Urban/suburban Homesteaders?
 

Are there any urban homesteader here? DH and I live on a postage stamp about a mile from downtown Dayton Ohio. I would like to live the homesteading life here and now, with what we have, where DH is waiting until we can get out onto some more land. So far we have a little front yard garden, and a 2 small square foot gardens in the back. We are working on getting rabbits, and I would love chickens, but I don't think we are allowed to have them :(

So anyways, anyone know of a good urban homesteading site? Or are there other urbanites here?

I did it in town, Raised beds, rabbits and 3 chickens. Composted what I could. Took the bagger mower to the streets for more leaves. Canned and froze what I raised and canned from the farmers markets. Actually had more garden in town than I have now. Just the 2 of us now. Been here at the cabin since March, but had this place since '92. I now have 4 goats added that I didn't have in town....James

Yes, indeedy, I did a lot of learning in Akron, Ohio. I had 4 chickens and 2 Indian runner ducks. Not at the same time. I grew using the square foot method. I used the city home as practice for homesteading. No brag just fact, I learned a tremendous amt. I even grew alfalfa in a square, and each year I planted clover or wheat or field corn so I could recognize them and have a small amt of exprience with them. I wish I had done rabbits, then. But never got that done. I learned to knit, sew (by hand-needle and thread), can a little, dry tomatoes, make a little corn meal, and other things I know I am forgetting.

My inspiration was the website Path To Freedom about a urban family growing tons of food in California in a small backyard. I do not have the exact web address, but I bet you can Google it or youtube PathToFreedom and see video of their backyard, amazing. Hope this helps.

Oh! and on my deck I grew all the salad fixings we ate all summer in containers, Great for a small place. Also a small row of rasberries and a grapevine on the fence!!! Made wine and froze lots with very very few plants.

We are homesteading in suburbia right now...growing as much as we can and learning as much as we can. We wont be here forever but we are accomplishing two huge goals here right now 1) learning a ton of basics and 2) proving to ourselves that we can do it. Both these things we go with us to wherever we end up.

I think you found a good suburban homesteading site right here! Some folks may work on different scales but the principles are the same.

The laws on foul in your city are:
So I guess it depends on the lot size wether or not you can have them.

I found part of my inspiration to move toward homesteading after helping my neighbor build some of the fences, tables, etc he needed for his Urban / Beach homestead. I learned a good amount from his trial and errors.

He grew about 80% his food out of "Earthboxes", turned out the nephew of the inventor of the Earthbox lived right down the block from us, so it was cool to go talk with his uncle when we could. I would grow lettuce since I eat so much of it, and found starting small like that was a great way to get me hands dirty, but not take on another big project.

Other thing I liked about growing out of containers like the Earthbox was mine were on wheels, and since I had a big sea-grape tree in my yard, I would have to move the container around the yard to get the most sun in the winter, but could move it out of the hot areas in the summer time. This kept me in Lettuce almost all year 'round.

I didn't have any livestock, but did have a Mama squirrel living in my yard that was turning out a half of dozen babies a year. I would feed her and soon I had more squirrels then you could shake a stick at. LOL Even though I didn't have to take care of them, I learned a lot about needing to feed them every day and how much taking on something, even as small as a squirrel adds up very quickly.

What started out as a fun little morning treat turned into a twice to three times a day feeding and $12 / week in squirrel feed. I hear Rabbits can turn into something like this very quickly too. So I think Urban homesteading is a great way to start.

Good luck!

BTW, here's "Mama" when she was younger and the reason it all started. LOL

http://abroadusa.files.wordpress.com...irrels-019.jpg

I'm on 1/10th of an acre for one person outside Milwaukee, WI. Last year after I moved here I planted my first garden. Over the winter I worked on learning to make more basics in the kitchen, got an Excalibur dehydrator, picked up a pair of angora rabbits, and learned to can. This year I expanded the garden to the whole back yard, tried seed starting, and found some good reference books including one on seed saving. I'm trying to go to hand powered devices now so I picked up most I "need" like the spinning wheel, treadle sewing machine, and coffee grinder cheap on craigslist.

We are Urban Homesteading too. Small lot right in the center of town. Our soil is/has been exposed to lead, so we are square foot gardening in table gardens raised off the ground on upside down 5 gal. buckets. Just finished the chicken coop and starting on the run for it. We are allowed to have up to 12 chickens, no rooster.
No one in the city zoning office will give us the absolute go-ahead on the chickens - they aren't sure whose jurisdiction it falls under. We are operating on the theory that "It is easier to get forgiveness that it is to get permission."
We are hitting the farmer's markets often and canning everything that doesn't run away. Storage for canned stuff is better than freezer (which we don't have). We are canning pinto beans as well as potatoes for almost instant meals. Lots of tomato based stuff right now too. Get and learn to use a pressure canner.

Hi Kriket - We're in a semi-rural, semi-suburban area with a large-ish (~.7 acre) lot a few miles from a large town. We're beginners, too. We are preparing to sell our old place in order to be ready to purchase what will be our homestead.

In the meantime, we are learning the real estate market in the area, keeping up with listings and walking properties (it's a little frustrating, but we learn something every time we do this).

This is our second year of gardening. We will expand again this Fall. We have a real compost pile going this year, a move up from the plastic storage tub last year. Now we think a two-or three-bin system would be best for this location, so we have to search for free pallets - and they fit in the trunk of our car, lol. Have to decide where to locate those bins, keep the neighbors happy...

We have a water bath canner and some jars and will can some this year, mostly what we buy from the local farmers who know what they're doing. Our tomatoes seem to have a disease from the soil... did I mention we're learning?

I'm reading like mad - Rodale's Guide to Composting, John Seymour's stuff, Jackie Clay's canning book, HT, etc. I have a very long list of books recommended by fellow homesteaders - want The Humanure Handbook and some building books next.

Animals will have to wait a while until we sell our old place, but we MAY have found a job working on a hobby farm (we're pet sitters) and that will be our first experience with larger animals. We think we will want goats and chickens, but for now we're totally clueless. I still wonder if I could actually butcher bunnies, despite my dislike for the brazen broccoli-eating one that lives on our back slope. Grrr... And I had such pretty broccoli plants, too :Bawling:. Hey, I KNOW you can practice fence-building in a suburban setting :teehee:.

We have reduced our electricity and water usage and watch them closely. We are spending less and less. We are doing our own household projects and repairs. I feel overwhelmed a lot, but just keep on going, doing what seems like the next logical thing. I'm exhausted, but I haven't had this much fun EVER - seriously.

Do what you can in your current situation. You'll learn so much by trying and if you have children, they can learn, too.

A lady in the next city had quail for eggs, as chickens were not allowed. Those little pickled eggs you buy are not chicken eggs, they are quail eggs.

Many cities have their info on-line. You might check animal control at your city website for laws about which animals are and are not allowed.

This is the most intensive Urban homestead I have ever seen. :)

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/

Wow :shocked: - 6,000 pounds of food on 1/5 acre. They had a thoughtful list of 10 elements for their homestead http://urbanhomestead.org/urban-homestead-10-elements

Thanks Wags, that's what I came up with too. I am also of FandangoTravels's philosophy. We call it "Do it till they tell you to stop" :grin:

I have lived in the country for many many years, and I have the basics down. I cloth diaper and breast feed, make bread (when it's not cheaper to buy ;)) I can(preserve) what I can get in season on sale. I was taught once to card and spin wool, but I am allergic to lanolin. I'll have to trade someone for Alpaca hair! I try to eat what I grow, and grow what I eat. I'm really trying to get DH to buy a compost toilet, help me put in a solar shower etc.

What I am really trying to get him to let me do is expand the garden. If it were up to me, I would pull up the sod on the entire front yard and have rows of garden. DH's objection is that we would like to be able to put the house on the market next summer and no buyer would want a 'hippie house' with a weird toilet and no front yard.

Kriket - you're doing a lot!

I saw some ideas on the Humanure website where you can do a composting toilet - the bucket w/seat - and leave your flush toilets in place. I guess the real problem on your lot would be placement of the compost bins.

We have the same front yard problem here - have to improve the "curb appeal," which means - sigh - a lawn. I'm spending a fair amount of time planting 4 x 4 squares of grass seed to hold the clay in place; that's all I can manage to get in at a time and still baby it so it takes hold. Eventually - if we're here long enough - we'll work in herbs and flowers and other edible plantings around the front and reduce the "lawn" as we go while making things truly nice and useful at the same time. Hey - there's a thread in the Gardening area of HT that shows some great photos of flowering but useful plants that might help your DH see how nice a MINIMAL lawn with lots of great plantings could be :) http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/sho...d.php?t=351013 The pics are from their extensive raised bed garden, but I got a lot of great ideas for front-yard-worthy plantings.

Although we homestead 5 acres, we have followed the journey with the Dervaes Family for several years...it doesn't get any better than this...http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/.

I'm doing the same thing with my front yard. Right now it's just a giant hedge and a row of potatoes lol. I plan on taking the hedge out next year and putting in a decorative edible garden.

Wonder if that would be a good thing to start a thread on? We could showcase different edibles perty enough to be in a front garden like herbs and edible flowers. Cockscomb is one I just came across that'd add real flair.

The Dervaes Family was my inspiration. I am also an urban homesteader. I actually love having a small plot of land. It allows me more freedom. I garden and have no animals. You don't need 10 acres to qualify as a homesteader.

I would definitely look into the decorative versions of edible gardens if you plan to sell. A small lawn surrounded with fruiting bushes and edible ornamentals ought to work. We live on about .7 of an acre in a small town and (with a zoning variance) have 20 some ducks, along with a nice garden and lots of fruiting bushes. I wish I'd planted more fruit/nut trees, though we do have three apple trees. I'd have rabbits, but I'm sure it would be really hard to slaughter them. I know there is more we could do, but this is enough for us now. I do bake, can, etc. too.

It is frustrating but you do learn to adapt. I have a couple severe allergies as well so I have found other ways to homestead around that.

There's a yard here in town (Carnegie, PA) that fascinates me and I slow down to try to take in as much as possible every time I drive past. It is VERY small, yet the owners manage to cram in an incredible array of flora, including fig and peach trees! They "go vertical" as much as possible, using fencing as trellises and staking up their tomatoes, and also grow stuff in pots along the sidewalk. Many flowers as well as fruits, vegetables and berries. I doubt there's a square inch in that yard that isn't being utilized to the fullest! Really inspiring. :)

We are urban dwellers and we raise organic food: quail, chickens, worms and lots of veggies on 3/4 of an acre. We really don't use much of the property for our endeavors and we manage to preserve quite a bit of food for the winter. We can, dehydrate and freeze as much as we can from the garden. We also save seeds from year to year to make ourselves more self-sufficient. There is a lot that can be done in the city and we have a really great farmer's market where we can buy large quantities of veggies that can be preserved. This was really helpful when we were practicing the homesteading arts.

i love the chapter in Gaia's Garden about urban homesteading and how they worked with their neighbors so everyone could have fruit and fresh food..you might want to get a copy and read it..it is such a great idea for urban homesteading.

We just bought our first house in a suburban neighborhood. We have 0.5 acres. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun trying. I put in a garden, I planted before the last frost and everything died. I started over, planted a bunch of seeds, and everything died. I started over again, went to home depot and got a bunch of little veggie plants and they are doing fine. So now I only have the standard stuff - tomatoes, peppers, squash, some herbs, but at least the plants are growing. This past fall, I planted 20 blueberry bushes. Half of them are producing great blueberries but the birds usually get them before we do. I planted strawberry plants, thornless blackberries (which look great! not ripe yet), and arctic kiwi's. I planted 4 asian pear trees in my front yard. They came looking just like sticks, not trees, but I planted them according to the directions during the fall, and now they have leaves on them. I look at them and worry I planted them too close together or too close to the power lines. I can't get the garden to look pretty - they way demonstration gardens look - it looks all ragged around the edges and haphazard. I got 2 buff orpingtons and my husband built a coop, burying the hardware cloth 1 foot down into the ground, to keep the girls safe. Our back neighbor says that a fox likes to come in his yard and look through the fence at our coop. The chickens are awesome - funny and personable and adorable. They should start laying soon. They are also an endless source of entertainment for one of our dogs, who loves laying outside the coop and just watching them.

I have had a grain mill for 4 years (hauled it from apartment to apartment), and I am very comfortable with grinding my own wheat. I grind soft pastry wheat and pre-mix it with baking powder, dried milk etc, to make a super-healthy bisquick, and keep it at the back of the fridge. I make muffins, pancakes, quickbreads, waffles, cookies - everything with this Master Baking Mix. This is a routine now and easy for me to do. I grind higher protein hard wheat for baking bread, but I do not have a routine down for making bread. When I have time, I hand knead, but I don't often have time. I bought the book "artesian bread in 5 mins / day" and made several recipes from there, but I have to say, I really don't like the way the bread comes out - the texture just isn't right. I have been thinking about getting a bosch, but I'm not sure just how much easier that would make the process, and if I'd end up with an easy routine, or an expensive, rarely used appliance.

Our neighbors are fine with what we are doing (as far as I know)! I have given our next door neighbors some strawberries from the garden. When the girls start laying I'll give out eggs. Honestly, the chickens and the gardening are less annoying (I would imagine) than our one greyhound, who has escaped a few times and led everyone on a wild chase around the neighborhood in the rain.

I would love to have a fiber source, but after the chickens, my husband said "No more animals for a while, OK?" I'm a vegetarian, so I'm not tempted to keep any for meat. I don't really want to try to be self sufficient, or a real homestead, but I do want to really get good at gardening, and I do want to have a big beautiful productive garden and a lot of fruit.

Sounds like you might want to check the soil quality in your yard. Also, if you are not doing it already, you might want to try having a raised bed garden. You can also find or make organic compost for the plants.

We are urban homesteaders, or at least try to be! We have .5 acre that backs up to acres of corn fields. We have rabbits, 2 does 1 buck & 15 babies. We also have 5 layers & 7 more that will be in a few months. On our 1/2 acre lot we have 9 maple trees that we tapped last Feb. We ended up with 1 gallon & 1 pint of syrup. We have a compost pile & a worm farm. We have a small row garden & 2 raised beds. I also have a herb garden. We have a rain barrel. We heat with wood. Last year I put up about 200 quarts of veggies. We were also given a cow that my husband, 2 friends and myself stayed up all night and butchered. Last year we planted grapes, blueberries & strawberries. This year we added more grapes & rasberries. We are thinking about a fruit tree, too. I get milk from my friends cow & make our butter. I am sure there is more we do...
Our plan is in 5 years to sell this place and buy a mini-farm. Hopefully 5 acres so we can have a pig & cow.

WOW :goodjob: we have 15 acres and don't do as much as you LOL

Do it every day on a very urban lot which measures 35 feet by 90 feet hence the name of my blog - http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/
We do organic intensive raised bed gardening, vertical & gorilla gardening, foraging, gleaning, and bartering as alternatives to traditional/modern rural homesteading methods.
IMHO chickens are highly over rated. For me in my situation rabbits work better.
Currently on my project list is to replace my outdoor wood stove with a rocket stove for canning & upgrade my existing greenhouse.

~~ pelenaka ~~

Bernice13-impressive! Hey for a fibre source howzabout angora rabbits? You might have to save the combings for a year otwo to get enough fibre for a project, but Ihave had litter box trained house rabbits before-free fertililizer!

I also used to live about a mile or so from downtown Dayton Ohio. It's a nice place to have as a memory. It has been over 25 years since I moved on from there.

You can do a lot in town. It is a good place to get a little experience. Chickens are usually a No,No. I would do it anyway.;) Perhaps some very small breed and is anybody would ask tell them they are parrots.

Square foot gardens and raised beds can be very productive. Little if any outside energy needed, and it just does not get any fresher. You might want to learn how to raise earthworms. It also could be a good project to build a rainwater catchment system. Much of what you do now could be kept portable, so when you move it can move too.

We did suburban homesteading before we moved so we could learn and didn't have to start from scratch once we moved out here. We were on 1/2 an acre, neighbors on three sides, backed to a busy 4 lane road.

We:

- raised, butchered and ate rabbits
- kept 6 "underground" chickens
- had 5 raised bed gardens plus other garden area
- learned how to can/freeze/juice/etc.
- made our own laundry soap
- learned about what was growing and useful in our own backyard, found quite a lot!
- bought from farmer's markets in bulk so we could can/freeze/juice/etc.
- learned how to dehydrate food
- started a compost bin
- learned how to make bread
- and much more.

We took those years to build up our supply of skills and knowledge and tried our hands out on as many of those things as we could. You can do so much, even in the suburbs.

If you are wanting to buy one of those commercial compost toilets, please research it very carefully.. I did a search on HT and the web, and people's experiences don't seem to have been very good. A simple sawdust toilet like Jennifer was saying apparently works much better, we use one here after having researched the others. I don't know how that would work in a suburban setting... our compost pile doesn't smell but we cover it *really* well.

our kitchen compost doesn't smell either, and i don't do anything special, but putting human manure in the yard may smell.

plus we have jack@ss neighbors :( part of the reason i havent taken the chicken leap. but i really want fresh eggs. we have been thinking about putting them in a run arount the back of the garage where it is kinda rough and shrubby. and opposite from the 'bad' neighbors.

sorry 4 typos nak