Sustainable living dream: Building an Off-Grid Homestead: April 2023

The Big Move:

In June 2022 we moved lock, stock and barrel to our property on the Big Island of Hawaii. We felt that it was time to focus 100 percent of our energies into further establishing our dream of a more sustainable lifestyle as opposed to doing it part-time. However, this meant moving into a really rustic living situation. We were fortunate in the beginning to be able to house sit for a friend of ours who lives in our neighborhood.

Laundry room

Prior to moving onto the land we had decided that it would be in our best interest to first build a cabin for us to live in whilst building the main house, so the focus would be on that project in the beginning.

One of our first tasks was erecting a shed. All of our possessions were in 2 storage units and we wanted to try and bring everything onto our property as soon as possible.

We chose an Arrow Shed which comes in a box and has no floor base, so we created a floor platform out of wooden pallets covered with plywood. This shed has ultimately become our laundry room and extra closet space.

The Peacock Palace:

The "Peacock Palace"

Next up was building the cabin which has been named "The Peacock Palace". This enchanted little forest cabin has provided us with creature comforts while the main house goes up.

The cabin is constantly undergoing upgrades such as an outhouse with composting toilet, railings on the deck and pretty gardens.

Meanwhile our veggie garden and food forest is expanding and we are incredibly happy about this process. The main veggie garden has been named "Garden of Abundance" and it is proving to live up to it's name.

The Round House aka The Owl House:

It's been very exciting to be able to get going again on the main house which appears round but is actually a multifaceted 16 sided hexadecagon shape. At the beginning of this blog we described why we were inspired to choose this shape. It certainly has it's challenges to construct and presently we are cutting and shaping the metal for the frame of the cupula on the roof which will be featured in upcoming videos and blogs.

The Garden of Abundance and Food Forest:

Pineapples grow very well here

Some of the successful crops we've harvested so far have been tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, kale, Okinawan spinach, Tongan spinach, Swiss Chard, Lima beans, eggplant, oregano, mint, sage, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, tumeric, edible ginger, strawberries and blueberries to name a few.

The trees we planted in our food forest include: Ulu, lychee, tangerine, lime, lemon, Valencia orange, Brazilian Cherry, avocado (Kahalui and Malama varieties), mulberry, fig, lilikoi vines and papaya, star fruit.

The landscaping is being subdivided into small "Garden Rooms" each with their own themes. So far the have a "AmaJam Friendship Garden", "Meditation Cave", "The Shire", "Garden of Abundance" and "Kanaloa's Native Hawaiian Garden"

It's all in it's infancy and we are learning as we go. Looking forward to updating the blog with our progress.