Hi. 👋 I have a vegetable garden and while we do not intend to grow 100% of our food, I post under the #homesteading hashtag and enjoy others posts on the topic.

I can't speak for others, but I can say why I personally spend my time on gardening.

1. Fresh vegetables from the garden taste better

2. We've seen supply line problems in the past and expect them to continue in the future

3. It's more convienent to get vegetables from our yard than from the store (they don't go bad as fast when they're still growing)

4. We have concerns about effects of climate change, political unrest, and other societal problems causing trouble and want to be at least somewhat self reliant

5. It's far less stressful than a day job

Those are all just off the top of my head, so perhaps not articulated well, but none of them are addressed by transacting in #bitcoin or buying food.

You're absolutely right that it's hard work and that I would be financially better off if I went back to a job in infosec. And we've been doing this for a few years now and we would be unable to survive on what we produce.

And yet, here I am, choosing to not have a job and instead spending my time making open source hardware and software, gardening, and walking or riding my bicycle places when I could afford to take the car instead. I don't think that many people who are on the homesteading bandwagon are doing this because it's cheaper than earning a salary and paying for food. If they are, I agree they'll go back to a day job sooner rather than later.

Also, we are getting better at preserving our harvest too. Some of it is dehydrated, other crops are frozen. We'll eventually get around to canning. So one huge crop failure would suck, but it'll be tolerable once we build up some more stock.

One of the reasons we never plan on producing all our own food is that we like dairy products, but we don't have room for (or desire to have) cows or goats. We also don't have the land for grains, but we're happy to get those from local farmers. Relying on ourselves and our neighbors seems much more reliable than relying on international trade and food that is shipped/trucked/flown in from thousands of miles away.