As I imply in this post, my husband and I will be on what is commonly termed a “hobby farm” in a few short years. Our plan is to be off-grid and have a high level of self-reliance with our physical nourishment.
In plain English, we hope to be able to raise most of our own food.
But, the question occasionally pops up: how far should we take it?
Three key questions when planning your hobby farm
First, you need to decide how much labor you are willing to do. Be brutally honest. To say that you want to raise all of your own food, and then to end up with a two-acre garden and/or animals that take up more time in your day than you wanted will suck all the joy out of your life.
Second, what kind of lifestyle are you hoping for? If you are a homebody and couldn’t care less about traveling, having a gigantic garden and lots of animals could be a perfect fit for you.
If you love to travel, you may not want to go through the headache of finding someone competent enough to care for your farm while you are gone. A small garden and a horse or two may be good enough for you. Obviously, the amount of income you project to be making after moving on to your farm will help determine how elaborate it will be.
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Third, are you going for the self-sufficiency thing, or do you just want to have lots of space? Answering this question will determine what kind of home you live in, whether or not you will garden, and whether or not you have what kind of animals.
Examples of various hobby farms
- A couple acres with a few fruit trees and a large vegetable garden, perhaps with a few chickens running around.
- Several acres with an even larger garden, some chickens, and a couple of milk goats.
- Ten acres with a huge garden, an orchard, a couple dozen chickens, milk goats, sheep, and a guard donkey.
- A couple acres with two or three horses, maybe a medium-sized vegetable garden.
- Twenty acres or more with a large vegetable garden, a small orchard, a bunch of different animals and grain fields.
Hobby farming is supposed to be fun. If you are leaning in that direction, think carefully about what you want your lifestyle to look like before you start filling up the barn and tilling up the yard.
