bringing self-reliance back to urban life
I
’d heard of urban homesteading before, and thought things like, “Hey, it’s pretty
entailed, and where to garden. Where could
cool that those people in Brooklyn raise
the beehives go? What did I need to buy?
chickens!” ...And that was all the more
How would I tend the soil?
brainpower spent on it. And then we got into prepping -- my husband Then we bought a house on an itty bitty lot,
put together a 72 hour bug out bag in case of
on the top of a hill in Des Moines’ south side.
an emergency -- and that fueled my passion
After we moved in, I owned this property
for self-reliance. Since I worked from home
hard. It hit me that this 50 x 100 foot plot,
all winter I knew how much time I have for
this quarter of an acre with zero backyard,
home upkeep. And now it’s my dream to
was MINE. Okay, ours, but I am the House Captain. I’d grown up in the country, and with depression-era grandparents whose huge garden kept them fed all summer long, and with a father who still used his grandfather’s tools. Suddenly I saw how their lifestyles could work for me. Apparently,
I’d
subconsciously
always
wanted to have my own homestead, because as soon as we signed on the house I schemed on where to put chickens, how to make more of what we needed, what a garage workshop
author's 1urban homesteading garden plot