Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chelsea Edgeworth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Chelsea, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My own home!

Seems very cliche to say this, but working our own home and our in-progress homestead has been one of the most meaningful projects I’ve done.

We are a family of 5, with our kids being under 9. A few years ago, I decided that I needed to leave the workplace and come home to raise our children properly. Before this, I struggled to balance nightshift work life and bearing our three children. I was experiencing severe exhaustion that led to other physical health issues that then lead to a rocky start of our marriage and a rough start to parenthood with my husband.

Around our third child, I decided to come home to not only give myself a break but to make sure our family unit ran smoother and was on a path of better health.

Since then, I have poured myself into our home, our kids, and our marriage. Through this we have decided to homeschool our children and move to the countryside to create our tiny little homestead.

Leaving the workplace is actually when I got serious about learning how to garden, preserve food, embrace a different diet that incorporated growing food. Between our old house and our new one, I have learned so much about the homesteading and gardening lifestyle that I simply wanted to share it and show people that it’s not a completely lost art. It is in fact a habit and lifestyle anyone can embrace and learn about at any time of their lives.

So, I would have to say my home has been the most meaningful project in this season of life we are in.
We don’t even compare our current lives to the old life we had; it’s completely changed and so much more fun and fulfilling now.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

If you have never heard of me before, I am the author of the blog The Cottage Vegetable.

I used to be on Instagram, way back when I was just really passionate about gardening and before I wanted to nail down actually educating people on it, but I have since left.

You can find me on my blog The Cottage Vegetable, or at my YouTube channel under than same name. Although I am more active on my blog.

My mission with The Cottage Vegetable is to create a bridge between people’s gardens and their kitchens by giving my audience valuable bit sized information they can learn from that teaches all the things about gardening and preserving food.

I try to break down all the ins and outs of gardening, especially the messy cottage style of gardening that I love hence the name, along with giving easy ways to preserve food so none of that effort outside goes to waste once it’s inside.

My main site phrase is “gardening and preserving for a practical kitchen”. This came from the fact that I need a practical kitchen myself to serve my family. That means nothing too frilly, overly romantic, or styled just for looks.

Because I love to garden, that is my thing. I will take any sunny day digging in the dirt or cutting flowers or canning tomatoes or chasing ducks over any night out on the town. But I need ingredients that my family will eat, methods that don’t waste my time, and inspiration to keep going year after year. In other words, I don’t want all the work I did all summer to just go straight to the compost pile because no one will eat it.

So, in comes the need for a practical kitchen. I try to approach gardening, preserving, or anything with the flexibility of allowing the reader to apply their own creativity to the information given that will make it fit to their own life perfectly.

That said, I am a self-taught vegetable gardener, although I grew up with my mom being a fantastic ornamental gardener. But I am no means a master gardener; I am just a mom who loves to garden and bring good food to the table. I am always willing to learn more and more as time goes on.

My end goal is to get people to pick up that shovel and feel confident enough to plant their first tomato and to even can their first jar of pickles. And even to my fellow experienced gardeners, to feel inspired to keep on going and creating in their own homes and gardens.

Like mentioned earlier, my blog website is the main hub of my creations and my main focus; my YouTube channel is more of a supporting role to the blog. However, you can find me on either social site under than name The Cottage Vegetable, where you can subscribe to both.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

You don’t have to make money at what you do and be happy or accepted in society.

I graduated high school and went straight into nursing school. I worked a decade at the bedside to learn that I needed to leave and never look back. I made great money, but I was an emotional and physical zombie to say the least. And the impact at home was far more detrimental than the positives my paycheck was bringing in.

When I initially left working, I frantically looked around and didn’t even think my time spent at home was worth it because it had no monetary value. It was a major adjustment for about 2 years don’t get me wrong, but I finally realized that my kids are completely worth my time, my marriage is worth my time, and my homestead is worth my time, no matter if I make a dime off it or not.

These three things still have higher value than even my blog does, and I finally feel peaceful at the decisions we have made to get here.

It’s kind of hard to explain how important it is that I stay home for us as a family, since a monetary value is so easy to give other people and make them understand the importance of your work. All I can say is this is the season I have been given in life and I am soaking it in everyday whether outside people understand it or not.

And I couldn’t be more grateful for where we are at.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

The library.

This sounds so silly but in our age of information it can almost get too loud to go online and look at the 100 different opinions on anything.

When learning about anything, rather it’s cooking, sewing, gardening, anything, I can actually learn more from a published book simply because a book can give you a sense of quietness.

And I love to dive into older titles; it’s actually amazing how little gardening has changed over the last several decades although a lot of people don’t know how to do it anymore.

Now this does sound counterproductive coming from an online blogger, but I really wished I realized that the library was a more valuable tool to me rather than places like Instagram or Facebook earlier in my creative process.

I did learn a lot through trial and error even from learning in a haphazard social media way, so I will just count it all for the good of things anyways.

Plus, the library is still a cool place to go. It’s easier for me to find new titles or even see older ones that have been lost to time on any subject I am interested in. Plus, it’s good thing for kids to experience and an easy ‘homeschool day’ for us.

Perhaps one day I can contribute to the library with my own book of some sort, so this answer ages better with time.      

Contact Info:

• Website: http://thecottagevegetable.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRLUgQAVhj0SdyijvnWfU-A

Image Credits
(I took these pictures all myself, even the selfie) Chelsea, The Cottage Vegetable