Wellness and Wildflowers

Consumer-based systems that don’t have our best interests at heart often leave me feeling frustrated. My goal is to produce my own food as much as possible and, hopefully, start a true homestead someday. But I have to start somewhere. For me, that looks like a military dorm room with over 25 different plants, all potted both inside and outside of my room. It’s not much, but I’ve dedicated my free time to learning as much as I possibly can to acquire the skills necessary to become self-sufficient.

If you’re reading this, perhaps you are also sick of inflated food costs for low-quality, over-processed foods that are making us sicker the further we move away from natural practices of growing your own food, rearing livestock, and even producing your own medicine from herbs and plants.

An Introduction

My dream really started with wanting to be a survivalist. For most of my life, my family has enjoyed watching Bear Grylls or Alone, and Alaska: The Last Frontier—or whatever else we could find. It really appealed to me. For the longest time, I had a dream of being on Alone and being one of the few women to make it to the end. Deep down, I guess I still carry a kernel of that dream, but I also know my limits, and isolation is certainly one of them. Learning to be self-sufficient, however, is just as fulfilling and satisfying—if not more so, since the skills have more practical applications for our world today.

These dreams seemed pretty far away, unfortunately. I had military parents, and we had to move every few years… our life just wasn’t conducive to my dream of a rural life. Despite that, my passion for it never waned. I loved nature—still do—and all I wanted to was climb trees, explore the woods, and pretend I lived in a different time when people relied on themselves and their community for food and medicine. Truthfully, I think I just wanted to live in the past.

Note: The phrase “much to my mom’s dismay” is good but could be integrated more smoothly.

When my family and I lived in England, we rented a house with a beautiful, big backyard that had a small chicken coop at the very end. I was always trying to grow little apple seeds in zip-lock bags, or orange seeds, or whatever I could find. Eventually, I tried planting things in the dirt inside that empty chicken coop. When my parents found out, my dad built me a raised garden bed and helped me plant carrots—if my memory serves. I am still so grateful to my parents for nurturing that little passion for nature.

Cultivating My Passion

When we moved back to the US and I started high school, I attended a charter school where I could take college classes alongside high school courses. I was able to take rock climbing as an elective as well as wilderness survival, and I was beginning to pursue my interests more seriously. I started becoming learning all about plants and their medicinal properties and tried to forage as much as I could, but I didn’t really know what to do with the herbs I found.

Then, about a year ago, I joined the military and went to tech school for eight months. If you know anything about the military, you can probably imagine that it was hard to pursue my interest in plants in that environment. But I was determined to learn so I would be prepared when I was in a better situation. I took online classes and ended up really getting into tea and herbal infusions.

Now, after tech school, I live as a single airman in the dorms where I have a lot more space and freedom for potted plants and things like that. Although, it’s still not a desirable situation for beginning to learn homesteading skills. Despite that, I have been able to grow many plants in my room. I have a vertical hydroponic garden that holds up to sixteen plants that have been very successful for me.

Besides the indoor hydroponic garden, I have three small herbs that also benefit from the garden’s grow light, and one other decorative plant indoors. Outdoors, I have a money tree, aloe vera, chrysanthemum and I just planted beets a few days ago that just sprouted today.

Growing Towards the Sun

Without a doubt, I am still at the beginning of my journey, but I am proud of where I am for my situation. I also have ADHD so I tend to get obsessed with an idea for a week or two and then lose interest and move onto the next. But the process of food growing and more natural living has so many smaller subjects within it I just can’t get bored and I always revisit my little “obsessions.”

So far, I have successfully made kombucha, sourdough (credit to my mom for teaching me that one!), canned pickles, grown lots of herbs and plants AND used them, and made my own teas with both foraged herbs or ones that I grew myself. I was very proud of my recent pickle venture because I cut up scallions that I grew and added them in with the cucumbers and they ended up making the pickles pink! I loved it and thought they were just so adorable.

I’m no longer growing scallions, but when I get the chance I may try to grow them again even if just for the pink pickles. I also gave away a jar of them for a friend’s housewarming party and they loved them! It was so gratifying knowing that the pieces really are falling into place slowly but surely.

Looking Ahead

Now, I have big plans for when I move out of the dorms in the next four-six months. I am going to buy my first home (which will be so incredibly gratifying to do before I even turn twenty) and then hopefully raise meat rabbits. I’ll talk about why I think meat rabbits are a good idea for my situation in another post. It’s quite a rabbit hole!

Well, if you made it this far, then I am so grateful! I hope you’ll join me on the journey to my dream and that you will find it informational and entertaining as I share what I learn along the way. Beyond that, I am a beginner and if you have any tips or recommendations to pass along, I would love to hear it!