Fun Ways to Improve Your Homesteading Skills

Homesteading is a lot of work. It’s a lot of fun too so it’s more than worth the effort. However, at a certain point you may feel a bit overwhelmed. You might not know where to start or how to approach homesteading without making costly mistakes. When you’re dealing with animals and expansive gardens, mistakes can sometimes be devastating. One of the wonderful aspects of homesteading is the community that it creates. Take advantage of that community and leverage it to improve your homesteading skills.

1. Take classes

Check with your community center and recreation facilities. There are likely some basic and intermediate homesteading classes. Local farms and fellow homesteaders may also offer the occasional class. These can be fantastic opportunities to learn more about homesteading, ask questions from experienced homesteaders, and meet more people in your community.

2. Volunteer

Volunteer in a community garden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another option to learn more about homesteading and improve your skills is to volunteer. You may have some community organized gardens and community organized homesteads. Consider reaching out to these organizations to find out if they have volunteer opportunities. It’s a great way to learn and give back at the same time.

3. Attend workshops

Many farms and community homesteads offer homesteading workshops. These workshops are often a few days in length and they can be an excellent opportunity to gain hands on learning as they’re often hosted at a farm. You can choose from basic homesteading workshops to specific workshops on more technical projects like aquaponics or installing a solar panel system.

When it comes to homesteading there is certainly room to learn as you go. However, some projects require a bit more technical knowledge and sometimes it’s just good to gain an education before you start a new project. Learn about homesteading by connecting with your community. Take classes, volunteer, and attend workshops on a wide variety of homesteading topics. Next time we’ll take a look at the three steps every new homesteader must take before they get started.

Why Homesteading Is So Fulfilling

Is homesteading really considered the “simple life?” It’s certainly not an easy lifestyle. Many homesteaders spend long days tending to their garden, feeding and caring for their animals, and then they have to cook meals, prepare and preserve produce, and tend to the other 99 details in a regular day. Easy, no. Simple? Perhaps. But there is one common denominator, one phrase you’ll hear from homesteaders around the world, homesteading is rewarding.

Results from Hard Work

Your mother and father were right. You do get satisfaction from hard work. There really is nothing quite like eating a vegetable that you grew in your garden and tended to with your own two hands. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as wearing a sweater that you made yourself from yarn that you sheared off of your sheep. There are many tasks in life that are just plain tedious or difficult and there are no real tangible results. With homesteading you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor and that is incredibly rewarding - maybe more than anything else you can do in life.

You’re Making a Difference

A home-made chicken coop. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The homesteading lifestyle does make a difference. It impacts the environment in a positive way. It also can change the economic conditions in your neighborhood. This is particularly true for urban homesteaders who build community gardens, chicken coops and more. They band together to create a better lifestyle for themselves and others. Even simply by sharing some of the produce you grow in your garden or sharing the strawberry preserves you made yourself you make a positive difference in the lives of those you share with.

It’s Empowering

We’ve become so dependent on commercial establishments to survive that when you cut the cord and realize that you can be self-reliant, it’s quite empowering. Some homesteaders dive right in. They get off the utility grid and provide their own energy. They begin growing most of the food they need for themselves and they quite literally live off the land. However, even if you don’t go to these homesteading lengths, you’ll find that homesteading makes you feel much more powerful and capable.

Ready to enjoy the positive experience that homesteading provides? Next time we’ll talk about how to get started.

3 Ways to Make Money from Homesteading

Did you know that you can take your homesteading lifestyle and actually build a business or career out of it? It’s true. There are many different ways that you can make money from homesteading. Let’s take a look at three of them. Who knows - you might turn your hobby farm into a full-fledged business!

1. Crafting and Home Goods

Many homesteaders find that they have more than enough materials to begin crafting. For example, if they are raising alpacas they find that they have extra yarn and might begin making clothing for friends and relatives.

They could just as easily begin selling the yarn or making items to order. Herbs can be made into essential oils, lotions, and even soap. For example, lavender plants make wonderful essential oils which can then be added to body products or sold as an oil.

2. Food Preparation and Preservation

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sue had an abundance of Brussels sprouts one year from her garden. She decided to pickle them. Her recipe was so popular that Sue began selling her pickled sprouts online and at local Farmer’s Markets.

Her business expanded and she now pickles and sells many different types of veggies. Other people have had great success with homemade salsas, jams, and sauces all made from the items they’ve grown in their garden.

3. Teaching
As an experienced homesteader, you can make money teaching other people how to homestead. It’s a growing trend and lifestyle choice. Teaching, online or in local workshops or seminars, gives you an opportunity to help others and earn some extra cash at the same time.

Homesteading provides many opportunities to improve your lifestyle. Making money from it is just one extra benefit to consider. And while homesteading is profitable, environmentally sound, and it helps you save money many people homestead just because they like it. Next week we’ll take a look at the reasons why homesteading is rewarding and fulfilling.

The 3 Main Elements of Homesteading - Which Appeals Most to You?

While homesteading encompasses many skills and approaches, there are three common elements that most homesteaders practice. When beginning a homesteading lifestyle, it makes sense to choose one element and make it a priority.

Focus on improving your skills, systems, and practice. Integrate that element into your lifestyle and then expand on it by adding other lifestyle changes and homesteading skills. So what are these three main elements?

Growing strawberries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Gardening – The first and perhaps most readily adopted element of homesteading is gardening. Gardening is something that you can do on a small scale or you can convert your entire back yard into a garden. Small container gardens and raised garden beds are often a good way to go if you’re not sure you’ll have the time to tend to your garden.

You can always add more containers or raised beds as you become more comfortable. The most important thing to remember about homestead gardening is to grow what you eat. If you don’t like broccoli, don’t grow it. If you love strawberries, then that’s a perfect crop to start with. Utilize sustainable gardening practices to maximize your use of space and minimize your impact on the environment.

Preserved food in Mason jars (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2. Food preservation and preparation - The next component of homesteading is a natural progression from gardening. It’s the fine art of food preservation. We’re talking about canning, pickling, and making preserves. For example, let’s say that you love strawberries and your first year of gardening you had good success with your strawberry garden.

Your crop yielded a nice collection of strawberries and you enjoyed a few tasty desserts. This year you might triple your strawberry plants and instead of eating them all right away, or giving them away, you make strawberry preserves. You’ll now be able to enjoy your strawberries all year long. Learning to cook what you grow from scratch is more of an art than a science. Enjoy the process!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. Animal husbandry – The third element of homesteading is animal husbandry, or raising animals. You might raise goats for goat milk and cheese. You could raise chickens for their eggs.

You can also venture into fish farms and aquaponics. This is a bigger step for some and you’ll have to check your local zoning ordinances to make sure it’s okay to raise livestock in your yard.

As you might suspect, when you begin homesteading there can be some significant financial benefits. In the next post next week, we’ll take a look at those benefits and provide some guidelines to help you save more money with homesteading.