Homesteading is a new way of life for so many people (and an old way of life for many folks as well). If you are currently engaged in homesteading, how do you share your lifestyle with others?
Lately I’ve been thinking about all the ways to pass it forward. For many it is as simple as sharing something grown on your land with a friend or relative, while for others is may be creating a community garden, or writing and sharing on the internet. Whatever your reasons for homesteading, one of the most important things you can do is pass on the passion and desire on to others. Today I challenge you to think how you are passing it forward?
Here are some of my thoughts on how you can share the love of homesteading:
- Share food or other produce from your homestead with others
- Invite people to see your space, give a tour, or just have folks for dinner
- Talk about your experiences with others, even if it is just the mailman at the post office when you pick up your chicks
- Start a community garden
- Teach a class on an aspect of homesteading
- Start a blog or Facebook page about your farm or homestead
- Teach a kid how to garden or care for animals
- Volunteer at an event that will allow you to share your experiences
- Sell things at a roadside stand
This is just a starting list – how do you pass it forward?
My wife and I are in the process of creating an organic school garden where we can share our passion of gardening and healthy food with our community. We are planning on making it a hands-on learning center where children will learn where their food comes from and how to grown their own. The food grown in the garden will be incorporated into the school lunch program so we can offer healthier alternatives to what is being served, as well as provide free healthy meals to those in our community that otherwise might not be able to afford it. We will also be doing a farmer's market at the garden to teach how to run a farm business and we will be offering reduced price and free produce to needy local families.
You can read about our program and follow our progress at: http://thegardenatosw.blogspot.com (blog) and http://www.facebook.com/thegardenatosw (Facebook)
One of my favorite things to do is share my love of homesteading. This weekend for our mother's day get together, I made a salad with radish sprouts from my garden and it was a big hit! I loved telling everyone about how I grew the sprouts myself. You can check out that post here – http://www.ourneckofthewoods.net/2013/05/mushroom-radish-sprout-salad.html
I also often make egg deliveries to my friend's place of work and everyone comments on how pretty the eggs are. I love any chance to talk chickens 🙂 Occasionally I get emails from people asking me chicken questions and I think that is so awesome. I enjoy sharing my knowledge and spreading the love of chickens and homesteading!
I've recently discovered several friends who are interested in canning but are – in their words – afraid of it. So I've offered to have them over once or twice in the summer for a hands-on demonstration.
I have a daydream about hosting workshops on Saturday mornings for anyone interested – picking ripe produce together from my garden and then preparing and canning it together. It is so empowering to be able to produce and preserve your own food, and most people are so removed from (and a little terrified by) the process; I would love to be able to gently re-introduce people to the origins of their food. 🙂 xo
I share produce from the garden and sell eggs at cost to friends who are interested in what I'm doing, but not that interested in living this life themselves. I've encouraged others to plant just a few tomatoes or beans. Last year I helped one of my friends start a very small garden by digging up the soil and helping her plant.
I've also offered to show people how to can. Somehow it seems that they can never make it at the right time. But we'll try again this year.
My biggest method of outreach is my blog. I try to share some how to posts as well as some that are just encouraging people to think in a new way.
Great topic, Gretchen!
I guess I've never thought about gardening, canning and food sharing as homesteading. It's just something I've always done and grew up doing. I like the taste of home grown produce and now with a two year old I like to know where our food is coming from. In the last couple of years my garden has expanded out of the fenced garden into the side yard and back yard where the dogs won't do damage. I do share my love of gardening with friends and co-workers and a select few are lucky enough to get some produce from my garden. I also plant a few extra rows or hills and take the extra produce to the homeless shelter in downtown Denver once a month or so.
I can about everything I am able to from the garden. In the last year, I've started going to food swaps. It's all about homemade/home grown goodness that is swapped for other peoples goodness. A lot of fun and I've come home with some interesting foods that are good for my family.
Great post! I love to talk to everyone about what we do. I try to share it as often as I can.
This is a brilliant post. We used to always give our neighbours are plums as we never ate them and our tomatoes when we produced too many to eat. Community is important.
Thank you for linking up with Motivational Monday