One of the biggest misconceptions about growing food and becoming more self-reliant is the idea that location is the most important factor.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you need land to be self-sufficient, you don’t. I’ve learned that living in cities, towns, and on acreage.
People believe they need acreage. They believe they need to move to the country. They believe everything will fall into place once they get “the right property.”
But after living in cities, towns, rentals, and rural areas, moving seventeen times over the years, I’ve learned something different: skills matter more than where you live.
Skills Are Portable. Land Is Not.
Land can be gained and lost. Homes can be bought, sold, rented, or downsized. Life changes whether we plan for it or not.
Skills, on the other hand, stay with you. If you know how to grow food, care for animals, preserve harvests, and manage small systems, you can apply those skills almost anywhere. The scale may change, but the fundamentals don’t.
That’s why learning now, where you are, matters so much.
Learning in the City Made the Country Easier
When I was about 12 years old, I raised hamsters, parakeets, and finches. I learned how to care for them, feed, water, clean out the waste, and I bred them and sold the extras to pet shops.
Fast forward to 15, and my family had moved to Oregon, onto 32 acres, and I was caring for chickens, goats, and rabbits. The transition was easier than you’d think. I was just caring for larger animals now. Breeding a rabbit worked on the same basics as breeding a hamster: bring the male to the female and let them do what they already know how to do. The only genuinely new skills I needed were butchering and milking goats.
The environment changed drastically. The core mechanics didn’t.
Moving Didn’t Stop Production — It Changed the Scale
As an adult, I kept growing or raising something no matter where I landed.
In the triplex I lived in when I first got married, the owner let me take over about a quarter of the lot the triplex sat on. I set up rabbit cages directly behind the building for three rabbits, two does and a buck, and put in a full garden on the vacant portion. I didn’t have all the tools I needed, so I rented a Troy-Bilt rototiller to get things going.
We were only there a year before we bought five acres on a creek with a single-wide mobile home that needed refurbishing. I built an entire rabbit barn there, raised and butchered about 50 chickens a year, and even built my own chicken plucker before the ones you can buy now existed. There was a large garden too.
We stayed at the mobile home about three and a half years, then moved to another home, also needing refurbishing, this one on three acres. Same usual chickens and rabbits, but I added about 10 turkeys a year on top of the garden.
I didn’t discover quail until about 15 years and 14 moves later.
What I learned through all of it: if you wait until everything is perfect, you delay the very learning that makes success possible later. Growing food isn’t about having the best setup. It’s about understanding processes and being willing to adapt.
Waiting Delays Learning
A lot of people say they’ll start “once they have more time” or “once they move.”
But if you don’t have time now, you won’t magically have time later. Life doesn’t get simpler on its own.
Learning skills in small ways today, even imperfectly, makes future opportunities far more successful. Waiting doesn’t prepare you. Doing does.
Build Skills First, Then Expand
You don’t need to do everything at once. Start with one animal, one plant, one small system. Learn how it works. Learn what fails. Learn what succeeds.
Those lessons transfer whether you’re in an apartment, a rental, or on acreage later, the same way hamster breeding at 12 turned into rabbit and goat care at 15, and a quarter-lot garden behind a rented triplex turned into a full rabbit barn and 50 chickens a year a few moves later.
Use What You Have, Where You Are
The goal isn’t to recreate someone else’s setup. The goal is to build skills that work in your situation. Get creative with what you have. Learn. Practice. Prepare. Adjust.
What to Do Now
Choose one skill you can start learning where you live today, growing a plant, managing a small system, or producing a bit of food. Build that skill now so it’s ready when opportunities change later.
This idea builds on what you can start growing right now, even without land.
