Place of Residence: California’s Central Coast

Personal Bio: Jennifer Schwabauer is the Founder and Senior Editor of SuburbanHomesteading.com, the No. 1 website on the internet for suburbanites who want to raise their own food, and enjoy a rich life on a frugal budget. The site includes topics such as: raising your own poultry for eggs and meat, growing your own farm fresh fruits and vegetables, storing and freezing your own produce and meat, fun educational activities for suburban homesteaders, raising kids to embrace a simpler more fulfilling lifestyle….and even delicious recipes for cooking and enjoying your own harvest.

Jennifer was raised in suburban southern California, but developed a love for suburban farming at nine years old when a chance opportunity to join the local 4-H club lead to showing a market lamb at the county fair. After 10 years in 4-H Club raising market lambs, and breeding and showing her own purebred sheep, growing vegetables, raising chickens and rabbits, and pursuing a variety of domestic arts such as quilting, knitting, canning, cooking, bread making, and home-butchering — she studied Animal Science and Agricultural Business in college.

Since then, she has worked for some of the largest agricultural production companies in California, including the California Raisin Advisory Board, Continental Grain, and Sunkist’s supply division. Her first love however has always been suburban farming. Today, she grows her own vegetables, fruits and berries…raises her own chickens and livestock for meat…preserves and stores her harvest…lives an inspired “farm life” with the aspects of far larger working sustainable farms…all on a one-third acre suburban lot. She has been featured in numerous books and articles, and her blog is read weekly by countless readers who want to achieve simplicity, a sustainable life and farm style living while residing in suburbia.

When Jennifer is not managing her suburban farm or blogging about it, she enjoys quilting, floral arranging, reading, volunteering in her community and traveling to areas of the country she has not seen before. She has also given back, for the past 30 years, as a local 4-H project and club leader, teaching the next generation of suburban farmers.

You can find Jennifer at her Suburban Homesteading website.