Easy Steps to Start Homesteading in a Small Space
By Kristen
Easy Steps to Create a Homesteading Lifestyle in a Small Space
Suburban homesteading is possible and may be a great way to begin homesteading. We often want acres of land to start our homestead or farm, but you do not have to have much land to start this journey. You can start with your small backyard. There are so many aspects to homesteading and creating a homestead lifestyle that working with limited space can allow you to learn new skills and perfect those skills before expanding. This may not be the easiest way to homestead with the many regulations and local laws you must work around, but there are many creative ways to work with your small space or backyard. Below, I share some easy steps to start homesteading in a small space.
We have desired more land for years, often passing up opportunities that didn’t feel right. My husband has also desired to farm since he was a young boy, so we know all too well what it means to sit in the waiting. As we continue to wait for the right property, we’ve been cultivating our backyard homestead on our half-acre property in a neighborhood. Below are ways that you can start a homestead lifestyle in your space. Remember, THIS IS A SLOW AND STEADY PROCESS! Do not break the bank or overwhelm yourself trying to get your homestead off the ground… one step at a time!
Small Steps for Beginner Homesteaders
1. Start in the Kitchen – Simple Recipes
Transitioning from convenience foods to homemade meals doesn’t have to be a drastic change overnight. Start small and find what works best for you and your family. This might involve baking a loaf of homemade bread each week instead of buying it from the grocery store or opting to cook a meal from scratch at home instead of going to your favorite fast-food restaurant. You could also try learning a new simple recipe. The key is to begin in the kitchen! I understand the time constraints, as I once thought there wasn’t enough time for this change in my own life, but starting with just one loaf of bread eventually led to weekly homemade loaves for my family. You can do it too!
2. Grow Your Own Food – Start a Vegetable Garden – Grow Herbs
Embarking on your food-growing journey can be as straightforward as beginning with an herb garden. You can plant herbs in small pots or even window boxes. Medicinal herbs offer a simple entry point into gardening, boasting incredible health benefits and often returning year after year as perennials. There are also numerous easy-to-grow vegetables suitable for containers like grow bags, pots, or even small raised beds. Our initial vegetable endeavor was a tomato plant and basil in a barrel! We have neighbors who have planted fruit trees in their front yard. There are many ways you can choose to grow your food. Choose foods you love to eat, as relishing the fruits of your labor adds immensely to the enjoyment!
3. Raise Livestock
Backyard chickens and their fresh eggs marked the beginning of our livestock journey on the homestead! Following them, we introduced meat rabbits. Bees will be next for us. If you can raise animals on your homestead, here are a few options for small lots: chickens, goats, quail, rabbits, and bees. However, if you’re starting in a city or neighborhood with limited space and lots of restrictions, this might not be feasible. In such cases, purchasing eggs, honey, milk, and meat from a local farmer could be a more practical option.
If you’re contemplating keeping animals, it’s crucial to prioritize several key factors: food, shelter, adequate space, and hygiene. Determine where they’ll be housed and design structures to offer optimal defense against predators. Factor in food expenses and contemplate how they can contribute to your garden or homestead.
A few examples of how your animals can contribute to your homestead… our rabbit’s manure (pellets) are able to be thrown right on top of our garden beds as it is a cold compost (not needing to break down before use). Rabbit manure adds nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and many other minerals and elements to your soil health. We also use egg shells from our chickens to add calcium to our soil and back into our chickens diet for overall health. Our garden is also used to help with feed costs. We grow herbs for our animals along with providing them vegetable scraps.
Herbs for our chickens & rabbits
4. Preserving Food & Water
Preserving the food you grow is a fantastic way to ensure a supply during the winter months or even during difficult times. This also helps to limit what you have to buy at a grocery store. If growing your own isn’t feasible, shopping at a farmer’s market and preserving what you buy is an excellent alternative. Also, consider reading articles or watching videos to learn about techniques and methods if you are not yet able to start purchasing what is required to preserve. This way you can still be ahead of the game rather than not doing and not knowing how to do. Different methods for preserving food include canning, fermenting, dehydrating, freeze-drying, and freezing.
Don’t forget about a rain barrel and water filter! Rain barrels are also a great way to have a water supply for your animals and plants. This can also cut water bill costs. Purchasing a water filter to filter your rainwater through is also a great idea if ever using it for your consumption.
and sometimes you just let your pumpkin vines grow on everything…
5. Support Local Farms
Living on a small homestead may limit your ability to accomplish all your desired tasks on your property. Buying from local farmers encourages you to eat seasonally, enjoying fruits and vegetables when they are most nutritious. When you buy from local farmers, you’re putting money directly back into your community. This supports small businesses and strengthens the local economy. Buying directly from local farmers allows you to know exactly where your food comes from, how it was produced, and helps to build relationship with those that share your values.
6. Compost Pile
The foundation will always be the most important part of anything you build. In gardening, your soil is your foundation. Composting in a small garden is a simple practice for nurturing healthy soil and promoting plant growth. By recycling kitchen scraps/food waste, yard waste, and other organic materials, you can create nutrient-rich compost to enrich your soil. A small compost bin or heap tucked away in a corner of your garden can efficiently transform kitchen scraps like fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells into dark, crumbly compost. We keep a small bucket under our kitchen sink or in the freezer and when it fills up we take it to our larger bin outside to break down. This compost adds vital nutrients to the soil, improves its structure, enhances moisture retention, and encourages beneficial microbial activity. Healthy soil is the foundation of a thriving garden, providing essential support for plant growth, disease resistance, and overall ecosystem balance. By composting, you have a better chance at a successful planting season.
Our compost bucket is under our kitchen sink for daily scraps. I used to love leaving little faces for my husband to open up to.
7. Grow What You Eat – Create a Potager Garden
Growing what you eat brings a unique joy and countless benefits for you and your family. There’s such awe in witnessing the transformation of a tiny seed into a flourishing plant. Growing your food empowers you to take control of what you consume, ensuring freshness, quality, and nutritional value. It fosters a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and independence, reducing reliance on external food sources and promoting sustainability. Moreover, there’s a special joy in sharing the fruits of your labor with loved ones, fostering bonds and creating memories around the dinner table.
8. Try Different Planting Methods for Small Spaces
In small spaces, creative planting methods can maximize yield and efficiency. Vertical gardening utilizes wall space, with plants grown in stacked containers or hanging baskets, ideal for herbs, strawberries, or small vegetables. You can try this on the side of your house or even on a fence. Square-foot gardening divides beds into square-foot sections, optimizing space. This is perfect in a small raised bed! Container gardening is one of my favorite ways of gardening in a small space! This offers versatility, with plants grown in pots, grow bags, or even repurposed containers, suitable for balconies, patios, windowsills, and small backyards. Companion planting isn’t exactly favored among all gardeners. I have heard mixed feelings and thoughts about whether companion planting serves to benefit your plants; however, I enjoy growing certain veggies and herbs together. This method intermingles crops to make the most of limited space, such as planting basil between rows of tomatoes or radishes between carrots. Raised beds provide defined planting areas, optimizing soil quality and drainage while minimizing weed growth, perfect for small yards or urban gardens. These methods offer solutions for growing in limited spaces, whether you’re a city dweller or simply working with a cozy backyard.
I love planting in barrels. I have successfully grown herbs, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, lettuce, and medicinal herbs in barrels.
9. Learn to Forage
Learn about beneficial weeds growing in your yard or around you. You will be surprised how many medicinal plants you have growing all around you, from clover, dandelion, mulberry, wild strawberries, elderberries, and other berries (some being poisonous and some not), to plantain and nettle. Acquire all of the skills and knowledge you can, even if you can’t immediately apply all of the homesteading skills.
we love gathering clover for our rabbits
We often harvest dandelion with our perennial herbs to include in our teas, tinctures, salves, etc.
