Fellow Farmer Highlight: Josh Hulen (Part One)

Columbia resident and city homesteader Josh Hulen describes how the staff of CCUA have helped him bring to fruition some of his plans for a sustainable residence in the Benton-Stephens neighborhood.

CCUA helped me start a small urban homestead and now I like to teach others how to be more sustainable. I heard about CCUA through many social circles in the Columbia community. I began to meet staff and learn more about them during their outreach efforts such as at their booth at the annual Earth Day celebration. Then in 2011 I started a counseling business, ABLE (Achieving Better Living with Empowerment), across the urban farm on Smith Street. I made this choice greatly on the fact that I would be close to them. It gave me an opportunity to learn more about the program as I quickly made friends with staff. I received great advice and had many opportunities to volunteer and get hands-on experience. Thanks to CCUA I finally gained the basic skills and confidence to begin my own urban homestead in the Spring of 2013.

Josh begins a recent tour of his city homestead with a walk through the garden.

This has been very empowering for me. ABLE is now well established as a counseling group and I would like to eventually expand the business to incorporate teaching sustainability with other helping/healing professionals at a wellness center. At the moment I am able to offer internships and volunteer opportunities at my homestead.  I greatly appreciate CCUA for helping me along this journey.

With help from CCUA staff I was able to establish raised garden beds and chickens for egg production.

Josh discusses his coop set-up and chicken care with visitors on a recent tour.

Support from Adam Saunders, advice from Carrie Hargrove, and hard work and consulting from Trish Woolbright have been imperative to my growth. With continued assistance from CCUA, a live-in intern helped me build more infrastructure and routine at my budding homestead last summer. In addition to tending the several growing spaces and raising laying hens, I now harvest rain, keep mushroom logs, use my own seasoned compost, and raise meat rabbits.

Curious rabbits take notice of the visitors to the Hulen homestead.

I have learned many aspects of growing food such as land analysis, permaculture designs and practices, strategic planting, pest management, and food preparation. Fermenting foods is a growing interest. I also have been developing the skill of wild foraging and sometimes experiment with DIY building from repurposed materials.

Josh Hulen discusses how he works with a growing network of sustainability-minded individuals and lists some of his future plans in the second part of this piece.