Looking for farmer anons to help me out please

Looking to grow and raise my own food. So far I'm planning on having a small flock of assaf sheep and a small herd brown swiss cows for the cattle. I'm considering if I should also have pigs. My body despises poultry and anything related to it so dairy and red meat animals seem to be what I'm going to have to use. Fish is also a consideration for raising if I get the money for that (carp especially seems like a good option).
For fruit I'm planning on growing an apple tree, a peach tree, some blueberry bushes, and some watermelon.
For vegetables I'm thinking potatoes, green beans, lettuce, peppers, pumpkin, and squash.
A Mediterranean anon on another thread said I should grow some lupin beans as well for added protein. They also seem easy to grow.
I live in a 7b growing zone in the USA and the soil here is almost exclusively mineral rich red clay near the mountains and in the middle of some forest.
I'm concerned about food preservation especially. So far for the milk I'm going to be making cheese and using a freeze drier to make powdered raw milk from my cows and sheep. Might be able to make whey powder too with the cheese byproduct. For the fruit I'm down to freezing, canning it, or making preserves. Vegetables would also be canning and freezing. For the meat I'm thinking drying into jerky, making cured sausages, and also freezing. Beans would be dried or canned as well.
Any other ideas? I'm also open to tips for when I dive into this

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Real farming requires alot of equipment and operating loans- basically it is big business and you will need at least about 1000 row crop acres. Probably not going to work for Joe blow.

    You can do some large scale gardening, and homesteading though if you get a tractor that has a three point hook up with a disc harrow and a bottom plow. Your limitation though will be harvesting. Maybe find some old cheap 70s era harvesters and a peanut trailer to two plus a livestock trailer and planters and things but good luck fixing the planters and harvesters if they break down (which they will). You'd need about a 100hp tractor for that stuff. Plant corn and get a small grain bin- then get a grinder that can hook up to the auxiliary on your tractor. That way you can grind your own base for your animal feed (you will still have to buy a supplement with protein etc. to mix in). Get a few pairs of hogs and start breeding them. The chickens will be the easiest.

    If you have a pond it will need to be about 2 acres total imho. Stock it with some sort of blue gill for forage and then add largemouth bass. You can add catfish too but they will eventually need to be restocked.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Oh I forgot you will need about two 500 gallon diesel tanks too for sure.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is golden. Screenshotting it for sure. Thank you anon. Now my biggest concern is getting the proper equipment. I have a small pond but its not 2 acres large sadly. Maybe an acre if I'm being generous. Would there be any fish I could use for a smaller pond that would be suitable?

      Oh I forgot you will need about two 500 gallon diesel tanks too for sure.

      Added to the list. Thank you again

      https://i.imgur.com/WN1iKzr.jpg

      Keep in mind sheeps have a very small pussy

      That's okay bro my dick is absolutely tiny. Almost fused to my pelvis even

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I think an acre is too small to get the bass going but hell I'm no expert. The bluegill/sunfish/bream will thrive in just about anything that's what I'd go with.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >I'm considering if I should also have pigs.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Keep in mind sheeps have a very small pussy

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Also for fruit trees you need way more than just two. Maybe like 5 minimum for each one even if they are self fertilizing because you WILL lose some. Peach and apple are both really finicky fruit trees. Peaches are tough because the trees don't have a long producing life and you're looking at about 5-7 years to get any production to start with. Id say peaches are for more experienced people imho. They need alot of spraying and pruning but fruit trees all depend on your climate of course. In 7b I'd gravitate more towards pear, plum, maybe fig, blueberry for sure though blueberry is great for the inexperienced and they require very little upkeep. Maybe mulberry too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      you can start producing fruit sooner if you graft old branches onto new trees but then you need to start somewhere or pay some other farmer for grafting branches (scion wood) which is expensive too

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Well you gotta have the rootstock going already though. "Wild" pear isn't too hard to come by I guess but that's about the only common rootstock I can think of that OP would already have growing.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I'll have to change up my fruit selection then. I see peaches on every roadside here basically pouring out of people's trucks so I was going to grow some myself. I'll admit I have experience with livestock and growing some vegetables (small garden), but fruit I'm not as well versed in and I figured it was similar to vegetables. I'll have to do extra research on it. Glad to hear though that blueberries were a good choice. Definitely changing up my fruit selection between your reply and the replies of other anons

      I think an acre is too small to get the bass going but hell I'm no expert. The bluegill/sunfish/bream will thrive in just about anything that's what I'd go with.

      Okay cool. Thanks again

      First off, wrong board.

      Secondly, You're gonna wanna actually cook your own food from scratch for a year to see what you really need and eat. To prep grass for planting: Plow, then disk, then rake. Or just use a tiller if you want, definitely better for the smaller scale.

      For preservation, try growing things that naturally last through the winter. Grains, squash, potatoes (sweet / irish), and nuts (Pecans, butter nut, walnut, chestnut, ect.)

      Look into mulberries, pawpaws, concord grapes, muscadines, blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries for fruits as their native and can produce an edible crop with few inputs but do considerably better when well managed.

      Frick why are these captchas so hard

      I figured this would be the place where people would be able to give me the best advice. It's also diet related so it's loosely IST. I know how much food I need because I've been tracking it autistically for the past 2 1/2 years and what I wrote down would fit my needs with a little bit extra for gifts to friends and family. I'm also screenshotting yours too btw. Thanks man

      sago trees are very easy to keep

      Sago trees nuts homosexual lol lmao
      >picrel is a sago palm tree

      Start with 1 cherry tomato plant the first year. If you don't waste any cherry tomatoes then you are ready for maybe 1 tomato plant and some onions or potatoes. Then if you do that successfully maybe plant that apple tree.. You're biting off more than you can chew trying to do all that at once. You're going to get burned out, waste a bunch of money and everything is going to be a huge mess.

      I planned to start with one item off each list, but starting smaller could be a good idea to make sure it's not overwhelming. I might scrap the apple tree like

      Start with 1 cherry tomato plant the first year. If you don't waste any cherry tomatoes then you are ready for maybe 1 tomato plant and some onions or potatoes. Then if you do that successfully maybe plant that apple tree.. You're biting off more than you can chew trying to do all that at once. You're going to get burned out, waste a bunch of money and everything is going to be a huge mess.

      said. I've been given a lot of alternatives by other anons so I'll take a step back and replan this

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah look maybe 7b is far enough north that peaches are easier idk. I can really only speak to my zone but just in my personal experience, and I'm on the warmer end of their range) they require more spraying and pruning than most.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I think at the end of the day you're just going to have to dive in and get your feet wet. Everything I've said so far sounds really simple but when you really try to do it there is so much more at play- everything has alot of info that goes into it that you are only going to figure out with experience. If you get all that equipment you will need a pole barn probably. Every little thing has a whole book worth of knowledge involved- like keeping hogs, you have to decide when to castrate, how to keep them from inbreeding too much etc. Where to get the breeding pairs etc. A good size tractor is expensive and requires quite a bit of upkeep and knowledge, some of it is not easy either (I don't even attempt to bleed the fuel lines on my own tractors). Running machines no simple matter either and they can be dangerous too. You'll have to have someone that can deliver diesel for you too ideally. Not to mention the literal ocean of knowledge that goes into actually growing and harvesting something. Every little step has to be accounted for example like with corn you can add a grain elevator to the list in addition to the grinder and grain bin.

        It's best to start with things that don't entail too much money at first so you don't get in over your head like basic gardening and fruit trees. That stuff is fairly cheap and you can learn alot of good stuff like pruning spraying and fertilizing. Chickens are pretty easy and low cost. Stocking ponds is really easy too.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    First off, wrong board.

    Secondly, You're gonna wanna actually cook your own food from scratch for a year to see what you really need and eat. To prep grass for planting: Plow, then disk, then rake. Or just use a tiller if you want, definitely better for the smaller scale.

    For preservation, try growing things that naturally last through the winter. Grains, squash, potatoes (sweet / irish), and nuts (Pecans, butter nut, walnut, chestnut, ect.)

    Look into mulberries, pawpaws, concord grapes, muscadines, blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries for fruits as their native and can produce an edible crop with few inputs but do considerably better when well managed.

    Frick why are these captchas so hard

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Not OP but yeah pecan is a great choice. I forget about them because so many grow wild in my area. Little upkeep and huge harvests on a mast year. You get about 20 of them going and you'd have more more you know what to do with. I forget about them tbqh same with persimmon.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        with persimmons, I'd recommend the Asian ones because they're shorter and the fruit are larger. I always lose out to the critters when trying to get native persimmons.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          American persimmon is just such a champion species in my area. One of the most well adapted hardwoods I think. they grow fast and strong and like weeds. It's great to have the woods full of them because the deer love them. They are better forage for deer than corn plots.

          I have no experience with Asian persimmon personally but know the fruit is sweeter off the tree and better for eating. With American persimmon you have to eat them wheb they are basically over ripe and mushy but they taste good. For me it is mostly about the deer forage though with Persimmons.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    sago trees are very easy to keep

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Start with 1 cherry tomato plant the first year. If you don't waste any cherry tomatoes then you are ready for maybe 1 tomato plant and some onions or potatoes. Then if you do that successfully maybe plant that apple tree.. You're biting off more than you can chew trying to do all that at once. You're going to get burned out, waste a bunch of money and everything is going to be a huge mess.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Apples are a fricking drag. But if OP picks some good fruit trees he should go ahead and plant them next spring because the sooner he plants them the better. It's gonna take years before they are doing anything anyways and fruit trees are a good way to learn imho although I'd save him the trouble and tell him to pick an easier fruit than apple.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you can't into birds, consider rabbits. They reproduce quickly and you just wheel the hutch around now and then so they have fresh grass to graze on. You get soft fur for bonus resources. Look into strawberry spinach if you want something novel for a combo crop, you get both leaves and berries. Blueberries are based, but if you decide to plant blackberries DO be aware that they're aggressive and will take over fricking anything nearby except maybe mint because it's also a b***h, so keep your blackberry patch away from other plants and prune it regularly.

    Consider getting some mothballs or rings to hang on your fruit trees if bugs are a problem, seems to keep most of the little frickers away. Putting horsehair around the base of plants can also keep a lot of them off, some critters like slugs will shred themselves to death on it. I know if you plant a bulb or two of garlic near a rose, the garlic releases stuff into the soil that the rose picks up and aphids won't touch the fricking thing after so you can probably make use of that with other plants. I can think of more shit to post if you want.

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