Fast Tracking Self-Sufficiency

Bootstrap beginners homestead to triage food supply in a fragile world

Potatoes are an easy maintenance crop that doesn’t require specialized storage

Forget wars and rumors of wars, it seems as though everywhere you turn these days there’s talk of food factories burning, inflation, supply chain issues, and rumors of food shortages. Folks are saying there’s an egg shortage with prices going through the roof right now. (Chick prices are soon to follow.) Those egg prices you used to balk at while strolling through the farmer’s market years ago are looking mighty fine these days, aren’t they? Many are concerned about their food security, and rightly so. As modern Americans, we’ve never lived in a time when there wasn’t abundance. To go to the supermarket and not get whatever you needed has been unfathomable all of our lives. And, yet, here we are. 

Danny Branch might have been right all along. 

“National prosperity, and especially the prosperity of the nation’s farmers, was not permanent; it was not to be depended on; the predictions and promises of politicians and their experts were not to be depended on; if it all had come to nothing once, it all could come to nothing again. As much as any of the old-timers, he regarded the Depression as not over and done with but merely absent for a while, like Halley’s comet. He suspected that the world of the Depression was in fact the real world.”

Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry

Hard times are always going to circle back around. 

In large part, on our homestead, we’ve not been touched by the chaos of the past three years, thanks be to God. Sure, with 9 backsides in the house, I can assure you I’m a little more well-stocked with toilet paper than I was in 2019. But some of our food costs have actually gone down, despite rising feed costs. (Technically, they didn’t raise the price at our mill, but the 100-pound feed sack is now only packing 80.) We’ve been homesteading long enough to have learned a lot and know how to cut corners and focus on getting the most bang for our buck. 

It set me to thinking, “What would I tell myself to focus on if I was just starting out today?” Where should one place their priorities if they’re concerned and looking to secure their food source, ASAP?

Many pumpkin varieties will store well until you’re ready to use them

Fast Tracking Self-Sufficiency

Change Your Mind

Not like that. You’re about to embark on one of the most fulfilling, enriching, satisfying of lifestyles. It very well may be that, despite a future return of abundance on the shelves, you’ll never look back and can’t imagine living any other way. I hope that it is so and you keep on moving forward, friend!

But you need to change your mindset first. For now, you must lower your expectations and learn to ebb and flow with the seasons. Food is seasonal. 

Strawberries are something we enjoy for maybe a month each year, tomatoes from July through October. You’ll learn that the deprivation and drought build such anticipation that you’re ready to glut when the harvest starts flowing. And by the time the season comes to an end, you’re not sure if you could eat one more tomato anyway. Bring on the pumpkin! Bacon is a garnish, not a side dish. One pig gives an average of 22 pounds of bacon. It isn’t going to last all year if you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day. But, in exchange, you’ll learn to prepare and enjoy a diversity of cuts. We rarely eat the same thing more than a handful of times in a year.

Believe it or not, eggs are also a seasonal food. Hens lay in response and proportion to daylight and, well, there’s just not a whole lot of it during the depths of winter. Chickens usually molt by October and lay very few eggs between then and early February. Plan ahead and preserve early spring eggs (there will be so many you can’t keep up) by water glassing or freezing. (Barely whisk the eggs to scramble but without incorporating a lot of air then freeze in silicone trays.) That way you’re sure to at least have eggs for baking. You’ll be so grateful to have eggs for your breakfast in the spring you’re going to do your darnedest to try and keep up with them, they’ll be such a treat to have again!

Adjusting your mindset will help you create resiliency to weather the storm of change and shift in workload. 

Assess Your Needs

Before starting a homestead, you should consider what your basic needs are and the fastest way to meet them… at the lowest cost and least amount of work. Consider what you are already eating. I struggle to understand the prepper/food storage supply companies. At some point, you may find that the fear of hunger has passed and you have all of this food on hand, that you would never eat outside of an emergency, just going to waste. If you prepare in a way that you aren’t already eating, you’ll likely never eat that way by choice. If you’re not grabbing that freeze-dried canned chicken from the cupboard to make dinner tonight, you probably never will. 

If there is a food crisis, you are going to need a protein source to fill your belly, but are beans the best way to get it? This bean counter would say no. What is the quickest way to get the most protein, with the least amount of infrastructure? 

Most homesteaders seem to get their toes wet with a quaint little garden and some laying hens. Social media has made designer chickens with rainbow eggs all the rage but are those your best choices? Get serious about food production right from the start. Assess your needs and set goals that may not get you the most likes and shares on your post. 

Green beans are ready for harvest in 60 days and will provide a heavy crop all summer with enough surplus to learn how to easily preserve them by freezing some for winter

Decrease Your Dependency

Find the areas where you can become fully independent from the global market. Sometimes this may look like using your skills to barter with a neighbor who can supply you with milk. Other times it will look like eliminating the supermarket by producing your own food. 

Or it may look like completely removing something that isn’t a “need” from your life. 

Let’s be honest, grocery stores are filled with pre-packaged junk food. You don’t need snacks, chips, crackers, cookies, or cereal. (And you’ll probably be better off without them.) Learning to cook from scratch is the greatest way to decrease your dependency. There is such versatility and creativity in being able to use a few simple ingredients to make a plethora of different recipes as the seasons change and offer their diversity of produce. 

We are pretty much at the point where, so far as food goes, our grocery list is: produce we can’t grow (or isn’t in production yet), baking goods (such as baking soda), grains, nuts, spices, pasta, coffee, and cocoa powder for a few examples. It’s not to say we won’t buy some of those other things, but they are occasional purchases and nothing we are dependent on to feel satisfied. 

When you decrease your dependency you increase your resiliency and are better able to adapt to the unpredictable changes in the world these days. 

One Thing at a Time, and That Well Done…

Is a good job. As much as possible try to build your skills slowly. By doing so you are far less likely to suffer from homestead burnout and experience the frustration that comes from any stumbling or failures. By assessing your needs and carefully crafting your goals, you’ll be able to avoid taking on too much. When you build slowly, you’ll gain the experience and confidence that allow for the chores to become second nature, just another part of your daily life. Then you can move on to the next thing and grow your homestead. 

Keep Homesteading Records

Become a cottage economist and use your homestead records to spot weaknesses in your budget and areas open for improvement. I’ve always been an advocate for keeping homestead records. I’ve been creating homestead management printables available online for nearly a decade. I co-founded SmartSteader, a homestead management app, and put together the Homestead Journal Planner for Homesteaders of America. Records are that important in my opinion. They allow you to reinforce your learning experiences, assess your expenses and yields to set goals, and make better decisions when choosing breeds or seed varieties. Every good farmer keeps records and just because the scale is smaller doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow suit. 

Colorful eggs are lovely to look at, but the breeds that lay them aren’t very productive

A Triage Homestead

So what would I tell myself to do if I was starting out on a new homestead in 2023? 

1.) Focus on protein first- I have been homesteading for 16 years. We STILL aren’t growing 100% of the produce we eat. In part, that is because we have moved twice and our current orchard isn’t established yet. And, in part, because I’m choosing not to limit access to fresh fruits and vegetables to my children’s growing bodies and brains.

But we have been exclusively eating our own eggs, meat, and dairy for over a decade. We slowly built our homestead in the first 5 years to achieve that level of independence and it has been easier to maintain than a garden simply because pound-for-pound animals are more productive and more resilient than plants. They are less susceptible to harsh weather, pests, and disease. 

Assess your needs and plan for raising livestock. Which stock you raise depends on what you like to eat, the overall caloric needs of your family, and your property restrictions and infrastructure. 

Chickens

Ideally, I would start with a layer flock AND meat chickens, right at the same time. They can grow up side by side for the first 4 months as one chore, one skill. Then you have an immediate and substantial harvest before your first pullet offers you a single glorious orb. A chicken tractor can be economically built, easily modified if needed, and moved without the need for an outbuilding. 

For broilers, choose a meat breed. Once you have meat in the freezer, you can consider heritage and dual-purpose breeds but the fact is they produce half the flesh in double the time. Likewise, forego those fancy layer breeds and rainbow eggs. Stick to the sex-linked, production breeds. Not only are they less of an upfront cost, but they are the healthiest, hardiest, most productive birds. They will outlay all other breeds two to one, easily. You will need fewer birds, less feed, and still get the same yield of eggs. You do not need a rooster unless your flock will free-range (for protection) or if you hope they will hatch their own chicks. If those aren’t your goals, buying a rooster is like running your money down the drain. He might be pretty, but all he’ll do is eat your feed and probably stress the hens so they lay fewer eggs.

While other types of poultry, such as ducks, may be more thrifty and can grow to weight just as quickly as chickens on less feed, the lack of diversity of meals prepared with duck meat by the average American makes them, ultimately, a less sensible choice. When you feel comfortable enough with your food supply you can turn your homestead into a hobby and diversify to try fun things. 

Rabbits

While you are likely dependent on the hatchery to supply your chicks, that isn’t the case with rabbits. Invest in breeding age stock and in as little time as your meat chickens take to be raised out, you can also raise bunnies for free with the abundance of summer greens, and another batch coming along on their heels. 

Putting a year’s supply of pork in the freezer

Pork

While pigs require a larger initial investment than chickens or rabbits, what they yield in flesh makes them the most economical protein on the homestead. Infrastructure costs are extremely low, virtually non-existent since they can be trained to a single strand of very hot polywire. A feeder, waterer, a few posts, hotwire, charger, and you’re good to go. 

Do you need to do all of these in one year? No, of course not. But beginning with chickens and rabbits in one year would be very manageable with a great reduction in dependency. 

The Ruminants

As much as I love them and find them to be a critical, perhaps even central, element of our homestead, I do not, under any circumstances, recommend starting with a family milk cow. The education, infrastructure, and initial costs alone make her a poor choice to start raising your own food. She will eat more than you expect and needs better forage than you may be able to provide. Breeding resources and veterinary care can be challenging to find. When boiled down, your choices when purchasing a family cow are either a calf that will take 18 months till your first glass of milk or someone else’s cull cow and all of her problems that your inexperience can’t see nor handle. But more than that, she is also an incredibly sensitive beast, highly dependent on a dedicated, regimented farmer to care for her. She is highly social and the least resilient of the protein choices. Likewise, a beef steer turned out on pasture for two years will not see a return on your investment any time soon. Sheep and goats also require more infrastructure than the other choices and, ultimately, yield less flesh for the time you invest in them than a pig would. 

Guardians

You do not need livestock guardians to start homesteading, if ever. Walk your family pet up to the chickens to do their business and that will go a long way to deterring predators. Donkeys and llamas are just an added expense that simply steal your forage that could have been growing food. 

Harvesting squash doesn’t require constant monitoring because it doesn’t rot in the field if you can’t get to it right away

2.) Plant a smart garden - Seed catalogs are full of overwhelming choices. There are so many exciting plants to try! The deceptive hope of spring always tempts us to bite off more of a garden than we can chew. Instagram gardeners are always sharing their colorful assortment of garden-fresh abundance in a carefully-arranged basket. Already, we are eating with our eyes. 

But, sadly, that is a recipe for an overgrown garden, where weeds are happily stealing your plant’s nutrients and reseeding their misery into the seed bank below their feet for the next 7 years. 

Grow a garden, but lower your expectations. Don’t expect to grow all of your produce, it’s not likely to happen. Don’t invest in expensive, time-consuming raised beds that limit production and future plans all in one shot. I’m a big fan of standardized bed sizes that allow for careful planning, accurate record keeping, and therefore future success. All of my beds are 3’x50’ but you could work in lengths of 10’ or 25’ and reap the same benefits. 

First, choose to grow plants that will:

• Provide a high yield of calories for the work

• Do not require skilled processing or specialized storage space (like canning equipment or a deep freezer)

• Have a low seed cost

• Can easily be saved for seed next year

• That you love to eat!

For me, this is pretty much everything I grow in what I call my “pantry garden.” I prepare and plant that garden in late May, spend a couple of weeks weeding it then it’s virtually set & forget until late September. That way I can focus on other areas of food production. 

My pantry garden has potatoes, sweet potatoes, dry beans, dent corn and popcorn (not sweet corn*), and lots of winter squash, particularly butternut squash. None of these plants require canning or special storage. The beans and corn, once passively dry, can be stored in buckets or jars. The squash and potatoes can all be stored in a cellar or other dry, cool place. 

Other crops to consider would be cabbage, beets, carrots, parsnips, and turnips. Next, I would add garlic. It’s easy to grow, adds diversity of flavor to dishes, and is extremely healthy, even medicinal. 

If you wanted to tackle a couple of easy preservation crops the first year, consider cucumbers that can be fermented or made into refrigerator pickles (no canning required.) Grow green beans when you’re ready to learn blanching and freezing vegetables. They are simple to grow and harvest, are very productive, and freezing is quick and easy. 

Keeping your garden and preservation goals simple allows you to focus on bringing in a food supply while building up basic gardening and animal husbandry skills without having to also learn how to can or preserve food too. There’s only so much a body can do! 

• Sweet corn is very tricky to get right. It needs to be well-pollinated to create full ears, requires protection from raccoons who will wipe the whole plot out in a night, and is easy to miss the right time for harvest. You likely never be able to grow enough sweet corn to last even through the summer but it’s easy to grow enough popcorn or dent corn for a year’s supply of cornbread. 

A bushel (50 pounds) of sweet potatoes. Once they’re cured, sweet potatoes can be stored in a dark, cool place until you’re ready to use them.

3.) Get serious about investing in the community - Building resiliency into your food supply is not just about self-sufficiency. In fact, most experienced homesteaders will tell you that self-sufficiency is an illusion. True wealth and food security come when you invest in your local community. Your friends and neighbors likely have skills that you don’t even know about. Ask your grandparents or someone else’s grandparents to teach you what they used to do as children with their parents. They are an untapped wealth of knowledge. Learn how to care for a family cow by offering your labor to gain experience alongside a local dairyman. Local food producers will be able to help you to learn how to grow food in your unique area so much better than your favorite charismatic influencer of choice. As you build relationships, explore bartering your eggs or whole chickens for honey with a local beekeeper.  Exchanging skills and goods allows for diversity you will never have time to achieve on your own homestead. Bearing one another’s burdens will soften the sharp edges of life and make the challenges easier to face. 

By starting slowly and focusing on a few key elements on a beginner homestead you can make sure you are producing substantial calories in just a few months. You will ensure that you have a food supply that lasts through the winter so you can focus your grocery budget on filling in the gaps. You may not be growing all, or even most of your food, but you’ll be on the right track to building longevity and perseverance into your future plans.

In closing, I will leave you with the admonition of fellow Substack writer A.L. Bork who advises homesteaders in the new year, 

“But after having been at this for some time, after having burned out a time or two, here is my encouragement to you - especially for the new homesteaders:

build GRACE into your plans.

Use it to build a backfire, so you’ve got a line of defense against feelings of failure & burnout when circumstances catch you by surprise, and you have to address them with means you consider less than ideal.”

Wise counsel to season your future homestead success.