5 Skills to Develop Before You Buy Your Homestead
If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting to buy a homestead for years. We finally purchased our 40 acre homestead this past year, but I’m thankful for the skills that I’ve developed along the way.
Just because you don’t currently have the land to homestead the way you want, I guarantee you can do most of these now to get you off and running when you finally are ready to buy the homestead of your dreams.
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Learn the Basics of Gardening
Before you tell me you “have no room to garden”. I promise you, you have room to grow something. In the last 2 years, we went from a 2 acre property, to a rental 14 hours from our home (hello, military life!), back to the 2 acres and then finally where we settled in to our larger homestead. But honestly, we have just as much growing space as we did on our 2 acre property, so don’t think you need a massive piece of land to grow.
I started my first garden during 2020. I was lucky to be working from home where I could tend to my garden every day and stare at everything, willing it to grow faster by just looking at it.
Let me tell you, the garden will humble you, and it’s good to learn lessons early. It will also surprise you in so many blessed, good ways.
We did a pretty small garden the first year with a handful of tomatoes, some peppers and I forget what else, to be honest.
I learned that weeds grow fast and everywhere (but I didn’t learn that lesson super well, see this video I shared on my channel recently for context).
I learned that it’s important to protect your crops from predators, especially bunnies and squirrels in the city!
But even in our rental, where we didn’t have much space, and certainly weren’t investing in any infastructure, we grew herbs and veggies. I set up my greenstalk tower and got to work. It was totally different using a planter than the ground, and a whole new learning experience, too!
If you’re in an apartment, you can learn to grow some herbs or potted plants (think tomatoes, potatoes and peppers). You’re not going to get a harvest that will last you all year, but it will teach you how to maintain a plant and learn when to plant things in your area and what varieties grow well.
You can also join a community garden and get more space without having to own land at all! It’s also a great way to meet like-minded people.
2. Network with Homesteaders in Your Community
I have learned SO much from those that homestead at our church. We have people who have goats, huge gardens and everything in-between. Growing my network of people who can answer my questions when I am stumped is so crucial. I am also lucky to have an aunt that has been homesteading for years, and her knowledge has been invaluable.
Before we ever stepped foot on our own homestead, I helped my aunt with harvests and learned so much from her.
If you can find someone in your community that needs help tending chickens, planting or harvesting, I highly recommend reaching out. Most everyone in the homesteading community is happy to share their knowledge and DEFFINITELY appreciates the extra help.
3. Learn to Cook From Scratch
Once you have a harvest coming in, you will be over flowing with fruit and vegetables to eat. You’ll be thankful you know how to whip up something delicious once you have all those home-grown prdouce.
Plus, let’s be honest. You’re probably going to be living in the boonies, and running to grab dinner means an hour and a half round trip adventure. It’s much better and easier to make things at home.
Just remember, we all start somewhere. I used to make the most basic (and sometimes overcooked and burnt) meals. Bless my husband’s heart for sticking it out. Now I make my own breads, bone broths and rarely buy a packaged food (guilty; can’t resist some Kraft mac and cheese sometimes on a busy night).
But truly, having the skills to cook your own food with be so important once you have a homestead, and connects in with my next recommendation, which is self suficieny.
If you need to brush up your cooking skills, or just want more ideas, check out my from scratch cooking playlist linked below.
4. Learn to Be Self Sufficient
Before you click away, I promise I’m not convincing you to turn into a prepper (though you might accidentally turn into one as a homesteader). The reality is that if you are looking outside the city for land, you will likely need to have the ability to sustain yourself for a few days in the event of severe weather or other events. We are 40 minutes from a major town, and if we needed something in an emergency, it would be tough to get there (especially snow storms here in the midwest).
Additionally, it’s just great skills to have in your back pocket.
Invest in good first aid kits like these, and maybe even consider a CPR course. I also recommend starting to keep spare gas and also learn to stock up on food (more on that later). If you’re not into canning or preserving quite yet, investing in some emergency survival food packs or other emergency supplies.
You’ll also want to pick up a few handy skills, like learning basic tools in case you need to do a quick fix (or later build something) on your homestead.
5. Learn to Preserve Your Food
Learning to preserve your food goes hand in hand with basic survival skills and also learning to cook more from scratch. Once you have a huge harvest coming in, you won’t be able to eat that all while it’s ripe (and you probably won’t want to). Learning to preserve your own food is super important to put all of your summer hard work on the shelves for the rest of the year.
You have a number of ways you can learn to preserve, including canning, dehydrating, freezing and freeze drying.
I love canning, and you can not only can pickles, beans and beets, but you can can whole meals like pot roast, soups and more. I love having convenience meals that I can take off my shelf on a busy night that isn’t processed junk.
Freeze drying is another great option. While an more expensive investment, it does keep for much longer and give you a lot more versatility in what you can preserve. I personally purchased the Blue Alpine Freeze Dryer for our homestead.
I also have a whole post about the basics of learning to can if you want to learn more.
Don’t Wait for your Homestead — Start Today
If you’ve been wondering how to start homesteading before buying land, the answer is simple—start where you are, with what you have. Whether you’re in an apartment, a suburban backyard, or a small rental, you can begin building essential homesteading skills right now. Learning the basics of gardening, practicing food preservation, and experimenting with small-scale livestock (even if that’s just chickens or rabbits) will prepare you for the day you finally purchase your own property.
The beauty of beginner gardening and DIY homestead projects is that they teach you resilience, problem-solving, and self-reliance—no matter the size of your space. These skills transfer directly to your dream acreage, saving you time, money, and frustration once you get there.
So don’t wait until you have forty acres to start living the life you’ve been dreaming of. Begin your homesteading journey today, one skill at a time, and you’ll step onto your future land ready to thrive.