Hello and welcome back to the Gubba podcast! I’m Gubba, a first time homesteader following in the footsteps of my homesteading forbears. In this podcast I discuss prepping, homesteading, and everything in between. Today I want to discuss with you a question that I repeatedly get asked. That question is “How do you start homesteading?” In the past few years, the interest in the homestead lifestyle has boomed. I think that is largely due to the weirdness we all experienced in 2020 and a lot of people woke up and realized the way they were living was not sustainable if crap ever truly hit the fan. I still can’t believe mom and pop shops were closed while places like Walmart remained open. That was truly a crime against humanity, but one positive I guess is that it woke people up to how sensitive the system and food supply chain are and realized they need to change up their lives.

How do you homestead?

I have talked about how to homestead from anywhere but I want to take a more personal approach in this podcast and dive deep into what I did when I wanted to start homesteading in the city. I feel like I learn best when people use themselves as examples because you get to hear what worked and what didn’t work because someone else has already been through a similar situation. Recently I saw a tiktok where a woman posted their luxurious backyard with the text saying “when you are broke and go through hell with your spouse but then one day it is all worth it and are making millions.” I jumped into her comment section and saw someone say “How did you do it?” and she replied and said “Don’t take no for an answer and keep on going.” I thought to myself that was seriously the stupidest reply ever because of how generic and useless it is. Like don’t take no for an answer? Obviously not everything on the internet is real and maybe they were just touring through a house and she videoed the backyard and put that text on and maybe that’s why she didn’t have a real genuine response for how she achieved her success. That would be like me posting about homesteading and someone saying how did you do it? And I say “Just keep on going and itll happen.” So back to my point about learning from when people use themselves as examples, so I thought I would dive into my step-by-step journey of how I started homesteading and how I would up on a chunk of land years later.

So even before 2020 rolled around, I always knew I wanted to own some land eventually because I wanted to have some space and I have loved nature. I dreamt of a wooded lot just for the sake of having a wooded lot. I never really looked into having my own farm animals because I didn’t grow up on a farm and I wasn’t involved in agriculture schooling growing up, so I just didn’t know much about it. Really, I didn’t know anything at all. I was never presented with opportunities growing up to own an animal or participate at a farm and learn about how to grow your own food. Sadly, I was disconnected and was used to getting my food and meat from the store like most of us are. Thinking about all of this, it all stems from a disconnect. Our ancestors were so connected and in tune with the sources of our food. Now, you can go to the store and pick up a package of beef and not know where it even came from. Honestly, that is disturbing to me now and we will get around to food here soon. But this is a bit of my background. I always knew I wanted to have some land, mainly to be away from people and not deal with HOAs, but not for homesteading. I feel like my homesteading journey began in 2020 with the “pandemic.”

I remember following along with the narrative in the beginning and stocking up on food and toilet paper. People thought I was nuts and my friends laughed when I said I bought 5 bags of toilet paper from Costco. They ended up not laughing later when the news changed the narrative to fear and everyone emptied the shelves everywhere and no toilet paper was seen except for the scalpers online. Eventually, I realized if the news or the world is telling me something, it isn’t true and that would be a subject for a whole other podcast but when I did go to the store during that time and walk around the empty shelves and the barren frozen and fridge sections, I realized I needed to kick my butt into gear with food storage.

How do you build a food storage?

I have always been interested in food storage and prepping. Side note: I have a food storage course that teaches you how to build and optimize a food storage in any space, if you are interested, check it out in the show notes! I even kept a little food storage and bag of prepping supplies under my bed when I lived at the university. I had a small food storage at my place during 2020, but would I have been able to survive for a year or multiple years without the store? No. I didn’t like that I had any dependence on the local grocery store that would be emptied every time the TV programming instilled fear into the masses. I thought that was really stupid of me to depend on a system like that when I could do something about it. I began to seriously prep my food storage and I feel like this was the first area of homesteading I began to dive in. Just like a I discussed in another podcast, food storage is an aspect of homesteading and it is what got my feet in the water. I began to read about different methods of food preservation. If you are curious about those, I have other podcasts discussing them and their pros and cons. I bought another freezer for my garage so I had extra room to store food. I purchased a vacuum sealer and began to vacuum seal goods to extend their shelf life. I began to build up my stockpile of canned goods. I purchased buckets of freeze dried goods before I had a freeze dryer and could freeze dry my own foods. Slowly, my knowledge began to accumulate on food storage and I realized another layer I was missing was having my own garden. By having my own garden, I would be able to bring my own homegrown food into my food storage.

How do you garden?

Gardening is essential and everyone should have a garden. How will you survive when (not if) WHEN another weird world-wide garbage scam happens and food is cut off? There is a wonderful quote that says He who controls the food, controls the people. Do you want to be controlled? I don’t. We see now how powerful food is because the owner of Microsoft, Bill Gates, now has his own plant-based pesticide that is even being sprayed on organic fruits and vegetables. Why? Well, nefarious agendas. He is also buying up all of the farmland and is advocating for mRNA vaccinating livestock. Why? So as I talk about these things that got me into homesteading and what you can do, I hope you can see from my example that it is a much larger picture and I took many things into account that led me to where I am. All of the weirdness with food control and the sensitivity of the food supply led me to wanting to grow my own garden and collect seeds so I can ensure food for myself in the future. Do you want to be subject to whatever goop Bill is creating and putting in the stores? I don’t, and that is why I began to get into gardening. In 2020, I built raised garden beds and cultivated tomato plants, a variety of herbs, and some fruit. Now, I have a garden that is growing berries, garlic, peas, greens, and more. Gardening is an easy way to start homesteading from wherever you are because of how many options there are for gardening. You can get vertical growers that utilize top-down space and you can get grow-bags that can fit on your porch and grow a few tomato plants. You can see what your city offers for community gardens and get a plot. There are options and this is a great way to get homesteading.

What are fermented foods? What is kefir?

My journey with gardening stemmed off of 2020 and my journey building a food storage. Gardening can be daunting but once you just start, you will begin to get ideas of how to better utilize your space and what grows well in your area. Through gardening and learning about that, I began to learn about fermenting foods and how this was a method of food preservation used by our ancestors that not only preserved food but also increased the nutrient density of the food that was fermented. Kimchi, Kombucha, and kefir are all examples of fermented foods. I dove into kefir which is fermented milk and began to make fermented milk. My next step after learning more about milk, I learned about the health benefits of raw milk and I discovered out raw milk in my community and began to drink and ferment it. So now, I’m starting to connect with local farmers for things like milk and begin source more of my needs from farmers. I begin to get foods like my meat, produce, jellies, and eggs from local farmers. All of this started from me wanting to try a food preservation method that our ancestors used and I wanted to utilize in my kitchen. I ended up getting a sourdough starter from someone local, and I still have that same starter years later that is making beautiful breads.

I want to stop right here and point out how homesteading to me partially began as a health journey. I realized the power of my food and the power I give to it when I grow it myself so I began to garden. I realized the power in the ancient medicine of fermented foods so I began to ferment my own. I realized the wisdom in drinking raw milk and began to source it locally. Along with doing all of this, I began to make that connection back to my food that my ancestors had. I now knew where the food was coming from that was on my plate instead of picking it up from the local grocery store and having no idea what went into growing it. Homesteading has been about returning to my true roots for me.

After I began to flourish in these different areas and take down root in a homesteading style of life, I began to look for pieces of land that I could escape the city to. Honestly, land is insanely expensive and the market was nuts when I was looking but I kept my mind and heart open and also prayed for an opportunity. Finding my homestead was a spiritual experience and I relied on the hand of God for opening an opportunity for me. I worked with a realtor, had to view the property via facetime and compete with others but ultimately it ended up being mine. I do believe that doors an opportunities can open, and if things don’t pan out they probably weren’t meant to.

Now I get to homestead like my ancestors did. I have chickens and bees, I have had a cow, I have various other animals coming to join me on the homestead. I have a large garden which I just planted an orchard in this spring and I am learning the ways of the land. Truly though, you can homestead from anywhere.

I appreciate you all for tuning in today. I hope you found this beneficial and inspiring. I truly believe you can homestead from anywhere because I did it! I hope you have a good day and hope to see you next time!

My Journey Homesteading: City to Owning Land

Other Podcast Episodes

Pin
Tweet
Share