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Just how big IS 5 acres?
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Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
:s9: If you have five acres with good sunlight, soil, water and hopefully nobody near you or if so only organic minded folks you can live like a king on it with just one addition. A Troy Bilt rototiller.
I Know. Only I had an Alis Chalmers model CA 1954 I think. Cost about as much as a rototiller but for micro farming you cannot beat the roto tiller for versatility and economy. :s9: |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
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Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Acres are pretty small if you ask me.
The way I think about it is if you want 1 square mile of land that's going to equal 640 acres... |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Five is plenty enough to sustain yourself and your family if you've got the basics of a good growing season, water and decent soil. It's also small enough to be easily manageable by one person. Five was my target but where I am it's hard to find anything much over one acre for a decent price so I ended up with 3.5. I sure wouldn't mind a little more but it's enough. I've got stands of oak, pine and maple for fuel, turpentine, tar and building material. A half acre pond for water and fish, a bit over an acre of pasture and still have plenty of space to grow crops. There's not much else I could really want, if I had more land I'd just scale everything up.
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Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
I've posted it before, but this family is growing almost all their food, and selling some, on a 1/3 acre suburban lot with a house on it. Imagine what you could grow with 15 times that (5 acres)?
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ |
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The farm is the best place to be in a depression. I can remember asking my grandfather about the great depression. All he could remember was going without shoes in the summertime.
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:smile: the Angus and sheep were 4-H Club projects. |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Just looked at 5 acres on Saturday.
1,500 sq ft, 3BR, 2 Bath house (Built in 1992) 60 x 40 pole barn above ground pool $339,000 :confused_ma: :smokin: |
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Around here that would be a hell of a deal. Two nieghbors have their places for sale across the street, one because of a death and the other moved to be closer to family elsewhere. One is $750,000 and the other with less outbuildings is $620,000. Who knows if they'll sell, but a 2 1/2 acre spot down the road with a newer house (most around here were build in 1970's) sold for $499,000. |
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I bought 3.1 acres with a 120 year old farmhouse and a barn on it. The frontage is 250 feet and goes back 500 feet into a forest. I realized after moving here the land is more important than the house. I can fix up the house or tear it down and rebuild. But the land will always be pretty much what it is. Houses depreciate, land doesn't.
Would love to have 10 acres or more and then would qualify for the official farm property tax rate (which is very low, agricultural instead of residential). Would pay for itself eventually. |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Back in the mid 70's in college I lived in Pueblo, Colorado on a 40 acre farm. Rented the chicken coop. They turned it into comfortable living quarters back in the 40's. Stucco exterior, bed living room, kitchen and bath.
The owner, Mr. Morgan, was in his 70's then. Back was stooped from working 3 jobs all his life (farm, steel mill, bees). He hired me to paint a tin barn. I'd start a wall, then run off to class. I'd come back and in half the time he would have painted dang near 2x what I did! He showed me what it meant to work. As a boy, he saved his money $3000 for college. He made his way up to Fort Collins to go to Colorado State University. Put his money in the bank on Friday and registered for classes. On Monday they closed all the banks. He had 25c in his pocket to get home on. He always said "Never sell the farm!" I'm sure his kids and grand kids didn't listen to him. A shame because it was bottom land and just a stone's throw from the river. Good advice no doubt for just about any time.... |
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Let's say S really HTF hard.....Peak Oil or worse. Will anyone really own any land??? Ownership really will just depend on if your defenses hold up.....or not.
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Of course I would not lift a hand to stop it. :thumpdown |
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Alright gasilat, would you stop with the pictures already...you're just being cruel. We live on 5 and are working on closing on 18 in the next couple of months and can't wait.
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Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
If you love people as much as I do anything less than 40 acres is too small.
In Texas, counties are allowed to regulate whether or not you can shoot guns on your own property if you have less than 20 acres. 10 acres of flat land usually seems bigger than 10 acres sloped. Most sloped tracts are accessed by a road along the creek, so the only buildable terrain is along the road where there is no privacy. Terrain is an important consideration. |
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There are lots of old homesteading stand-by books that will give you an idea of how much can be done with 5 acres. Five Acres and Independence, The Have More Plan, etc, etc. Our copy of Have More was put out by Gardenway. It is a great read! Bound to be some books by Organiic Gardening that also have ideas.
Often you don't have to posess property to have use of it. Often, neighbors will plant a community garden on one person's plot of land and work and harvest it together. Some inner-city areas might even have a gardening plot you can use. Five acres that borders a National Forest is a huge plot of land, if you get my drift. Have More Plan showed how to optimize layout of a small homestead for efiiciency and to maximize the potentials. Using intensive gardening techniques instead of row-cropping, having gardens close to animals for manure fertilizing, chickens close to the house for many reasons etc you can keep a pretty decent woodlot and maybe even get by on 2 acres for self-sufficeincy. Thanks to Andy for posting the photos of his canning efforts. Hope most have jars and lids/seals. Good way to preserve your freezer contents if the power is gone. Always worth stocking seals & lids if only for trade items. |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Five acres that borders a National Forest is a huge plot of land, if you get my drift.
Excellent point.....the 'drift' being should the SHTF, no "RangerRick" is gonna be around to keep you from harvesting firewood.....they basically aren't NOW, or you can get a permit here for 10 cords/year of dead and downed wood for no charge. One of the things I found attractive about my place is the fact it's surrounded on 3 sides by National Forest.......5-10,000 acres of 'backyard'. |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
I'm just finishing up the purchase of an additional 14 acres. Feeling a little guilty about the price, $30k, but the peace of mind of outright ownership and having room for animals and gardens is worth it. Inexpensive property is out there, but its bought on the side without realators and it sure as hell isn't listed.
Now I just need to learn from TN Andy the ins ands outs of gardening and canning. Now, if I only would have run away from Skyvike and the blue pill.... Dang! BP |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Yeah.....the 'pill', once taken, is forever :D
Good find on the 14 acres. That is about as much as anybody can handle or need. I have 100ac, but 90+ is in timber, and up the side of a mountain.... I basically don't use it.....it's just insulation, watershed, and woodlot....what I actually USE is closer to 7-8ac.....and without a few cows, I could get by on a far less than that, except for woodlot.....I think a person needs 10ac or so of woodlot just for a renewable source of fuel, assuming you live in a decent rainfall area that grows trees. They claim 1 cord of wood can be cut off an acre per year, and actually improve the timber yeild down the road......and 10 cords of wood will supply most folks adequately thru a winter, assuming you're not trying to heat a McMansion. |
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GA no thanks. |
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You'd have a pretty hard time finding a deal like that in East Tennesse nowdays....when I bought my place 25 years ago, 1000/ac was the going price, but that has changed considerably......but in middle or west TN, things are still more reasonable......the Cumberland Mtns run down thru middle TN, and it's also pretty there. West Tennessee is too hot, to flat, and too communist for me.
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Our law makers are 'stuck on stupid' State and FED. A country without vision or willingness to sacrifice. We will all learn how painful the lesson will be for making that mistake. Our ancestors paid forward so we could have the freedom we do now, now we are bankrupt (in many ways) - how disrespectful of the people that paid the price before our current generations (some the ultimate sacrifice). The history books on the America that was - the Empire of arrogance (just view the latest Executive Order on the siezing of private property - how is it a President quoting his rights provided by the US constitution writes an EO that is all about oppressing citizens who would stand against any war (in this case I think the term 'IRAQ' shows up more than any reference to the US - you would think it was an EO issued by the IRAQ government and not the President of the USA) :banghead: :banghead: Sorry for the :rant:, just came flowing out. |
Re: Just how big IS 5 acres?
Gee thanks
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Not my life style, I can always move away from the problem. There have been many times in the past that it would have been better for me to adhere to that same policy. Think of like pushing against a mountain. If the mountain is too strong, is it not better to push off it rather than keep trying to push it over? |
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