Urban Homesteading PDX
A collection of stories from our urban homestead in Portland Oregon.
Our Stories
Follow along as we learn and explore urban homesteading in Portland, Oregon
Garden Hand Tools for Urban Homesteads
The Best Garden Hand Tools for Urban Homesteads The right garden hand tools make working on an urban homestead a joy or painful endeavor. As a result, choosing the right tools for the right job and your specific needs is important. As an example, you can wear...
Hugelkultur Raised Bed Layers
Building Hugelkultur Raised Bed Layers Building hugelkultur raised bed layers in a backyard vegetable garden is a great way to go. This style of garden bed building adds a ton of organic material to the soil. Creates places for moisture to be held late into the year...
Hoss Stirrup Hoe
Hoss Stirrup Hoe for Weeding The Hoss stirrup hoe is the premier hand-powered tool for weeding and cultivating small garden plots and around tight spaces. No matter how tight a space is the stirrup hoe will get the job done without harming the roots of your growing...
Double Wheel Hoe
Double Wheel Hoe for Backyard Gardeners The best wheel hoe on the market is made by Hoss tools. Whether you go with a single wheel, double wheel, or a high arch wheel hoe, all backyard gardeners planting directly into the ground will benefit from having one of these...
Best Wheel Hoe
Urban Homesteading Recommendation: Best Wheel Hoe The garden wheel hoe is perfect for cultivating, weeding, making furrows, and chilling vegetable beds. The wheel reduces the amount of energy that is required to get all of these tasks done with traditional...
Duck Layer Feed
Duck Layer Feed Improves Egg Production Switch from grower to a quality duck layer feed to encourage healthy egg production at the 20-week mark in their growth. Layer feed should be 16% protein and have a higher amount of calcium and essential vitamins for duck...
High Arch Wheel Hoe
High Arch Wheel Hoe for Hilling Corn and Potatoes Cultivating the soil with a high arch wheel hoe for growing corn and potatoes is a delight. Gardeners and small-scale farmers using hand tools love this style of wheel hoe. It excels as a cultivating tool early in...
Garden Hoe with Wheels
What is a Garden Hoe with Wheels? The traditional garden hoe or even the specialized hula hoe are staples in any garden shed. However, the garden hoe with wheels allows the gardener to cover large rows and quickly cultivate garden beds. The best wheel hoe for your...
Community Garden Projects
Our Community Garden Plot
Duck Ducks
We love our ducks.
Home Garden Project
Our 1/4 acre property is home to fruit trees and bushes, raised garden beds, and diverse native plants intermingled throughout.
Enjoying the Harvest
Using what we grow to feed ourselves, friends, and family.
About
Hi I am John Johnson and an avid urban gardener in the greater Portland Oregon area. We raise ducks and chickens in our urban lot. We also have planted a large food forest including apple, pear, persimmon, quince, cherry, apricot, and pawpaw trees. Our favorite understory shrubs include blueberries, raspberries, marionberries, honeyberries, and jostaberries. We grow a substantial garden with both in ground garden beds and raised garden beds. These are stories from our adventures growing food and raising animals in an urban setting and the tools that we use to make it happen. This site is supported by affiliate ad revenue.
Urban Homesteading in Practice
What elements of urban homesteading are you interested in?
- Reducing Resource Use. By using alternative energy sources such as installing solar roof panels, riding a bicycle, using public transportation, harvesting rainwater, drying clothes on a line, and reusing greywater.
- Raising Animals. A backyard poultry flock of chickens, ducks, or even other animals such as rabbits or goats. Honeybees and worms in a vermicomposter are also popular urban homesteading animals to raise.
- Edible Landscaping. Growing vegetable gardens, backyard orchard fruit trees, medicinal plants, and herbs, and converting lawns from traditional grass to food forest gardens.
- Self-Sufficient Living. Connecting with your community to trade and share resources that can be repaired, recycled, or made from scratch materials.
- Food Preservation. Managing a harvest of vegetables or fruit is just as important as growing. Canning, drying, freezing, and fermenting are the most popular methods for preserving a harvest for consumption over many months.
- Composting / Building Soil. On-site composting of plant materials and basic kitchen scrap materials. Building soil spreading compost throughout food forest or practicing chop and drop methods or spreading wood chips to feed the microbiology of the soil. Developing a rich soil ecosystem over years of intentional actions to feed the life in the soil.