Homestead
Backyard chickens, beekeeping, food preservation, and everything you need to build a more self-sufficient life, no matter where you live.
17 articles
What we mean by “homestead”
You do not need acreage to homestead. You do not need a tractor, a barn, or a flock of livestock. The word, used here, means producing some meaningful share of what your household consumes — vegetables, eggs, honey, jam, soap, bread, broth, lumber, firewood, anything — instead of buying all of it. By that definition, a balcony with a tomato pot and an herb planter is a homestead. So is a quarter-acre suburban lot with six chickens. So is the larger property my family runs in Exeter, Rhode Island. The scale does not change the principle.
The four pillars I build around
Food production. Vegetables in raised beds and an in-ground plot. Berries on the fence line. Dwarf fruit trees against the south wall. Eggs from twelve Rhode Island Reds we have raised since 2016. Honey from two hives most years. The goal is not full self-sufficiency, which is a fantasy for most modern homesteads. The goal is meaningful share: enough tomato sauce that we do not buy any from October through July, enough eggs that we are giving cartons to neighbors, enough garlic that we do not buy a head all year.
Food preservation. The garden produces in pulses and the family eats year-round, so the gap is bridged with water bath canning, dehydrating, fermenting, freezing, and a small root cellar in the basement. We put up hundreds of jars a year. The goal is for last year’s harvest to feed us until this year’s starts coming in.
Animal husbandry. Chickens are the entry point for almost every homesteader for good reason. They are forgiving, they pay you back in eggs, and the kids can do most of the daily care. We added bees a few years in. Some readers add ducks, quail, rabbits, or goats from there. The site has guides on each, written from the angle of “here is what I would tell a friend who was about to do this.”
Self-reliance and craft. Soap-making, beeswax wraps, herbal salves, basic carpentry, rainwater capture, composting, seed saving. The skills that make the rest of the homestead self-perpetuating instead of dependent on a constant stream of buying.
Where to start, by experience level
If you have never grown anything: start with herbs and one tomato. Read raised bed gardening for beginners and pick one bed for this season. If you are already gardening: add backyard chickens or learn water bath canning with the produce you are already growing. If you have animals and a garden going: layer in beekeeping, composting at scale, or seed saving to start closing loops within your own system. The Start Here page lays out longer pathways by experience level.