It has been a while since I’ve done an update of any kind, so why not today? As the days become longer, hotter, and more humid, we have babies bouncing, seedlings sprawling, and buildings growing. May is a beautiful month, as it’s when our garden begins to truly explode with life of all kinds! So,
Category: Chemical Free Homestead
Alright, alright. I get it; for many of us, antiperspirant plays a major role in our daily lives. We may be human, but the stench we can produce can be unbearable for others. It’s embarrassing… the thought of skipping on a potent antiperspirant is terrifying at best. For some of us, these antiperspirants have become impossible to
If you have several pine trees on your property, it can be really hard to figure out what to do with all of those pine needles as they are shed. Pine needles are known to be very acidic, as they compost into the soil around the trees. Therefore, it may not be ideal to use
Okra is amazing, especially when its many pods are cut up, battered, and fried. Okra, in all of its golden, delicious, and tender glory, is also one of the easiest plants to grow on our homestead. It’s one of the most prolific, too; I begin to dislike okra pods as the season comes to a
Putting up a fence is hard work. It’s also incredibly expensive the first time around. If you don’t plan your fence correctly, you could run into problems and breaches very quickly. It just doesn’t make for a very good time on the homestead, especially whenever you have a lot of animals to contain or animals
As the weather warms up and the fruits are gently harvested from our lush vegetable plants, we notice that the ants like to slip into our homes “unnoticed” in search of an easy, fresh meal. They know we’re doing all of the hard work, and that our counters are the perfect place to find a
This is a largely taboo topic in the homestead world. On one side of the coin, you have people who strongly discourage using human urine as fertilizer in the garden. They are most concerned about disease, and it’s just plain gross if I can be bluntly honest. However, with the homesteaders we are, we believe in
To the new homesteader or gardener, preparing potting soil before reusing it might seem to be simply removing the old plant and putting the soil into the next pot to be used. For the experienced gardener, there are so many different reasons to squirm at that thought! Used potting soil could carry diseases or parasites,
Having a single dairy cow on a homestead can prove to be quite the challenge: how are you going to use up all of that spare milk?! Even a die-hard milk fan will have a hard time working through a gallon of milk on a daily basis. I cannot fathom drinking glasses and glasses of
Need Some Advice? Cucumber Growing Tips? So, there you were, cruising through the spring growing season watching your cucumbers simply flourish. You had one delicious salad with a crisp cucumber, right after you rubbed the curious little spines off of the fruit in your bountiful garden, and you were hooked. Then, as if disaster struck
Throughout the mid and late 1900’s, many farmers found a way to reuse what they had on the farm, including motor oil. During hard times, especially when it came to farming families, sometimes “making due with what you have” was all the farmer could do to stretch his or her resources. They would up-cycle the