Who’s Who in Green: The Dervaes Family

In response to genetically engineered food, grown thousands of miles away from where it will be consumed and doused in chemicals, a rallying cry spread across the country – a homegrown revolution. People have begun to realize that the ultimate way to take control over their own food is to grow it themselves – even if all they have to grow on is 1/10th of an acre in a town like Pasadena, California.

The Dervaes family – father Jules, son Justin and daughters Anais and Jordanne – have inspired people around the world to start their own urban homesteads with their ‘Path to Freedom’ project, which has transformed a humble home with a small, concrete-covered lot in the suburbs into a prolific organic farm that not only grows enough food to meet the family’s needs but to sell to area businesses, as well.

It all started with a simple goal: to reduce the family’s water bills. Jules Dervaes, who had previously grown food and raised bees on family properties in New Zealand and Florida, decided to rip out the dead front lawn and replace it with thick mulch and wildflowers in response to the severe California drought of the 1990s. Slowly but surely, the family began ripping up more grass and replacing it with edibles instead – fruits, vegetables, beans, herbs and nasturtiums.

Soon enough, the family began to see the project as a challenge: how much food could they grow? How much money could they save? They took on a voluntarily simple, self-sufficient lifestyle, dedicating themselves to living green. Today, their little homestead in the city – which boasts solar panels, a range of hand-powered appliances, a solar outdoor shower, a cob oven and an enclosure full of goats, ducks and chickens – serves as an inspiration for millions of people interested in starting their own urban homesteads.

The Dervaes homestead produces an amazing 6,000 pounds of food annually in their 66’x66’ backyard. They grow over 350 different vegetables, herbs, and fruits, gather honey from their beehives, and eat the hundreds of eggs provided each year by their chickens and ducks. The family’s carbon footprint is impressive – they brew their own biodiesel (for a car that rarely gets used), consume just 6.5 kWh of energy a day, eat seasonally (and vegetarian), make their own compost, buy secondhand and make almost all of their food from scratch.

Their website, PathtoFreedom.com, offers tips and information about small-scale farms as well as a journal that documents the goings-on at the Dervaes homestead. They have also created the site FreedomGardens.org, which offers freedom gardeners a place to gather, share photos and information and network with each other. The Dervaes also have an online store, the Peddler’s Wagon, where you can purchase many of the items they use themselves on a daily basis, and they’ve started their own seed company as well.

The family is also the focus of a new 52-minute documentary called Homegrown, which will be screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival, and has made their own 15-minute film entitled ‘Homegrown Revolution’ that will be screening at the Green Lifestyle Film Festival in LA (March 13th-15th). Check out the trailer, below.

Jules, Justin, Anais and Jordanne have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s entirely possible to subsist on what your own tiny parcel of land can provide, no matter where you live.

Dervaes Family’s Green Score: 38,998

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Urban Gardening: You Can Grow Food, No Matter Where You Live