Off-The-Grid Farm Set Up

When we decided our small farm was going to produce our food (plus surplus to sell) and be Off-The-Grid, we had to figure out how to do it all with as little energy as possible. The first thing is of course - find ways to conserve energy.

So, the first and most obvious thing to do was do all Grass Fed Animals and choose only animals who thrive on grass/hay.

For our own fruit, veggie and grains production, we needed low maintenance gardens so they based on weed-less, water-less systems and permacultured wood lands. The goal is to plant once and harvest for the rest of our life. We also want abundant wildlife to thrive here so we have set aside areas where "winter feed" for animals prevails.

We have a designated area for which we grow only our field crops of pumpkins, sunflowers, corn, beans, potatoes and our food grains (wheat, barley and oats) which is the only area we presently do equipment run weed control on. We are planning on adding a sugar beet area in the next few years for sugar and energy production.

We're still in our set-up mode and have piles and piles of materials composting around the new garden areas. Improving the hard clay soil here is going to take some time but at least it has begun.

We also plan on doing Redclaw crayfish and tilapia one day and for now but those are energy intensive farming operations we will be tackling later. The page on this is from our past experience and links to the Florida Redclaw Farm.

In figuring out how to conserve our trees from becoming the building materials we need for future animal shelters we found earth rammed recycled tires might be our answer.

And, to conserve our time, energy and water, we are turning our lawns into no mowing lawnscapes with edible / permacultured landscaping.