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
Harvesting Marionberries in our Food Forest
We harvested marionberries, raspberries, and blueberries in our food forest for the past several weeks. We love growing lots of berries. There are few things better than vine-ripened fresh berries. We grow our marionberries on a simple trellis in order to maximize...
How to Thin Fruit Trees in a Food Forest
Learning how to thin fruit trees in a food forest is important for anyone interested in growing a thriving backyard orchard. This is an important food forest task that most people don't think about when dreaming of growing a big backyard orchard. Due to the large...
Chicken Run: The First Adventure
Chicken run adventure time for the chickens The chickens have finally been moved out to their coop and today they are getting to spend some time running around the chicken run for a first adventure. They have been contained to their brooder or chicken coop until...
How To Use Tomato Clips
Today, we are going to go over how to use tomato clips to trellis your indeterminate variety of tomatoes on a string. There are other ways to trellis tomatoes and we do those techniques to such as the Florida weave or just simply wrapping the tomato vines around a...
Native Plants Should Be Part of Your Food Forest
Native plants should be part of your urban homesteading food forest design. We are using some native plants such as elderberry, western red cedar, red flowering currents, and more as a hedge in the front of our yard. We have intermingled flowers and ground cover...
Chickens or Ducks: The Egg Difference
Chickens or Ducks what is the difference in the eggs. The duck egg is much larger and richer in taste while coming in at around 130 calories. The classic chicken egg is about 70 calories so much smaller in comparison to the duck egg. We love to use our duck eggs for...
Duckling Leg Problems: Possible Niacin Deficiency
Does your ducklings have leg problems? It could be a lack of niacin in their diet. A niacin deficiency is a common problem with ducklings and individuals learning how to raise ducks. This unfortunately can leave ducklings with lifelong problems and even early death...
Ducks choosing between eating peas or going to forage
Do the Welsh Harlequins choose to eat peas or go forage on their own? These ducks love running around the food forest hunting for bugs in the mulch and as seen on this video, while they are interested in having a snack these duck girls would much rather go on the hunt...
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.