At its core, modern homesteading in a resurgence of traditional and basic skills that promote self-sufficiency and reliance through gardening, raising animals, preserving food, and building systems that reduce waste. Unlike traditional homesteading that requires a tract of land that becomes a formal homesteading, modern homesteading is using these skills to create an intentional lifestyle of self reliance. Modern homesteading is less about an end product and more about a mindset and approach to living.
In this article, you can explore ideas around modern homesteading, steps to take to get started on your own homesteading journey and homesteading ideas.
Contents
Learn More About Modern Homesteading
Whether you are a seasoned homesteader or a beginner, taking time to think through your homesteading dreams and goals is well worth the time and effort and can mean greater success and satisfaction. Many of these thoughts are already available in my ebook: The Modern Homestead, but I invite you to follow along here and on my Facebook page for a deeper look into ideas and thoughts on creating your dream homestead. You can also find a wealth of information at the tabs at the top of the blog about gardening, raising animals, and learning new homesteading skills. If you’re looking for experience and examples, check out the Homestead series for first hand accounts from homesteaders.
What is modern homesteading?
At first glance, the words ‘modern homesteading’ seem contradictory. How can something modern involve relearning skills and practicing a way of life from the past? But modern homesteading is precisely what is going on all around us – in our neighborhoods, our apartment buildings, on the outskirts of town, and in the country. Whatever you call it: homesteading, farming, urban farming, backyard farming, hobby farming, micro-farming- there is a new way of life emerging for all types of people. As we step back and live simpler, we are practicing basic homesteading skills through the lens of modern sensitivity.
Two hundred years ago when settlers moved westward and claimed their land for homesteading, they were doing so for drastically different reasons than the ones that drive the modern homesteader. I doubt the early homesteaders were making their decision to farm based on concerns about pesticide use on their foods, or the desire to connect with the earth by becoming involved in the production of their own resources. We are no longer driven to homestead strictly from necessity, but instead by a desire for something different, something better than what exists in our everyday lives.
Not only are the reasons for homesteading different in today’s world, but the possibilities are drastically different as well. We have choices today that simply weren’t possible two hundred years ago. For example: we can grow a tremendous variety of food, we can test our soil, we have access to unprecedented information through books and the internet, and we can get the type of livestock we desire mailed to our home on the day we choose. Today when you choose to become a modern homesteader you are consciously choosing a way of living. It is the choice that makes the modern homesteader different from our ancestors.
My husband and I were always interested in the idea of simple living, but like so many things, the more we read and the more we learned, the more we became invested in the idea of starting our own homestead. Ultimately we chose this way of living for the control it gave us over our food, for bigger picture environmental stewardship, for the connection it gives us to the earth and our family, and simply for the joy and satisfaction of getting our hands dirty. The choice empowered us to enter the process of homesteading with open arms, and this choice makes a drastic difference in our level of enjoyment. We also do not rely on our homestead for survival which makes day to day life much less stressful.
Homesteading Versus Farming
Homesteading and farming are words that are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact are slightly different. The main difference is that farming produces a financial income that can fully or partially support the farmer (although this is not always the case). Farms tend to be larger that homesteads and their products usually leave the farm. Farms sometimes produce just a few products such as corn, milk, or beans.
On the other hand a homestead is more directed towards self-sufficiency for the person or family. While a homesteader may produce income from their efforts, this is rarely enough to pay their expenses. Most modern homesteaders also work an additional job. Modern homesteading is less about the physical farm or property and more about a lifestyle.
Of course these words are subject to interpretation and often used in other ways, but the descriptions above are general accepted. Both homesteading and farming are hard work. If you are just getting starting it does help to define your goals as the approach to farming and homesteading are different and will give you different outcomes.
5 Steps to Modern Homesteading
- Do an audit of your current life. Look carefully at what is important to you and what you want to change. Are there things you are already doing that you simply want more of (like preserving food) or do you need to completely overhaul your lifestyle. It’s helpful to go through everything in your life and run it through the lens of modern homesteading. Consider: your home, your cars, your job, your time, your kitchen, what you eat, your yard, your tools, your financial situation, etc.
- Create a Plan. Once you’ve looked carefully at where you are in your life, create a plan for your homestead. I strongly encourage you to start long term and work backwards. We usually underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years and overestimate what we can accomplish in a month. Where do you see your homestead in 10 year? 5 years? 1 year? What are the logical steps you need to take in the next few years and now to make this happen? See more resources on planning your homestead.
- Start with a few simple changes. Before you even set your plans in motion, I encourage you to start with a few small changes. Often the hardest part about starting something new is simply starting. Make a few small changes: bake your own bread, buy eggs locally, build a chicken coop, sign up for a bee keeping class.
- Create systems to make backyard farming a reality. One of the biggest things that have helped me succeed over the year is creating systems (and habits) that help you homestead over time. It can often be hard at the beginning to invest the time in money into creating these systems, but homesteading is hard work so if you don’t have systems in place you will burn out. An example of a system on your backyard farm is garden watering. Often we go into gardening without a system so that the first year you may end up hand watering and using a sprinkler in the summer. The sprinkler means that the entire garden gets wet promoting weed growth between plants and in the paths and you now spend lots of time weeding This makes it more difficult to manage your garden. Instead, consider putting in a drip irrigation system that only waters your plants and reduces weeds.
- Dive into your homestead and start backyard farming. Once you’ve assessed your situation, set goals, started small and created some systems, it’s time to dig in. Even if you don’t have the land you want, or the animals you want, or the garden space you want, you can begin modern homesteading wherever you are. Don’t wait until everything is perfect, or you will be waiting forever.
What do Others Say About Modern Homesteading?
Modern Homesteading: Finding a balance that works with modern day conveniences and distractions, yet lets us listen to our hearts on the way to accomplish things on our homesteads. – Janet Garman from Timber Creek Farm
Jill Winger from a Prairie Homestead says you can get your homesteading dream:
By embracing where you are at in life at this very moment in time–whether that be an apartment, or a suburb, or a teeny 1/2-acre lot on the outskirts of town–and making THAT your homestead. – See more at: http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2013/11/dear-city-homesteader.html#sthash.BHfL5ImX.dpuf
“By embracing where you are at in life at this very moment in time–whether that be an apartment, or a suburb, or a teeny 1/2-acre lot on the outskirts of town–and making THAT your homestead.”
“I think the modern homesteading movement is largely a coping strategy. We’re told our food supply is the safest in the world, yet food allergies are rampant. We’re told we must lower our carbon footprint but clothes, food, fuel and kitsch from all corners of the globe still flood our markets. We’ve finally understood the “news” is largely propaganda and we want to live in a place where the only lies you hear come at the end of a long day’s toil and are tall tales about long ago days or what really became of the varmint that’s been harassing the stock. In the process, we’ve discovered hard labor and dirty work is immensely rewarding and the food we raise ourselves is better than anything we’ve ever tasted before. Is it sustainable emotionally, financially, and physically? Not a clue.” – Robin Simoni – Apriori Farm
Heidi Hunt from Mother Earth News says: ” It’s about using less energy, eating wholesome local food, involving your family in the life of the community and making wiser choices that will improve the quality of life for your family, your community and the environment around you.”
What are the Possibilities of Modern Homesteading?
As we’ve described, modern homesteading is a lot more than simply buying land and creating a mini-farm. Since starting your homestead can be overwhelming, you can look at the different modern homesteading possibilities below.
Start a Homestead Garden: Gardening is the best way to start homesteading. You can create a full garden that will provide food throughout the year, or simply add some pots to your patio or deck. Growing a vegetable garden, planting fruit trees, and creating an herb garden are all good ways to get started with a modern homestead.
Learn more about Starting a Homestead Garden.
Homesteading Animals: Raising animals is one of the best parts of homesteading, but is also the biggest commitment. There are many animals the benefit your homestead or produce food or another product. The easiest homesteading animals to start with as chickens, but you can also looking into raising, bees, goats, ducks, geese, pigs and more.
Learn more about raising animals on your homestead.
Go Green
A big part of modern homesteading is reducing your footprint. This can mean installing renewable energy, creating a water usage and retention plan or decreasing the amount of yard and fertilizer usage.
Learn more about going Green on your Homestead.
Create a Homestead Kitchen: Much of what happens on a homestead feeds into the homestead kitchen. If you aren’t starting your modern homesteading journey with a lot of land, building up your homestead kitchen is a great way to start. Begin with sourcing local food then learn about homestead cooking methods and food preservation.
Learn Homesteading Skills: Many of the homesteading tasks needed to build a chicken coop or preserve food need homesteading skills. This includes: building, woodworking, animal care, cooking, knitting, sewing and more. Decide what skills interest you the most and build up your skill set over time.
You can see more about learning homesteading skills.
Find a Homestead Community: Modern homesteading is not meant to be done in a vacuum. Learning skills, gathering supplies and getting inspiration means you need a community of people. The homesteading community can be local, through a nearby organization, or an online community.
Join the BRAND NEW Backyard Farming Connection Facebook group.
What to Read Next to Learn More About Modern Homesteading
If you are looking to read more, there is lots of information on the Backyard Farming Connection to help you on your next steps. I encourage you to also look for a community of people to help inspire and teach you more about Backyard Farming. You can follow along with us on our Instagram or Facebook Pages, or join our brand new Facebook Group.
Next you can dive deeper into some of the articles here at the Backyard Farming Connection:
We also found homesteading books to be an important part of our homesteading journey, especially at the beginning. You can find more about our favorite homestead books here, or see some below.