What can you possibly do for your ailing green thumb when all that is allotted to you is a patio, a balcony, or a postage stamp of an urban backyard with little room to roam? Don’t grow out…grow UP! With a vertical herb and vegetable garden, you can make a mountain of your molehill and
12 Garden Tools to Start Spring Right
Can you feel it? That shift in the wind? The faint whiff of waking soil resounding with the chorus of sprightly spring peepers in the forest? Winter’s losing its grip, and for those of us with gardens and itchy green thumbs, the final thaw can’t come soon enough. It’s time to bust out the tools
8 Ways to Practice Homesteading While Living in a City
The (most recent) Back-to-the-Land Movement may have peaked in the 60s and 70s, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t had the desire for a more land-based way of life every decade before and since. Many armchair homesteaders find themselves tirelessly reading through the Storey’s Guides to Livestock at their local library, browsing websites like Insteading
Foraging for Field Garlic
Winter is long. Even if you have a well-stocked root cellar brimming with canned goods and root vegetables, by the time January and February roll around, most anything that was green is long, long gone. And if you’re like me, your eyes and palate might start yearning for that verdant, lively color to return. Watch
Keyhole Gardens: What Are They, The History Behind Them, And Photos
Drought. Nutrient depletion. Bending over with a bad back or dealing with mobility issues. Have you ever had to battle with any of these gardening-impeding troubles? Don’t you wish there was an accessible method for growing your own food that eliminated these problems and more? Maybe keyhole gardens are the answer you’ve been looking for.
Outdoor Stone Ovens: What Are They, How Do They Work, And Photos
We’ve recently put out quite a few articles on ways that you can build an oven to cook food with the most ancient of methods: fire. So far, we’ve got articles on Outdoor Brick Ovens, (largely indoor) Masonry Ovens, and Outdoor Earthen Ovens. But of all the materials that you can build with, nothing speaks
Outdoor Earth Ovens: What Are They, How Do They Work, and Photos
Outdoor Earth Ovens
Growing Radishes
Every garden has its challenges: Florence fennel that refuses to make a sizeable bulb, spinach that bolts immediately, corn that’s full of tunneling, or kernel-wrecking worms. But every once in awhile, there comes a plant that gives and gives and doesn’t ask much more than a space to give it. Like radishes. I see these
Answering Some Questions About Off-Grid Living
YouTube comment sections are not always the friendliest of stomping grounds. If you reveal that you live off-grid, or worse, you try to teach others how to get started living off-grid, the critics crawl out of the woodwork. Rather than seeing that we’re offering free information to help others along their way, endless debates about
Rainwater Harvesting: The Basics And Why You Should Start Today
Lead contamination. Chlorine and fluoride. E.coli. Fracking pollutants. Toxins and pharmaceuticals. There are so many things that might be mixed in the water that flows from the faucet, that turning on the tap may feel more like playing a chemical form of Russian roulette than getting a drink. But what if I told you that
6 Methods for Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning
When food preservation comes to mind, the first words to follow in the modern homesteader’s thoughts are likely “canning” and “freezing.” These two methods to stop food decomposition have become THE go-tos when an ample harvest needs to be put up for later. Both indoor freezing and canning, however, are quite new inventions: Canning has
Free Firewood: 8 Places to Find It Near You
When summer rolls around our part of the Ozarks, the rivers and parks teem with weekend adventurers. And like the Echinacea plants that dot the roadsides, signs start to spring up selling firewood for campers — at prices that make my head spin. When you only need a picturesque campfire to roast some hot dogs
Beef Tongue: What It Is and How to Cook It
There are two ways you’ve clicked on this article. One, you’re curiously horrified at the image of a huge, disembodied tongue, and you came here to see how in the world anyone could consider that thing as food. Two, you’re one of the enlightened few who have access to beef tongue and know that within
5 Answers To Your Beginner Chicken Questions
It’s time for the next entry in our series of Homesteading Questions and Answers. As we get questions from you, we try to formulate the best possible answer to help you on your adventure. This month is all about raising chickens. There are few other animals so symbolic of the homesteading spirit as the humble
Outdoor Brick Ovens: Types, Uses, And Photos
When it comes to building an outdoor oven, you may start feeling like one of the proverbial three little pigs when you try to decide what type is best. Will you build it out of mud? Concrete? Stone? Brick? Unlike the porcine story, however, there’s no downside to choosing any of these building materials, and
How to Find & Store Cheap Leftover Pumpkins After Halloween
I have been waiting for this day all fall. Specifically, I’ve been counting down the days until November 1. You see, now that the money-grabbing fall holiday has passed, the money-grabbing winter holiday is steamrolling its plastic, glittery way into place. There’s no room for the two to share. Thus, anything fall-themed absolutely needs to
Shutting Down the Garden for Winter Checklist
There’s a huge amount of anticipation when the first frost is close. It sometimes feels like you’re preparing for some sort of icy nighttime raid. Should you panic-pick all the remaining green tomatoes and beans tonight, or try to ride it out for another week in hopes that they’ll ripen? Should you cover the beds,
Alternative Libraries: Check Out Things, Not Books
I find it wonderful that libraries still exist in the modern age. Though the world sometimes seems unstable, angry, and poised to tear down whatever we currently don’t like, there still exists a public institution based entirely on free sharing and trust. Without spending a cent, you have access to hundreds of books, and what’s
Rocket Mass Heaters: What Are they, How They Work, And Photos
Rocket Mass
Eating Acorns: From Foraging To Cooking & Recipes
The first summer my family and I moved to our homestead, we were not able to get a garden into the rocky, wild ground, but somehow we had a fantastic fall harvest and started accumulating jars of dry goods from the plenty. How was this possible? One surprising word… acorns.
Masonry Cook Stoves: How They Work And Photos
When most Americans think of a stove, they think of a collection of heating elements that sits atop an oven. In modern times, this stove and oven combination is usually a box made out of thin sheet metal and is powered by either electrical energy or gas (natural gas or propane). However, this is not
4 Reasons Why Snakes on Your Homestead Aren’t a Bad Thing
“Found a big ol’ snake last week.” Now, I typically mind my own business at the laundromat, but I can’t help but overhear the conversations happening right next to me. The man to my right was folding towels, chewin’ the fat with someone he obviously knew well. “Lopped that head cleeeeean off, garden hoe.” He
Masonry Heaters: Benefits, How They Work, And Photos
When you think of heating with fire, the first image that might leap to your mind is a crackling wood stove, the mainstay of cozy homesteading living rooms everywhere. But despite it’s current ubiquity in back-to-the-land imagery, the wood stove is a relatively recent invention, having been invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742. If you
Foraging for Violets
The rhyme says that April showers bring May flowers, but the experienced forager knows that March rains bring violets. The revision doesn’t have the same lyrical flow (or cheesy, following historical joke), but for those hankering for fresh greens after a long, cold, winter, poetry is found in leaves, not words. Furthermore, violets aren’t only
Homesteading Myths: 6 Things That Pop Culture Gets Wrong
I don’t expect the pop culture version of the world to bear much resemblance to the real thing. It exists to distract and entertain, of course, and in doing so, must grab our attention for as long as possible and by any means necessary. But even when we admit our disbelief is suspended (as we
10 Unexpectedly Edible Leaves in Your Garden
The resourceful and knowledgeable homesteader knows that there’s plenty of food to be grown overhead and underfoot. But there’s an unexpected cache of food that often goes unnoticed — the leaves of more plants than you may guess! We’re accustomed to eating lettuce leaves and kale leaves, of course, but you can also harvest greens
Foraging for Brambleberries
This is an open letter to the brambleberries of the world, particularly those blackberries growing along the edge of my ravine. Dearest Brambleberries: It is with great perplexity that I write to you. There is an understanding between berrykind and humankind that has endured for thousands of years. You produce delicious, sweet fruit. We eat
Foraging for Plantain
Children pick these leaves out of the lawn in idle fidgeting. The plants crowd edges of streets and sidewalks. Counselors fashioned tiny boats from them at summer camp — with an acorn cap as hull and the omnipresent leaves for sails. They’re at your doorstop, the edges of your garden, and in the park. Watch
Feel-Better Remedies and Recipes for Sick Days
You first feel it with that tickle in the back of your throat. Maybe you ignore it. Maybe you pretend to ignore it because you have things to do — then by evening, the tickle feels like someone took sandpaper to your trachea. Your head is pounding, and you feel chilled. It’s obvious you’re coming
11 Plants To Consider For Fall Planting
As mentioned in an earlier article, this summer, rife with a serious drought and unrelenting heat waves, kicked my garden’s collective butt. Even though I did my best to distribute the precious cache of off-grid water, it largely did no good. I learned this year (the hard way) that plants simply shut down when temperatures
How to Reduce Food Waste
Like many other college students (back in the day), I was a summer camp counselor. Though I loved the job, there was one specific task I absolutely hated. It wasn’t the cheesy skits, it wasn’t dealing with sleepwalking campers, and it wasn’t screaming those stupid camp songs for the 10 thousandth time. It was cleaning
Growing Spinach
Originally hailing from 4th-century Persia, Spinacia Oleracea or spinach has a long and storied past as a health tonic, a poor man’s food, a favorite of big-forearmed sailor men, and a choice food of health gurus. We are constantly hearing about how important it is to eat your leafy greens, and for good reason—they’re fantastic
14 More Tough Plants That Can Survive Drought
This summer has been unusually hot (in case you haven’t noticed). In my part of the Ozarks, it’s been bone dry to boot. That deadly combination of searing heat and clear skies has sent my state and many others into a serious drought that ceaselessly claimed vegetal casualties. Though many of us tried to water
Foraging for Wild Tea
Tea is a simple infusion of plant material in hot water, yet somehow, it’s a lot more than that. It can be culture, conversation, or comfort. You can spend your money on tea and tea paraphernalia, if you want. But if you don’t, you can also get yourself a flavorful cuppa for the price of
Growing Squash
Take a glance at anyone’s backyard garden. No matter where you go, you’ll likely find a squash plant growing. There’s something about these easy-to-grow and generous plants that demand a place in your garden bed — wherever you can manage to fit it in. So whether you grow succulent zucchinis and crookneck varieties for summer
How to Grind Different Grains Into Flour
Store-bought flour can leave a lot to be desired. Have you ever researched exactly what happens to turn whole wheat grain into the pale, satin-smooth dust that you buy in those paper cuboids? Nutritionally speaking, it ain’t pretty. After being smashed, heated, sifted, bleached, oxidized, sprayed with government-approved approximations of the nutrients that were removed
10 Answers to Your Beginner Goat Questions
It’s time for another installment in our series of articles where you ask us questions and we do our best to give you good answers. The theme of today’s series: Goats! It seems you all have tons of questions about these capricious caprines, and rightly so — they’re interesting, useful, and personable members of any
8 Gardening Mistakes That Are Easy to Make and Easy to Fix
We all make gardening mistakes, especially when we’re attempting something new like going back to the land and growing our own food. But when you take to social media for a bit of solace, it won’t be long until the motivational, cliched, inspirational quotes appear — emblazoned over stock images of garden landscapes seeking to
Growing Rhubarb
Rhubarb pie does eternal battle with apple in my heart — each of them vying to reign as favorite. But I have to admit, there’s something about the tart-sweet of rhubarb that demands attention, and piques longing when it’s not there. I can’t be alone in this appreciation for rhubarb dessert. It wasn’t called “pie
10 Off-Grid Projects You Can Finish This Weekend
Going off-grid is a huge endeavor and one that could take years to accomplish as you search for land, make the move, and set up your self-reliant system. If you’re just getting started, it can seem like an insurmountable task to think about all that needs to be done. And if you don’t have your
Foraging for Dock
There are several plants that have become all but invisible due to their sheer ubiquity and the fact they can grow in less-than-desirable places. Watch the video: Dock is one of those plants – a colonizer of empty lots, a squatter in industrial gravel piles, roadside inhabitant, and pasture weed. For years, its subliminal association
Traditional Lawns: Their Environmental Harm & Practical Replacements
Lawns, as we know them, have held their landscaping tyranny over our yards for far too long. Backed by out-of-touch homeowners associations (HOAs), zoning requirements, cultural expectations, and longstanding history of conformity, lawns have kept too many of us out spraying, mowing, reseeding, and weeding for no good reason. It’s time for a change. Watch
Raising Pekin Ducks
When you think “duck” what image do you see? I bet for a majority of people, the endearingly chubby, orange-billed and white-feathered barnyard duck leaps (or rather waddles) into your mind’s eye. That duck is the Pekin. This duck breed is by far the most popular of the domesticated duck breeds, and its popularity has
21 Essential Off-Grid Tools We Love
We recently asked our Insteading Community and YouTube viewers if they had any questions about homesteading that we might answer. You all replied with some great questions, and gave us a lot of ideas on material we can pull together to help you! Watch The Video So for our first installment in what we hope
Getting Started With Self-Sufficient Living (And Why It IS Possible)
Self-sufficiency. What other term in the homesteading sphere carries such a weight of history, responsibility, and hope? Watch The Video Visions of lush, productive gardens, cozy wood stoves crackling with hand-split hardwood, provisions lining the pantry shelves, and healthy animals moving through the fields; all dance in our heads backed by the resounding questions: Is
Different Ways to Cook Wild Greens
One of the delights of foraging is realizing just how much food is –quite literally –beneath your feet. It can be exhilarating to go out into the field or forest with a basket in hand, and return with free berries, nuts, and more greens than you can shake a stick at. Watch The Video But
How to Pay Off Debt by Thinking Like a Homesteader: 20 Practical Ideas to Try
When you have the burden of debt hanging over your life, you don’t feel free. Living paycheck-to-paycheck, coasting by on minimum payments, and playing hot potato with your credit cards is not the way anyone wants to live. Watch The Video It can feel like you’re stuck in a dead end rut, working hard at
How To Make Soy Milk
Back when I lived in the city, well before there were dairy goats in my barn, I had an automatic soy milk maker. I lived in an area where raw milk was (frustratingly) illegal, organic milk was really expensive, and store-bought soy milk had too many additives, so the machine gave me some sense of
6 Different Ways To Use Thinnings and Scraps
When you start gardening, you start the process of raising your own food from the soil and cooking meals you grew with your own hands. It’s an amazing feeling, but as you begin to read gardening manuals and cookbooks to expand your skill set, you’ll come across phrases that make the hairs on the back
5 Goat Fencing Options And Details To Consider
Among goat owners, there’s a well-known saying: “A fence that won’t hold water won’t hold a goat.” And though that hyperbole may seem extreme … it’s certainly proven true by the generations of goat-escapees that have tested the patience of their fence-builders. I think it’s also safe to say there is no one perfect solution for comfortably containing
