About Tasha - Simplestead

The Eternal and Existential Question – Who am I? Call me Tasha (or Tasha Greer if you know a lot of Tasha’s). In short, I’m a writer, working professional, and Epicurean homesteader focused on enjoyable, sustainable living in Northwestern North Carolina.

Epicurean Philosophy

The Epicurean part means that we make our homesteading choices based on evaluations of what will lead to long-term pleasure while (hopefully) causing minimal harm or even helping improve the health and well-being of my fellow global citizens, wildlife, and our shared planet.

In this complicated, interconnected, global world with extremely non-transparent supply chains, it can be hard to figure out the right thing to do. Generally though, creating low-maintenance homestead routines that don’t rely on regular purchases of non-local goods makes it easier.

For example, a one-time purchase of a scythe keeps me fit when I use it. It’s quiet so my neighbors don’t have to hear me run a mower. There are no long-term environmentally-ambiguous inputs. And I look like the grim reaper when I use it.

That’s just one simple example. But choice by choice, we’re finding simpler ways to do the things that used to seem complicated, expensive, and environmentally detrimental. And we’re enjoying life a lot more!

Writer/Author

I write all sorts of stuff – fiction, how-to, philosophical meanderings, research-based articles, eBooks on various subjects, and I’ve published full-length non-fiction works — Grow Your Own Spices (2021) and Weed-Free Gardening (Spring 2022).

Gardening Books

Grow Your Own Spices is focused on how to grow spices (not herbs) both indoors and outside and in large or small spaces. It also includes practical herbal medicine inspiration from my pal Lindsey Feldpausch, RH.

Weed-Free Gardening is about recognizing that weeds are one of nature’s tools for environmental restoration and ecosystem maintenance. If you want weeds to go away, you have address the underlying ecological problem or nature will continue sending weeds to do that work. This book helps you do just that.

Of course, it’s also about having fun and creating a beautiful, peace-filled, non-toxic garden without a lot of work!

If you want to support my work, please buy my books! I earn a small royalty for each copy sold. However, buying books doesn’t just help writers like me earn a paycheck, it supports all the people throughout the process including illustrators (like Greta Moore who illustrated my books!), photographers, editors, booksellers, and more. All of us win when you buy books!

Personal Experience

Now, if you are wondering about my qualifications… I’m a hodgepodge. Or better yet, you could call me a polyculture person. I approach everything with fascination and curiosity. I love to try new things. But there are some passions that have stuck with me for decades now.

Foodie

Delicious cuisine (from the ground up) has been a big part of my life since I was a teenager. Herb gardening stole my heart 20+ years ago. Production vegetable gardening and mini-orcharding entered the picture 10+ years ago. And the Arcadian idea of landscape gardening (including livestock) has consumed me for the past 8 years.

Scuba Diver

For about 10 years, I was an avid scuba diver and even became a divemaster. That made me obsessed with underwater ecosystems. When I got asthma, I transferred my passion for underwater worlds to land-based ecosystems.

Political Philosophy

I also have a degree in political science with an emphasis in political philosophy. However, an internship on Capitol Hill and a stint at a PAC helped me recognize that politics wasn’t my field. But I am still deeply interested in political philosophy and using that as fodder for my writing.

Ultimately, those collective experiences have turned me into the Epicurean homesteader I describe myself as today.

Caretaker

For the last 7 years, I’ve been the caretaker of my 82 year old dad who has global aphasia, non-functioning short-term memory, plus a history of schizophrenia and identity disorder. Let me tell you — that experience has been a constant source of new learning and expansion of my qualifications as a patient human being.

I also have to tell you that carrying a flailing, 210 pound man in full scuba gear through heavy waves as a Scuba Divemaster turned out to be great training for lugging my 150 pound dad around on his bad days! You just never know how past experience might help with present challenges.

Intellectual Property

I spent 12 years in Intellectual Property Law Administration in Washington, DC. There, I got to work with lawyers with scientific and engineering backgrounds, plus some awesome and intelligent support staff, and fantastic clients to pull off miraculous amounts of intricately detailed and complicated work, while having lots of fun!

Now that the world has gone remote, I’m doing that exciting work mainly from here on my homestead in North Carolina.

Hospitality, Etc.

I also previously worked in hospitality in Kapalua Maui, in Egypt, and helped start several food related businesses in the DC area. I spent many years immersed in the French and Belgian culinary world (in the US) with regular vacations to France for wine, food, and to visit family and friends.

For a short time, I even worked in S.P.A.C.E. (Store planning, Architecture, Construction, and Engineering). Plus, I was a small-scale market farmer (poultry processor, nursery, flowers, produce, herbs, and spices).

Adventurer

I’ve done some traveling, skiing, climbing, hiking, trapeze, skydiving, crafting, exploring, pottery, reading, and met lots of fascinating people in my journeys. All of this has made me a person of interest… er, I mean a person with a lot of interests! But since I most recently wrote two gardening books, let me give you a bit more detail on what qualified me to write those books.

Gardening Experience

As you can see from the images above, I love to play in our landscape. I’ve been gardening for over 20 years. For the last 8 years, I’ve been doing it on about 2 acres. I grow a large variety of edible, medicinal, and decorative plants.

Much of my gardening is about soil and ecological regeneration and climate change resilience. I’ve used targeted applications of organic matter and flocks of ducks, chickens, pigs, and herds of goats for soil improvement. I’ve strategically encouraged plants other people might call weeds to grow in places not ready for cultivation. Since our land is variably sloped, I use swales, terraced beds, rain gardens, infiltration paths, and ponds to manage waterflow, prevent erosion, and integrate the various parts of our property.

Once I improve the soil in an area, then I turn it into a garden “room”. I’ve made 5 rooms so far – The Main Potager (7800 square feet), the Simplestead Test/Play Garden (800 square feet), the Espalier Garden (1200 square feet), the Edible Landscaped Dining Room (2000 square feet), and the Bamboo garden (600 square feet). We also have a mini-vineyard for homemade wine and a few orchard areas plus two largish ponds and several smallish ponds.

Some people think of gardening at this scale as as work. But for me this is my playground. I also tend to spend more time cooking meals using our garden harvests, or hanging out in our garden rooms, than I ever do on garden chores. This works because I focus on soil health and let plants take care of themselves.

I also love to create abundant, natural, and forageable habitats to beautify our landscape and nourish the local wildlife (like the handsome beast below).

Oh, and did I mention I have a greenhouse? It’s my winter paradise, full of citrus, spices, annual vegetables, a water fountain, and a wood-fired hot tub. It’s the reason I rarely need to take a vacation from homesteading life because we created our own little exotic escape right here at home.

I also keep ducks, dairy goats, ducks, chickens, ducks, a pet turkey, DUCKS, worms, and (occasionally) pigs. Oh, did I mention I keep ducks?

Duck Lover

I love ducks. They have a way of winning your heart with their sideways glance. Really, I don’t think you can trust a person who doesn’t WANT those nosy busy bodies dabbling around in the backyard. Makes you wonder what not-so-dark and loamy secrets they’ve got buried there!

Seriously, though, ducks have been the best form of livestock I’ve worked with for building our soil fertility. I love my other animals for their personalities and the fun of keeping them, but ducks are my all-time best garden helpers. Someday I might write a book about Ducks and Gardening too.

To serve my local community, I’m also an Extension Master Gardener Volunteer. I teach classes related to edible landscaping, vegetable/herb/spice gardening, and organic gardening both online and at public events.

For the record, I created this website so I could WRITE about my Epicurean approach to living well in times when planet earth needs us to choose our paths wisely. I’m not a social media guru who collects followers like grains of sand on a beach with my incredible marketing savvy. And to be honest: 1) I’m wary of a life moderated by algorithms, 2) I can’t abide word limits, and 3) I don’t understand why you’d want my posts show up in your social media unless we share similar personal philosophies.

That said, I’ve discovered it’s fun to use video and photography to capture happenings in the gardens, goat udder comparisons, deeply meaningful chats with my ducks and chickens, or whatever slice of life/self-entertainment strikes my fancy.

So, you can also follow me Instagram @exploresimplestead for peeks into our normal, non-polished life here on our Epicurean homestead. That way you’ll be able to see for yourself, as my chickens and ducks will loudly tell you, I’m totally flocked up!

But wait… there’s more!

Last but not least — I share my life with an incredibly fascinating and thoughtful man, also a writer, named Matt Miles. Living here with Matt, making Epicurean decisions together, is the best part of my everyday.

If you read this far, I feel like you know me already. Please send me an email at exploresimplestead@gmail.com to tell me a bit about you! Just an FYI – I’m part of the slow email movement (like slow food, only for email). So, it might take me a few days to get back to you.