Garlic is pretty delicious in… well, everything. Can you name many savory foods that don’t pair well with garlic? Probably not! Garlic tends to be a rather slow crop for homesteaders, especially the first time around. But, garlic plants will reward their loving, attentive owners with an incredible gift…. A secret, delicious harvest of scapes!
Year: 2018
Are you addicted to root veggie harvest videos? I cannot get enough of them! Seriously. I think I may have to seek help for this little problem of mine… Harvesting sweet potatoes is a rush, especially when you can binge watch reveal videos on YouTube. I mean, how else are you supposed to get through
Growing a vegetable garden can be a heartbreaking process, because 501 things can go wrong all at once. Therefore, I present to you my MUST GROW list! These low maintenance garden vegetables will ensure that you have a successful harvest of SOME kind from your garden. If you are just starting out… Or if you
Seed Starting: It’s exciting. It’s liberating. It’s the best late winter tradition. When all else is cold, dead, or dormant, while the sun hangs behind the gloomy winter clouds, starting our seeds indoors or in the greenhouse gets us homesteaders pumped for the incoming growing season. But… What if I told you that sowing a
Rosemary. Rosmarinus officinalis. Affectionately “Dew of the Sea” in Latin, also referred to as “Anthos” in Greek, or “flower.” It makes a delicious, comforting roasted chicken, especially when it’s plucked straight from the homestead garden. Walk through the Rosemary bed on a warm summer day, and you’ll be greeted with an aromatic burst of the
Goats are amazing animals for even the smallest homesteads. They can thrive on very little land, or run free on vast expanses. In return, your dairy goats will give you delicious milk and cheese. Your meat goats will supply your family with a wonderful source of protein. The brush goats will reward you with a
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
The sweltering, baking sun begins to lessen the intensity of its summertime rays. The heat embracing crops have become brittle, their youthful production now a distant memory, leaving a mottled sea of green and brown foliage over the spent garden bed. Children are heading back to school with their new backpacks and jackets, romancing the
I love pasta. Lasagna. Spaghetti and Meatballs. Chicken Parmesan. Guess what? Most pasta dishes include basil. Basil is one of the hallmark ingredients of many Italian dishes; and it is absolutely delicious. Basil grows quickly, and is fairly easy to grow. Seriously, every new gardener should try it. However, as with any other plant that
As the weather warms up and the fruits are gently harvested from our lush vegetable plants,Ā 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
It’s the middle of April, and spring is surging ahead here in our small southern piece of the pie. Strawberry pie, that is! Well, I wish anyways… I’m a bit impatient.
Have you recently walked out to your coop and noticed that your hens were having a bad hair day? A REALLY bad hair day? With feathers everywhere and your hens looking absolutely ragged and homeless, it might look like a war has erupted between all of the chickens on your homestead. Welcome to the world
Persimmons are commonly talked about throughout the North American homesteading community, especially as a fruit tree. However, you rarely hear about the leaves of a persimmon tree, unless you take a trip into Asia. Did you know that those little leaves pack quite the punch, both nutritionally and in the sense of natural/herbal remedies? Let’s
I know that I cannot possibly be the only person that gets this excited just because…. The gardening catalogs arrived!!! All of the berry bushes. The fruit and nut trees. The special seed deals. The exotic and fun fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Bulbs, galore! Does it just give you that warm, fuzzy feeling too? Doesn’t
Personally, I find the paper towel method to be the best way to encourage a high germination rate among strawberry seeds. If you only have a few seeds to work with, I highly advise using this method; it’s important to know that berry seeds need light to germinate, as I found out through trial and
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 grossĀ 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