How we started our homesteading journey.

A few years ago, during food and product shortages like baby food, toilet paper, and others, our family decided it may be time to start looking into becoming more self-sufficient. We didn't realize how dependent we were on outside sources for EVERYTHING in our lives. Our journey began as a mission to become doomsday preppers, and when we would tell people what we were doing, we would get all the looks. As full-time working parents of 4 children and supporting my aging father living in our home, we knew we would have to take it slow and do what we could at our own pace. However, once you start researching how to begin homesteading, it becomes very empowering quickly. It snowballed fast.

I would watch documentaries, fill my Pinterest with ideas, talk to others who were homesteading, and consume my extra time developing a plan to move forward. We only live on a 1/4-acre piece of property in a relatively suburban area of Hernando County, Florida. A short drive away in the rural Brooksville area, we could visit farms to buy fresh produce, grass-fed beef, and free-range eggs. It made us a little jealous of the farm life around us. The funny thing about jealousy is you can turn it into a motivating force for action in your own life. We did just that.

I started a small garden and reserved it for planting things I knew my family would eat. We focused on herbs, tomatoes, peppers, and some fruit trees like Everbearing Mulberry. We had to lower our consumption or level up our backyard production because my garden wouldn't replace even 10% of how much we eat. I decided to do both. My family may have thought I was crazy sometimes, but they could see all the hard work I put into research and the hours a day I put into maintaining my garden.

Understanding that homesteading is more than just gardening was easy for me to grasp. It was about gardening, lowering consumption, preserving food, upcycling materials, seed saving, composting, canning, unpapering, removing toxic chemicals from our home, and more. I have always jumped in feet first to any project I took on, and this project quickly became a lifestyle change, not just a hobby like projects of my past.

Utilizing the significant resource connection I have in my community, I could source plants, seeds, canning equipment, and tools for free or at a discounted rate. Even though I wasn't growing enough food to use canning for food preservation, I could buy local produce when in season and preserve it either with water bath methods or pressure canning. I made pickles, canned sauces, soups, meats, preserved broth, pickled vegetables, jelly and jams, dried herbs, homemade vinegar and syrups, and preserved many other food items.

Creating a food forest was my next task. Before starting my homesteading journey, I had never heard of a food forest. I researched online and found a book Creating Your Florida Food Forest by David the Good. Quickly, he became my favorite author and YouTube content creator. He had a way of making the complex nature of food forests accessible for anyone to follow. I converted two areas of my backyard into a food forest with over 25 species of edible or complementary plants working together to create the perfect ecosystem.

Lowering consumption for our family includes recycling, reusing items, buying used goods and bartering, unpapering our kitchen, and being more restrictive with products we buy. My mother taught me at a young age how to thrift by going to garage sales, buying or trading items with friends and neighbors, shopping at thrift stores, and making my products. I read an article regarding the waste that paper products produce in our environment and how costly the products are for a family every year. You end up throwing away money. So, I decided to stop purchasing paper napkins and paper towels in my kitchen and going 100% cloth. My shopping trips included going to thrift stores to purchase cloth napkins, used hand towels, and absorbent material. I had a local seamstress make me these cute mushrooms unpaper products. I moved the paper towels out of my kitchen and into the laundry room, so they were less convenient to get to and instead replaced them with a basket of cloth towels and fun retro cloth napkins in my dining room. It wasn't as hard of a transition as I had thought it would be.

My husband was already fascinated with personal protection of all forms, and this part of homesteading intrigued him. He was much better than me in this area, so we divided the tasks based on skill set and interest. He built a personal protection plan for our family and ensured it was secured and safe for a household with children. Creating Everyday Carry Kits allows us to feel prepared at a moment's notice if needed.

Sharing all of these exciting skills with my family and friends led me to start a Facebook Group called Hernando County Homesteading. I intended to bring other homesteaders together to share ideas and motivate each other within our local community. You can learn best from your peers and if they can go through the trails before you have to learn the hard lessons, then why not share that knowledge? Growing plants that are conducive to your climate is essential to new gardeners so they aren't discouraged and give up before they give it a chance. The group grew to over 1900 people in just over eight months. All of the growth is organic and based on interest in some of the topics I have discussed in this blog. We keep it positive, and the other admins monitor the members and content to ensure it is productive. The group had two seed swaps, sharing seeds, plants, and knowledge. We have sponsored three seed exchange boxes in the community to encourage gardening and homesteading practices. Knowing not everyone is on Facebook and after many requests to create opportunities for awareness and education at community events, school classrooms, and private lessons, led me to turn the name Hernando County Homesteading into a non-profit to try and help more people realize their potential to live a healthier and more self-reliant lifestyle with homesteading. Everyone can do something, and we are excited to help them realize their full potential. Please keep checking back for more detailed blogs about homesteading. Share your stories in the comments.