I’m in the process of purchasing a small house on 2000 m2 (½ acre) in Bulgaria to get set up gradually over the next few years with a view to moving there permanently. I currently live in the UK and am hoping the Covid situation resolves enough that I can spend a couple of weeks there two or three times a year. Eventually my goal is to grow at least 50% of my own food, and possibly have some hens and bees.
There are a few obvious challenges there - the extremes of climate being one. Summers are hot, though it's not been common to get temps much over 32C (90F). Historically the area gets about 20" of rain a year, and at least an inch a month over summer. But I suspect with global warming those summers will get hotter and drier, and it seems autumns and winters are getting wetter. Local people are dependent on well water and fairly shallow bores to irrigate their orchards and vegetable gardens, but big farms are sucking the aquifers dry. Many shallow wells are now only seasonal, or completely dry. Unless there's one hidden somewhere in the undergrowth, my house doesn't have a well, anyway.
Winters- the region my house is in about 30 miles inland from the Black Sea, so that moderates the winter temps. They may go down to -15C (above 0 F), and it's not unusual to have a week where the temps never go above freezing. Maps show it as zone 7b. There’s some snow, but no prolonged deep snow cover. Seems autumn is the time for heavier rains. Other issues are possible high winds in winter.
Getting the roof repaired and rainwater collection in place will be my first priority, as water is so essential!
The house itself is "interesting". It's about 65m2 (just under 700 square feet), mudbrick on stone foundations. The walls are solid, but the roof is a crazy patchwork of half-circle terracotta tiles, flat cement roof tiles, sheet metal, and corrugated fibro, basically in terrible condition! It's T shaped with hipped roofs, but also has a couple of shed roofed additions, the bigger one the full width of the back of the house. No guttering. I am hoping to change it to a metal roof because it's lighter weight and will be cleaner for water collection, but the rafters underneath are very bowed so I'm not sure how easy it will be to do. They use green oak for house timbers, and so there's quite a bit of warping in the wood as it dries. Plus, I've done shed roofs and gable roofs in corrugated iron in Australia, but hip roofs with all those angles to cut - scary! Finding local people who can do it in metal won't be easy as it's not a traditional house roofing material.
Because the roof shape is so odd, I will probably need a few smaller tanks around the house rather than one big one. Or maybe just run the water from smaller roof sections to sunken garden beds away from the house. The back of the house should be able to catch a fair amount of water as there's the largest continuous roof surface there. There's also a gable-roofed shed with a corrugated fibro roof that could catch some water for garden and clothes washing use. The separate toilet roof will catch water for handwashing. Greywater will be recycled back into the garden.
I haven't calculated what my water requirements will be there. I won't be using a flush toilet, and I will be trying to minimise the need for extra water in the garden by small scale water harvesting earthworks. Here in the UK our household averages about 200L a day, but that's for two of us with a flush toilet which I would guess accounts for at least half our water usage, and a water-hungry garden that needs extra water in summer. The shack will usually have just a single occupant. Town water will be available, but in many areas there have been prolonged issues with no or severely reduced municipal water supply, so I want to plan to be self-sufficient for basic water needs if possible.
In the garden, there are some established fruit and nut trees and grapevines surviving without supplemental water - apricot, plum, and black walnut I recognise. It’s a bit of a jungle apart from directly around the house and I’m not sure what else is in there! From photos, the natural grasses growing there are green in autumn, freeze in winter, green up again in spring, and dry up brown in summer.
Any advice on things I need to be aware of setting up rainwater harvesting systems? I want rainwater tanks, but I’m not sure of design features for preventing freezes in cold climates where the tanks can’t be drained for winter.
Any suggestions for food or medicinal plants suitable for the climate - zone 7b, 20” rainfall a year, hot summers?
Anything you’ve learned on your journey you feel I need to pay special attention to?
