Is it possible to homestead without acres of land and animals? I think you definitely can by incorporating many aspects of modern homesteading into your lifestyle!

There are a lot of people who want to homestead, but don’t live on acres of land out in the country. It doesn’t have to be that way! Modern homesteading is a lifestyle that can be lived wherever you are, wherever you live now. You can incorporate many aspects of the homestead life where you are now. Modern homesteading is all about living in a self sufficient, sustainable, connected to the earth and seasons way. Living in harmony with nature, doing whatever you can to be self sufficient. This can look different for everyone, I have yet to see any two homesteaders doing the exact same things. There are people who have acres of land with cows, goats, meat and laying chickens, etc. Then there are plantbased homesteaders, who either don’t have any animals or they do and they keep them as pets. There is a whole spectrum of homesteading and finding what works for you, where you are now, will create a beneficial ripple effect throughout your life. I want to share some ways you can live a modern homesteading life wherever you are now. Remember that good is better than perfect, especially if it is what stops you from moving forward towards a homestead life. It’s about doing what you can, where you can.

Start Gardening – Growing some of your own food and plant medicine, even if its herbs on a windowsill will add to your self sufficiency, it’s all about each little things adding up to a big end goal. Learning to grow what you love, wherever you can means you have the knowledge and skills to provide some food for yourself and your family. There are many ways to do this. You can create a growing area inside your living space with shelves and lights which can allow you to grow year round. You can plant a kitchen garden in raised beds or containers, you can get a plot in a community garden to grow food and herbs. When you grow your own organic herbs you can make your own plant medicine. I could go on and on about the benefits of herbal medicine and making your own, but that’s a whole other post.

Cook From Scratch – Learning foundational cooking techniques can open a whole world of food preparation for you. With foundational techniques you can easily take any ingredient you have access to and make a delicious meal. Learning to bake bread, preferably gluten free can help add to a meals heartiness. You can up the nutritional value of every meal when you cook it from scratch. You get to choose the ingredients based on what’s growing or in season and create nourishing meals.

Food Preservation – Learning to preserve food, ensure self sufficiency through the cold or dark winters or any other time when fresh food may be scarce. You will be so thankful to open a jar of tomato sauce on a cold winter day for a taste of summer. There are many ways to preserve food: Pressure canning, water bath canning, fermenting, dehydrating, freezing, freeze drying, etc. The method you choose depends on what you want in the end and which method is best for the type of food you are preserving. For example, everyone who grow squash usually gets to a point where there is too many or you find one that got too big and the texture is not great for eating in a meal. You can take extra squash and dehydrate it or shred it and freeze it in one cup cakes for baking (this is especially helpful for giant zucchini you find in the garden as large zucchini is often too mushy), you can blanch chunks of it for winter soups, etc. There is so much you can do with food preservation. You can gather large quantities for food preservation by growing a garden, growing in a community garden, purchasing produce at farmers markets or even going to You Pick farms and taking home enough to preserve. You could even plan with friends or family to share harvests and preserve food together.

Make What You Can – This goes for pretty much anything. Learn to sew, knit, crochet, weld, woodwork, etc. This is a big part of self sufficiency and you don’t have to learn everything all at once. You can learn things as you go based on what interests you or what is needed around your home. Creating or fixing what you can with your own hands can also give you a sense of accomplishment. The more you try on your own the more your skills will grow and the more your skills grow the more self sufficient you’ll be. 

Work With What You Have – Being able to to add any of these things to your lifestyle will depend on your current situation and what you first want to commit to. You don’t have to do everything all at once. Little changes added in where you can will go a long way to more self sufficiency. Putting too much stress on yourself isn’t going to do you any good. Give yourself grace and time. Before you know it, you’ll look around and see that you’re living a modern homesteading lifestyle.

How are you already living a modern homestead lifestyle? Let me know in the comments. ⬇️