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

Ducks Eat Every Watermelon Good or Bad

Ducks Eat Every Watermelon Good or Bad

Sometimes those personal watermelons just aren't very good. This one was not ripe at all even though it looked good, it was very light pink and kind of hard in the middle. While the duck girls didn't annihilate it as fast as a very ripe melon they still enjoyed their...

Peach Harvest in Urban Food Forest

Peach Harvest in Urban Food Forest

We are harvested tons of peaches from our urban food forest in our front yard. We thin the fruit trees in order to make sure the fruit that grows gets large and ripe. The peaches started to ripen up last week and there is a faint smell of delicious peach when you get...

The Community Garden Plot in Portland

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?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Edible Landscaping. Growing vegetable gardens, backyard orchard fruit trees, medicinal plants, and herbs, and converting lawns from traditional grass to food forest gardens.
  4. Self-Sufficient Living. Connecting with your community to trade and share resources that can be repaired, recycled, or made from scratch materials.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

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