What Homesteading Lessons You Wish You Knew When You Started Out?

I have not always been a homesteader. The first 46 years of my life I spent living a lifestyle far closer to what is generally considered mainstream — suburban home, food from the supermarket and central heating.

Seven years ago, my wife and I moved from our Amsterdam suburb home all the way to the island of Tenerife (opposite the coast of Africa) and took on the steepest learning curve in our lives.

Our new roles as homesteaders taught us so many new things so intensely that we often felt as if we were on a curve so steep we might fall over backwards.

If I could roll back the clock and give myself a few pieces of advice, I would be sure to include the following major tips:

1. Homesteading is not cheap.
Raising our own food rarely saves money. Sure, there are instances here and there where we managed to save big. For example, we haven’t paid for summer fruits for years now. The plums, apricots, peaches, cherries and grapes keep showing up on the trees every summer. And we always have abundance of honey for us and to give away.

But since we can’t free-range our chickens (too many predators, and almost nothing to forage) - the eggs from our chickens cost us almost as much as those from the supermarket .

Even vegetables can be costly too. By the time we bought seedlings, built raised beds, bought ground cover, invested in tools, and amended the soil, we are probably eat ping the most expensive salads on the planet.

It will get better in time, as the big investments are often at the beginning and every year that passes lowers the costs of whatever we produce... but I wish I would have known that at the beginning.

2. Failure is inevitable, and that’s OK.
Murphy’s Law seems to have been designed with homesteaders in mind. And when you add Mother Nature and homesteading karma you have a recipe for great plans ending with not-so-great outcomes.

My point is, many of our ideas and projects will fail, but that is the only way we learn. Don’t ever let it get you down or make you want to give up. Instead, be happy that now you know something you didn’t know before.

3. Every victory counts.
I wish I remembered to celebrate those modest goals that we accomplished. Homesteading is tough work, even though we love it. There are daily, weekly,  monthly and yearly setbacks, especially early on. So I wish I knew to mark our victories whenever we got a chance.

I wish I took pictures of the first eggs we collected, the first tomatoes, the first honey we ever harvested… and then take the time to consciously celebrate those modest achievements.

I would love to hear from you… what are the lessons you wish you knew before you started your permaculture/homesteading journey…

Live fully, stay awesome…

Great post! Quick question, is that bar on the goat's head for riding him around??

I'm homesteading year three, and I think the best thing I can advise is to get a plant identification app so you can learn to take advantage of all the naturally growing plants in the area. I've become quite the herbalist this way!

I don't even have a smartphone. I use an android emulator known as 'Bluestacks' on the computer and get the google store app 'Plantnet' which is free. Then I upload pics to that app and figure out the names of the plants around. Then I google the name with (+medicinal properties or +Magical properties). I then look for the best post and copy the words into an expanding word document which has like 17 plants on it now with the pictures I have taken.

The results are quite profound. Every plant I have thought was a weed actually has a healing or spiritual benefit. Plus, whenever I am experiencing a physical or emotional problem, I can search the whole document (which is like 60 pages long now) for plants that treat that condition by simply using 'Ctrl+f' which raises Word's search function.

I don't have many insights into permaculture so far, but this one I think is a real game changer. Learning to identify every plant in your homestead is extremely rewarding, especially if you come from cities and parents that never taught you a lick about nature.

I wish I had known that HOAs can impose an astonishing number of restrictions on your land, and being way out in the boonies doesn't stop them from doing so. And your realtor will NOT tell you those restrictions voluntarily, you have to demand the list.

I wish I had known that, no matter how insistent someone is about helping, if they can't follow your instructions you're better off without them.

I wish I had known that my back would go out in 2007 and I would spend the next 3 years in a wheelchair. It happened one month after buying my property. After I had been saving for my own land since I was 9.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:I wish I had known that, no matter how insistent someone is about helping, if they can't follow your instructions you're better off without them.

I think that’s a good one for me too, Ellendra.
I hope that your back is ok now…

Everything will take much longer than you expect and will cost much more.

We are coming up on year 3 on our property and the only livestock we have yet is chickens. Granted lots of life stuff got in the way, but it can be disheartening. And yet, we have accomplished so much, just maybe not what we were expecting. It's important to be flexible and cut yourself some slack. Remember to enjoy yourself and your property. Breathe.

I wish I had known there's no point in buying pigs for meat in autumn (in the north of the UK) as they will use all their energy (i.e. the food you buy for them) to keep warm and come slaughter in spring  there's not enough fat on them.
I wish I had known I would develop a heart problem 7 years in to our homesteading journey having until then been a ridiculously healthy specimen. It means I am now unable to spend as much time working outside as I would like and the vegetable garden is showing it.
I wish I had known the restricted access means just that and unless you can get it here in an ordinary car there's no point buying it.

In reality I love it here and although circumstances mean we will probably have to move on in the next few years, we have been blessed by living here.

Start small

-Start learning things before you get to your homestead.
-Make sure there are redundancies in your heating, cooking, cooling systems.  
-Don't forget to learn new hobbies that make you happy.