A few years ago I met photographer and author Lori Eanes when she came to take pictures of my garden for a book she was doing. The book is called Backyard Roots: Lessons on Living Simply From 35 Urban Farmers, and it’s a highly visual exploration of urban farms up and down the west coast from Vancouver to San Francisco.
Thirty-five urban homesteaders are featured, and through their stories and the photos and descriptions of their set-ups the book covers the full range of urban farming activities.
The farmers in Backyard Roots pluck vegetables from their raised beds or permaculture food forests or rooftops gardens. Greens and herbs are foraged, ornamental public trees are covertly converted into fruit-bearers through guerrilla grafting, fresh exotic mushrooms are grown for farmers markets and restaurants. People share their focus on self-sustainability or work to bring together a larger community. There are kids and critters in the mix: toddlers and teenagers, chickens, goats, ducks, fish, and bees.
I’m in there too, with my kids and my Felcos and my greenhouse full of cucumbers and my advice to think like a plant. It’s a trip to see yourself in a book (I hadn’t cut my hair in eighteen months, and you can tell!), but it’s been wonderful to read through all the stories, and to show my kids pictures of other families doing the same kind of thing we’re doing.
My daughter! Whoot-whoot!
Backyard Roots gives a stong visual tour of what it is to be a west-coast urban farmer. It is a fabulous work for inspiration that really captures the diversity of weirdos like me (and maybe you?) who think that ripping up lawn to grow veggies or graze farm animals is a great idea – even in the city.
Get Your Own Copy of Backyard Roots – Free!
Skipstone Press, the publishing house of Backyard Roots, is giving away a copy of Backyard Roots to three lucky NWEdible readers.
To enter to win, leave a comment on this blog post telling me what kind of urban (or rural!) homestead activity you find most inspiring, and what activity you find most intimidating. I am, personally, very intimidated by anything having to do with animals that lactate. I’ll take poultry and bees any day, and leave the goats and mini-cows to other, braver urban farmers.
Contest will close Friday, November 29th at 8 pm PST. The three winners will be contacted by email. Open to US and Canadian residents only due to shipping. Best of luck everyone!
Image Credit: All images featured in this post are copyright Lori Eanes. Used with permission.
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I’m most inspired watching a homestead dream come to fruition. I consult with the occasional newbie and it’s so exciting to hear from them weeks and months later when their dream is starting to come alive. I have yet to venture into bee keeping. I want to, I’m excited to, but I’m trepidatious.
Most inspiring :: being able to pull fresh salad greens from the garden all winter long, thereby avoiding that crappy, expensive, bitter-tasting lettuce currently available in the supermarket.
Most intimidating :: the himalayan blackberries, field bindweed, and horsetails running rampant in my next-door neighbor’s yard. They’re not here yet, but they are lurking!
Thanks for the giveaway. You are a great mentor.
Thanks, ~Anne
I am inspired by the great joy and enthusiasm gardening my front and back yard has inspired in my neighborhood and community. People do not realize how little ground is needed to feel an entire neighborhood with fresh veggies! It’s awesome teaching people that just a little well-tended space can do so much.
I am intimidated by aphids. Seriously, where do they come from? There does not seem to be enough strong coffee and vinegar to fight them! Seriously thought, I’m not intimidated by much. Perhaps my own desire to do more.
Thanks for the great blog. Yours is the only blog I follow!
I like the Aquaponics idea, and the ability to take a small space, and enjoy the fresh, pesticide free produce. I am reluctant to try goats, and mini cows,..
Most inspiring: Seeing that it’s possible to provide for one’s family in a non-rural setting (ie. you don’t have to have “40 acres and a mule”!).
Most intimidating: Anything to do with livestock (I AM a chicken about the idea of keeping chickens – or any other type of animal).
Love your blog!
Currently, living in Chicago, I am most inspired by folks I’ve met who raise (a lot!) of chickens in their tiny backyards, and even a few who’ve incorporated bees into the mix. They are proving to their neighbors that urban homesteading is a peaceful, productive, and non-smelly process as I’ve heard some people express fear about. I do what I can in my condo, luckily I have a very large south facing balcony, but I’m hunting for a single family home with somewhat of a yard so I can expand! The intimidating aspect for me is the scaling up in size once I find that larger growing space, but I can’t wait!
I am inspired by so many things – the beautiful garden pictures I see and hope to imitate (despite the fact that I live in the high desert of Central Oregon, where we have no guaranteed frost-free period), the animals that great me every day when I step out my back door (sheep, goats and chickens), the pantry shelves full of home-canned goodies. I love my milk goats way more than I would have thought possible. I won one in a raffle last spring & brought her and a companion doe home as kids, then was gifted a milking yearling who raised a bottle lamb for me last summer and I milked her after I weaned the lamb. I started playing with cheese making, which is more fun than I’d anticipated. Now I’m threatening to milk the sheep too!
Intimidating? Bees. I’d love to have them, but after spending the summer being stung multiple times (paper wasps), I’m a bit leery.
Thanks for the chance to win the book!
we have lived at our home 14 years and only now have 2 sheep to eat the grass in the back yard. The sheep are like dogs and they stand still twice a year as I cut their wool off with scissors, no matter how long I take.
I have mostly weeds in my garden. I hope I can make it grow like other people do, I have a thumb of death. Garlic grows easy,chive, mint,onions and kale. I try to grow more each year.
Inspiring: watching the seasons, planting accordingly, and seeing the miracle of (sometimes overnight!) growth!! Wow!
Intimidating/frustrating: dealing with pests and occasional weather vagaries (anyone for July hail storms that shred tender plants?).
Oh, the inspiration, where to begin! I am inspired picking up a still-warm egg. Seeing the tiny seeds sprout, each one a miracle! Finding forgotten potatoes and carrots or getting another chance by said potato remaining undiscovered and volunteering another year for me! I feel like a queen I am so rich from my garden harvest!
Sometimes, though, it is just a chance to figure out life by digging in the dirt. Fresh air, rain or shine (I am from Washington after all!) is inspirational (and educational, but don’t tell my kids!)
My biggest intimidation: keeping up with all my ideas. I would love to have bees but the thought of neglecting those precious little pollinators has kept me from doing so. Or a goat. Or ducks. Or a greenhouse. 🙂
Inspiring: Changing attitudes about what is an acceptable use of all that land around the house! Recognizing how little space it takes to make how much food!
Intimidating: Waste management. What do you do with the inevitable waste… the raccoon-mauled chicken carcass that the city’s waste management practices do not allow you to put in the dumpster, but your neighbours strongly object to you composting?
Sorry for your loss. I’d bury her ~ place her in mama earth’s big lap for a hug and another incarnation~
I am enjoying growing fruit now. My pears trees and raspberries both produced well for the first time this year! I am intimidated by poultry but just because our village won’t allow that–someday I hope to raise a couple geese for Christmas dinner.
Most inspiring? That last pic up there of a lady with goats — in town! Holy crap, I can’t even imagine.
Most intimidating? Cows. We’ve done the goat thing but I’ve not cared for cows, dairy or beef, as an adult. (Much of the stuff we have experience with as kids so does not carry over to adulthood!)
Most inspiring: to be able to grow enough food to share with others who need it. Most intimidating? We plan on building a cordwood home ourselves – I want everything to be just right!
Inspiring – are those people I learn from, and draw encouragement from. Those whose veggies I envy, and try to emulate. I am inspired and blessed by those who carefully cultivate their seeds and their knowledge, and freely share both. I am inspired every time I can share a seed, or encourage someone to try a little something. I am more than inspired, in fact I am awed, by those who dedicate their time and hearts to our community gardens. And intimidating? Anything that breathes! I really don’t have what it takes to deal with raising animals, but that’s okay with me. We all have our limits.
I’m most inspired by the homesteaders that can keep going through the seasons. Their long-term focus is something that I’m lacking.
I’m most intimidated by bees. Bees are something that I feel like I’d never be able to keep up with.
Gorgeous photos! Seeing the comforting image of a greenhouse chock full of happy plants contrasting with the whimsy of suburban goatwalking makes me smile. I already love this book! Want it!
Inspiring: My go-to gardening goal for my property (a modest 80’diameter circle, cut like a biscuit into the living forest ecosystem in western Oregon) is to convert every bit of my small yard into edible or medicinal plants for people, interspersed with areas especially supportive of wildlife. To me, community means all species thriving.
Intimidating: My nemesis is the saboteur neighbor next door who sprays poisons on his chemlawn- covered circular lot and all over the common ground between our lots. His fear-based anger pushes out and away; if I had the knowledge and courage, I’d find a way for love to draw him in. Any suggestions?
Most inspiring: finding a way to add “one more thing” that I thought I had no room for (columnar apple trees!).
Most intimidating: Preserving the excess. I’ve learned a lot about what can be prepped and frozen and I follow canning instructions exactly but I worry that I’m going to miss that one piece or part or not do things exactly right and my poor husband will suffer the consequences 😉
Inspiring: Chicken tending – we got chicks in the spring, built our own run and coop (having never built anything before, and thoroughly enjoy watching our girls.
Intimidating: Gardening, in the ground and from seeds. I’m barely able to keep a few containers of tomatoes alive. Hoping the chicken litter compost will get me over my fears and into a bigger garden.
I find the very act of putting a seedling or seed into the ground to be the most inspiring part of gardening/homesteading. I’m most intimidated by what is ahead of me over the next few months: we are converting our yard over to mostly production/permaculture from the partial production yard we had and I have HOURS of work ahead! I need to build a compost bin with the parts I already have, move my rainwater collection system, weed the main garden, build at least two more raised beds, section off part of the yard with pvc gates, amend all of my garden areas, build a new trellis system for cukes and the like, pull 8 trillion weeds around the yard, etc. I can do this! One job at a time. I’m using your blog as inspiration, even though our growing conditions are completely different!
Hook a sistah up, yo. Like I need more urban farming books, but this one looks delicious. And, of course, you’re in it.
Every year, I’m inspired by how easy it is to just grow a little something. As long as I stick that cherry tomato plant in a pot and water it regularly, we end up with more cherry tomatoes in a summer then we ever need. Yeah, that’s not the only thing I do, and its certainly the easiest, but that one simple step always amazes me with how easy it is.
Intimidated? Bees. For sure. They freak me out. Hubs is going in on a hive with a friend who has more yard than we do (we have a postage stamp) and I’m already freaked out.
One thing I find very inspiring is watching our children be able to walk into our backyard at just about any time of the year and pick something from the garden to eat….. and enjoying it because they helped plant it. Intimidating is expanding our gardening space to the daunting back 40!
You have a wonderful blog! So happy to have recently discovered it. Thank you for all the tips and beautiful photography!
Everything about our garden inspires me to do more gardening. We’re just getting established, and I’ve just built my first recycled cold frame out of two old glass shower doors and some leftover 1″ x 4″ fir lumber. It’s 34 degrees outside, but inside the frame it’s a delicious 68. My lettuce and spinach babies are loving it.
Most intimidating? The yellow jackets who seem to feel that our flowers and hummingbird feeders belong to them. Even in this cold weather, one of them buzzed me yesterday as I was feeding our koi.
What a great idea for a book. Congrats on being in it!
I’m both inspired and intimidated by the chunks of yard that I haven’t yet turned into garden. I have so many ideas, but finding the time, while keeping up with the garden space I do have, is another matter…
We’re planning on getting chickens and actually planting a garden. It’s all intimidating at this point. But super exciting, too– the more I read up on farming and homesteading, the more I want to try it all! (But for now, we’ll just start with trying to keep some chickens and tomato plants alive!)
I think it’s inspiring to see so many people putting in raised beds on their lawns and trying to provide for themselves. I think intimidation comes when the work involved becomes clear – weeding, harvesting, storing, watering, especially during the hot months of the summer, and tests the resolve of many.
Most inspiring: planting food forests
Most intimidating: processing livestock
Compost is inspiring. You pile up stuff you don’t want or need anymore and it turns into DIRT. That you can grow things in! What?
I was very intimidated by butchering chickens until recently when I had to do it, and now I’m not. Carrots are pretty intimidating though. My cool climate should be great for them I thought but I guess my soil is pretty dense and I got nothin’. Bummer. And grapes. I’d love a vineyard for our own wine (which we otherwise make of apples, local berries, usually chaptalized with extra sugar) but not sure how they’d do at 49 degrees north…there may be varieties out there, mostly bred in Minnesota, eh, but the marginality of it combined with the all the trellising and five years of waiting always makes me put it off one more year.
Most inspiring: flavorful, sustainable food right outside the backdoor
Most intimidating: Stepping up production to homesteading status. Introducing animals. Time to do it all.
Most inspiring—walking around the garden to figure out what’s for supper, seeing what I can eke out of the garden super late in the season, having my daughter say, “Let’s make a big salad!” and doing it.
I’m on the fence about chickens and bees. I’ve been contemplating both for, um, six years, and haven’t yet done it. Don’t see myself getting goats, though it would encourage me to make my own yogurt and cheese.
My bees are the answer to both. I love having bees, I love working the hives, I love the honey. I am intimidated by the HUGE learning curve there is and not having a mentor to help me decipher the messages they are sending me with their behaviors. I have been keeping bees for three years and I still feel like I am just beginning.
that most intimidates me? Livestock. *Even* chickens and bees. I’d love to keep goats, but I’m nervous as all hell of an animal that weighs that much and kicks. The idea of sheering, while appealing, is also scary as all-get-out. :-
And, yeah, I like being able to do a weekend road trip. And I can’t do that if I’ve got a micro flock of Icelandics that need milking and pasturing every day. :-
That most inspires me?
🙂
Forest Gardening. I long for the perenial food garden of my dreams – montmorency cherries, apricots and heart-nuts, maybe even Pawpaws (hardy-tree produce that I can barter with neighbours for their pears and apples). Currants, blueberries, seabuckthorn, and raspberries. Fiddleheads, asparagus, and rhubarb… And, yeah, a big heap of raised beds for annual veggies, too… Food that will come back again and again, and give me beautiful flowers in spring and excellent compostable Dry Stuff in autumn, too. <3 😀
I just love it. <3 😀
I tried to raise as much produce as possible this summer and I ended up not going to the store much at all (saved quite a bit). I am now in the process of beginning to raise meat rabbits and thinking about other animals. I think those little goats would be intimidating. I would love to win this book and I love your blog Erica. I also think that digging up the lawn in the city is totally sane!
I am inspired by reading other people’s posts of what is working for them or not working in their backyard gardens. It really motivates me to venture out of my safe little box to read about other people success. I am intimidated by composting and the thought of having animals that live outside. Not sure why, but having to take care of an animal outside in my suburb kinda freaks me out.
What I find most intimidating is starting fresh. We’ve been in this house almost two years and the back area of the yard still isn’t “done”. The soil is awful, we’re still digging up garbage that was buried by the former occupants, they used horse fertilizer so the weeds are outrageous, … sigh. The yard(s) have been my unfinished projects.
Inspiration comes in all shapes and forms. I am inspired when I garden and the ultimate inspiration is when all those veges are canned for the winter. I know the quality of foods my family are eating! Every year I like to grow a new vegetable or fruit. Learning is an inspiration!
Intimidation….hum
In my younger years you name it and I was intimidated. I have grown to know that I can do anything my heart desires! I am some what intimidated with the preparation of wild game. I do research to find out ways to prepare the item. Even if I fail, I will try it again. I try to overcome the intimidation by trying again.
When someone makes the most out of where they live, be it an apartment balcony or 1/4-acre lot in suburbia, I’m inspired! Friends of mine rent the basement of a house and grow a garden in the backyard. My parents are in a condo community, but along with their neighbors dug up an unused patch of grass and created a thriving community garden. My brother planted a garden in an unused part of his yard where he had thrown grass clippings for years…it was wildly successful. Last summer I planted seed starts under a grow light in my basement and gave away the hundreds of plants to everyone I knew. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Urban gardening inspires me the most because it happens out of sheer force of will…Grow Where You Live!!
When someone makes the most out of where they live, be it an apartment balcony or 1/4-acre lot in suburbia, I’m inspired! Friends of mine rent the basement of a house and grow a garden in the backyard. My parents are in a condo community, but along with their neighbors dug up an unused patch of grass and created a thriving community garden. My brother planted a garden in an unused part of his yard where he had thrown grass clippings for years…it was wildly successful. Last summer I planted seed starts under a grow light in my basement and gave away the hundreds of plants to everyone I knew. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Urban gardening inspires me the most because it happens out of sheer force of will. And, the most intimidating part is taking that first step…Grow Where You Live!
As an apartment dweller my patio or balcony is my garden. I am inspired every year to learn from the previous years attempt at a new fruit or vegetable, and to find ways to maximize my space vertically. I am now challenged with a patio that does not get full time sun as my balcony did. I am sure this will I still grow my beds of strawberries and spinach, but I’ll have to be strategic on choosing the other vegetables.
I currently live in the city and have my “traditional” garden at my dad’s place in the country, as he lives on 40 acres. I drive 20-25 min each way, hauling my three children 5 and under, to work in my lovely-sometimes weed-ridden, garden. I so wish I could just walk in my backyard to cultivate my own food. I don’t know where to begin to transform my yard in the city to a productive garden area. It is small, but it could work. I’m so intimidated to even start this process, so I keep traveling back and forth for 7 years now. I could really use this book to help me create a backyard garden!
Most inspiring? The growing community of people growing food here on the west side of Chicago- creating a network of gardeners and eaters, plants and pollinators, goat forage and cheese lovers, homebrewers and chicken keepers (chickens LOVE spent brewer’s grains and brewers love to get rid of ’em)… Oh yeah, and reading stories of others who share my passion… like the ones in this book? *wink*
Most intimidating? Trying to make my passions for food and farming also pay the bills, and securing land to make long-term cultivation of a piece of land larger than our yard a reality… getting there, but without a full-time salary to fall back on, it’s scary!
Most inspiring – chickens! And a functioning garden notes system – I have yet to find something that works for me. 🙂
Most intimidating – bees. I’d love to have them, but I break out into a large (though localized, so far) rash when I get stung, so bees are not a possibility for me.
Right now we’re in a apartment, so we only have a small garden and no animals, but I’m looking forward to when we get a place of our own. If I’m lucky, perhaps we’ll even have a few maple trees that I can tap.
What inspires me? Weeds, lol! Their total determination to live!, to thrive, to spread, no matter what, is quite incredible, and I can only chuckle and admire their persistence.
What intimidates me? Weeds!! They’ll still be charging through every hindrance when I’m a decrepit 80 year old. I have to craft some very, very clever, easy strategies, and then accept their perpetual presence…. maybe the required non-stop surveillance will keep me on my toes 🙂
I love eating the pickles I make from my own cukes. On a cold winters day as I top my sandwich with them, that hot summer day weeding or pickling seems very distant. Most intimidating – raising livestock, but I hope to someday.
I’m at the beginning of this homesteading journey! We just moved back to a rural area after living in Sacramento, CA for the last 14 yrs. We have 1.5 acres that are wide open and waiting to be loved into a productive homestead.
I’m inspired planning my chicken coop! I spend hours searching out coop ideas, paddock methods, chick care, brooder instructions, and on and on….
I’m intimidated by it all! What if I pick the wrong methods? What if I can’t keep up with it all?
That’s why I appreciate you and the other bloggers spending time explaining so much, and SHOWING us newbies what it’s all about! The book, “Backyard Roots” would be a great resource!!!!
I am most inspired with sharing the experience of raising food- plant and animal- with the children that come to my little paradise each day for preschool/kindergarten. It is a joy to see them engaged in caring for the animals, tending the garden beds and paths, gathering eggs, and munching away on kale, parsley and crab apples.
I am most intimidated by slaughtering animals for meat as my first attempt went horribly awry. I now just raise them and take them to other farmers who are more willing, confident and capable. Bees also freak me out because of all the diseases they can get, so I buy honey instead of trying.
Inspiring is when I find that at least two or three, if not nearly all ingredients in my dinner were grown by me. It reminds me why I spend time shoveling the rain or sweating in the sun. Most intimidating is soil chemistry. Trying to wrap my brain around preferred pH’s and necessary amendments is enough to make me not test my soil and just hope everything turns out all right.
What I find most inspiring is urban farming done on smaller lots. Whereas I love to read farm blogs, I can’t really relate to them. My yard is small, but I garden on all of it. I also have 4 chickens. Growing your own food can absolutely be done in almost any size urban or suburban lot. I can’t get enough of other people that are doing what I am doing. We now have a community garden in my town, so reading about other community gardens is also quite inspiring.
What I find very intimidating is growing food in Florida. There are so many diseases, fungus and destructive insects here, that gardening becomes very challenging. I’m constantly trying to find safe, organic ways of dealing with it all. Fortunately, I’ve decided that I love being outside working in the yard so much that if my plants fail, I can live with it.
Most inspiring are people who’ve converted all or most of their lawn to growing food – including the front yard – but in an attractive way.
Most intimidating are the unattractive pests that come with growing food. We got roof rats in the yard this summer and I’m so less inclined to go garden now for fear of running into one of them. We’ve been trapping them but the more we get, the more I’m sure there are 50 times as many out there.