Am I an Urban Homesteader?

Like many people, I think that I am completely normal. Sure, I do some things that are kind of off the beaten track, but overall I’m not that much different from you. Or you. Or you. At the same time, I have a really hard time putting myself into a category. It makes me feel a little pretentious. I’m not a homeschooler; I’m a mom who gives lessons to her kids in the hopes that they will love to learn. I’m not a farmer. I’m not a homesteader. I’m not a gardener; heck, I used to have a very black thumb! I’m not an athlete; I’m just someone who finished an Olympic triathlon. I’m certainly not a photographer; this is just for fun.

But, then I read this post by Alexis Petru on Earth911: Inside the Urban Homesteading Craze.

Some of the things mentioned in the article make me wonder. Am I sort of-kind of an urban homesteader? We grow tomatoes and then we can them. I make a lot of meals comprised mostly of items from our garden. Last week I made a delicious spaghetti sauce out of tomatoes, onions, herbs, eggplant… all from our garden last year and canned or dried.

I have a compost bin. I used to have a worm bin, but my husband said it needed to move outside. So I had him build the three-sectioned compost bin out of repurposed deck scraps my father-in-law had pulled off their front deck.

I have a mix of fruits and vegetables in my yard.

We have two rain barrels and plans to construct several more. These two we made at a workshop at Indian Creek Nature Center (love this place!).

We brew our own beer (which has always come out tasting really horrible) and we like to make our own bread (but don’t always). We’d have chickens and bees except they aren’t allowed in our town.

I think the idea of dying, being cremated, and then helping to grow a tree is slick as snot (don’t judge – my grandpa loved that saying). I don’t think this actually has anything to do with homesteading, but maybe if it was an apple tree…

So, in the end, I have to ask. Am I an urban homesteader?

If not, that’s okay. I can always sit here and listen to this and pretend that I’m a farmer. Maybe I’ll take a step further and go volunteer on a farm for Local Foods Connection. If I can’t be a farmer or an urban homesteader, at least I can make a difference.

About Jen Rothmeyer (Em)

Creative and well-organized, Jen moves through life with a sense of humor and desire to live life to the fullest. She works hard and believes in excellence, but she plays hard and believes in happiness as well. Her ultimate goal is to experience life with kindness, grace, and best of all: fun.

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http://www.educandoenelhogar.blogspot.com Silvia

Hey… all I can say is that you are a wonderfully resourceful and fun person! Man, I want some of that homemade pasta sauce. I’m a minimal urban homesteader, or better, a woman whose husband is so great that he plants and takes care of a few things that she then enjoys eating and cooking with… ha ha ha.
Now I”m very interested on those rain catching blue things, for when it rains… since it has been MONTHS without anything but a couple of literal literal sprinkles.

Jen R. (Emerald)

Stop by and visit. I’ll hook you up with a decent meal.

I absolutely love our rain barrels. Ours overflow all the time, but the ferns that are planted near the drainage hose are LOVING that. I wish I could send you some of my water!

http://shallowthoughtsfromiowa.blogspot.com Maria Stahl

Thanks for the blog visit! Okay now, tell me how you preserve eggplant from the garden. Do you dehydrate it? Can it? Freeze it? I must know! I love eggplant and would love to have it all year long.

Jen R. (Emerald)

We have slices that we froze and we chunked some, blanched them, and packed them in water and canned. I haven’t tried eating it straight, but I like blending eggplant into my spaghetti sauces. It makes them creamier!

http://shallowthoughtsfromiowa.blogspot.com Maria Stahl

Oh and my husband makes GREAT beer – I need to get him moving on a batch here, as he has not made any in months.

Jen R. (Emerald)

Have him tell us what we did wrong… Ours always taste horribly skunky, like cough medicine, and as my husband puts it “like ragged dog piss.”

Sorry if I offended anyone…. But that’s really what we call it. ;P

http://shallowthoughtsfromiowa.blogspot.com Maria Stahl

Maybe you should come visit and have a beer brewing afternoon with us.
Jen R. (Emerald)

I think that you are probably right, Maria. Really my husband does most of the brewing, so he needs to come along… But I’d love to learn how!

http://www.greenbeanchronicles.com Green Bean

I am pea green with envy for your compost bin and your rain barrels! I need to get some of the latter and jimmy up my former.

Jen R. (Emerald)

I LOVE our compost bin and rain barrels! They were both a work in progress. We had an oil drum at first, but we couldn’t get the oil out of it so it had to go. Then we saw the Indian Creek Nature Center workshop and that was our ticket. We’d love to get 3-4 more and then also have a greywater bin from our laundry machine.

http://www.mollymakesdo.wordpress.com Molly

Rain barrels! They’re next on my list. Your homestead sounds alot like what I’m trying to do. Not fully self-sufficient living but doing a little bit more than what’s “normal” today. We’ve got the garden started, some berry bushes to go in the ground, my compost pile started and I’m going to learn to can tomato sauces and fruit jams this year to start out with.

Thank you for your lovely comment on my recent post! I’m very excited to have found another Iowa blogger!

Jen R. (Emerald)

We have six raised beds that we grow the majority of our produce, many raspberries, grapes, blackberries… Well, look at my post about everything I have planted.

We also recycle almost everything, preserve food (straight up veggies and fruits, or spag sauces, or jellies/jams, etc.), conserve water, compost, precycle, have 100% of our electric bill money supporting renewable energy sources, etc.

We started out with three tomato plants and have just exploded from there!

I’m also very excited to find more Iowa bloggers. I’d love to host a meet up in Iowa City or Des Moines sometime this summer! If you know other Iowa bloggers, please introduce me.

http://www.mollymakesdo.wordpress.com Molly

I just moved back to the state this fall, so my base is small right now, but that sounds great! I’d love to meet more people in the are with interests like these!
Jen R. (Emerald)

I can’t seem to reply to your comment (I’m going to have to look into why three is the farthest it’ll nest)…

Anyway, Judy at My Freezer is Full is near you and she has the same interests. I think she’s absolutely fantastic. http://fullfreezer.blogspot.com/ Tell her I said hi!

http://shallowthoughtsfromiowa.blogspot.com Maria Stahl

Sources for cheap or free rain barrels like she has:

1. The city public works. Ask if they have any you can have, or buy for cheap. These probably won’t have had food products in them so no matter how well you rinse them out, better not plan on human consumption for the water.
2. Recycling places. Ditto.
3. Soda bottling plants. They get the syrups in them that they make soda pop out of. On the plus side, these had food products in them, so the water you get can be used however you want to.
4. Other food processing places. I have heard of people getting these that had vinegar in them, or olives, or olive oil, or corn syrups.
5. eBay or Craigslist.

If you don’t mind them leaking, like you just need the barrels but they don’t have to be pretty, check with a marina. People use these for raft or dock floats, and after they start to leak, they recycle them. Usually it’s one end that got a leak, and if you are going to cut off the end to have an open-ended barrel anyway, just cut off the end that leaks. That’s how I got my potato growing barrels.

Jen R. (Emerald)

I’ve heard that Kalona, Iowa at the cheese-making place might have some barrels for those local to my area. I haven’t actually gone down there or called them, though.