The Dervaes family’s urban homestead supports four adults, who live and work full time on a 66’ x 132’ city lot (1/5 acre):
The yard has over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The homestead’s productive 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds (3 tons) of produce annually. This provides fresh vegetables and fruit for the family’s vegetarian diet and a source of income.The family operates a viable and lucrative home business, Dervaes Gardens, that supplies area restaurants and caterers with salad mix, edible flowers, heirloom variety tomatoes and other in-season vegetables. The income earned from produce sales offsets operating expenses and is invested in appropriate technologies, such as solar panels, energy efficient appliances, and biodiesel processor, to further decrease our homestead’s reliance on the earth’s non-renewable resources.
Over the years, by purchasing energy efficient appliances and using electricity conservatively, the modern homesteaders have cut their energy usage in half. Solar panels have reduced their dependence on electricity by two-thirds and have furthered their goal of energy independence. A solar oven is used to cook food on sunny days. And during the summer of 2005, the family built a cob oven, which is fueled by scraps of wood and twigs to create an energy source for cooking breads, pizzas, desserts, etc.
In 2003, the Dervaeses constructed a biodiesel processor from a discarded hot water heater, which enables them to brew low emissions biodiesel (a renewable, nontoxic, biodegradable replacement for petrol diesel) from used vegetable oil to fuel their diesel Suburban, reducing the vehicle’s air toxins by 90%.