Official Poll: What is your motivation to be more self-sufficient?

[Nifty]

Most of us have a lot of reasons why we want to be more self-sufficient, but the order of "biggest reason" to "smallest reason" may be very different.

Here's a poll to find out what your top 2 reasons! NOTE: the poll will let you select more than two items, but please limit your votes so we know your main priority and motivation!

After you vote, reply to this thread with the reason why you voted the way you did.

If your top reasons aren't listed, please reply and let us know what it is.

 

[Mini Horses]

people who want to learn. Yes, they are out there, few, but they are out there.

I try to teach but really have no one interested in learning it around here. So, mostly it's sharing things I've tried and found good to folks on forums such as this.

We all know how demanding gardens are - not everyone has the time. But, if we can help just one or two then perhaps the gardening itch will grow within them

These are all things and problems that exist. I may be the ONLY one in my neighborhood who actually grows any garden. And last year I didn't do that either. People do not have to "grow or not eat" anymore. But, the food they are eating is killing them. Waaay back, if your garden failed you had a hungry family! There were few resources beyond other family to help, then.

I want to eat better, healthy, home & naturally grown foods. That's why I do this. All this work My grandma(s) would be proud of me...even tho I use internet to find lids.

 

[baymule]

I want to know that my food is not drenched with glyphosate or 2-4-D or what ever the "safe" poison of the week is. My Daddy always had a garden, my earliest memories are of toddling behind him in his garden. I have gardened off and on through my life and picked it back up about 8 years ago. There is nothing that compare with fresh vegetables, raised without chemicals or pesticides. A small investment in a pack of seeds or a 6-pack of plants brings large rewards, both in food and satisfaction that I am feeding my family with good food.

I can, freeze and dehydrate the extra and I buy what I don't have room to grow. I pick blueberries and blackberries for yummy cobblers all winter. Friends give me figs and pears which I turn into jam and preserves, and give them jars of each in a "thank you". My pantry is packed with gleaming jars.........ok......maybe a little dusty. I have Food-Saver bags of dehydrated vegetables. I have stored beans, rice, wheat, quinoa and sugar in quantity that would feed us for awhile.

We live in hurricane country and when we take a hard hit, the power can be off for weeks. I can walk in the darkness to where I keep a box of kitchen matches and down below in the cabinet, I can lay hands on a kerosene glass lantern. We have a generator for the freezer, but finding gas for it can be an ordeal in and of itself. A bar-b-cue pit cooks what we need to eat when power is off. We have warning when a hurricane is coming, so I bake brownies (need comfort food lol ) I store water in every available pot, plus in big plastic trashcans with lids.

I would hate to pay the bill for the fresh vegetables I grow. There is no way we could eat as healthy as we do if we had to buy it all. I cannot fathom why anybody with a bit of a yard does not grow a garden. Lazy, I guess.

Even thought we are in the center of our small town, I have chickens in the backyard. BYC-RIGHT??? The hens provide us with fresh eggs and the old hens are good in the soup pot. I am contemplating ordering some Pekin ducks to raise for the freezer. DH used to think I was nuts, now when I voice "I'm thinking about......" he just grins. He's a good sport and piles in to help me in whatever madness I have concocted.

I posted this in January of 2014. In September of 2014, we closed on a doublewide and 8 acres 160 miles away, to be close to our daughter and her family. We moved on February 2015 and got busy with making it our home. We've had our ups and downs, worked hard to make improvements, moved our horses, got MORE chickens, got Katahdin hair sheep, raised a series of feeder pigs for the freezer and got more dogs. We made a bigger garden and have worked to improve the soil. We are in a great community with wonderful neighbors. I don't know that we will ever be self sufficient, but we sure knock a hole in it.

 

[Britesea]

My daughter lives in a tiny, second floor apartment in the heart of San Francisco, but after visiting us and enjoying picking and eating from the garden, she now has some potted plants on the (only!) windowsill- a couple of herbs, a lettuce plant and a strawberry plant. She posted a picture the other day on Facebook of her lettuce plant (it looks like a butter type)-- it almost looks like a palm tree because they've picked so many of the lower leaves to make sandwiches, and the stalk just keeps growing taller, lol. She's so proud of what she was able to grow, that now they are thinking about leaving the city for at least a place in the suburbs. Little seeds....

 

[Lazy Gardener]

In order to have good, healthy food, we must have good, healthy soil. That is the driving force behind my gardening, and poultry flock management. I want to be as independent as possible from the grocery store. Our finances are tight. So, to buy everything "organic" would leave us hurting in other areas which require financial input. So... I grow and process as much as I can.

In spite of the focus on growing our own food, I am also sensing that God is leading me to scale back a bit. Primary garden is smaller. Some of the extra gardening needs will be shifted to flower beds, HK bed, BTE orchard, and periphery of the yard. I'll be using part of the primary garden space to build a Woods Open Air style coop to house a down sized chicken flock, and add a couple ducks.

I am an avid dump scrounger: finding wonderful building materials, as well as household goods. Every dollar not spent is a dollar that can be used to secure our financial future. I have not worked since the end of September, and consider myself to be now retired. Hubby is retired as of 1/1/20. We are entering a new chapter in our lives and excited about the prospects.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

@baymule , your post brought a smile to my face. I am largely who I am today, because of the way my father mentored me as a child. He was an incredible gardener. He also had a flock of chickens, raised sheep, and horses. He was instrumental at getting me started with my first flock of chickens at the age of 12.

Which brings me to an important add on to this thread: How are we, as the current generation of homesteaders: mentoring, teaching, and passing on our love of growing things to future generations? It concerns me that these things that we value may be lost to future generations. I know we are all willing to teach. But... is the next generation willing to learn? Do they even see the value of healthy soil and healthy food? Do they see the value of the independence that comes from living a life style that promotes debt free living and independence from government control of every area of our lives, including what we put in our mouths?

 

[Beekissed]

It's just good stewardship of the resources God has provided for us, as well as it just makes good sense to be frugal, grow some food here and redeem the time given to us wisely.

 

[baymule]

I mentor and teach every chance I get. Anyone who wants to learn, I gladly take the time to teach what I know. What good does it do to have a lifetime of experience and knowledge if you die and take it all with you?

We have a friend named Sarah. I've know her since she was 11 years old. She lived with me and DH for awhile, some 10 years ago. She still tells the story how I dragged her out of bed at 6 AM on a Saturday morning to go with me to the local hardware store for FREE TOMATO DAY!! They gave away a six pack of tomato plants and I need her to go with me so I could get 2 six packs! I had her digging in the garden, helping me plant them, going with me to the horse pasture, shoveling manure and working it into the garden. She ate fresh vegetables from the garden and never forgot it. Since then, twice she has had a garden, growing her own vegetables. She closes on 4 acres and a doublewide in the Houston area in February and will be planting a garden. I planted the seed and she will harvest the increase.

Just this evening a young couple with a 9 year old girl and 5 month old twins came over for a free pair of Silkies I gave away. They just bought a house and 2 acres less than a mile from us. His parents run a vegetable stand in town and we buy from them. He was very interested in the sheep and I let his little girl feed them from her hand and hold a 2 week old lamb. She was thrilled. So here is a great opportunity for exchange of information on both our parts.

These are but 2 examples of people who want to learn. Yes, they are out there, few, but they are out there.

 

[wyoDreamer]

When I worked at the Big Box Hardware store, they had their sales on seeds/starting mix/etc. One of the gals there was talking about how much her daughter wanted to garden and how she was such a special child she could get anything to grow, how nice it would be to grow their own veggies and she wished she could afford to buy all that stuff. The child's birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks so I bought some seeds, starting mix, and pots - so she could start her garden. I told my friend that she needed to wait until the child's birthday to give her the present because that was the right time to start garden seeds for our area. I told her how to look at the labels and make sure stuff was planted right, teach the child to do it right. And I told her she needed to save buckets to plant the veggies in, make sure to poke some holes in the bottom and such. 2 days later, she tells me the child planted all the seeds and had even planted seeds in all the houseplants. She didn't know what was planted where and really didn't care if anything grew. I changed jobs a week later s, so I don't know if anything came of that effort, but it really felt like a waste of my time and money.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

somehow you need to get across that you can start small and gradually figure things out. y

Totally agree!

My young neighbors see what I do and decided they would do it too. They had a huge garden one year and actually did very well with it - but it got away from them. A couple of years later they wanted to have another garden but were afraid of the outcome. We talked and I suggested that they just grow the things they love. That year they planted cucumbers, melons, zucchini and okra. Four rows - four of their favorite vegetables - and they loved it. AND - bonus - their children loved help[ing and picking their favorites too.

My own kids are not big gardeners like me....they have fulltime jobs and kiddos. But, both of my children have pots that they grow things in. My son loves all things hot. So, for his b'day 2018 I bought him a big pot, some dirt, and a couple of habanero plants. He loves it so much that he's kept those habanero plants going for almost two years. Heck - I've never done that, lol. But they baby those plants and bring this whole huge pot inside on cold nights. It's awesome!

It's a tiny little seed that they've latched on to. I have no doubt that they will branch out and grow more when the time is right for them.