I’m Rachel Jamison, an aspiring permaculturist and urban homesteader who loves to teach and inspire others to grow where they are planted.
As a child my family moved frequently so I never had a garden or animals. Our food came from the store and it was usually the cheapest we could find (the 70 & 80’s economic crisis hit my parents hard). It was my grandfather, trips out west camping, secret places hidden within the confines of our small city, and short stints to country relatives that sparked something inside me I could never shake.
If you ask my family, they all knew that small city girl was destined to become a country girl. I developed a voracious reading habit in elementary school. It was then that I discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder, Gwen Frostic, James Audubon, and more.
I am co-host of The Modern Homesteading Podcast. Please check out our recent episodes.
As a child my family moved frequently so I never had a garden or animals. Our food came from the store and it was usually the cheapest we could find (the 70 & 80’s economic crisis hit my parents hard). It was my grandfather, trips out west camping, secret places hidden within the confines of our small city, and short stints to country relatives that sparked something inside me I could never shake.
If you ask my family, they all knew that small city girl was destined to become a country girl. I developed a voracious reading habit in elementary school. It was then that I discovered Laura Ingalls Wilder, Gwen Frostic, James Audubon, and more.
I met my husband in high school, he grew up on a small hobby farm doing 4H, raising animals, gardening, picking fruit, and cutting wood. He lived the life I always dreamed of living. After we got married we lived in a small old trailer outside of town for a few years.
Eventually, we saved and purchased 20 acres. It took us 2.5 years to build a cute little house (yes, we did this mostly ourselves), which we then sold (we kinda regret that). It was there that I grew my first tomatoes from some free starts my mother-in-law gave me. We then moved back to town. We were on an acre, it is here my gardening and homesteading journey really started.
My mother-in-law taught me to can and my father-in-law taught me about conventional gardening. I started learning to bake and cook from scratch and then a series of health issues and tragedies hit our family. These changed the way we thought about food and farming. During this time we fixed up that house, sold it, and moved to where we currently are on .33 of an acre. I dove head first into alternative health, food, medicine, herbals, gardening, butchering, more preserving, primitive skills, etc… The more I learn about this deep subject the less skilled I feel.
