Progress Makes Perfect
Last weekend was the Fall Equinox, and I wanted to share my homesteading journey so far this year.
This year was the year I declared myself a homesteader. Some might say I was a homesteader even before I made this intentional choice, and others (hopefully very few), would say that I’m still not a homesteader because I don’t live on a farm nor raise livestock.
The beauty of being a “homesteader” to me, is that it is subjective on purpose. To me, being a homesteader is making a choice to consciously become more self-reliant and self-sustaining to live a fuller life. To me, being a homesteader doesn’t have to be a big audacious thing. To me, being a homesteader means having the grace to meet yourself where you and your family are.
For me, I set out this year on my journey to achieve three key things, plus a bonus one if time allowed. After writing my last post at the beginning of the year, I rediscovered it now in September and am so proud of the progress I didn’t even realize I was making on my original intentions.
Earlier this year, I declared I would: start making more baked goods at home, source more of my family’s food locally, and start my kitchen garden at our new home. Bonus points if I found time to study the arts and sciences of herbalism!
And I’m happy to report, I achieved all of this (mostly) with flying colors!
Making Homemade Baked Goods
To be fair, I might only give myself a passing grade on this one, but I have baked a decent amount of homemade goods for myself and my husband. This year we purchased a fixer-upper and also spent 5-6 months renovating the home from top to bottom. It was quite the task! I had been baking more regularly at the end of last year, and I was hoping to make time for it while renovating, but time and energy simply did not allow for a ton of it.
I did, however, make a handful of batches of muffins and banana bread, so I’ll count it. To boot, I also started playing with making homemade dairy products like sour cream, cottage cheese, and butter, plus homemade spreads and sauces like pesto, nut butter, and preservative-free jams.
While I wasn’t so focused on bread making, homemade anything is a big win when learning to become more self-reliant!
Buying Local Food from Farmers
This was a DEFINITE success this year and a surprisingly easy habit that felt seamless in my weekly routine.
Now, admittedly, I do own a food business where I sell my products at farmers’ markets which made it super convenient for me to shop while at work, but even if I weren’t at the markets on a regular basis, this was such a lovely way to get closer to my food footprint.
This year, my husband and I purchased a 1/4 beef share from a local farmer, and I can’t believe we haven’t done this sooner.
It does come with a heavy up-front cost, in addition to the expense of needing a deep freezer to store everything, but if you have the means, I can promise you won’t regret it.
We were not big red meat eaters to begin with, (we like a lot of fish and poultry), but ground beef tacos were an easy throw-it-together meal for us.
Ground beef from the store these days tastes lackluster at best and the texture is usually a combination of chewy (not the good kind), and gristly.
After sautéing up some taco meat the first time with our beef haul… I will never go back to mystery ground beef from the grocery.
And for less than $6 per lb, we received ~100 pounds of quality, humanely raised and processed beef, from a family farmer I’m on a first-name basis with. How cool is that?!
With steaks, packaged ground beef, burgers, and roasts, my family will eat well and nutritiously for the next year.
The beef share might be my biggest highlight, but it’s among so many other delicious items I now habitually purchase from local farmers and friends.
Here’s a snapshot of my favorite things I’ve taken home from the markets:
- 1/4 beef share
- whole chickens
- pork
- bacon
- eggs
- blueberries
- apples
- peaches
- grapes
- salad greens
- tomatoes
- potatoes
- peppers
- sweet potatoes
- carrots
- celery
- corn
- honey
- elderberry syrup
- granola
- a variety of flours
- flowers
- baked goods like English muffins and artisan bread
- soaps and shampoo bars
- fresh herbs for tea
- locally prepared fresh food
This has been so simple to integrate into my weekly routine, and I can taste and tell the difference in the freshness, the way I feel, and the connectedness I feel with our food.
Starting My New Kitchen Garden
I have been gardening for the last several years, and in spite of all of the construction duties I had renovating our new home, installing a kitchen garden at our new house was a huge priority.
I’ve been studying permaculture and wanted to ensure I was using those design principles and concepts as I scoped out, planned, and designed a space for my kitchen garden.
A little background, our new home was as mentioned, a fixer-upper to say the least, and needed a lot of TLC. It was lipstick on a pig, as the previous owner did their best to cover up the fact that it was a neglected rental that had sat vacant for roughly two years. The new roof magically concealed the evidence that the home must have at one point allowed rain to literally pour from the heavens into the home, and not so well concealed was the remanence of the now evicted raccoon hotel in the attic. I digress.
What I’m trying to say is that I was fortunate to spend several months observing our new property while swinging my hammer and hauling out trash. Observation is a major input to developing a well-situated permaculture design, and boy did I have lots of time to dream while working.
Originally, I was worried about the amount of shade from the overgrowth of invasive and volunteer trees and shrubs, but after careful consideration, I realized the best place for my initial kitchen garden was along the fence next to our driveway.
This spot maximized our space, made it visible from both the kitchen and the family room and made it bump-into-able — a key placement for gardens that are meant to be frequented frequently.
This year I approached my garden with the intensive planting method as well as integrated pest management. One thing I failed to do was use proactive deer-prevention methods, and I trusted the local deer family to help themselves to anything else in our yard, yet still, they kept coming back to my veggies.
After finally learning my lesson, I quickly strung up some deer fencing, and the problem resolved itself. While my harvests came later than I had hoped — both from a late install and battling my friendly does — I feel confident that this was one of my best gardening seasons to date, and came with a number of wonderful lessons that I’ll share in a later post.
BONUS: Learning All About Herbs
Maybe it’s the procrastinator in me, but I somehow managed to carve out time to learn a little bit about herbs this year as well.
I binge listened to books about herbalism and medicinal plants while working, and made sure to plant some in my garden! This year I included 3 types of basil (holy basil, sweet basil, and purple basil). I also grew thyme, oregano, sage, and coneflowers.
This was just the tip of the iceberg and I plan to keep growing herbs and learning about their healing properties and how to seamlessly add them into daily living.
Fourth Quarter
As we move into the final months of the calendar year, I am looking forward to continuing to make homemade goodies, buying local foods and products, and nurturing my kitchen garden and hobby herb projects into the Fall and Winter.
And stay tuned here on my journey as I explore the world of homesteading and becoming a more self-reliant soul!