I’ve been running into the Dervaes family quite a bit lately while surfing the web and the more I read about these folks, the more I’m inspired by their way of living, which seems to be one of the driving forces behind what they do – inspiring others. For those that aren’t familiar with their story, basically, Jules Dervaes and his family own a fifth of an acre lot in Pasadena, California. They decided to convert their everyday suburban property into a self-sustaining urban homestead. They’ve cultivated a garden that generates roughly 6,000 pounds of produce a year. They care for a number of small livestock, get around using bio-diesel fuel, and incorporate a large number of other sustainable living techniques into their daily lives. What they have managed to accomplish is truly impressive.

They have a newly designed website (that’s still being tweaked) called Path to Freedom, an online store, and a blog that documents their everyday adventures on their urban homestead. They’ve got about a million other sites on the web as well or maybe it just seems that way because they’re one of the most well-known groups of sustainable living crusaders out there. Just this Summer they even had a professional documentary film released titled Homegrown. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that to review.

The video below will give you a good idea of what this family is all about – what they stand for.

And here’s something to take with you…a formula worth remembering from the Mighty Jules Dervaes. It goes something like this:

If you can’t grow it in your backyard then get it locally produced.

If not locally produced then organic.

If not organic then a family farm.

If not a family farm then a local business.

If not a local business then fair trade.

The Mighty Jules is spot on. Now I think I’ll get busy scrawling this into my refrigerator.

Path To Freedom was founded in 2001 by the Dervaes family to “reduce one family’s footprint on the earth’s dwindling resources.” The urban homestead practices a simpler way of life by using solar energy, bio fuels, organic gardening, certified farm animals, and much, much more. Their garden size is 3,900 square feet and they have a garden diversity of over 350 different vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries. They harvest approximately 6,000 pounds of food every year!

Path To Freedom is an exhibitor at this year’s Greening of the Earth Day so come find out more how this family contributes to sustainability right in the heart of Pasadena. 

I suppose that a lot of people would call me a granola-bar, tree-hugging fool, BUT the more I read about the government’s involvement in the food that is sold at grocery stores, as well as the seeds from garden supplies, I am getting more and more disgusted!

Back in the 80’s, during Reagan’s time at the White House, a bill was passed that allowed seeds to be “copywritten”.  (I’m sure that there is a better term for this, but my pregnant brain won’t work like I want it to at the moment.)  A company called Monsanto has taken advantage of this bill and now has the copyright to thousands of seeds varying from tomato to bean to well, pretty much anything, really.  They use their ”copyright” on God-made genetics to sue successful independent farms.  There is a documentary about it called “The Future of Food”.  It came out in the early 2000’s.  Now there is a French documentary about the company called “The World According to Monsanto”.  What’s scary , but sadly not surprising– is the U.S. government involvement with Monsanto.  Monsanto also genetically-engineers food that is sold in the super-markets….you know with e.coli.  They splice seed genes and insert them with salmon genes and other genes to try to make a genetically “superior” product.  Unfortunately, the genes of the salmon don’t often “stick” so they put e. coli genetics in the food to make them “stick”.  THAT is where all of the sickness is coming from.  Check out the documentaries and you’ll be disgusted.  

The U.S. government has also been passing laws on irradiating foods for many years, the most recent food being lettuce and spinach.  Almonds have been added in the past year.  Irradiation actually removes cancer-fighting properties in these foods.  I know that meat is often irradiated too.  Another controlling government operative is NAIS, or National Animal Identification System.  It’s used to “control disease outbreaks”, but really the whole thing is a help to larger livestock companies and pretty much screws the smaller, independently-ran farms. 

I could go on and on about what our future looks like if this keeps up.  The Bible does forecast famine in the “last days”.  I’ve never been a “last days” fanatic, discussing different dispensations or arguing about who is the current “Anti-Christ”- except to say it’s ridiculous to label a person as the Anti-Christ.  But I have felt for many years to get back-to-basics and try to live off of our own property as much as possible.  This is NOT a fear thing!  To me it’s wisdom and definitely what God has directed me to do. 

I’m NOT saying, however, that everyone has to live in the country and own chickens and a cow.  BUT it’s so easy to grow a tiny garden, no matter how small your plot is.  If you live in the city and think that you are too limited to do ANYTHING, get inspiration here:

I think that the Dervaes are such amazing people.  They thought out-of-the-box and made healthy, green living a real part of their lives.  They don’t just preach it- they live it!  They have really inspired me with their web-sites:

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/

I recently was reprimanded at a small group meeting for saying that everyone could grow a garden if they really wanted to.  This is my kiss-my-butt response to that.  (I’m getting tired of hyper-religious Christians….REALLY tired of them.)  I wish that I had been in the mood to argue with them then, but I was too tired and had too much on my heart that I was praying about–  hyper-religious Christians being one of the things I was pondering.  

If there is ever going to be any change in this world, in whatever realm….economically, spiritually, environmentally…SOMEONE has to be different from popular opinion at SOME TIME!!  This is more than just jumping on the “environmentally-friendly, green” bandwagon that so many people are doing.  Research WHY you believe what you believe.  I hate those new high-fructose corn syrup commercials that have came out recently, because they are pretty much LYING to the American public, BUT they are right in that people don’t know WHY they are doing what they are doing!  Be informed and know WHY you don’t like corn syrup and organic food and whole wheat products, etc. 

This could and SHOULD be done in light of Christianity and the Bible too.  WHY do we believe what we believe?  Have we searched it the basics of our theology?  Or do we just automatically accept everything that comes from the pulpit or from the media?  God gave us brains to think– let’s use them.  God gave us hands to work– let’s put them to something useful! 

Anyway, after listening to my grouching, hopefully SOMEONE will be inspired to at least grow a tomato plant in a pot on their patio next growing season.  Or you know… READ and research?  And even better is to change the mindset that you have to look like everyone else and act like everyone else and think like everyone else!  I know that I am non-conformist.  I’m glad that I am, because conformists never really change history or their environment.  They merely exist.  Sorry to be so blunt.  I may have stepped on some toes.  But maybe some toes need stepped on?

Well, you just might have noticed a new little pick over to the left saying “Take Back Your Food!”.  It’s a rally cry to revitalize the lost art of gardening.  It’s an act of rebellion against the agribusiness sector that tries to convince us that all they produce, highly modified, genetically engineered, and smothered in an always better pesticide is good for us.  I, for one, and my household with me, don’t buy it any longer.  After seeing a close relative die of brain cancer last year, and rather quickly at that, we started thinking about what we eat.  That’s when we started buying whole grains and miling our own flour.

Now we progressed.  We have back yard poultry to provide eggs, and if I can get my ducks in a row (no pun intended there), compost as well.  After seeing a youtube video about the Dervaes Family who farm on a small urban plot in California, I’ve progressed a bit further. I’m now looking at developing more of our yard into garden space, balancing the acreage between gardens and play area. It’ll be tough, however. I dug a test pit last night: the first 2-3″, I could penetrate with a spade. The remaining 9″ or so required a mattock. It’s solid, dead clay with nothing living in the depths. That’s what you get when you live on an old tobacco plantation!

But I refuse despair. I’m pushing on, if nothing else than to have a 12″ deep planter of clay filled up to a 6″ raised bet, allowing adequate space for root crops to develop. And maybe, someway, I can find a way to revitalize this dead land and provide some nutritious food in the process!

Solo Deo Gloria,
jason

I don’t know.  But while hunting around on the internet I came across this video which shows how the Dervaes family have managed to produce 6000lbs of food annually from their urban homestead with an area of approximately 66′ x 66′.  Very inspiring I thought, and if you want to find out more about them you can visit their site here.

Meanwhile, we’re still trying to work out what else we can do with what we have available to us, both in respect of the size of our wallets as well as the size of our garden.

I read a disturbing op-ed piece in the New York Times by a midwestern farmer trying to grow vegetables for his local market. Seems like the federal government, the USDA, and the big agribusiness lobby have all joined forces to prevent the local food movement from growing local food. Read My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables) by farmer Jack Hedin of Minnesota. Here’s part of what he says:

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

Hedin attributes this upside-down strategy to the big produce farms in California, Texas, and Florida who do not want local growers cutting into their markets. Nevermind that those are the most remote states (okay, I’m not counting Alaska and Hawaii) from the contiguous US, which means that lots of trucks will use lots of diesel getting the produce from California and Florida to the midwest, where Jack is trying to do the same thing, but is being stymied by federal regulations.

This year Debbie and I are growing as much as we can. We’re going to plant a square-foot garden full of beans, tomatoes, squash, okra, peppers, melons, lettuce, carrots, and other good stuff. We’re going to can and freeze, too. We’re determined to know where our food comes from and what has been used to produce it. Just this week we discovered that the “organic” garbanzo beans we’ve been buying at the local supermarket come from China. I’ve been to China and I guarantee you there are no verifiable organic standards there.

We’ll see how our little garden goes this year and keep blogging about it here. If you want inspiration for growing your own food, check out Little Homestead in the City, where the Dervaes grew almost 7,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables last year on one-tenth (1/10) of an acre. They live in the city of Pasadena, California near a freeway, but they have goats, ducks, chickens, grow their own food, sell to local restaurants, and manufacture their own biodeisel fuel. All on 1/10 acre — about 4,500 square feet of gardening space.* Their challenge to America is not to eat food produced within a 100-miles (local food movement), but food produced within a 100-feet of your back door. If they can do it, so can we and we’re gonna try. Because we can’t count on the government to do it for us…or even to leave farmers alone to do it for themselves. Stay simple.

*The Dervaes lot is actually 1/5 acre, but the house takes up about half the space, so they have 1/10 acre for growing.

**Click “Fix the Farm Bill” graphic to go to http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com where you can get the code to post to your site.

No question about it, these folks at Path to Freedom in Pasadena, California, are going to survive the global climate change cataclysm in style. Their web site offers a wealth of information about urban homesteading and how to make it work. If you want to survive, you’d do well to read their journal and follow the directions.

And keep their street address close at hand. If the climate change cataclysm hits before I can get my act together, you’ll find me knocking at their door.

Thanks to reader KAT who told me about them. If you know of other resources, please pass them along. 

The Path to Freedom project is the Big Kahuna of sustainable homesteading. The Dervaes family in Pasadena, California have transformed their 1/5 acre city lot to an organic gardening oasis. They grow more than 350 varieties of edible plants and produce a staggering 6,000 pounds of produce annually. Imagine a giant scale with three cars on one side – how many carrots would it take to balance? The mind boggles.

In addition to gardening, the family gardeners, currently comprised of dad Jules Dervaes, and offspring Anaïs (32), Justin (28), and Jordanne (23), run a home business supplying local restaurants with fresh produce, incorporate earth-friendly technologies such as solar panels and a cob oven, run their vehicle on home-brewed biodiesel, and keep a small flock of animals including goats, ducks and chickens. Is that all?

Well no. They also run the Dervaes Institute to spread their message, sell goods at their online store, the Peddler’s Wagon, and blog extensively at their website.

This project is such a fabulous mix of contrasts. The Dervaes live a rural lifestyle in an urban setting. They practice a back-to-basics lifestyle of self-sufficiency (hand-cranked washing machine), and yet they are incredibly savvy about utilizing the Internet and web technology to promote their cause. Their press kit and Youtube collection are professional and comprehensive in scope, which gives the casual reader a great introduction to bio-intensive, permaculture farming on a small, and impressively productive scale. Through hard-earned experience, they have a lot to teach the rest of us wannabe urban homesteaders.

The family has bravely opened their garden up to public consumption, offering us an ongoing glimpse over the fence into their lives. Inevitably, perhaps, in the face of the unrelentingly positive comments and profiles that flood the blogosphere, you start to wonder about the failures and fallout from four adults living and working in a small space on a daily basis. What happened to the other son – Jeremy Dervaes – who, as of 2004, apparently moved out and moved on from the homestead? How much of the family’s faith has influenced their lifestyle decisions? What do the neighbours think? Does biodiesel smell like french fries? Do the offspring have plans to move out onto their own homesteads at some point?

What we can all take away from this ambitious project, is the idea of possibility. We can all do something. The question is, how much? If it takes 4 adults working full-time (?) to produce 3 tons of food, how much can one person realistically produce, fitting it in around regular life? What are the limitations for gardeners who don’t live in Southern California? How can I incorporate bio-intensive farming into my plans? How do you build a cob oven? There is a lot of information to digest and ideas to consider.

The most important thing that I came away with after reading about the Path to Freedom project, is the passionate commitment to their goals the Dervaes family practices. Let me be so willing to put my spade where my mouth is!

More info on Path to Freedom:

Path to Freedom website
Path to Freedom YouTube videos