- Dog Island Farm

Michelle from Handmade and Homegrown asked us:

I admire what you are attempting to accomplish. We would really like to do the same thing. How long did it take for you to establish the garden, and get the chickens and the rabbits settled in.

We have had our home for just about a year now and gardening was a bear. I bought chicks in the spring and we are actually getting eggs(about 4 a day) and we are very excited about that, but have concerns about having meat birds. We have talked about rabbits also eventually. We live on a hilltop that is almost 3.5 acres and very wooded we are slowly going to work on the yard, but I don’t see being able to support very many animals because of the layout…long story, sorry. Where do you suggest starting in order to get to the point that you are, what kind of time table would we be looking at?

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3.5 acres? I’m jealous! We only have a 1/4 acre. With the correct layout you can easily do it all! You could also consider having larger animals if you wanted. But as always start slow. I first started seriously gardening about four years ago at our previous home. We got our first three chickens a little over 2 years ago with 4 more chickens about 3 months later. We moved into our current home in December 2008. We added more chickens since then and are currently up to 19. We had 23 at one point, but gave some away and another fell victim to the neighbor’s dog). The goats came this past February, bees in March and then the rabbits and meat chickens came in late July. For us, that was the perfect rate of expansion. For you and your family it might be more or less time.

When adding in livestock definitely learn as much as possible about raising them before jumping in. You may learn that they won’t be what you really want. And you shouldn’t feel that you have to have it all.

Expand your garden slowly if you’re looking to produce most of your food. It’s taken me years to figure out the best growing methods, and I’m still learning from mistakes, but I’m slowly improving our garden. I’ve include some related links to other posts for you that may be useful.

Planning and Livestock
Jack and the Beanstalk or Things Learned
Things I’ve Learned Part Deux
Not Enough Time?
Friday’s Tips ‘n’ Tricks – How to Layout your Vegetable Garden- Part 1of 3
Friday’s Tips ‘n’ Tricks – How to Layout your Vegetable Garden- Part 2
Friday’s Tips ‘n’ Tricks – How to Layout your Vegetable Garden- Part 3 of 3