Homesteading Survey Results

Hello everyone and I hope you all have been having a great week so far. If you recall last week, we kicked the year off with a small survey to get an idea of the things people were doing on their homesteads.  Today, I wish to share those survey results with you and hope to give you inspiration for things that you can do as well.

What We Asked

In the survey, we focused on three questions and offered some possible answers, but we also allowed people to add other items not in the lists. Below are the questions that were asked along with the their options:

• What fruits & vegetables do you grow which you no longer purchase?
  • Apples
  • Beans, Green (string)
  • Blueberries
  • Cantaloupe
  • Corn
  • Cucumbers
  • Garlic
  • Lettuce
  • Peppers, Bell
  • Onions
  • Strawberries
  • Tomatoes
  • Watermelon

• What household items do you make which you no longer purchase?
  • Air Spray
  • Cleaning Solution
  • Body Soap
  • Chapstick
  • Deodorant
  • Fabric Softener
  • Laundry Detergent
  • Paper Towels
  • Shaving Cream
  • Toilet Paper
  • Toothpaste

• What animals do you raise for food (or other products) which you no longer purchase?
  • Alpaca (meat)
  • Chicken (meat)
  • Cow (meat)
  • Duck (meat)
  • Eggs, Chicken
  • Eggs, Duck
  • Goat (meat)
  • Lamb
  • Milk, Cow
  • Milk, Goat
  • Rabbit
  • Sheep (meat)
  • Wool, Sheep
  • Wool, Alpaca
  • Wool, Llama

The Survey Results

Unfortunately, we did not get the number of responses that we wished, however, we received enough to still give us an idea of what some folks are doing.  Below are circles graphs of the results from each question.  For those options where there were no selections, we removed them from the chart.  In addition, those items which users added are displayed.

The charts below are given as a percentage of the items selected versus the total number of responses.  As an example, you can see that Cucumbers are the most grown food at 12.5% of the responses, followed by Lettuce, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes and Watermelon all at 10%.

Fruits & Veggies Grown

It is interesting that folks are growing a lot of the items.  I am not sure if it is due to the ease of growing them or if it is just a regional thing.  Maybe, in the future, we can add more questions so that data can be separated by zones as well.

Household Items Made

I was really shocked at what people were making at home from a house hold perspective.  Deidra gave me a lot of the house hold items as options and I though to myself, “People make those?!”  For example, I didn’t know you can make paper towels at home.  Or, maybe they are reusable sewn hand-towels that people make. I am not sure, but there are some pretty creative folks out there!

Animals Raised for Food

I was actually surprised by this animal chart. For example, I figured there were a lot more people out there with goats for milk and chickens for meat. But, then again our sample size was pretty low, so it could be a function of not having enough data.  Hopefully, we can have more information in the future, but we’ll see.

And that’s it for 2018’s survey! Or, maybe we’ll do another one in the fall to see what may have changed between now and then. If we do a fall survey, we’ll be sure to let you know!

Thanks again for reading and I hope this gives you inspiration for other things that you can do at home yourself.