Homesteading in Cities

   The late, great Permaculturist Toby Hemenway left his rural acreage to move back to the city. Then he wrote a book called "Permaculture City" to show the many benefits that living in the city provides to those with a self-sufficiency mindset. I read that book a couple years ago so that I could find out that it's not crazy, in fact it's very doable to "homestead" at the urban scale. A city lot is all I've got, probably for a long time.

   After reading, I realized that the first thing I had to do was to mentally stop fighting the situation. I'm still kind of working on that acceptance, actually, but it's much better now than it was at first. After a couple years now of growing a few things in the front yard, and getting more in touch with the rhythm of the flow of the seasons and the patterns that exist in my ecosystem, I felt a shift flow through my mindset. Today I feel comfortingly aware of and connected to that giant rhythm around me that I am a part of, even if I don't have my "three acres and cow." It's all bigger than I am, and I am a part of it wherever I live, and it will go on and on. That just feels good to me.  

  Related to this, I also have challenged myself to some interesting experiments in order to say, "Bleep you!" to my feelings of limitation in a city scenario. I raised 12 chicks in my bathtub last year just to feel like I could be a farmer. That was hard, and also it was really good for my outlook on life. I don't think I would have tried this experiment if I didn't want to challenge my limited mindset in order to expand it.

  I have many more thoughts, but right now I have to run and help my mother with her chicken coop roof on her acreage!

There are many issues I would personally have getting comfortable in a urban "homestead". One would be dealing with the city government and the crazy zoning laws that every city has, and just dealing with a large city government in general, especially in a packed urban area. Also, the noise, surrounding pollution/contamination, lack of trust and everything else that goes along with living in a city.

I live in Colorado Springs and contribute to multiple community gardens/farms and enjoy having plots in a lot of them, especially since I don't have land and rent an apartment. If I did have land, I'd much rather live up in the mountains and/or potentially join a rural permaculture based community.

More power to you though!

When I lived in town, it felt that permaculture was so far away, some days I struggled to hold on to the dream.

But then I discovered that a lot of permaculture are things we can do at home.  Things that help improve my life and save money so I can get to the dream earlier.

Starting small, here are some of the things that helped me.

- hanging clothes to dry.  In our buildding, laundry was coin operated.  It was $2 for the wash and $4 for the dryer.  At 4 to 5 loads per week, not using the dryer saved a lot of extra money.

- I was already a mender because I can't stand wasting money on clothes that start to fall apart, but not using a dryer changed everything - I didn't have to mend clothes as often.  Very nice.

- cooking at home saved a lot of money.  Eating out would easily be $10-100 per person per meal and cooking at home almost never cost more than $2 per serving (including time and electrical).  

- of course, now I was cooking, I wanted some herbs so I learned how to grow potted plants which improved the air quality while making life more delicious.

- Which got me remembering how much I loved having a garden as a kid and could just go out and eat from the earth - so to speak.  An allotment was $20-50 per year and I was able to grow 100% of my fresh vegetable needs, and enough to share with friends.

- Collecting was another great part of things.  Okay, possibly hording.  But It's not stuff - it was skills.  Any time I was curious about something, I would get a bunch of books out from the library, try the new thing, get less-bad at it, then get good at it.  These skills have come in handy once I have my farm.  

Hording skills also helped improve my sanity.  I can bake bread or ferment beer.  I can grow and process grain if I want to.  I don't do it much these days, but if the shops let me down, I don't need to give them my money as I can make better for cheaper.  

Rachel, thank you for sharing that this has been done.

Your topic reminded me of this thread:

https://permies.com/t/143914/Edible-Yard-Visited

Those folks had a homestead of sorts where they grew almost all their food and had bees in the city of Dallas, Texas.

I believe that folks don't have to have animals to be a homesteader.

The main principle of homesteading to me is to be self-sufficient and live off the land.

This can be done by having a garden, and through foraging.

This got me curious. What exactly is the definition of "homestead"? It's actually quite different based on both the country one is in, and the decade. Almost makes me think we need a new word for what Rachel and Toby Hemenway are/were trying to do (may Toby rest in peace - he was a wonderful author).

In general, I always figured that a great place to start was edible landscaping. Stealth food may not provide a lot in terms of calories, but if plants are chosen for their nutritional value, you can improve your micronutrient and health levels quickly. If no one seems to notice or complain, it gives you experience and a base to expand from. Like R Ranson's window ledge herb garden. At the moment, I have a bin of Holy Basil on my. If I accidentally brush it, I get a wonderful aroma experience! And it's nice adding a leaf to a pot of tea.

I'm always giving away baby walking onions and encouraging people to poke them in in different spots in their yard. Fresh green onions for about 9 months of the year with basically no effort. Having a "total noob plant" one can give away freely, can help engage others.

Municipal rules can impact this substantially. Some places are supportive of this concept, some will take a "blind eye" approach, and some will actively work against it. I would try to choose the right city to live in, if possible. There are some great ones out there, that actively encourage people to plant food producing plants/shrubs/trees. Sometimes, you don't need to change cities, but just look for enclaves that seem more open to alternatives. There's one in the local city that houses a "compost education center" and "Spring Ridge Commons" (a mini-food forest with paths and seating). I used to see houses there growing veggies on their front lawns. I understand Tyler's concerns, but one of the best ways to be part of the solution, is to start sharing plant starts with neighbors, hosting pot-lucks, and building some of that trust we've lost.

I know that my father's family raised both rabbits and chickens, as well as having a large garden that helped them sustain their teenaged children in Britain during WWII. Helping local people see how fragile our supply chains sometimes are is another way to help get them on board with what you're trying to do. I just hope it doesn't take another war to accomplish!

I have a house with a yard, an entire lot I bought to grow things on,5 plots at a community garden, plus plots at my mother and my sisters houses.
Recently my friend that runs the Table of Hope food pantry has asked me to come grow on the church property.
I'm hoping to draw on my social network to bring growers together with land to create resilience for all of us

In my experience urban homesteading works best when you are working with your community, but that is probably true of all homesteading.

As a person with disabilities which make driving not possible for me, I will realistically be spending the rest of my life within public transit range.  Right now I'm just thrilled to be out of apartment life and have a small house with a small wraparound yard and landlords who are okay with me growing things, as long as I don't demolish the whole yard I guess.  Maybe its time to have some conversations about what counts as demolishing  It probably means no covering up the grass with tarps to kill it.  And that I can't fill my yard so full of raised beds and containers that the paths are too narrow for the lawn person to mow  But there is some wiggle room and I'm going to take it and put in raised beds as I can, now that I have a read on how the sun falls on my yard throughout the year.  My husband cooks for us a lot, I am doing my best to make compost, we're mindful about how we choose to spend money, we value connection with others, his goal this winter is to learn to make mead, that project will be happening next month, I've finally found a combination of side hustling formula that really works for me, etc.  I'm content with where we are right now and I don't see us making a move to something bigger unless circumstances significantly change in our life.  I won't even entertain the idea unless/until I feel we're making the absolute most of the space we're in now.

Squabs a great urban meat source. Ditto rabbits.

I'm in Memphis and I've seen a goat and a lot of chickens in the city proper.

Once people get used to something there tends to be more of it regardless of zoning and ordinances.

Rachel Lindsay wrote: Today I feel comfortingly aware of and connected to that giant rhythm around me that I am a part of, even if I don't have my "three acres and cow." It's all bigger than I am, and I am a part of it wherever I live, and it will go on and on. That just feels good to me.  

Yes, I love this outlook. Toby has a great story in Gaia's Garden about feeling like he didn't have enough room in an urban lot to grow everything needed for a "proper" homestead. Then he got a great harvest of apples and shared them with neighbors, and some neighbors shared their harvest of plums, and he realized his "homestead" extended beyond the boundaries of his own lot. I have always felt like that anecdote is very instructive about the different ways you can approach a permaculture practice depending on your situation. Realistically, you're not likely to be able to grow enough calories on an urban lot to cover all your needs—nor are you going to be able to pasture livestock, or go off-grid, or practice forestry. If you look at your life and only see deficiencies, you're gonna be unhappy.

Instead, better to realize that living in a city means sacrificing some self-reliance but gaining a great deal in interdependence. Engaging with society is one of humans' superpowers. We got to where we are by being social animals, after all! Living in a city means you have, if you put in the effort, access to all sorts of people with different skills, perspectives and resources. This diversity can expand your own horizons, and diverse communities are stronger in the face of hardship. And you have access to a lot of support, too, even if you don't need it right at this moment.

To be honest, this is an area where I think Permies sometimes fails to recognize its own bias. The forum skews pretty heavily toward rural living, and I think at times this can leave you feeling like it's not real permaculture if you're not on a large acreage. I'm biased too, of course, because I live in a city & like it, but I think permaculture must get better at crossing the metro area boundary if it's going to achieve its goals. Most humans on earth live in cities, and if we're going to sustainably support our population levels, we frankly have to continue doing that. You can't change the world if your philosophy stops at the edge of your rural plot. I know things like geothermal heating districts or municipal stormwater management aren't the bread and butter of this forum, but I'd like to see a space where us city dwellers can start expanding the definition of permaculture.

Here's an intention I set a number of years ago that fits my expansive view of permaculture: do small things to build community and as a result, build collective resilience. I organize social events for our block a couple times a year. I volunteer with our neighborhood "community council", which gives residents a voice in local government. I helped secure a grant to install a bunch of rain gardens in neighborhood residents' yards. Last year, I recruited some immediate neighbors to replace sod with native plants on a bunch of the boulevard on our block. Next year I'm aiming to expand that to a bunch of other blocks. A different group in the city has been working on edible boulevards and just won an ordinance change to officially legalize them. I led a political movement to downsize a city golf course and restore the wetlands it had displaced. New neighbors moved in next door and after talking to them about my mini food forest, they got interested and I connected them to a city tree sale, and their back yard is now an orchard with six fruit trees plus a swamp oak that'll be a big pretty shade tree one day. This work is different from, say, building a roundwood barn for livestock. I think it's valuable work all the same.