Insteading
Homesteading & Sustainability
Thirteen year old Aidan Dwyer was walking in the woods in Upstate New York in the winter and noticed a spiral pattern to tree branches. Aidan realized the tree branches and leaves had a mathematical …
Continue Reading about 13 Year Old Copies Nature to Improve Solar Performance →
If you're new to gardening, planning your garden can be tricky. Depending on where you live, what you're growing, and the space you're working with, your garden can look very different. A …
Continue Reading about Vegetable Garden Planner Creates a Free Custom Plan →
A new washing machine that uses just a cup of water, a pinch of detergent, and about 1,000 small recyclable plastic chips to clean clothes is coming to an appliance store near you, by the end of …
Continue Reading about A Practically Waterless Washing Machine →
Each day we create an excess of waste that builds up in landfills, in our oceans, and in our bodies. Here is the story of our waste. We create a ton of waste everyday, there is no denying that fact. …
From Zac's website: "I started making assemblage artworks of this type in 1999. The artworks are made entirely out of collected junk, found objects, and general trash. I glue the bits of junk to a …
Continue Reading about Upcycled Junk Portraits By Zac Freeman →
Well-sanitized jars are so important for safe fermentation. Here's how to ferment safely with properly sanitized jars. We love our ferments around here. We are big fans of the …
Continue Reading about How to Ferment Safely: Sanitize Those Jars! →
We hear a lot about the benefits of eating seeds. But when it comes to the goodness of chia seeds vs. flax seeds, do you know the differences? I'm learning, and here's what I've discovered. What …
Continue Reading about Chia Seeds Vs. Flax Seeds: What’s the Difference? →
The current 3.3 billion global urban population is expected to grow to 5 billion by 2025. Today our agricultural footprint is the size of South America...what will it be tomorrow? Vertical Farming …
Does your favorite recipe for soup or beans call for chicken broth? You don't have to give it up to live cruelty-free. Use one of these substitutes for chicken broth instead. So many recipes for …
Continue Reading about Eating Vegan: 4 Simple Substitutes for Chicken Broth →
Sandwiches might seem like typical, boring packed-lunch fare, but these vegan sandwiches are far from it! We are so excited to kick off our week of Daily Specials here at Insteading! Today's …
Continue Reading about 10 Delicious Vegan Sandwiches for Back to School →
Nature abstracted. The 37th annual Nikon Small World competition's theme was “Recognizing Excellence in Photography through the Microscope.” Some of the outstanding entries: Mosquito …
Three months ago, I became an urban farmer. Today, our tiny backyard is almost 100% edible — planted with tomatoes, okra, peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, swiss chard, eggplants, radishes, green …
Continue Reading about What, How, and When to Plant Vegetables [Infographic] →
Are you trying to shop waste-free but aren't sure what to do about produce and bulk items? Here are some alternatives to plastic produce bags! I published a piece on my personal blog this morning …
Continue Reading about 3 Alternatives to Plastic Produce Bags →
The Coca-Cola Company claims that the "vast majority" of their drinks are vegan. Is it true? Is Coca-Cola Vegan? While perusing Coca-Cola's UK website the other day, I came across a page on which …
My kids are HARD on my coffee mugs, y'all! I don't know if it's because I'm a mean mom and make them do the dishes (don't feel like you have to make your kids do this, too--mine clearly do a …
Continue Reading about Broken Coffee Mug Planter (and How to Propagate Rosemary) →
It used to be tricky to find vegan restaurants, but thanks to vegan chains like these, finding vegan food is getting easier and easier. Whether you're looking for vegan food on a road trip or …
Continue Reading about 8 Vegan Restaurants: Eating vegan Gets Easier Every Day →
Fluffball and Arrow, our two backyard chickens, are pretty much the greatest pets ever. Chickens are easy. As adult chickens, Fluffball and Arrow have their own coop and yard right next to our …
Continue Reading about You Need Chickens: Backyard Chickens and Why They’re Great →
Apple juice is the quintessential kid's drink, right? It turns out that your child's favorite drink isn't so healthy. I'll be honest here, you guys, when I read a report revealing that apple juice …
Continue Reading about Apple Juice Is Not Healthy For Kids (Or You) →
If you’ve ever come home from work and found your lovely garden wilted, this DIY drip irrigation system might be just the thing for you. Best of all, it costs less than $10. There are a lot of drip …
Continue Reading about DIY Drip Irrigation System Costs Less than $10! →
Since it's October Unprocessed, I thought it would be a good time to look at one of my favorite foods that I think gets a bad rep: tofu. There's a perception that tofu is a highly processed food, but …
Continue Reading about Processed Food vs. Whole Foods: Where does Tofu Stand? →
Most of us in the Western world get the majority of our food from the local grocery store. Generally, they are huge buildings that are stocked with an amazing variety of food from across the planet. …
Continue Reading about Why Did You Think They Were Called “Heirloom Seeds”? →
Bethenny Frankel recently unveiled four new Skinnygirl flavors: Mojito, Sweet ‘n Tart Grapefruit Margarita, Moscato and White Cherry Vodka. And while all of them sound kind of suspect, I am …
Continue Reading about Skinnygirl Exposed (Again): Not-So Naturally Flavored Vodkas →
We met about three years ago, on my birthday. I'd checked out his profile, and knew he was interesting... but I never dreamed how well we'd hit it off! I'll never have a dehydrator-free kitchen again, …
Continue Reading about Top 10 Reasons I Love My Dehydrator! →
I've used a mushroom-growing kit before and seen folks growing mushrooms in those inoculated logs, but over the weekend I stumbled on a different - and versatile! - way to grow mushrooms: in a laundry …
Continue Reading about Spotted: Growing Mushrooms in…a Laundry Basket? →
Ever wondered how barley stacks up nutritionally against brown rice? Here's a side-by-side comparison plus some ideas for how to cook barley. The other night, two moths flew out of our uncooked …
Continue Reading about Barley vs Brown Rice: The Ultimate Smackdown! →
I tossed out a bag of mushy strawberries this evening, damn! Did you know that the average American wastes 40% of the food they purchase? I haven't measured my own waste, but 40% doesn't seem …
Continue Reading about Minimize Food Waste By Storing Food In Your Refrigerator The Right Way →
Detractors frequently demonize the humble soybean. It stands alone in that regard, among its less maligned cousins: no one accuses pinto beans of causing cancer, black beans of causing man-boobs, or …
Continue Reading about Soy — Devil-fruit, or Bean? (Hint: Bean) →
I love simple and easy recipes for fresh produce, so when I came upon this recipe and method for refrigerator pickles I jumped on the pickle bandwagon. I’m new to pickling, but my lemon cucumbers are …
Continue Reading about Easy Lemon Cucumber Refrigerator Pickles →
A rain chain isn't just beautiful. It can help manage water runoff around the home and help mitigate soil erosion and water pollution caused by water pouring out of your gutters. In this video, DIY …
At my permaculture design course last weekend the guest speaker was Douglas Bullock, of the well-known Bullock Brothers Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island. Douglas was lecturing on the …
Pictured Above: Here are our finished raised beds before planting. All together there are 7 beds, all roughly 5' x 9', totalling about 450 sq feet. It's May, and I need to overhaul a large section of …
Continue Reading about How to Build a Raised Bed with Grass Sod Walls →
The earth may be giving, but the winds and the snows often conspire to take away that which the earth gives. So, for thousands of years people have been trying to protect a patch of earth from the …
New United Nation Food and Agriculture report tells us again that eating meat has perhaps the largest negative environmental impact of any human action. And more than half of the world's crops are fed …
Continue Reading about Environmental Impact of Eating Meat →
Like the oyster mushrooms I wrote about in my last post, Chicken of the Woods is another great wild mushroom species for beginning foragers. It's relatively easy to identify, and has only a …
Continue Reading about Hunting for Wild Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms →
Like most green leafy vegetables, pea shoots - the young tendrils and leaves of the garden pea plant - are incredibly nutrient-dense. You can start looking for them at farmers markets or Asian markets …
Continue Reading about Top Ten Pea Shoot Recipes (In Season Now!) →
Second only to "I would die without cheese!" folks ask all the time about where vegans get their protein. For someone accustomed to centering their dinner plate around a piece of animal protein, I …
Continue Reading about Eating Vegan: Where do You Get Your Protein? →
Got a roof? Get a tank! Harvesting rainwater is a great way to conserve this one of the scarcest natural resources and save your dollars in the bargain. An average family uses about 107,000 gallons …
Continue Reading about Reduce Water Waste by Installing a Rainwater Harvesting System →
