To begin, I’ll consider urban homesteading in an apartment. When getting started as a homesteader, it is important to first have the proper mindset. Before even starting to plant crops or raise animals, one has to realize that homesteading is going to take a lot of time and motivation. If you understand when you are getting into and are ready to get started, the best place to start in an apartment is with window gardens. Window gardens can be as simple as pots on windowsills inside or window boxes outside. These are great for growing herbs and some other vegetables. If your apartment has a porch or balcony, you can use it to put pots of various types of vegetables (like tomatoes and peppers) and to hang plants to maximize the space.
Living in an apartment limits some of the ways that you can grow your own food, but there are many local, sustainable options for buying food. These include shopping at farmers markets and utilizing Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSA). Here in Burlington, VT there are many local options for both farmers markets and CSA’s. Some CSA’s even allow customers to work for their shares instead of paying.
Homesteading involves more than just food production. It also involves a lot of food preparation and preservation. These include canning and preserving fresh fruits and vegetables and making your own food (such as cheese and bread). One easy way for urban homesteaders to start preserving produce is by freezing the excess for later, especially during the winter months.
Beyond all of the food-related aspects of homesteading, there are other aspects to take into account. One example of a non-food based way to become more self-sufficient is to stop using a clothes dryer. If your apartment landlord allows an outdoor clothesline, those are great, but inside drying racks are just as good. Creating your own cleaning products is another good way to limit your dependence on store-bought goods.
All of the previous ideas are great for people living in apartments, but they are all also applicable to suburban living. A suburban setting also allows for some larger-scale homesteading practices. One fairly obvious one is having a garden. Gardens don’t have to be very large, but they are great ways to contribute to your food production. It’s probably best to start with a fairly small garden plot and to expand as you learn more. A great way to get started gardening is to buy edible plants instead of flowers to plant in your flower gardens in the spring. Along with the garden, composting is an important aspect of suburban homesteading. Composting can be done pretty simply in any sort of bin or container and is great for use on your garden.
If you want to move beyond just produce, chickens are a great way to start raising livestock and are often allowed in suburban areas. They provide many useful products including eggs, meat, and fertilizer and are fairly easy to take care of. Bee keeping is another practice that is becoming more common among suburban homesteaders.
These are just a few of the ways to get started homesteading in urban and suburban settings. I’m sure there are many more ways to become more self-sufficient that will become more obvious as you get more involved with homesteading. The most important part about homesteading, wherever you are doing it, is to stay motivated and do things to try to become as self-sufficient as possible.
The two specific articles I looked at on The Prairie Homestead's website were: How to be an (Apartment) Homesteader and How to be a (Suburban or Urban) Homesteader. The site is a good place to get more information on homesteading and to learn about the things that other homesteaders are doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment