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Adding Calcium to Your Garden

Calcium is an essential nutrient for a healthy garden. If your soil is lacking in calcium your plants will not be able to transport other soil minerals to the leaves and fruit. Obviously, this could lead to a variety of health issues for your plants including blossom end rot. Having to purchase fertilizers can be avoided by adding natural sources of calcium to your garden soil and compost that you might already have, and might even otherwise be throwing away. Eggshells Eggshells are a great source of calcium for your garden that most of us already have. The calcium […]

Good Girl Moonshine

If you’ve got a hankerin’ for a strong drink or are trying to kick a soda habit, Good Girl Moonshine is a great homemade drink alternative to alcohol or pop! It is healthy and detoxifying, and a very healthy habit to consume regularly. Also, this time of year, it’s a great option for beating colds or flus, or, since it’s still sizzling in many states, the heat too! This is my own personal version of a recipe found on Trim Healthy Mama, so feel free to play around with the ingredients and make it your own. The crucial ingredients here are […]

Extending Your Growing Season

Recently I posted a video demonstrating how to build a PVC hoop house that will help extend your growing season. In this article, I’ll give a few more tips about extending your season and maximizing the benefits to your hoop house. Seasonal Crops While your hoop house will protect your crops from extreme temperature change, temperatures will still drop even inside. But more importantly the days will be shortening and not all crops can handle the decrease in sunlight. Leafy greens, carrots, and green onions are examples of crops that cope well with shortening days. Layers For those that […]

A Seasonal Guide to the Farmer’s Market (Infographic)

I recently came across this infographic on how to find seasonal produce at your farmer’s market. I thought it was particularly useful this time of year as the season is changing and it can be hard to know what’s seasonal and what’s not. It was originally posted on Popsugar.com, and I thought the cool grid format made it easy to quickly check whether or not produce is in season. This is handy for a farmer’s market, because while plenty of actual famers sell the produce they have actually grown, these days farmer’s markets are growing in popularity and some people […]

Ways to Keep Chickens Happy

I’m not sure that there is any data that quantifies how many more eggs you can get out of a happy chicken, but most people that raise animals could tell you that keeping your animals happy will help you get what you want out of them. Stress can cause chickens to fight with each other, molt, and can have an effect on any animals immune system. Keeping your chickens happy will reduce costs on keeping them healthy and will provide you with more eggs and better meat. Here are some ways to please your chickens. Greens Chickens that are […]

Vinegar Does it All

When most people think of vinegar they probably think of salad dressings, or pickling, or the quintessential baking soda and vinegar volcano for kids. But most people would still underestimate vinegar, and in doing so they could waste money and expose them and their families to needless amounts of toxins. Here are a few ways you can use vinegar in your home to save money on commercial products and reduce the amount of toxins in your home. Toilet Cleaner Pouring vinegar in the toilet bowl and letting sit overnight will stop water lines from forming and help disinfect your […]

3 Tips for Steady Potato Harvests

If you don’t have a root cellar, then you probably don’t want to have a 100-pound potato harvest. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to grow 100 pounds of potatoes or more. Instead of planting for one large harvest of potatoes, here are 3 tips for getting a steady supply of smaller harvests that could easily exceed the amount you could get from one large harvest. Plant Early While waiting until after the last frost to plant some crops might be the way to go, potatoes can handle cold soil well. If your zone is particularly cold or […]

How to Make Biochar (Video)

Often when production in the garden is low the response will be to add fertilizer. But is that really what your garden needs? Your garden is not simply the sum of its chemical components; it is a web of life. If your garden is not a desirable environment for beneficial micro-organisms, then everything that depends on them will suffer. Adding biochar to your compost and your garden will provide an ideal environment for beneficial microbes, which will in turn provide food for earthworms, which will then leave behind more castings and aortae your soil, which will ultimately provide better soil […]

Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

Do you have a shady area in your yard that you wish you could grow some food in? Well, not every crop craves sun the way most due. Get yourself some hardwood logs and spore dowels and you could be growing delicious and valuable shiitake mushrooms for years to come. Here are some tips to get you started. First, you will need to get spore dowels or plugs. There are plenty of retailers online that carry them it shouldn’t be too difficult to find some with good reviews. You will also need to collect some fresh cut hardwood logs […]

Natural Tips for Aphid Control

Aphids are a nightmare for anybody who has a garden, and if you have a garden, there is a very good chance that you have or will have aphids at some point. What you need to do is learn how to get rid of them so they do not destroy your supply. Fortunately, there are some good ways that you can get rid of these nasty little pests. First, you might want to consider adding some plants to your garden that help to repel aphids. Fortunately, some of these plants are going to be very useful and will likely be […]

How to Make Elderberry Syrup

Elderberries are a favorite for natural health enthusiasts, for their healing and soothing properties for colds and flus. Elderberry syrup is a popular way to consume it, and is far healthier that over-the-counter cough syrup full of chemicals, sugar, and drugs. They contain a high amount of vitamins A, B and C, which support the immune system and help fight off sickness. If taken before getting sick, they can help prevent an infection from spreading throughout the body, and if taken after getting sick they can help prevent the infection from spreading into the respiratory tract, making the sickness much […]

DIY PVC Hoop House (Video Instructions)

It’s getting cold, and your crops are certainly feeling it when they are left exposed. A greenhouse is a great thing to have, but they are also expensive. A cheaper alternative is a hoop house. There are lots of videos that people have put online of their hoop houses and how they built them, but they all seem to still involve framing out the back and front with lumber and putting a swinging door on. These luxuries can double the cost and difficulty of constructing it for those that aren’t carpenters or don’t have the tools necessary. Here is […]

How to Keep Rabbits Away from the Garden

Sure, they might look cute, but wild rabbits can be a lot more trouble than they’re worth when it comes to the safety of your garden. If you and your family depend on the garden for your food, you can have rabbits coming in and devouring everything in sight. If you are proactive when you first see a rabbit in the garden, it could save your crops. Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do to keep the rabbits away from your veggies. While some rabbits are overly picky, there are certain types of vegetables that they tend to […]

Winter Composting Tips

A compost pile that has done fine all year long can freeze solid on you in the winter. This could leave you having to buy soil or compost in the spring when you are planting again. To avoid this, keep these tips in mind this winter for your compost pile. Build it Big A large compost pile will remain hotter than a small pile. There will be more food in it for composting organisms and the outer portion will insulate the center. When temperatures drop, worms and other organisms will simply migrate to the center of the pile until […]

Fire Cider Recipe

Fire cider is a great recipe for health through the winter and warding off colds and flus. You can take regularly or whenever you are sick, as a remedy. It’s an old folk recipe that has many variations, this is just one of course. If you know anyone who makes it, ask them how they do it! It takes a month to properly ferment, but once it is complete you can take it by the spoonful as needed or add to juice or even as a flavoring to chicken or rice dishes. It lasts a long time so make a […]

3 Things You Should Stop Doing in Your Garden

There is no one right way to garden, everyone’s resources differ and everyone’s approach will also differ. That being said, there are some practices that will tend to yield better results, and there are some that should be avoided. This is a list 3 things that people commonly do in their garden that you should not be doing in yours, and why. Tilling Tilling hard, or weed-covered ground to get it ready for row planting is a common practice. But it can be counterproductive to the reasons why most people chose to do it. First, it can destroy soil […]

Making Non-Toxic Paint

Buckets of paint don’t come with severe warnings about the dangers of the near inevitable contact with skin or inhalation of the vapors coming off the paint for no reason. Many people think that there is just no alternative to using these toxic substances in their homes. But what did people use prior to toxic commercially produced modern paints? One old time paint recipe that some still use today, especially in baby rooms, is made from milk and a few other ingredients. So before you coat your baby’s crib or the walls of his room with carcinogenic substances consider this […]

Home Kombucha Brewing

Kombucha is basically a mushroom that grows in caffeinated tea. Its origin is unclear, but it has been consumed all over the world for hundreds of years at least. Kombucha has become folk medicine, with claims that it can treat anything from cancer to diabetes. While its specific benefits are largely unproven, it is known that fermented foods do offer a wide variety of health benefits especially for digestive issues. What is undisputed about kombucha is that buying it from Whole Foods is not healthy for your budget. The good news is that you only need to do it once […]

How to Reduce Electricity Use

Are you using too much energy in your house? The answer for most people is going to be yes. Often, people are wasting energy without even realizing it. If you are a homesteader, and you have electricity through the grid – or through solar power for that matter – you have to take steps to reduce the amount of electricity you use to make your home more efficient. It will also help to reduce the cost. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to save on your electricity and these simple tips will help you get started. One of the first […]

Benefits of Aloe Vera

The benefits of any plant should always be weighed against the difficulty of cultivating it. In the case of aloe vera, there are no difficulties to weigh against the long list of benefits. The list of both proven and supposed benefits is too long to include here, but these are a few of the known benefits of this wonder plant. Easy to Grow You don’t need a green thumb, or even garden space to grow aloe vera. Aloe vera can be grown in a container, tolerates anything from partial shade to full sun, is perennial, propagates on its own, […]