TYH: How to lead a self sufficient lifestyle

I don’t have a green thumb, but one morning with Teresa Dereis, and she taught me that you don’t need one in order to kick start your self sufficient journey.

Dereis has been mostly self sufficient for the past eight years. She’s learnt to grow her own peas, herbs, sweeteners (like stevia) and use each product to its maximum potential; using flower petals to infuse soaps, dry leaves to make tea etc.

For Dereis and perhaps for many of us, her journey was triggered by wanting to benefit the environment, “It was kind of a gradual process, I started with gardening, but it really started with interest in the environment and in thinking about how our consumer purchases, and the way that things are primarily produced can impact our environment.”

She admits it wasn’t an easy change and she had to do lots of research, “I would just go home with stacks of books…I just read, read, read, internet research,” she said.