Apartment Homesteading

Some of the tulips in my flower gardens.

Apartment, Condo, or Renter Homesteading

I recently have received several emails and I have talked to a few people who were rather upset. It seems that they want to homestead, but they either live in a highrise apartment in a major city, or they live in condo or they rent a free standing house and are not allowed to dig up ground to plant a garden or raise any kind of livestock. It was also truly impossible for them to move from where they currently are living for a number of different reasons.

I explained to them that the beauty of the modern homesteading movement today is that the definition of homesteading is very flexible. That wasn't always the case. Back in the 1970's during the last major homesteading movement in order to be considered a homesteader you had to: live on at least 5-10 acres of land, have some chickens, cows, and a horse. That isn't so today. What I am finding is today 's definition and goals of homesteading is  to become  more self-reliant and self-sufficient no matter where you live or situation in life. In other words, homesteading is a way of life and thinking and not a physical location.

I won't lie to you. Homesteading is a lot of work and it is much easier to achieve the homesteading lifestyle when living in country and on your own property. However, you can achieve a homesteading lifestyle even with living in the city or renting.

No matter where you live, homesteading takes not only hard work, but also determination, learned skill, and a willingness to fail in order to learn. A lazy, slothful, prideful, person will not be able to make it as a homesteader.

In no particular order, some of the ways that a person/family in the city or are a renter, can start homesteading are:

• Start thinking like a homesteader: Homesteaders look at ways that they can do tasks themselves and not rely on others or machines to do their work for them.
• Grow food and herbs in containers: Anything that grows in a traditional garden can be grown in a container. Even sweet corn can be grown in a container. You will need preferably a southern exposure, but a western exposure will work too. If you have a balcony, check with your apartment manager first before placing your containers on there to make sure fire code or your lease will allow for that. And please never place items on an outdoor fire escape. Your life, or someone else's life may depend on it. If you decide to grow your containers indoors. You might want to check out Window Farms  for products for growing food indoors. If you have neither a southern or western exposure, you can still grow food by using a grow light. Also check about rooftop gardening or check with your city to see if you can grow a garden in a vacant lot.
• Learn bread making skills: Nothing tastes or smells better than fresh baked bread.
• Learn how to grind grain to make your own flour: With the grain mills that are available on the market today, you will be amazed on how easy it is to grind your own flour.
• Learn how to preserve food: Learn how to can, dehydrate, or freeze foods and which method of preserving foods is best for you. Usually apartments do not have a lot of storage space so it would be difficult to find space for a large freezer or for glass jars of food. Still, learning how to preserve food in those ways are good. Also, you don't need and expensive dehydrator in order to dehydrate food. You can use your oven or the sun to dehydrate food.
• Learn how to make jelly and jams: If fresh fruit isn't available or in season, you can use regular apple or grape juice that you buy at the store to make jelly. You can also use frozen fruit to make jams.
• Learn how to make your own apple cider vinegar.
• Learn how to make your own pectin.
• Consider going vegetarian: I love meat!! There is nothing better to me than a thick, juicy steak fresh off the grill or a fresh fried egg. However, where I presently live at, we are not allowed to have livestock which includes rabbits or beehives. While this isn't for everyone, our solution to that was to have two days a week that are meatless. It is amazing how much we don't miss meat on those days. Our goal is to become completely self sufficient food wise, so that is one way that we accomplishing that. Like I said, that isn't for everyone.
• Offer to volunteer at a local petting zoo so you can learn animal husbandry for farm animals.
• Learn how to save open pollinated seeds
• Wash your dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher. Washing them by hand saves both money and water...and your dishes end up being cleaner. Also, it takes about about 20 minutes to wash dishes by hand . The dishwasher takes about one hour. So it is quicker too.
• Learn how to sharpen knives using a whet stone
• Learn how to tell time by the position of the sun
• Get rid of the credit cards and get out of debt: Learn how to live on what you actually make and not on what you wished you made. I won't lie. That isn't always easy. Family and friends may not understand. But it is well worth it.
• Learn how to forecast the weather by the type of clouds and other things in nature.
• Learn how to make natural dyes for fabric and yarn from food.
• Make your own paper and ink.
• Learn how to weave baskets. Community Colleges, Libraries, Craft Stores, Park Districts, sometimes have classes on basket weaving. If nothing else, there are some excellent videos on YouTube about how to weave baskets that you can watch.
• Learn how to churn cream into butter.
• Learn how to use a solar oven.
• Learn about aquaponics and consider raising fish for meat.
• Learn about wild eatables in your area: Take a walk around your park and other public places and notice the weeds that are growing. Do research on those weeds to see if they are eatable or poisonous. See also if the weed can be used medicinal use. Please don't pick the weed in the park. An option might be for you to take a picture of it with your cell phone for further reference. Keep a notebook on what plants you found and where they were located for future reference.
• Learn basic first aid and have a first aid kit in your home for minor medical emergencies.
• Learn about herbal medicines: Then learn what works for you and what doesn't. Word of caution...If you are on any kind of medication, please check first with your physician to make sure the herb would be okay to take. Some herbs can cause serious side effects when taken with prescription or over the counter drugs.
• Make your own groceries: Learn how to make things such as baking powder, noodles, crackers, mixes of all kinds, soups, cookies, etc. from scratch.
• Stop using paper products such as paper towels, paper hankies, paper napkins and so on. Make it a habit to use cloth instead. Not only is it better for the environment, it will also save you money.
• Make your own cleaning supplies. You can easily make your own glass cleaner, scouring powder, furniture polish, laundry detergent, fabric softener, with just a few common every day products that you probably have on hand or easily could get from the store.
• Hang clothes on a drying rack instead of using a dryer.
• Learn how and what to upcycle
• Learn how to spin and weave. You don't have to spend a fortune on a spinning wheel to learn how to spin. You can use a drop spindle to learn how to spin. Most homes cannot handle a full size weaving loom, but you can learn the technique by using a table top loom (http://www.ashford.co.nz/newsite/weaving-wheels-looms/102/weaving/katie-table-loom/moredetail.html) [the loom may be compact but the URL isn't and was to long for me to be able to make as link.]  that is compact and folds up when not in use.
• Learn how to knit and crochet.
• Learn to make your own soap and other personal hygiene products
• Decrease your reliance on electricity. Don't get rid of it all, but learn how to hand chop and grate instead of using a food processor, stir by hand instead of using a mixer. Learn how to entertain yourself without electronics. Use kerosene lamps once in a while instead of electric lights.
• Learn to make your own candles and wicks.
• Learn how to repair things yourself instead of hiring others to fix it for you. If you are renting, and the problem is something dealing with your home, the landlord will probably want their people to do the work, but you can watch and learn from them to learn how to (or maybe how not to) repair something. Or even ask if you may help them.
• Learn basic sewing skills
• Learn how to make jerky
• Learn how to make pottery from clay
• Learn how to make cheese.

I hope that gives some of you some ideas on where to start at if you want to homestead but thought it impossible because of where you live at. The important thing with all of this not to become overwhelmed with it all. Just pick one thing and start there. After you have learned that skill move onto something else and learn that...and don't be afraid of not being able to do it perfectly the first time. It is through failing, and not our successes, that we actually learn.

Thank you for reading and visiting my blog. :-)