Homesteader shares gardening tips that cut grocery costs to $50

A homesteader grows 99 per cent of the produce she eats – only goes to the grocery store once a month and spends just $50 on tropical fruit, toilet roll and white vinegar.

Katie Krejci, 38, started trying to lead a self-sufficient lifestyle in 2008 when she planted her first vegetable garden – growing tomatoes, zucchini and peppers.

In June 2023, she and her husband, Ryan, 42, a mechanical engineer, purchased five acres of land and moved into a 960 square foot hunting shed in Minnesota, US.

The pair started to grow their own fruit and vegetables and kept chickens to produce eggs.

Katie now rears her own chickens for meat – taking them to the butcher in late summer – and hunts deer on local land in the winter months.

The homesteader said the couple could survive “indefinitely, but it wouldn’t be pretty” from their produce – estimating with balanced meals and not compromising they could last a “solid year”.

She even barters with a neighbour – trading eggs for raw milk from the cow they own – and says it saves them hundreds of dollars a month as they don’t need to do a weekly shop.

Katie quit her full-time job as a registered dietician in August 2023 and now earns three times more money as a content creator – sharing how to preserve food and harvest crops online.

Katie, from the north woods of Minnesota, US, said: “I’ve always loved the outdoors and nature.

“Never in a million years did I think it would lead me to where I am today.

“I started gardening, and then I thought ‘I’ll plant a few fruit trees’ and then ‘I’ll learn how to can’.

“It just kept snowballing.

“We grow 99 per cent of the produce, poultry, venison, eggs and maple syrup we eat.

“We produce 65 per cent of our total food on our homestead.

“Occasionally I’ll buy mostly citrus fruits – like lemons, limes and bananas – because we can’t grow that in Minnesota.

“I haven’t done a traditional weekly grocery store run in four years.

“I basically pop in for toilet roll and lemons and spend $50 per month.”

It has taken Katie seven years to “grasp” the homesteading lifestyle and face the challenge of freezing temperatures in Minnesota which makes growing crops difficult.

“There is only a few months where we can grow and have fresh food,” she said.

“Eight months of the year is eating preserved food.

“I do a lot of canning – they’re good for one to two years.

“I have a large chest freezer so I freeze the berries I harvest in the summer, all of the meat, green beans, broccoli and tomatoes.

“I do a fair amount of fermenting – so I ferment green beans, pickles and sauerkraut.

“Two years ago I got a freeze dryer, so I can freeze dry eggs.

“Eggs are a tricky thing.

“We have 30 chickens and in winter time they don’t lay much, maybe two eggs a day, where as in summer they lay a couple of dozen a day.

“I do water glassing for eggs which is a mixture of water and pickling lime.

“You submerge the eggs in there and they are good for a solid year.

“A five gallon bucket of water glassed eggs typically gets the two of us through the winter.

Katie still bulk buys certain items from organic food site Azure Standard – spending on average $300 per month on items like rice, oats, olive oil, nuts, jarred olives, and cheese.

While the initial several thousand investment into homesteading made Katie “lose money” in the first year of developing her lifestyle – with big one-time purchases like seed trays – she has found over the time “it definitely has cost savings”.

“I put in a 1,300sqft garden for $200 at our newest homestead here.

“I spent $100 to rent a tiller.

“And I spent $100 on a trailer of compost cow manure from a local farm.

“People can get started with a big garden for not a lot.

“When I put in my very first garden when we lived in town I spent about $50.

“It’s very, very doable.

“There are savings down the road in our health too.

“We have both noticed huge differences.

“We rarely ever eat out as a decent restaurant is over an hour away from us so we have no option but to cook for ourselves.

“When we do go out it’s incredible, we feel crummy afterwards.

“If you cut that stuff out and go to clean eating it’s incredible the change.

“Our gut health is better, we’re sleeping better and our energy is great.”

Katie left her job as a registered hospital dietician behind after she “didn’t really believe in the work I was doing anyway”.

She said: “I was providing band aid fixes for people.

“I was helping them survive not thrive.

“I didn’t feel comfortable providing the products available at the hospital as I didn’t like the ingredients that were in them.”

Having re-trained as an integrative and function nutrition certified practitioner credential (IFNCP) in 2021, which “heals at the root cause” by asking the question of why when it comes to health issues, Katie’s social media was performing so well she was able to quit work completely.

She said: “I’m making three times the amount I was a dietician.

“The biggest thing for me working as a homesteading registered dietician rather than a dietician is I could make a much bigger impact.”

Now Katie and Ryan have plans to move completely off-grid in the next three years.

They will build their own house on their land and work with their already established solar panels and septic system to be fully self-sufficient.

Foods they grow or raise:

Eggs

Chickens

Apples

Berries

Vegetables

Corn

Potatoes

Butternut squash

Zucchini

Pumpkins

Carrots

Onions

Shallots

Garlic

Celery

Eggplant

Tomatoes (five different kinds)

Peppers (10 different kinds)

Cucumbers

Snap peas

Bush beans

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Romanesco

Cabbage

Brussel sprouts

Radishes

Pak choi

Kale

Arugula

Lettuce (six different kinds)

Green onion

Sage

Parsley

Oregano

Basil

Thai basil

Dill

Thyme

Lemon balm

Cilantro

Mushrooms

Maple syrup

Gardening tips from a homesteader:

1. Start small and cheap

Katie began her gardening journey with just $50 and a few basics like tomatoes and peppers. You don’t need a lot to get going.

2. Expand slowly, let it snowball

She added fruit trees, learned to can, and gradually grew into self-sufficiency – one skill at a time.

3. Use affordable materials

Her 1,300 sq ft garden cost just $200 — including composted cow manure from a local farm and a rented tiller.

4. Grow what you eat most

Katie focuses on high-yield staples like potatoes, carrots, tomatoes (five kinds!), kale, onions, and herbs.

5. Plan for preservation

Because of harsh Minnesota winters, she relies on canning, freezing, fermenting, and freeze-drying to store harvests for up to two years.

6. Think beyond summer

With just a few months to grow fresh food, Katie maximizes her summer harvest to feed her family year-round.

7. Add chickens for fertilizer and food

Incorporating chickens not only provides eggs and meat, but also valuable compost material for the garden.

8. Improve soil with local resources

She enriches her garden soil using cow manure from nearby farms – cheap, natural, and effective.

9. Store smartly: water glassing for eggs

She stores eggs from her 30 chickens using a water + pickling lime method – preserving them for up to 1 year.

10. Grow herbs for Flavour and health

Katie grows a wide variety of herbs like basil, oregano, cilantro, thyme, dill, and lemon balm – easy, space-saving, and multipurpose.