…there’s a way – as this one family has so aptly demonstrated. Getting their hands dirty gave them back a cleaner, greener life

Text Huang Nickmatul
July 2008

Jules Dervaes began searching for meaning in his life after he graduated with his B.S. in Maths and minor in Computer Science in 1969. A conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, the former valedictorian and scholarship student decided to serve his society through teaching but seeing firsthand the lack of character development in some of the students convinced him that there had to be a more humane way of life, a better society somewhere.

He and his family immigrated to New Zealand in 1973 and began his homesteading journey there. Among other things he did to become completely self-sufficient, he practised beekeeping, rearing farm animals such as chickens, ducks and goats and grew his own food. In 1975, circumstances led him to return to America. He continued his beekeeping and gardening on 10 acres of Tampa, Florida but in 1984, they moved to one-fifth of an acre, a normal city lot in Pasadena, California. Yet despite a busy life spent earning a new college degree in theology and learning new skills while keeping up with old ones, he continued to dream about his New Zealand homesteading days when he lived at peace with himself and with the land.

And one day, after a major shock involving GMO foods, Jules Dervaes thought enough dreaming, and he and his family got busy on the small bit of land he had. He called it their Path to Freedom project, and decided to record his sometimes-painful efforts on a small website.

Today the Dervaes family—Jules and the three of his four children who have stayed on with him: Anais, Jordanne and Justin—and their urban homestead is a phenomenon—a shining example the organic-lifestyle devotees and wannabes…well…want to be. They grow most of their own food and are so successful on their little plot that they are able to support themselves by selling the surplus! They don’t just live mostly off-the-grid; with the installation of their own solar panels, they actually generate their own power. Their one website has turned into two (three if you count an online shop), and record extremely heavy traffic: they rate over 3,000,000 hits a month and get over 75,000 unique visitors. They still use a truck to deliver the vegetables they sell and make grocery trips but they brew their own fuel for that one truck.

HC speaks to the man who seems to have found what he had been looking for 40 years ago.

Why do you call it the Path to Freedom?
I call it Path to Freedom because I know growing my own food and becoming self-sufficient is not a one-time action. Nor is it a broad, easy, paved way. It is narrow, rocky, sometimes hard to find, and I must navigate around obstacles. It is a winding path, and I cannot always see the way ahead.

I call it Path to Freedom because the journey is about no longer being tied to the supermarket, gas station or energy grid. It is also freedom from prejudice, preconceptions, and the status quo. It is freedom to break out, to grow, to improve. It is the freedom to get daily bread from, to admit dependency on, and to become a student of nature.

There’s a lot of emphasis on your being an urban homesteader. Living in a city obviously plays a large role in your decisions. What difficulties have you had with your lifestyle because of where you live?
The number one problem that prevented me from starting earlier and still is a limitation is that I have a very small space in which to work.

There have not been many difficulties with keeping the animals as we make sure we are in compliance with the city codes. It was not a problem to grow food in the backyard. However, it was a challenge to grow food in the front and make sure the street-facing yard was aesthetically pleasing. Pasadena is an image-conscious city, and I wanted our edible landscaping to be beautiful so that no one would have cause for complaint. I want to be a good citizen and a good neighbor. I do not want to pose problems or ruin the chances for other wanting to do similar projects.

The city has been supportive and has recognised our efforts in granting Path to Freedom two Recycler Awards: Preservation of Natural Resources through the Creation of an Urban Garden and Sustainable Development Practices.

As people who also live in a city, we know that there are a lot of temptations that are easily available. What are your greatest temptations? How do you deal with them?
My family and I don’t succumb to some of the more obvious temptations of city life—we don’t eat out at restaurants, go to bars, go to the cinema, or attend sporting events (although we do watch sports on television). Our greatest temptation is to fall back into reliance on the urban infrastructure for convenience—not planning ahead and needing to run to the store to pick up items; using the roads and our car for too many errands; and being tied to Internet for speed and point-and-click communication.

Do you feel that your homestead’s location in a city play a big part in your websites’ success?
Definitely. Last year, for the first time in history, the world’s urban population exceeded that of the rural population. Doing this in the mega city area of Los Angeles gets people’s attention. They take notice and their eyes are opened to something new and different. I’m glad I have the opportunity to do it here. It has been a good training ground. The space restrictions have made it harder but, also, I have had to become a lot smarter. I didn’t have any space to waste so I became creative in using every square inch—high and low—I could find.

In documenting your lifestyle, you’ve also put a huge part of yourselves on display to the world. Do you ever feel like you’ve given up a very large part of your privacy?
For a long time, my family and I tried just to document the facts and figures. When we began to be noticed for the large quantity of food grown on our city lot, we still wanted to keep the family’s image out of the way. We did not want the media stories to focus on personalities; we wanted to keep some things private. But the news media insisted they wanted photographs of the people behind the garden. So now we use pictures of ourselves in association with our work but try not to have gratuitous ‘people’ pictures.

We are still on our guard. We do not want to go down the ‘celebrity’ road. The work takes precedence—we’re just the face on it. It’s not only about us but what we do.

Your home is such a beautiful and unusual place that there are doubtlessly people who will clamour to come and ‘visit’. How do you handle that and all the issues that come with it?
This is a tough issue. Early on, I opened up the homestead for visitors whenever asked. Now, we are overwhelmed with requests for tours—over 2,000 names are on a waiting list. It has become too big to handle. We live and work here. We enjoy showing others our homestead but, in running a home and a home business, tours are interruptions of the routine of gardening and take time away from what we need to be doing for our livelihood.

At the beginning we did not charge. Then we asked for barter items or a nominal fee. At this point, we have suspended tours until we figure out how to handle them—and we would now need to charge a much higher fee. It is tough to strike a balance, and we are still working on it.

A major part of your philosophy is about turning back time in terms of the way you live. You’ve been widely reported even on your website as saying “a step backwards is progress”, but you’re using one of, if not the biggest technology in the world right now to chronicle your lives—the world wide web. You’ve also recently installed solar panels which is another form of technology that has made great strides but only—relatively speaking—recently. Do you find that there is a disconnection here, or is there something that we’re not seeing clearly?
I view this project as transitional. We are not where we are supposed to be. But we are doing the best we can to get us on the way. Some things, like solar panels and biodiesel, are used to keep us from going deeper into the hole. But I consider them ‘bandage’ solutions.

We do not have a community as such but we do have an important message. So I use the Internet in this interim period to get the message out to others. I plan to do something else later. But now it is important to get the revolutionary message out. The changes people makes as a result of hearing the message can offset the use of computers in the meantime. We do not use the computer for social, gaming, entertainment, or frivolous purposes. It is used for business and outreach.

Sure, there is a disconnection in our use of technology! It’s not the way I want it to be, but it’s the way it is. I hope to deal with the issue at another time and place. Check back!

You’ve said that you began this full-scale gardening partly because you feared for your children’s health. Are there any results—visible improvement in skin, hair, teeth, energy levels, feeling of well-being—after eating the food you grow yourself?
For me, it’s going to be a longer process than for my young adult children, who were in their late teens and twenties when we started full-scale gardening seven years ago. It is difficult to gauge changes, which happen imperceptibly over a long period of time. It would take an outside, objective study to answer that question fully. My children work hard and are blessed that they are rarely sick. Overall, a subjective assessment would be that we have seen some improvement in many areas of health. We all agree that the food we grow ourselves tastes so terrifically good that it must be good for us!

What’s the most important thing in gardening?
Soil is the most important thing. I came late to that realisation. My soil was neglected. I didn’t know to feed the soil, not the plants. Soil is more than just dirt—it is a living thing. Put everything you can back into the soil in the form of compost. Don’t put in anything artificial, unnatural. Copy natural ecosystems, such as tropical forests. Don’t abuse the soil and just take from it over and over without replacing the loss.

There is a dual approach to gardening. You need something to work with that is real and natural (soil), plus you need to be a person with passion and drive who is willing to learn how to garden with nature, not against it.

Gardening is by far my favourite activity of the many jobs required on the homestead. Sometimes it is the most fun—although it can be frustrating because I feel inadequate in the face of so much to learn.

Tell me more.
We are not able to grow 100 per cent of our diet year round. For example, we do not have the space to grow grain crops. Other crops are not suitable for our climate. We have tried, and not always succeeded, to grow a number of different fruits. Some things are out of the question. Others are marginal; I have made a number of attempts to grow bananas but have not been fully successful—yet!

We are always reading and searching for new varieties to try. Now the problem is that we are really running out of space. For example, trees are difficult on a small property because they take a lot of space away from growing vegetables.

You have a successful business selling the surplus food you grow. How did you start with this, and how did you grow the business (pun intended!)?
Originally, we made cold calls and handed out samples of our produce. Now, after so many years (13 years selling edible flowers and the last 6 years selling vegetables, as well) we receive requests from people who have heard about our produce. Because of diligence and hard work, we have established a top-notch reputation. We let the high quality, fresh, organic produce speak for itself. Chefs and caterers heard about us through word of mouth.

Since your food is organic and available only seasonally, how do you let your buyers know what you have available?
Some of our clients have standing orders; others call and ask what we have available or we call them and offer them what’s available. If there is extra surplus, we call around or send out a notice to individuals on an email list.

Behind the success you have now, there must have been blood, sweat and tears. In one interview, you said rather enigmatically that “No dream of any worth can be realized cheaply”. Would you care to share one story of the difficulties that you’ve had?
The changing climate patterns are a great difficulty. In the last few years we have experienced extreme fluctuations in the weather—too hot, too cold, too dry. There is no norm, no pattern to ‘read’. Two years ago, we lost 90 per cent of our heirloom tomato crop—our main cash crop—because of the weather. Severe losses like these affect all aspects of homestead life.

In several previous interviews and in your own websites, you encourage people to start with whatever land they have. In the city where we are—Singapore—there is very little landmass to begin with. Most people live in small apartments in high-rise buildings. Even those who are rich enough to live in houses seldom have much land. What would you say to people who have this kind of situation and want to take your advice and start gardening?
Yes, the situation in Singapore is difficult regarding land availability. After homesteading in an area of wide open spaces in New Zealand and then living on ten acres in Florida, it was a shock for me to move to one-fifth of an acre here in Pasadena. I imagine it would be even more of a shock for me to move to Singapore. Being raised in open, green spaces becomes part of one’s psyche.

I would definitely try something. It would be a matter of growing something, somewhere—planter boxes and pots are a good beginning. Here in California and other parts of the world, community gardens or allotments are available. All beginnings of good ideas are worthwhile. You never know where it will take you. Even by small increments, great feats are accomplished.

Someone once described your homestead as a major organisational and planning effort that has harmonised to provide a bigger picture of sustainable living. What do you think of this? Is it an accurate depiction?
I would like to think this is an accurate description. It is what I have been striving for and we are working towards achieving it. But this is still only a beginning. There are additional areas that have not yet been incorporated in the homestead that we plan to include in the years ahead—for example, making our own clothing, developing at-home leisure activities, and becoming part of a larger community.

A larger community?
God willing, we will continue to carry out this home-grown revolution, which would lead to our changing the world by stopping the acceleration of global warming and by bringing about good food in abundance for all, resulting in a healthy planet at peace. The plan is to bring together like-minded individuals to build communities—one village at a time.

Do you think you are “trapped in the wrong century”, as one person described?
In terms of survival skills and providing for basic life needs, I would have like to have learned those skills in another time when society did not make us so dependent. However, I would not choose to use the word ‘trapped’. I appreciate what other centuries had to offer, for example, village life, living in harmony with nature, doing it yourself, having no government bureaucracy. I feel attracted to that kind of lifestyle.

However, my family and I are content doing what we’re doing here today. We have a chance to make a difference worldwide. We can take part in saving the planet, our home. In that sense, I feel I am in the right place at the right time. As previous generations did, we have the opportunity to rise to meet the challenges of our time.