This year, I am decluttering. I think it would be fair to say that in a lot of ways, the homesteading lifestyle and hoarding are comfortable bedfellows.

We hoard our harvests as preserves and dehydrated goods. We hoard glass jars for making and storing those preserves. There’s seeds to save, and herbs we might want over winter. Freezers overflowing with produce we’ve worked hard to grow, and want to use in time.

We’re pretty eco-conscious as a group, so we’re looking to reuse before we recycle. And quite honestly, that can create a problem. Or at least it has for me.

I’m sure there are homesteaders out there who are better at managing things, but I guess it turns out, I am not one of them.

And in the weeks leading up to Christmas last year, I had a moment where I realised if I died and a family member had to clear this crap out, I would be terribly embarrassed about it from the beyond.

It’s not like I meant for this to happen. And perhaps I could blame the hoarding streak in my DNA, but I think the truth is closer to good intentions being the root of all hoarding.

It’s not like I didn’t have a purpose in mind for absolutely everything I’ve been holding on to. There’s a reason we’re here. Dozens of them, to tell the truth.

But the reality is, most of the projects I had planned are nowhere near as important as other goals. Such as building a house with internal doors and a flushing toilet.

I need to focus.

So the theme for 2025 is “use it, or chuck it”. And we’re already making headway.

Just junk

I am ashamed to admit that there are several categories of stuff around here that pretty much boil down to hoarding rubbish.

The first thing I attacked was several boxes of glass jars. Basically, I haven’t thrown away a glass jar in 7 years. There’s always more preserving to do, right?

Going through that collection was weirdly painful. Even as I threw them into the recycling bin, I was still thinking “oh maybe I should keep that one”. But aside from a few salsa jars and all the actual proper preserving jars, they’re gone now.

Up next, there was the possibly thousands of bottle lids (top of the page) I’d realised I’d probably never use for their intended art project. I’ve been collecting them since mid-2017 – seven and a half freaking years!

This week I dropped them off for a local daycare centre so kids can create with them instead.

There’s also dozens of plastic peanut butter and mayonnaise jars which legitimately could be used to sort our collection of nails and screws into. A job which is on the list for next week now that we can see the floor of the shed (thanks Richard).

But none of that is half as embarrassing as the four spare fridges we have. Yes. Four spare fridges!

The fridge in the caravan never worked, so we got given a little 12V + mains power one, which has since died. Then our original fridge died in Cyclone Gabrielle, and before we replaced it we were given a bar fridge to tide us over which technically works, but not well.

So we have an over-supply of fridges, and an overdue trip to the scrappy.

Old and deadly?

And then there are the preserves. There is the tendency when you get a good harvest to preserve as much as possible. Especially when you’re just getting started.

That’s a wonderful and sensible thing, assuming you enjoy eating the resulting pickle, chutney, relish, or jam.

But over several years I have ended up with several jars of things that it turns out, I don’t enjoy. Such is how I came to have 5 jars of pickled jalapeños from 2018 sitting on my shelf heading into 2025.

Yes, I could have given them away, but some of the lids were a bit rusty, the colours suspicious. I’ve learned a lot in the intervening years, and I just didn’t totally trust them not to kill someone.

So 15 jars of things we weren’t going to eat got biffed from the preserves shelf before the New Year, and composted. At least the shelf isn’t bending ominously anymore.

Seeds and supplies

I have every seed I could possibly need. Many of them are several years past their best, and in many cases germination is about zero. But I have them. They take up the entire lower shelf of a cupboard.

I don’t eat turnips, let alone grow them, but I have several unopened packets of seed, expiry 2020.

I have boxes of potatoes that were too green to eat, and which could or should be planted again, taking up several available spaces in more than one building.

There are gardening toys I purchased with grand plans and have never used. Usually shoved somewhere in the back of the container, or far corners of my gardening shed. Some of them are really pretty valuable and I imagine I’ll be selling them once I find them again.

There’s even an area of our property purpose-built for to keeping plants I’m not sure what to do with!

I’m still figuring this category out. I’ll probably plant the spuds this month. And I know a community garden which might like a pile of possibly dodgy (but free) seeds.

But it’s all on my mind now, and I guess that’s the first step.

Room for the good stuff

I’m a pretty firm believer that one of the first steps to inviting good things into your life (like, for example, a house with internal doors and a flushing toilet) is to make room for it both physically and metaphysically.

That means physically throwing out the junk to make literal space for things we want. It means selling the things of value that we don’t use to help us afford the goals we have.

It also means giving up distractions – the things I’ve decided I don’t really need as much as I thought I did. Facing reality on my big ideas. And just cutting things off the ‘to do’ list because I simply do not want to actually do them.

Because heaven actually help me if I die before those fridges are gone.