7) 5 Alternative Options for Homesteading in the UK

By Sindy Wakeham

 You get it. You know WHY you may want to homestead or a cottage garden and live the ‘good life’. But WHERE is the best place to do that? Here’s the thing; A homestead (garden and home working toward providing SOMETHING for you and yours), can be whatever you want it to be!

Where depends on a few options and possibilities. If you’re in the UK like me and my family, your first consideration is cost. Let’s face it; land of any size in the UK is priced at a premium. No point thinking about it until you know what space you have.

Location wise, all southern parts of England and Wales are famous for being the best places, but I have seen fantastic edible gardens as far north as north-east Scotland and even some in Northern Ireland. In my Observations blog, I cover how you can observe your location and situation to inform the type of garden you grow.

There are different ways of living a homesteading life in the UK and I’m going to suggest a few options.

SMALLHOLDING

For one of those you’re looking at a minimum of between £300K and £1mill (maybe more) for land between 3 and 50 or even 100 acres depending on where you are. That’s crazy! These are usually for arable and/or animal farming but with that amount of land, you can get very diverse. It's generally a business and has to make money to keep it going. That might not feel like such a ‘good life’. You’ll be farming more than homesteading. There is a big difference! OR you could rent out a lot of that land and keep some to work as your homestead. That might pay for it.

BUY ARABLE LAND

With Farmers in the UK selling up a lot of their land in 2024 for a number of different reasons, more than in the past five years, there’s a great opportunity to buy a parcel of land. Prices range between £8K (if you’re lucky) and £20K per acre, depending again on where you are and the farmer’s aim. There’s a catch too.

It’s only for 'farming' use. NO living on the land. You would have to go through some very complicated, long timed and potentially costly legal routes to change the use of land and get planning permission.

It also means to manage your plot of land; you would have to live very close by and have some smart tech/methods to manage irrigation at least and look out for intruders. You won’t want animals if you don’t live on the land.

ALLOTMENTS

Yes, you CAN homestead with an allotment. I’ve covered the why’s in other blogs but to expand on what I’ve already said, if you don’t have a garden at home, an allotment can be invaluable for growing food. As long as you keep it in good cultivation and weed free, you'll be fine.

The catch would be allotment committees or other plot tenants. Some are lovely, others high on authority. All allotments come with rules and expectations. Some with more restrictions than a certain head teacher from a certain wizarding high school could dream up! Others are more relaxed and open to alternative growing methods, not just strict traditional straight lines.

Then there’s the potential thieving (Hubby and I have had experience with that). There’s the human trait of back biting, gossip and scheming but that’s only some of them. I know there are many more lovely sites with wonderful people and community spirit. Do your research. We quit ours because for a while we didn’t have a car and couldn’t face the long walk everyday to water in the height of the season and we wanted to explore more growing techniques and types of plants that the committee wasn’t keen on. That brings me to...

COMMUNITY GARDENS

At least there’s a shared responsibility and benefit in a community garden. There could also be a similar situation to having an allotment. Facebook and other platforms might be a great place to find your local community garden. Handy if it turns out to be close to home.

If you can’t do that, maybe consider asking a friend or neighbour, again as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog. There could be some unpleasant situations with that as much as in an allotment and it may be a good idea to have a contract even if it’s a family garden. I think I’ll write a separate blog on that topic alone.

Finally, I come to my favourite option. I'm biased in this respect. 

HOME GARDEN

This is the BEST PLACE to homestead in my opinion. Of course I'd say that! There's nothing as freeing as being able to design your own garden and grow what you like (within the law of course). What a blessing to grow your own just outside your door, even if only in a tiny courtyard or a balcony.

There's a catch here too and I don’t want to burst your bubble here but even in your own garden and home, there may be restrictions. If you own it, the only restrictions are those set by your local authority as far as planning for outbuildings are concerned and keeping animals. Any livestock other than chickens or quail are not allowed and feeding them kitchen scraps is also not allowed.

If however, you rent then your landlord also sets restrictions or conditions. Check your tenancy agreement and even so, call your landlord to double check. I’m sure they would like to be kept in the loop and are more likely to agree. It also depends on the type of tenancy you have. If not secure or indefinite, you might want to grow a container garden that can be moved when you do.  You could always prioritise the plants over furniture! ; D

Homesteading isn’t about the garden only. It’s as I’ve said a number of times, about what goes on IN the home in connection with the garden. A wonderful blog and site called Happy Homestead wrote an article on the definition of homestead and there's an online dictionary description of the ancient roots of the word. These clarified and decided why I call my home and garden a homestead.

CONCLUSION

You could be living a homestead life in a flat (apartment) or on a smallholding or anywhere you have space. You decide. I hope I've given you enough information and ideas about the type of homestead you want and more importantly WHERE you would like live the lifestyle.

Ultimately, Homestead is where the heart is.

Just how and where do or will you Homestead?

As always, I love to hear from you.

Until next time...Happy homesteading!

From your fellow ‘good-lifer’,