Food For Life Garden will give you my personal experiences and advice on gardening, food forests, harvesting, preserving and food preparation based on homegrown real food.

Hello, I’m Heidi!
I’m so excited to meet you!
Here at Food For Life Garden, I want to share my experience and knowledge of gardening, farming with animals, cooking, and preserving. Learn how to make things from scratch. How to ferment and culture things like sauerkraut, wine and vinegar, sourdough and cheese. Find out how I cure and smoke meat, as well as make DIY homestead projects and so much more.

I’ve been a gardener and raised farm animals since many decades ago. Now I want to share the experiences I’ve gained and pass on the knowledge I have accumulated over the years. I embrace a sustainable, resilient way of life and have lived off the grid for almost a decade.
I’m here to relate some insights that I’ve gained and provide some thoughts and information on various topics regarding off-grid and sustainable living, health, nutrition, farming practices and gardening styles. It is my hope to help you on your own journey toward living a healthy lifestyle and growing your own food for life garden.
If you have a goal of living off-the-grid, I can provide some insights and give you information on how to get started, things you’ll need and how to prepare. Let me know in the comments what you would like to learn and I will attempt to address that in my next posts.
A Little About My Background

I grew up in Germany. My parents had a food for life garden or, what permaculture calls food forest, before anyone even knew what that was. They made compost and nettle tea and used organic gardening methods. They were avid gardeners, and my dad, a master gardener, specialized in fruit tree grafting.

We had a small yard around our city house. And almost every inch of it was taken up by fruit trees, brambles, fruiting shrubs, and a good sized garden. All the neighbors gardened too. Our next door neighbor even kept a few beehives in his less than a quarter acre city lot. Even though we lived in the city, the whole neighborhood, and most neighborhoods, looked like a food forest with a few houses in it.

My parents also owned a piece of land in the country, where they grew yet more fruits. Our meals were made up of lots of home grown and home canned veggies and fruits. And I got to help with all the harvesting, prep and canning when I was a kid. I used to love removing cherry stones with the little hand press machine for that purpose.
My favorite breakfast would be a walk in the garden and picking a cucumber here, a fruit and a few berries there. My dad brought his apples to the local cider-mill and we received fresh apple cider back. What we didn’t drink fresh, ended up in barrels in the basement to ferment for use in family gatherings.
My Grandma’s Legacy

Both my parents came from farms which they had to abandon during WWII. My mom’s family had a huge farm in Bessarabia, the land between Russia and Romania, in the Ukraine. My dad came from Pomerania, a Prussian province. The only grandparent I knew, who survived the war as a fugitive, was my grandma, or Oma, the German equivalent. I grew up living in her apartment upstairs from my parents’ living space. And that was how she came to be such a huge influence on my life’s direction.
You see, she was a bit lonely sometimes at night. So she’d knock on my bedroom door to ask if I would want to share some tea or watermelon. I know she just wanted to talk and I totally wanted the watermelon. She would delve into details about the lives they lived back in Bessarabia. About farming with horses and later on, steam engines. About hiring Gypsy workers to help during the harvest. She’d talk about her job to make homemade bread as a young teenager, to feed her family of nine but also the many farm hands.
I Caught The Homesteading Bug
I totally gobbled it up, dreaming about how much I would have liked to live that way back then. And how dreadful that I lived in the later half of the 1900s’ instead, having to go to school and live in a city. I know she set the path I wanted to be on back then. I was an elementary school kid when I caught the homesteading bug!
My parents didn’t have TV but my grandma had a black and white with 2 channels. My favorite things to watch were ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and the old Westerns and anything that was pre-modern living. They all talked German on that TV, lol. Laura and Hoss and Mr. Cartwright too. And I was dreaming of living a life like my Oma and Laura Ingalls did.
Fast Forward…

Fast forward to 1985. I finished my education and got myself married to a GI from the 82nd Airborne, who was stationed in Germany at that time. And that is how I ended up in the United States in the incredibly beautiful State of New Hampshire.
It did not take long before we bought some acreage with a 200 year old farmhouse in the small town of Barnstead. And I started accumulating farm animals. Such as goats, chickens, cows and sheep and we turned a half acre of the land into a huge garden. We had a couple of kids by then and I was pregnant with a third. My goal was to grow what we needed for food so I could just be a stay at home mom and home-school my children.
Hard Times
Unfortunately after several years of living my dream, things got hard and rocky. My husband and I divorced. Life became very difficult. I was on my own with three little children, one an infant daughter. We had to leave the farm and I had to work full-time. Just a year later, my youngest daughter was struck with an acute, hard to treat, cancer. I do not ever wish that experience for any parent. It is a gruesome heart breaker! We were extremely fortunate when she pulled through and survived. I felt that God had an eye on her and it appears he had some plans for her life. But it took years for me to pull out of the heaviness of it all.
A New Chapter

In 2012, my kids and I moved to Washington State. I needed a change. The Pacific Northwest is beautiful. I loved it there, except for the lack of sunshine for most of the year and the many wildfires in summer. The waterfront, lakes and rivers are so amazing. Fishing was awesome.

There was sockeye and silver salmon fishing at the Skagit and king salmon fishing at the Samish River. Chum at Whatcom Creek, humpies and silvers at the Nooksack and sockeye on Baker Lake. Then there was trout and bass fishing at several lakes in the area. There is nothing equal to fresh caught trout or salmon cooked on a campfire after a great day of fishing!

After a few years in Washington, I had the opportunity to move to a really cool piece of land in the town of Everson, where I could finally get back to gardening and keeping livestock. I lived with my boyfriend in a tent there for almost 3 years.
This was when I was first introduced to an ‘almost’ off-the-grid life. We had electricity at the road, which helped to keep a refrigerator going a short drive from where we lived. However, there was no electricity at the clearing where we lived. Unfortunately I lost most of my pictures from that place because my phone broke and I couldn’t recover them. If I can I’ll post some later. But here is one I found showing a couple of tent pictures from those camping days.

My next move was to a completely off-grid life in a small town in the mountains, near Mount Baker. A piece of land became available for rent that had a few solar panels and a well, and I had a tent.
Starting My Off-Grid Live At My New Food For Life Garden In Washington

First thing I did was start a food for life garden. I realized that I was not going to be there permanently, but that didn’t matter. So I planted lots of trees and berry bushes, annual and perennial plants, all over the property. I hadn’t even moved there yet, but was allowed to come in and start to garden. A month later myself, my boyfriend and the cows took up residence. Though my boyfriend moved on to a different life a few months later.

Off-grid Electricity Works!
After some tinkering I got the solar power working and with that I could make the well run. I had put up my tent and built an outdoor kitchen, shower and outhouse. And next I built a shed to store some of my things and shelter a couple of freezers. The first winter there, Washington experienced some pretty bad ice storms, one of which took my tent down just a week after I finished that shed.
The flattened tent was completely buried under several inches of ice with all my stuff in it. Fortunately I wasn’t in it when it happened. But when I came home from work that evening, there it was, flat on the ground and I had no place to sleep. I managed to drag a piece of foam and a couple of blankets and my pillow from underneath the icy mess.
Finding An Emergency Shelter

So I did what I had to and took up residence in my new shed. The tent was not salvageable and by the end of winter had started to rot. I ended up living in that shed for over a year. During that time I built a hand-dug root cellar with earth-bags for walls. I needed some place to store my canned goods to keep them from freezing in winter. And I also wanted to keep my fermented foods and vegetables fresh during the hot days of summer. I had a small freezer turned refrigerator by using a thermostat. But during the harvest season glut, there was an overload of produce that would not fit in that fridge.

Time For A New Home
Soon enough I got tired living in the Shed. I was sleeping in a low ceiling loft that threatened to give me a goose egg on my noggin whenever I had to sit up. And living between my freezers and storage items, rows of dried foods, pots, and pans was not the most appealing. My only heat was a little Mr. Buddy that I ran on the very coldest nights, like below 20, because it eats a lot of propane.
So finally I decided that I wanted something a little more comfortable. I’m not so young anymore and having just a fire pit for warmth outside in the evenings, and no heat during the night was starting to wear on me during winter. I don’t love the cold anymore. I was actually looking forward to go to work where at least it was around 60 degrees all day.
So after over a year in the shed, it was time to build a new home for myself. But I didn’t want to build another permanent structure on my rented piece of land, where I wasn’t guaranteed a long-term stay. The thought of moving back into a tent was not appealing anymore. Not after 3 winters of having to deal with snow and ice storms ruining tents, and setting one tent on fire trying to keep it warm with a wood-stove.
So that meant researching types of housing. It had to be movable or temporary. But I never really liked mobile homes, motor homes or tiny homes. They just did not ever appeal to me as a home. Maybe I just don’t like conventional, or maybe it’s the square corners or that they are factory made. In the end, I decided to build a Yurt. From scratch!
The Perfect Solution For A New Home

When I built my shed it took me a couple of weeks from start to finish. Building a yurt is a whole other “animal”. I realize, Mongolians get one of those cranked out in a few weeks. But I was working one and a half jobs, plus had to keep the farm going, milk the goats, harvest and preserve produce, and so on. And I had no idea how to do it. It took me a year, working on it during every free moment.
At the time, there was not a whole lot of information on yurt building that I could use as a guide and put into practice at once. My yurt had to be a full-time, sturdy, live-in yurt, not a flimsy camping yurt or summer yurt. I had to do a lot of research online and in books. Add a healthy amount of guessing, calculating and thinking to that. And most of all it took learning lots of new skills. Woodworking is not something I had practiced a lot previously other than building some sheds and other structures. But I sure got a lot of practice suddenly. And in all, it was a super challenging, super interesting, and extremely rewarding project.
A Yurt Exudes A Special Vibe That Is Not Found Elsewhere
I still marvel at how amazingly cool it turned out. Even after living in it for over 4 years, the beauty of it and the comfortable and contented vibe I get in here is something I appreciate every single day. I’m not sure if I ever want to live in a house with corners again. However, I don’t think I want to live in my yurt forever either. It’s quite small and I always have so many projects going, which makes things very crammed in here. I suppose it would be really cool to build a free-form cob house someday. Wheels are turning…
Keeping Up The Farm
Meanwhile I was keeping the farm going. There was so much to do besides building, and going to work. Planting the gardens, keeping cows and goats for milk, chickens for eggs and meat, and also pigs and sheep. I loved that farm. But it was not my own and it was always on my mind that I would possibly have to leave. And maybe then I would be too old to start such a big endeavor over again. This was a very very real consideration. I am well past midlife. So I started to entertain the idea of buying a piece of land, where I could settle down and stay for the rest of my life. While I still had the energy to start again!
Leaving My Food For Life Garden in Washington

After almost a year of searching, I found a piece of raw land in the Ozarks, that I thought was affordable. And it is beautiful! I don’t recommend to anyone to buy land sight unseen, but that was the only way I could do it and so I did.
Starting A New Food For Life Garden In The Ozarks

It’s a new adventure in a completely new setting. I am starting over on a piece of raw land with nothing that one would call infrastructure or convenience in place. But it is a most amazing piece of land and I find it totally suitable for my food for life garden. So after a difficult and stressful move, here I am in the Ozarks. Finally on some land that I hope to never have to leave. A place where I can plant my food forest that will feed me when I get older. And where I can finally have my little homestead for life. That is what I had been dreaming of for all my previous life.
What I Hope To Accomplish Now

I’ve planted many fruit trees in many places, guessing that it wasn’t going to be for my benefit. But I just love planting trees, and hopefully someone will be able to enjoy the fruits of that labor of love. But now, here in the Ozarks, I hope to put down not just tree roots, but personal roots as well. And yes, I will be planting trees, lots of them. Hoping to someday pick some fruit, nuts, and berries, if I live long enough.
I feel a food for life garden is something you don’t just plant for your own life, or in my case, a quarter life. It’s something you plant for the far away future as well, for your children and their children. Or for some strangers who will appreciate having food for their life when they move to your property some day.
Oma’s Legacy Lives On In My Food For Life Garden
So that is my life in a nutshell, a rather large one, but not nearly as large as real true life. But here I am, sharing my story with you in hopes that you can feel my sincerity in sharing what I know. I hope to convey my passion and conviction for what I’m trying to accomplish.
I thought I’d use this space to be a bit more personal and share tidbits about my many food for life gardens. If you’re like me, you like to get to know a person a little bit before deciding whether to accept information from her as trustworthy. I hope the sharing of my anecdotes here will convey such a vibe and give some context to the rest of the blog.

And I hope that my Oma’s legacy will live on with what I share here, in my children and their children. But also in you all, who are as nuts about trees, farming, planting and making stuff from scratch, as I am. If you love to live an old-fashioned kind of life, we’ll get along great!
When you follow my posts here, you will have the benefit of learning what works and what doesn’t, hopefully before it doesn’t for you. And I’ll let you in on what I consider surefire, right-on, and must-do, as well as what I consider a waste of time and effort.
Here are some links for more information:
This is a fairly new blog at the moment, so not many links are available yet. Keep checking back or even better, sign up for updates in my Food For Life Newsletter, so you don’t miss out on any new posts with helpful content.
Learn more about How I Garden. You’ll find information on how to make compost, start seeds, how to prepare garden beds, how to begin with no tilling and how to keep your soil alive and healthy to produce the nutrient-rich food you want your family to eat.
Find information on Solar Power and Rainwater Catchment. How to select a solar system, where to buy components and how to select a great solar ground mount for less.
Here is where I cover Permaculture and growing a food for life garden. How to integrate perennials in your garden for recurring harvests, resulting in less everyday work. This is especially of interest if you want to plan for a long-term food supply. I call it also a continuum garden.
Learn how to Prepare, Preserve, Culture and Cure wholesome, nutrient-dense foods. How to preserve without a refrigerator. How to preserve by drying, fermenting, curing, culturing and canning vegetables, milk, eggs, and meats.
I will be posting Recipes from my Bessarabien and German heritage spiced up with a whole lot of my own ideas and experiments, as well as a mix of all sorts of leanings to ethnic cuisines. You will learn how to make the most wholesome and nourishing goodies from home-grown produce, whole grains and meat.
Grow your own Apothecary and Spicerack ingredients. Find out the best ways to dry herbs with or without electricity. How to make salves, tinctures, oxymels, fermented seasonings, and salt-cured herbs for long-term storage and for a quick seasoning to have on hand at all times. Having your own remedies is a big part of a food for life garden. Often the food itself is the most effective medicine.
If you would like to raise a few goats or chickens for milk, meat, and eggs, learn all about it in my Livestock pages. Here you will discover answers to your questions such as how to keep goats healthy naturally, how to mix your own feeds, what is the best hay for goats, how to select a chicken breed for eggs or meat, and so much more. Keeping grazing animals to integrate with your garden designs, is the best way to create healthy soil in your food for life garden. It introduces a holistic model that has it’s origin in nature.
Wrapping It Up
Please comment below and tell me what projects you are working on and any reminiscences you’d like to share. I’d love to get to know you too. Let me know if you’re interested in more information about anything you find on my blog. Also, I invite you to ask any questions you have about homesteading and growing your own food or about off-grid living. I will do my best to answer all.
May your journey be amazing and lead to ever more discoveries. I think life is all about the journey rather than the destination. It’s helpful to have a destination in mind, to keep on a certain course. But always keep it out of reach and enjoy every step of trying to get there. That’s a life worth living and that is the life I wish for you too.
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