East Quogue Family Embraces Modern Homesteading

On a typical weekday afternoon in early March, Joe Sanicola walked into the front door of his East Quogue home with 3-year-old son Teddy following closely behind. They had made a stop at the grocery store for a few things, and Teddy was particularly excited to show his mom, Liz Sanicola, an item he’d picked out, which he clutched in his small hands. He bounded into the kitchen, proudly displaying the square packet of pumpkin seeds, and was ready to head right out the back door and into the yard to plant them.

That Teddy picked out a packet of pumpkin seeds to take home is no surprise to anyone who knows the Sanicola family. Joe, who works as a teacher in the East Hampton School District, and Liz, who helps out with her family’s business, South Fork Asphalt, and also runs an Instagram account, hamptonshomestead, have made gardening and planting a way of life for their family, which includes daughters Lena, 11, and Maggie, 9, as well as sons Augie, 7, and Teddy, the youngest.

In fact, gardening is just one aspect of a lifestyle they’ve embraced that falls under the umbrella term of “homesteading.”

By definition, homesteading is rooted in the idea of self-sufficiency, and the small-scaled production, at home, of everyday necessities like food, clothing and other goods. What the Sanicolas do is more accurately described as modern homesteading, and for them it’s an appealing way of life for many reasons.

While the term “homesteading” may conjure images of families rejecting all forms of consumerism and seeking to cut themselves off or isolate themselves from the modern world, for the Sanicolas, it’s the opposite. Modern homesteading, the way they approach it, is more about community building, and connecting with traditional styles of living as a means for a better future.

“This mentality of homesteading as an idea of people who don’t leave their property, where they try to isolate from the outside world, in this area, that’s not even an option,” Joe said in early March, while sitting in his living room with his wife, Liz.

“For me, it’s about community, and embracing more traditional ways of doing things,” Liz said. “And disengaging from the system as far as the rat race we all seem to be engaged in.”

Joe and Liz both had the kinds of upbringings that would naturally predispose them to a homesteading kind of lifestyle. Growing up, Joe had a neighbor who was always gardening, and eagerly sharing both plants and gardening wisdom with Joe and his family. Liz’s grandfather owned the last working farm in Hicksville, and her mother grew up in Ireland. The Sanicolas have made several trips there to visit family, and the trips Liz has taken there, particularly when she was a child, left a strong impression.

“Neighbors really help each other there, and people make things from scratch,” she said.

Being exposed to that way of life cultivated in her a sense of self-reliance.

“You’ll see something and say, I can figure that out, or I can make that,” she said. “It might not be great at first, but it will be serviceable.”

Over time, Joe and Liz together developed what they described as a “can do” attitude, and their foray into homesteading, buoyed by that sentiment, became more involved over time. Changing habits for the good of the Earth has always been part of their motivation.

“It’s the idea of just making a small effort,” Joe said. “Even if you’re just working at one aspect of lowering your carbon footprint, if you integrate that into your daily life, you’ve participated in not perpetuating that cycle.”

“You build on the things you start with,” Liz added.

The start, for Joe and Liz, was growing tomato plants at a rented home in Southampton. In 2013, they bought their first home together, a large Victorian within walking distance of East Quogue downtown that was formerly a bed and breakfast. It fit the description of what they wanted — an old house with character, but enough land to expand on their home-growing ideas. They got chickens as soon as they moved in — at the time, Lena was a toddler and Maggie a baby — and then set about trying to build a garden. It was an uphill climb at first; the backyard had been riddled with bamboo, which was a challenge to overcome.

“We realized the property we bought was basically a monoculture,” Joe said. “The bamboo killed everything. Any bit of diversity in the backyard was gone.”

There was plenty of work to be done, and they embraced it. Joe describes Liz as more of a “planner” while he is more of a “do-er,” and Liz said she turned to her love of reading to get started.

“I was reading a lot of gardening books about permaculture and forest gardening,” she said. “We went to Ireland one year to see family and we went to this garden outside of Galway called Brigit’s Garden. It was magical; it was one of those places that feels super connected. It was gorgeous and really had a flow to it, and all these really cool elements of bringing nature and the spirituality of nature into it.”

One of the Celtic-themed gardens there was designed by Mary Reynolds, and her book, “The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves,” has been a big source of inspiration for what the Sanicolas have worked on over the years at their home.

“Her whole thing is rewilding your garden,” Liz said. “That was the basis for us trying to recreate our space.”

The result is that the Sanicolas have artichokes growing in flower beds, and fennel grows “wherever.” They do grow annual vegetables in raised beds, but while there is planning and work involved, in many ways, they let nature take the lead.

“We let everything go to seed in the winter and then in the spring you’ll see different plants pop up in different places,” Joe said. “Then you’re like, oh, I can’t move that 6-foot sunflower plant in the middle of the tomato bed. What do I do? Oh well, the plant won the argument.”

They said it has been fascinating to see what nature does. In their second or third year in their home, they had an abundance of hornets and wasps. The next year, “we had a million birds,” Liz said. “It was just the ecosystem balancing itself.”

While a lot of their homesteading ventures go on outdoors, there is just as much if not more happening inside the house. The kitchen presents the strongest evidence of that. There are shelves full of mason jars and containers with dried herbs, and a large copper distiller that Liz uses to make essential oils and other homemade household goods. Liz, who is a family herbalist, makes her own teas, essential oils, cleaning products, face creams and other skin care products, as well as cleaning solutions like countertop sprays. Often, the creation of one thing will provide for the creation of something else. For instance, when she makes an essential oil, the water that is a byproduct of the process still retains some of the essential oil in it, making it a perfect countertop spray. It can also be used to make face creams and soaps.

Of course, with four young children, two dogs, a cat, chickens, and full-time jobs, the Sanicolas do not have the luxury of enough time in the day to make everything they need from scratch, and they’ve had to learn to let go of the idea of perfection or even constant success when it comes to their homesteading adventures. They laugh about times when they’ve been outside painstakingly planting only to turn around and find a toddler working just as steadfastly behind them to pull out everything they’ve just placed in the soil. They’ve also had moments where a tray of seedlings started indoors begin to grow and they realize that the tabs or popsicle sticks identifying the herb or vegetable must have been removed and placed at random in different spots.

Along with those minor tragi-comedy moments, there are the joyful memories as well, moments that remind them it’s all worth it despite the time and energy it takes. Seeing Teddy gleefully going to town with his rake and hoe in the garden early last spring, or discovering Augie immersed in the joy of plucking strawberries right off the vine while sitting outside and eating them one by one (even if they’re still a few days out from peak ripeness).

Having children while investing more and more time into gardening and growing also made Liz increasingly devoted to paying more attention to food and nutrition, and working to make it a priority in their busy lives.

“Food is the basis of our health and so often it’s thought of in terms of convenience, and done last minute,” she said. “You feel like, I can’t think about that, I have a million other things going on. But what are we without our health? Having small kids really brought that to the forefront.”

Despite having that front of mind, both Joe and Liz acknowledge the demands of modern life, and modern parenting in particular, make it impossible to cook healthful meals from scratch all the time, and grow or produce all the necessary ingredients on their own, which is where the community aspect of homesteading comes into play for them again. They are devotees of many local farms, and other businesses that adhere to the kind of ideals that are important to them. Liz is a big fan of the Eastport General Store, which, in addition to carrying many great products, also has a refillery, where customers can bring their own reusable containers and refill them when they run out of laundry detergent, hand soap, shampoo or other products.

They belong to a CSA at Jamesport Farmstead, and being there and visiting other farms, seeing other people and other vendors is a source of community and inspiration, which they say is not only enjoyable but necessary.

“You see what others are doing around you, and you have conversations and get inspired,” Liz said. “Like, I could maybe try that, or I might try it this way. One of the biggest lessons of trying to do all this is that you’re swimming against the mainstream, and it’s really hard sometimes, so you do need that community and connection to stay with it and stay motivated, because you do lose steam sometimes. There’s not enough time in the day to do it all.”

Making sure not to put too much pressure on themselves or their children is a key to success for the Sanicolas as well. They don’t hold any judgment for what other families do, and don’t place restrictions on their children when it comes to what they can or can’t eat at a friend’s house. Another motivating factor for homesteading, and creating so much from scratch, is simple economics.

“It’s the expense of living, particularly out here, when you want to buy organic,” Joe said. “The economics out here caused us to retreat back to our home and do it ourselves.”

While creating community is a big part of the appeal of homesteading for the Sanicolas, they also have intentionally created a home that is a sanctuary, and actively try to spend time there. Like most other families, extracurricular activities for their kids and other aspects of life don’t always make that possible — like many other parents, they lament the demands that participation in organized sports requires, in particular — but they want their home to be a space where life can slow down and be appreciated, and a kind of restorative reconnection can occur. This spring, they will finally be working on a cohesive plan for their front yard, but have decided to let their children take the lead. Influenced by shows they’ve watched together on television, like “Gardeners’ World” on the BBC, the Sanicola kids will each be given a quadrant of space in the front yard to design their own little garden spaces. Augie wants to create a type of “woodland willow hut” that he can hang out in, Liz said, inspired by something similar he saw on a family visit to the Botanical Gardens in Maine. Maggie wants to create her own sensory garden, while Lena, the oldest, is interested in a spiral-designed meditation garden. Because he is only 3, Joe and Liz more or less chose what kind of theme would suit Teddy — he will get a rock garden, a space where he can push around his toy dump truck and have fun. Driftwood picked up from local beaches will allow them to create physical boundaries around each space.

Of course, true to what has become form for them, Joe and Liz are still finding new ways to add to their homesteading repertoire as well. During a recent trip to Ireland in February, they visited a woolen mill, and loved the beautiful blankets that were created there. The eye-popping price tags meant they did not take one home.

But they do own a loom, and they did buy some wool.