as someone who has done the move out to the country, here’s a few things I wish I had been told early, should you find any of it useful:
spend a year at your new place before planning your garden, especially if you are moving in winter. Find out where it’s actually sunny. The shadow that extends from the treeline in summer is longer than you think.
soil testing is your friend. look up soil testing in your state, a lot of states even offer the service for free. You tell them what you want to plant and they tell you how to amend.
start small and grow from there. One or two raised beds is plenty. The produce you grow at home will be the most expensive fruits and vegetables you’ve ever eaten, you don’t want the initial scope to be overwhelming.
start your fruit trees early, they take a loooong time to produce.
strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are prolific spreaders and will take over large areas. Plant them and let ‘em run. Plant a LOT. 25 plants plus. Otherwise your yield will be a couple of handfuls.
look up the preventative care schedule for your plants of choice. Otherwise you will lose many to pests and disease.
deer are a fucking menace, anything you don’t fence will get eaten.
drip irrigation is relatively inexpensive, easy to set up, and will save you a lot of time and water
go buy yourself a copy of the illustrated guide to pruning. Tree maintenance will be a huge chore and expense, and you can save yourself a lot of future pain by pruning trees while they’re young.
if you are moving somewhere with cold winters and no gas line a wood stove will pay for itself. It’s remarkable how many people heat with oil instead of wood in the US. If you have to replace a furnace consider a wood boiler, I know I would.
you can get free wood and wood chips with chip drop. These are waste products for arborists, you are saving them disposal fees.
if you decide you need to buy power equipment, more is more. This stuff saves you time so buy once cry once.
Idk there’s a lot more, if you have any questions feel free to dm me. I’ve been at this for about 5 years now and the learning curve is steep and expensive. This isn’t even getting in to the kid stuff lol.
I hope you find your new life rewarding. I love living in the country and would never consider going back. But it’s a lot of work!
Cool man
as someone who has done the move out to the country, here’s a few things I wish I had been told early, should you find any of it useful:
Idk there’s a lot more, if you have any questions feel free to dm me. I’ve been at this for about 5 years now and the learning curve is steep and expensive. This isn’t even getting in to the kid stuff lol.
I hope you find your new life rewarding. I love living in the country and would never consider going back. But it’s a lot of work!
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