Just because you live in a small space, doesn't mean you can't be homesteading.
I'm achieving more on 1/6th of an acre and that sixth of an acre actually has a house, a shed
and concrete verandas and everything so there's not actually much land left, so it's not actually
homesteading on a sixth of an acre really is it? I'm not sure how much land is left after
all of that but I came off One thousand acres so it seemed like I had no land at all, so I'm going
to show you what is possible in a small space, what I'm growing and it might give you some ideas
on what you can do in your small space too. I'm Elissa and welcome to Moat Cottage Homesteading
19 years ago when I first moved in, there was only a handful of plants in the garden,
so I had to put in all the garden beds and add plants over the years.
This is a Pink Grapefruit and I planted this probably I think that was put in the garden,
I don't know, maybe about four years ago? I'm not sure but i did have it in pots for about 10
years before that because this is a rental, so i wanted all my citrus to go with me if i moved
but i stayed here so long i decided they had to really go in the garden and if i did move,
when i eventually do move, i'll just have to start again with the
fruit trees that i've planted in the garden, but in the meantime i've got my money's worth
out of the citrus trees that i have planted in the garden so i haven't really lost out
this is my favorite citrus this is a Tangelo
and it has to be fenced off because the ducks do like to eat its leaves and it's just a little bit
too small to be out of reach at this point and it's taking a little while to grow because as you
can see it's quite shaded and that's being shaded by the palm tree that i haven't cut down yet.
This lemon tree was really sick when i moved in so i decided that i would try and save it instead of
pulling it out and replacing it. It had grass growing all the way up to the trunk
and it had diseased leaves so i removed all the grass from around the base, put stones around it
in a big circle so that i could put all sorts of poop and manure and compost inside the rocks and
that would feed the plant over the years and then i put a water tank in just over there which means
i can place duck pools around the base of the tree and i let the water that the ducks have used,
go onto the tree so it's getting plenty of water all through the summer and the warmer months
and it's worked really well, these lemons are fantastic!
This is a Granny Smith Apple it's grafted on
and that was from when i was doing a grafting class a couple of years ago
and this is my second Granny Smith Apple this one's a bit smaller this apple tree.
There's two of my three compost bins and then there's the maggot buckets. There
in the corner of the garden I have my Mulberry tree,
it grows quite considerably fast so i do have to prune it back each Autumn
i usually take about 12 feet off it and mulch up the wood and use it for mulch on the walkways
there's plenty of fruit on it and we've been getting rain so hopefully they
fatten up and get really juicy and underneath the Mulberry tree i have plenty of Curry Plants
which are just about to go to flower and we're going to have beautiful yellow flowers on them.
Curry Plant is great for using in cooking and as soon as it rains, which it's raining now,
it smells like curry in the whole garden
as with Curry Plants i grow a lot of Lavender and Rosemary and i use them in making Salves
and heat sacks as well as for pest control in the poultry coup. All of my Lavender,
Rosemary and most of my Curry Plants were all cuttings that i've taken myself
so every year i just take cuttings of all three of these plants because then
when things die in the garden i just pop them in
the spaces when spaces come up. I use Rosemary in focaccias as well as in lamb dishes
next to the Mulberry tree I have my white nectarine, i love it, it's a beautiful
sweet fruit, but unfortunately it's a magnet for the fruit flies so even when i cover it,
they seem to find a way to get in underneath. I have a different Lavender this one's one that goes
into seed so i have a lot of them in random spots because it self-seeds in the garden
moving up further i have Elderberries i started with two little plants that i got in the mail
and i planted them in, they were about this big and i think it's two years ago that was and i've
taken cuttings from them and now i have 10 plants all together in different spots in the garden,
so you don't have to buy a lot of plants to be able to get plants.
If you have friends with established gardens you can always ask them for herbs
when they're in seed, ask for the seeds if they've got extra because usually when you've got an
established garden you do have extra seeds of some things that do really well and you can go around
and take cuttings in their gardens as well and herbs are a really good thing to take cuttings of
to get extra plants especially when you're starting out with nothing.
I hacked them right back this Winter and now they're already probably, what's that,
nearly six and a half - seven feet this cutting here was taken earlier on in the year
and it's going to probably be up to the top of the fence by the end of Summer
so it doesn't take long for them to grow and that's a free plant.
The homestead is a working progress, so there's always things changing. You find gaps in the
garden that you need to fill and which is a good thing because we're always looking for space,
but you also find things that you're growing that you decide that you don't want to grow so you
have to make the decisions to take them out, so we've got a few changes happening at the moment,
the first one is that we've taken down three of the Cocoa Palms because they're quite dangerous,
i was finding that they got too high, they got out of control. i couldn't prune them anymore
so when they were dropping just their seed pods they're just so heavy and i really didn't want
to risk anyone getting smacked in the head with one of those whether it be a person or a duck
or a chicken, so we got those removed Damon got the axe out and he sorted that out for
me. Another reason we got rid of them, was that their roots were spreading out um shallow under
the ground what will happen is once the roots die down i will be able to plant fruit trees
there so it's not a bad thing the other reason i had to get rid of those was because they were
blocking the solar panels as well and the more sun i can get on my solar panels the better.
Damon's going to use the straw bales to make a platform, that way he can get up high to cut down
the palm trees in sections because they're so big. If you cut them down at the base then they
would crash into the fence and that wouldn't be good so he's going to do it in sections
we've still got one that needs to go but it's too big for Damon to axe down
so it's got to be done professionally and
i'm not sure when that will get to happen but at this point it's not on the calendar
this is back when i first moved in and i'd already put in a little vegetable
garden and then it grew to this and then it evolved because i put rocks
around it and a little fence, with some star pickets because it was temporary
and then it evolved again to be concreted in posts and proper wire and i built the gate
so it's a nice secure facility so the dogs can't get in it and in here i have all my garlic and my
annuals mostly, i do have Yacons in here which are a perennial and the Nasturtiums as well but
this is the end of my Winter garden so this was in Spring this was a month ago and i've got the Kale,
Snow Peas, Brussels Sprouts, Beetroot, Carrots, Turnips, Silverbeet. And next to the annual
vegetable garden i have the courtyard which is all pots because when you water the vegetable
garden there's excess water that spills over when you've got the sprinklers going,
in the Summer, so you may as well make use of that and put pots around the outside of it.
There's Comfrey, Mint, a Fig tree, Nasturtiums, Sunflower, Hyssop, Mint, Rhubarb, Stinging Nettles
that Sunflower was self-seeded, that's why it's so far in advance because it self-seeded
and started growing in the middle of Winter. On this side i have more Stinging Nettles,
I have some Chrysanthemums for picked flowers for the house, the Nasturtiums are growing
away from the light, which is really freaky but i love it because they're actually growing in
the veggie garden but instead of just taking up space in the veggie garden they're growing through
and i've got Strawberries in the Strawberry pot
Echinacea
Spring Onions and then i've got a Feijoa which is what i want to plant where one of
the palm trees is and then i have my Quince. I finally got a Quince tree,
so i'm really excited about that and i can't wait to get that in the ground next Winter.
This was a few months after i moved in and i put up a temporary fence so i could grow two Passion
fruits up it and about 10 years later when it was time to replace the Passion fruit i decided to put
a proper fence in, that was rio and concrete and the whole thing and it's a meter in front of the
fence where the Passion fruit was originally, so that i get both sides of the Passion fruit,
so that's why i grow one side of Passion fruit and the other side is my male Kiwi fruit.
This is a female Kiwi fruit and i've just extended the fence, yesterday, so it's just been wound up
into it and it will just take over for the Summer so i'll have beautiful Kiwi fruits in Autumn.
This is actually my 'Perennial Garden' and as well as having my two female Kiwi fruit plants,
it's got Globe Artichoke which i'm ready to pick some of them and some are going to flower,
This is one of the logs from the Cocoa Palms and Damon's chopping them up and he's put them
in my Perennial Garden beds so that i can use them for my raised Pumpkin's because i grow
pumpkins in the same spot every year, which is not ideal, but what i do instead of using the soil,
i build the soil up with new stuff each year and so now i've got these barriers for the built up
garden beds. So we're making good use of the Cocoa Palm trunks and none of it's going to waste. Also
in this garden bed i have a Lime tree, a Mandarin and a Lemon and around the whole fence line i have
Jerusalem Artichokes which will grow up to about 10 foot high and give me plenty of privacy for
the Summer. I've also got Garlic, Horseradish and Comfrey. Comfrey root is great for knitting
broken bones and the leaves are good for making Comfrey tea which is a plant fertilizer. Niki
doesn't live here anymore, she moved out last year and she's living off grid, in a van, in the bush
and she's come back to paint that bit of blue gutter that i can't get to and she's cleaning the
gutters that i can't reach, so that's really cool that she's helping me out and much appreciated.
This old water tank, which you probably saw wasn't in my courtyard, because it's so old it was time
to take it down Damon took it down for me. I was able to grind it down and make a flower pot out of
it, so i filled it up with all the compost from the duck coop and over the Winter i was growing
all sorts of things in here to see what would grow because it's a really tricky spot. It's dark,
it's shady, it gets no direct sunlight in Winter at all and then in Summer it will get 46C degree
temperatures and boiling hot west sun. So the Thyme's doing well, the Borage is doing really
well, the Chives aren't getting enough light because of probably the Borage, the Dill's doing
well in here. So i was just seeing what would grow. I've also got bins around, the metal bins
and this is a Vietnamese Mint which is not getting enough sunlight either so i'll have to move it.
The Sage is doing really well, the Nasturtium is doing well and this tiny little seedling is
one of those trees that got cut down next door in the paddock, in the Winter (Grevillea Tree) which
i was really sad about and then this is Marjoram and it's growing very well. It's only fairly new
so i'm really looking forward to harvesting that. I've planted in three more Rosemary's this year,
which were cuttings of course and those pavers were all free and i've got heaps of them. they
they line the fence lines to stop snakes getting in and the dogs digging out or anything like that.
The Kumquat tree has been fantastic these grow fantastic in pots and you get enough fruit to
make plenty of jams so they're definitely worth having. Behind the vegetable garden
this is where i have seven Elderberry plants they're the ones i took cuttings from this year,
you can't see them all because the Jerusalem Artichokes have grown up and are starting to
overtake them but they'll all grow and up in the back there i've got some Pumpkins growing as well.
Now this is the Crabapple tree and it still looks just as beautiful 19 years later
My glass house has got all sorts of things ready to go in to the Summer annual garden
Under this net i have Youngberries growing they're just starting to fruit now, so
i can see there's a lot of berries in here and they've just got to grow nice and juicy
because i have ducks and chickens free range in my garden i do have to have some things
fenced off so that they don't get eaten, things like my Oregano would get eaten. You can see on
this side of the fence it's kept pruned quite nicely, which is fine and then the other side
is for me to be using. I do leave spots in the garden for the chickens to do their dust baths,
you can't have all the space for your good plants, you do have to let them have
their areas because that's how they keep clean and get the any parasites off them
in the poultry coop i have a Bay tree in a pot, i've had this for over 20 years
so i bought it when it was tiny, so i've definitely got my money's worth out of this one,
but it's not really a plant that you would plant in a small garden.
The mint garden bed is also in the poultry run it has its own garden bed because Mint
is quite invasive but rodents hate it so it's a good thing to grow around the poultry coop
and it's also delicious. I do have a Lillypilly up the end that i'm hoping will grow into a big tree
and i have a self-seeded Parsley as well as some Horseradish.
This is one of my Aloe Vera patches it's fantastic for burns and the ducks don't seem to eat it so it
grows really well here. Everything that comes out of the garden gets eaten fresh or preserved for
later, some things are medicinal and some things are for food and then others are for crafts and
that includes all sorts of meats that we get hunting or growing ourselves like the ducks.
I've still got my fermented Carrots out on the shelf because it has been so
cold here they're still going, i should probably should have put them in the room with the fire.
This video has been crazy to make, the weather has been insane, it is freezing cold here, there's
only two weeks until Summer and we're in Australia where we usually get 40C plus degree temperatures
quite often, so it is crazy that i've been wearing my ski jacket two weeks before Summer starts and
it's been raining we've had hail twice and the sun will come out, i'll go out to film and then
it will start raining again and blowing winds and freezing and it's just been crazy and tonight's
going to get down to about two or three degrees C so i'm hoping the Summer plants don't get frost it
doesn't get too cold and get frosty so we'll have to just see how that works out because they're too
big to be covered by the things i usually cover at the start of the season when they're little.
Well that looks like a sign of peace, so i would say the next
video i film should be easier to make. That's pretty beautiful that rainbow.
I hope you're safe and well where you are, thanks for hanging out with me, for liking, subscribing
and all the comments and the shares. Thanks for watching, I'll see you in the next video