Crystal Aura Gaze

It is possible to homestead when you live in an apartment, city, or city-like environment.

Homesteading means focusing on self-sufficiency, sustainability, and living closer to nature. This is typically done by purchasing a lot of land with a huge backyard. But this can be done on a micro level in apartments and urban environments. It will be on a smaller scale, but still possible.

This list includes things I’ve done to embrace this lifestyle as well as things I plan on doing.

Kitchen

Much of homesteading happens in the kitchen. And everybody has a kitchen in their home, even small apartments.

• Making foods from scratch or using whole ingredients — this is something that I’ve started to do. It’s impossible to say that you will make every single food from scratch. It’s great to have some packaged meals on hand for emergencies (or lazy days.) So far, I’ve learned how to make a handful of recipes made from whole ingredients. I’d like to keep expanding on this.
• Brew your own mead — mead is a type of alcohol made from honey and is probably the easiest alcohol to make!
• Kombucha — Making your own kombucha is very rewarding! Kombucha is a form of iced tea that’s fizzy and contains highly beneficial probiotics. (Shoutout to my uncle David for the idea!)
• Bread — I’ve made a few batches of “life changing bread” (shoutout to my aunt Nancy!) which has no flour or yeast. But I would really like to try making my own sourdough.
• Granola — I’ve been making my own granola which pairs amazing with Greek yogurt. Recipe coming soon.
• Recipes I’d like to try soon:
  • Cheese (farmers cheese, goat cheese, mozzarella, and more)
  • Butter
  • Oat milk
  • Sourdough
  • Pasta sauces
  • Pasta from scratch
• Canning — I want to learn canning. I haven’t tried this yet. It would be mainly making jam or sauces.

Herbalism

• Education — I’ve learned so much about herbalism in the past several years. But I still have so much more to know! Part of homesteading is educating yourself on herbalism and which herbs you can use as treatments or prevention, instead of 100% relying on the doctor. Note that in emergency cases, doctors are absolutely necessary, but this is helpful for small scale issues.
• Tinctures — I’ve made a few but I’d like to do more.
• Fire cider
• Infused honey — so far I have done garlic honey.

Indoor gardening & composting

• Hydroponic indoor gardening systems are perfect for apartments! I had one going but sadly Aerogarden is going out of business so I need to find a replacement.
• Balcony or windowsills are great places to grow a small pot of herbs.
• Compost machine — I have one that I need to start up. They make small-ish compost machines that are ideal for apartments.

Skin care & cleaning products

• All-purpose cleaning spray
• Laundry detergent
• Soaps and shampoos
• Lip balms
• Lotions
• Salves
• Candles

Hobbies & skills

• I don’t need more hobbies — but I always want more hobbies because they are just so fun and stress-relieving! Homesteading is about learning skills that can also serve as hobbies.
• What I would like to learn next:
  • Cross-stitching
  • Crochet
  • To play more instruments

Future longterm dreams

• In the future I would hope to get out of apartment living and live in a house with a yard. I would rather have a large yard with a small house than vice versa. A lot of land would be amazing, but I think I’d still be happy with a small amount.
• Chickens, goats, and other farm animals — I’ve had chickens before when I was in high school and sourcing your own eggs is incredible. It would be incredible to also source my own milk.
• Garden — to have enough of a yard to fully garden.
• Foraging — I would love to learn how to forage. This definitely scares me though, worried about going to the right areas, avoiding poisonous stuff! This is a longterm goal that I’d need a lot of time to learn about; I’d probably have to learn with a group of others rather than by myself over the internet.
• Extremely self-sustainability — it would be amazing to go completely off the grid someday, but I know that it takes so much work to get there. For now, there are many small steps I need to take before I can get there. I’m not fully sure if this is what I want, but it’s certainly an idea in mind.

You don’t have to live on a farm to do homesteading. I am actually thankful for the years living in an apartment because it gave me time to learn the basic foundation of many of these skills. The benefits are that I have a lot of amenities taken care of for me. And apartment living gives you sort of a sense of community, especially when you are lucky enough to find good neighbors. But I’m also hoping that someday I will have land.