A common misconception when it comes to homesteading is that you need acres and acres of land. This just simply isn’t true. Today, I will be sharing 6 easy ways you can start homesteading without land today.
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6 Easy Ways You Can Start Homesteading Without Land Today
Just over a year ago we really started to dive into this whole homesteading way of life. Honestly, homesteading was put on my heart as a child and I’ve lived in these ways ever since. It wasn’t until a year ago I figured out that this calling was an actual way of life.
Fast forward and we are doing so much more on our itty bitty half acre of land than I ever thought possible. We, and so many others, are proof that you don’t need acres upon acres of land in order to live the homestead way of life.
With that said, I want to share with you six ways that we are homesteading on our half acre of land in a small Ohio town.
Six Ways We Homestead Without Land:
- We grow and expand our garden every year
- Learned how to preserve food i.e. canning, freezing
- We buy food from local farmers
- We learned how to make our own goods i.e. cleaning supplies, lotions, sourdough starter
- We cook from scratch
- Constantly learning how to do things ourselves – self reliance
Growing a Garden
Again, I think there is a huge misconception when it goes to growing a garden. People think that the garden has to be Instagram worthy with arches, trellises, perfect raised beds, and lots of room. In reality the purpose of a garden isn’t to post it, I mean that is a TON of work just to get likes on some pictures.
No, the purpose of a garden in homesteading is to efficiently grow your own food. Homestead is really just a form of self reliance. So each year for the last 8 years we have had some form of a garden. Our first being in a kiddie pool on our patio in our apartment. It was not Instagram worthy and it didn’t produce anything more than a few spinach leaves. But it was our garden.
Point is, if you want to homestead but don’t have land, plant a garden. You don’t need lots of room, just a little open space that gets about six hours of sunlight a day. If you don’t have enough room for a full garden, plant in some pots. Currently I have all my mint and paste tomatoes in pots. As long as they get sun and you keep them watered, they will do just fine.
Learn How Preserve Food
Many people will grow gardens to preserve their food to get them through winter, however, you don’t even need a garden to start preserving food.
I am new to canning I will admit, but it is honestly so easy once you get past the fear of the canner exploding. I have the Presto 23 qt Pressure Canner and I absolutely love it. It was highly recommended for beginners and I would agree. Now here’s the best part: I didn’t have to grow a single thing that I canned.
We were gifted 30 pounds of potatoes and I was able to can and stock our pantry with shelf stable potatoes. There was also a sale on black beans that I was able to can and put away. I even learned how to make homemade refried beans with them. Holy delicious!
Another way to preserve food is to freeze it. We freeze a lot of our garden vegetables for later use. Green beans, zucchini, peas, strawberries, and butternut squash were all in our freezer over winter from last years harvest.
If you want to learn to can this is a great book to have on hand as you learn. Or if you would like to learn how to freeze your harvest, this is a great option to learn from.
Buy from Local Farmers
Meeting local farmers in your area is a great way to learn how to homestead. Not only will you buy food that you know where it came from and how it was made, but you will create relationships with the farmers that will provide the know how to a lot of your questions.
We buy all of our meat from local farmers, whether it is from family or friends, the meat we eat is raised locally and we know exactly where is came from and what it ate.
You can even barter, or trade, goods instead of monetary exchange. When I was in the need for some starts for my garden, I bartered with my dehydrated sourdough starter. This way we both received what we needed at the time and no money was exchanged.
Learn To Make Your Own Products
Being a homesteader means that you make do with what you have or live off the land that you have. For us, I love to take what we have and turn it into something new that we can use. Such as cleaning products!
Orange peels, distilled vinegar, and orange or lemon essential oils make a great cleaning product and you most likely already have them on hand. If you need essential oils, these are my favorite!
I’ve also learned how to make my own sourdough starter so that we don’t have to rely on store bought yeast. I’ve also learned how to make rosemary and orange infused olive oil, chive blossom oil, and my very own bone broth! You definitely don’t need land to learn how to make your own products and I highly recommend that you do!
Learn How To Cook From Scratch
I truly believe that everyone should know how to cook from scratch. There is no need for boxed meals or seasoning packets when you know how to cook from scratch.
When you cook from scratch, there is absolutely no need a big working kitchen or a lot of land, I certainly don’t have either. But you do learn how to not rely on convenience foods and really learn to slow down and enjoy the process in the kitchen.
Learning to cook from scratch and really make it taste yummy is a skill all in it’s own. I think this is an important part of homesteading, but it also looks different for everyone.
Continuously Learning New Skills aka Self Reliance
Finally, the last thing that you should always be doing to start a homestead without land is continuously learning new skills.
I highly recommend watching Youtube to learn all that you can. Some great channels to learn homesteading, with or without land would be:
Of course, I am a little biased as I know what I like and stick to it. These Youtubers have all really helped me learn so stinkin much when it comes to cooking, canning, gardening, learning how to random things around the homestead. I highly recommend watching and learning as much as you can.
It is so important to continue to learn things even if you are a seasoned homesteader. Learn from books, blogs, Youtube, other homesteaders, farmers, friends. Just never stop learning. That way when you do have your land, if that is your end goal, you will have a ton of knowledge stored away for when you need it.
If your plan is to grow and expand, use the space you do have to learn your grow zone and learn everything you can about the plants you want to grow. This way when you do have room, you will already have the know how.
Until next time,
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