit out of context here. That's like putting up a bible quote, which are almost always terribly out of context. As far as food goes, yeah, I wouldn't mind living forever at most. But, at best, I don't want to die a horrific lingering death over years or become ill on a low level for the rest of my life simply because of the foods I'm eating.

I don't let other people make my food. I grow my own.

If you want to control people. Control their food supply.

>>770165
thats what children and minorities are for

>>776291
i was looking for a starship troopers jpg but whatever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-_c6V0U-4k

>>770165
Use some Roundup bro.

>>769899
Maybe if your experience came from more than books you've read (poorly) you'd know that goats can't be intensively grazed. They'd start keeling over because their worm load would get too high.

>>768762
What the fuck is that thing in the top left corner?
>The Cthulu shill

>>769440
9 or 7.

7 looks like he'd be intelligent. Maybe I'm biased and seeing the ghost of the extremely intelligent goat my grandfather decided to slaughter regardless.

9 looks very fluffy. We had a fluffy (mountain?) goat, and it fought all the other goats absurdly regularly, not at all as much as his generic counterparts. I think 9 would drive off the others.

>>775997
>>776008
The hard PVC is pretty stable, the flexible one has bisphenol-a and shit.
If you want to be sure use polyethylene, cautchuc (dunno how to spell it in english)

>>777063
>bisphenol-a
I did some research before and it seems plants cannot absorb that.

>>777071
But fish can and i am an aquaponics-faggot that assumes everbody will eventually do the ponic.
Thank for pointing that out though !

>>768693
Now I'm from pretty much as opposite a climate from you as can be, so don't take this as gospel. But I understand that growing outoors can be difficult in Australia because of access to water. You may want to look at indoor aquaponics. If you don't want to eat the fish, you can always sell or keep them as pets.

>>775126
Everytime I see pics like that I close my eyes and hear seagulls for some reason.

>>771467
That is exactly how it is in the US with GMO seed. You can also be sued by Cargill for reseeding with your own seed.

>>774851
Maybe if you are a woman

>>771848
Even before GMO, Hybrid seeds are like 20% more productive than heirloom varieties, which is why many farmers purchase seed, because the offspring of hybrid seeds aren't the same.

So there's a farm out there in year 1 growing A corn and B corn, in order to make C seed to sell in year 2, but if that corn is replanted in year 3 it will grow D corn, which has different characteristics. And that's the straight breeding stuff. I have no information on how GMO is raised, whether it's hybridized between strains or what.
Hybrid seed used to mostly be developed by agronomy schools and colleges and sold for pretty much cost, then monsanto got into the business.

Also, this: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682048/monsanto-wins-major-patent-case-against-75-year-old-farmer
a farmer bought seed from a grain elevator for a late season planting he didn't want to pay seed prices for. Court ruled that he knew it was likely to be patented seed since 90% of soybean seed in the area is GMO, therefore patent infringement.

OTOH, couple in canada who were famous for the canola seed battle they sorta won in canadian supreme court (their conola oil was contaminated with roundup genes, but they didn't spray roundup, so court ruled they infringed, but derived no benefit, so owed no money (also court ruled that since plants with gmo gene were property of monsanto, they were also responsibility of monsanto)), afterwards were growing mustard and canola popped up in their fields. they tested it by spraying roundup and it was gmo. mailed complaint to monsanto asking for plants to be removed. monsanto sent them a NDA. they didn't sign, back and forward, got the plants removed, sent monsanto the bill, sued in small claims for the $640 when they wouldn't pay, won.

>>778623
>growing mustard and canola popped up in their fields. they tested it by spraying roundup and it was gmo. mailed complaint to monsanto asking for plants to be removed. monsanto sent them a NDA. they didn't sign, back and forward, got the plants removed, sent monsanto the bill, sued in small claims for the $640 when they wouldn't pay, won.

I need a source for this please. I like it.

How do I start my self sufficient farm?
Like, deciding where in the world should I buy land, what kind, how do I get to live there without spending a lot on a farm home, should I buy or rent, what's the cheapest kind of abode etc.

After 3 years of internal labour I've decided this is the life for me: I'm willing to devour documentation and others' experience on farming, livestock, living off grid, to work and make things with my hands, to live away from urban centers.
But how do I even start on a financial point of view? Because first of all I need land and a home, and I'd rather take your advice than be shilled by some real estate Jew on the internet.
Thanks for all the stuff in this thread though.

>>778915
>I'm willing to devour documentation and others' experience on farming, livestock, living off grid, to work
that's not how it works.

>>778923
Why

Anyone have advice/information/plans for setting up an aquaponics system that uses little or no PVC? I'd really like to avoid using it if possible

>>778944
How about ABS?

>>778946
Apparently ABS doesn't hold up to exposure to the sun. Also, it can release carcinogenic chemicals when heated, which it will be since it's black plastic out in the sun.

Does anyone know of anything similar to PVC or ABS pipes that is made of food grade/food safe materials? I was looking at polyethylene but all I can find is soft tubing that looks like a pain the the ass to set up and keep everything from moving around and messing up the system

sooner or later food will come to piss on all this bait you are growing, at that point you can kill or trap the food.

>>768693
>>775126
more pics like OP?

sorry for my lack of one

>>778974
>allowing something like that to happen

There are fences for a reason. If you want to hunt/trap wild food, do it. Just don't let it fuck up your garden. That is foolish.

>>768731
Cool video.... ton of work and your kids better get on board

>>778737
Here's where I found it:
https://thegranddisillusion.wordpress.com/monsanto-vs-farmer/
but like this layout better http://www.i-sis.org.uk/whoOwnsLifeNotMonsanto.php

>>778915
Just start now. There are people who are self sufficient in a city backyard, even if you live in an apartment building, call landlord and see if you can setup hydroponics on the roof. most of the cheap land left is hilly/has terrible soil/is difficult to get to (not near a road). otherwise it would be a farm already, since farms get displaced by cities.
all hilly land means is that you wouldn't be able to tractor etc easily.
And this discussion is mostly about self sufficiency as to food. It's really REALLY hard to make enough money farming to cover all living expenses including health insurance and retirement planning.
The point is it's not that hard to backyard garden and cover most if not all of your food needs.
Look up kratky method for low cost low maintenance hydroponics.
Also, you can get aforementioned land for 1000-2000 an acre; this to plan space needed >>769330
I've seen a 17 acre plot going for 30k asking. You'd need to build a house there yourself though, and septic, but you could tiny house it with an outhouse which i've seen plans for about 5k.

And the discussion is aimed things that are hard to industrialize but more efficient farming such as hydroponics/aquaponics/fogponics/hugelkulture/permaculture/etc.

So financial, just start saving. go volunteer for habitat for humanity to learn construction skills and carpentry. invest in shitty city house that is terrible for easily fixable reasons, live in it as you fix it evenings/weekends, and either keep as rental or flip it. Do garden boxes and cook for yourself to save money.

>>779266
My only expenses are rent, food, energy both gas and electricity. If I grow my food and produce my energy and chop wood, won't I be able to live off my farm with virtually no expenses, making up for the the few expenses with the profit from food and energy? Even more so if I own land and home. Is it impossible?

>>779021
>>779023
jesus fucking christ moar

ish? still need to cover long term costs. eg medical insurance, property taxes, replacements for when solar panels or generators wear out, some sort of protection against starving if there's a hurricane or a fungus infestation or a plague of locusts that kills off most of your crop. Hell, you'll need to buy things like baking soda and salt. And internet connection.

Energy is hard to sell at a profit vs cost of energy generation.
Food you could. but it'd be hard to sell for enough to cover all the costs and also means have to cover car and car insurance and gas.
Best option is probably get with a local restaurant, so you can call them, say you're about to harvest and get exactly what they need. They'll pay premium for freshest possible food with no pesticide taste.
Alternatively, learn to grow things that have high profit margin but are annoying to grow and haven't been industrialized. eg. corn smut for huitlacoche if you have a mexican community in the area, various types of mushroom etc.
But yes, video:
>>768731

I will note that pretty much everyone who makes it work has some sort of external income. Especially for the first few years while you're getting everything build/in place.

So yes, it's possible, but you'd need to hustle, and income would be less steady (likely no income in the winter because no farming). The thing that used to kill most farmers is they'd borrow over the winter and wouldn't be able to pay it off because not a good year. and it'd start by borrowing a little, then being able to save up a little less next year, then borrow a little more etc. also, unless you have savings, tractor repairs can be expensive.

Also, I'm not saying you have to go work in the city. could get a telecommuting job. or be a writer or artist. Woodworking is my personal cover the mortgage job for retiring on a farm.

It's nice and sad to see this thread. Nice because it is a wholesome American pastime. It's sad though because many people are getting into this for security of mind against hardship because this world is becoming shittier and shittier. It's like the boomers explicitly decided to f#@k the younger generations. Why do you think there are continual threads about small houses.

>>779455

Suppose these people could possibly save themselves if they left America for some place greener and actually "free".

If there even is a place like that anywhere?

>>779467
Large swathes of Africa "free", but freedom also involves someone else's freedom to grab an AK, kill you and take your shite.
The only way to find land which is "free" is to find somewhere no one cares about the inhabitants, kill them off, and take their land. = the start of america.

>>779470
I think he meant "free" as in "murica! Land of 1000 freedoms per minute!"

>>778960
i would've said PLA but that is biodegradable and won't help you much to build your shit

What condiment can I grow in this setup?

yes no
Bell pepper
onions
tomatos
garlic
pepper
chili pepper
potato

I also have some space left for raising 3 chickens + 1 pig.
I guess I'm good?

>>772692
salmon farms generally have to gather the young from the wild in an unsustainable way and the restrictive growing space increases diseases and parasites and pollution absorption and often necessitates antibiotics. Additionally sustainable fish get turned into chum to feed these fish that still need dyes to seem like they had a natural diet.

>>775950
I don't see how you could accurately predict the number. You lose almost a billion people within months if tax funded aid in the form of medicine and food drops starts running dry to places like Africa and India and whatever other hellholes the West as a whole is dumping supplies in.

Run-on sentence.

>>777054
I don't claim to be an expert on goats, but my neighbors do this with their goats successfully. They rotationally graze them but not at a high density. I'm not saying I think you're wrong but, the subject of worm management for sheep and goats seems contentious to say the least. What works and what doesn't work for your specific climate and plant diversity may be completely different from another farm.

Please share your knowledge though if you feel like, can't beat experience.

>>780488
His number is based on declining birthrates in developed countries. Once you get computers and welfare and education and you can't afford to raise a kid until you're thirty, and you don't need 8 kids to keep the mill running, people drop to three kids, which is just replacement.

12 billion was thrown out in a paper projecting what our max pop will be, and its easily sustainable. Even without anything fun like vertical farms or arcologies

>>780488
>Africa
>India
You realise that most of the inefficiencies in the developing world regarding food production is either down to the sloppy and barely functioning infrastructure to take produce food to storage and to market, as is the case in India, where millions of tons of rice rot away because lol can't ship it out, or because all the aid to Africa, they don't fucking bother with running their countries correctly. Why work when you can beg?

>>780498
You're assuming certain people can even be civilized, its been tried since the Colonial Era. Look at Haiti, the US CoE built and rebuilt infrastructure (roads, power lines, wells, etc) 3 times I think? Within a decade or two the infrastructure was abandoned or stripped for scrap.

>>780740
Its the same basic problem with a welfare state. Constant handouts just end up "rewardng" doing nothing, this applies more to entitlement spending than aid obviously.

Shit's fucked. There was a guy on Joe Rogan's podcast running a program for building food gardens in empty lots in Detroit, seemed like a really good idea to cut out the costs involved in growing and transporting the food.

1 Acre is typically considered the minimum, and that's one acre in well-tended vegetables. It takes about 3 years to get the ground up to scratch by crop rotating, mulching, composting. The book "self sufficiency - John Seymour" and "the self sufficiency bible - Simon Dawson" will tell you everything.
It's a fairly dogged path to go down. Chickens and aquaculture (talapia, hydroponics) are also great. a cow for milk, cheese, yoghurt is worth it if you have another 1-2 acres in light forest/ orchard.

Something like this might get you pointed in the right direction.

http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/1433/how-large-a-cultivation-area-to-feed-one-person

>>779266
Hilly land is good for swale building though! They don't need plowing and can't be tractor harvested anyway.

>>779023
Oh, that's the way I want to live. I'm sick and tired of living in a city where air pollution exceeds 400% norm regularly, where food comes from shitty farms supplying supermarkets, where you can see no more than a couple of stars at night.
Humans were created for work like that and I think we all would be so much happier if we reduced population now and came back to this model of living.

>>783207
Keep in mind that country air, in many places is actually very polluted. However, it is polluted with pollens instead of car exhaust. Arid locations will have the least amount of natural air pollution. Though natural air pollution like that doesn't affect star viewing. Light pollution from all the lights in a city is the main culprit for preventing star viewing. Though, it is compounded by atmospheric pollution reflecting the light even more.

>>770596
i have to call shenanigans on these drums. only 50% of the plants in it will get proper sun light if its out in the open. while it seems like a good use of space, i have never seen a video where someone has been using them for years successfully. usually there is one full side thats dead

>>768835
>Peasant tier life.
By this you mean you would have to do your own work and not make your money through usury. Well, yeah! That's the whole idea.

>>769480
>You can never go wrong with Satan
I put my money on the calm lookin dude with the green necklace.

>>770165
>They're such a goddamn pain
Yeah, having the most awesome pies on the planet growing in your yard is such a hassle. So passe.

>>770508
>It was a typo,
No it wasn't. To hell with their linguists.

>>770596
>big blue plastic drums
Excellent way to grow potatoes too, but beware too fertile soil will give you tons of green growth but few tubers.

>>771710
FYI, some of those potato cultivars are likely still quite poisonous.

>>783241
Mine is here >>770626 and the vegetables I grow on the south side are tolerant for shadow and do better in it. Those photos show it on both sides. Those pics are from 2013. I've used it 2 seasons now and will be planting in it again this coming season, as soon as the weather warms up. Last year I grew tall plants on the sunny side to further shade the plants on the south side.

>>783518
You can get free ones from the gene bank at: http://cipotato.org/

They even have a handy PDF guide showing the best uses for various types of potatoes, Andean roots/tubers, and sweet potatoes.

>>779455
>It's like the boomers explicitly decided to f#@k the younger generations. Why do you think there are continual threads about small houses.
I agree 100% They ruined our country, our currency, our economy, most of the world and they fucked up the future for their own kids all for their own greed.

Extremely new to /diy/, but I'd love a bit of advice or links or general things to research for myself, if maybe just a few key words.

After researching how to breed my own crickets, I became very interested in basically raising and growing my own things.

Unfortunately, as it stands, I live in a fairly spacey apartment, with no backyard, but a couple of good windows and plenty of sunlight.

Is there any viable way of maybe growing some sort of vegetable such as Potatoes, or maybe even a small fruit tree/bush?

I look at awesome shit like this, and I just get completely lost on how to start/how it works. >>770657
>>770626


Much appreciated.

Geoff Lawton, Bill Mollison, Sepp Holzer have some really good permaculture videos

>>783936
Greens like kale or Romaine lettuce would do well in a window box. Radishes too. Green onions/scallions. Even peppers would do well.

>>783936
Dude, this post:
>>768731
has all the terms.
Except one, kratky method. Simplest possible hydroponics designed for leafy greens. So no potatoes or fruit trees, but yes fresh spinach/herbs/lettuce/leafy greens. some people have decent success with tomatoes and strawberries. Google milk jug hydroponics. It's what I'm planning myself for the spring.

>>779455
>My grandfather, who has been a farmer his whole life and taught me a lot of shit and was much more responsible than just about everyone else in his generation, but every damn time I see him now:
Obama is ruinin america!
>But every president has been on the same path for the longest time, literally matters zero who the pres is, we get into stupid shit wars and still fighting the "war on drugs" while getting a stream of small liberties taken away.
Obama is on dope! Yall wanted him and yall voted for him and yall got him!
>Gramps, I didn't vote.

Third world shit-skin reporting in. You don't need to waste a lot of time or money, but be realistic.

Is it for getting more flavour and nutrient rich food? Is it for getting a more organic less GM and toxic food? Is it just a hobby? Does the climate where you live is the good one?

You can start with the basics some herbs, they require small space and just water. If you live outside the city maybe some potatoes and carrots. If you need to save time automate the water system. Some pipping and electronics can save you time and money. Invest in good dark soil. Buy a tractor to move the soil from time to time. Get a diverse origins from seeds.

If you know what you are doing include fruits, other vegetables.

If you are a pro, include grapes in your acres. No matter how hard you automate grapes are just for growing artists and experts.

And that's it. Practice with tomatoes. If you live in a zone where sun is not strong forget about self sufficient farming, it will be a headache.