Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
Homesteading is a better way to live. Period.
I came to it later in life after trying- and doing fairly well at the so-called American Dream life of high income/big house/more stuff lifestyle. Living a life dependent on other people to maintain your home, teach your children, look after your health, clean your house is a form of bondage. It’s bad for your body, your family, your soul and the better you do the more people around you envy what you have. You don’t inspire them to new heights, but to drag you down. And because you don’t want to lose what you have you make compromises in what you say and how you act and what you wear or drive, the list is endless.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
A homestead is a place of refuge where the life you ought to live is possible. it requires effort, sure and discipline and hard work, but those things are not burdens, they’re rewards. You spend more time with the people you love the most, you keep your body and your mind functioning at their peak, you work in the most beautiful and varied environment in all kinds of weather dealing with challenges and hardships, and reaping the benefits of resolving them on your own terms, by the sheer will of your determination and grit.
You eat better, sleep deeper, stay youthful longer, meet a better class of people who know more and share it freely. You depend upon your neighbors and they come to rely upon you, your life becomes one of the most useful tools imaginable, by solving problems and tackling projects and exigencies you could never have imagined before. Your skills sets continually expand and become better with each use. You improve the environment around you instead of leeching off of it, you beautify the world and inspire other people not to undermine your efforts, but to re-double theirs.
You start to understand your purpose in life as it was meant to be, not just as society or conventions or corporations or governments find useful, but as it relates to those worthy of your time and your energy. You stop being a commodity and become an industry. All around you you begin to produce not only a sustenance, but a surplus and instead of your energy flagging it builds up steam and gives you even more energy to tackle things you never could have imagined doing before because the only thing that ever stands in our way is our own doubt about ourselves.
And here’s another thing- most people ask themselves “am I cut out for it? Can I really handle it? The work, the sacrifice, the isolation, giving up the stuff that I like that I can’t take with me?
Of course you can. Think about the people who came over in wooden ships with nothing but a couple of hand tools. if they could hack it, you’ve got a huge advantage. And since we were designed to be problem solvers and tool users you’ll be surprised at just how easily it all comes back to you, those hundreds of thousands of years of passed down genetic predispositions to do those very things with an ease and familiarity that will blow your mind if you just give it a shot.
I always thought I was a fairly successful and intelligent guy and the way I lived my life was satisfactory by any standard, but until we decided to become homesteaders I had no idea just how much we were leaving on the table. Does homesteading prepare you? I suppose it does, but as with any eventuality you’ll only know when the time arrives, but what it does that is far more important is to allow you to live- to really be in the moment every waking hour between now and then and to do it without fear of whatever lies ahead.
I can’t imagine ever living any other way now and I pray that God that when my time comes he allows me to pass on with a shovel or a hammer in my hand, outdoors, doing what I was meant to do.
I was going to weed the gardens today once the temperature reaches 50 degrees. Does that count as homesteading? 🙂
Lol, I get ya…. but it can be… just start adding some “edible landscaping” in flower beds and decorative containers (that’s easier to get by HOA’s) such as head lettuces, kale, collards, or other veggies that can get by on lower light levels, and you’re on the way….
Nasturtiums are an edible flower, that is pretty adds a peppery flavor to salads and might be a good addition to your edible landscape idea.
Less Ecoli in your leafy veggies if you grow your own. I have not tried this but there is a thing out there that washing your fresh veggies in baking soda is the best way to clean them. I generally do a vinegar or lemon juice rinse
Here in Minneapolis, I’d have to shovel the snow off my garden. I’m planning on an early crop of snow peas and iceberg lettuce.
It is not a better way to live. We have spent thousands of years trying not to labor just to eat.
On tonight’s plate, virtually everything was grown by our own hand. The highlight – a horseradish sauce made by yours truly. It is very comforting knowing that you are growing your own food.
My personal specialties are hot peppers of all kinds, and multiplying inions, including shallots, Egyptian walking, and potato onions. I highly recommend potato onions for homesteaders. Thaey are far easier than normal onions, and are prolific. They are almost a lost breed, as they cannot be commercially grown. Every homestead needs them. We also grow an incredible range of pumpkin. I recommend tri-lobe. They are heavy fruiters. Add in lots of squash, zukes, lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, kale, garlic, radish, rocket, broccoli, cauli, brussel sprouts, tomatoes, herbs, beans, etc., and you get a true bounty. Combine that with chickens, eggs, perhaps a lamb or beef steer, a pig, etc., and you find yourself getting near self-sufficient re food.
I also highly recommend raised beds. 100 square yards of raised beds will grow an incredible amount of food, at a surprisingly little amount of labor hours. It makes weeding, planting, harvesting, tilling so much easier. Raised beds are much more efficient than growing in the ground.
Do not forget watermelon, fruit trees, etc.
What is your growing zone that would be comparable in the U.S.?
I guess OK. Everything we grow could be grown just about anywhere.,
I have wanted to do beds for a long time.
MC,
Easier on the back… I have four waist high beds, putting in four more.
They can also easily double as Cold Frames.
I also have an old bath tub with a frame built around it…use it as raised bed.
(I tried to talk my wife into a Cialis joke photo with it – but she wasn’t have any of it).
I’m starting some new raised beds. You need five, 10 foot long 2×6 and one 8 foot long 2×4 to make two beds. Cut one of the 10 footers into 30 inch boards for the end pieces and the 2×4 make 11.5 inch corner posts for the beds. Top off with soil and till everything together. You’ll have 2 rows per bed to plants.
Little plastic kiddy pools make great herb garden or strawberry beds. You can pick up those hard side pools for about $10.00 new. All you need to do is drill some holes for water drainage and fill with soil.
Those 18 gallon “party buckets” make great planters for potatoes. Drill holes for drainage and add some soil, seed potatoes then keep cover the green part of the plants with soil as the plant grows until the bucket is full. Harvest time kick over the bucket and pick out the potatoes!
I have grown Sweet potatoes in SW Idaho along the southern exposure of my house in a raised bed. Make sure you create a tall mound dirt at least foot high to give the potatoes room to grow.
I’m in SW Idaho but I’m in 6a along with the Arkansas/Missouri belt along the mountains.
Potato onions, going to have to check that out. How do they store? Just finished building 6 more raised bed boxes, but this cold weather is getting me down. Gonna have to tent with Agribon a bit this year it looks like. Planted my peas 2 weeks ago, those ain’t coming up after all the snow and rain.
Nice write-up HSF, I’ll escape the corporate shit-world some day when the kids are out of school, but I’ll do every kind of homesteading thing I can until then. Totally agree that when God takes me I am working outdoors and not at a desk. I’ll shoot you an email this week, am coming up next weekend for a volunteer project at the base of the mountain. Save a jug of syrup for me.
A tip on sweet potatoes in northern climes, use black cloth of some kind, preferably breathable, and cut holes in it where you are going to plant. Sweet potatoes are a tropical plant and need heat. You also don’t want the vines to start rooting, as it takes away from the energy that goes into producing the tubers.
Potato onions store great. Plant one, get 6 – 12. A bit smaller than store bought, but more tasty, and never ending, and dead easy to grow. Plant, havest, dry, replant 1/6 of last crop. Repeat. Egyptian walking onions are fun, replace spring onions, bulbetts are great in soup, and bulbs are small but strong flavored. They are indestructible.,
We get great sweet potatoes in the central mid-west. I don’t know what kind they grow. I haven’t tried them yet, except for decorative plants at a house we sold last year.
Do you have a source for ‘potato onions’?
KaD – they are hard to come by. Usually can be found in the fall.
http://www.southernexposure.com/perennial-onions-multiplier-potato-onions-c-3_37_120_219.html
https://www.mainepotatolady.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=8
Thee is also “lasagna gardening” (Rodale Press) to consider ,
and I am a raised bed fan/always used those. Just sayin’ Lipoh.
Give the green striped cushaw a try. They were a gift from the American Indian. A small one is ten pounds and a large one will go twenty to twenty five pounds. Grow them with your corn and beans Three Sisters style. The cushaw can be used in any way you can imagine. My favorite is baked with lots of butter/margarine, brown sugar, and crushed pineapple. It’s said that the best cooks in the South don’t use pumpkin in their pies, they use cushaw. It’s very mild in taste and readily accepts any spice added. Heck, I’ve even used it in chili with excellent results. (Johnny’s or Victory normally has seed)
Try Bloody Butcher for your field corn needs. It was developed in the 1800’s and is an heirloom. It grows around 10 – 12 foot tall and may have 2 – 6 ears of corn per stalk. My red cornbread was tasty this evening.
This year’s new addition is walking onions and sorghum. I’m interested to see what happens with the onions. Sorghum is for syrup as well as fodder or grain from the seed. Crushed stalk remnants are supposed to be excellent compost for the garden.
Anytime you can sit down to “tonight’s plate” and say, “I did that,” you’ve done well.
That’s how it started for me. I planted some sweet potato vines along a rock wall that I’d back-filled with compost, just for decoration. When Fall came we pulled out sweet potatoes that were the size of turkeys. And they were delicious. I remember a light going off in my head and thinking that maybe this was something important beyond the landscaping.
Every journey…
HF,
I read this comment and laughed out loud…I have been planting and harvesting sweet potatoes in my garden for years…super productive and filling and I love them. I had read a Prepper’s article years ago about planting sweet potatoes in unexpected lonely places “off garden” and did that this morning in front of a treeline on the border of a pasture, before I read this post.
I always meant to do it as a worst case back up…and finally did.
Started off with sweat potatoes too. Fast forward to today, working on moving to the homestead. If the ship can just hold together long enough… just a few more months. Working on native perennials (paw paw, walnut, pecan, persimmon, hazel, mulberry) at the property figuring they can get established while I get my living arrangements squared away. Thanks for the inspiration. Finally got the wife and hungry horde on board.
“I would move anywhere as long as I could be with you”
Turned into ” Ya about that, I changed my mind and Im entitled to do that”
Re raised beds – seriously, they are they way to go, even in a backyard. A 4 foot by 8 foot bed will keep a family sufficient in salad makings – lettuce, radish, rocket. Three of those will add zukes, onions, etc., but not totally self- sufficient.
Target: 100 square yards. Yearly labor: about thirty hours. Output: tons of food. Literally.
The set-up takes some effort and cost. But after that, produce pours in.
We dig in 2 to 4 inches of compost at every planting, plus some dolomite. That is my secret ingredieints!
As an example, we froze probably 500’pounds of tomato sauce this year. Not sure how we will ear it all. Zukes and pumpkins and onions and garlic out the wazoo. Never ending supply of salad makings. More watermelon than we can eat. Beans – oh yes! And pepper sauce (which I ferment, amongst many methods) that puts Tabasco to shame.
100 square yards. Raised beds. 30 hours a year. Organic produce. Self- sufficient for majority of your vegetables. Get it done.
Anyone can do it. Anyone who owns their own home, at least. Anyone saying otherwise is misleading you.
100 square yards is probably larger than my entire plot, after you take out the house footprint. Also, there is sidewalk, driveway and so on. Plus, some areas are underneath trees, and don’t get a lot of sun. I could probably manage 20 square yards or so of sunlit, open ground.
I’d also have to put in fencing, netting and so forth to keep the vermin, neighbors’ dogs, and occasional homeless humans out.
Looks like I need to consider a move!
James – sounds like you live on a Hobbit sized plot. Most house blocks are several hundred square yards. I know of folks that put beds front, back and sides in order to get that 100 square yard total. Sun position can be an issue, but then you have to plan what goes where, as some plants can take a lot less sun.
Go rural young man!
An interesting time saver with tomatoes. No coring or hot/cold dip to remove peel. Wash cherry tomatoes and throw in juicer whole. Turn juice into sauce and dehydrate pulp. Can or freeze sauce. Turn pulp into powder with processor/stick blender. Oxy absorber in with jar to seal. Lids may be reused when used in this fashion. One quart jar of powder equals around 3 1/2 quarts of sauce. Powder can be used in lieu of paste. Alternatively you can store or use the leathers in a similar fashion.
This technique works. I still have around 30 quarts from last year.
Older – great stuff. Great ideas.
My better half used a thermomix, and whizzed up hundreds of quarts of sauce this year. We had tomatoes out the wazoo. Best sauce ever. The thermomix is worth its weight in gold for making sauce. Pretty much wash the tomatoes, toss them in, input settings, and done. It is an expensive gadget, but just about paid for itself just in sauce.
Today, I planted garlic, spinach, broccoli, walking onions, lettuce, and prepped around 30 sq yards of beds. Thinned lettuce, mustard, rocket, and harvested more horseradish, zukes, and a few pumpkin. Took me two hrs.
Damn, will we eat well!
Outstanding post HSF. I couldn’t agree more. Another benefit, particularly if you are debt free and off grid is that it is about the best way to support yourself while starving the beast. It is also probably the best way to survive a long term disaster or collapse. To add to other comments here, fruit and nut trees are the gift that keep giving with very little in the way of labor input. Also if your land is suitable deer habitat there is delicious meat that’s hormone and antibiotic free. Which also takes little financial or labor inputs, though I know a lot of guys who spend more on hunting crap than if they bought their meat at the store.
See what I mean when I say there is a huge difference between prepping (mostly store bought stuff) vs homesteading which is a self sufficient lifestyle. With homesteading you are essentially immune to natural disasters that knock out power and could go for months (if not forever) without support from the supply chain/grid/government. There are many layers of self sufficiency but if you have alternative power sources (wind, solar, hydro, geo-thermal, woodstove) you are ready to go off grid if need be.
No need to go off grid to be a homesteader but its good to have the ability to continue to function if the grid goes down.
The real value of homesteading is the change in lifestyle. Sounds like HardScrabble and I had a similar life, I rode the train from CT to NYC for decades 1:45 each way or 3.5Hrs a day of commuting just to have other people raise the kids, do all the chores so my kids could hang out with other families doing the same thing, while the moms competed in their ways, volunteering, tennis, clothes, charitable orgs. etc.
Sure we had some better toys but its really pretty hollow and I could never ever play golf and wasn’t much of a drinker. Prepping is ok but stressful in the sense that the more you learn the more you understand that prepping is hoping every cut is small because all you have is a band-aid but knowing that arterial bleeding is a significant risk.
Going quasi rural is not easy, but it is worth it. You will likely have to start a business (Maple syrup right Hardscrabble) or doing something that “works” in a smaller community, contractor, plumber, electrician, fencing, or bookkeeping etc. School teacher, a job with the university, city or state or open up a retail business.
Once you have made it to rural America and found a way to put food on the table then get some land and start to develop the skills that allow you to eventually leave the cash generating role or just change the priorities focusing more on the homestead.
For most folks homesteading is not a full time job just the hardest second job in the world because it never ends. Chickens, goats, bees, sheep (forget the sheep unless you have a lot of land!) pigs and of course cattle. Sheep and cattle really don’t mix due to the sheep grazing the grass to death, I would never have sheep but we do need somebody to raise the stinking morons!
Depending on where you are, remember you need enough ground to feed the cattle in the non-winter and raise the hay needed to feed the cattle in the winter…..our seasons in MT are Winter, Mud, Dust and two weeks each of Spring and Fall. Zone 4a here or down to -30F and last frost is approx June 5 and first frost Sept 7-10 so a very short growing season. Greenhouses, high tunnels, starting indoors (small scale) and covered beds (raised beds are great!) but you really need great fencing for deer and elk and bears, “varmints” of all types and birds. When I say bears I am not just talking black bears which are basically large dogs but Ursus Horribilis Mr. Grizzly or more accurately Ms Grizzly with cubs. She will rip your face off so you need electric fencing also.
I am not homesteading now just doing the raised beds and bees, cattle a big commitment and with neighbors on all sides ranching won’t be a problem to barter.
I am still “working in town” though we have the property and could easily convert over to full time.
The change in perspective and mental attitude has been great. I am never ever going back an could easily see myself going even more rural…..we are 20 minutes outside of Bozeman in a canyon to the north.
That’s the final point, the process, the journey has its own rewards. No 30 blocks of shit, no 3.5hours a day commuting in cars, trains, subways and walking surrounded by millions of folks you have little or nothing in common with, who are doing their best to ignore you.
Smaller town folks actually want to talk and discuss because they are likely doing the same things, hiking, biking, hunting, fishing, their kids go to the same schools (there is only one HS etc). Its a journey worth taking on.
Beautiful writing HSF, but you left out one really important thing. If the land you work on is your land you will strive to protect it. You will never ruin the pasteur that feeds your cows. You will never kill the trees that provide the syrup. But if you are a company, run by someone in NYC, what do you care for the land? It doesn’t matter to you whether the land is destroyed because you will be moving on to some other land. If you can make more money off of the Maple lumber than the Maple syrup, down come the trees. The forest is gone. Sure the furniture is beautiful, but the forest is gone and it won’t be back for 100 years and it won’t be maple.
One person living off some little plot of land that he loves will not do the damage that comes with industrial farming to feed the population. At the end of your life, your land will look better for your efforts and that is what sustainability is all about.
Well how many people should live in the USA there Hollywood? Don’t the companies that own the land today have property rights also? I think they do. The people that benefit from their efforts are shareholders and through the mutual funds that own shares lots of “little people” own and benefit from those bad industrial farming companies. You might be better making a more specific argument:
Pig farms don’t pay for the river of shit that goes downstream from the massive concentration of pigs in one place.
Chicken farmers have to use massive anti-biotics due to the overly crowded conditions and the quality of life is minimal for the birds.
Feed lot cattle are very crowded and equally exposed to lots of drugs to keep them healthy enough to get to market.
Yes there are problems but no worse than Facebook banning “TBP” for political purposes leading to liberal groupthink (worse than anti-biotics in my mind) or all the toxic waste sites from the Military Industrial Complex ignored and certainly not prosecuted due to political power.
You make a mistake saying that big companies don’t care about the land….they do and they tend to piss off the locals by restricting historically used access to the national forest (though some timber companies are cool).
So if you are going to make the argument, you need to own the outcome…..we can’t feed 320M people here and untold millions around the world if we back off industrial agriculture. So who do you want to “die” first?
American agriculture is a marvel of efficiency. Fewer people and more production. GMO of course is an abomination especially all the perversion of corn……corn syrup in everything, animal feeds etc Cattle can’t process corn very well so more drugs to offset that.
There is a reason we talk about homesteading not Farming……because the little guy simply cannot compete with the marvel of scaled up agriculture. Even ranching here is more about “land banking” like a parking lot……the ranching business (parking car business) is pretty marginal but pays for the cost of the land and over 30-40 years the land becomes extremely valuable. Eg. a guy down the street runs 200 cow calf pairs on 175 acres and makes extensive use of National Forest grazing (you need 10 acres/cow here) and buys hay for the winter. That ain’t a business and some of the extended family are long distance truckers and have town jobs. But…..having owned the land for a long time…..the land is now worth easily $10,000/acre now…you do the math. So rural millionaires driving semis because they can’t compete with large cattle production businesses. That’s how efficient our system is.
Small-scale organic farming yields more per acre. It just takes planning and some effort.
We won’t have the fossil-fuel subsidies for industrial ag. before long, so it’s a moot point whether we “should” wean ourselves off those systems.. we’ll simply have to.. and -yes- a lot of people won’t survive the transition.
Great article HSF.
I never got to meet my grandparents as both were dead before I came along but did hear a lot about them from my mother, aunts and uncles.
My grandfather was a homesteader; never worked for anyone. Totally self sufficient. If they didn’t raise it, they didn’t eat it. Never had electricity. No truck or tractor. Oxen pulled the plow. Their cash crop was cotton that they sold to get cash to purchase the things that couldn’t be grown or made (nails, sewing needles, bullets, tools, etc.) Also in their spare time they cut and sold cross ties, also by hand; no chainsaws, only crosscut saw, wood adz and axes.
Raised hogs and chickens for meat. Ate every part of the hog except the oink, nothing wasted. Only had beef once a year during “protracted meeting time.” A more affluent neighbor would slaughter a beef and share with the community. No refrigeration.
They went through the Great Depression without a problem as this was normal for them. They also had a community that helped look out for each other.
Life was tough but it produced some tough people with great memories and great stories. None of the children went on to be homesteaders as the post WWII boom was to attractive to them after how they had been raised.
One uncle,the youngest son, went on to be a very wealthy businessman. While visiting him once he was showing me around his house. Also showed me a large closet well stocked with large jars of dried beans and other non perishables (just in case.) My mother was the same way. She always kept enough canned food on hand to get thru any 7 year tribulation period.
And did I mention may grandfather was illiterate. No formal education but he had the knowledge to survive. Those old homesteaders had to be prepared for anything from bad weather to crop failure. Could not go running to Uncle Sugar to bail you out if you were stupid.
I hate to think about our future in this country when the EBT cards don’t get refilled or the trucks stop running.
Again, a great article. Keep ’em comin’.
Back in the WW II days everyone had a Victory Garden. We need to head in that direction again. Even in an apartment you can have a small container garden on the balcony. I’ve gone full retard and am in the process of putting in six raised beds, 18 sf each. A lot of work but well worth it. And eight potato grow bags.
It wasn’t that long ago that a great number of people grew up on farms. I am two generations removed from homesteading. I remember seeing a picture of my grandmother as a little girl in the early 1900s. The family was standing for the photo in front of the sod hut in Wisconsin with the mule and dog included.
I’ll take the smells of dirt and livestock over the smells of urinal cakes and hot asphalt any day.
Not a fan of nature. Only when I can smoke a cigar on my deck. Then I go back inside. Although I’ve been thinking about doing my own yard for awhile. Last week my (possibly) illegal alien gardener was staring at me through the french doors as I sat on the couch with a glass of wine. For a few seconds, I felt like he was thinking “One day I’ll kill you and take your shit you gringo fuck.” – En Espanol.
The experience kind of freaked me out. I can imagine some French plantation owner in Haiti circa 1790 had the same experience.
Thanks for the help with the aquaponics, I will update when we add fish, should be in the next 30 -45.
First round: Perch, from Colorado Division of wildlife.
HSF,
Your little essay is fabulous. The turkey sized sweet potatoes story
is great.
Thank you so much
Suzanna
Hardfarmer and Meatballs maybe the best examples of what not to do.Think about it . In a real SHTF these homesteaders will become targets of people are have no reason to follow the ” rules of civility ” now in place. You won’t be able to stick your head out a door or window without worry. I’m not sure what the answers are but I would suggest reading about real SHTF situations that have happened around the world. It’s is a real eye opener about what people do to one another when the Moral Law no long guides our behavior.
BB,
Another factor in Homesteading is community. A Homestead can also be a compound surrounded by and interconnected to other Neighbors/Homesteads/Compounds = Tribes.
And of course one of the 4th Turning fear factors: Location – Location – Location.
Now, are we going into mad Max? Then nothing matters. I guess I’ll just morph into Mad Mark?
“And here’s another thing- most people ask themselves “am I cut out for it? Can I really handle it? ………… Of course you can.”
——– article
Nope. I’m 63. Never farmed in my life. Little mechanical knowledge. Took me the whole semester in wood shop class to make a bread board and a bird house. Been a “corporate” office drone my whole life. In other words … fucken useless if/when the shit hits the fan. Nice sentiment though, and a lovely article (which makes my heart burn with jealousy).
Side Note to HF: I never got anything in the mail. And that’s perfectly OK, really. Just letting you know in case something was sent so that I don’t appear to be an ungrateful slob.
Oh mah gawd Cap’n Noodledick yer milkin that shit hard. How many gallons uh maple syrup does yer ass need? Poor Hardscrambled has ter just grit his teeth and keep sendin them cuz he’s scared yer goner go inter one uh yer high pitched whiny rants and ruin his TBP sizzurp repuretation. Poor bastard is going broke as is – give him uh gawd dammed break.
Please, Stucky, you’re totally full of shit. If anybody here could figure out how to do something that they knew nothing about, and be successful, it would be you. Your demonstrated ability to pull off semi complicated projects around your home has been amazing, and by far my favorites of all your writing. The deep dives you do into all kinds of subjects for your articles, also amazing. Look at how happy Llpoh is telling you about his little gardening adventures. He can probably afford to buy as many organic fruits and vegetables as he wanted. But that’s not the point of it. I’ve yet to see a person who didn’t start gardening who didn’t love it.
Star – my neighbors come around to marvel at the garden. These are all independent, rural folks. But the raised beds have really opened their eyes. We produce huge amounts off of the 100 square yards, while some of the other folks till, weed, etc., and get paltry crops in comparison.
There are a few things we do not grow much of, though. Potatoes being one. We do grow a few specialty types, but it is hard to justify it when you can buy 20 pounds at the store for a couple of bucks. They take up room, and they are dirt cheap to buy, so we have chosen not to grow many.
We also are growing a large number of citrus trees in raised boxes. They are growing like weeds, and producing all the lemons and limes you can eat after just one year.
We also have one bed dedicated to herbs. Oregano, thyme, chives, mints, rosemary, sage, basil, coriander, etc. We have that just outside the kitchen. Fresh herbs year around to season with is a joy.
Stuck is selling himself short. Being a raised bed farmer is dead easy to learn/do. What HSF does is a far level above that, and the skills required would be far different. When we stop travelling so much, we will begin adding critters – chickens for eggs, maybe a steer or two on the lower 40 to fill the freezers. A lot of folks raise lambs around here, but we do not like the taste.
A great Bit HSF. You are good at selling the appeal of getting back to the land. Its gotta be better than sitting at a desk.. Maybe I can do both… Anyhoo….
I very much enjoyed building that Trug a while back so maybe I can do it after all….And all this talk about raised beds. Funny I got same sales pitch just the other week from my wife..
Maybe I will post some pictures once beds are done and if summer returns, one can only hope, I might be able to grow stuff as well. Don’t smoke the stuff but thinking maybe of giving marijuana a try. It would be funny having some plants growing in the front yard…
Llpoh, I told you years ago when you were setting up your homestead, you were going to love being a gentleman farmer. It’s just so good for your internal well-being. I enjoy hearing about your success. What a great way to kick back after fighting the good fight that is business for so many years. Success does have its rewards. Big thumbs up. I gave up eating lamb in my twenties. I like it, but that and veal, not for me. Slaughtering lambs is probably not something you would enjoy
Thanks Star.
Don’t ignore the value of changing your way of life. You know if have the desire, well act on it….don’t be an office drone or a city boy get out and get your hands dirty….the effort is its own reward. HSF comes up with amazing essays because he is living a purposeful life with many lessons and adventures. Just got back from a 2300′ foot elevation gain climb/hike and went from the flats to high alpine where I needed my winter ice crampons……I was not alone, there were two others at the top and we gave each other that look. We have seen what others never will. Dare to try.
Wonderful article and comments!
At the age of 34 (in 84) I tried Homesteading in West Texas. My guide and dream was the book “Five Acres and Independence.” After four years I failed completely…and ended up in Atlanta starting a new career…long story.
But, at the age of 62 in 2012 (after reinventing myself a few times while living large) Homesteading has been and is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
I have also morphed Homesteading and Prepping into my retirement plan – 4th Turning enviorment as far as:
1. Self Sufficiency: Shelter, water, food, off grid capabilities (not living there yet – but making leaps
and bounds), security and community. Now it is 14 acres and getting close to the independence I
dreamed of as a young man.
2. Retied…not rusting: It is a robust lifestyle and keeps me in shape. I love the physicality of it,
the solitude, the ebb and flow of the seasons, the learning, the veggies, fruits, berries, nuts
(coming soon), eggs, and soon to be meat and milk of my labors. I pour over every issue of “The
New Pioneer” and glean all I can.
REALLY good! Thanks.
We planted 2 acres of three types beans, using about about 50lbs of each, velvet beans, pigeon peas and red beans.
The velvet bean harvest was about 1300lbs of beans. You shouldn’t eat too many Mucuna Puriens because they are very high in testosterone and L-Dopa, I eat about 10 a day, they taste like Fava beans. But they are very good for the ground, vines 10 metres long left to decay back into the soil and the shells are great for compost/mulch. High nitrogen and so many that we have 5 inch thick mulch around all the gardens.
The Pigeon peas are a great windbreak, grow for 4 or 5 years and the red beans vine up them, making the red bean harvest much easier. So far we have about 300 lbs of Pigeon Pea seed for this coming May, with another 300lbs still on the shrubs
The red bean harvest, I have no idea how many lbs we got, I gave the majority of them to my workers and their families. We have 1 or 2 sacks in the garden house with all the other seed, we only eat beans once or twice a week, our guys eat beans three times a day.
We are working on bringing a waterline from the creek over to the beanfield as the guys want to irrigate their corn and squash this summer. I told them I would buy 500 metres of 3/4 water line but they had to plant cabbage, broccoli, carrots and all the stuff I like to eat as well. They were excited to eat more vegetables.
We have two Kale trees, both over 6 months old, each one is about 5 feet tall. I used to eat it in the city because it was good for you. Now I eat it because I actually like it.
We also have 3 acres of 5 different types of bananas, 100 mango trees, lemons, oranges, guanabana, sapote, mamey, matazanos, sour mandarins, sweet mandarins, coconuts, guava, arayan, nispero, cacao, grapefruit, avocados, 5 acres of coffee and planting more,..
Cows, pigs, chickens and 6 dogs (but we don’t eat them).
Just have to figure out how to make bio-diesel for the Hilux, thinking sunflowers,…
I spend most of my days with a shovel or a machete in my hands but I don’t really think of myself as a homesteader. Just some guy who likes fucking around in nature. Walk the dogs, build stone walls, try and figure out where those damn pigs have gone (usually eating mangoes or down in the river rooting around). I pity those who spend their days under fluorescent lights or sitting in traffic.
Give it up folks- you can do it. All you really need to buy is gas, electricity and salt ( and Roquefort cheese and wine and whiskey and health insurance and the odd Hershey dark chocolate bar for the wifey).
Jimmy – you can make wine and whiskey. Just saying. Do not ask how I know this! Here it is Cadbury not Hershey!
Llpoh, I originally addressed this post to you, then deleted the intro.
I am glad you saw that it was for you!
Currently making a device to distill essential oils,… beer keg and 20 feet of copper tubing.
Will keep you posted, we have lots of cane growing already.
We cannot grow grapes as far as I know but guava wine sounds interesting. Not like a ’97 Brunello by any means but we will work with what we have. No laws against making aguardiente here.
Jimmy – you need 2 different stills. You need a copper pot still for tasty essential oils, and a column still for run of the mill clear essential oils. You would be amazed at the tasty essential oils you can get out of Kelloggs corn flakes ( seriously!) and a pot still!
We did it too. Bought 5 acres 20 miles outside of the city. Planted an orchard, put up a couple of high tunnels, did raised beds, tinkering with aquaponics. Made my mistakes, cursed a little, drank some wine, and moved on to bigger and better, just like the rest of my life. Grew up in the city, and worked hard all of my life. Now retired and working even harder for nuthin. I’m well past 60 and having the time of my life helping neighbors and getting stuff done. Cut the cable, got rid of debt, don’t do social media. Wish I’d done this 30 years ago.
HSF
Thanks for the great article and encouragement.
We escaped the bonds of suburbia eight years ago, it is the best thing I ever did. Not near self sufficient, but making progress.
Am going to try a bit of winter wheat this year, hopefully an acre.
If I am successful at growing it, will harvest with a scythe, and thresh it by hand.
What a great thread! And FYI, this post by HSF was merely a comment he submitted on an earlier “Homesteading” post. He can whip out his thoughts in a comment, in the early morning, and it headlines TBP with it’s own post. That’s serious writing talent.
One thing I would add to the good advice already given: if you construct raised-beds for your garden, don’t use concrete blocks. The cement used for making concrete has fly ash from coal burning facilities. Lots of bad stuff in it.
Vodka – I used treated pine, 2″ by 10″, three high, so beds are 30 inches high. I needed good deep beds, plus they are much easier to work at that height. But do not use any old treated pine. You need to get the arsenic free type. Standard treated pine carries poisons that possibly can leach into the soil. And growing vegies in arsenic treated pine beds just seems a bit yuck to me, but it is probably ok. I just decided against it.
People also need to know that they can make their own soil via composting if they need to. My wife’s great-uncle was on the cover of Organic Gardening magazine in ’83 for “organic gardener of the year”, or something close to that. He had a piece of ground in California that was total shit. He had the landscapers and tree-trimmers dump their waste on his property for several years (they thought he was nuts), after a few years of stirring and watering he created the equivalent of Garden of Eden soil. He had a PhD in agronomy but always emphasized that it was a simple procedure for anyone to create fertile soil.
Between each planting we add compost to the soil. It started out as crap, and now it is getting to be outstanding. Good advice.
Don’t overlook adding seaweed to the garden or compost pile. I went down to the coast after a couple of northeasters a couple of months back and filled up a bunch of garbage bags full, along with seagrass. Seaweed rivals compost for the garden, has all the minerals you need.
I get a large pail of Seasol to add. It helps root systems especially. Nice idea to get the seaweed.
Ok, so my winter planting is now pretty much complete. I just need to sit and watch it grow, and harvest. It took us no more than 8 -10 hours total to get rid of summer planting, add compost, dolomite, and some organic fertilizer, use a hoe and rake to loosen everything up, and plant the beds.
We planted garlic, potato onions, walking onions, spinach, lettuces, radish, parsnip, silverbeet, broad beans, bok choy, cauli, broccoli, brussels, kale, and a few things that will come to me eventually. We will have more than we can use, and will give some away. We still have a lot to harvest from summer crops – especially pumpkins and peppers and zukes and summer salad makings and some onions still going. We have a mountain of pumpkins already. Pumpkin soup, pie, grilled, baked – fall is a great time of year!
A tip for newbies and raised beds:
to increase your yield per bed, mound the top of the bed into a semi-circle/curve. It gives you 20 to 30% more planting space for the same bed footprint. It is a very easy way to increase yield if space is limited.
I’m tired of these farming threads..Anyone got a good recipe for shine?
nkit – the web is full of them. I suggest looking up a cornflake shine recipe, where the cornflakes/sugar are fermented together, then pot still distilled. I have heard that particular recipe, when aged with a bit of oak, can rival store bought liquor. I just heard that, of course.
https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=31371
That’s awesome, a recipe from Odin. I wonder if I could skip the 3.5 kilo of sugar and just use Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes instead? I bet it ‘d be Greaaaat.
I always knew that Odin Fellow was a GRREAT guy!
Another area to look into in the homesteader’s world is wild edibles/medicinal plants. We have the best of two worlds in that area. That was given to us when the American Indian and European settlers shared both knowledge and seed. Most of that knowledge has been lost over the years through disuse.
I’ve identified around 50 edibles/medicinal plants on my land. The edibles wouldn’t be enough to sustain a person, but they’d be a welcome addition in hard times. The medicinal plants are another story. They’re the medicines that kept our ancestors alive. I use quite a few of them. They work. Some people think it weird that I enjoy wandering around out in the woods and fields looking for new weeds. They just don’t get it. It’s kind of gardening. There’s something about getting my hands in the dirt . . .
Didn’t expect the comment to generate so many responses, but since it has, here’s another one we started working on last year with stellar results.
Hugelkultur.
There are lots of other tutorials out there but I prefer the timber of this guys voice over the other ones I’ve watched (and he’s from Nova Scotia, hat tip RiNS). We didn’t build boxes or defined perimeters around ours, just laid everything out in fifty foot rows right on the ground and they are currently going gangbusters. For the people who prefer raised beds this is a great way to avoid having to bring in fresh soil every year as the decomposition underneath goes on for years. Great for three sisters planting systems.
We’ve got a woman coming up this afternoon to forage on the farm. She makes her living travelling up and down the coast by the season and finding edibles to sell to high end restaurants and a chef I know put her in touch with us. Can’t wait to show her the fiddle head ferns coming up in the low spots.
Hsf – very cool. It would be nigh on impossible here where I am, though. My raised beds are very high, because you cannot drive a metal peg into the ground. I would have to get a backhoe to dig the trench (if it is not solid rock, in which case a big hydraulic rock breaker would be required) and I would have to bring in soil anyway. So I put about 10 inches of average topsoil in bottom of my beds (which could have been organic stuff like in the video if I had known to do it) followed by around 20 inches of pretty good topsoil, and then 4 inches of compost worked into the top 10 inches or so. After each planting, we add another couple inches of compost worked into the top 10 inches.
And we are now getting to the point where the soil is really, really good. It just takes time and organic matter added regularly.
Thanks for the video.
That video gave me a few good ideas to use on my garden out back. It’s around 175 yards from the house and hauling water out there is a pain during dry spells. The garden’s fairly large at 75’ x 30’, but most of the work could be done by tractor. Logs in the ground would help retain moisture and simultaneously fertilize the ground. I like that idea. The project will have to wait till fall though. It’s planting time and that particular garden grows field corn, cushaw, beans, sorghum, and amaranth.
Now, if I could just figure out what to do with those blasted raccoons out there. Hmmmm . . .
HSF, thanks for the video… Chip
HSF
That was a great clip. I am glad I watched it as I was planning on getting started on one this year. I was planning on getting lumber to make it pretty but like the guy in video says the plants don’t care. Like him there is plenty of free wood around here to work with anyways. Most importantly the whole thing is going to rot anyways. So there really isn’t any point in spending money on lumber. I will have to show my wife this video. It will be near house so it will need to be somewhat presentable but I think the function for something like this is much more important than fit and form.
Cheers Man and Thanks!
RiNS
Great post HSF and great thread generated because of it. Lot’s of great ideas inspiring me to get after it… Chip
This is the direction I have chosen to go. As for raised beds, I cut the sidewalls out of old tires, line them up and fill them with sandy loam. Add compost whenever. Stuff grows like crazy!
Have 2 rows of 30 tires and room for 8 more rows; 300 total. Small tractor paths in between them all. It is amazing how much produce one can produce.
Have 70 or so laying hens and give dozens of eggs away every week. 2 cows making calves…. it’s a beautiful thing!
Cool video HSF, thanks.
Anyone ever try making active aerated compost tea? Works great. Put a bunch of good compost in a paint strainer bag. Tie the bag with string through the cover of a 5 gallon bucket so it will hang inside the bucket. Fill bucket with water and some molasses, then drop a couple of aquarium stones in the bucket, hook up the tubes to the aquarium pump and let run for a couple of days. This really makes all the beneficial bacteria and organisms multiply. Strain into a backpack sprayer and spray the foliage and soil with this. Gives the soil and plants a good pick me up. Easy Peasy.
You can make it more complicated – or not. I’ll add worm castings if there are a bunch around the ground and some fish/kelp concentrate if on hand.
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gardening-techniques/aerated-compost-tea-zebz1307zsie
For much more info on this and soil health I highly recommend the book “Teaming with Microbes” by Lowenfels and Lewis.
Ran across this supporting link on Modern Survival Online:
Here’s Why all Preppers Should Start Homesteading
Ground hog resistant: they seem to hate eggplant and peppers, especially jalapenos….Everything else I had to use 4 ft high poultry fence and chicken wire on the ground. Then cut holes in the chicken wire where you plant your tomatoes, string beans and squash.Then they cannot burrow under the fence. A couple of loops of barbed wire at the base of the poultry fence so those critters cannot climb the 4 ft fence. Yeah you can shoot ’em, but they got all day to get to your veggies and some of us have day jobs away from the homestead!
Buying veggies- around here the mennonites sell 50 lb potato bags for $5-10 bucks, hard to justify growing them but as a learning exercise for a day when they don’t sell to us and we need to grow our own….Anybody have an idea on how much cultivated acreage you really need to feed a family of four?
[img
[/img]
I like this sign.
Our local gun range has been in the rural area outside of town for more decades than I’ve been alive. Recently, some idiot bought a property down the road from it and started complaining about the noise to the municipality. So we were forced to build a sound dampening shooting shack on the rifle range to placate this asshole.
I was born in the wrong era. Stupid people like this would have been run out of town or simply died from their own ineptitude in previous times.
Homesteading and self-reliance is more than just farming too. In fact, farming itself is a multitude of crafts and duties as HSF can attest.
“…A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for the insects…” — Robert A. Heinlein – Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
(Yes I know, another Heinlein quote. He could really turn a phrase though…)
All I can say is that the older I get, the more gratitude I have for my parents who chose to raise me in the country. By the time I was 15 I had already learned the basics of wood frame construction (i.e. building a house), gardening, cooking, putting in firewood, raising livestock and poultry, but most importantly I had learned what actual manual labour was. When applied to worthwhile pursuits, they are few things more dignified than working up a good sweat.
Now I work for the man as a day job, and bust my guts for pleasure on the weekends and “vacation”. I’ve always thought the idea of paying someone to use their indoor gym equipment one of the silliest things imaginable.
Amen, HSF
Counting your blessings come much easier when you’re not always pining for more “stuff” too.
Anyone feel the need to play Neil Armstrong?
Come look see and buy my 2008 Ducati 1098r for fifteen grand. I can’t hook a tiller to it
“I can’t imagine ever living any other way now and I pray that God that when my time comes he allows me to pass on with a shovel or a hammer in my hand, outdoors, doing what I was meant to do.”
That closing bit from HSF brought to mind Johnny Cash singing “John Henry”…he also died with a hammer in his hand. Now I will think of HSF as TBP’s John Henry.
What a great plan. Let’s all go homesteading. Let’s spend all our time picking weeds from the rows while the left conspires to slowly inch its way closer and closer towards taking away your precious homestead. The more you ignore them, the more you let them take. How long will it be before they pass a law that says you cant even grow crops without some bullshit license that costs more than 5 seasons of your crops are even worth? Think they wont do it? Not only will they do it, but they’ll come and frickin blowtorch your land.
I respect the lifestyle choice, but unless you go totally off grid – you’re electing to stop contributing to the positive as well as the negative sides of the civilization you live in.
The very fact of the Internet. Cell phones as well as regular phones and VoIP. Electricity distribution networks. Running, clean water and sewage processing. Garbage pickup. Food distribution. Defense. Regulation. Financial services. Transportation: roads, railroads, air travel as well as the vehicles themselves. The list is endless.
The main feature of the coming collapse will be the breakdown of law and order. Survival will depend on your ability to get out of the way while the natives indiscriminately rape, rob, & murder. Having a garden in your suburban neighborhood will do nothing but provide you with a false sense of security while you await a horrible death.
Law and order are already breaking down read, Dont Make the Black Kids angry or White Girl Bleed alot. Authors utube channel, https://youtu.be/aiJbAHnpVYQ
So survival in the coming collapse will belong to the few who have an immigration to see whats coming. The few with the willingness to prepare an actual survival plan with multiple layers of fall back positions. Most of all, survival in the coming 4th Turning collapse will belong to those few men ruthless enough to kill before being killed.
So if the above doesn’t describe you or your skill set just go back to sleep, enjoy the time you have left.
After collapse plus one day you’ll understand.
“People believe what they need to believe when they need to believe it”
Do you have a guest house available for Admin?
In an every man for himself environment, neither you nor your wife are safe around a guy the size of Sensetti. Sorry to be so crude but in that time, you will need to sleep with one eye open. The population will be swiftly culled, pared down to alpha males and ultra vixens, heh. Sorry, Russ Meyers fan here.
Intellectuals, gourmands, epicureans and assorted snowflakes will taste the blade of justice – just us.