Some northwest Ohioans are going back to their roots, reaping and sowing the benefits of living off the land through a lifestyle called homesteading.
Amy Stone, an agriculture and natural resources educator with the Ohio State Extension – Lucas County, defined homesteading as growing, producing, and making the necessary resources to survive at home. Ms. Stone said the “do it yourself” model seemed to pick up steam during the pandemic, offering an enjoyable pastime while much of the world was stuck at home.
“I think we’re seeing more people with an interest, and it might have started out with just a patio pot with one tomato plant and they’ve gotten hooked. And now they’re exploring other things that they can grow and do at their own house,” Ms. Stone said.
In Whitehouse, Christen Largent runs an herbal homestead with her husband where she cultivates a majority of her food and healing herbal remedies on her own property. She calls the farm Herbalstead Ohio.
“You can grow cold crops under row covers and in a greenhouse in northwest Ohio 365 days a year. So in the summertime my greenhouse will be a dehydrator, and in the wintertime my greenhouse will be growing peas, onions, lettuce, any kind of greens you can think of. Brassicas, which are cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, all of that kind of stuff,” Ms. Largent said. “We’re chemical free, we’re drug free on this property, and so basically we take care of our own health needs with food and medicinal herbs.”
While being self-sufficient has its benefits, Ms. Largent said there is always a new project to work on and running her farm keeps her very busy.
“We’re making honey. The berry orchard is full of weeds right now. That gets straightened out this fall. There’s always a project, there’s always a fire to put out, there’s always an emergency,” she said.
As the summer comes to a close in September, Ms. Largent is preparing a chunk of her summer crop for tinctures, and consumption.
Ms. Largent said knowing the difference in care between perennials, which grow for many seasons, biennials, which grow on a two-year cycle, and annuals, which grow in a one-year cycle, is vital to cycling out her vegetation on the property.
“It’s either a one-year life cycle usually or a two-year lifecycle. Mullein, which is what you see alongside the road, that is a two-year lifecycle," she said, referring to the tightly packed, yellow-flowered plant on her property that blooms between May and September. "It’s called a biennial, so it’s going to make a little plant, a small short plant, in the first year and you harvest the leaves from that. And then when it flowers the second year, then you harvest the flowers. You make an earache oil out of that,” Ms. Largent said.
As a fully organic farm, Ms. Largent uses natural remedies for fending off bugs and defending her crop from the natural elements. One way to keep her seeds safe is by using a breathable bag, which she ties over the branches of her vegetation.
“We have a lot of wind out here and some seeds are very apt to spread on their own. So if I don’t bag some of the flowers after they’re done being pollinated, I don’t get any seed for next year,” Ms. Largent said.
Ms. Largent is always looking for the best way to reduce her waste, recycle her product use, and continue her self-sufficient lifestyle. In order to maintain this, she often harvests these seeds off of her crop at the end of the season and replants them for the next round of harvesting.
“You can easily drop $100 on seeds just for your annual vegetables if you don’t save your seeds,” Ms. Largent said.
In addition to harvesting her seeds, Ms. Largent uses the waste from her chickens as fertilizer.
“All you have to do is take like a big handful in the hole while you’re planting, and chicken manure is so good that that’ll feed the plant the whole season. So even though chickens only put out a little bit of manure, it’s enough to keep me going,” Ms. Largent said. “That’s the nice thing about having animals and a garden. It’s supposed to be a self-sustaining cycle.”
Timothy Jackson operates in a more urban setting. Mr. Jackson said he owns more than 48 plots of land across the city where he plans to cultivate local gardens with clean, fresh produce for the community.
Mr. Jackson recalled that in his plight of finding affordable, clean soil for his lots, he dreamed one night of his childhood visits to Mississippi. He said he and his family would play football in wood chips one summer, and when they returned the next year they would find grass in its place.
“Wood chips, if you let them sit in a pile for two years, they turn into organic soil,” Mr. Jackson said. “I went out and started. I found some tree companies in my area, and I asked them, ‘Can I have wood chips? I have 30-some vacant lots.’”
Ms. Stone said soil health is a very important step when it comes to growing at home. She said that the first thing gardeners should do when growing at home, especially in an urban setting, is to test the soil and determine what your specific plants need to thrive.
“Especially in urban areas sometimes we see lead issues or other heavy metals. And so always beginning, your first step is to get a soil test done just to make sure that your levels are within the acceptable ranges. And then also what your baseline is for your nutrients. Do you have to add them or are there enough there, existing?” Ms. Stone asked.
“So knowing what you’re growing in. If there is a concern about lead or heavy metals, [try] growing out of the ground so raised beds, containers.”
Mr. Jackson said the road to living a cleaner life starts with urban or backyard farming, and avoiding chemical fertilizers, treatments, and GMOs has already changed his life. He even drinks a mixture of 20 homegrown herbs with honey each morning to stay healthy.
“The whole family does this. We got a cabinet that’s got about 20 to 30 jars. Each jar has about a pound or two of these herbs in it and you go through and make your own drink every morning. This stuff has totally changed me. I mean, I have more energy. You can tell your intestines are flushing more, I mean your blood is healthier,” Mr. Jackson said.
Mr. Jackson said farming outside in a community garden can also help cut back on the food deserts that plague many urban areas. A food desert is an urban area where access to healthy and affordable food is limited.
“[If] we put one of these gardens in each neighborhood and we’ve got people working, it’s bringing commerce back. It’s bringing community back. It’s got a sense of pride and it’s healthy. So what could it hurt?” Mr. Jackson asked. “Think of all the fresh air, the fresh berries, the fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that we could have.”
If locals cannot grow their own produce or raise chickens, Mr. Jackson suggests looking to other local growers who often have excess crops and offer a local connection.
“Most people are growing more than they need so you just got to reach out. There’s urban farms, there’s community farms, there’s community gardens,” Mr. Jackson said.
Ms. Stone also suggests that any individuals looking to get into homesteading, whether it is full scale or starting small, get in touch with their local Extension office.
“Extension is a really good resource. Whether it’s how you grow it or what to do after you grow it. And so making those local connections with your local Extension office.
“The other thing that I’ve found really interesting is there are a lot of 4-H project books, and they were designed for youth to learn more about a specific topic and then kind of walks you through that project,” Ms. Stone said. “Ultimately the goal would be to take your project and show off what you’ve learned at the county fair, but some of those 4-H project books really fit well with homesteading and projects that you could do at home as an adult or as a family.”
First Published August 5, 2023, 5:00am
440-202-1706
Service Areas
