How To Start Your Homesteading Journey Today.

How To Start Your Homesteading Journey;

You may not be able to purchase a huge property. Perhaps you can't get that flock of chickens or ducks. Maybe you're not on a property that will ever allow you the opportunity to own a milk cow, or beef cattle. So now you can never be a true homesteader. Right?

GOOD NEWS!!! That is WRONG, you CAN start and be a homesteader right where you are.

Homesteading can be so much more than owning chickens, ducks, pigs, or goats. Homesteading first starts with the most important ingredient already present.

Your Frame of Mind.

That's right, before anybody can begin this journey that appears so perfectly aligned with the world right now, we must all decide for ourselves this is the road we would like to travel, first.

What does homesteading even mean?

Homesteading is a lifestyle that is based on being more self-sufficient. It is often associated with growing our own food, supporting others around you and creating a community of people close by with similar thought processes, lifestyles and desires.

Homesteading is providing for yourself as close to home and community as you can. This includes trading goods with neighbors and friends, buying local, supporting small businesses, and re learning skills that have been long forgotten or placed aside because it's so much easier and cheaper to go to the store.
Minimizing the harm to the environment by our everyday living habits. Becoming more Intune with nature, animals, and ourselves.

How do we start? Why do we feel stuck and out of tune with our ability to begin this journey?

Homesteading can begin right inside your own apartment, town home, tiny house, or even a van if that is where you currently live.
Sit down with a small notebook, make a list of all the reasons you want to be a homesteader.
perhaps your list will look something like this.

1) I want to be healthier and eat better food.
2) I want to learn new skills of the old ways such as sewing my own clothes, learning to spin wool and make yarn, knitting or crocheting, raising animals, or growing pumpkins.
3) I want to live as nature focused as possible.
4) I love animals.
5) I dream of owning a farm with cows, sheep or goats etc.

Let's start at the beginning with #1....
I want to be healthier and eat better food.

How can this be accomplished living in an apartment? I urge you to begin seeking out local options and small businesses for food, clothing, medicinal herbs, soaps, shampoos and laundry detergents. Most often that is where you will find your seasonal, homegrown and organic options.

Do not go assuming you'll save a bunch of money, because most likely you'll end up spending a little more. Homegrown and organic options are far more labor intensive and costly for small businesses, local farms and homesteads selling their products. Purchasing handmade  custom  clothing or learning to sew your own may be very labor intensive and perhaps more costly at first but is part of the homesteading lifestyle you are seeking. 

You can bank on the fact that you'll be getting a far healthier product and perhaps most importantly, you'll be getting something that was created or grown and produced by hand from somebody who has put all their good energy and love into the product you're purchasing. When we support other peoples dreams somehow our own dreams seem to start taking form right in front of our eyes.

The energy that surrounds our food and the products we put on, in or around our bodies has a much larger impact in our lives than anybody could ever imagine.

Small, homebased farm businesses do not get to take part in the big discounts and buying in bulk options that the big box stores enjoy. They will be purchasing from resources and places that align with their products and end results they're looking for, they will be the ones weeding their own gardens, not using weed killers and extra chemicals.  They will be paying retail not wholesale and big industrial plants will not be wrapping and packaging your items, that will all be done by hand one at a time.

If buying local isn't an option, do your best to purchase the healthiest items you can find in your local grocery store. Such as, start using fresh herbs you find in the produce section to do your cooking, instead of the dried herbs you find in the baking isles. Have you ever tasted fresh dill in your homemade chicken soup or fresh garlic, basil or oregano in your spaghetti sauces?  Seriously, once you try it, you'll never want to go back.

Start homemaking all your own meals , breads and desserts, instead of purchasing already processed, or frozen meals that are made with tons of preservatives and chemicals.

Home make your mashed potatoes. Bake from scratch. Get your hands into the bowl and mix up your own meatloaf, gravy, pumpkin pie or fresh baked breads and rolls. Even homemade cookies are a fabulous treat when comparing to commercially made cookies.

All of that can be done in whatever home, apartment or area you reside in. All these things listed above are in their own way a small part of homesteading.

So, you live in the city, no access to a garden or property, no porch or even a tiny back yard to set some potted plants in? It's ok, even if you've got nothing more than a floor with a plug for the grow light, you've got this!

Take a deep breath and smile, here are some ideas for you.

Purchase some small pots from the dollar store, a bag of soil from Lowes or Home Depot, a grow light and some seeds. Grow your own fresh herbs, research recipes for culinary and medicinal herb uses. Learn how to grow, harvest, dry, and preserve each herb. Look at you! You're homesteading. You are now an official homesteader.... How do you feel now? You should feel amazing because you have been proactive and you're at the beginning of your dreams.

Best things about growing indoor herb gardens, the smell in your home every time you touch their leaves. It's beyond words to describe the intoxicating aromas. You can do this year-round because you control the indoor environment and they don't need bees to pollinate. No need to wait for summer, just head to the store and look for the above items to begin your very first step on your homesteading path. Start small, one tiny less expensive grow light instead of a whole box of them to create a huge wall of shelves and grow lights. Whatever it takes, you can do it.

Buy a few extra pots. While you're growing several for yourself, grow a few extra and sell the little plants for a reasonable price to your neighbors and friends. Let them know you're starting your new homesteading journey, and you'd love their support. Or, perhaps giving some tiny little seedling plants away as gifts to help inspire or introduce something green and fresh into someone else's life will be an uplifting moment for yourself as the giver, and for the receiver.

If you do have a small porch or balcony, buy larger pots, start with one or two tomato plants, a squash plant that you can train to trail around the railing, or again you can never go wrong growing fresh herbs.

You will find that as your little plants grow, your lifestyle, thoughts and actions begin to align with this new homesteading opportunity that you're creating. Soon you will be meeting new people and seeing new opportunities flirting with you on the outskirts of your life. Grab a hold of them and hang on for dear life. The things you think about create the energy surrounding you, which then brings on the manifestation of your dreams one tiny step at a time. So keep your thoughts focused on those tiny plants you've got growing in the corner. Learn how to give them the best life they can possibly have to grow in. 

Perhaps the next time you move or change living situations; you can rent or purchase a home with a small back yard where you can grow a larger garden right in the ground. Learning to preserve foods for yourself, canning, drying, fermenting, all of this is also part of homesteading and can be done even if living in a city, right inside your own living space, home or dwelling.

In some urban areas it is allowed to have a small number of chickens. Usually the roosters are not welcomed, but hey, if you've got even the smallest of back yards, you'd be surprised how happy 3 or 4 chickens would be to live in a little chicken coop and roam around your gravel, rocks, grass or dirt pecking and scratching to their little hearts content. You'll find yourself being hypnotized, relaxed and rejuvenated as you sit and watch them do what chickens do best, be a chicken. 

Learn about them, keep them clean, happy and healthy. Soon you'll be eating their fresh laid eggs. Once you do, you'll never want to go back to the store bought. They even taste healthier. You'll know exactly where they came from and best of all you'll know that the chickens that gave you the eggs are happy and love their little chicken lives. 

Then perhaps someday you'll have a place large enough to get a few more chickens, maybe even start selling some eggs to your neighbors. Who knows? Only you can dream your dreams.

WARNING...... Don't start any of this with the idea that you'll get rich selling fresh eggs or fresh herbs because chances are you won't, start with the idea and knowledge that what you're growing, raising or producing that are edible foods and herbs will make your life healthier, reduce your foot print in the commercial world of animal production where the cruelty of their lives and sadness of their existence is so prominent, and it is part of the dream you've had of homesteading as a lifestyle. You must be the homesteader first before you can sell or give away anything that promotes your new lifestyle.

Once you start growing even one herb or vegetable plant indoors or purchase your first tiny urban flock of chickens, you'll be hooked. The excitement and realization that BAM here you are being the best homesteader you can possibly be, and you didn't even realize it will flood your world.  This knew knowledge of yourself will fill your soul and bring about big changes internally and externally. It will literally change the direction your life is headed in. 

All it takes is one plant and you're well on your way down the path of homesteading. 

Leave a comment with your own experience and ideas to help others along their dream of a homesteading journey.

Always remember, It's The Little Things making the biggest differences in our lives. 

Wild Daisy Homestead. 

(If you would like to read more about gentle farm and gardening practices please go to my blog and read the post there addressing some of the concerns and ideas surrounding that. https://wilddaisyhomestead.com/blogs/main-blog/what-exactly-does-gentle-farming-practices-mean )