Cris
Living on an Urban Homestead
If you are looking into living on an Urban Homestead, you might be wondering what exactly that is. With “Homestead” as the main dream for many people, some just are not ready to leave the city. To have a full homestead, you need land for animals, and crops. For many of us, there are jobs and responsibilities that you can’t just walk away from.
The answer is to start an Urban Homestead, right in the middle of the city and start to live sustainably. For us, we decided to think of it as “practice” for when we could get out in the country. The point is to develop some sustainable living techniques to move toward becoming more sustainable.
We make our own organic soaps, using flowers from the garden that were planted for their medicinal qualities. I also make organic, all-natural cleaning products (sorry, I am a biologist after all, it matters to me to ditch plastic and toxins). We use some solar power, but not enough…yet.
It’s actually pretty easy to take small steps to move in the direction of being self-sustainable and develop your own Urban Homestead. Let’s go through a few things that you can do, starting today to get you going too.
Urban Homesteading Must Haves
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- #1: Start a Garden
- The first idea that come to mind when you think of being self-sufficient is to produce your own food. This means starting a garden. If you don’t have the ability to plant some tomatoes and zucchini, well there are several plants that grow well in containers. You don’t need a ton of produce, but even a little will help with that grocery bill.
- Concentrate on what you eat the most to start with. Later, you can go for that home grown and canned salsa (or enchilada sauce, my favorite!) Give fresh herbs a try in a sunny window, or potatoes in a homemade potato tower.
- #2: Build a Compost Bin
- This was an absolute must for me, I need a place to put those vegetable scraps other than the garbage. I of course saw a really fancy compost bin for sale and then made my own to mimic it, out of pallets. This way I saved money, and could design it as big as I wanted to hold everything we could throw in it.
- Recycling all the lovely organic material from your garden is a great way to get some homesteading skills in. You can then mulch your pots for the next growing season after it is all composted down. Ask me how to make a compost bin from a 5-gallon bucket to still compost in small spaces.
- #3: Make Your Own Everything
- This was my endeavor to ditch plastic. Being the super nerd that I am, I have no fear of harsh chemicals like lye, so I crafted some soap recipes and made my own. This is still a work in progress for me but looking to expand in the future. I make my own laundry soap, shampoo, dish soap and household cleaner too.
- I confess, I do NOT make my own clothes, but I do shop thrift stores almost exclusively. However, I do require nice fresh new socks sometimes, but I have not purchased a new blouse or pants in a very long time. I have taken a liking to pallet projects, so I make some furniture and accessories for my home too.
- #4: Learn How to Preserve Food
- Living in a rural area, the local stores just cost more. It is absolutely worth it to travel an hour away to get cheaper prices on goods and stock up. I tend to make large batches of the recipes the kids like such as spaghetti sauce and enchilada sauce and pho. It has been found that storing it in the freezer takes up too much space, so I bought this caner, and I absolutely love it! I am petrified of pressure cookers, I own a traditional one, but rarely put the regulator on it.
- Caning different foods that come from the garden is the best way to reduce waste. This year I made some nectarine jelly, a batch of my favorite lemon cucumber dill pickles, and of course that homemade Pho for long term storage.
- How about making fruit leather and jerky in a dehydrator? So easy to do and knowing that the fruit was grown at home makes me feel better about feeding it to the kids. Wild harvested game makes the best jerky too, it really is worth the effort to learn how to make it.
- #5: Produce your own resources
- This goes with starting a garden, I took it a step farther and planted flowers to incorporate into my soap making hobby. The calendulas grew like mad, so I have plenty to work with in the future. I tried my hand at making lye for soaps from wood ash but failed miserably. Resources can be anything from tools to food to ingredients you need for projects. You can reload your own ammo for hunting if that is a resource you will be needing.
- If you are culinary inclined, learn how to make your own pasta and bread and butter. Sure, it takes a little more time, but its healthier, tastes better and is usually cheaper. I have even attempted to cold press my own oil, perhaps that will work better with more raw ingredient.
- #6: Extend Your Community
- Build that community involvement. Reach out to neighbors who are like minded and collaborate. you might be able to trade some extra peaches for some tomatoes. Join the local farmers market to extend those networks, you never know when you might need someone to stop by to water your garden for a weekend. These folks will likely be able to tell you how the weather is projected to be for the winter, that s what they do here.
- #7: Conserve Electricity and Water
- In today’s time, conserving is not what we are all about here in America. How do you even conserve electricity without going solar anymore? Sure, we all have LED light bulbs, but what else is there? Well, don’t use the dishwasher, it takes a ton of water and when you heat dry, it wastes so much electricity. You can hang dry your clothes (and even hand wash…) when the weather is nice. Try using the BBQ rather than the oven on weeknights.
- Use low flow toilets, turn the tap off while you lather in the shower or brush your teeth, don’t let the water run while you wash dishes. Yes, I know, we’ve all heard all of these things. Did you know that urinating in the shower actually saves about 200 flushes per person per year? It’s gross, but it’s viable. A better water resource is harvesting rainwater to use for irrigation. I wouldn’t suggest drinking it if it comes off a roof in a city due to how much dirt the water can collect as it falls through a smog layer.
- #8: Research Animal Possibilities
- You might be surprised to hear a rooster crowing from somewhere in your neighborhood. There are some municipalities that do allow some livestock in city limits. Then, there are others that just don’t enforce the ban for just one or two birds. This is where the network comes in handy, those folks will tell you if you can get just a couple laying hens. If you have children, check into regulations for them to raise an animal for a school project.
- #9: Set Goals, and make a budget
- Now that you’ve tasted the life just a little bit, go ahead and daydream about that farm life. Ok, wake up now, set some goals like when do you want to be able to go to the country? How much is it going to cost, and how much can you save to get there? Time to plan out that move to self-sufficiency so that your dream of self-reliance can become a reality.
- #10: Start cutting Back Even More
- This means cutting the reliance on material things, the creature comforts. Get used to packing a brown bag lunch and skipping those morning lattes, you won’t have fast food and coffee shops 50 miles from town. Practice spacing your grocery needs out to going once a week instead of every day, then twice a month, then once a month. I usually go 6-8 weeks between trips to the city to shop. This will require figuring out where to physically store large amounts of food as well.
- Gathering the skills to live off the land takes some time to really feel comfortable with it. Get you timeline set, start practicing those skills and you will be on your way in no time!
Urban Homestead Adventure
Start with one small thing, then move on to taking on the next task. Enjoy your journey and your dream of moving out into the country. Check out these other posts for more valuable information.