How to Homestead In an Apartment

Modern homesteading. Something that many of us now dream about. A simple life where we find ourselves returning to life’s basics. If you’re like me, you dream of acres of land, farm animals, and gardens that fill up your pantry.

Unfortunately, the world we live in today does not allow this as something easy to obtain. At this stage in my life, I am young, trying to save as much as I can while working too hard and not getting paid enough. This may sound familiar to some of you. If so I’m here to say your desires can all still come to fruition! I truly believe you and I can both achieve our goals, but in the meantime, we can still enjoy the kind of life were searching for! In this post, I’m going to share how I homestead in my small apartment, and why we can be homesteaders no matter where we are in our life journey!

The most important thing first, reframe what you think a homesteader is!

This is definitely the most important step! If you don’t believe that you’re a “real” homesteader for any reason, you won’t find yourself motivated to keep going! Modern homesteading is absolutely a frame of mind over all the things we eventually want to come with it. If you spend your days trying to learn the skills, and doing what you can, you’re already more of a homesteader than someone who may have the bells and whistles but doesn’t put their passion into it.

Grow Something! Anything!

If you daydream about a land filled with gardens but live in a tiny apartment you can still work on your green thumb! Here are a few options depending on what your specific situation may be!

• Set up pots on your balcony!
  • Vertical planters are the way to grow as much in as little space as possible! Greenstalks are an investment, but in my opinion the best quality you can get! Find them here!
• Set up a garden at a family member’s property, or find a community garden!
  • I’m lucky enough that I have a family member that allowed me to set up some raised beds on an extra piece of property he has! It’s extra work having to drive out as opposed to it being in the backyard, but it’s worth it! For some that may be something, you could consider as well! But if that’s not an option for you, look to see if there are any community gardens near your area! A community garden is exactly what it sounds like! A plot of land for people of an area to use for gardening. With this option, you have to share with others of course, but that could be a great way to make new connections while nurturing your green thumb!
• Grow some things in your windows!
  • Whether you do some of the other options or not, putting a few pots around your windows is a great idea! Many of us already enjoy houseplants, so why not add a few buckets of herbs around? The bonus is that it will make your house smell great as well! You’d be surprised how much use you can get from a tiny herb plant when using it in the kitchen!
• Join a garden club!
  • Even if other things don’t seem to work for you, I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t find a local garden club to join. Many of them work side by side with food pantries and schools to provide some extra food! What a beautiful way to learn gardening while helping others!

Get comfortable in the kitchen!

• Start cooking from scratch!
  • If you are not already, this is probably one of the top skills to start getting comfortable with before adding more to your plate. Homecooked meals are the staple of homesteading. Not saying you can’t ever have take-out again, but you should start finding comfort in the process of making your food and knowing what’s going into it. When homesteading, you’re growing, or locally sourcing food. But that would be kind of silly if you had no idea how to prepare it! Take this period of life now to start learning instead of when you’re buried in produce! Start simple, not using store-bought pasta sauces, baking your own muffins instead of buying a pack from the store. Just keep working on it at your pace!
• Look deeper into where you’re getting your food!
  • If you live in an apartment like me, you most likely don’t have room to keep a cow to milk out in the back. And other than the produce you can grow on a smaller scale ( Which is more than you’d think!) You’ll need to get more somewhere if you’re going to cook from scratch, and feed your family! This is where the decisions come in! The grocery store is definitely not the only option! Farmer’s markets are a great place to start, as there are usually multiple farms selling a variety of things.
    • For meat, I would be looking at local farms and butchers. There are also options of buying a pig while it’s being raised elsewhere, and then you get the meat or buying half a bovine at a time if your wallet and freezer space allows it. Just the more local the better!
    • For milk, there are a few options as well but they can differ depending on the laws of where you live. In some places, you can go to farms and buy raw milk alongside your butter and cheeses. A different option is to look into cow shares. This is essentially paying a farmer a certain price so that you own part of this cow, and in doing so you get a share of the milk from the said cow.
    • Eggs are usually the easiest to source locally as more people have space to care for them! In a lot of places, you can even see eggs for sale by the honor system on the side of the road!
    • Finally, produce! A lot of farmers have programs where you sign up for a weekly box and basically get whatever they have that’s fresh! It’s a wonderful way to support farmers and also to try new things in the kitchen!
• Start learning the skill of preservation!
  • Preserving the food you get is a key component of living this lifestyle. When living closer to nature, we can’t just go buy whatever in the middle of winter. That’s one reason why we preserve our food. Another reason is that none of the harvest goes to waste! That’s why it’s important to start learning now before the big farm so that when you have 100s of tomatoes ready at the same time they don’t get thrown out. Contrary to popular belief, you can preserve the food you didn’t grow! Even if that’s just typical grocery store food! If that’s all you can do, that still so valuable! You’re learning the skill just as well!Click here to learn more about preserving food!
• Try making your own dairy products!
  • Similar to when talking about preserving food, you don’t have to wait to have the cow before you can start learning to make butter, cheese, yogurt, etc! Even if you just buy standard store brand milk or cream. Take some time out of a day to try your hand at making something! You will thank your future self!

Be a sponge for knowledge!

The growing and preparation of food are certainly one of the core elements of homesteading. However, there are many other skills that can go hand in hand with this lifestyle as well! After doing what you can with the information above, keep diving into more! There’s always so much more we can learn and there’s no better time than the present. Turn your waiting room into a classroom and you will live a much happier, fulfilled life! Here’s a hodge-podge list of more things you can do, and skills you can learn while in a small space.

• Composting
  • Composting is a great skill to start learning. It’s better for the environment and it will save you money when you want to start using it in your gardens! Some options for composting small scale are:
    • A compost bin out on your balcony
    • A worm bin somewhere in your apartment that won’t bother you
    • A local garden club/ community gardens compost pile
    • Compost pick-up service
• Sewing
  • Knowing how to sew can save you so much money and waste. Being able to do everything from fixing a hole in a garment to making your own curtains. It is a very valuable skill to have up your sleeve.
• Knitting/ Crocheting/ and Spinning Yarn
  • I put these all together because they all kind of share the same purpose. These are all wonderful hobbies to have but very good skills to know. Especially if you’re interested in owning any fiber animals one day! Knowing how to use the fiber of an animal and turn it into a beautiful product is so fulfilling whether just for family use or for a future business.
  • If these things are or become a passion for you, one apartment-sized fiber animal you can get is angora rabbits! There’s English Angora, Satin Angora, and Giant Angora. They weigh 4-12 pounds full grown and not only make amazing pets but are AMAZING fiber animals! They produce 1-4 pounds of wool per year and it’s super soft! It’s definitely something you should consider!
• Hunting
  • Becoming a licensed hunter, and learning the safety around that can be another great skill for a homesteader! Knowing that you can put good, healthy meat on the table, for sometimes months depending on the game, can really make you feel prepared for any situation!
• Building
  • Does someone you know have a project they could use a hand building? Not only is it a good thing to offer a hand to others, but working on the skill of basic carpentry could be an amazing asset for you down the road! Building barns and fences will be a lot harder the less knowledge you have of doing things like that.
• Foraging
  • Having knowledge of the land around you is a beautiful thing! Learning more about what grows wild locally and learning to use it in your meals, apothecary, etc is something you’ll be grateful for for the rest of your life!

There concludes my list of things you can start doing now as a homesteader starting out in an apartment! I hope that offers encouragement to those who, similarly to me, feel like achieving their dreams is far off in the future. Starting by learning fundamentals in whatever ways you can now will not only make your life already start to feel more fulfilling and whole, but will make your future self have a much easier time as well!

This is by no means a finished list, so let me know any other things you’re working on, on the journey to homestead life!