My Very Own Garden Behind A Lake House For Self Sustainability, Vegan Lifestyle And Food Freedom
Last winter after experiencing another family financial crisis, we as a family decided to buy our land and produce our own food. My father being jobless at the time, and having no income taught that even if he worked as a worker for somebody he will spend all the money on food and bills anyway. We had some savings but not enough for what we wanted - a house on the country side where we can come and during weekends and relax, with some land around it so that we can produce our own food.
My father being a passionate fishermen envisioned it by the lake, so after a hard day of work he can relax and go fish. After collectively focusing our thoughts an opportunity presented it self, and we purchased the property. The house was in a vary bad condition, but we managed to fix it a bit, with a help of the good will from our new neighbors. That experience of working on fixing the roof, digging a cesspit, installing the water really introduced us the community there. And what a community it is! Everyone who was a property there bought it for the same reason as we did - to escape the rat race and have there piece of mind. Our neighbor just next to us is still lending us electricity, because we are going to install solar panels in the future and that is an expensive investment.
Anyway here is a walk-trough video I've made specially for this post:
The property is located 7km from my hometown Jagodina in Central Serbia, along side the Great Morava river bank.
Garden 1 is only for our needs and it has 7 ares which is about 700 square meters. That garden is planted with everything from greens like spinach, chard, 5 kind of lettuce, dock... beans and peas, vegetables (tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants, paprika...), tubes (4 kind of onion and garlic, carrots, potatoes...) and spices like oregano, basil.. Last season we tried melons, but the land was not suitable for those. We plant only older seeds that we found on the country side, they are more resilient to pests and we don't spray against bugs. We even took it so far that we killed potato bugs with our hands. This season we invested in building an automated watering system (those black tubes on the ground).
Garden 2 is larger, about 80 ares (8000 square meters), cultivated for sale, and my father goes to the farmers market every weekend. Last season we mainly cultivated cabbage, peas, lettuce... but this season my father decided to go with flowers due to the higher price. We use all that money to invest in further development of our property.
As you can see the house is still under construction, but we are not in a hurry. Whenever we can we invest in it, but we need about 7000 euros to finish it completely.
Here is a view from the terrace from which you can see both gardens and basketball court we are building for my younger brother Ilija who aspires to become a professional basketball player.
It requires hard work and dedication, but the feeling of eating your own food and not having to go to the market is priceless. I cant even describe the feeling when I made my first diner completely from the food we produced. I made zucchini ships with tomato sos, and a cantaloupe cake. Food freedom is the best thing in the world. I feel more connected with nature, and more satisfied with the quality of my life for having such an oasis. I would recommend it to everyone who want's to be independent, and live a healthier lifestyle. Plus you don't have to go to the gym, and you catch enough sun :)
You have really done a great job, inspirational to all health conscious and environment friendly people.
Plant based diet is the best to live happy and healthy.
Thanks
Check out part 2
https://steemit.com/life/@drumsta/self-sustainability-and-food-freedom-101-one-year-potato-supply-for-10-euros-vlog
This is the solution for the problem I explain in my previous post about our Alienation from the Natural Way Of Life, which you can read here:
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@drumsta/the-great-alienation
Hard work is gratifying and you're protecting yourselves from the next crash by having food security. Really nice post @drumsta
The next crash is not my biggest concern. Serbian economy hasn't recovered from late 80'. Our minimum wage is 260e and an average around 340e.
very nice work.......good post bro
wow looks so nice :D
Awesome gardens
Wow that is great!! Cannot beat growing and eating your own food.
I think you would love our post on aquaponics.. more to come on it. https://steemit.com/life/@steemtobefree/one-hell-of-a-way-to-grow-the-best-food-our-trip-to-the-aquaponic-ouroboros-farms-in-half-moon-bay-california
Please check it out! Upvoted and followed and would appreciate the same!
Cheers!
Hey man thanks, I saw your post yesterday and left the comment already :)
That looks really good! Even though you can never trust on full self sustainability even on food (as a bad year can do real damage), it is most usually helping in getting some good quality food almost for free + investing your time.
In best case, you'll be able to share food with others too, as not all food will last long enough if you get really good harvest :)
You are right, its not a sure thing, but in Serbia where job is not a sure thing this is a safer option. You only depend on the labour you put in, and the weather conditions which are 90% of the time in favour.
Sounds lucky enough :) We have a 100 square meter farming plot on the outskirts of our home town/city and last year, big pieces of our crop were damaged by plant diseases and way too chilly august.. but it's different when we are high up in the north :)
I wish all the best for your project.
Yeah our location has better weather conditions, and you can expect it. Thanks I don't know why people here are so passionate about gardening is it rare in your part of the world? In Serbia everyone was a house on the country side, or grandparents living in the Villages who have a small garden. There is no option to survive here with the minimum wage of around 260 euros that to produce your own food.
In Finland, wages are typically higher and even social care payments are way higher than that, but then.. our rents are high. In a small city, the rent for a single room apartment is typically over around 500 euros. We are lucky to have a moderate priced three room apartment for rent and it's a bit over 700 euros per month.
So even though we have more money, we have to pay more. Food is ok though, as nobody really has to starve and we can afford basic food (1 kilo potatoes ~0,49 euros)
But Finns are crazy about gardening, but not the useful kind of gardening usually. Planting flowers and such, spending big money on making the garden beautiful, typically having some berry bushes or an apple tree, not that much of vegetables to eat though :)
Take a look at my second entry about this topic
https://steemit.com/life/@drumsta/self-sustainability-and-food-freedom-101-one-year-potato-supply-for-10-euros-vlog
I guess the more scarce organic and healthy veges and plants become, the more people will value having there own garden.
Sjajno! Svaka cast za ulozen rad, trud i zajednistvo! :)
Srecno!
Hvala Nikolina! Svake sezone ce biti sve bolje i bolje. Trudimo se da konstantno ulazemo i novac i energiju u ono sto nam je vredno, a jesti zdravu organsku hranu i imati ovakvo imanje je za nas neprocenjivo :)
This was a great post. Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for you future work!
check out my second post if you are interested
https://steemit.com/life/@drumsta/self-sustainability-and-food-freedom-101-one-year-potato-supply-for-10-euros-vlog