Why Learning How to Garden is Important

Hello friends, and Happy Sabbath. It is a nice day to relax, and spend time with my family. Unfortunately my husband is working today, but I plan to putter around in my garden and spend some time in Scripture.

I have been spending a lot of time learning more about gardening lately. I feel the need to connect more with our land deep in my bones. I feel like we have slipped so far away from the plan God has for us in regards to caring for the land and growing our own food.

We now depend on large corporations to feed us. These businesses rely on large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers to grow their crops. At this point in time, it looks like there will likely be shortages in these areas. If the farmers do not have enough pesticides and fertilizers to tend to their crops, what will that do to our food supply?

I don’t believe their methods are good. But that really isn’t the point of this post. The point is that it is a needful thing to reevaluate our methods of securing food.

The world is in turmoil right now, and prices in stores are rising. Last week, I wasn’t able to purchase several items that were on my grocery list. They simply weren’t there.

A couple of years ago I decided to become more serious about preparation. During the pandemic, we purchased a fixer upper on five acres to allow us to do so. We purchased dairy goats after being rationed milk at the grocery store. And now, we are taking additional steps to grow more of our food supply.

We don’t need to be scared. We were born for this! God’s first mandate to man was to tend the garden He created. It makes me sad that we have become so far removed from this. It has only been in recent years that I’ve realized the great benefit of tending our land and growing our own food. I wish I would have realized it’s importance sooner.

I’ve been learning about permaculture, and would like for our property to one day be regenerative. We have an awfully long way to go. 

In the meantime, we realize that purchasing our food locally when we can is a great thing to do. Farmers markets are excellent places to purchase produce.

We are also making some other changes to help us along.

Instead of using our tax refund towards a vacation (like I was planning), I decided to purchase a high tunnel for growing purposes. After looking at our vacation options, I realized that prices have increased so much from even six months ago. I just couldn’t justify it. I think the high tunnel will be a better return on our investment.

We are continuing to remain debt free. This is a very important way to combat inflation. It would be so much harder to pay high prices for things if we had debt payments as well.

If you are in debt, I would love to encourage you to pay it off as quickly as you can. Debt can be a huge burden, and one we do not need in these uncertain times.

I’ve been reminded once more about the importance of living simply. It can be easy to get into debt when purchasing non-necessities. When we are determined to only purchase necessities, our goals can become so much easier to achieve.

I’m looking into electric fencing for our goats. Eventually, we would like to fence in the majority of our land. But for now, electric fencing would help with our feed bill cost.

It seems like we have so much to do, and so little time. But I know that God’s grace is sufficient and will fill in the gaps. He will lead us. He will lead you too, friend.

I hope you have a lovely Sabbath. Now it is time for me to slip into my garden to enjoy it’s beauty. And tomorrow, we will get to work!

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Upcoming Spring 2022 Homestead Projects

Friends, I am super excited. We have some fun upcoming projects coming to our homestead this spring! Spring is such a nice time for new beginnings. I thought I would share a few of things we have up our sleeve with you today!

Each week I post new homestead updates for Members of Redeeming Home. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a Member of Redeeming Home, please click here.

Anyhow, back to the plans! Do you have any plans for spring? If so, please feel free to share them in the comment section below.

This spring we are hoping to welcome goat babies! We bred our doe Nora for the first time in late fall, and I guess time will tell if she is expecting. I hope she is. She is getting wider! I plan to put together a kit of all the things I will need during her delivery. Hopefully all will go smoothly, but I would like to be prepared. My husband recently completed a birthing stall for her, and we moved the hay feeder that was previously housed there to a different area.

Related: How to Save Money When Purchasing Your Homestead

We will be upgrading our seed starting station soon. I am currently growing flower seeds in our current set up, and I would like to have a bigger area to continue to growing larger starts. Usually once I up-pot seedlings, the only place for them is on the porch. Then I must bring them in on cold nights. This is a lot of extra work that a new growing shelf would fix.

We have arranged for two dump truck loads of free wood chips to be delivered to our property. Our local utility company is looking for places to unload wood chips from trees they’ve cut down on their right of way. This is super exciting to me. We usually pay a good bit of money for wood chips each spring, and to get them for free is certainly a blessing.

We will be top dressing all of our raised beds with compost soon. This will help all of our seedlings get a good start. Last year we went with a local company, and I wasn’t impressed with the quality of the compost at all. This year, we will likely just buy bags from Home Depot or Lowe’s.

My husband will be expanding our kitchen pantry before I know it. Oh friends, this is totally wonderful. Along with this change, he also will be adding wood to the walls and ceiling. I can hardly wait to see it. We’ve painted our cabinets green, and I want to add more natural elements to the space. I want to bring the outside in!

After the kitchen is done, he will be moving to our deck. We currently have a small landing for a deck which is in pretty bad shape. I want to enlarge it by a good bit. I’m hoping that he will be able to build in benches along the sides to help accommodate our large family.

Related: 2021 Homestead Goals

And I guess those are our plans for the next couple of months! We are using funds that we put aside from the sale of our cabin to update our home and fix up our homestead. We are still trying to be frugal, though. A ton of money has been saved by my husband doing all of the work. The poor guy has been very busy, though!

I’m thankful to the Lord for His goodness, and have been doing my best to see the blessings He has given us instead of the work that needs to be completed. Little by little, our house is becoming a home.

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. If you would like to learn about becoming a Member of Redeeming Home, please click here.

How to Save Money When Purchasing Your Homestead

Friends, I feel like I’m almost an expert when it comes to saving money while purchasing a homestead. We’ve lived in three different homes since 2019, and two of them were definitely “homestead” purchases.

Both of the homestead purchases were hopefully going to be long-term homes for us, but it didn’t quite work out that way. We ended up moving from our 2017-2019 home after realizing we wanted to live in our home state once again. The home we live in now has the potential to fulfill most of my homestead dreams, but it didn’t start out that way.

Imagine a home that had caked on filth on many surfaces. Items were broken, the basement was wet, the roof needed to be replaced, and once we moved in, we realized we had a bedbug infestation. The land had been neglected, and was covered in thistles and thick, invasive vines.

Believe me when I say I wanted to throw in the towel. I felt like giving up. But by God’s grace, we somehow pushed through the difficult first months, and although we have a lot more work to do, life now is much better.

Related: One Year Review Since Finding Our Homestead

We bought this particular home to save money. No question about it. And while we did save money, we had to make some sacrifices.

Here are some things we did before purchasing our homestead in order to make the right choice:

We made a list of non-negotiables. For us, the mainly flat land near the North Georgia mountains, basement, private five acre lot, and price tag sold us. The paved driveway was also a big plus for me. Having a non-negotiable list is so important! Keep it in the front of your mind while looking at properties. For homesteaders, having a water source is of great value. We do plan on having a well dug, but yes, I do wish we had a natural water source as well. This wasn’t a “non-negotiable” point for me though, so we ended up putting in an offer on the property we live in now.

Don’t let bad listing photos scare you off, and be willing to look at homes that have been on the market awhile. We have looked at many homes where the pictures didn’t do them justice. The last four homes we purchased have fallen into this category! One I didn’t even want to look at, and my husband had to talk me into it. I’m so glad he did! Also, in this hot market, you have the most negotiating power with listings that have been available for awhile. If you want to negotiate, these are the homes to look at.

During negotiations, don’t be afraid to ask the seller to cover some (or all) of the closing costs. Closing costs would likely be hard to negotiate during a hot market, but if the home has been on the market awhile, what do you have to lose?

Make sure you have a thorough inspection, possibly multiple ones, on the home during your due diligence period if you are purchasing a fixer upper. Friends, we had so many inspections on our home! We were skeptical to go through with the purchase of our current home until an engineer verified that our basement issues were not structural. After we moved in, we sealed cracks, painted the walls with DryLok, and plugged in two dehumidifiers. It is now a completely different basement! Also, it is a good idea to get contractor estimates during your due diligence period so you can figure in any extra costs before you go through with your transaction. If you plan on setting up a homestead don’t forget to plan for things like barns, fencing, tree removal, etc.

Remember that sweat equity is where it’s at if you’d like to save money. Our projects are getting done slowly, but that’s okay…even if it doesn’t feel okay at times. We have done all of the work on our home ourselves thus far. This is partially because we haven’t found any contractors who would like to work lately, and partially because we would like to save money by doing it ourselves.

If location isn’t a deal breaker for you, consider looking at remote areas for your homestead. Properties are usually less expensive the further they are from town. And yes, you most likely will also be blessed with lots of peace and quiet!

Pray about it. Nothing can take the place of praying about your decision, and asking the Lord to guide you to an affordable homestead that meets your needs.

Related: An Abundant Mentality

At the beginning of the pandemic, we were able to purchase a 2200 square foot home with a full basement on five acres for $232,000. If we hadn’t taken advantage of these strategies, there is no way we could have done this. Now we are building sweat equity, and are mortgage free. For us, purchasing a less desirable home was worth it. Now, we love it!

Do you have any tips about saving money while purchasing a homestead? Please share them below!

Have you heard about the new Redeeming Home Membership? Click here to learn more. Articles for this week’s Member Newsletter include Dedicating the New Year to the Lord, Goal Planning Within Our Homes, What Even is Simplicity?, Embracing the Slowness of January, Homestead Happenings, and Resources for Homemakers.

Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, Praise the name of the Lord.

Psalm 113:1