You can live a hands-on homesteading life where you are

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At Little City Farm we are a small family of four, as well as a larger group of educators and facilitators, who lead classes here.  Our hands-on classes are offered in the unique context of our own evolving urban homestead.   That means we offer classes on subjects that our own homestead revolves around and we are involved with on a daily basis - such as organic gardening, making herbal home remedies, wild foraging for edibles, natural building, fermentation, permaculture, chicken keeping, beekeeping, wood-fired baking, sourdough, composting, fruit tree pruning, and more!   We want you (our students) to leave the classes feeling confident about new practical skills that can enhance your life, and help you along your own path to a more self-reliant sustainable way of being.

For our family, we are continuously striving to create a life that incorporates small-scale human-powered agriculture, sustainable practices, permaculture approaches, and home food production into urban living.  We invite you to catch a glimpse of our journey to live simply and sustainably in the city. Our goal is to provide many of our basic needs (food, water, waste management, energy, and shelter), while reducing our impact on the environment.  The criteria for the homesteading projects at Little City Farm include:
  • affordability
  • simplicity
  • space efficiency
  • beauty & enjoyment
  • using recycled and low energy materials
  • ability to offer as a teaching for others

More about Little City Farm

We are an family of four, trying to live simply and sustainably in a mid-sized city in southwestern Ontario.   We have been living on our 1/3 acre city homestead since 1999, using the principles of permaculture as our guide, while trying to minimize our impact on the environment.   We offer hands-on classes related to topics of homesteading, herbalism, traditional crafts, food preservation, foraging, permaculture.

Produce for our own needs

  • we grow much of our own food in our 1/3 acre yard
  • we dry, preserve, and ferment foods for the winter
  • we practice traditional homesteading skills in our daily life
  • we harvest rainwater & recycle our household greywater
  • we make wild-harvested/ homegrown herbal remedies
  • we try to minimize consumer purchases, and produce less waste (aim for zero-waste someday)
  • we buy what we can't produce from local artisans/farmers

Permaculture

  •  we are a permaculture-inspired homestead
  • we use the 12 principles of permaculture to help guide us
  • for example, observing nature; creatively responding to change; using small & slow solutions; valuing diversity; using & valuing renewable resources; producing no waste; catching and storing energy.

Handmade Life

  • this is a slower-paced handmade life that we have chosen
  • we live in a strawbale home built by our own hands
  • we try to grow, craft, make & mend what we need for our life, and continue develop our skills with each new season
  • we share these handmade living skills through our classes

Education

  • Little City Farm hosts hands-on classes all year-round
  • we offer hands-on classes on the topics of homesteading skills, permaculture, herbal remedies, beekeeping, wild foraging, natural building, and more!
  • we maintain a Blog as another way of sharing free resources and information about city farming, sustainability, & our homesteading life

Simple Living

  • we try to live simply and within our means
  • we are striving to reduce our energy consumption
  • we use sustainable/human-powered options where we can
  • we use a passive solar greenhouse to grow food
  • we ride bicycles or walk for errands
  • we power our home with 100% green renewable energy

Sharing our Experience

  • since 2007 we have shared our homesteading approach through classes, tours, retreats, B&B stays, internships
  • we wish to support others along their own journey toward greater self-reliance in the city
  • we share our homesteading adventures through writing - read our Blog, or past issues of Natural Life Magazine, Geez Magazine, & Taproot Magazine
  • find herbal DIY recipes and nutrient-dense recipes and homesteading tips available on our blog here