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Self-sufficient retirement farm
I'm looking toward retirement in the next half decade. Rather than play the
"investment" game I am considering buying/building a home that would provide
most of my food and shelter (warmth). The home I am thinking about would
probably be quite small as I have no need of large amounts of space, but
would include an integrated green house, fish pond and solar heating & hot
water and photo voltaic electricity..
In addition to the house I would hope to set up a subsistence farm to provide about 80% of my
food.
How much land is reasonable for a home around Ventura CA (mild climate, ocean, my home town) or
Bolder Creek CA (family) to provide food for 2 people? Since I plan to get old and feeble in
the house it could not be your "back to nature" homestead. Rather a permaculture farm that
required a minimum of work and where "harvest" would primarily consist of walking out side and
picking vegetables for lunch or dinner. Likewise a pond where I could reliably catch fish or
crayfish with a pole is more what I had in mind than an aquaculture set up where I would
harvest many pounds of fish at a particular time.
Is this kind of "Garden of Eden" a complete fantasy? If not how much land would I need? How
would I go about setting up the necessary self-sustaining ecological systems?
Thanks for any help,
Brad