Hello!

We are Anthony and Jess, and we have a backyard homestead in Eastern North Carolina. When we were searching for a home back in 2021, we knew we wanted outside space for gardening and backyard chickens, but had no idea we would fall in love with this homesteader lifestyle. We’re beginner homesteaders, no doubt, but have taken the bull by the horn, so to speak. Since moving to our just-over-an-acre plot, we’ve created a 40′ x 80′ organic vegetable and herb garden, added fruit trees to the orchard, planted fruit tree guilds, started a composting pile and added animals. We have dreams for much more!

Our Why

For over a decade, we’ve cared about eating organically for our health. Several years ago, we realized the importance of sourcing foods locally. We make an effort to support ranchers and farmers by purchasing meat and produce from nearby farms, believing that our purchases support sustainability. More recently, we’ve started to understand the idea of eating seasonally. I’ve been practicing homesteading skills (without truly knowing it) for a few years. For example, I bake sourdough bread, cook many of our meals from scratch, dabble with ferments, aim to keep the pantry stocked with basic ingredients to prepare nourishing meals, and keep the freezer loaded with pasture raised meats. However, we were somewhat limited in what we could do, as we lived in a condo in Southern California. Sure, there was a community garden nearby, but it had a waitlist that was years long. I grew tomatoes and herbs in containers on the balcony patio, along with many native flowers and plants, but I always craved more space!

Now, we have the space to raise our own chickens, ducks and geese for eggs, and grow our own fruits, vegetables and herbs. We love homesteading because we want to know where our food comes from! We want to know what the animals eat, and how the animals and the land have been cared for. We want to know that the carrots we eat were grown in healthy soil, and the flowers on our dining table aren’t sprayed with toxic chemicals like pesticides and fungicides. What better way to accomplish this desire than to do it ourselves? In my wildest dreams, we would produce nearly all the foods we eat.