My Main Street Homestead

(Originally written for the Juneau Empire on 4/21/10)

I want to be a farmer. An up with the sun, collect the eggs, milk the cows, harvest the crops, mend the fences farmer. As a Juneau girl, raised and now living on a downtown lot that’s way more house than land – in a climate where fungi and Douglas Fir are more natural crop choices – I don’t know how it happened. But here I am, pitchfork in hand with no hay to pitch.

But they say you’ve got to bloom where you’re planted, and I suppose there’s some truth in that, despite the two-leg, opposable thumb thing humans have going. And I do love where I’ve planted myself in downtown Juneau, it’s just really hard for a budding farmer to bloom on

Main Street

. It takes a lot more brain than leg work, and I’m forever thumbing through books to find solutions to my conundrum. Slowly, but surely, I’m finding them.

For example, I’ve found a peck of other wanna-be-farmers. Google “urban homesteading” and there are blogs, books, and “institutes” dedicated to folks planted in cities, but tilling the soil around them. And, as through history, there are many reasons people want to homestead: independence, simplicity, environmentalism, conservatism, religion. “Opting out” and “taking part” are both typical. My mom says that everyone builds castles in the sky, but only the crazy move in… maybe it’s different if it’s a farmhouse?

My own motivation is a need to become home-focused and deliberate with my days. My great grandmother Mabel Pierce Reed was a Goldrush pioneer. Today she’d be the first to exclaim the virtues of a modern dishwasher, but appalled that I can’t bake my own bread and cover it with homemade blueberry jam. That, instead, I buy bread that’s so pumped up it won’t mold, and I’m unsure where to pick berries.

So, inspired partly by memories of Grandma Reed, I quit my day job. It was a great job and I liked it, but it left me little time to farm with my kids, bake bread, or pick berries. So this summer I’m on my way to becoming a stay-at-homesteader.

And in my preparations I’ve learned that, no matter what brings a person to start urban homesteading, if you have shelter there are two main things that consume you: money and food; how to get them, how to use them well, and how to preserve them for the future.

For money there are some pretty well agreed upon steps to take, all of which have their own library of how-to books, but to get started:

• Eliminate credit card debt. It’s evil. We’re all suckers for it. Never stop trying to get rid of it.
• Carry cash. It’s harder to hand over than a piece of plastic.
• Make “egg and butter” money. Find activities that bring in a little cash. Possibly real eggs and butter, but more likely making scarves or selling books online. Or maybe start writing for the paper.
• Find a cash cow. A working spouse with a job is the best, especially with health insurance. Alternatively, rent out a room or apartment in your house or offer to manage a friend’s apartment as a vacation rental. Come up with a million dollar idea and sell it online. You’re smart, you’ll find something.
• Conserve. All resources, from diesel and hydropower to cotton and wheat, cost money. Only buy what you need, and do the conservation measures you hear about everywhere. They help.
• Save your money. Investments, savings accounts, the mattress... whatever you’re comfortable with. Emergencies are worse when you’re broke.
• Make an alternative commerce system. Freecycle, JuneauParents.com, Craig’s List, Alaska Dames & Gents, Mommy and Me, garage sales… these should be stores in your mall.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle, really.

Food is a bit more complex. There’s an amount of belief required: that kitchen scraps will turn into soil, that seeds will germinate, that you can keep other species alive. Just take it at a comfortable pace. Once again, there are many resources available, start with the Cooperative Extension Service at the University.

• Compost. Start a pile or repurpose a garbage can. Alternate “green” (vegetable-based scraps from kitchen and garden) and “brown” layers (dried leaves or grass, wood chips, sawdust, newspaper) to keep things from getting stinky. Add water if dry, drainage if soggy. Never add meats or strong smelling foods (onions, for example) that might attract bears. Add worms if you want, and presto!
• Farm. I started with 40 square feet of soil in pots. The next year I added my 50 square feet of land that gets sun. I grow salad greens, chard, kale, peas and zucchini… and even put some by for the winter. And I am not a green thumb by any stretch. Next year: chickens.
• Study home economics. For $10 I can make six loaves of bread. That would be about $24at A&P. That’s worth it for me. Balance time and money.
• Harvest from nature. This is where urban homesteading in Juneau gets really good. Blueberries and salmonberries, nettles and twisted stalk, sockeye and deer. And don’t rule out seaweed. I did, for almost 40 years, and was embarrassed to discover it’s darn good.

And finally, in the dark winter months, read. By the light of your farm house oil lamp, of course.

The Integral Urban House, 1979, The Farallones Institute

The Edible City Resource Manual, 1981, Britz

Square Foot Gardening, 1981, Bartholemew

Permaculture, 1990, Mollison

The Urban Homestead, 2008, Coyne and Knudsen

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, 2008, Kellogg and Pettigrew

Food Security for the Faint of Heart, 2008, Wheeler

Back to Basics, 2008, Gehring

Homesteading, 2009, Gehring

And, of course, Mother Earth News.