Experimentation Leads to Growth

Discovery Requires Experimentation

             What most people don’t tell you about homesteading/farmsteading is that it doesn’t have to happen in one grand, sweeping movement. Getting back to the land does not HAVE to mean moving out to the middle of nowhere and being a hermit. Though, depending on who you ask, that might be the end goal.

             As we work on heading  to the farm there is a conversation I feel I had with myself that I think everyone pursuing a lifestyle change, of any kind, should have. “How does this work? Do I know enough to do this? How can I enact the things I think I know?” Because the truth is, as much as you can study something from the books, having any sort of experience will usually trump academic knowledge.

Now, that’s not to say that having a good understanding of theory is a wash. I feel that in order to be able to take action on anything you must first have a reasonable theoretical understanding of it, but I fear most people fail to take the next step. If we are unable to put theoretical knowledge into action then it stays merely theoretical. If Karl Benz had stopped at theoretical cars we might all still be walking or riding horses everywhere. So, applying theoretical knowledge is a critical next step.

Enter society. Society has grown to tell us if we cannot do it right immediately, we should not do it. And to the few that have taken that and thrown it aside, I salute you. However, for most of the modern world there is a crippling fear of being wrong or of failing. Think of all the people you might know, or know of, that have test anxiety. I know people that are doctors now who’s worst fear was failing a test.

Now, I have failed more times that I care to admit. But as Samuel Smile said “We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”

So, while the four of us continue to live separately we have started experimenting. This means experimenting with composting, canning, soap making, sourdough bread cultures, and gardening with its hundreds of subcategories, among other things. And most of all I believe it is important to know that failing now while there is a safety net means the lessons do not hit as hard, but the knowledge is gained on the same level.

For example, I rashly bought sweet peppers, a sunflower, marigolds, cantaloupe, and cucumbers to plant in a summer raised garden bed. The purchase was not inherently rash, but read on to discover the lessons I learned this season. It was later in the season than I had hoped and did not have time earlier in the season to start my heirloom seeds indoors so I planted them directly into the raised beds I had built.

Brad harvesting onions from the raised bed

I built the raised beds out of recycled house siding and 2x4’s. Then I calculated and ordered the appropriate amount of topsoil for the beds. Built a ramp so I could fill the beds with the small wheelbarrow. Bought the plants. And planted them. I included Chicory and artichoke for good measure. Then came the lesson to be learned. I planted everything in a freshly turned over compost rich soil on one of the hottest days of the summer(it reached 107*F that day). 

If you ever want to watch heat tolerant plants shrivel and die, plant them on a hot day, in hot soil that has not had time to properly condition. Even with watering in the plants and daily waterings that took place before heading into work around 6am. All the plants shriveled. 2 of my three cucumbers died and one of my cantaloupe died right away. The bell peppers were stunted and produced very small, skinny, fruits. And the sunflower never gained more than 2ft in height. 

Pretty epic failure. Like, almost a complete disaster. However, I learned a valuable gardening lesson. You must plant when appropriate, not when convenient. 

Then enter all the other homesteading things you can think of. I started pickling cucumbers, onions, and garlic. Bought a pressure canner for broth, jams, and soup. Then started into sourdough culture and soap making. All in conjunction with or shortly following research in the form of books like “How to Make Money Homesteading” and shows like “Homestead Rescue” or “Building Off-Grid” and, to be honest, most of our experimenting is rooted in wanting to not be the people that need to be on “Homestead Rescue.” 

So, I tried hot water bath canning soup and broth. Most of which developed tops that showed they were not canned properly, which led to pressure canning. And that has yielded good results. No tops have popped over a month after my first round. 

Christie and I still work our 9-5 jobs in Visalia, California. Which means that while the gardening and canning failures were disappointing, we were not counting on these things for survival. There's a grocery store less than a mile away from us. And that is where the safety net of experimentation falls. By learning some of these harder lessons now, we can save ourselves the hardship when our survival is on the line.

Now, that is not to say that there will not be other failures along the way. There will be. But if we can take the hits from our failures now, and learn the lessons, we are one step closer to success when it really matters. 

The takeaway is, you are going to fail somewhere along the journey, in some way. Don’t be afraid of it, because failure is a powerful teacher, but you have to show up for the lesson first.