From Backyard to Self-Sufficiency: Rethinking Modern Homesteading with Ryan Steva

Homesteading is not a property size, it is a set of systems. Ryan Steva founded The Homestead Consultant after a health crisis sent him looking at food as medicine. Host Jeremy Rivera talks to him about what the practice actually looks like for an apartment dweller, a suburban back garden and a full property, and why most people start with the wrong thing.

Key takeaways

• A health crisis started it. Food as medicine was not a philosophy he adopted, it was a conclusion he was forced into.
• Three areas, not one: food, energy and permaculture design. Most beginners only think about food.
• His first garden failed, and he is straightforward that the failure taught more than the eventual success.
• Direct solar beats solar electricity for a beginner. Heating water or air directly skips the whole conversion loss and the battery bank.
• Skills beat stockpiles. His split between emergency preparedness and practical skill development lands firmly on skills.
• Soil management is the real lever on how efficient a growing system can ever be.

On this page

• The health crisis that started it
• Homesteading at any scale
• Permaculture design and soil
• Energy, and why direct solar comes first
• Skills over stockpiles
• Chapters and timestamps
• People, ideas and sources mentioned
• Questions this episode answers
• Go deeper

The health crisis that started it

Ryan’s route in was not romantic. A health crisis pushed him into looking hard at what he was eating and where it came from, and the problems he found with the food system were structural rather than personal.

He now works as a Cookeville area home inspector alongside the consulting, which turns out to be a useful pairing. Both jobs are about looking at a property and seeing what it can and cannot do.

Homesteading at any scale

The most useful reframe in the episode is that modern homesteading is not gated behind acreage. An apartment balcony, a suburban garden and forty acres are three different scales of the same practice, and the principles do not change.

His first gardening attempt failed. He says so plainly, which is worth more than a success story, because the failure is the part every beginner is about to experience and nobody warns them about.

He works as a Cookeville service area business and runs free classes across Sparta, Cookeville, Spencer and Lebanon.

Permaculture design and soil

Permaculture gets used loosely. Ryan treats it as design: observing what a site already does, then arranging elements so each one serves several functions and the outputs of one become the inputs of another.

Underneath all of it is soil. An efficient growing system is mostly a soil management story, and no amount of effort above ground compensates for ignoring what is below it.

Energy, and why direct solar comes first

The section on home energy production has the most immediately usable advice. Most people jump straight to photovoltaic panels, an inverter and a battery bank, which is expensive and lossy.

Direct solar applications skip the conversion entirely. Heat water with the sun and use it as hot water. Heat air and use it as heat. You lose nothing to conversion and you buy almost nothing.

Skills over stockpiles

Ryan draws a line between emergency preparedness and practical skill development, and he comes down on skills. A stockpile has a finite size. A skill does not.

Where a beginner should start

• Grow one thing properly rather than ten things badly.
• Learn to preserve what you grow, or the surplus is wasted.
• Build the soil before expanding the beds.
• Take the direct-solar win before pricing a solar array.

Chapters

People, ideas and sources mentioned

Questions this episode answers

• Can you homestead in an apartment?
• Where should a beginner homesteader start?
• What is permaculture design in practical terms?
• Is direct solar better than solar panels for a beginner?
• How important is soil management?
• Is emergency preparedness or skill development more useful?
• What does a homesteading consultation involve?

Go deeper

Every link above goes somewhere different. These are the ones not already mentioned above.

• Jackson Sherrell of The Asphalt Team, the first Unscripted TN episode.
• The Homestead Consultant on YouTube and online, where the classes are listed.
• Save Fry Oil, a commercial restaurant cost-savings company referenced in the episode.

Find Ryan Steva

He runs free classes across Sparta, Cookeville, Spencer and Lebanon, Tennessee, and can be reached through thehomesteadconsultant.com.

Cite this episode

Steva, Ryan. Interviewed by Jeremy Rivera. “From Backyard to Self-Sufficiency.” Unscripted TN, 2025. https://unscripted-tn.castos.com/episodes/from-backyard-to-self-sufficiency-rethinking-modern-homesteading-with-ryan-steva