Us Arizonans are built differently... You say "hard" and I say fun. I love restoring desolate land here, and it's become sort of my life mission to green as much of the AZ desert as I can. With proper permaculture techniques, it's possible to homestead in the most desolate areas. Obviously water collection is key. One might opt for swales or half moon style passive collection instead of traditional crop rows, and steel roofs for active collection. Your house has to be super thermally efficient. Something like rammed earth, adobe, ICCF, or ICF works well here. Geothermal cooled or sunken greenhouses can allow for year round growing. The clay soil can quickly be revitalized and changed into beautiful lush soil with proper care, plus the abundance of clay allows for free pottery, craft, art, and building materials. Tons of edible native plants too and trees here too. Palo Verde seeds can be cooked like edamame, and mesquite seeds turned into a flour. Epazote, Rosemary, Sage, Basil, and tons of other herbs do absurdly well here, even in native soil. We can grow any citrus, tons of berries, some apples/pears/plums/cherries/etc. Tons of natural medicines grow wild here like Aloe Vera. Raised beds are a good temporary fix while working on restoring soil. Solar is obviously a fantastic option here. Laws outside the cities are really encouraging of homesteading. Tons of homesteaders in the state. Most just south of Tucson. Tons of intentional communities here too. I don't think it's harder than other places, I think it's just takes a wildly different approach than other states.
This is a "tell me you don't know anything about Arizona..." video. Other than Globe, the go areas are weekend tourist/retiree areas. Cochise county is one of the most off-grid friendly areas in the country with water starting about 50' down. It ignores all of Yavapai, that believe it or not has grocery stores, and while more expensive, anything west of Flag. The real problem with AZ is that the vast majority of decent land is national forest interspersed with gigantic farms and ranches. Find a decent piece of private property is the real challenge.
When he lumped utah wyoming and idaho in with arizona in the first 3 minutes I was done. I love you Curtis but there is so much water in Utah Wyoming and Idaho, it's not comparable to Aridzonea.
The ground water Is not 50 ft down in those areas normally, almost all the people in those countries haul in their water. Wells are very deep 1000 feet the answer atmospheric water generator
I live in one of the green areas. You're exactly right, while beautiful, there's not much water and not many homestead opportunities. Our well can cost upward of 1k per month just to keep some grass and pond full.
@@elliottjames671 That is just not true. Check the gwsi. There are plenty of sub 100' wells in the basin with most topping out around 300 as terrain rises.
Heck yeah. We moved down here after the plandemic from Washington state. 2 years later, we had our first kid and are now looking for an offgrid place to buy and use as a camping property at first, and then slowly turn it into a homestead. Thank you Curtis for doing these!
I don't practice homesteading myself but I am fascinated by people trying to live off the land. I have watched dozens of homesteading channels and one person that impressed me the most is in the Arizona high desert his channel is called the "frugal off grid". The guy goes out with very little money in his van with very little experience and achieves easily what others with experience and tons of money have a hard time doing.
I live in AZ and have what I think is a very successful garden growing fruits and veggies all year. However, it's not cheap. I agree with Stone; this is not a great homesteading state. Land, water, and electricity are very expensive. The soil is caliche or clay, which needs to be heavily amended. If you still manage to throw money at those problems and get past them, then say hi to all the critters you'll battle. You'll have birds, rats, groundhogs, javelinas, coyotes, deer, donkeys, etc., eating everything you grow.
We bought 20 acres in Arizona, but it's the high desert so we get a little more rain and it's not as hot. Our land is tall grasses, small trees and shrubs.
Yes, too many people are moving here, and it’s getting crowded. Better to settle somewhere else, especially if you don’t want to learn about how to garden, collect and store water, keep cool/warm in season…
Az actually has snow in the winter in the higher elevations and there are 2 ski resorts. Not everywhere is pleasant in winter 🤪 Its not as bad as other places but its not all warm desert either. We are at 6200 ft. Growing stuff is hard here even though we are on a well and can water all the time. Zone 5b/6a.
I live in AZ (close to Tucson) after living in Texas and California. AZ is literally the wild west, homesteading is part of the culture here. The Sonoran Desert is the only desert in the world with two rainy seasons. Tucson is the oldest continually farmed location in the country (4,000 years). During the Civil War Sonoran Wheat kept the rest of the country from starving. Yuma is known as the 'Winter Salad Bowl'. There is very few natural disasters. So I think it is a good state to homestead and plan to remain here.
It is for now but we are having a lot of Californians/Illinoisans/East Coasties moving out here and they are working hard to change the rules. It is going to look like Colorado and New Mexico very soon.
I'm a 3rd gen AZ native. Land values are far too expensive here . Mostly, in the areas with reasonably priced land, there is no water or a 500 to 1000 ft well is needed. In the Metro areas, Water insecurity is becoming a real issue.
I came here for family reasons and I have to be here I am in my motorhome and just simply can't afford the RV parks I NEED something I can own to park and live in my motorhome An RV lot or a piece of land I would have never thought finding something in AZ would be so difficult
Arizona has lots of solid areas to homestead if ya not from here ya wouldn't know about all the outdoor gems. Love ya content but ya off on AZ it's top notch plus largest ponderosa pine forest in the world btw.....
I'm just outside of Tucson and about to harvest 300 potato plants and not having trouble growing food, just have to shade the beds with 40-50%, 24" raised beds filled with a concoction of amendments to local Tank's Green Stuff compost! Never grew food before moving to the desert, so now I'm looking for land on the eastern side of AZ at 4500' now, so I can grow easier!
hey Pam, eon farm sub too. Not so interesting info here! Huh? lol. Thought there would be more researched info here. Water tables/aquafers, tribal land and so on!
Funny enough that spot (Elroy) in between your no go zones is like the perfect spot while I was looking there years ago. The Place is called Arizona city Arizona, so I accidently found out it exists. Houses there are huge, new and cheap! The City is about 10K, half way between Phoenix and Tucson where most the residents are either retired or commuters. Pre 2020, the average listing was on a 1/4 or more lot, 4 bedrooms with 2 stories and dual back yard gates/driveways large enough to park a full size RV in ether yard for under 250K. additionally there used to be neighboring lots are dirt cheap prices like 7K. I saw entire blocks on the sat map photos of entire blocks only having 2 or 3 houses on it. Right outside of downtown there huge commercial farming lots. The used to have 164 acres of raw land that was already connected to the utility lines for only 390K!! Property is street to street meaning direct access to the road, no worrying about easements. If I had a million dollars, I would have bought it and put up alot of industrial green houses to supply farmers markets in both regions. just the back 40 doing traditional farming alone could do you a million heads of lettuce. that would be 850K per harvest before taxes overhead and payroll in 2018 commercial pricing.
Curtis, We live in NE New Mexico mountains, and there's beautiful farmland throughout Mora and San Miguel Counties here! It's weird through. Some properties are heavily sandy soil (like ours), and others have black, very fertile soil!? Great pastureland and many very productive farms. Good for raising livestock due to really nice pasturelands. Dry climate, but lots of snow in the winter, and June-July brings pretty consistant rain. Sunny most of the year. The high temps in the summer (up here near 8,000') are in the 80's, night lows in the 50's from June through early September. Many people do have greenhouses as well as outdoor gardens. But the valleys throughout Mora county look like Ireland all summer! Wind can be ferocious though! Aquifers run throughout these counties. We have a 60 gpm well of pristine water, but our well is 425' deep through granite all the way down! I'm from west of Cleveland, Ohio and have lived in this area of New Mexico for 25 years. I feel like I'm on vacation year-round here! Close to ski basins and inland lakes. Most folks don't realize this type of area exists in New Mexico.
Northeast Apache County is cheap and connected to a huge aquifer. Many others aquifers demand deeper and deeper costly wells due to both the draught and overuse by some pivot farming practices.
Where we live in northern Arizona it is great. We know lots of people who are homesteading. A lot of the state is federal and state land and tribal reservations
Long time follower for your veg growing. I agree about homesteading in Arizona but I heard you mention most of Oregon. Have you heard about the Oregon Trail. In 1840’s there was quite a migration to the Willamette Valley. Covered Wagons and all. A lot of the French Canadian fur trappers retired there.
Only 18% of the AZ is privatly owned and an option to homestead anyways. The rest is national parks, reservation, state land, BLM ect. We are one of the largest produsing agriculture states due to water from the colorado and warm winter growing season. Also property taxes are very low i have no idea where you get that. Its very clear you know nothing about arizona and are almost making this up.
Please do Idaho so many people are concedering it the promised land. Also the area being called the Great Americon Redoubt. Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
Can you do a video on the redundant systems you use on your homestead for water, power, septic, etc? A lot of preppers do have redundant systems, but they tend to be similar technologies - a diesel generator and a propane generator, an electric stove and a propane stove. Do you have completely non-electric back-up systems for laundry like a Lehman's Own Hand washing machine or a Waterbuck hand powered well pump? What non-electric off-grid equipment or systems do you use? Also, how is your septic set up? Do you have a back-up composting toilet (some areas of BC don't allow them).
Curtis, would love to hear your thoughts on how much land we need. Most of the books I have read are all based on the east coast where they get 30-60+ inches of rain and dont need irrigation. Joel Salatin is running a head of cattle per acre with no irrigation. Crazy! We live in Utah at 20. If the grid goes down, some irrigation should work but dam controls wont work. Anyways would love to hear what you think. I believe you said are in a semi arid forest.
Oregon is beautiful farm land and foraging land, mushrooms, artichokes etc....I had a beautiful garden in Marion county , also Oregon Grape root... Herbs & edible flowers etc... Plenty of Trees 🌲 🌲 & 💦 water !!! 🤍🕊️
I'm looking at a place in Concho. It has some juniper n pine. The price is very low. 40 Acres with a couple slabs a shed fence n gates. 45k. The water is of course the hitchpin.
We've got 40 acres less than an hour from Concho. The winters can be pretty harsh, the springtime is the windy season, and the UV is off the charts, but the monsoon summers and lazy days of fall are worth it. Like many people out here, we haul in water from one of the coin op water dispensers. If you get a well, check the water quality. There was a yt channel out of Concho that had high iron poisoning their goats. Cheers and blessings!
@@1millionpumpkins542 I'm assuming it's cheap for a reason. Lol. I made an offer. He hasn't got back. But I suspect he may. If I get it? It will be cheap enough to just use part time.
Lol he mentioned Oregon but has never been there! Hey man, ever heard of the Oregon trail? Homesteading began in Oregon, lol good grief. And I can tell you don't know hardly anything about Arizona because you didn't even mention northern Arizona where the largest off grid community is in the country and growing faster than any other community nationwide.
Absolutely correct! Nothing in Arizona but tumbleweeds and snowbirds. Look elsewhere. Nothing to see here.
Lol they are still coming.
Good stay away !
I want them to stay away also
Depends on where in Arizona.
😂
Us Arizonans are built differently... You say "hard" and I say fun. I love restoring desolate land here, and it's become sort of my life mission to green as much of the AZ desert as I can. With proper permaculture techniques, it's possible to homestead in the most desolate areas. Obviously water collection is key. One might opt for swales or half moon style passive collection instead of traditional crop rows, and steel roofs for active collection. Your house has to be super thermally efficient. Something like rammed earth, adobe, ICCF, or ICF works well here. Geothermal cooled or sunken greenhouses can allow for year round growing. The clay soil can quickly be revitalized and changed into beautiful lush soil with proper care, plus the abundance of clay allows for free pottery, craft, art, and building materials. Tons of edible native plants too and trees here too. Palo Verde seeds can be cooked like edamame, and mesquite seeds turned into a flour. Epazote, Rosemary, Sage, Basil, and tons of other herbs do absurdly well here, even in native soil. We can grow any citrus, tons of berries, some apples/pears/plums/cherries/etc. Tons of natural medicines grow wild here like Aloe Vera. Raised beds are a good temporary fix while working on restoring soil. Solar is obviously a fantastic option here. Laws outside the cities are really encouraging of homesteading. Tons of homesteaders in the state. Most just south of Tucson. Tons of intentional communities here too. I don't think it's harder than other places, I think it's just takes a wildly different approach than other states.
Basil LOVES clay soil! Here in Phoenix, I had a bed full of year round Basil, and I was continually harvesting it.
Yes, too many people are moving here, and it’s getting crowded. Better to settle somewhere else.
This is a "tell me you don't know anything about Arizona..." video. Other than Globe, the go areas are weekend tourist/retiree areas. Cochise county is one of the most off-grid friendly areas in the country with water starting about 50' down. It ignores all of Yavapai, that believe it or not has grocery stores, and while more expensive, anything west of Flag. The real problem with AZ is that the vast majority of decent land is national forest interspersed with gigantic farms and ranches. Find a decent piece of private property is the real challenge.
Spoken like someone who lives in az 🤝
When he lumped utah wyoming and idaho in with arizona in the first 3 minutes I was done. I love you Curtis but there is so much water in Utah Wyoming and Idaho, it's not comparable to Aridzonea.
The ground water Is not 50 ft down in those areas normally, almost all the people in those countries haul in their water. Wells are very deep 1000 feet the answer atmospheric water generator
I live in one of the green areas. You're exactly right, while beautiful, there's not much water and not many homestead opportunities. Our well can cost upward of 1k per month just to keep some grass and pond full.
@@elliottjames671 That is just not true. Check the gwsi. There are plenty of sub 100' wells in the basin with most topping out around 300 as terrain rises.
Heck yeah. We moved down here after the plandemic from Washington state. 2 years later, we had our first kid and are now looking for an offgrid place to buy and use as a camping property at first, and then slowly turn it into a homestead. Thank you Curtis for doing these!
I don't practice homesteading myself but I am fascinated by people trying to live off the land. I have watched dozens of homesteading channels and one person that impressed me the most is in the Arizona high desert his channel is called the "frugal off grid". The guy goes out with very little money in his van with very little experience and achieves easily what others with experience and tons of money have a hard time doing.
Loveeee that channel.
I watch about 4 AZ channels doing off grid
Love AZ with all my heart ❤️
I live in AZ and have what I think is a very successful garden growing fruits and veggies all year. However, it's not cheap. I agree with Stone; this is not a great homesteading state. Land, water, and electricity are very expensive. The soil is caliche or clay, which needs to be heavily amended. If you still manage to throw money at those problems and get past them, then say hi to all the critters you'll battle. You'll have birds, rats, groundhogs, javelinas, coyotes, deer, donkeys, etc., eating everything you grow.
We bought 20 acres in Arizona, but it's the high desert so we get a little more rain and it's not as hot. Our land is tall grasses, small trees and shrubs.
Yes, too many people are moving here, and it’s getting crowded. Better to settle somewhere else, especially if you don’t want to learn about how to garden, collect and store water, keep cool/warm in season…
Az actually has snow in the winter in the higher elevations and there are 2 ski resorts. Not everywhere is pleasant in winter 🤪 Its not as bad as other places but its not all warm desert either. We are at 6200 ft. Growing stuff is hard here even though we are on a well and can water all the time. Zone 5b/6a.
yeah let everyone one know instead of letting themselves find out! shhhhhhhhh...we dont want every nunbskull from commyfornia coming here...
I live in AZ (close to Tucson) after living in Texas and California. AZ is literally the wild west, homesteading is part of the culture here. The Sonoran Desert is the only desert in the world with two rainy seasons. Tucson is the oldest continually farmed location in the country (4,000 years). During the Civil War Sonoran Wheat kept the rest of the country from starving. Yuma is known as the 'Winter Salad Bowl'. There is very few natural disasters. So I think it is a good state to homestead and plan to remain here.
Yes but there are PLENTY of man made problems coming your way.
The majority of those man-made problems are being shipped around the country, they're not staying here
Two rainy seasons, yes, except we haven't had very many of those partly due to the urban heat island effect.
yesssssssssss and now everyone else will know that...can we keep a good thing great and not share so much...thanks.
Love that area with all my heart
Lived out by the desert museum and it was an amazing area
The hiking and biking
Miss it every day
Once you are settled in, if you are having to make 2 to 3 trips a week into the city, you’re doing something wrong.
Been waiting patiently for this, legally this is one of the better states.
Me too!!! lol
It is for now but we are having a lot of Californians/Illinoisans/East Coasties moving out here and they are working hard to change the rules. It is going to look like Colorado and New Mexico very soon.
@@mjneeds1585 hm, that's not good... Apparently gotta fight for our rights, property etc constantly.
@@vace8914 Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
Some of the nicer regions in AZ are on reservation land, just fyi.
I'm a 3rd gen AZ native. Land values are far too expensive here . Mostly, in the areas with reasonably priced land, there is no water or a 500 to 1000 ft well is needed. In the Metro areas, Water insecurity is becoming a real issue.
Good information. I’m getting the feeling reading a lot of these comments that many are going to leap before they look.
Arizona is a wonderful place to be in January.
Agree!
I came here for family reasons and I have to be here
I am in my motorhome and just simply can't afford the RV parks
I NEED something I can own to park and live in my motorhome
An RV lot or a piece of land
I would have never thought finding something in AZ would be so difficult
Arizona has lots of solid areas to homestead if ya not from here ya wouldn't know about all the outdoor gems. Love ya content but ya off on AZ it's top notch plus largest ponderosa pine forest in the world btw.....
Agreed, down here we have lots of stuff that makes homesteading great, in fact we have several Homesteader channels that are thriving
what are some good areas you would recommend? that you wouldn't mind sharing =]
@@martin1sz Williams, Globe, Showlow
We ❤ Apache County
I'm glad he didn't mention those hidden gems with trees, abundant water and decent soil.
Good. Stay out. We're full
I'm just outside of Tucson and about to harvest 300 potato plants and not having trouble growing food, just have to shade the beds with 40-50%, 24" raised beds filled with a concoction of amendments to local Tank's Green Stuff compost! Never grew food before moving to the desert, so now I'm looking for land on the eastern side of AZ at 4500' now, so I can grow easier!
HA! I love these regions because of how dry it is! Haha! I look forward to Idaho and Oregon's videos. Cheers
It has taken me a few years to have a tropical landscape. It is tough, but it is possible.
hey Pam, eon farm sub too. Not so interesting info here! Huh? lol. Thought there would be more researched info here. Water tables/aquafers, tribal land and so on!
@@robb4866 , it is all interesting to me.
Let's see the Colorado, maybe Western Slop reagon?
Great series! Agree, there's nothing in Arizona...look elsewhere.
Funny enough that spot (Elroy) in between your no go zones is like the perfect spot while I was looking there years ago. The Place is called Arizona city Arizona, so I accidently found out it exists. Houses there are huge, new and cheap! The City is about 10K, half way between Phoenix and Tucson where most the residents are either retired or commuters. Pre 2020, the average listing was on a 1/4 or more lot, 4 bedrooms with 2 stories and dual back yard gates/driveways large enough to park a full size RV in ether yard for under 250K. additionally there used to be neighboring lots are dirt cheap prices like 7K. I saw entire blocks on the sat map photos of entire blocks only having 2 or 3 houses on it. Right outside of downtown there huge commercial farming lots. The used to have 164 acres of raw land that was already connected to the utility lines for only 390K!! Property is street to street meaning direct access to the road, no worrying about easements. If I had a million dollars, I would have bought it and put up alot of industrial green houses to supply farmers markets in both regions. just the back 40 doing traditional farming alone could do you a million heads of lettuce. that would be 850K per harvest before taxes overhead and payroll in 2018 commercial pricing.
LOL! I am moving to Mars!
Curtis, We live in NE New Mexico mountains, and there's beautiful farmland throughout Mora and San Miguel Counties here! It's weird through. Some properties are heavily sandy soil (like ours), and others have black, very fertile soil!? Great pastureland and many very productive farms. Good for raising livestock due to really nice pasturelands. Dry climate, but lots of snow in the winter, and June-July brings pretty consistant rain. Sunny most of the year. The high temps in the summer (up here near 8,000') are in the 80's, night lows in the 50's from June through early September. Many people do have greenhouses as well as outdoor gardens. But the valleys throughout Mora county look like Ireland all summer! Wind can be ferocious though! Aquifers run throughout these counties. We have a 60 gpm well of pristine water, but our well is 425' deep through granite all the way down! I'm from west of Cleveland, Ohio and have lived in this area of New Mexico for 25 years. I feel like I'm on vacation year-round here! Close to ski basins and inland lakes. Most folks don't realize this type of area exists in New Mexico.
Would love to see New Hampshire next!!!
Northeast Apache County is cheap and connected to a huge aquifer. Many others aquifers demand deeper and deeper costly wells due to both the draught and overuse by some pivot farming practices.
Where we live in northern Arizona it is great. We know lots of people who are homesteading. A lot of the state is federal and state land and tribal reservations
Long time follower for your veg growing. I agree about homesteading in Arizona but I heard you mention most of Oregon. Have you heard about the Oregon Trail. In 1840’s there was quite a migration to the Willamette Valley. Covered Wagons and all.
A lot of the French Canadian fur trappers retired there.
Only 18% of the AZ is privatly owned and an option to homestead anyways. The rest is national parks, reservation, state land, BLM ect. We are one of the largest produsing agriculture states due to water from the colorado and warm winter growing season. Also property taxes are very low i have no idea where you get that. Its very clear you know nothing about arizona and are almost making this up.
Barren, hot but land is around $4,000 an acre or less 🤠👍
Wasn't expensive in 2019
I would like it if you did one on Utah next 😅
Please do Idaho so many people are concedering it the promised land. Also the area being called the Great Americon Redoubt. Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
you cant grow anything in wyoming i live here. nothing grows here not even grass
yeah, stay wee you are NOTHING TO SEE HERE!
Would love to hear your thoughts on Pennsylvania
Growing food in Northern Arizona but yes its challenging!
Can you do a video on the redundant systems you use on your homestead for water, power, septic, etc? A lot of preppers do have redundant systems, but they tend to be similar technologies - a diesel generator and a propane generator, an electric stove and a propane stove. Do you have completely non-electric back-up systems for laundry like a Lehman's Own Hand washing machine or a Waterbuck hand powered well pump? What non-electric off-grid equipment or systems do you use?
Also, how is your septic set up? Do you have a back-up composting toilet (some areas of BC don't allow them).
Curtis, would love to hear your thoughts on how much land we need. Most of the books I have read are all based on the east coast where they get 30-60+ inches of rain and dont need irrigation. Joel Salatin is running a head of cattle per acre with no irrigation. Crazy! We live in Utah at 20. If the grid goes down, some irrigation should work but dam controls wont work. Anyways would love to hear what you think. I believe you said are in a semi arid forest.
you did not talk about flagstaff
I’m thinking about South Dakota or Minnesota, will be visiting soon to check those states
Oregon is beautiful farm land and foraging land, mushrooms, artichokes etc....I had a beautiful garden in Marion county , also Oregon Grape root...
Herbs & edible flowers etc...
Plenty of Trees 🌲 🌲 & 💦 water !!! 🤍🕊️
I'm looking at a place in Concho. It has some juniper n pine. The price is very low. 40 Acres with a couple slabs a shed fence n gates. 45k. The water is of course the hitchpin.
And the power
We've got 40 acres less than an hour from Concho. The winters can be pretty harsh, the springtime is the windy season, and the UV is off the charts, but the monsoon summers and lazy days of fall are worth it. Like many people out here, we haul in water from one of the coin op water dispensers. If you get a well, check the water quality. There was a yt channel out of Concho that had high iron poisoning their goats. Cheers and blessings!
@@1millionpumpkins542 I'm assuming it's cheap for a reason. Lol. I made an offer. He hasn't got back. But I suspect he may. If I get it? It will be cheap enough to just use part time.
@@tims6232 solar would be my plan
@@egodeathplease Fingers crossed to welcome you to the neighborhood 😀
A bit surprised you didn't have some sort of overlay that shows data on aquifers. Seems it would be really important for a state like Arizona.
Totally.
Can you review Alabama? Love the videos
Be curious to get your thoughts on the "Earthship" desert homesteaders.
Terrible place to homestead.
Please do Minnesota
Appreciate your video reviews.
How far down your list is a video for Minnesota?
Lol he mentioned Oregon but has never been there! Hey man, ever heard of the Oregon trail? Homesteading began in Oregon, lol good grief. And I can tell you don't know hardly anything about Arizona because you didn't even mention northern Arizona where the largest off grid community is in the country and growing faster than any other community nationwide.
Maybe should check Apache county and do another show.
Indiana? I live in southern Indiana near Ohio River.
You know u love it 😂
Probably don't want to be in the Flag area either.
Flying over AZ is they only way I like to see it.
Which State is next?
You dont need to drive to phoenix to get supplies😂
Do Florida
AWG baby 💧
Mars 😂😂
That green region all humid and gross 😂
Doesn't everywhere have aquifers?
Minnesota next please!!!
Young, AZ. Read Skousen’s book.
I love Young, but it’s going to burn!