So you want to grow your own food. Maybe you are tired of reading ingredient labels that look like a chemistry exam. Maybe you want to save money on groceries. Or maybe you just want to know exactly where your tomatoes came from. Whatever your reason, you are not alone.
Before you plant your first seed or build your first chicken coop, it helps to know how we got here. Homesteading in America did not start as a trendy lifestyle. It was survival. And the story of how farming shaped this country is honestly pretty wild.
OK so you know the history. You are inspired. Now what? How do you actually start homesteading?
This post covers Chapter 2 of Backyard Farming: Homesteading by Kim Pezza (Hatherleigh Press, 2015, ISBN: 978-1-57826-598-5). It is all about the basics. And some of these basics might surprise you.
So you are growing food. Maybe you have a garden going, some chickens in the yard. People start asking: “Are you a farmer now?” And you think about it. Are you? Is this a hobby? A side hustle? A whole lifestyle?
Here is something that might surprise you. You do not need 50 acres and a red barn to be a farmer. People are growing food on city rooftops, suburban driveways, and apartment balconies. And it is working.
Finding the perfect homestead location is a bit like finding the perfect apartment. You have a wish list. Reality has other plans. And you end up somewhere in between.
You have your location figured out. You know your space. Now comes the fun part. Deciding what to actually grow and how to grow it.
Plants are great. But if you really want to level up your homestead, animals are where things get interesting. And a lot more complicated.
Your farm is actually producing food. Congrats. But here is the problem. It is producing a lot of food. More than you can eat. More than your neighbors want. More than your coworkers will accept before they start avoiding you in the break room.
So your homestead is producing more food than you can eat, give away, or preserve. That is actually a great problem to have. Because now you can start making money from it.
You have never planted a seed in your life. That potted plant someone gave you as a gift? It died because you forgot to water it. You have never seen a chicken in person. The closest you have been to farming is buying “organic” at the grocery store.
We made it. Twelve posts later, we have covered every chapter of Backyard Farming: Homesteading by Kim Pezza (Hatherleigh Press, 2015, ISBN: 978-1-57826-598-5). And I have to say, this book has a lot more in it than its slim size suggests.