The former statistician has crunched the numbers, and her garden – and chickens – are a goldmine! Photo / Shoshannah Shand
On a busy Canterbury street, Sonia Barrish’s garden is bursting with colour and life. Nearly every inch of the urban section is covered in a food forest of 40-plus fruit trees and many more vegetable varieties.
Here, Sonia, husband Menzo and their three homeschooled children live on a 698sq m section as self-sustainably as they can, harvesting 500kg of produce each year from their backyard.
“That’s more than $5000 value,” shares former statistician Sonia, 33, who’s tracked their crops compared to supermarket prices for the past few years. “If I include hunting for meat and our chickens, it works out to more than $10,000 worth.”
After seven years developing their urban garden dream, Sonia now only goes to the supermarket once every two months for staples like butter, cheese, flour and peanut butter. On average, this works out to around $50 a week or $2600 a year. Everything else the family of five eats, they grow or hunt themselves.
Looking back, Sonia, who also runs natural outdoor skincare company Back to the Wild, shares her upbringing inspired her to think outside the box.
“We came over from Slovakia when I was 3. We mainly grew up in state housing and didn’t have much money.”
As she got older, a desire “to have nice things and do more without spending more” became the foundation for a life built around resourcefulness and creativity.
She laughs that learning to cook from scratch while studying statistics at university, growing a few tomatoes on her apartment balcony and some kale in a friend’s backyard was the start of a “slippery slope”.
Sonia tells, “The amount of kale you can get from a single seed is amazing. It was like, ‘Woah! I can grow this myself and don’t have to pay for the organic kale.’”
In 2015, they bought their first home and the journey began in earnest. There was a peach, cherry and plum tree on the property, which Sonia still makes generous amounts of jam and wine from each year.
As they could afford it, Sonia bought more fruit trees and vegetable seeds, then added five chickens for eggs.
“I didn’t have much of a plan,” admits Sonia, who is mum to Bethany, nine, Jordan, four, and Ezra, one. “It was just, ‘Let’s throw things in and hope one day we’re going to have a lot of food.’ Now when we walk outside, it’s like, ‘Woah! We’ve actually done it.’”
To keep up with processing the abundant harvests, Sonia has an old dehydrator and has invested in a pressure canner and freeze-drier, which she uses to make their own ready meals when skiing or on multi-day backcountry tramping adventures with the kids.
Describing a normal day during harvest, Sonia enthuses, “In the kitchen, there’s a pot of jam happening, jars being sterilised, the pressure canner running and we’re chopping fruit for the dehydrator. The kitchen is a mess of buckets and boxes of fruit waiting to be processed, all while gathering more constantly.”
It’s hard work but deeply fulfilling, she tells.
“When you start living with the seasons, you really appreciate each one for what it is.”
And her self-sufficiency extends far beyond the garden gate.
“I first learned to sew when I made my wedding dress. I had no idea how, but I knew I didn’t want to spend $3000 on a dress.”
Since then, Sonia’s taught herself to make everything from baby carriers and sleeping bags to tramping backpacks and togs.
“Almost anything is sewable now,” she smiles.
The goal is to fill their days with family and experiences rather than material things. Christmas is present-free, centred around a tramping trip with the extended family and sharing food.
“We just celebrate together without the gifts,” Sonia explains simply.
Birthdays are no different.
“We normally ask the kids, ‘What would you like to do for your birthday?’, rather than, ‘What do you want to get?’ And we have a nice party.
“I hope the kids are learning the skills to do things for themselves so they have the ability to do whatever they put their mind to.”
The only thing left on the wish list is for rural land, with space to run around and a new garden to grow things, which they’re currently saving for.
Sonia explains, “In some ways, I have reached the full potential of what we have here, and I’m ready for the next challenge and excited to set up a different block.
“We have everything we need and, in every situation except land, I feel rich and abundant.”
Follow Sonia at instagram.com/urbanselfsufficiencynz.