My Homesteading Journey

Alright so you already know I love to shop while saving money but did you know in my recent years I have ventured into homesteading. I have always gardened to an extent and loved the idea of doing things the way my grandparents did but never actually committed to doing them religiously.

What is a homesteading?

Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency.

So I might not be living off grid, growing 100% of my food or using only rainwater, etc but I am a homesteader and chances are you are too. A few years back when the economy seemed to shift and it was hard to find fresh vegetables and meats in the stores I decided that I needed to secure a way that I could potentially supply food for my family if needed. I already had four chickens so we had an egg source but not a meat source and my garden could really not be called a garden. We currently live on a 0.43 acre lot in the unincorporated part of our town. We still have rules but are less likely to get caught while breaking them in terms of front yard gardens and extra animals.

Gardening.

So the first thing we did was get our garden going again. We live in Southern Florida so we are fortunate to have several growing seasons available to us. I am new to gardening in Florida and really have no idea what we are supposed to grow and when, so my strategy is just to plant everything and see what produces. One day I will journal my progress so that in future years I only plant what is needed at that time. Our first garden was a success we harvested broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts, collard greens, okra and sweet potatoes. Although we produced we did not produce enough to preserve for later. About a month ago we added new seeds in the ground and this time over planted in hopes we have an over abundance come harvest time. After our first season of watering everything by hand we installed a do-it-yourself sprinkler/drip system that was really easy to put in and such a game changer for watering. I will post pictures later but most of the supplies can be found online through Rain bird.

Fruit Trees.

It's said "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is now" - unknown.

We currently have around 20 fruit trees planted. They are young and still fairly small so I plan to dwarf the ones I can to make them work in my small space. Once I decided to plant trees I was on a mission to find trees, I picked up trees that people were throwing away, I watched the local stores for sales and bartered with other homesteaders. My current varieties include; banana, coconut, coffee bean, fig, guava, mango, mandarin, mulberry, orange, papaya and peach. For vines I have a blackberry vine, muscadine grape vine and passion fruit vine. We are about a year and a half into our tree planting journey and thus far we have collected fruit from our papaya trees, guava trees, passion fruit vine and blackberry vines.

Beekeeping:

We are not bee keepers yet but I want to eventually add 1 to 2 bee hives on my property to help pollinate my plants and then future honey harvest. While we don't have bees yet we have started adding in more flowering plants. At first we just planted things that flowered but as I am getting more into the idea of having everything on the property being of edible or medicinal use we have changed those plants over to flowering varieties that serve a purpose. Although we have bee hives set up we have not taken the leap to capture or purchase our starter bees yet. I would like to take a few more classes in local Apiary's just to get more hands on experience.

Here are a few books I recommend. "Keeping Bees in a Horizontal Hive" and "Honey From The Earth"

Chickens.

So we started out with four chickens and received about 3 to 4 eggs a day and that was enough at the time but if you've ever heard of the term "chicken math" let me tell you it is real. We built a bigger coop and started taking in chickens from our community that people were no longer able to keep whether it be hardship, moving or a rooster that they did not want. Most of the animals we take in we are able to re-home but the ones we cannot get added to our flock. We currently have a rooster so if we cannot re-home the roosters they do get processed for the freezer. Prior to this journey neither my husband or myself had ever processed chickens so we watched many many YouTube videos and then learned through trial and error.

Rabbits.

Another source of meat I kept looking at was rabbits and somehow I finally convinced my husband to say yes. Since we had never tried rabbit I purchased a pre-processed rabbit from a local breeder and cooked it up. Per my daughters request we made rabbit and dumplings. I know everyone says things taste just like chicken but my family really thought that it was just chicken and that I was trying to fool them. So we bought rabbits. We ended up purchasing New Zealand and Californian breed rabbits. These are both known to be of good meat variety. We purchased two females from one breeder and a male from another breeder. I recommend doing this to guarantee different blood lines. After looking up the multiple ways to design our rabbitry we decided upon a caged colony style setup. We built 8 x 4 fully wired rabbit tractors this way they could be together but also not be on direct dirt. We are just over a year and a half into this process and with the two moms and one dad we have probably put anywhere from 30-40 grow out in the freezer. My husband processes the rabbits himself and says that in his opinion they are easier to do than the chickens.

Here is a book I recommend to help supplement the feed bill. "Feeding Meat Rabbits for Free"

Goats.

This past October my family and I drove up to Virginia for the 2023 Homesteaders of America Conference where we played with goats, we tried goat cheese and smelled so much goat soap. My kids joked that we needed to raise milk goats so we could start producing and selling the byproducts. Then one of the shows offered at the event was called "Keeping the Family Milk Cow", my daughter insisted that we listen to it as the processes would be relatable to keeping a family milk goat. So we watched and before we left we were looking up goats on our local livestock rehoming pages. We arrived home from our trip on October 15th and had located and purchased two baby Nigerian Dwarf milking goats by October 18th. All I can say about having goats right now is they are so adorable. While we wait for our girls to be old enough to produce we are seeking out other local farmers so we can make the switch to using goat based products.

Fish.

I just recently joked with my husband about us building an above ground fish pond in our yard and he looked at me like I'm crazy. I agree it's a crazy thought and we don't have the room available at the moment to do it. So we must go fishing and even though we don't get to fish much every little bit we do helps to put meat in the freezer. So I encourage you to add fishing to your shopping list!

Rain water.

We have well water where we live so we really only pay for the power usage of the well pump. The idea of rain water for me is that by using rain water I am using less power therefore spending less money on my power bill. I have a 270 gallon IBC tote sitting on my porch collecting rain water from my house roof. This one is used to help water the garden and fill up animal water. In the near future I plan on putting additional Rain barrels near the animals housing that way I can collect rain right where I need the water to be. Again I don't live off grid so this is not totally necessary but to me this is a small accomplishment when trying to lessen my dependence on utilities as well as lesson the time it takes in the mornings to refill everybody's waters.

Myself and my husband both work full time jobs outside of the house and our children are both in high school with part time jobs after school so time is very valuable and if it takes all day to get our chores done then it's not likely something that we are going to be able to continue so we are always looking at ideas to help maximize our efforts while preserving our sanity.

Composting.

So I have two composting areas one that is just the pile of brush and vegetable scraps that I let the chickens turn, the main purpose of this one is creating bugs for the chickens to eat. The second one is a worm bin we created by using an old ice cream freezer that we picked up off the side of the road. We added some drainage holes in the side and some red wiggler composting worms we bought from a local farm. The worm composting bin sits in my garden where it gets filled with garden scraps and manure from the rabbits. I like the idea of a worm compost because I can produce my own rich soil for the garden and maybe in the future sell worms for composting or fishing.

Preserving foods.

There are so many ways to preserve your foods. The most common and the one that I do a lot of is freezing. It is by far the easiest way, I freeze meats, vegetables, milk, butter, cheese, bread and any leftovers I think I can use again.

Dehydration is another method I use but I don't do it as often as I would like. Dehydration gives leftovers or near the end of life foods a whole other use. Some foods that are cooked prior can be dehydrated and used as instant meals for camping or just a night when you don't have time.

Fermenting. I have played a little with fermenting and tried to make sauerkraut and other vegetable ferments but usually forgot to burp the jars and end up making a complete mess of the kitchen. I just ordered the fermenting guide and mason tops in hopes to make this process a lot easier.

Pickling. I love the flavor of pickled vegetables but this is one preserving method I have not done myself and I don't know why.

Water bath canning. This can be time consuming but so much fun. I have made jams, jellies, pickles and pasta sauce from the Ball Canning Back to Basics Book.

Pressure canning. This one is intimidating to me and it really should not be. I've seen it done, I've watched lots of videos and only plan to follow safe and tested recipes. I have the Presto canner, the Ball canning jars and lids and the newest Ball recipe books so the only thing stopping me is myself. And while freezing is the easiest if the power or freezer goes out I risk losing all my product so in the near future I will be putting my fears behind and using canning as a main source of food storage.

I am learning everyday whether it be by books, blogs, YouTube videos or just trial and error. If I am not working on my job, my blog or the homestead I am watching YouTube videos or reading something to learn and stay motivated to keep growing. I think that as long as you have a willingness to learn and you run your homestead humanly then you have a fighting chance for success.

So there you have it, my homesteading journey thus far. While I do dream of a 20+ acre farm where I can be fully self sufficient, live off-grid and produce 100% of my food and income I know that God has put me where I am for a reason so I am going to take full advantage of it.

I would love to hear about your homesteading journey big or small so leave a comment below about yourself or a homesteader that has encouraged you.

Elizabeth Blue