#self sufficient gardening

[samwisethewitch]

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[chamberlinfamilyfarms]

Grow or Buy Farm Fresh. You Won’t be Disappointed. #gardening #farming #homesteading #selfsufficient

[christenhelm]

Bring back the victory gardens ✌️

[petula-xx]

I know this is about speeding around farm machinery.

However, the top sentence really resonates with me for other reasons. Primary producers really are the, often undervalued, backbone of our society.

If you ate today, thank a farmer.

[country-corner]

Limited Space Back Yard

Whether you live in an old neighborhood that has become crowded with people dividing their lots to put in more homes or a newly constructed neighborhood built with cookie cutter homes on postage stamp lots, you can still put in a garden within that limited space.

You could even go with a vertical garden if the yard is really, really small.

[ghost-in-the-hall]

How to become self sufficient on a ¼ acre!

(OP was a white nationalist, so take this one instead)

[hedgewitchshit]

Just a little chicken enjoying the greenhouse on a sunny afternoon 💫

[heelanhomestead]

Wow … what a success. We spent the morning pulling onions and look how many we’ve got. 🥳

I’m so happy and grateful for such a lovely harvest, especially as we get through so many onions, I literally can’t grow them fast enough. Now we just have to lay them out and let them dry / cure for a couple of weeks.

I can’t wait to cook with these little beauties … they look so good 😋

[thestudentfarmer]

12. 28. 2024

This year is now almost to an end already!

Small garden and going on post today~

Have 2 big carrots in the current grow and a ton of new started sprouts. Guess it got too cold on one side and they've been napping for a bit. May need to see about a small hedgerow cover to trap heat at night. Probably could make that from old clear shower curtain and some small peices of wood.

I believe this is a praying mantis eggcase. Not quite sure which variety. In honesty I figured we lost out on them due to heat, not enough cover/food and the surplus of the assassin bee eaters I kept finding.

The one tomatoe is now begging to be well covered in the fruit, I'll need to get a cover on them soon as the wild birds keep pecking them out as they jsut ripen. I don't mind sharing a few, but it's been everyone this year :(

Some floral blooms 🤩 their prettier each year.

Been working on making noodles and crackers. so far I've got plain pumpkin+wheat and pumpkin+wheat+ egg yolk down okay enough, i feel

I did unfortunately over startch the boil water (which burned the noodles and flavored the sauce), so next time, I'll probably use a bigger pan and switch it out halfway so there's clean water.

Harvested and spread out the sunchoke tubers to grow more of them. Did not get to try them out yet. If anyone has, what was your thought on them?

They produced decently well in my opinion, little small the first year but the bigger and a deeper prepared bed probably would produce some good sized and number of them.

And did some cleanup of chicken alley. Thye got those hollyhocks nice and dusty back there lol. The clean up was mostly eeding out any grass and had material (both went to the chickens)

I got the seed table reset up and done.

Today I intend to do soem garden work, what kind yet I'm not certain. I do need to repot and clean up the vera plant. (The pot is falling apart) I'd also like to do some basic clean up to prepare for the new year and work on some goals towards a more successful garden and urban homestead this upcoming year.

Anyone started their new year resolutions with their goals of gardening, sustainability, homecookiny or otherwise? Care to share them?

That's it for today's post and update :)

🌲🌱Happy Urban Homesteading🌱🌲

[snailsthatdocrafts]

Garlic in my garden :) technically not supposed to plant here but my apartment thankfully looks the other way about plant related stuff ;)

[survivalpreps]

[samwisethewitch]

Actually, I love that cottagecore has given Gen Z a word for "I want to have a big garden and cook my own food and keep chickens" that isn't casually invoking colonialism and manifest destiny. I get so goddamned uncomfortable every time someone refers to their urban hobby farm as a "homestead" and I'm glad to finally see it being replaced with other terms. I will buy a million books about how to live a cottagecore lifestyle if it will convince publishers to stop marketing the "homesteader" lifestyle and will get white city dwellers to stop unironically self-identifying as colonizers.

[christenhelm]

📸 The Seasonal Homestead

[petula-xx]

MAY 5 - 11 2024

Only a couple of sleeps left to go!!!!!

[veiligplekje]

[homeiswherethewitchcraftis]

If it wasn't obvious, I am really into self-sufficiency and homesteading. One criticism I keep coming across is that you can't be self-sufficient because you can't do every single thing that needs to be done. I feel like this is completely missing the point of working towards self-sufficient lifestyles and that is to do as much as YOU ARE ABLE for yourself that may look different than your neighbors or friends and that is OK.

It's also important to remember that self-sufficient does NOT mean isolated. Focusing on being more self-sufficient is a key part of building strong communities. If you and your friends and neighbors are all working on being more self-sufficient, that opens the door to form bartering relationships. For example say I need seeds for my garden and my neighbor has a wonderful garden and extra seeds but she wants chicks I can trade her my chick for her seeds now we both are more self-sufficient and have started to build a relationship that is beneficial to both of us.