Urban Homesteading: A Wannabe's Introduction

The first time I ever heard of urban homesteading was in an off-handed sort of manner. It was in the late 1990s and I was a librarian.

The library director asked if I'd be interested in keeping our science fiction reading patrons appeased and passed me a book buyer's guide.

I did this task with a great deal of relish and picked unique titles from unknown-to-me authors that included Jean Hegland's Into the Forest. The New Age Science Fiction genre and post-apocalyptic topic intrigued me.

When the book arrived I took it home first thing and not so much read as devoured the story in a single evening.

To say the least, my life has never been the same.

When I was done with that book I simply could not look at my flower pots of spring-time annuals in the same way. Not after a story of two teenage characters struggling to survive in a devastated America. Where they were forced to plant a garden in order to feed themselves and learned to can their harvest even as they bought the sad remains of food from a near-barren shopping center.

I guess you could say I was scared into gardening, though this wasn't my first introduction as I've many a family member who has invested heavily in their gardens. Yet, I'd never looked at what I assumed was an expensive hobby as a way of life, a manner in which to survive.

Definitely makes you look at garden centers in a whole new light.

After Into the Forest I started to take home mountains of books in the ever-awesome 600 section of the Dewey Decimal system. I poured through volumes on how to transform a postage stamp yard into a burgeoning, mass-producing garden to the complex tending of full-scale farms.

Meanwhile, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with exactly one window and a deck just large enough to turn around on.

Yet, the green-dream was born and I soon came to realize one needn't acre-upon-acre to live the lifestyle. It had a name and it is urban homesteading, where any size property, any type of home structure, even a space as small as a patio, condo deck, or big city apartment rooftop will do. One simply has to have the passion, drive, and commitment to make it possible.

So I pose this invitation to you, as I share my life and the current challenges I face to discover my dream, a chance for all of us to learn how to create an urban homestead in our very own backyards, whether that space is big or small, or even non-existent.

Right here, right now, wherever you may be.

Let's do it!

Let's learn together through such teachers as a four-member family in Pasadena who has managed to turn a tenth of an acre into three tons of garden-produced food each year. They never fail to inspire me.

How about a down-under homesteading blogger who has learned to live well on less?

And many more!

Maybe I'll even be able to throw in my own wit 'n wisdom along the way.

The latter being more wit than any wisdom I would imagine.

*Originally published in the Garden Island Newspaper, January 11, 2011

• The mother of two munchkins, Bethany J. Royer is an independent contractor, wannabe urban homesteader and writer currently studying psychology with the Florida Institute of Technology. She is actively seeking a publisher for her first post-apocalyptic novel while tackling several other writing projects. She blogs prolifically at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and can be reached at themotherofthemunchkins@yahoo.com.