Urban Alternatives For Homesteading Methods

When you’ve made your life in the countryside, it can be easy to rely on your home and the land around it to support you, as there will always be loads of it. Having this space available opens the doors for growing vegetables, composting, and loads of other traditional homesteading values. Of course, though, being inner city doesn’t mean that your access to these things has gone entirely. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring the urban alternatives to the homesteading methods you’ve been using for years.

You may get lucky to buy or even rent a property in the city that you can continue to homestead on, on a smaller scale. But sometimes the move happens quickly and a small apartment or tiny rental is all you can get. When this happens you will have to change the methods you are used to. These are some of the issues and the urban alternatives available.

Urban Alternatives For Homesteading Methods

Growing Plants:

One of the hardest parts of homesteading to bring to a city will be the plants you grow in your garden. With a lot of urban properties, there is a lack of green space which can be used for this. You may have to look for urban alternatives to grow your food. Balconies can be great for this, offering you a sunny space to help them grow. This is where container gardening comes in handy as well as indoor gardening.

Along with this, you could also look for a community garden.  These places are often completely free if you’re willing to do some work towards maintaining it. This process can be much cheaper than spending money on vegetables from the store.

Composting:

Lacking a space outside, having a good compost bin will be very hard. You can’t keep this inside because the smell would simply be too bad, and no one will want to live with the insects it can bring. To avoid this, loads of cities and towns offer urban alternatives. Organic waste collection services which ensure that the food rubbish from your home doesn’t go to a landfill may be available. Instead, it will be used to create compost for public areas, like parks and roundabout gardens, and won’t leave you having to deal with the mess which comes with it.

You can purchase a small kitchen composter that stays inside. However, it will be difficult to make enough compost for what you need.

Drying Clothing:

For a lot of homesteaders, clotheslines can prove to be an invaluable piece of technology when you’re living rurally. Of course, though, without enough space in the yard, you won’t be able to make use of these tools. Yet another reason to find an urban alternative. An airer can be a great way to solve this, moving your clothing from sitting horizontally to lining up vertically and saving a big footprint. In some places, you may have room for a tumble dryer to handle this job for you, too.

Another option may be to put up a retractable clothesline. This allows you to pull out the clothesline when you need it and retract it when you don’t. Many city dwellers use these on balconies or in small backyards. You still have use of a clothesline but it can be out of sight when not in use, thus out of the way.

Keeping Animals:

Finally, as the last area for you to consider, it will be impossible to keep the same animals in a city as those found in the countryside. Chickens, sheep, pigs, and cows will be very destructive in a normal home. Instead, cats and dogs are urban alternatives, with real estate agents like https://719rent.com being happy to deal with clients which have them. Of course, you won’t be able to get food for your family out of this, but it will still give you the chance to have some added life in your home.

Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into your inner city homestead. While you won’t be able to have quite the same experience as you would in the country, it will still be well worth looking into these sorts of ideas. You should always be on the lookout for urban alternatives to use your new home and property available to continue your homesteading journey.

Have you recently moved from a rural property to an urban property? Have you found any urban alternatives to help you on your journey? Please share them in the comment section below.