Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Sanrith Descartes · Nov 29, 2023

Foler said:
Yeah. Even being in the same zone - for instance north 9B is gonna have a harder time than south 9B for growing things like mangos, passion vine, sugar apple etc. Meanwhile south 9B can’t grow pecans due to lack of chill hours while north 9B can. Amazing what a difference as little as 10 miles can make.

I just looked at the map and I am either in a 9A or 8B depending on if I got that shade of yellow correct. Fuckers couldnt have used colors that dont look almost identical?

edit: zoomed out the map and its easier to see the different shades of yellow next to each other. Definitely 9A for me.

Foler · Nov 29, 2023

Sanrith Descartes said:
I just looked at the map and I am either in a 9A or 8B depending on if I got that shade of yellow correct. Fuckers couldnt have used colors that dont look almost identical?

edit: zoomed out the map and its easier to see the different shades of yellow next to each other. Definitely 9A for me.

9A is solid. You can still zone push some tropical fruit trees like mangos if you really want to. Will just be a little more work creating the right microclimate.

It sounds like you have a bit of land, you should consider growing fruit trees/nuts. You can cold hardy avocado varieties, olive, fig, persimmon, low chill hour peach varieties (Florida specific), mulberry, pecan, chestnuts, pineapples, pears, loquat, plums and mangos with the right variety and placement.

For non-tropical trees that require chill hours such as pears, persimmons, peaches, walnuts, you can use this agroclimate tool to see what historical average you have for chill hours in your area Chill Hours Calculator – AgroClimate

I’ll PM you some local resources

lurkingdirk · Nov 29, 2023

Foler said:
Two bananas trees shredded again. Had no bananas. I imagine it’s the same bear. I wonder if the liquid in the trunk is sweet? I haven’t had time to get the temporary electric fence up. The animal pressure is really icing on the cake when it comes to tiring me out in pursuit of my homesteading effort.

How many fucking bears do you have around there? I know people who do homesteading in northern Ontario which is replete with bears, and they have none of the problems you have. Are you rubbing steak all over your trees or something?

Khane · Nov 29, 2023

You're talking about animals. Foler is talking about big, hairy gay men.

Liquid in the trunk? Dead giveaway

Foler · Nov 29, 2023

lurkingdirk said:
How many fucking bears do you have around there? I know people who do homesteading in northern Ontario which is replete with bears, and they have none of the problems you have. Are you rubbing steak all over your trees or something?

Tons. Some that live on my land, many that pass through. I live on a wildlife corridor with development all around me. It pushes them all to my property. I probably have 1000s of videos from my security cams of bears. You can usually walk around the property at night and find at least one bear if you scan the horizon with a spotlight.

lurkingdirk · Nov 29, 2023

Foler said:
Tons. Some that live on my land, many that pass through. I live on a wildlife corridor with development all around me. It pushes them all to my property. I probably have 1000s of videos from my security cams of bears. You can usually walk around the property at night and find at least one bear if you scan the horizon with a spotlight.

Buy cayenne pepper in bulk, and spread it around the trees you are wanting to protect. Bears have an incredible sense of smell, and that will keep them off things.

Foler · Nov 29, 2023

lurkingdirk said:
Buy cayenne pepper in bulk, and spread it around the trees you are wanting to protect. Bears have an incredible sense of smell, and that will keep them off things.

Rain and upkeep would be my concern here. TBH I’m burned out on land work and wanna just sit on my trees until spring and plant them.. So I’m fine throwing two strands of electric 500 ft to hold me over till April. Electric has worked great for chickens so far. I’ve already watched a bear and bobcat get their pants shocked off.

If only wealth could be measured in bears..

Foler · Nov 29, 2023

Can’t even make this up. Almost hit a cub on the road out.

BrutulTM · Nov 30, 2023

Sludig said:
Oklahoma, usually above freezing but nights can dip into high 20s, sometimes get like a week of much lower temp with a high just above freezing.

Saw a block heater plug, didn't know the difference between that and a glow plug but it has the icon for that I believe when I turn the key.

Yeah, the glow plug is the light that comes on when you turn the key. Just wait for the light to go out before you start it.

With glow plugs it will probably start in the 20's. Maybe even without them. I've never had anything gel until it gets to be down around 0 degrees. Most places will switch to winter diesel in the fall and that's probably all you need but if you don't fill up often or whatever it doesn't hurt to put some anti-gel treatment in it. If you really need it and it's cold, plug it in for a couple of hours before you start it but with those temps I don't think you need to worry much.

Noble Savage · Dec 8, 2023

I've had a 30 acre piece of property for about a year now and just closed on the 160 acre neighboring farm. This gives me close to 200 acres to play with. Now that the dust is settling on that purchase I am starting to think about improvements. the new piece of land I have does have a small 2 bedroom house on it that needs alot of work. There is electric but no other county hookups so it has to be self sustaining. It has a cistern and septic (not 100%). HVAC was a windowed box AC and there is a wall unit heater that was powered either by nat gas or propane but the service tank is gone. If I am going to start from scratch with this building what are my best options for heating? I plan on installing a minisplit for the AC and I know those can come with a heat pump. What is the best off grid heating option though propane or LNG? Or maybe something else?

BrutulTM · Dec 8, 2023

What part of the country are you in? I'm assuming since all they had was a wall heater that it doesn't get too cold so the mini-split might be sufficient. I'm further assuming since there's a cistern that they didn't have a well and hauled in water? Is your current property on a well and if so would there be a possibility of running a pipeline from your well to the new house?

Noble Savage · Dec 8, 2023

BrutulTM said:
What part of the country are you in? I'm assuming since all they had was a wall heater that it doesn't get too cold so the mini-split might be sufficient. I'm further assuming since there's a cistern that they didn't have a well and hauled in water? Is your current property on a well and if so would there be a possibility of running a pipeline from your well to the new house?

I am in KY so it doesn't get below freezing all winter but during the coldest parts it certainly can drop below freezing for several days/weeks a year. My city house has a heat pump with nat gas as the auxiliary heat when it gets to cold for the heat pump and it does kick in during winter. My smaller property has nothing to tie into. Its closer to the road so has a possible water hookup that might be able to be ran back to the house but thats about it for county supplied resources. No well for either property just the cistern for the house that they would get water delivered to when it didn't rain enough.

BrutulTM · Dec 8, 2023

My bad. I was assuming you lived on the other property. Hauling water in isn't the best thing but it's not the end of the world. Sounds like you might be asking a lot of the mini-split to provide the only heat but you might want to keep the propane heater if it still works and get a new tank. They don't really use LNG in tanks because the energy density is so low. If it had a tank it was almost certainly propane. You could also get a wood stove if you want to make it cozy in there, especially if you have trees on the property. I bet the mini-split would get you through a lot of the year though, and you could just use the propane/wood when it gets really cold.

Burns · Dec 9, 2023

Noble Savage said:
I am in KY so it doesn't get below freezing all winter but during the coldest parts it certainly can drop below freezing for several days/weeks a year. My city house has a heat pump with nat gas as the auxiliary heat when it gets to cold for the heat pump and it does kick in during winter. My smaller property has nothing to tie into. Its closer to the road so has a possible water hookup that might be able to be ran back to the house but thats about it for county supplied resources. No well for either property just the cistern for the house that they would get water delivered to when it didn't rain enough.

Are you going to eventually demolish it and build a new house there, add on, or build a new house close to it and leave it as servant's quarters?

Long term low power option could be geothermal for both heat and AC. It has a huge upfront cost that needs 10ish years to break even, then becomes cheaper depending on the size of the house. It would probably be longer for just a two bedroom house, but if you were going to use the wells for a second house if could be worth it. Otherwise, propane is still cheaper than electric for heat/stove, afaik.

Aldarion · Dec 9, 2023

200 acres and no well? I know what my first priority would be.

Not to trivialize the time or expense of drilling a well. But its water.

Sludig · Dec 9, 2023

Depending on distance to water delivery/propane/etc think redundancy if your going to live on it full time. Where your at, most of the year weather wouldn't be life threatening, but be nice to have backups when rural power goes out. We just finished getting our propane backup generator, and working on getting a wood stove insert for our chimney. So we could be without any services at all for at least a few weeks depending on if your talking just surviving vs keeping freezers frozen and the niceties.

Mass water is the only thing I lack, but our water table on this side of a hill actually seems high, get standing water in places during rainy season, so I've thought about exploring that, we have a shitty little mudhole we call a pond that I could lifestraw in a pinch.

When we first got here, we were 100% electric with propane only for water heater/stove. Didn't like being reliant on spotty power.

BrutulTM · Dec 9, 2023

If you want to get an idea what it would cost to put in a well, look up the well registry for your state. Most states have a map with all the wells on it and you can click on a few in your area and see how deep people are going to get water.

Here's the one for Kentucky...

Kentucky Groundwater Data Repository

kgs.uky.edu

Blazin · Dec 9, 2023

well should fall in the range of $5-10k If it needs steel casing that can jump price really fast

Foler · Dec 10, 2023

I found two huge well pumps up in a forested area next to my field. Both disconnected and the area is overgrown. I went through it with a brush cutter. Found some piping, bricks, and other stuff but have yet to locate the well. Doesn’t seem like the well was under where the pumps were laying. I need to do some more digging though and see.. Last time I was trying to I got nailed by yellow jackets.. Id like to find it in hopes I can just have a new sleeve put down it and get a new pump as I think this was a huge well with jet pumps that was used to irrigate about 8 acres of the property.

Easiest thing I can think to do is follow one of the nearby faucets backwards to try and find it..

Blazin · Dec 10, 2023

Brush hogs have a special ability to find well heads

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