Homestead Things
- Lucia Sarkkinen
- May 1
- 5 min read
Hey all, Happy Spring!
I'm sure many of you are aware of the homestead trend right now, everyone lets move to the country, get a cow and grow all our own food! Yee-haw
Brad did grow two planter boxes of produce last year, and I gotta say I started understanding the trend.
There is a whole different level of satisfaction when it comes to making / growing your own food. Move over Nabisco! I don't need you!
But in my experience I've found some of these homestead trends are just too time consuming or expensive. I think each household is different, if you enjoy doing something it doesn't feel like work but if not then whewww.
reading the directions for sourdough
Here is the Potato Farmers Wife list of homestead things and my opinion on whether or not its worth it.
Also we've been dabbling with a youtube channel, so some of these have related videos and links. Cause the trend isn't just to DO the homestead things, that's only half of it. The other part of the trend is to post everything online as our forefathers before us did.
Potato Farmers Wife has three criteria to determine if something is worth it to make instead of buy.
Price - if its not cheaper then why add the work?
Labor - but if it takes a ton of time out of your day than its also not worth it.
Taste / Quality - must taste better, be healthier, or work as good or better than the store bought
LAUNDRY DETERGENT - YES
Much cheaper and doesn't too long to make. I mix 2 cups borax, 2 cups washing soda to 1 cup grated soap and it works wonderfully.
REUSABLE DIAPERS - NO
They worked out okay in the summer with 2, but overall they absorb much less and can cause more diaper rash if you're not on top of things. 3 kids in, they have not made a reappearance. Big money saver though. these are the ones I used https://amzn.to/3YmA45I
HOMEMADE YOGURT - YES
Very easy to make and much cheaper than buying. You can control how sour you want it based on cooking and cooling times.
HOMEMADE BUTTER- Haven't tried yet
SOURDOUGH - NO
If Brad was more of a sourdough guy maybe I would have stuck to this longer but good golly its a lot of work. When your already feeding and nurturing three kids to add a starter that also needs love and attention is too much. Also you end up using a lot of flour. I would try this again if I had more kids/older kids and it would all get eaten.
HOMEMADE FRUIT SNACKS - KIND OF
These are fun to make, and a fun activity for kids. However, to make enough to have a bunch of individual bags of fruit snacks would take too long. Each batch makes 30 bears and the kids eat half of them while making. If you need fruit snacks on hand, I think the way to go is to buy. Here are the forms I used. https://amzn.to/42S24zr
If you are going to make these, the recipes that use juice and honey are no good. Super bland, we liked this one
HUMMUS - YES
Overall pretty cheap to make compared to buying. You do have to go hunt out this stuff called Tahini, which is like peanut butter but made with sesame seeds. But once you have that all you need is chickpeas, some olive oil, and a blender.
CROSSAINTS - YES!
Not really. These things are labor intensive. So many steps, very finicky process BUT the results are so so delicious, big improvement on the store bought ones. And you feel like a true French person, just a little bit better than everyone else.
I haven't written my own recipe/video yet because I still need to figure out a few things. So far, this is my most successful recipe, except I do 1 1/2 c butter for the butter block.
HOMEMADE GRANOLA BARS- YES
If your kids like them and you have the time, it doesn't take too long, is cheaper and healthier to make at home.
HOMEMADE DISH DETERGENT - NO
All of the recipes I've tried do not clean as well as the store bought kind. I found one that works okay as long as there's nothing too greasy in the load.
HOMEMADE MAYONAISE - KINDA
Its cheaper than store bought unless you want to use olive oil and doesn't take too long. Not sure if it tastes better but it works. Its on the kinda list because sometimes it just feels like one more thing to do and I end up buying.
HOMEMADE KETCHUP - NO
You have to have tomato paste, so you may as well just buy the ketchup. Also at a certain point there are too many jars in your fridge and you cant remember what is what.
HOMEMADE SALSA - YES
One batch of canned salsa lasts us a few months. Usually its 6 big jars that can be stored in the pantry.
HOMEMADE TORTILLAS - NO
The main thing is they don't taste better.
COTTAGE CHEESE - NO
You have to stand and stir a pot of milk for about a half hour. Consistently so it doesn't burn. Not really worth the labor, and the final result tastes like a gamey version of cottage cheese. Normally my kids love cottage cheese but they were not a fan of the homemade version.
BONE BROTH - YES
I usually only do this if I get a rotisserie chicken but its not very hard to do and supposed to be extremely healthy.
SAURKRAUT- YES
All you gotta do is chop up cabbage and add some salt. Very good stuff especially with good brats and spicy mustard.
HOME BIRTHS - KINDA
Can be cheaper depending on your insurance but also too much labor. Hahaha sorry
That concludes my list of homestead things I have tried so far. If you have a homestead recipe or thing you recommend, please email portcitypost7@gmail.com and I may try it out. I'm enjoying this phase of experimenting with what can and cannot be homemade.
I want to get into making jams and marinara sauce, and maybe a cow. We'd have to move before we can have a cow, but we recently made a trip to Kingston and Brads farming roots are starting to show more, so it could be in our future.
If anyone is wondering, Thomas is still obsessed with excavators, dump trucks, skid steers, cranes, etc etc
SO that wraps up our homestead experiments thus far. And we wanted to share the youtube channel/recipe blog. My long term goal is to have a space on the internet with recipes and cooking content. For now, its just little drops in the bucket as we are quite literally swimming in kids.
Till Next time,
Potato Farmers Wife
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