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
Off-Grid Heating Options & Alternatives
Last month, we debuted the first post in our series of Homesteading Questions and Answers. As we get questions from you, we try to formulate the best possible answers to help you on your adventure. This month is all about off-grid heating options. Sarah wants to know about “Heat alternatives that don’t require the grid,
10 Ground Cover Plants to Replace Your Grass Lawn
Though it’s outside, there’s really nothing all that natural about the picture-perfect lawn. Artificially grown, watered, fertilized, and maintained, it’s a strange picture of modernity. We’ve made our case against the “normal” patch of featureless fescue, and if you agree with us, perhaps you’re ready to change up the backyard for something new and less
5 DIY Composting Toilet Ideas And Details To Consider
Most of us were raised on flush toilets. You go in the bathroom, do what you’ve got to do, and then the press of a shiny lever flushes all your unpleasantries into oblivion, never to be thought of again. But that modern luxury — and it is a luxury — is something that many of
8 Mistakes to Avoid as a New Homesteader
If you’re a new homesteader on new land, you’re in an interesting place. You’ve probably just left everything in the city, your job, your friends, your family, your inherited way of life, to start over in the country. And, like earlier generations of back-to-the-landers, you may not really know what you are doing, have had
Raising Cayuga Ducks
Though it was hardly a masculine name, I couldn’t help but refer to our male Cayuga as “Lisa Frank Duck.” He may have looked like a simple black duck in the shadows, but as soon as he waddled into a shaft of sunlight, a dazzling array of rainbow hues burst across his glossy feathers. And
8 Winter Vegetables You Should Plant In Your Garden
August rolls around, and lots of us start looking at the garden with a sad sigh. The cucumbers are petering out. The tomatoes are still going strong, but the first frost (is it really looming already?) will wipe them (and the okra) from the plot until next year. The summer squash is gangly and tired, and
Raising Muscovy Ducks And Why You Probably Want Them
With their clawed feet, bizarre-looking caruncles, mohawk-like crest, and lack of quack, Muscovy ducks don’t quite fit the “bill” (if you pardon the pun) for what you might consider a “normal” duck. But on our homestead, these are the only ducks we want to keep because they have won our hearts with both their utility
10 Considerations For Your Backyard Duck Coop
When it comes to barnyard livestock, ducks are probably the easiest-going of the bunch. When there is a slight drizzle, the goats complain and run into the barn. When the north wind blows ice crystals across the fields, your chickens are floofed-up and hiding in the coop. Meanwhile, the ducks are blithely waddling across slush
Ground Rules for Foraging Safely
Foraging is more than a hobby. It’s a means of sustenance, and for some of us, it really is a way of life. Pretty much everyone has an idea that some wild plants are edible whether they work in a city high-rise or hoe weeds on the farm. Even in this strange modern age, many
Healthy Homemade Homestead Snacks
Sometimes, you just get a hankering for something salty and crunchy. Usually, that itch is scratched with a snack from a shiny, throwaway bag that has more multisyllabic chemical ingredients than there should be. But on a homestead seeking both a healthier lifestyle and a less wasteful existence, those Bag O’Salt crunchies really shouldn’t have
Foraging for Pokeweed
Elvis sang about it. Gardeners loathe it. Old-timers grew up on it. Suburban moms are afraid of it and pull it out with gloves … and foragers? They’re inconsistent about it. It’s a miracle cure, a deadly poison, a nutritious food, a pest, a gift. It’s pokeweed! Watch the Video: This hotly contested, rich-historied, delicious
Useful Knots for the Homestead
Once upon a time, there were things that needed to be held in place, tied down, hoisted up, and cinched shut. The humble rope — and the knots it could tie — was the answer to all of these problems and more. Ropes stretched throughout our ancestors’ histories, securing the rigging on a ship, crisscrossing
Foraging for Wild Strawberries
One of my earliest foraging memories is crouching in my childhood backyard. I nudged the leaves of a low-growing plant aside with a tiny, slightly grubby finger — and the white flowers that were there a week ago had changed into dimpled green spheres. I asked my mom, and she said they were strawberries. But
In a Plastic World, Recycling Ain’t What It Used to Be
“They’re saying I haven’t delivered, but it’s not my fault!” I heard Recycling’s sobbing wail, and pulled out a porch chair to sit. “Sheesh, Recycling, what’s this all about?” Recycling sniffled loudly. “I’m not what they think I am. I can only do so much.” PVC pellets started to rain from Recycling’s triangular eyes, scattering
Make Your Own Delicious Sourdough English Muffins
There are many things in this strange world with names that don’t suit them. Jerusalem artichokes are actually a sunflower. The peacock mantis shrimp is neither peacock, mantis, nor shrimp. The blindworm is a legless lizard that can see just fine. And don’t even get me started with the lesser broomrape. I don’t know what
How to Make Olive Oil
Olive oil has been an important food source, lamp fuel, religious material, cosmetic, and medicine for thousands of years. More than just a salad topping, olives join wheat and grapes as the core foods of the Mediterranean. In the modern age, it has enjoyed waves of popularity as a health food and DIY ingredient. This
Free Land: Where and How to Find It
Land, free for the taking, just waiting for someone to work hard enough to claim it as their own. Does a sentence like that send shivers of longing and hope down your spine? “But those days are gone” you may concede with a sigh. Gone along with the covered wagon, the real cowboy, and herds
Goat Shelter Basics: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Herd Safe
Goats are remarkably hardy animals. They can survive on forage and browse that would make a cow or sheep’s stomach rumble in discontent, and their clever feet can scamper among rocks, cliffs, and scree that are impassable to even the most surefooted human. For all their apparent toughness to inhospitable environments, however, there is one
How to Protect Plants From Frost: 12 Clever Methods That Work
As winter wanes and patches of bare ground open up in the fields, my green thumb gets crazy-itchy. I am eager to get back in the garden and get my eyes full of living, growing things again. With the season’s change, however, comes the age-old game of chicken that gardeners play with the weather —
Seed Saving: 5 Things I Never Knew
Before I moved to my homestead, I was gifted a huge jar of heirloom seeds by a friend who understood what we were trying to do and had experience in seed saving. I remember dreamily sorting through the tiny baggies of beans, kale, and beets; my inexperience and ignorance of gardening temporarily gilded with happy
How to Turn a Single Chicken Into 5 Delicious Homegrown Meals
For many a homesteader, putting meat on the dinner table is not a simple, thoughtless endeavor. Meat is precious. The chicken we roast for an evening meal isn’t just a random chunk of flesh from the supermarket, but a bird that we carefully raised and protected until the dinner bell tolled. As such, making sure
How to Make Soil Acidic: 3 Natural Methods That Work
When you think of the word “acidic”, what images first spring to mind? Perhaps visions of lemons, vinegar, and upset stomachs — but I will hazard a guess that a pile of soil didn’t join their number. If you’re hoping to grow a bumper crop of blueberries or potatoes, soil acidity and learning how to
Soil pH: What It Is And Why It’s Important
I know, I know, as you’re browsing all the excellent articles on Insteading, you see that this one is about soil pH and you probably want to just gloss on past it. When there are tomatoes to pluck, chickens to chase, and compost to turn, rehashing 9th-grade chemistry terms might seem a bit dry. BUT
A Helpful Homesteader’s Guide to Harvesting Sunflower Seeds
The humongous, cheery blooms of sunflowers, nodding head and shoulders over the garden gate, is a welcome addition to any food plot or house corner. But these sun-following flowers aren’t just for show — they provide protein-rich, delicious seeds for both humans and animals. Here’s our guide for harvesting sunflower seeds as well as cooking
Long Beans: How To Grow, Harvest, and Cook This Delicious Legume
Our first year on the homestead, before we got all our gardens started, we bought the bulk of our fresh produce at the local farmers market. I remember one sunny, late-summer morning when I spied a glossy, purply-green bunch of unbelievably long beans at a vendor’s stall. Generous handfuls of beans were tied in neat
Harvesting Basil: Helpful Tips For How to Harvest and Preserve Basil From Your Garden
Where would we be, culinarily, without the mint family? This gregarious and generous tribe of plants gives us such kitchen stars as thyme, lemon balm, oregano, and of course, the many piquant mints. Vying for prestige as best of the family, however, is probably the large-leaved and aromatic basil. Sweet, spicy, attractive, a pollinator-magnet, a
How To Add Nitrogen To Soil & 5 Natural Methods To Try in Your Garden
When you just start gardening, your knowledge of how to do it may be deceptively simple. Take a seed, put it in some soil, add water, and voila! Couldn’t be easier, right? And while this approach is a wonderful way to start, the beginner may notice that some sprouts do better than others. Surely there’s
Harvesting Lettuce: How to Harvest and Store Lettuce For Fresh & Delicious Garden Salads
Go to any cheap restaurant, and you’ll see a sorry showing of lettuce. It usually is represented in two forms: either a single leaf of romaine, apologetically separating your burger from the bun, or the translucent, colorless chunks of a sodden iceberg that makes up the bulk of the salad you regretfully got instead of
