Homesteading is the best way to live a self-sufficient life. It also helps you to have food that grown organically without using any pesticides and chemicals. So, what is self-sufficient living?
Self Sufficient Living:
Self-sufficient living is all about producing our own food grown on your own land. It’s just being able to make things that you need to be self-contained and being happy with what you have.
If you’ve decided to live self-reliant life, check out these 10 tips that help you to start your journey in a better way.
Before that have a look at some benefits of living self-sufficient homestead life.
Benefits Of Living Self Sufficient Homestead Life:
Healthy Food:
When you grow something, you know that they are organic, free-range, and pasture-fed without price tag. Storing them using fermentation and canning is a way of becoming self reliant.
Saves You Lots Of Money:
There is no need of buying vegetables or your favorite food from the store, because you could make it from scratch for a fraction and the best thing is that you will know what is in it. It means you can save lots of money which will help you to get relief from the burden of your finances.
Leaving A Legacy:
If you have children it’s important to prepare them to cope with whatever they need to face in their lives. Training your children to provide for themselves is a lesson in independence, self reliance and responsibility.
Self Sufficient Tips To Start Your Self Reliant Life Today:
• Know What You Want:
Start thinking of making a list of things of what you want about self-reliant life like you want to move a bigger plot or have you got what you want now? Just be realistic about your property and its capacity. Never take decisions without giving it a second thought or in a hurry.
• Start A Garden:
Gardening is one of the best ways to have your own food. If you aren’t sure where to start, start growing heritage plants that are higher in nutrients and are better tolerated to grow in different environments. Growing vegetables from the seeds is the best option to get heritage plants and one of the cheapest options as well.
Community gardens are one option, but you need to hook up with someone so that you can loan some land from them. Instead, get creative, grow planter boxes on your balcony and set up a veggie plot amongst your flower garden.
• Get Some Chickens:
Chickens are the gateway drug to homesteading animals. You can simply raise a few of them in the small urban yard or you could raise hundreds on open pasture and make use of their eggs. They are little, easy to care and very productive too.
Get multi-use dual-purpose breeds like light Sussex or Orpingtons which lay 300 eggs per year for first two years. They raise their own young and you can eat the spares at about 6 months of age.
• Grow Some Meat Rabbits:
Rabbits are considered as one of the easiest and most productive animals that you can keep in your backyard especially for meat. However you don’t need much land as they are pets rather than livestock, so have them in your urban homestead.
• Start Canning And Preserving:
Canning is the best way to preserve your vegetables and fruits like tomatoes, apples, cucumber, potatoes and other vegetables. In order to pressure can food, you need a pressure canner. Instead of that, you can also follow some low cost methods of food preservation like dehydrating, pickling, lacto-fermentation, wine making etc.
It’s better to avoid reliable preservation method unless you are running it on renewable energy. You cannot rely on electricity in a storm or other risky events and you risk losing your whole freezer full of food.
• Eat Seasonally:
Self sufficiency means avoiding store bought vegetables or fruits. So, preserving food during growing season will allow you to have some out of season produce during the rest of the year.
Another best way to eat seasonally is to shop at local farmers market. If there are foods that you cannot grow yourself, supporting locals is an excellent way to improve community resilience.
• Cook From Scratch:
Along with preserving your own food, learn how to cook from scratch. It is one of the most important self reliant things you can do even in apartments. Get some good, home-style scratch dinner recipes under your belt cakes.
• Pick Up Some Self Sufficient Hobbies:
Learn some homesteading skills that help you to make money out of it or save lots of money and time. Make great hobbies like hunting, fishing, sewing, camping, hiking, and bushcraft etc.
• Reduce Electric Reliance:
To reduce your electric bills and become more self-sufficient look at some alternate sources of power. Like, install solar power systems in your space or at least some panels to heat your water. Use LED bulbs, turn off your hot water if aren’t using it. Try to get a wood burner or a wood-fired cooker. Have shorter showers, learn to can or dry your fruits, veggies and meat so you don’t need such a big freezer etc.
• Bring Back The Art Of Battering:
Battering is so common these days, swapping something you have for something you want is a great way to built community as well as your money.
Do friendship with your neighbors, so that you can share your tools as well as resources. Support cottage industries by shopping at local markets. Support each other and get involved in community meetings. Use your spare eggs, vegetables to trade for services and goods.
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