Hello and welcome! 

My name is Deanna.  In 2017, I moved away from my Military parents and moved back ‘home’ to Michigan (USA).  I started gardening and fell in love with it!  I studied Business and Agriculture at a small community college in the hopes that someday I’ll be able to start up my own small Market Farming business.  (Where you grow fruits and veggies for the sole purpose of selling at Farmers Markets.)

Here on this blog, I post a little of everything..  Updates on my life in the country and how my gardens are doing.  What it was like living in the Military for 11 years.  Living with anxiety.  College Life.  Family recipes.  And much more!

Why the name ‘Farm Girl Homesteading‘?  Well, when starting this blog I thought long and hard on a name for it, but I kept coming up blank.  Then I thought about the Military kids I used to babysit in Germany, and how all of them used to call me ‘Farm Girl’ because of my braided hair and plaid shirts.  I considered that name alone for my blog, but as someone who is surrounded by ‘actual‘ farmers, I knew that I was not a farmer by any means.  When looking up words that were similar to ‘farmer’, the word ‘Homesteader’ kept popping up.  After a little bit of research, I decided that I wanted both ‘homestead’ and ‘farm’ in my name.  Because although I was not a farm girl yet by any means, I wanted to be one someday.

The word ‘Homestead‘ has been made to mean a lot of different things over the years.  Here in America, to own a Homestead used to mean that the government paid you money to uproot your family and move out West to live off the land.  It was an attempt to get the American people spread out over more land so that America government could expand their territory.  Today however, the meaning of ‘Homesteading’ has become a term that can mean anything from; living off the land in a hut and growing your own food, to someone who lives in town and grows a small garden on their windowsill..

What homesteading means to me:  When I use the word ‘Homesteading’, I think of living off the land.  I think of how life used to be here in America (and how it still is in a lot of other countries).  Where if something is broke, you fixed it.  If you were hungry, you walked out to the garden and pick yourself a snack.  And if you wanted something, you made it.  In a world where technology and buying/selling rule the world, I hope that someday we can get back to basics.  Back to raising animals, growing gardens, bartering goods with neighbors, and buying local.

More about me:  When I was 8, my father joined the US Army.  Because of that, I’ve been all over the world and seen so many different countries!  (America, Canada, Germany, London, France, Ireland, Switzerland, and Holland to name a few..)  When I was 19, my family and I moved from a Military Base in Germany, back to the United States where we went our separate ways.  My mother, father, and brother went off to their next Military Base out East, and I moved back home to Michigan where the last of my family lived.

In 2017 I had moved in with my grandparents to go to college and help take care of my grandfather who had Alzheimer’s.  I had spent four years living with them, learning how to garden, paint, build, and create anything I needed. Eventually, I built up the confidence I needed to go off on my own.

In 2021, I moved back in with my parents (who had finally moved back to Michigan).  I finished college later that year and worked on saving the money I needed to move out on my own.

In 2023 I finally moved out and got an apartment with my boyfriend, got engaged, and started saving for our future homestead.

In 2024 we finally bought our dream house on a tiny plot of land and my husband and I got married in the backyard! In just one year, we transformed this property into a thriving little homestead with chickens, flowers, raised garden beds, and berry bushes all around us!

I’m 27 now and I am finally starting my dream of having my homestead!

Follow me on my journey as I get this new homestead up and running just in time for Market Season! We’ll be growing flowers and vegetables, harvesting berries from our bushes, playing with our chickens, and making plenty of good food along the way!