Author: Monique Volkers

Float Gardening in British Columbia

A guest post written by Margy Lutz. Margy describes her life on a float Cabin Home on Powell Lake in Coastal British Colombia. She has a very special float garden. Her husband writes interesting books about their off-grid life.

I want to thank Monique for inviting me to write a guest post. She’s an amazing homesteader with lots of experience and knowledge to share with her readers and visitors.

A Float Cabin Home on Powell Lake

First, I’d like to share about where I live. My husband and I have an all-season off-the-grid water-access float cabin on Powell Lake in Coastal British Columbia. We’ve lived here full time since our retirement and Canadian residency approval in 2008. British Columbia has a long history of using float cabins and workshops for forestry and fishing along our remote and steep coastline. Historically on Powell lake, float cabins were inexpensive retreats for paper mill workers.

Our cabin is just above sea level. We get a dusting of snow in winter, but the weather is relatively mild for our location. Fortunately, the lake is unusually deep and doesn’t freeze. And long summer days are perfect for gardening.

A Raised Bed Floating Garden

I’ve always liked gardening. Maybe I got it from my grandparents who were farmers. I wanted to grow some food of my own. Our good friend John, who built our cabin, came up with the solution, a special float that holds four 4X10-foot raised beds.

The float garden is separate from our cabin. A rope pulley brings it in for me to garden, then it goes back out to the front log boom where it’s protected from nibbling critters.

Nutrients are leached from the shallow soil by rain and frequent watering. In spring I augment it with compost and mushroom manure. Several times throughout the growing season I add plant food. Even here I get traditional garden pests, but I don’t use insecticide. We don’t want poisons in the lake water we drink.

My garden has spring daffodils, then summer marigolds and alyssum for color and pest control. My crops include herbs, garlic, onions, radishes, beets, carrots, kale, broccoli, bush peas, spinach and a variety of lettuce. Over the years I’ve grown strawberries, asparagus, Brussels sprouts and potatoes in my beds. Crop rotation helps to reduce pests and provides variety.

For watering I use a solar powered boat bilge pump with a hose. It’s much easier than a watering can and gentler on the plants. When I had a small plot on shore I used a tarp and rain barrel system. That was a good solution for a spot without a water source.

Container Gardening on the Cabin’s Decks

In addition to my float garden I have numerous pots and large containers on the cabin’s many decks for additional plants, especially ones that take up a lot of space. Here you will find potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peas, cucumbers, peppers, squash, rhubarb, blueberries, red currants, more flowers and herbs for easy access.

Gardening takes a lot of time from May through September, but the rewards make it worth it. The garden isn’t large enough to be self-sustaining, but each dinner has something I’ve grown myself. I’ve also learned how to preserve excess produce for use during the off season.

Winter Gardening

Fall is the time I put most of my garden to bed. With a little effort, the growing season can be extended for some plants. I leave my kale, beets, carrots and broccoli in the ground with extra mulch around them. Clear plastic bags protect plants in containers. They ward off heavy rain, focus warmth from the waning sun and reduce damage from freezing.

Composting

Composting is an important part of my gardening. I do it all onboard. During the growing season I use the chop and drop method. Garden and kitchen vegetable waste is chopped into small bits and used as mulch. In fall I use my empty potato growing barrels to compost the large amount of plant cuttings. Monique has an excellent post about chop and drop. It’s how I discovered her website and blog.

More Gardening Information

You can read more about my gardening exploits and other aspects of float cabin living in my husband’s books Up the Lake and Off the Grid: Getting Started available in print and Kindle formats from Amazon. Also, here is a quick link to the Gardening Category on my blog.

My story shows you can garden just about anywhere: containers on an apartment balcony, sprouts in your kitchen, a plot in the back yard or edibles interspersed with ornamentals. The options are endless. Start small and learn as you go. If it can work for me, I know it will for you. Thanks for reading my post. If you have any questions leave a comment, visit my blog or email me through the link in my blog profile.

Happy gardening! Margy Lutz

6th November 2018
5 reasons why we started our homestead

These are our 5 reasons why we started our homestead. There we go:

The first reason: Space around us

In Holland we had a two store house in a row of houses. The typical Dutch way of living. An 80 m² house with a 30 m² backyard. The front yard not being more than a few square meters. Big windows at the front and at the back. All the same houses in a row and streets full of the same houses.

Holland is packed with people, cars, lights and livestock. In our densely populated country every square inch is used well. Everything is neatly organised. It is a bit gray and boring.

Although the well organised landscape and life in Holland do have their advantages, I think we prefer something more irregular. More wild, more natural. Not so much man made.

The 3.4 ha that we are living on now, in Portugal, gives us space to breath fresh air. The sounds at night are coming from the frogs and the crickets. And from our barking dog that tries to chase the wild bore away. If we want we can fill the silence with our own sounds, bothering nobody.

When we look up into the sky we can see the milky way. When we walk into our valley, we can hear the clear creek at the bottom. Water that is so clean that you can drink it.

It is such a contrast to living in Holland. In Holland, having a piece of land we have now would be impossible. A piece of land of 3.4 ha would not be affordable in the first place. A place with the qualities of being in a natural environment like we have here in Portugal, would not exist.

We just love to have the space around us here down south in Portugal.

The second reason: Home -grown and -produced

Before we left for Portugal to start our homestead we were already gardeners. We enjoyed having our vegetable garden. We also enjoy cooking with our own grown ingredients. The quality of fresh, just picked vegetables is so much better than of those that have been travelling for some time.

Holland is known for its good quality vegetables so it was not so bad. But we could still taste the difference, spoiled as we are.

Here in Portugal we still have our own vegetable garden. It is much bigger than the one in Holland so we have food for the winter too. The growing season is also much longer, so you can have fresh vegetables nearly the year round.

What counts for vegetables also counts for fruit. We love fresh fruit. Growing our own oranges is so incredible. The taste of the oranges in Holland does not even come close to the ones we have here.

Apart from having our own vegetables and fruit, I also enjoy making our own cheese. And we love fresh milk too. Like we have it here you can not have it any fresher.

Third reason: The fun of making your own things

Building your own house, landscaping your terrain is a very creative process. I think it is very exciting to create your own world this way. There is personal growth involved as well, which makes it interesting. There is so much to learn, in a practical way but also in a mental way.

How to deal with the workload; the time frame you have to work in; the many challenges you face. It is never ever boring. It’s a life full of surprises. Some moments you can hate it and other moments you can get passionate about it. So interesting!

The forth reason: Resilience

Having the space around us, being able to produce our own food and build our house and surroundings also gives us the space to be resilient. We will survive an economic world crisis, we did already. It is still not easy, but it is secure. We will never have lack of food.

Surviving natural disasters is a bit of a different story. We just survived one. So far we are good. But we can clearly see that others were less lucky and those others could have been us too.

If we would have lost everything, like many have in our area, it would have been hard to start again. I do not know what we would have done in that case. That would have taken the resilience to the edge for sure. But we are still here and are lucky.

The fifth reason: Being connected with the elements

Sometimes raw and harsh, like in the case of the wildfires, heat and storms. But so fascinating at the same time. The elements are so close to us in this environment.

To see all the nature around us is fabulous. The trees, the water, the cold, the sun, the silence, the moon and stars. It connects you back to something that is gone in an urban area. Something primordial. Like a basic connection to life itself.

It is overwhelming and magnificent at the same time. The roaring fires are very scary. Then after the fires the green starts growing back almost with the same power. The heat of the summer encloses one almost like a loud sound that suddenly drops silent when the cool winds of the autumn kick in.

Being so much part of natures play is something you have to experience. It is hard to catch in words.

So this is what brought us here and what keeps us here on our homestead. When you like this blog, please feel free to share it. When you want to follow our activities on a daily basis check out our Terra do Milho Facebook and like or follow us.

We hope to see you again on our blog,

Monique and Tom

From: Terra do Milho

Make a difference with you own successful homestead.

1st November 2018
Don’t waste food, for a more sustainable household.
Did you know that one third of all the food that is harvested on the planet is thrown away? One third of all the effort that was put into growing vegetables is wasted! Don’t waste food. Here is how you can do it.

This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using them you support our homestead.

Fruit and vegetables are wasted because it is not perfect.

When I was young one day I was helping at a farm in Holland. We were harvesting carrots. Most of them we had to put away because they were not strait. Luckily this was an organic farm that also had cattle. The carrots that were not for human consumption were given to the cattle. Still I thought it was a crazy thing to not sell all those carrots. Since the taste was as good as the straight ones.

Later when we started our homestead here in Portugal. We are producing organic lemons. As a producer we discovered that the supermarkets, even the organic ones had very high standards. So lots of our lemons do not meet these high standards and we are not able to sell them. Not because they are not good lemons… Even if you take all the measures to grow the perfect lemons, there is no way all the lemons would meet the standard from the supermarket.

You know why the supermarkets have such a high standard? The supermarkets state that the consumer does not want a fruit that is not perfect. Is that fair to accuse you as a consumer? You don’t even have a choice. And if you had a choice. Would you only go for perfect if you would have known that for this very reason so much produced fruit is wasted?

Food is wasted because of a arbitrary expire date.

Did you know that there are no legal rules for setting an expire date for most products? I discovered this when I started producing our organic jam. Because I had to put an expire date on the label I started looking for regulations. What I found out is that it was up to the producer. So I had to make up a date until my jam could be eaten. How long does jam keep when it is properly made, sealed and stored? 20 years? Then why are the expire dates so short? I have no clue.

What I know is that a lot of products are tossed away by the supermarkets because they are off date. An incredible amount…

Check out this trailer of the film ‘Just eat it, a food waste story’

[button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2EymN3B” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy the film here[/button_round]

Wasting food is wasting your money.

Not wasting food is also good for your wallet. On average 20% of the bought food for households is thrown away. That is one shopping back full on every 5 full shopping bags.

Did you know that for the average U.S. household of four, food waste translates into an estimate 1350＄-2275＄ in annual losses*? You could go on a nice holiday for that money!

Did you know that you can do to address this world wide problem of wasting food?

What can you do?
- Plan ahead what you will eat. Make a shopping list and stick to it when you go shopping. This saves money at one end and saves wasting food on the other end because things will not get stuck in your fridge and go wasted.
  Do not buy on impulse. The offers might look very cheap, but if you do not use the products that you buy, you will only end up throwing away your money. You could buy on offer what you already planned to buy. This way an offer is something you can really benefit from.
- Keep your fridge organised.
- When you have leftovers, keep them cool in the fridge and reuse them.
- There are many recipes to reuse leftovers such as bread. Making bread into delicious French Toast or bread cake. From vegetables and meat you can always make soup for the next day or for a supper. Adding some herbs or spices can dramatically change the taste, so you don’t even notice you are eating leftovers. Fried rice is also a good one to reuse leftover vegetables and meat.
- Did you know that you can use the leafy things that get shrivelled in your fridge can be used as an ingredient in soup? This way you do not need to throw them away.
Do you really want to solve this problem and become an expert?

I have found two interesting cookbooks for you that each have an interesting but different approach to solve the problem of wasting food in your kitchen.

[button_round link=”https://terradomilho.eu/2018/10/want-to-know-how-to-stop-wasting-food/” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]I want to know more![/button_round]

Victoria Glass gives you lots of recipes and Dana Gunders leads you through methods of optimising the organisation of your shopping and kitchen. Both provide you with practical tips to tackle the problem of wasting food.

[button_round link=”https://terradomilho.eu/2018/10/want-to-know-how-to-stop-wasting-food/” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Read more…[/button_round]

*https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf
20th October 2018
Want to know how to stop wasting food?

I found two interesting cookbooks that each have an interesting but different approach to solve the problem of wasting food in your kitchen.

While Victoria Glass gives you lots of recipes, Dana Gunder leads you through methods of optimising the organisation of your shopping and kitchen.

Both books provide you with practical tips to tackle the problem of wasting food. Here I give you a quick impression of the books and how they can help to solve your problem wasting food (to find out about Dana Gunders book scroll down).

This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using them you support our homestead.

Too Good To Waste: How to Eat Everything – by Victoria Glass

Kindle version for 9.83＄
Hardcover version 15.82＄
(prices in Europe might be different)

The book is well organised, has nice pictures of some of the dishes. It includes good advice on storing and using food. There is a well organised index where you can find the right recipe for your ingredient

How does this book help you to waste less food?

Are you a somewhat experienced cook that is able to cook from a recipe book? And would you like to waste less from your bought vegetables and ingredients? Do you want to save money (who doesn’t)? Then this is the right book for you.

The book will, amongst other things, teach you how to use vegetables as a whole without throwing away any part of it.

Leftovers can be remade into nice dishes again, so they do not need to go into the bin.

And what about the leafy stuff, like watercress, that is left in your fridge and got shrivelled because you had no time to use it? No problem, instead of tossing them away you can make a nice wonton soup. And there are many more things that you can do with shrivelled leaves, it’s all in Victoria Glass’s book.

It will help you to cook more efficient in a stylish but simple way with an exotic touch.

There are some really cool recipes for: fish skin, chicken skin, sour milk, last night potato mash, broad bean skin fritters, pumpkin skins, stale bread, strawberry tops and much more.

What do I like about the book?

Victoria Glass’s cookbook is for the average cook. I think the book is an all (wo)man’s friend that will guide you to a new way of cooking creative and delicious meals.

The recipes are clear with ingredients that you most likely have in your kitchen. That makes it into a cookbook that is suitable to use on a daily basis. With non complicated yet innovative recipes.

And the main thing: it serves the purpose to waste less food.

About the author

Victoria Glass is a London based cook, recipe developer and food writer. Books she has also written are Boutique Wedding Cakes, Deliciously Vintage, Baking Mash-Up and Boozy Shakes . You can find her profile on: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/contributors/victoria-glass

[button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2PQb0yU” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy Too Good To Waste here[/button_round]

Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money By Wasting Less Food – by Dana Gunders

Kindle version for 11.76＄
Library binding for 22.95＄
Paperback version for 16.86＄
(prices in Europe might be different)

The book gives a good accessible explanation of how to change your household into a less food wasting one.

How does this book help you to waste less food?

Are you looking for everyday strategies to waste less food? This handbook provides you with some practical strategies. With small adjustments of habit in shopping, portioning and the organisation of your refrigerator it provides you with useful tools.

Useful too is that the book shows you how to make the best of products that are on their way of getting wasted. Like making applesauce from bad apples and making muffins from frozen almost dead bananas. Simple things that will help you.

For those who are not already used to do so there is guiding for freezing, pickling and cellaring.

A bonus is that you will find a list in the appendix that tells you the lifespan of each type of food. Not by date but by telling you how to know when it goes bad. It then learns what you can do to lengthen the products lifespan.

What do I like about the book?

I like that Dana’s book unravels the reasons why food gets wasted in the average kitchen. These reasons are not just made up, they are based on a solid investigation that Dana Grunder did as a Senior Scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She produced an issue paper that is called: Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Based on the knowledge she gathered for making this scientific paper, her book gives the tools to solve the problems that lead to the wasting of food on an everyday basis.

Her handbook makes clear that wasting food is not just about using recipes, but it is also about habits in life and the organisation of the kitchen. I think that gives the book it’s additional value to just being a cookbook.

The recipes are supportive to make the book into a complete compass for you to become a mindful consumer.

About the author

Dana is a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and one of the first to bring to light just how much food is wasted across the country through her report, Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Part of the conclusions of this report led to the content of Dana’s book.

[button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2PHcVWh” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy Waste Free Kitchen Handbook here[/button_round]

20th October 2018
Where to start your vegetable garden, some things to consider.

The first step dealing with when you want to start a vegetable garden is where to start your vegetable garden. Picking the right spot requires a bit of time. In this blog you will find some things to consider while finding the right spot.

After all you are going to put a lot of effort into your garden. It is best to pick the right spot from the beginning. It will save you a lot of frustration afterwards. Changing places for a vegetable garden usually means starting all over again. So in the end picking the right spot will save you a lot of time.

Water, light, protection and the right soil.

Water

Water is, no doubt, going to be used in your garden. It is the most important thing to make plants grow. Although there are systems that work without additional water, even in the dessert. A system like that is not something you would wish to start with since these are complicated systems.

Most practical will be a tap right next to the garden. On this tap you can later, if you wish so, connect any irrigation system. You can also fill your watering can to water your newly planted vegetables. Which, in a dry period can just give them the little extra to survive until the next irrigation round.

Light

What your plants will also need is a lot of light. They simply need that to grow. Some things might need some shading in the summer, but it is easier to shade those things with a shading net then to have the whole garden in the shade and to struggle with all the other plants that need sunlight.

Gardening in a shady place or under big trees is extremely difficult. Especially trees make it even more difficult because their roots are mostly not so deep and in the way. The trees will take all the water for themselves. Some kind of trees even do not tolerate growing something under them. So check where the light is and the trees are not.

Sure there are agricultural designs that involve trees. These designs work extremely well. The thing is that you will need a big space for these systems. Not something for a moderate vegetable garden. Some systems do not translate from big to small or vise-versa.

Wind protection

When you are living in an area with a lot of wind it will be wise to protect your vegetable garden against the wind. Sometimes a hedge or fence at one side of your garden will be enough. This depends of where the winds are coming from. A building can also function as a wind protector, but make sure it does not shade the garden too much.

A little breeze in the garden is, by the way, not a problem at all. Too little air movements can also lead to an accumulation of dampness inviting fungi.

The right soil

Since looking into the topic of finding the right soil is a quite broader I will not discuss this here. It is worth checking out on soil though. This is where you can find more information:

About The Soil In Your Vegetable Garden, What You Need To Find Out.

A social place or a place where you have your own peace.

Some people like their vegetable garden as a peaceful place where nobody disturbs them. Someone has told me once that without his vegetable garden he would never have been able to do his daily paid job. He had a lot of responsibilities in his job and a busy family at home. Other then his vegetable garden he had no place to relax. When this is you, it might be a good idea to create that peaceful place somewhere a bit hidden.

Other people, like me, like a vegetable garden as a social place. A place where you meet other gardeners to exchange knowledge. Somewhere to sit and picnic and enjoy time with family and friends. I am not happy in a hidden away garden. So mine is part of a community garden right in town. The hidden away garden on our own land I barely use.

Gardening in your own yard/land, on an allotment or with a group

Gardening in your yard

When you have a front or backyard you might choose to have your vegetable garden there. The advantage is that it is very close to home.

When you have small kids, you might want to do some gardening when they are sleeping. Or when you are an ‘at home worker’ you can fill the little spare time gaps with some garden activity.

Another advantage is that you do not need to travel. You can just walk to your garden. Even if you have a big piece of land you would probably put your garden close to the house.

Some practical things when you are gardening on your yard

How far is your vegetable garden going to be from the kitchen? Since that is the place where you are going to use most of the vegetables. It is very convenient to be able to harvest a view thing even while you are cooking.

Another thing is the access. Can you park a car close to the garden? There will be heavy things that you will have to bring to your garden. Like manure, seed potatoes, compost, wood for raised beds, cans, containers, straw, tools, and in case there is no tap, water. It is much more practical if you can bring it there by car instead of having to carry everything a long way. When you have a homestead you might want to make your own compost from the animal manure that your goats or cows produce. It is handy that you can transport this manure, or the final compost to your garden in an easy way. Either by wheel barrel or by car or tractor.

Something more to consider is where are your tools going to be. It is most practical that they are right at the spot. A small shelter where they can be protected from the sun and the rain extents their live time a lot. Maybe your tools are in your barn or garage. In this case you might consider to place your garden not to far from there. You might have to compromise with the distance to the kitchen and the distance to a water point though.

Disadvantages

Disadvantage can be that you do want to have that peaceful place for yourself. That will probably not happen when your vegetable garden is in your yard and you have a busy household.

Your yard might be very small. You can get a long way with containers and going vertical, but you might still not have enough vegetables for the year round. Small yards can also be very shady.

If the soil quality makes you cry, it might also not be a good idea to garden on your yard.

When you want your peaceful spot, have a small yard or a yard with bad soil you might want to consider the next option.

The use of an allotment

Lot’s of towns have small allotments in or outside of the city. These you can rent for a small amount of money.

Some allotments even allow little houses where you can picnic with the whole family or with your allotment neighbours.

Allotments can be a very social thing. Some are organised in groups, so you will have your plot as part of a garden that belongs to a group using utilities together. Be aware of the fact that groups always have rools. It can be very nice and beneficial but you have to make sure you and the group are some kind of a match.

Other allotments will provide you with a peaceful spot of your own.

When you have a choice between different allotments, which one are you going to take? You might think of this: is an allotment somewhere on a route that you take anyway? For instance from the shop to your home or from your work to your home. This way you can easily pop by and save petrol.

Again the acces by car and a tap at hand are an important thing to keep in mind.

Also: can you store your tools there or is that not an option. Sure you can take your tools to the allotment when you are going there. But forgetting something is easy and can be annoying when the allotment is at the other side of the town.

Disadvantages of an allotment

Disadvantage of gardening in an allotment is that filling small time gabs with garden work is not possible. You will have to plan your garden work ahead. You also need to harvest in advance. You can not go out of the kitchen and quickly pick a lettuce.

Gardening in a group

When you are living in a compound there might be another option. Running a garden together with the people in the compound. Again make sure the group is a match.

My experience is that groups gardens work best if everybody has his or her own plot. When there is a lot of space you maybe can run a potato fields or corn field together.

I did garden in groups sharing one plot and all the tools and it was a good experience, I liked it a lot. The thing was that we were already a cohesive social group and started the garden together. So it was more like a family having a garden. At other times it would have been a nightmare to share a plot and I was very happy that I had my own.

Fun for kids

When you have small kids, that are interested in plants, it is very nice to give them a square meter in the garden all for themselves. This way they will learn something gardening. And they will sure be very proud to produce their first carrots.

This is the way I got hooked to gardening. I had my small corner in my grandmothers garden where I would grow some lettuce, carrots and radish. I was very proud of my first harvest. When ever I was at my grandmothers house I would go into the garden and check my small corner. I loved it!

Go ahead!

I hope this information will help you pick the best spot for your garden. If there is anything you want to ask, please do. Leave a comment and I will answer.

If you want to know more about what we are doing on Terra do Milho, check out our Facebook!

4th September 2018
5 Phases in building a Homestead

As we were building a Homestead here, down south in Portugal, I discovered that this process runs in phases.

Since we are on a mountain ridge where many people are starting their own place for sustainable living, we could talk to a lot of people about building up their site. It seems that nearly everybody went through the same phases. These are phases after you have bought the land. You could say buying the land is a whole story on itself, which I am not going into here.

Now letting your dream come true is not always easy. I find the dreaming stage much easier than the reality part. Yet, I would not have wanted to miss that reality part for a minute.

We are still somewhere on the scale of phases ourselves, I think more or less between Phase 4 and 5.

I think it is good to know for us Homesteaders to realise that we more or less go through the same stages. Especially when you get stuck somewhere. Really there is a way out, someone has figured it out before you. Sit down and take some time to find out, what others have done in a similar situation.

Let’s get to the Phases first…

Building a Homestead: Phase one, Basics & a shelter

The first phase is the starting phase. First of all you have to make yourself a shelter. For some people this used to be a tipi, were they moved in with the whole family. For some people it was a partly built house with a view undefined rooms. Or a caravan, which was maybe a more luxury version compared to the other options, depending how many people you have to squeeze into the caravan…Depending on one’s carefully saved budget things can be more or less convenient. And some people do not mind to start very basic.

In our case it looked like this: we had two building on the land. One of the to buildings, the biggest. We turned into a living house. It was very basic. It had walls, doors and a fireplace in one of the rooms. There was a room that was on it’s way to become a kitchen. The kitchen even had cold running water, no potable water though it was clean enough to do the dishes. We had electricity from the grid. It was enough as a shelter. We build this shelter before I moved to our land, Terra do Milho.

Then there are the basic needs that need to be looked after: water for drinking, washing and cooking. Firewood to keep one warm and dry.

Challenges:

Wow, it all takes a lot more time than thought to run a household in the wild.

Tips:

Take some time to make yourself a good functioning base. It might take longer to make it right, but you will gain so much more time later on on the path to homesteading. Organising your home with enough storage room, a proper bathroom and kitchen is really worth investing time and money in.

Organize your energy resources like woodshed, wood, electricity well.

Take some time to see what you want to do off grid or on grid. Really, you do not need to go completely off grid when you have 6 children to care for. Carefully think what it will mean labour and money wise.

Building a Homestead: Phase two, lets become self-sustainable

A vegetable garden is started for the first basic food needs. Some fruit trees are planted. A small part of the land is cleared and cultivated to start growing things.

Slowly the rest of the land gets cleared and explored. Slowly discovering how the land works and what the potential is.

At Terra do Milho, I was on my own most of the time. Tom still had his work in Holland and we were financially depending on his income. Some terraces under our house were already cleared so I started a small vegetable garden with some basic needs. But hey, what a difference of what I was accustomed to! The soil and the climate were so different that my 30 years of gardening experience were useful, but did not help me to grow something simple as lettuce….

I did enjoy the land clearing a lot. There were so many mystery places on the land I had never been to. It was an exciting experience to explore our own land.

Challenges:

Climate and soil can be very different from what you are used to.

Brambles grow like mad.

Fruit trees grow soooo slow.

You will have to keep your household going. We did not have drinking water in the house, so I had to get it from a spring miles away.

Getting compost for the garden to make it grow well, I found quite a challenge.

Tips:

Getting carried away with land exploring is definitely a danger. Be aware that everything will grow back soon. If you open to much land, you might not be able to maintain it all.

Make sure your garden is not too big. It needs to be big enough to feed you though, but keep in mind that you do not need acres of land for feeding two people, or even 4. Check our blogs about gardening to find out more….

Building a Homestead: Phase three, integrating systems.

A Permaculture Design or some other type of organizational design is getting implemented. Systems are getting integrated. You might be considering taking some farm animals in. Chickens for eggs and maintaining the fruit trees. Goats for manure and keeping the brambles down.

Challenges:

What I found challenging her was to translate my theoretical Permaculture knowledge into specific on ground action. I had to redefine Permaculture a lot of time. I read books and blogs and watched tons of videos to be able to put it into practice. Permaculture does not work like a recipe book. You really need to dig in quite deep to get the basic idea.

In our situation we got chickens and goats. I have no problem of eating our own chicken, but totally met myself with trying to eat our own goats. I could not kill, or let them kill for that reason. They have to much of a personality and it feels like eating my own friends. That was an emotion I did not expect. It complicated things quite a bit.

What I also read in blogs and facebook posts, and what I have explained myself too is how concerned you can get about sick animals or animals in labour. I sometimes couldn’t sleep from it.

Tips:

Don’t take to many animals in at once. Consider that they need a lot of care. They will need a house, a fence and food.

Think carefully about what you want to do with the young animals that you are not going to need.

Animals can also do damage to your garden and to the terrain, be prepared for that.

Consider this mechanism: when you give your kitchen scraps to the chicken there will be none left for the piglet.

Building a Homestead: Phase four, the end of the budget

You might have had a carefully thought through plan including a financial plan. We did have one. But unfortunate the moment we started our homestead the credit crisis landed hard in Holland. We had only 30% from our income left.

We had a good plan, but it was in pieces when we wanted to build up our homestead. This lead from one financial struggle to the other. Preventing us from finishing the building of our house. It is still unfinished. Because later on when the work on the farm accumulates you lack the time. That is why it is important in the beginning.

But anyway, we had to go to plan B. We made tourist accommodations. After some years that approved to be a good thing to do. Although it is seasonal and does not provide an income for the whole year, it is more than welcome.

Money matters

Even when you have carefully put money aside to stick it out a few years, sooner or later you will need a source of income. Because there is so much to do at the beginning, much more than you can think of, the number of years that you can stick out with your savings are over before you know it. You might find out that you did not take time to upgrade your house, as we did. So you will need some income to invest.

Every project that you finish on your homestead seems to generate work. Make a chicken coop and you and up taking care of chickens. The same for goats. Clear a forest so you get axess to wood and you end up clearing it forever and cutting piles of firewood. When you finish something three things are born that need labour.

Getting in machines to make it all doable with a small number of people becomes a wish and a necessity. Although worth the investment these machines are often not cheap. Borrowing things from neighbours might be an option if you need something only ones or twice, but when things are used very often it is not practical. It proves to be better to buy more expensive tools of a better quality, that will last longer. Good tools are also good time savers, and time is what you need.

In this stage things that were installed temporarily often need to be replaced with permanent things so you do not need to do as much maintenance.

Challenges:

The challenge here I found out is: How can the money making get more priority? What to make money with? What is the best choice? There is not much room to experiment.

Tips:

When you have taken up to many projects on in the previous stages, it is time to let some projects go. It can be very hard to make a choice of what is best. But maybe there is no best. If you want to make something into a success it needs dedication and time, no matter what you do.

Building a Homestead: Phase five, it settles down.

What I feel that is happening to our homestead project now is that is slowly settling down. We have our income from out tourism which helps us through 6 month. Some other income comes from my husbands work that he does in Holland still every now and then. There is still lots to do, but we have agreed that we do not want to extent the project any more. We will just do all the unfinished jobs one by one in a humanly pace.

I started this blog that will hopefully help a lot of people, but also bring some more income to get other people in to do jobs on the homestead. And if I am right some income from the homestead should develop.

Working yourself through all the things that are not sustainable and changing them into a sustainable situation. Not taking any new projects on, but finishing everything that is unfinished. Finally some project starts taking off money wise, so it can be slowly done. By this time you have probably lost the: everything has to be done now mentality that is so connected to today’s regular life.

Challenges:

I think the main challenge her is to stay patient and be content with what you have.

Tips:

Start meditating again, if you ever did and stopped doing it because of your workload.

See the homestead as something that will never be finished. One of my friends put it this way: ‘’At first, when we started, I thought I was going to work really hard, like mad, for five years and then have a quiet life with no stress. After many more years of working hard I realised this quiet life will not happen if I keep on working like mad. I have to slow down now to have a more relaxed life. It makes no sense to keep on working like mad, because the work will never finish no matter how hard you work.’

29th August 2018
How to Analysing the soil from your vegetable garden.

In this blog we will look into how you can find out what type of soil you have and what pH and nutritional value your garden soil has. We will do this by analysing the soil.

We have already looked into what you need to know about your soil in your vegetable garden to be able to manage your vegetable garden. When you have missed the blog check it out here.

Type of soil test with a jar.

First of all we are going to look into the type of soil. For this there is a very simple method. It’s done with a jar and water.

The ‘Type of Soil’ test is based on a very simple principle. You add soil and water to a jar and shake it. Sand particles are course and heavy so they will sink to the bottom of the jar first. Silt particles are less course and heavy, they will sink less fast and settle down on top of the sand. Clay particles are tiny and light, they will float around in the water quite a while. Finally after hours they will settle down on top of the silt.

Depending on the composition of the soil in your garden the separate layers that settle down in your jar will be thicker or thinner. On of the layers can even be absent. You can measure the layers and see what the percentage of the layer is compared to the whole. With the help of a diagram you then will be able to find out what type of soil you have.

You can do this test as a stand alone, but I prefer to do the ‘type of soil’ test and a pH/NPK test at the same time. This way I only need to take the sample from the garden one time. I just make sure you have enough soil for both tests.

A practical session: type of soil and pH/NPK

For this session you will need 2 jars of more or less 12 cm high and a with diameter of 6 cm. It does not need to be exactly this size. Usually the ordinary jam jar has about this size.

You will also need: a bucket, a garden trowel or small spade, a waterproof garden marker.

Now take a bucket and go to your plot. Pick a spot, scrape of the first 6-10 cm (2 or 3 inches) organic material. Then with the garden trowel or a small spade, dig some soil and put it in the bucket. Do this at about 6 spots. Mix the soil in your bucket well.

After that take out soil that would be enough to fill about 2 jars. Some of it you will need for the type of soil test and some will be used for the pH and NPK test. Let the soil you have taken out dry.

When the soil is dry take it through a sieve.

Fill one jar for ¾ with the sieved sand. Mark the level of the soil in the jar. Then add some water leaving enough space to shake the soil and water.

Fill another jar with 2 levelled tablespoons for the test and set aside for later when you are doing the pH/NPK test.

Add some clean water into the jar that is filled for ¾, leaving some space at the top to be able to shake the liquid in the jar.

Close the jar well and shake the mixture. When the soil you put in was very dry, it is good to wait 20 or 30 minutes and shake it again. You might have to add a bit more water. Now the whole mixture looks quite messy.

So now, after you have shaken the jar. When there is sand in the soil, the sand will settle down in 5 minutes. Use the marker to mark the top of the sand. The rest will take longer to settle down. You can leave the jar for some hours, up to 24 hours or more. When the next layer has settled down, mark the top of this layer. This second layer will be silt. What settles on top of the silt will be clay. You can either wait for it to settle down or use the drawing to find out. I will explain this a little bit further down.

Type of soil on your plot

Measure the height from the bottom of the jar to the top line of the soil that you had made before adding the water. This is your 100%. Now Measure the the thickness of each layer and calculate the percentages.

Now we will need the diagram below to find out the type of soil you have. On this triangle you can see that each side represents a scale. You can read out the percentage of sand and silt and see where the lines cross.

Write down your data in your garden book. Or make a file for your garden where you will keep the data from your tests. The type of soil you have will not change, but the nutrition values will. It is practical to have all the data together in a file or a notebook.

This is how you use the diagram below

You have a soil of 60% sand and 30% Silt. You can then assume that 10% of your soil is clay. When you look into the drawing you follow the 60% line of the sand and look where it crosses the 30% line of the silt. Note that there are two lines starting from each position. One of the two will cross one of the other two.

In this case your soil is a Sandy loam soil.

Our own soil as an example

This is what the sample of our vegetable garden look like after everything has settled down.

It has about 55% Sand and 45% silt and if at all very little clay. So our soil is a Sandy loam soil.

The stuff that is floating around is organic material, by the way.

Testing the pH and NPK levels.

For testing the pH and NPK levels of the soil I use this simple testing kit:

It is not so expensive and it will give you all the information that you will need to get your garden going.

The kit comes with a clear description. It is wise to read this description carefully before you start, so you will not spill any of the tests.

I did the test for our soil. The results were easy to read from the test. The pH of our soil is 6.0. The tels us that a pH of 6.0 is an acid soil. As you can see in the previous blog. It is still very much in the growing range of most plants. The test kit gives you an extended list with the pH preference of a lot of garden plants. This is very practical when you are growing vegetables.

The levels of N and K in our garden where between sufficient and surplus. The level of P was sufficient. That is a happy result for now. I do not need to add anything. At the end of the summer I will test the soil again. So i will know how to organise my winter garden.

A simple laboratory test.

You can also send in a soil sample to have it tested. A laboratory will do the test for you.

Apart from NPK the laboratory test also gives you information about the most important, so called micro-nutrients: Calcium; Magnesium; Sulfur and Natrium.

An extended laboratory test.

Sending a sample too an official agricultural laboratory can be very expensive. It does come with a more in depth advice though. It will often give you the amount of organic matter that you have in your soil as well. As a starting gardener I would not spend the money. With the information you get from the simple test kit or from the more complicated you will have enough information to get your garden going. Large laboratory test provide a lot of data which are important for a larger scale farmer, but not to us small scale farmers. Too many data can also be confusing…

The next step: how to improve your vegetable garden soil.

You can be lucky and find out that your soil is very good and has all the nutrients that a plant needs to grow. In that case you might not need to add anything right away. You will still need to prepare your garden. If something is lacking you might need to add something. In the next blog we will tell you more about it.

24th July 2018
Sweet Basil, all you need to know to grow it.

Sweet Basil is an easy, straight forward plant to grow. In this blog you will find all the things you need to know for planning, companion planting, use and storage of Sweet Basil. It also provides you with information about the type of soil it needs and the pH it will grow in. One place to find it all.

Sweet Basil is just a choice of many types of Basils that are available for growing. I like the Genovese. It has big tender leaves to harvest and I love the taste and structure for making pesto.

From all the anual Basil I tried to grow, this one came out the best. It grows relatively easy. The other thing is that I think, most smaller leaved anual basil have a hard leave for harvesting. I don’t like hard leaves in salad and for making pesto. For me salad contains tender things. For pesto making the small leave variaties don’t quit make a smooth paste.

Plant characteristics

English name: Basil, Great Basil, Saint-Joseph’s-wort

Latin name: Ocimum basilicum

Family of: Lamiaceae (mint)

Maximum size plant: height, 20-60 cm width 15-20 cm

Root structure and depth: 20-30 cm, round structure

Spacing (plantafstand): 20-25 cm

Companions: tomatoes, apricot, asparagus, cucumber, fennel, zucchini, stinging nettle. Sweet Basil needs sunlight to grow. When growing them next to high plants like tomatoes and asparagus, make sure they are on the sunny side of the high plants.

Not companion with: Rue Herb, Chard/Silverbeet, Wormwood

Remedies for: Aphids, Fruit Fly

Water needs: medium in loamy soils. In sandy soils water properly otherwise they will go into flowering very quick.

Food needs: no fresh manure, compost, tolerates fresh compost.

Light: lots of sun

What type of soil: Sandy soils of any kind, loam/clay soils when they are rich in organic matter. Loves it fluffy. For more information about soil types click here. For finding out more about analysing your vegetable garden soil click here.

pH: 5.1-8.5

Weed tolerance: does tolerate some weeds as long as it is bigger than the weeds.

This is how it looks:

Picture 1: Full grown Sweet Basil, time to harvest.

Picture 2: Young Sweet Basil plants. The first two leaflets are still visible.

Picture 3: Flowering Basil. Leaves will be less tender. When you take the flowers out it will continue growing. You can use the flowers as well.

How to seed

Pre seeding: When the season, where you are, is short you can pre seed in pots.

Make sure you buy the right soil. Soil for growing pot plants is to rich for seedlings. The special soil for seeding is the one that works.

Handy and time saving is to seed them in trays. Peet seeding trays can be used integral. You do not need to take the plants out but plant the plant together with the pot. This way you do not disturb the roots, which gives the plant a growth advantage. This might be handy if you only have a short growing season.

You can also use the cheaper reusable seeding trays, when your season is longer. I would put some flat trays under the seeding trays to catch the surplus water when watering the trays. Here you find some affiliate options. When you use these links you will support our farm. Please feel free to click on the picture.

Seeding directly: In long season areas you can seed directly. I usually seed a small row next to where I want to grow them so I can easily plant them out. To recognise the small seedlings: make sure the seedbed is well weeded and raked.

Seed distance: 5 cm

Depth of seeding: 0,3 cm

Tip for saving time: buy a pot with basil in the supermarket and plant them in your garden. The growers usually squeeze a lot of plants in the pots. Turm the pot you bought up side down and carefully take the earth and plants out. After that carefully separata the plants. Now you have lots of plants to plant out. They will still grow a fair amount.

This can be done until later in the season. When you just want to grow a few plants this might be a good option.

Growth

Germination temperature: 21-29°C. This is essential for growing Sweet Basil. It will not germinate when the temperature is not high enough. Best is when the soil has warmed up till 21°C. Give the soil a week or so to warm up a bit. Note: in clay soils the temperature of the soil stays cool longer, this might stop your Basil from germinating.

Germination time 5-10 days

Duration from seed to Harvest: 60 days max

Seedlings: Seedlings start to grow with two heart shaped leaflets. In picture two these small leaflets are still visible.

Harvest

Harvest when full grown and leaves are lush (see: picture 1). You can stil harvest when it is flowering, leaves will not be as tender. The flowers (picture 3) have a strong taste and are good to harvest too.

How many plants will you need?

It depends on what you want to make from it. With the two of us we, ideally, grow between 30 and 50 plants. We grow them only once a year. We make a lot of pesto for the rest of the year. When we have no time to cook a big meal we use the pesto with some pasta and dried tomatoes. Easy and quick. So a lot of basil fits in our household.

When you just like it every now and then in the salad you might be all right with just 10-12 plants. When you have a long growing season you can plant a few plants early and some later in the season.

Storage

When you dry Sweet Basil it will lose most of it’s charming taste. So, I think that is not really an option. I think eating it fresh or making it into pesto are the best two option for Sweet Basil.

To preserve I freeze the pesto (see: recipe). You can also use jars to keep the pesto, but do not add the cheese. I do not know why it works with the jars of pesto that you buy in the supermarket. It always goes of when I add the cheese, no matter what I do.

When you preserve pesto in jars be aware that there is, however small a change of getting botulism into your jar. For this add some lemon juice to the mixture. It will keep the color nice and prevent the bacteria that cause botulism to produce the poisonous botox by lowering the pH.

Recipes

Pesto

Fill up an blender jar for 2/3 with Sweet basil leaves. Add three or four hand full of nuts. Just any nuts will do.

The official recipe is with pine nuts, but these are very expensive where I live. Almonds and wall nuts are much cheaper here so I use those.

Add the juice of halve a lemon and two or three cloves of garlic.

Blender it & freeze it in portions. It is not easy to cut it when frozen, so it is better to freeze it in desired portions.

Add some grind cheese when used.

Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzarella

This is so easy to make and it is delicious.

Slice some tomatoes in 1-2 cm thick slices.

Lay them on a large plate.

Slice the mozzarella in 1-2 thick slices.

Put the slices on top of the tomatoes.

Sprancle on a fair amount of Balsamico.

Cover the whole with Basil leaves (one leave per tomato slice).

12th July 2018
About the soil in your vegetable garden, what you need to find out.
Let’s go deeper into the soil matter. In this next chapter you will see what you need to find out about the soil in your vegetable garden.

Soil… What is soil anyway?

Soil that is good for agriculture consists of more or less: 48% minerals, 25% water; 25% air and 2% organic material. These 2% organic material seem to be very little, but it is of the greatest importance. From this 2% just 5% is alive. The living soil is small in volume but incredibly large in numbers of microorganisms.

What organic material does.

A lot of creatures are living in the soil of our garden. Moles, mice, worms, insects. These once you can see, but there is also live in the soil that you can not see. Microorganisms they are called. And they are large in numbers.

These invisible creatures munch the bigger organic matter in the soil into smaller parts. And then in even smaller parts until what is left is a chemical part that can be ‘eaten’ by the plants. Some of it is eaten by the plants and some stays in the organic matter as a buffer for later. Like a pantry.

Besides the food for the plants that is produced by the microorganisms in the organic matter, the organic matter contributes to a good soil structure. The soil will be able to contain air and water in a good balance as well.

Learning more about the soil in your garden

What type of soil you have in your garden will determine what you will be able to grow well. By knowing what kind of soil you have, you will also know how you can improve your soil so you can grow as many different vegetable as possible. Learning about your garden soil is the basis of good gardening. It is very important as you will see as we go along.

There are three main thing you need to know as a starting vegetable gardener:

What acidity your soil has; what type of soil the garden plot has and the amount of nutrition that is available for the plants in the soil.

Acidity

Some plants like potatoes like it more acid, some like peas and bell peppers, like it a bit less acid. Where potatoes can still grow, bell peppers might not. The acidity of the soil influences the amount of nutritions that the plants can take out of the soil. Bell peppers might not be able to get as many nutritions as they need out of the soil when it gets too acidic for them, while at the same acidity potatoes would still do fine.

Knowing what acidity the soil in your garden has, means to know what grows well. It is also possible to influence the acidity of the soil by adding something alkaline, like lime. But you need to be very careful with adding lime, because once added too much you can not reverse to getting it more acidic. A lot of plants can not grow on a soil that is too alkaline.

So be aware that you can create an irreversible problem by adding too much lime. There might be other reasons why your plant does not want to grow. Check these first before applying lime. How to check your soil will be discussed in the next blog.

Acidity is scientifically expressed in pH. The pH scale goes from 0 to 14. A value of 7 is called neutral. That means it is not acid nor alkaline. Values under 7 are called acidic and values over 7 are called alkaline.

Pure water has an acidity of 7. Lemon juice, vinegar and rain water are on the acidic side of the scale. Egg white, solved chalk and soap are on the alkaline side.

If you want a more scientific explanation of pH click here. This link also tells you something about the history of the term pH. Ever thought about it why it is called pH?

pH tolerance of vegetables

To give an idea of what grows in which range here are some examples:

Potatoes: 4.2-5.3
Onions, leek, lettuce, spinach: 5.4-6.4
Cucumbers, tomatoes: 5.7-6.4
Bell peppers, beans: 6.0-6.5

You can find a longer list of pH tolerance of plants when you click here (scroll down the page).

Why are the potatoes in the link growing at an acidity of 4.8-6.5 and in this blog from 4.2-5.3 ? It might be that the potatoes are from a different variety. Or the soil that functions as a standard is different. The 4.2-5.3 counts for a sandy soil. The 4.8-6.5 might counts for a loamy soil. This is quite a technical story so I will not go there. But be aware that these indications are an indication and not an absolute figure. And that there is always a correction depending on the soil you have. The correction for the sandy soils more to the acidic side and the correction for the clay soils is more on the alkaline side.

The type of soil

Roughly soil types are divided amongst clay, sand and silt soils. The clay soils have a very fine structure, the particles are very small. Clay is sticky and greasy when wet. The sand has a more coarse particle then clay, the particles are loose, even when wet. Silt soil is somewhere in between the two.

There are three main reasons why you want to know what type of soil you have.
1. The ideal pH for your garden depends on the type of soil. In the description below I will point out the ideal pH per type of soil.
2. The different type of soils can contain more or less air and/or water.
3. Specific plants can have preferences for a certain type of soil.
Here is a quick overview which soil does what:

Clay

Clay contains tiny particles that are hard and which compact easily. It is a heavy difficult soil to plant and shovel in. In Holland heavy clay soils are ploughed before the frost, leaving big wet lumps of clay on the fields. The water in the lumps freezes in winter. And because water expands when frozen it breaks the clay. This way the clay becomes workable for agriculture in spring. Potatoes, cabbages and onions are grown on these soils.

These soils are not 100% clay, if so they would be you could not work them. Pure clay is the soil that you make pottery from. Clay hold water when soaked. But because the structure is so dense the water will run of very easy when the clay is dry. Clay that dries can crack and it will not hold a lot of air.

Clay soils when wet feels a bit greasy and it is sticky. When rolled between the hands the clay forms a role that will not break.

Clay is slightly alkaline. The ideal pH to grow vegetables in clay soils is 7.2-7.7 .

Sand

Sand particles are relatively course. You can see them with the bare eye. There is a lot of air between the particles and it does not compact. It drains the water too well so the water does not stay around the roots of the plants. It does not hold nutrition for the plants. Sand soils need a lot of compost or manure every year because the compost and the manure get washed through the sand with the rain. Roots however can easily find their way in the sand. Carrots, radishes and asparagus grow well in sandy soils.

Sand is gritty to the tough. When squeezed it does not stick together at all.

Sandy soils are usually slight acidic. The ideal pH to grow vegetables in sand is 5.2-6.5 .

Silt

The size of particles of silt are between those of clay and sand. It holds the moisture better than sand. Nutritions are better kept around the plants as well, so it is often fertile. It can still compact easily and is prone to erosion when not well maintained.

The ideal pH to grow plants in in silt is 6.7-7.3 .

Loam

Loam is a mixture of Clay, Sand and Silt. It is easy to work with, holds the moisture and nutritions. This is the best garden soil, I think. It also contains enough air.

There are all sorts of mixtures between Sand, Silt and Clay. In this drawing you will find them:

Nutrition value

Another thing that is important to know is: how fertile is your soil? How much nutritions does it have?

The main food that plants need are Nitrogen (N); Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). Apart from that there are some important spore elements like Magnesium.

The plants need Nitrogen for growth, color and density. Phosphorus supports the growth of new roots and shoots. Potassium supports the plants health in general. It also supports stress, disease and cold resistance in plants. All three elements are vital for plant growth.

Back to your vegetable plot & the next blog

So now that you know all this, how are you going to find out what the soil is like in your vegetable plot? What pH will it have? What type of soil? And will it have enough NPK?

For this you need to analyse the soil. You can find out how to do this in our blog: How to Analyse the Soil from Your Vegetable Garden.
10th July 2018
X ways to make money off your homestead… How much can you really do?

Yes, I do agree that there are many ways to make money off your homestead. From selling eggs to beautiful handicraft. It all depends on your skills and dreams. But to be very honest, it is not so simple.

I mean, yes, when you have a nice part time homestead on the outskirts of a city it is a completely different story. I envy you. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about the ‘real thing’.

This blog is about trying to make a living in one of those places that have been given up by industrial agriculture. Where people used to have their homestead land practically given by the government. Those places where nobody wanted to go. Where some of us see a challenge to build up something.

Time….

There is only 24 hour in a day. From that 24 hours you need to sleep between 6-8 hours. You will need some time to cook and eat. There are also birthdays and events to celebrate and maybe even a holiday.

The time that you can spend on your homestead is limited. Most homesteads want to be self sufficient at least food wise. This also takes a fair amount of time.

And Money.

And then on top of this you need to make money. Earn an income to be able to pay bills or to invest in your homestead, probably both. How are you going to do this?

That is a question that keeps us, and also our neighbours, busy. We are living in the south of Portugal surrounded by like minded people who all want to live from their land. We want to eat our own grown food and be able to make money as well. It is not easy at all. As far as I can see it is the hardest part of it all. Aren’t we homesteader not all struggling with it? More or less?

At the beginning there was the dream

The list when we started our project in Portugal was long. I was going to set up meditation classes and my husband was going to keep his job in Holland until we were sorted. In the meantime we were going to grow fruit trees and make jams. And somehow, we didn’t really think how, sell the jam.

Then we were going to have our vegetable garden so we did not need to buy food. Make our own baskets to carry the vegetables around. Then we got goats and were going to make cheese. Soon the chickens followed and we were selling eggs. It did not bring in enough so we started a tourist facility. Then we are tired. Can you imagine? It is totally insane.

At first we thought to follow the ‘a bit of this and a bit of that’ strategy. Doing so we thought we could just make a living. Well yes, maybe just, very just. Sometimes hardly or maybe not. We struggled with it. There is simply not enough time to divide your attention and investments in so many things. And time management does not help here. Believe me time management is a solution for a different situation.

The reality

Calculating we were looking what would be the best options. Chickens were not. To make a living from chickens means that you need a lot of chickens. Too many for the land we have. Or go very specialised in breeds. It would take all our attention and a serious plan. That it needs serious calculating and planning is what counts for all the things we were doing if we want to make a living from it.

Making a living from producing organic jam meant we had to sell at least 10.000 jars of jam a year. Not in a million year we were going to produce so much fruit. And guess what, there were no organic fruit producers in the whole area. So buying organic fruit to make this production, was not an option either.

Okay, you do not need to earn a living only on making jam. Let’s say just for a third. That is still 3000 jars of jam. And about 1000 kg of fruit.

And if the jam making would just be a third of the pei it means the other two third have to come from something else. Meaning that you have to invest in two or three projects. Not easy either. Where are you going to get the investment money from? It is already hard enough to get the investments for one project together.

What was best for us.

In the end we figured out that keeping goats and making cheese and tourism were the best options. Not without any success. Our tourist place is doing well during the high tourist season. And it provides us enough money to live from for about halve a year. The cheese I sell to friends and members of an association I am a member from. I can still not sell it openly to everybody. Hopefully I will manage to make my own cheese kitchen.

It was good to narrow down our economic activities to these two…so far. And to narrow down our activities on the whole as well. We are still extremely busy though. But I guess that is how we are.

We still have a few chickens for our own eggs and produce our own veggies. And there is still the land that needs maintenance.

We’re still not there. Where? 🙂

But, but, but. Both areas, cheese making and tourism, are heavily regulated in Portugal. Even worse every so many years the regulations change making is also into a risk to just invest on these two areas. Sometimes the rules are so complicated that they are not entirely applied, but those areas where rules are applied or not are shifting all the time. It kind of drives me crazy. Although I must say that some people in our local government have their heart at the right spot, they try to support us where they can.

We used to build everything ourselves. At a certain moment we were so occupied by running our daily jobs that it was not possible to continue doing everything ourselves. For many years we had volunteers that helped us out. But even that became quite a big time investment. We had people living here, that in the end couldn’t or wouldn’t work that hard.

There we are. Building up a business that is under constant state attack on one side and with too little hands to make a leap to the next level. And the main problem, no investment money.

Getting investment money and gaining time is going to be our next challenge. The next step for me is to try to make money through the internet. It is the very reason I started blogging on our website. The idea is to make enough money to hire in services so things can get done and build.

It is a step that many homesteaders make, as I have found out. And some are really successful. I hope I will be too.

A homestead is a business.

In the end I think running a homestead is pretty much like running any business. Lot’s of business and organisational principles and practicalities are applicable on a homestead. It sounds all a lot less romantic than selling small handy crafts and eggs, but I think it is the reality.

I worked for years as a project manager in an NGO. Also together with my father I ran an import business in organic goods in Holland. Lot’s what I have learned in those years comes in very handy now while we try to build up our homestead.

I guess the idea that you can escape from all the things that you have been involved in is not true. It just sticks to you.

And sure selling beautiful homestead handicraft or selling eggs could be an excellent business for a homestead.

Do you want to know what we are doing on the farm? Follow our facebook.

5th June 2018