Matt and I have wanted a farm since the day we got married. Well Matt more than me. He use to talk about always moving away into the country and having land, and that sounded nice to me but I still wanted to be close to shopping and I loved our little 1909 house. But over the last couple years something has changed how I felt. Matt and I have learned more and more about our food system and what’s really in our food. 
With that being said, we cant just sell our cute little house right now and up and move. Well I guess we could, but we aren’t quite ready for that yet. So we have just started turning our little backyard into a little homestead!

SOO WHAT IS A HOMESTEAD?…

From what I’ve found, a homestead is “a house and surrounding land owned by a family. The homestead often consists of a farmhouse and land devoted to crops or animals.”

Do you need land to have a homestead? Well technically that would be ideal. But lets be honest, not everyone lives on 5-10 acers. We currently live on 1/4 of an acer. Yup, not even ONE FULL ACER. But we’ve made it work and have chickens and a garden FULL of veggies! So, if you have a backyard, you can make it work! 

 

Where to begin?..

I think the most important part should be writing down what you want down. What animals are you wanting. Do you have enough room for goats, chickens, or to add a garden? Look and see what your area requires as far as permits for building a coop. 
We started with a garden. We wrote down what we wanted to grow. Then we just started looking up each veggie and what we needed to get it going. We did tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, and a handful of different herbs. They are all fairly easy to grow. The only way to learn is by doing. You aren’t born with a green thumb.   

The Garden

When we wanted to turn our backyard into a “homestead” we started with the garden. We knew we could learn to grow our own food and it seemed to be the simplest way to start. So we built a pretty garden in the summer of 2021 that we ended up growing out of very quickly once we realized how much we love gardening! And what an amazing feeling it is to grow your own food!

So 2023 we decided lets add some simple raised beds. Matt took cedar picket fence and made some beds! We are now adding corn, more beans, potatoes, strawberries, radishes, lettuce, tons of herbs, flowers, etc. We are adding a lot this year. We also bought canning supplies at the end of summer of 2022 when it was all going on clearance! So we plan on canning what we can! When you start a garden, you also want to make sure you plant it with the right companion plants. I had no idea before gardening that certain plants can’t be grown together. I know not everyone is as handy at Matt (me included lol) but you can also find some inexpensive raised beds on amazon too! 

Also think of the sun. Where the sun rises and where it sets. Where’s the sunniest part of your yard. We made the mistakes of putting the tomatoes on the wrong side of the garden and as it grew and grew it completely blocked the sun from the other side of the garden, which created problems. But that’s how you learn!

The Coop

After the garden we said “Hey, lets turn the kids old playhouse into a chicken coop!”
And since Matt can build just about anything, we went for it! We started building in July, and omgosh it was brutal! SOOO HOT!! I told Matt I never want to do anything with chicken wire again!

When we started building it, we tried to use as much scrap wood as we could! We probably spent around $500-$600 when it was all said and done. 
We looked how much much room chickens needs. How high the roost needs to be. How much room do they need in a nesting box, how big of a run to make. Literally everything! 
From the time we started building, to getting the chicks, we learned as much as we could about having chickens. And honestly, having chickens has been AMAZING!

I highly suggest joining a local chicken group on Facebook for your area! You can either find reasonably priced chicken coops, chicks, or just advices!  I think everyone should own chickens though. Our chickens are so good with our kiddos! And getting eggs everyday is a huge plus!

Other ways we try to limit the grocery store runs and supporting local is by buying our meat from a local grass fed farm. We also get our raw milk from a local dairy and I make bread weekly. (Also if you need a sourdough starter I sell mine here! )
We just try to make simple things you would buy from the store at home. Like butter, bread, salad dressing, brown sugar, etc. There’s so many different things you can make at home! I also have loved getting into herbal remedies and making tinctures! (I’ll get into that in a different post). Any Who, I hope this helps! There’s a ton of simple things you can do at home to create the life you want! <3

-Jess