“Bread Recipe” searches
In a segment on KCRW’s Good Food, host Evan Kleiman interviewed Celia Sack, the owner of Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco. Sack noted a trend this year: fewer books on baking, bread and beer, which she linked to a rising economy. As she put it, people don’t have to make their own jam anymore, they can just buy it at the store. She is correct that interest in DIY homesteading books wane during good economic times. But I was curious to see whether Google search trends for DIY topics would back up Sack’s hunch. Above is the result for “bread recipe” searches and you can definitely see a slight decline over the last two years.
“Jam Recipe” searches
“Jam recipe” shows a similar decline as well as seasonal spikes that coincide with canning at the end of summer. Unsurprisingly, most homesteading topics revolve around seasons. Seasonality, by the way, is one of things I really like about this movement. A digression here–the flatness of time (see Charles Taylor)–is one of the things I don’t like about modernity.
“Home canning” searches
“Home canning” searches show a more dramatic decline.
“Backyard Chickens” searches
People research backyard chickens in the spring and the search trend also shows a decline.
“Vegetable gardening” searches
Searches for “vegetable gardening” seem to have declined sharply, perhaps because of all the homestead projects, gardening is the most difficult.
“Gluten free” searches
And another digression–it looks like we may have reached peak “gluten free.”
I’ve often joked that when the economy picked up Kelly and I would have to write a book called How to Shop Your Way to Happiness, but that’s pretty much the story the culture at large is always telling, particularly at this time of year. Root Simple is going to, defiantly, keep covering these topics because we believe that the DIY ethos is important in both good and bad economic times. We value the ability to do things with our hands, hearts and minds. We’re not preparing for some end time, we’re realizing the good times in the here and now.
What do you think? Have you seen a decline in interest in homesteading topics?
I think the way that people are searching for these items has changed. Pinterest has become a major highway for people who want to find recipes these days so maybe this kind of “search” should be taken into account?
A good point–it’s been my experience that folks interested in these topics also have Pinterest accounts and use them.
We don’t really have good economic times, we only have a narrative and propaganda from the gov’t and mass media that we do. I think interest and the idea of homesteading exceeded the gumption to actually do it. I have been involved in educational gardening orgs and its discouraging that there are not many gardens that are larger than a couple of raised beds with a token few tomato plants, etc. While there is appreciable interest in healthy, organic, local food, most have the idea that some farmer will do it and they will buy it in a store. We are in times that require drastic change with no willingness to do it.
Is the trend over? Like any trend, trends fade. Like the “back to earth movement” of the early 1970s. Urban homesteading will remain a way of life for the tried and true, but will be replaced as a life style when the new trend comes along.
An alternate way to look at this is that the past few years saw the publication of many books (some might say too many) focused on homesteading/homemaking topics. As a newbie canner I was constantly searching online for information and recipes, and now rely on my favorite books and a handful of well-written blogs, with much less online searching. But if the DIY trend is in fact coming to a close, then I hope to find lots of lightly-used canning supplies and cookbooks at yard sales and thrift stores over the coming year…
I think this is also affected by the interesting confluence of minimalism with homesteading. I’m more likely to check out every book on chickens at the local library than to buy them all; I’d rather own just one or two very good ones. And, as someone said above, Pinterest changes the way we search for things online. I’ll search Pinterest for recipes more often that I just type “bread recipes” into Google.
I think the increase in “new” people who want to learn these things is on the wane, however many of the people who picked up these skills in the last 10 years are still doing them. But as JJ pointed out above, they are no longer googling things about it, because they have become proficient and no longer need to consult primers, how-to videos and other instructional materials.
‘Bread recipe’ and ‘gluten free’ are inverted curves of each other! ‘Beekeeping’ looks flat, but ‘goat milk’ is moving up. ‘Kale’ trends up over the years but might have peaked. ‘Hugelkultur’ is up from zero. ‘Aquaponics’ may have peaked as well. Maybe homesteading peaked sometime around 2013/14. Or maybe the internets are distracted by other news? Interesting.
Thank you for looking up kale. I’ve noticed a huge kale backlash in the past year!
I’ll just give you the view from my own personal experience.
I have only one friend I can converse with about urban homesteading, that has not changed.
This friend now has chickens and when she brings in the eggs to our group we fight over who gets to buy them…..this is a big change.
People may not be ready to do it themselves but they are becoming aware that out food delivery system is just not right.
A good point–there is definitely a higher awareness of food issues in part because of the urban homesteading movement.
Your defiance is not only much appreciated but very much needed in this culture.
Please continue to cover the DIY topics!
Agreed! The DIY ethos and Root Simple wisdom are timeless, regardless of what Google thinks. 🙂
Hello, I’ve been reading your blog for “good news” and inspiration for several years. I live in the rural South and especially need the positive and creative view. I’m on a 5 acre homestead with chickens, goats and some permaculture attempts in very sandy soil in a hot and HUMID climate. Stink bugs and powdery mildew just love it here! I loath facebook. Thanks for your blog, you have connected me with so many other good resources. Vicki Mariner
Thank you! I feel your powdery mildew pain! It’s a problem here too.
Milk helps a shocking amount with powdery mildew. I went on vacation and came home to a bumper crop of mildew– and the milk actually turned it around. I was skeptical, then amazed…
Erik, I’m glad you posted about this. I was also listening and I thought her take was out of touch; not nuanced enough. Because I don’t know about you guys, but if anything I see an increasing interest in my work (backyard dairying & cheese making). There are a couple of things going on that her comments didn’t take into account. First of all, there have been a lot of books. So the field is more crowded, and it’s harder to launch a book into that more crowded field where you will probably need to replace another book rather than fill a void. In terms of your searches, it makes sense that as a result of us spending the last decade educating people, their searches might be more specific than what you’ve tested. Instead of “backyard chickens” maybe they are searching for “soldier fly propagation.” And instead of vegetable gardening (which btw I agree is the most difficult of UH activities), people might be searching for “varieties of spigarello.” We can only hope.
Trends are bullshit-especially search trends. They represent just more commodification in an endless sales cycle. Of course, this is an impulsive thought on my part. Who cares–I like when I hear people making their own stories outside of the corporate paradigm. Like your narrative: “We value the ability to do things with our hands, hearts and minds. We’re not preparing for some end time, we’re realizing the good times in the here and now.” This is instructive, intuitive, inspiring and useful!
Hello from Melbourne Victoria Australia. I belong to an Urban Harvest group that meets once a month on a Saturday morning for 2 hours. We swap plants (mostly edible plants), fruit, veg, books and magazines(mainly garden & food related), plant pots (sometimes with contents), worm juice, liquid compost, coffee grounds (ex local cafes)for adding to compost, jars (for the jam makers like myself) & other similarly useful/surplus items.
this swap has been going 5 years and our numbers have consistently grown. To the point where a couple of new groups in other areas have been established to cater for the rising interest in home grown, home made and recycling.
no money changes hands and an honesty system prevails in terms of quantity taken.
I would like to think that interest is increasing here in my little sector of middle class suburbia
claire
I think the trends go down because a lot of people who jumped on board find out it doesn’t work quite like they expected. I inherited a treasure trove of canning supplies this year and couldn’t wait to start canning this summer. Then we had bizarre weather in northern Indiana. Instead of our usual scorching summer, it didn’t get above 70 until September. So, all of my tomatoes except cherries failed. I got one zucchini from my garden, and only a few cucumbers. There were no cheap bushels of canning vegetables at the farmers market because everyone else was having the same problems. Heck, there was hardly any sweet corn, which is our representative crop.
I got some jam canned from u-pick blueberries and strawberries, and that was pretty much it this year. I’ll try again next year, but boy am I glad that I hadn’t laid out a lot of money for my supplies.
I’m sure there is some overarching trend, but some of the decrease might have come from increased competence from people already doing the work. For example, I don’t need jam or other canning recipes because I already have my favorites. I don’t google backyard chickens anymore because I’ve had my chickens long enough I don’t think really have much to think about them. For gardening, I tend to go to the good books I already own.
So, while I am sure a stabilizing economy has resulted in some downward shifting, my personal decrease in searches has been the result of solidifying skills, not giving them up.
As an urban homesteader myself, I find I am turning more towards those I know in my homesteading community for answers than to the internet. People are a much more valuable resource once you get rolling with your homestead. Also, my searches are getting way more complicated as I get rolling with my homesteading, I am much less likely to google “canning” all by itself, even though I am learning to can. Plus, with more and more resources like your page, I can imagine that people are turning toward blogs like these first for answers, rather than blind google searches… Thanks for all you do!
Aha! You guys are people too! So I turn to you first, then the internet. I imagine others who are building community start with internet based relationships with people they ‘meet’ through blogs like these. 🙂
My husband and I are urban homesteaders in Michigan. While we’ve seen some topics rise and fall in popularity, the core groups of farmers and foodies here has stayed strong. Our city has a very strong food and farming community that we are very grateful for. He runs an urban ag program through the county land bank, and while gardens fluctuate and we see a lot of people sign up, realize how much work it is, and quit, his program has been growing steadily each year. I think he has over 90 separate gardens in his program now. Our next steps here are to work on zoning and ordinances to legitimize and allow for further meaningful growth.
Good thoughts in the comments! I realized that I too rarely search online around the things I make/do most, because I already have either my own ideas of what I want to try next, or a good idea of exactly where to look for more info.
Mostly I just wanted to say that I loved the little manifesto at the end of this post—that’s how I feel about a handmade life too!
I also found that as urban homesteading became a big trend, google searches on those topics became cluttered with junky fluff pieces repeating the same basic information. Now I’m consulting books with titles like “Meat smoking and smokehouse design” or “Root Cellaring”, not learning basic canning techniques.