Feedback on house layout

[Bikewanderer]

We are getting ready to put the road in for our new house that will begin in a few months. Need to plant trees and finish the water line. I'm curious what you guys have for feedback here. I'm planning on keeping chickens, hogs, and some beef cattle. Maybe 2 cows at a time, no more than a dozen pigs, and 20-30 chickens. We want a large veggie garden, and the orchard should support a family of seven. The cows would be in the pasture on the north side of the property, and the area north of the barn and parking area will be for the veggies and chickens and hogs. It's about 100'x200' so plenty big although I have not figured out how I want the pens yet.

I own both properties marked on this. The small one is a rental house. I show the road and my water line. The big pond is proposed, by making a small pond dam in that location taller. I have contour lines I turned off for printing this. View attachment 234th St Layout-Model.pdf

 

[dave1949]

I guess I would want the garden more accessible to the house, maybe near enough the pond to water it too. If you put the veggie garden and pens near each other, leave room for tractor access to all of those things so you aren't crammed up against fencing, etc. It would be nice to be able to see the veggie garden from inside the house.

 

[Bikewanderer]

How big a veggie garden do you think I'll need? We've never done more than about 1000 square feet but I'd like to be several times bigger than that. I could have the garden in the backyard too. I hate to go down by the pond because I wanted to plant soybeans down there.

I will have plenty of water for an irrigation system in the garden and orchard.

 

[dave1949]

If starting a new garden, you can get a lot of production from raised beds, especially for things like salad greens, scallion onions, radishes, etc. You might split your gardening areas by having a raised bed "kitchen garden" near the house that has greens and herbs that might be harvested on a daily basis. Kitchen gardens are an old idea.

The larger veggies like corn, squash, beans, etc. can be in a traditional garden further away.

For a family of seven, assuming you want to preserve/freeze enough for year-round use, you could have a good sized garden. Chickens and pigs are good places to use trimmings and produce that is not good enough for people (worms, blemishes, etc.). Not much will go to waste from the garden with animals, and you are replacing more expensive commercial feeds too.

Gardening can be a feast or famine proposition, in a good year you have an over abundance, in a bad year it doesn't matter how much you plant, it won't be enough. Your skill, the soil and the weather determine how much space you need. There has been a bit of a revolution in home gardening techniques that focus on smaller areas of highly productive soil, rather than large areas of so-so soil.

If you plant things spread out in wide rows, that is more to till, more to water, more to weed, more to fertilize, etc. It makes sense to have smaller, high quality growing areas.

 

[Gunny]

I agree with Dave in that I would have a kitchen garden. They are great, just walk out and pick your tomatoes, salad greens, cukes right before supper, that's fresh!
I'd also agree that the closer your garden is to your house the better, as long as you have a feasible plan to water it. I had a great garden spot, but the dry summers we've been through forced me to move it because the only way I could water it was to haul water in a tank, lots of work and very little gain for that work.

Garden size depends on what you're planning on raising and how much of each. My wife and her friends like to make sauerkraut as a group, so I raise about 84 heads of cabbage a year, then I can tomatoes and juice for us, the kids, my MIL and two nice neighbors, so I grow about 48 Roma plants and 24 to 36 eating tomato plants. I grow my cucumbers on a fence, so they don't take up much room, but then I also grow several watermelons and cantaloupes, which take up an amazing amount of space. Point being that I probably raise a lot more cabbage/tomatoes than most people, your needs may differ.
If you're going to fence your garden, I'd fence it in quite a bit larger than you think you'll ever need. That way you don't have to tend (other than keep the grass mowed) on the part you don't garden and if you did need it, you wouldn't have to redo the fencing. I'd also have a plan for another area that could be watered as easily as possible so that you could rotate your gardens every few years to give the soil a break. When you lay out your garden, take things into account like getting tractors and implements around the edges and ends, how you're going to run water lines, if you have to. Seems to me that garden rows laid out east/west get better sun than rows run north/south, etc. My gardens generally run about 50' by 100', but my fences are about 70' by 120', so that I can till or bush hog completely around the whole thing and have room to make my turns.

Another thing I've found that really helps with gardens is to have the soil analyzed every year and then fertilize and lime against that. In the long run, the money spent for the test will save money by not over fertilizing and liming and insures that your ground has what it needs to grow your crops.

 

[Bikewanderer]

I'll have to think about all that. My septic laterals are going to be behind the house.

I hadn't considered the east-west thing with the garden, but that's definitely a good point. I will consider moving the orchard east and making it less deep, keeping the garden nearest the house and going east-west.

 

[dave1949]

I agree with Dave in that I would have a kitchen garden. They are great, just walk out and pick your tomatoes, salad greens, cukes right before supper, that's fresh!

<snip>

My wife is a green salad fanatic all summer. She loves stepping out the door with a bowl, pair of scissors and cutting her fresh salad. We have two raised beds, each 5' X 10' about 30 feet from the door. Nothing like raised beds for production, easy weeding, easy tilling, easy watering and low cost soil improvement. I like the cukes on a fence approach too.

 

[Gunny]

Dave,
Sounds like our wives are like minded. Mine has to have her raised lettuce bed, with green onions, a raised bed with 3 or 4 tomato plants and at least one cucumber plant, and her strawberry plants, all in the back yard.
I can raise whatever I want and how much I want down on the farm, but her stuff has to be there close at hand or she's not happy.

 

[mbohuntr]

Make sure the garden is in easy range of your .22 from the porch, your gonna have wild neighbors enjoying the greens when your not looking...

 

[scott_vt]

The cows would be in the pasture on the north side of the property, and the area north of the barn and parking area will be for the veggies and chickens and hogs. It's about 100'x200' so plenty big although I have not figured out how I want the pens yet.

Good Mornin dirtyoldman,
You might want to give some thought about where you locate the cows and hogs in relation to the house with respect to he prevalent wind direction...

If I had cows and hogs, I wouldnt want them on the west part of my property, only because on most normal days mybreeze comes from the west or south west...

Just a thought.....