Tag Archives: agriculture

My Move to the Country

Planting a Squash Seedling

When I first started Greenimalist, I began with lifestyle changes that were compatible with life in the modern city. On one hand, I am amazed at how far I have come towards lowering my impact while living in the city. At the same time, however, I have always felt stifled by life in the urban jungle. Without land of my own, I could never take Greenimalist to the next level. In a small apartment, it can be a challenge to make compost, start a vegetable garden, or even test out a solar oven (we didn’t have a sunny patio for the cooker to sit on). Hsinya and I have wanted to raise poultry for several months now, but we have always hesitated to raise them indoors. A lack of space, combined with uncooperative neighbors and landlords, has made it difficult to experiment with Greenimalist living. For this reason, I had been planning to buy land of my own someday. In the meantime, however, I had little recourse but to watch other homesteaders with envy.

All this changed last week when my aunt offered me a chance to start a garden in her vacant country-house. Located in a rural farming town, this unoccupied house has a backyard over half an acre in size — plenty of undeveloped land for experiments in self-sufficiency. I was essentially given free reign to experiment with any project related to homesteading, such as organic gardening, setting up off-grid solar panels, collecting rainwater in barrels, and composting chicken poop. I could hardly contain my excitement.

Hauling Compost to the Garden

I had very few expectations for the house itself. In fact, I was fully expecting to live in a low-tech, off-grid primitive shelter, more resembling a log cabin than a house. In a strange way, the idea of roughing it in the countryside seemed almost enjoyable. To my surprise, the country house was modern and luxurious for a homestead — it had electricity, refrigeration, natural gas, and indoor plumbing. I could, in fact, sign up for broadband Internet at any time — so much for roughing it. After a quick reflection, however, I concluded this was probably better anyhow. I should be concentrating my efforts on gardening for now, not on how to build an off-grid shelter.

The backyard also far exceeded my expectations. There was plenty of fertile land for subsistence farming. Having never been sprayed with pesticides, the soil was teeming with a healthy ecosystem of insects and microbial life. (In fact, some pests from this ecosystem ate my pumpkin seedlings last night.) Trees dotted the backyard, and underneath the leaf litter, there were rich layers of humus perfect for gardening. The land was definitely excellent for gardening.

Without hesitation, I knew I wanted to stay. Sure, there were minor flaws — hordes of virulent mosquitoes, the lingering smell of cow manure — but I couldn’t pass up the offer. That very night, I packed all my minimalist possessions, took the bus to the countryside, picked up the house keys, and became the new tenant.

This is a big step forward for me in my journey towards a more sustainable and natural lifestyle. As always, Greenimalist will still be about simple, green living: shopping less, owning fewer possessions, conserving natural resources, and protecting the environment. Since many of us will continue to live in the city or suburbs, I’ll definitely keep writing tips for green living in the cities. However, I’m excited about the latest saga of my Greenimalist adventure: low-impact self-sufficiency on a country homestead.

Coconut Palms on the Frontyard

Why I Want to Homestead

Homesteading is the most ecologically-sound lifestyle possible. Unlike the modern, consumer lifestyle, homesteading is gentle on the land, good for your health, low on stress, and very cheap. It does require plenty of patience and hard work, but that’s a small price for sustainability, independence, and a healthier way of living.

A More Wholesome Life

Healthy food is difficult to find nowadays. Most supermarkets are filled with junky, processed food. Even the fresh food section is contaminated with the poisonous pesticides used by conventional farms. These toxins harm the earth, the farmer, and your health. Only unprocessed, organic food is truly wholesome. Growing my own food is one way to ensure that I will have plenty of fresh and nutritious food year-round, even in towns that don’t sell organic food.

Ultimately, I want my home to be the nucleus of a sustainable family life. A good homestead provides a retreat from all the unhealthy stressors of modernity. It’s a place to get away from traffic, smog, cigarette smoking, pesticides, and synthetic food. When we have kids, we want them to have a wholesome childhood — free from potato chips and video games.

Financial Independence

By homesteading, I also plan to save money. Not only does growing my own food help save thousands of dollars each year, but a house in the woods represents a huge savings compared to a house in the suburbs or city. Undeveloped rural land is much cheaper than urban land; I can buy acres of land for just a few thousand dollars. If I learn how to build my own house, I can also save on housing construction costs. My goal is to continue working online while ruthlessly cutting expenses to build up savings.

Homegrown Papayas, Set to Ripen In A Few Weeks

My Goals

I don’t expect to be totally self-sufficient this year. Instead, I plan to use this opportunity as more of a learning experience. This country house will be a sandbox for self-sufficiency experiments, including organic farming, permaculture, country living skills, and alternative energy.

Our first goal is to produce all of our own vegetables by the end of this year. I’ll also experiment with growing quickly maturing fruits like melons and strawberries, as well as rice and beans by the end of the year.

Our second goal is related to the first: we will try to process all the food we eat on the homestead. Hsinya will make everything we eat (e.g. soymilk, cheese, bread, and soy sauce) right on the country house. We experimented with some of these ideas before, but having more space allows us to process on a larger scale.

Our Homesteading Principles

Organic Gardening

Obviously, we’re not going to be using toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers on our homestead. Not only do these poisons harm the soil, they also poison the farmers that use them. Organic agriculture, however, means much more than just abstaining from chemicals. Growing food organically is also about cultivating a richer ecosystem for the farm through building fertile soil.

As I homestead, I hope to strengthen the ecosystem in our backyard. Unlike modern farms, which destroy the soil over time with chemicals, I’m hoping to actually increase the amount of topsoil over time. I plan to compost kitchen scraps, mulch the soil, practice companion planting, sow cover crops, plant fruit and fodder trees, and encourage beneficial insects. Farming organically is like buying carbon offsets, only better: instead of paying someone to plant a tree for me, I’ll plant my own apple tree and harvest the literal fruits of my labor. It actually pays financially to make a positive impact on the environment, because it improves the fertility of each year’s harvest.

Self-Sufficiency

I will try to avoid shopping — not even for farming supplies. Whenever possible, I want to live off the land and be totally self-sufficient. My main motivation is to save money: it’s expensive to rent rotary tillers, import compost, and buy lumber. Many aspiring homesteaders fail because they waste too much money buying expensive farm mansions loaded with fancy appliances and equipment. Such a facade is not true self-sufficiency; even worse, it is outrageously expensive.

Appropriate Technology

Whenever possible, I will opt for low-tech, simple tools on my homestead. So far, all my gardening tools require human labor rather than gasoline or electricity. It may be tempting to use high-tech machines for homesteading, but there are often cheaper, more sustainable solutions. When I lived in the city, for example, I discovered that bicycling was more cost-effective than driving. This homestead will give more opportunities to explore appropriate technology for self-sufficient living.

We’ll keep you updated on our homesteading as we learn from our mistakes. I hope these articles help provide a candid look at one ordinary couple’s journey towards self-sufficiency. Until then, our homestead awaits.

Becoming Self Sufficient

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Self-sufficiency is about taking care of your basic needs all by yourself. As with any lifestyle, there’s a broad spectrum of what it means to be self-sufficient. Some people are content to simply grow their own vegetables and cook their meals from scratch. Others generate their own electricity, collect their own rainwater, and live without gasoline. The totally self-sufficient person, however, can survive entirely apart from human civilization. He does everything himself, from building his own shelter to making his own furniture to growing his own wheat.

The path to self-sufficiency can be broken down into five major categories:

Shelter — Shelter can range anywhere from a primitive teepee to a rustic log cabin to a two-story house to a luxury mansion. Most homesteaders buy land to construct their house on. Some will build their own houses with local materials such as wood or clay, whereas others contract the work out to professionals. Ultimately, the luxury and comfort-level of your shelter depends on your expertise, effort, and budget.
Energy — This includes all the energy you’ll need for cooking, heating water, lighting, powering appliances, and heating and cooling. Energy solutions range from high-tech photovoltaic cells and biodiesel-powered electric generators to low-tech solar-cookers and firewood (1).
Food — You can forage, hunt, or grow your own food (2). If you don’t own any land, community gardens are a great way to start your first vegetable garden (3). However, for those who desire total self-sufficiency, there’s no substitute for owning your own property. With your own land, you can grow fruit trees and staple crops like wheat, potatoes, and rice. You could even raise your own livestock for meat and milk (4).
Water — You’ll need to collect your own water for drinking, cooking, hygiene, and possibly irrigation. In moist climates, rain catchment systems can provide enough drinking water for the entire year (5). You can also drill wells to tap into groundwater. You’ll probably need a water purification system and a system to treat sewage. Your set-up can include luxurious indoor plumbing for sinks, showers, and toilets; or, you can build a sustainable composting toilet and collect rainwater with a simple barrel.
Transportation — Self-sufficiency does not imply isolation. You’ll still want to meet with other people, so consider walking, riding a bike, taking public transit, or producing biodiesel for your car (1).

Self-sufficiency is simply a guiding principle, so your own execution will vary depending on what best fits you. Most modern homesteaders aren’t totally self-sufficient: many of them own cars, shop for clothes, and use satellite internet. You can include modern technology if it makes the transition more enjoyable. Homesteaders today often own laptops, refrigerators, and photovoltaic solar panels. Many of them even hold regular jobs while living full-time in the woods.

Why have so many people opted to live the self-sufficient life? Besides enjoying the romantic, pastoral lifestyle, there are plenty of practical benefits for being self-sufficient. Here are just a few:

You’ll pollute less. By being self-sufficient, you’ll learn to compost food scraps, grow your own organic food, build with local materials, generate renewable energy, and avoid shopping. Each step makes a difference towards lowering your environmental impact.
You’ll save lots of money. Imagine if you didn’t have any more expenses: no more car payments, no more auto insurance, no more utility bills, and free food and housing. If you practice extreme self-sufficiency, you could literally live without any money.

You don’t need to do everything yourself, nor do you need to quit your job. If gardening is too much hassle, for example, you could always buy produce from the farmers market. Likewise, it may be prudent to keep your job to help build savings. However, the more self-sufficient you become, the more you’ll save, and the fewer financial obligations you’ll have. Every little bit of self-sufficient frugality can increase your freedom.
You’ll pay off your debts quickly. If you work full-time in addition to homesteading, you’ll have an income with virtually no expenses. Undeveloped land is cheap, so you can often purchase it without a mortgage. After a few short years of hard work, you’ll own a house debt-free. A self-sufficient homestead can provide freedom from the turbulent state of the economy. After all, wouldn’t you rather spend your mornings gathering firewood than worrying about loan payments?
You’ll be more independent. Once you learn self-sufficiency skills, you’ll no longer depend on modern conveniences like restaurants, department stores, and gas stations. You’ll also no longer need the utilities company for water and power. Not only is self-sufficiency convenient, it could save your life during an emergency. During a serious crisis, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or a terrorist attack, you might be left stranded for weeks without basic necessities. By being self-sufficient today, your family will be much better prepared for future emergencies.
You’ll learn to be more resourceful. Many of us today can’t survive without cappuccinos and WiFi internet, let alone life in the rural countryside. But if you’ve ever wanted to explore different parts of the world or buy back-country property, it helps to learn self-sufficiency skills. As a benefit, the cost of living will be far cheaper. You can combine this with a telecommuting job to build savings.
You’ll enjoy the learning experience (hopefully). As you become self-sufficient, you’ll acquire practical skills that teach you about the environment and sustainable development. Up until the last century, these primitive skills were mostly common knowledge; we’re merely re-learning them today. This knowledge can help us better understand both historical cultures and the world around us.

Self-sufficiency is a fusion of many related ideas. It’s half low-cost lifestyle and part do-it-yourself ingenuity, mixed in with sustainable development and a touch of emergency preparedness. Really, it can be a lot of fun.

There are plenty of books available on self-sufficient living online, with much of it totally free. Not surprisingly, self-sufficient living hasn’t changed much in the last two hundred years. As a result, there are many useful books that have fallen into the public domain. There are also many e-books that have been donated by governments and NGOs to help the developing world. Today, we literally have thousands of books at our very fingertips.

Here are some books that have made it into my summer reading list:

Paid:

Free:

Farmers’ Handbook on Permaculture
Dry Farming
Solar Cooker handbook (more Solar Cooker plans are also available)

Learn to make your own biodiesel and build your own solar cooker. Biodiesel is only green if you grow your own crops using no outside energy inputs. Biodiesel produced from biomass raised in conventional farms might be worse than gasoline.
The US Army Survival Handbook teaches you how to hunt and forage wild foods. Just make sure to follow your community’s local laws!
Search for a community garden near you!
The Backyard Homestead provides a gentle introduction for newcomers. You’ll learn to grow and cooking your own food.
Catching rainwater is quite simple, really.
Photo credits: anoldent, CC BY-SA. Hardworkinghippy, CC BY-SA.

Our Future Water Crises

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In the past few years, we’ve made great strides in energy-efficiency. With climate change entering the mainstream, people are starting to drive less, carpool more, and take out their old bicycles. It has helped us to save money, spur our economy, protect our forests, and reduce our dependence on oil.

Despite our progress in energy-efficiency, this is no time to rest on our laurels. It’s actually a cause for great concern. Subtly but surely, sustainable living is being reduced to nothing more than the single issue of reducing carbon emissions. Our society talks about carbon dioxide as if greenhouse gas management is all that there is to caring for the earth. Environmental protection, however, means so much more than not burning gasoline.

One vital issue that has been sorely neglected is water conservation. Very few people realize that water, much like gasoline, is a scarce resource that’s being depleted at unprecedented rates. In fact, water production may someday peak, just as oil will. As of today, the world has managed to increase water production to temporarily meet rising demands. In the future, however, water supply may hit an apex and then slowly decline. The world has already seen how declining oil reserves can hurt economies and increase political instability. But the situation will be far worse with water, since without this essential resource, drought and famine can devastate entire civilizations.

The situation already looks dire. In America, about one quarter of all irrigated land relies on the Ogalla aquifer. The precious groundwater from this aquifer is vital to agriculture in the Midwest: we use it to raise livestock and grow wheat, corn, and soybeans. In the last two decades, groundwater levels have declined at alarming rates, with the water table declining by over 30 feet in some areas. New wells must be drilled ever deeper to extract groundwater that is quickly running out.

Water shortage is a looming crisis for the rest of the world, too. Even though India is not a dry country, it struggles to supply enough water for drinking and agriculture for its population of over one billion. In more arid regions, prolonged drought can force communities to ration water. In the last few years, Australia has been forced to undergo strict water rationing to avoid permanently damaging the Murray-Darling basin. Farms in this region have been forced to shut down, and local communities have even been forced to limit showering in efforts to conserve water.

Global water crises are only getting worse. Consumer culture is putting an ever greater strain on the earth’s limited supply by increasing unnecessary industrial use of water. Global warming also threatens to change rainfall patterns, which will make the water situation more unstable. If climate change occurs, moist areas are likely to experience heavier rainfall, which will lead to flash floods. Dry areas, however, are prone to becoming even drier, which may lead to deserts.

As water supplies continue to shrink, less water will be available for agriculture. This food scarcity will result in a prolonged spike in food prices. This could be catastrophic for the poor, who spend much of their income on food alone. Climate change, combined with underground water depletion, could devastate our agriculture and harm our economy. Unfortunately, water shortage is an urgent environmental crisis that the public is failing to grasp.

To appreciate the importance of water, it helps to understand the water cycle. It all begins when the sun heats saltwater from the ocean. As water evaporates, it forms water vapor which can condense to form clouds. If these clouds move over land, water droplets can precipitate as rain, which can fall on vegetation or the bare ground. Rain that hits vegetation provides the water for photosynthesis, a biological reaction that helps plants grow. Water that hits bare ground can run-off the surface to pool in larger bodies of water, which helps forms streams and rivers.

Much of the water that falls on the ground surface will evaporate once again to reform water vapor. However, some of the rain water can also infiltrate into the soil, where it can collect as groundwater. In the diagram, the water table is the surface at which all sediment beneath it is completely filled with water. The height of the water table can increase or decrease, depending on factors like the rate of rainfall. Groundwater doesn’t always stay underground permanently. It can naturally resurface at lower elevations to form springs on the surface, or it can be extracted by man-made wells.

All of these processes — evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and infiltration — are occurring constantly to form the water cycle.

Although the earth has plenty of water, most of it is not fit to drink (the water is not potable). Most of the earth’s water is saltwater, which cannot be used unless it is desalinated by expensive, energy-intensive processes. Less than 3% of the earth’s remaining water is freshwater, but unfortunately, even these sources are often undrinkable. Most freshwater is frozen in glaciers; of the remaining freshwater, much of it has been tainted by pollution. In the past, rivers were often contaminated with biological pollution including human feces, which transmitted disease such as typhoid and cholera. Today, however, modern pollutants involve chemicals like mercury, lead, and pesticides. Pollution can make it difficult, if not impossible, to safely purify water for drinking.

There are many methods to collect water. One method is to catch rain as it falls. Using rain catchment systems (1), it’s possible to store rain for drinking during dry seasons. In the same fashion, farmland in moist areas might rely entirely on rain instead of using irrigation to grow their crops.

Besides rainfall, we also turn to rivers and springs for water. Unfortunately, a civilization’s demand for water usually exceeds what’s available on the surface. That’s because people are generally terrible at conservation. Besides satisfying our basic needs for food, drink, and hygiene, we like to indulge in water-intensive luxuries. Modern man enjoys living in deserts, wasting food, watering lawns, taking long baths, and owning private swimming pools. Given our insatiable appetite, surface water just won’t cut it.

To deal with this water shortage, we often build underground wells that tap into the ground water. There is about sixty times more groundwater than there is surface water, so in the short run, this vastly improves our supply. Our wells extract water from underground aquifers, which have collected infiltrated rainwater through the centuries. Because these wells pull from a large reservoir, they can supply far more water than is normally replenished through rainfall.

But cheap water is a mixed blessing. Whenever a scarce resource appears to be virtually unlimited, we tend to waste it with devastating consequences. In only a few years, it’s possible to squander groundwater that took centuries to deposit. Usually this groundwater is not allowed to replenish naturally, which results in shrinking reservoirs each year. This can result in the formation of deserts and massive water shortages in the future.

This environmental catastrophe can lead to human catastrophes like economic collapse and even water wars. What makes these crises so tragic is that they’re mostly preventable. Our planet has plenty of water for all if we chose to build a culture centered around sustainable development.

We must act conserve and we must start now. Time, along with our water supply, is quickly running out.

Here’s a video of a simple, off-grid rainwater barrel that’s worth checking out. Collecting rainwater is a great idea, mostly because it helps the average homeowner to appreciate the scarcity of water.
Photo credit in order: Schilling 2, CC BY-NC-ND. Kbh3rd, CC BY-SA.
United States Geological Survey, public domain.
US Geological Survey, slight modification to make words look clearer.
National Department of Agriculture Rural Inforeach, PDF file.