Meet a family who achieved what most people would think impossible in a big city. On less than 4,000 square feet of land in the heart of Pasadena, California, the Dervaes family gets all the food they need from their own backyard
We started this challenge a couple years back, and it was very popular and successful in getting folks to eat closer to home. With more and more folks growing their own food, we figure it’s about time we revive and relaunch this challenge!
It’s our Blogiversary! Sharing our urban homesteading adventures started one hot July summer day back in 2001 with our first “journal entry.” A entry which would eventually leave tracks that trail blazed the modern urban homesteading movement
Not only is it their means of sustenance, but it is also a business. This business, and their way of life as a whole, have become a blueprint for people across the world who want to go back to the basics of self-sufficiency.
As folks around the nation celebrate with friends and family, how about we all take this opportunity to share with one another what baby steps (or giant ones) that we have taken to become more independent from mass consuming culture and the corporate controls of our food, energy, fuel, water and our lives.
Urban Homesteading not just about bringing food, goods, services closer to home but making the home center your life. One of the steps backwards we have taken is bringing “socializing” home.
Now that the urban homestead movement is well, “trendy” So, what’s in a name? What is the movement of urbanites who are growing their own food, raising barnyard in their backyards and “putting up” in the kitchen.
Urban homesteading is about taking a step backwards and living a more simple, purposeful life but doing it in an inner city environment – surrounded by the modern world.
Whew, we did it! Took us longer than we expected but it was well worth the wait and as about as close as an Amish barn raising experience we city folks get!
One of the fun things about urban homesteading is growing your own herbs. Not only are you growing your own spice rack but tasty drinks, medicine chest and beauty products.
From teas to tinctures from herbal butters to brews herbs are one of the most useful things you can grow on your urban homestead.
Going Herbal on [...]
I just wanted to let you know how much I love the calendar! It is exactly the inspiration I hoped it would be. Beautiful photographs and printed on that nice thick paper, really great quality. Thank you
-Elizabeth
LITTLE HOMESTEAD IN THE CITY 2010 CALENDAR
(11″ x 17″)
Looking for something to inspire you (and others) throughout 2010?
Buy [...]
WHEN: February 9, 2010 / 7:30 PM
WHERE: Orange County Garden Club Silo Building at Orange County Fairgrounds, Costa Mesa, CA
88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626-6598
Jules Dervaes will show his award winning short film “Homegrown Revolution”-(BUY the DVD) and a presentation on the 10 Elements of Urban Homesteading
Now to the biggest, best farming conference in the West!
Monterey Bay/Asilomar, EcoFarm Conference Jan 20-23
Before the conference started, we needed a place to stay for night or two before we were given our designated rooms on the conference grounds and were blessed with a place to stay beachside. (A big thanks to the Bakke family [...]
Whoosh. That’s the sound of time flying by!
Where does the time go? One week, turns into two and I am already behind in putting up our weekly meals. Father time is going to need to slow down a bit.
Given that we are smack dab in the middle of winter and enjoying fresh [...]
My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there. ~Indira Gandhi
Deselected Because of Principles
Unfortunately, we won’t be traveling to Sonoma Film Festival due the fact that the [...]
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
The Year of the Urban Homestead
My sis and I were talking about “the good ol’ days.” And one thing she brought up that I had forgotten was how we were constantly asked, [...]
Celebrating 10 Years Online 1999-2009
To commemorate our decade long online presence we’ve put together a pictorial urban homesteading calendar highlighting our favorite photos of the garden, animals, flowers, butterflies and more!
Don’t pass up this opportunity….
Support our growing online presence and outreach to the next level.
LITTLE HOMESTEAD IN THE CITY 2010 CALENDAR (11″ x 17″)
BUY [...]
Happy Birthday!
This weekend Path to Freedom Urban Homestead celebrates 10 years online! Can you believe it, we are older than BLOGSPOT, YOUTUBE, TWITTER and FACEBOOK. What a milestone marker in our journey!
For over a decade now we’ve been sharing our triumphs, struggles and growth along with you. Over the course of the journey our project [...]
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. Mohandas Gandhi
URBAN HOMESTEADING: The Dervaes family’s sustainable path to freedom (via Union Weekly)
Interview and photos by Chelsea Rosenthal
Jules Dervaes, the pioneer of the homesteading movement in downtown Pasadena, believes there are two types of hard. There is a meaningful hard and a meaningless hard,” [...]
Just a stone’s throw from an 11 lane freeway, A birds eye view of our 1/5 acre urban homestead ( 66 ft x 132 ft)
The large building that runs behind and alongside our home is a school
A closer look. You can see the 12 solar panels on the garage. On our house, the metal [...]
A reader commented recently that she was inspired by LHITC to purchase her first apron – that’s great!
An urban homesteaders wardrobe is not complete without aprons (ok, I am speaking for us females!)
There’s something about aprons that really evoke a true pioneer urban homesteading spirit.
Aprons are very “eco conscious” if you think about it. In [...]
Looking to the right…..
To the left. The garden is all tucked in under covers
20, 26, 28 It’s not, um. shall we say “measurements” but what the thermometer’s read these past three nights. BRRRRR
Homesteading, urban homesteading for the matter, in the city – especially in Southern California– one really has it “easy” when it [...]
We interrupt our regular posting schedule for some important news…..
Path to Freedom Urban Homestead needs your support. As the year comes to an end, please consider donating to help sustain our ever-expanding outreach and help us grow to the next level.
Our nonprofit is looking to raise some “grass roots” funds to help keep our webmistresses [...]
Heading north in mid January so get out those calendars and mark these dates!
Jan 15 – 17 Wild & Scenic Film Festival, Nevada City CA for the screening of Robert McFalls film HOMEGROWN on Saturday and Sunday (Time TBD)
Jan 20-23 Eco Farm Conference, Asilomar CA holding an Urban Homesteading “Big Rewards from Small Spaces” workshop [...]
an interview by Ronny Bagdadi of HEALING OUR WORLD magazine (volume 29 issue 4)
Path to Freedom is a grassroots family-operated urban homestead located in the heart of Pasadena CA. Surrounded by urban sprawl and just a short distance from a major freeway, the Dervaes family has steadily transformed an ordinary 66′ x 132′ city lot [...]
U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry – Yahoo! News
… the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.
Read full article
I like the quote from this recent article which references [...]
Q & A with Farmer D
1. Where do you think the immediate opportunities lie for making progress in localizing the US food system?
For over 20 years, I’ve been gardening in the city; but, since 1999 I’ve been growing food “for real” in my own backyard. The most immediate opportunities for making progress always lie right [...]
SAVE THE DATE!
Seven years (holy cow seven years!!!!! sorry back to post) after Farmer D’s first urban homestead workshop at the Eco Farm Conference in January 2003 where the first seeds of the modern urban homesteading movement were sown, Farmer D is once again taking part in this 3 day farming conference in January of 2010!
Eco Farm is celebrating 30 [...]
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2009
10:30 A.M. TO 3:30 P.M.
WHITE PARK, 3901 MARKET STREET, RIVERSIDE, CA. 92501
THE GREATER RIVERSIDE CONFERENCE OF SENIORS GIVING THE GIFT OF GREEN TO OUR GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
THE CRISIS: Scientists have determined that civilization is not sustainable if carbon dioxide remains above 350 parts per million. It’s now at 387 ppm and [...]
View more photos of the day’s festivities here
On Sunday we packed up early and headed to “the beach” for the Blue Planet Film Festival. Sunday was day three of a four day film fest over the Labor Day holiday.
On tap for “Land Day” were gardening films (that included the inspiring Homegrown Revolution), clay pot irrigation [...]
BLUE PLANET FILM FEST, INVITES YOU TO ATTEND A V.I.P. PRE GALA RECEPTION WITH ACTOR, MUSICIAN, COMEDIAN, HAL SPARKS AND OTHER SPECIAL GUESTS
TONIGHT, SEPTEMBER 3 @ 6:00 P.M.
Tickets $12.00
SANTA MONICA BAY WOMEN’S CLUB
1210 4th Street
(to protect the floor, no stiletto heels permitted by the club)
Note changes to schedule on Sunday
Jules Dervaes’ urban homesteading presentation [...]
The urban homesteaders/farmers will be on hand at these two upcoming events on Sept 3 & Sept 6
“Urban Homesteading is a process of being able to provide for oneself despite living in an urban community. Simply put, urban homesteading means self-sufficiency. A lot of people in first world countries are now getting into this new [...]
In between canning peach jam, apple butter, gardening and rubbing our goat’s bellies, we hit the launched button as planned at 4 pm yesterday afternoon. It was “go flight” even though parts of the site still are in development not to mention content to edit, add and some sections of the site still need to [...]
As we celebrate our 8th anniversary of blogging online and 36 years of a simple, homesteading (24 of which in the city) life, it’s amazing to see the growth of the urban homesteading movement this last year.
Excerpts from BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH HOMESTEADING courtesy of Babygooroo.com
Yes, that’s right. Homesteading. Does that word conjure images [...]
Blow out another candle!
Today will be just another day here on the urban homestead with chores, gardening tasks, preserving and harvesting to do.
But it’s not just a regular ol day. Today is a special, slightly sentimental, day here on the urban homestead. Though momentous in a way I am going to keep this entry short [...]
This summer the season is ripe for more and more folks joining the modern urban homesteading movement. We are seeing more and more articles/books flooding the print and airwaves on the subject from growing your own food, raising backyard chickens even bees not to mention the preservation efforts that come with an abundant harvest.
Certianly a dramatic [...]
On the weather front, the sun finally came out yesterday which was very, very nice. We enjoyed it while it lasted because today is grey again and there is a chance of rain which is a miracle so late in the year!
Yesterday Justin sprayed the entire yard with garlic to prevent any mildew, blight, etc. [...]
Little Homestead in the City site of the day on European Radio Network.
Check out the little radio byte
Hmmmm…….
rather interesting part about “skipping through fields of buttercups!”
Sadly as Jordanne pointed out “there ain’t no fields of buttercups here – just concrete”
Sunday we had a busy day on tap. First we were off to Claremont to table and give a short urban homesteading presentation during their downtown Earth Day festivities. Thanks to Sorrel and Sustainable Claremont for the invite! Also thank you the lovely couple who offered us scrumptious baked chocolate muffins and lemonade from their [...]
In the day. We have one more busy week to go with Earth Week and then everything should (hopefully) go back to normal.
I have two weeks of meals sitting here on my desk (um that didn’t come out right – the menu list NOT the actual food), loads of photos from this weekend’s events and [...]
Yesterday, we went in and checked out our resident bee hive and found that the supers were loaded with honey. Guess it’s all that citrus here and around that’s creating a good honey flow. Our street is right off a major street called ‘Orange Grove’ which, back in them days, was actually [...]
Well, it’s the end of the week (almost) and I just got through publishing three journal entries – one about the “ugly side” of urban homesteading, compost and urban bees.
There’s more where that came from so hopefully will have some more time tomorrow to get you all caught up – especially one about the meeting [...]
Summertime garden
IN SEASON
By Deborah Geering
For the Journal-Constitution
Thursday, April 02, 2009
When I walked into the Urban Homesteading workshop at the Georgia Organics annual conference a couple of weeks ago, I was expecting a speaker who was —- well —- a little nutty. After all, what kind of person does it take to turn a 1/5-acre suburban [...]
I said before April is shaping up to be an incredibly busy month. Although I promised to get back to musing from the urban homestead (have some really neat posting in the queue!) we have a few important happenings that we’d like to highlight.
I will be sending out a newsletter later today (hopefully) but in [...]
Courtesy of ONE RADIO NETWORK (February 27, 2009)
This is a powerful story. Jules Dervaes and his family have 1/5 of an acre in Pasadena, California and half of their homestead is filled with fruits, vegetables and animals. The Dervaes manage to produce nearly 6,000 pounds of vegetables last year – fed themselves and earned $20,000 [...]
Saturday was our monthly social night here on the urban homestead with nearly 30 of our friends and supporters. We have been hosting these shindigs for nearly 5 years now!
With Saturday being V-Day, the table spread was a little heavy on the chocolates and wine but, nonetheless, filled with incredible food. There was even a [...]
