Welcome Farmanons,
Today I’m excited to have a fellow Chad Farmer from across the pond join us today. He’ll provide a glimpse into his homestead endeavors.
BowTied Wasp is an “original” jungle member from the beginning but you may not have heard of him. He’s more of a quiet observoooor, always busy building in the background.
This is one of my favorite things to do is share other’s experiences and projects. It’s very encouraging for me to know that there are many other people around the world striving towards the same goal of being self reliant.
I hope you enjoy this post and follow Wasp today!
Hi,
BowTiedWasp here.
Thanks to BowTiedFarmer for allowing me to write in this space about my homestead background and projects. I am going to use Farmer’s form as a guide.
List your current projects pertaining to self sufficiency:
At my family homestead in a mountain village in Spain, diversity of animals and plants at a small scale is the normal thing.
We cultivate multiple small gardens and orchards to get a range of vegetables, fruits and herbs; pasture for cattle; and a large area of woodland and shrub land where we go for cutting firewood or fencing posts, gathering chestnuts and mushrooms and producing honey. The largest amount of cropland area is dedicated to potatoes, corn, tree kale and beetroots, but it’s far smaller than any commercial operation for these products.
With regard to animals, at home we have some cows, a small flock of sheep, lots of chicken, rabbits, pigs for a part of the year and several beehives, apart from some cats and dogs.
How long have you been working on these projects?
I come from a family of subsistence farmers who have been in the same place for over two centuries so basically I grew up around all these things. But I keep on learning new things every day.
Do you generate income from your operations? Give as much detail as possible.
The same as BTFarmer, I am a “fake farmer” as neither me nor my close family get our main income from the homestead, and the priority of the homestead is to produce food and other products. In my case, I have a day job in the engineering sector and my retired parents take care of most of the daily chores.
That said, we have some income from selling calves, either to a local butcher or to family and friends. I have also been increasing our honey production in the last years and now I routinely sell high-quality honey directly to local customers. Future “cash crops” may be chestnuts and apples, but the income from these things is not remotely comparable to my job income.
What's your biggest success?
I am really proud of our honey, which all of my customers praise and buy year after year.
We have also had great success with apples, pears, kiwifruit, chestnuts and other fruit trees, and I am quite obsessed with planting more of them.
What's your biggest failure?
I am quite bad with successfully grafting trees so I resort to neighbors or friends to do it.
We have also been unsuccessful with plants that can’t grow in our wet, mild climate and hence we have given up with them: eggplants, melons, watermelons and others.
What would you tell someone who is thinking about starting a small farm or garden
It’s more work than you think, but it’s also more rewarding and you will save more money in groceries than you think. And they can’t force you to eat ze bugs!
Microclimates matter a lot too in small-scale operations. For example, we can cultivate oranges and lemons in a secluded orchard protected by stone walls from wind and frost, which wouldn’t be possible anywhere else here.
What are your future plans/dreams?
By now, continue to managing the homestead along with my day job while my side businesses pick up steam. Keeping on planting more trees, building/restoring buildings and infrastructure (link) and buying and developing abandoned lands, which I have been doing in the last few years.
Thanks for tuning in this week. If you’re interested in sharing your experiences with homesteading, gardening, farming, or self suffiecency… please fill out this form, I’ll be in contact with you via email.
I’m sure we would all like to hear from you, I know I would! No project is too big or too small.
Until next time…
WAGMI
Farmer