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Easy Composting Tips to Start Using Now

If you are not composting already, it is something you should start doing sooner rather than later. The following are some simple tips that can help you to get started so you can enjoy the benefits of compost. Tip #1 – The Compost Material Should Be Cut into Small Pieces One of the mistakes that many people make when they are starting with composting is to throw in large chunks of material into the pile, thinking that it will just break down easily. By cutting everything into smaller pieces, it will help the compost to break down faster and easier. […]

How to Choose What to Plant This Year

It’s spring time, and if you’re an experienced gardener, you’ve probably been planning out your spring garden and what to plant for months now. But if you’re just getting started, either on your very first garden or second or third, you might be overwhelmed with the amount of choices for what to grow in your food garden this year. Here are a few tips for how to narrow down your options and choose what to plant: History Obviously, if you’ve gardened already, you’ll want to think about what you’ve successfully grown in the past, and go with what worked. But […]

How to Harvest Sunflower Seeds (Video)

As you’re considering what to plant in your garden this year, you might have thought about sunflowers. Sunflowers are a wonderful and fun plant to grow; they are gorgeous in the garden, easy to plant and propagate, and their seeds are also an amazing source of fat, protein and nutrients. Growing the same amount of calories and nutrients from other sources isn’t always so simple, so sunflowers are a great option for the beginner food garden. If you’re trying to get your kids more involved in gardening, sunflower is a really fun way to do that. They can easily plant and tend […]

Quick and Easy Probiotic Lemonade

I’ve been sharing some recipes for natural fermented sodas in the last few months using a “ginger bug” starter culture as a base. I thought I’d share a natural fermented probiotic drink that’s even easier to make, and doesn’t require a ginger bug to start. All you need for this probiotic soda to culture is whey. Whey is something you can’t buy in stores, but is incredibly easy to make at home. It is the liquid that separates from the curds when milk curdles, and it is also the common byproduct of cheesemaking or straining homemade yogurt. To get whey purely for […]

Simple and Natural Homemade Pest Control Tips

Most homesteaders have gardens. In fact, they have large gardens and they rely on the food they grow to feed their family throughout the year. If that sounds like you, then you know just how problematic it can be when you have pests that try to take hold and destroy your crops. Fortunately, there are some natural methods you can use to combat those pests. Here are some of the ways to get control of your garden once more so you do not have to worry about bugs and slugs ruining your harvest. Slugs can be a real pain, and […]

Clipping Chicken’s Wings, The Easy, Painless Way (Video)

It’s a common myth that chickens can’t fly, in reality, they certainly can. In the wild, chickens are able to fly short distances, enough to get them over fences or up into trees. If you’ve got free range chickens or chickens contained by a fence, you probably don’t want them to be practicing their hereditary skill of flying. So how can you keep them grounded, without hurting them or causing you both stress? This video from Raising Happy Chickens shares a simple, painless way to clip chickens wings to keep them around. Enjoy! If you enjoyed this, you might also […]

Beef Cuts and How to Cook Them (Infographic)

I’ve often recommended on this blog finding local, farm-raised meat and dairy for the most sustainable, healthy lifestyle. The thing about finding local meat, however, is that you might find yourself with some cuts of meat that you’re not familiar with and not used to cooking. I don’t know about you, but when I started learning to cook, I mostly knew how to saute ground beef and braise chicken breasts. Getting familiar with the different cuts of beef and how to prepare them can vastly broaden your culinary knowledge and abilities, as well as introduce you to some great new […]

The Ultimate Guide to Health Diets

It can be overwhelming trying to eat healthier these days. It seems like every day there’s new information about the health benefits of a certain food, while the current fad diet preaches the elimination of that diet. If you browse healthy recipes on Pinterest, there’s lots of confusing terms applied to different recipes that might make finding the right recipe for your needs difficult. If you are wanting to try a new cleansing diet, eat healthier, or simply understand what all these diet buzzwords mean, this simple guide is for you. Since this is a site about homesteading and we […]

How to Make Pickles at Home

Pickles are one of the most classic and widely recognized forms of brine preservation. While the term “pickled” can apply to various forms of preserving various kinds of vegetables, what most of us think of when we think of “pickles” is the classic, brine-preserved cucumber that has become a staple of delis and diners across America. It most famously made its way into the American diet through Jewish delis in New York City, and, like any classic food, it can be made easily at home. While the formula is simple, however, there can be a bit of trial and error involved, […]

Essential Elements Your Homestead Property Needs

Those who are considering buying a homestead property are often very excited about starting this new lifestyle. They are looking for the “perfect” piece of property, and this is not always easy to find, as they do not know exactly what it is they should seek in a homestead. This is especially a problem for those who are just getting started with homesteading. The following tips will help you to remember some of the essentials. First, you need to have a good source of water on the property. This will typically mean a well and pump. You will want to […]

Growing Strawberries In Gutters (Video)

Spring is here, and I’ve definitely got gardening on my mind! I’m starting to see fresh, delicious, American-grown strawberries in the grocery store again, but as with anything else, I’d love to grow my own. Strawberries can be tricky, depending on where you live, but these clever off-grid gardeners figured out a pretty cool hack: using gutters! It’s just the right time to give this a shot if you’ve got the right space and equipment, and I’m definitely considering trying a scaled-down version myself to see if it works out. What could be better than fresh strawberries picked from your […]

6 Things You Should Do Before Getting Piglets

I’ve raved quite a bit in the past about how great pigs are. You can buy them as piglets for a very affordable price, and within a season have a hog big enough to fill your freezer with meat. For the initial start-up cost, space they need, food they eat, and meat they yield, they’re incredibly efficient animals to raise for meat. And, as someone who hates waste, I just love how much you can feed them! It’s also relatively easy to feed them virtually for free, which is another big plus. When you buy pork at the supermarket, you […]

Composting: Good Materials, Bad Materials, and Special Materials (Infographic)

Composting. So simple, at yet so complicated. On the one hand, I feel like it’s really easy to just throw together some biodegradable, nutrient-rich material, wet it, and let nature do it’s thing. On the other hand, there are a lot of important considerations to keep in mind when adding to compost piles, and there are items that are not great to have in your compost pile, for many reasons. While for the most part, it’s not too complicated to start your own compost pile, there are are few “what not to do” considerations to keep in mind, and I thought this […]

Stump Removal Hack: Epsom Salt

If you have any experience with removing a stump, you know what a headache it can be. It will either cost you hours, possibly days, of backbreaking, arduous labor, or way too much money to pay someone to do it for you. No matter how successful you are at cutting down a tree, the truck is a whole different story. Part of what makes stump removal so difficult is that a well-established root network will keep that stump alive, and, if not dealt with, will continue to grow and even sprout off new shoots. There are chemicals that can kill a […]

How to Make Sourdough Without a Recipe (Video)

I’m a huge fan of home fermenting and culturing of all kinds. Yogurt, kefir, kombucha, pickled vegetables, and my personal favorite, sourdough bread. Sourdough is not just a distinct flavor of bread, it gets its rich, sour flavor from the leavening culture that causes it both to rise, and changes the metabolic structure of the wheat. Sourdough is actually much healthier than breads that are not naturally fermented, because the culturing process actually breaks down the antinutrients that can make wheat difficult to digest. Some people who can’t otherwise eat gluten can still eat sourdough, actually! I have made sourdough […]

5 Mistakes First-Time Chicken Farmers Make

When it comes to homesteading of all kinds, trial and error is a great way to learn. However, when you’re raising animals like chickens, you probably want to reduce the possible mistakes you can make. If you’re considering starting your own chicken flock, you’ll want to do it right. We’ve got a list of five common mistakes people make when they first start keeping chickens to help you avoid making them yourself. 1. Not protecting against predators Like a fox in a hen house, many predators out there, depending on your region, will see your chickens as a delicious, juicy, […]

North American Butterflies and the Flowers They Love (Infographic)

When you think of pollination, you probably think of bees, and we’ve posted infographics in the past about how to attract bees to your garden by planting the flowers they love. Well, bees aren’t the only insects that help with pollination in the garden, butterflies do too! If you have a garden, small children, or simply enjoy seeing butterflies around your home, you’ll love this infographic. It has all 23 North American butterflies, their indicated regions, and the flowers they love. There are some great ideas for flowers to plant here, as well as the sorts of flowers or sap they gravitate […]

Making Chicken Feed: Pros and Cons (Video)

As with all things DIY, I’ve always assumed that making your own chicken feed would be healthier, and more affordable. However, I’ve been reading that while that can be true, it’s not always the case. These homesteaders and YouTubers have been making their own chicken feed, and received a lot of questions about how to do it and how it’s been working out, so they made this video in response. They break down the pros and cons of the method they’re using, how they store it, how they’re chickens like it, and the ingredients of their feed. It seems to […]

Simple Steps to Greater Self-Sufficiency

The goal of everyone who is interested in homesteading is to become more independent and less reliant on the “machine” that seems to run the lives of most people. Many today have no real idea of where their food comes from or what would happen if they no longer had easy access to electricity. They need the modern conveniences of the world to live. You do not want to be like those people, and you do not have to. The following are some easy things that you can start doing now, and expanding upon later, to help increase your level […]

Why Start Seeds Indoors?

We’ve posted a bit about tips for starting seeds indoors as spring has been approaching, but I wanted to talk a bit today about why to start seeds indoors. You want to have a beautiful garden, and you want it to provide you and your family with plenty of food when it comes time to harvest. This means you need to start the seeds at the right time. You want to make sure they are strong enough to survive and thrive in the garden, and one of the best things you can do is start your seeds indoors, getting ready to […]