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Getting Rid of Mice

Some people are horrified of mice. Some people think they are cute. When you are a homesteader, they are a problem that you need to solve quickly. If you are unable to get rid of the mice, they can destroy or contaminate your food supply faster than you might think. They breed quickly, and when you see just one or two of these rodents, you can be sure the problem runs a lot deeper. First, you will want to determine just how you want to get rid of the mice – humanely or with lethal traps. It depends on how […]

Cheap Homesteading Supplies You Need

As a homesteader, you want to reduce your expenditures and become more self-sufficient. You want to grow your own food, and perhaps even mend and make your own clothing. However, as independent as you might be, or want to be, you still need to have the right tools and supplies. You can get many of the supplies you need without going over your budget thanks to buying in bulk and buying from places such as dollar stores. The following are some of the supplies you can find in these stores. Needles are usually available at these budget stores, and you […]

Growing An Edible Garden Landscape

Gardening is a hobby that can be enjoyed by everyone. With the numerous types of accessible gardening methods available, physical limitations or mobility concerns should not prohibit you from growing a garden. An online search of photos of accessible gardens that creative individuals have designed will give you some ideas as to how you might want to design your garden. Keep in mind that accessible gardening is just like traditional gardening in that the design you choose and the plants you include can be tailored to your individual preference. Raised beds are a popular form of accessible garden. When you […]

Sewing, Knitting, and Crocheting – Three Skills You Need

As a homesteader, you are a collector of skills. With every skill that you acquire, it leads you one step closer to true self-sufficiency. The following are three related skills that you will certainly want to add to your repertoire – sewing, knitting, and crocheting. Let’s learn how these skills can benefit you. Sewing If you can sew, and if you practice your techniques, you can mend your clothing and tailor it as needed. This means your clothes can last for far longer than they would have. Not only that, but you may even get to the point where you […]

Watering Wisely to Conserve Water, Time, and Energy

Whether you get the water for your garden from rain collection or from the tap, you are going to want to conserve this precious resource as much as possible. You don’t want to run out, and you don’t want to add unnecessary cost to your garden. You also don’t want to have to take the time and energy to water your garden inefficiently since you have enough to do already. Here are a few tips on how to get the most of your water by watering wisely. Check First Check the soil to see if watering is necessary before […]

Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Garden

To assure that the plants in your garden thrive, there are several mistakes you should avoid when setting up your garden. Getting things right from the start can save you time and money and eliminate a lot of stress and frustration. Determine the size Ambition is a wonderful thing, but being overly ambitious and planting a garden that is too large for you to manage is a mistake you want to avoid. Deciding how much time and energy you have to devote to maintaining a garden should be the basis for determining its size. Choosing a location Most vegetables require […]

Honey-Infused Garlic

There are so many great natural cold and flu remedies we’ve covered lately, but this is another great one that is very simple to make, and includes only two ingredients that you probably already have on hand: garlic and raw honey. And maybe I’m weird, but I think this combination is totally delicious! Both garlic and honey boast incredible health and immune-boosting benefits, and taken individually are great to add to your healthcare regimen. Garlic, especially when consumed raw, can help maintain healthy blood pressure and circulation, heart health, and kill fungus and bacteria. Raw honey is honey that has […]

Vertical Gardening

You don’t need a lot of space to grow an abundant variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers. Vertical gardens have become a popular patio, deck or small lawn project for everyone wanting to enjoy the benefits of having fresh vegetables right outside their door. Vertical gardens can be a family project or a solitary hobby that functions as a form of stress relief while supplying you with delicious food for your table. There are numerous benefits to growing a vertical garden. One of the main benefits is the small amount of space that it requires. Another benefit is that vertical […]

Horizontal Pumpkin Trellis

Pumpkins are not the first crop most people think of when they think of trellising, and horizontal is not the orientation most think of when they think of trellising. But having a successful garden on the cheap requires thinking outside the box. Using a trellis to grow crops like pumpkins that would sprawl and crawl all over if left to themselves will save tons of space. Likewise, orientating your trellis horizontally can also save space. That might seem counterintuitive, but if your trellis is vertical it will shade out the area behind it. Depending on your space and garden design […]

A 1870s Root Cellar (Video)

I absolutely love seeing how people back in the day lived, before modern conveniences and when people still worked with their hands, tended their animals, and used traditional technology to produce and preserve food. You know, like homesteading! I got such a kick out of this video. The channel, Appalachia’s Homestead, is great, and I highly recommend following YouTube channels like theirs if you’d like to get an inside peek into how established homesteads function on a day-to-day basis. It was really clever of them to share a video of their root cellar, which they estimate to have been built in […]

How to Find Deals on Gardening Supplies

Whether you garden on a large-scale or simply have a patio garden, you’re probably always looking for good deals on gardening tools and supplies. The following suggestions will provide you with some of the best places to find those money-saving deals. Garage sales and estate sales As soon as the weather begins to get warm, people tend to get a case of spring fever and begin cleaning out their basement, garage, and storage building. They typically have a garage sale in hopes of making a little money on items they no longer want. Garden tools and equipment often end up […]

DIY Flow Through Worm Bin

Worm castings are a great natural fertilizer that not only add plant-available nutrients, but also increase long-term soil structure and health. But at over $20 a cubic foot, worm castings can be expensive to add to your garden. So don’t buy them, make your own flow through worm bin and easily harvest your own worm castings. This video shows the materials and tools necessary and gives simple-to-follow instructions on how to go about building your own flow through worm bin. It even shows some examples of bins of different sizes made from different materials to give you an idea of what […]

Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin (How to Cook a Rooster)

When it comes time to butcher some roosters to reduce their numbers in your flock, you might find them quite tough and difficult to butcher. Roosters make for particularly tough meat, and need to be cooked properly in order to enjoy them, but when you do, they can provide a delicious and rich flavor that will make you glad you ever had roosters. This recipe is loosely based on Julia Child’s Coq au Vin recipe, which you can check out and follow more closely if you like, but of course most Coq au Vin recipes you will find use store-bought chicken […]

Simple Shortcuts to Living Off-Grid

The ideal situation for living off grid would be to own your own land with acerage, good soil, a well or spring, and the resources to raise animals and grow and process lots of food. This is obviously something that most people will have to work up to, homesteading definitely takes time, patience and resources. If you’d like to start living off-grid in your daily life now, however, whether you’re beginning to homestead or still living “on-grid”, there are some simple steps you can take to remove yourself from the grid. “Off-grid” technically means off the municipal electric grid, but […]

No Thin Method for Planting Carrots

Anyone who has grown carrots knows that many of the carrots are lost to thinning. With seeds as tiny as carrot seeds are, it is difficult to handle them and space them out when planting. Even if great care is taken not to plant too many in one area, you might wait only to find large spaces in your row with no carrot sprouts at all. If they do sprout close together they are difficult to thin out without removing and killing more than you need to in order to thin. But, there is a method to plant carrots that, […]

10 Household Uses for Borax

Borax, or sodium borate, is a very cool old-school natural cleaning agent that has many uses around the home. It is most commonly used as a laundry booster or as a base for DIY laundry detergent, and it’s great for this. But there are actually many household uses for borax! A box of borax is easy to find, typically sold in four-pound boxes at your hardware store or Walmart (in the laundry section) and will last a long time. You can use it for all kinds of DIY cleaning agents, many of which will replace toxic, expensive cleaning products that […]

First-Time Permaculture (Infographic)

I have always been fascinated by permaculture. It seems like such a cool method of gardening, but also complicated and confusing. I’ve always wanted to study it more, but it’s hard to know where to start. I recently came across this great infograhic that breaks down a lot of the principal components of permaculture for beginners. It’s really detailed and extensive and was originally published on Fix.com with an accompanying article detailing the informatic contained in the graphic. Since we’re heading into winter, why not start to consider trying out some new permaculture methods for spring? This graphic has honestly […]

Making Your Own Potting Soil

Whether you are growing in raised beds, containers, or even in rows, you can benefit from starting your crops on tables and even under cover. But starting your crops outside of their final location, or growing in containers will mean that you need potting soil, which is expensive. Reducing this cost is a crucial step in lowering the overall cost of your garden. Here are some tips on making your own potting soil to cut costs. Peat It’s unlikely that you will be able to build your potting soil without purchasing anything, but purchasing individual ingredients in bulk, and […]

Three Important Homestead Firearms (Video)

If there is one incredibly appropriate place for firearms, it is on a homestead. There, they are important tools. They provide security of your home, belonings and animals. They can scare off, injure or kill dangerous predators. You can use them to kill animals you raise quickly and painlessly, as well as wild animals you’d like to hunt for food. You can even use them as pest repellant if you’ve got critters trying to steal your food or plants! If you are new to firearms it can be hard to know where to start, so I thought this video would […]

5 Pre-Industrial Skills Everyone Should Have

The modern era has many advantages. Modern technological advancements have made daily life much simpler and less labor-intensive. No longer do we need to spend hours hand-washing our laundry, hauling water from streams and creeks or pumping it from a well, harvesting and grinding grain. etc. However, modern life has also made us very reliant on a complex industrial grid that could go down at any time, or of course, that many are trying to escape. There are many skills of yore that we grow up simply not doing or experiencing, that might quickly become a way of life if […]