Chia seeds are nutritional powerhouses and have a huge range of versatility in the kitchen. They are my very favorite seed to use in the kitchen. But what about chia plants? In this article, we’re going to look at how to grow these awesome little plants that are easy to grow and beautiful to look at.
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The Anise Plant
Brooke Medlin is an Ohio horticulturist with experience growing both edible and ornamental plants. She really likes anise and is a fan of the plant’s medicinal and culinary benefits. She also loves its decorative value in the garden. “The plants grow to about 2 feet tall with graceful white umbels and fern-like leaves. I have
7 Fall Vegetables You Should Grow
Fall vegetables offer a bounty of color, flavor, and nutrition. The vegetables that are in season in the fall include pumpkins and squashes of all sorts, cauliflower, potatoes, and hearty greens like collards and kale, which do quite well in cooler weather. Other autumn favorites include carrots, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and gorgeous beets in all
Why Does Organic Seem Larger Than It Is?
For a long time we have been hearing that “Organic is the fastest growing segment of the food industry.” Organic advocates make the claim that Organic could “feed the world” or that it could be “the solution to global warming.” There is definitely enough buzz about Organic to make all of this seem plausible. The popular
10 Steps To Attract Birds In The Winter
Do you want to attract birds in the winter to your homestead landscape? Do you enjoy their sweet sounds and would like to have more feathered friends come to visit? Birds make the garden magically come alive with beauty, color, music, and motion. Read on to learn more about foods that will attract specific birds
Growing Tomatoes
Delicious, versatile, juicy, nothing says summer to me like fresh tomatoes still warm from the sun. As the song goes, “there’s two things money can’t buy: that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” One of the home gardener’s favorite staples is the tomato, but it can be a finicky plant, especially in cooler climates. I’ve grown
10 Bizarre Tomatoes You Can Grow
Tomatoes have come a long way through their agricultural history. From their domestication by the Aztecs to their first transatlantic adventure to Spain; from their bizarre stint as a deadly poison in Great Britain and early America to their present state of eminence in every seed catalogue and garden, human relationships with tomatoes have gone
Growing Parsnips
I find it oddly infuriating when plants are described as old-fashioned — as if a living, growing thing occupies the same category as powder blue tuxedos, platform shoes, or rotary telephones. You’ll often find parsnips described with this unsuitable adjective, but that’s merely because they’re a root vegetable that’s been around and depended on for
10 Greenhouse Plants To Get A Jumpstart On The Gardening Season
When you started gardening, you probably had dreams about all the different plants you’d grow. You imagined heaping piles of tomatoes, cucumbers to make more pickles than you could eat in one winter, and a never-ending supply of bright red bell peppers. If you have a greenhouse, all those dreams can be possible, even if
US Organic Farming: Digging into the Numbers
In 2008, the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the USDA (USDA-NASS) conducted a first-time, in-depth survey of the US organic farming sector. A summary was published in 2010 from which it is possible to see state-by-state and crop-by-crop how many organic acres were harvested, how much they produced, and how much the crop was worth.
Cultivating And Harvesting Wild Rice
Wild rice (Zizania palustris) is known as the “caviar of grains.” Contrary to its name, wild rice is actually the seeds of wetland grass. Other common names include water oats, Canadian rice, marsh oats, and blackbird oats. A native, aquatic, ancient cereal grain that grows in isolated riverbeds, marshes, and shallow lakes across North America, wild
Homestead Stories: Growing Vegetables Indoors
The growing season is too short and I long for fresh vegetables year-round. Whilst most supermarkets have fresh produce (at a price depending on where it came from), there’s nothing quite like growing one’s own food, indoors or out, and enjoying the benefits of the harvest. I have had considerable success growing lettuce and herbs
10 Cheap Chicken Feed Ideas For Feeding Your Flock On A Budget
Raising chickens is extremely rewarding, but the costs of commercial feed can add up quickly. If you’re raising just a couple of hens for eggs, you may not mind paying the price for quality feed, but trying to feed a large flock can get expensive fast. Yes, you’ll get eggs and you can sell your eggs
Five Key Limitations of Organic Farming
(updated 8/22/11) Yesterday I posted about what I believe to be the five best things about Organic farming. These are attributes that I seriously believe are good ideas for how we should farm, and ideas that make sense to increasingly bring into mainstream agriculture (more cover cropping, more diverse rotations, more focus on building the
Growing Broom Corn
If you’re getting through the long, dark days of winter reading the seed catalogs and dreaming of having your hands in the dirt, you may want to consider adding some new and visually exciting plants to your homestead landscape. Broom corn fits the bill. Native to Central Africa, broom corn, (Sorghum vulgare) a variety of
Miners Lettuce
Type: Annual Region: Native to Western North America Used For: Food Everyone knows about dandelions and nettle, but North America native Miner’s Lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata, is also an excellent wild food in temperate climates. This is my absolute favorite wild green. So-called because it supposedly saved miners from scurvy during the California Gold Rush, Miner’s
Can I Compost Weeds?
Learn the best methods for composting both weeds, the optimal composting conditions, and alternative options if composting isn’t feasible.
Companion Planting For Beets
Do you want to improve the health and yield of your beet crop? Companion planting might be the answer. Companion planting is a time-tested, organic gardening method of planting compatible plants in close proximity to each other so that each may benefit from the other. Companion plants provide shade and shelter, control weeds, enrich the
Winter Foraging: 20+ Edible Greens, Nuts, Seeds, and Fruits to Forage For in Cold Weather
Foraging food and medicinal plants at temperatures below 30 degrees Fahrenheit may seem impossible, but you simply need some knowledge and know-how. Watch The Video Of course, winter foraging isn’t going to bring home the bounty that you find during the warmer seasons, but there is still a lot of beautiful goodness to be found,
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
10 Fast-Growing Vegetables
If you love to garden, but live in a region with a short growing season, you can still successfully grow vegetables outdoors in the homestead garden. Fresh scallions, chives, lettuce, spinach, basil, and radishes are all fast-growing veggies that are easy to grow, easy to harvest, and easy to sell as a supplemental cash crop.
Uses And Benefits Of Cover Crops
What Are Cover Crops? Cover crops are planted in rotation with other crops to improve soil health, control erosion and hold nutrients. With the right rotation of cover crops for your climate and soil texture, you can increase your garden’s yield and reduce your environmental footprint. Cover Crops: What Not To Do My first summer
Homestead Stories: The Mighty Apple
Let’s talk about apples. Why apples? Over the past year, I’ve gained insight and appreciation for apples: their history, as a life strategy, in new ways to eat them, and their associated health benefits. The goal of this article is to share this new found interest and recognition, and hopefully, pique similar feelings in others.
12 Vegetables That Can Grow In Shade
Just because your yard, porch, or plot of land is permanently sitting in dappled shade, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on gardening or providing your family with homegrown goodness. Plenty of vegetables are perfectly capable of growing in partial shade. You’d be surprised at just what you CAN grow! Full Sun, Partial
How To Grow Victory Gardens
During both World War I and World War II, people with land (even small parcels) planted victory gardens — also known as war gardens or food gardens for defense. It was a means to feed the family, to supplement the restrictions enforced with rationing, and to ease the food chain. Victory gardens provided people with
Why Did You Think They Were Called “Heirloom Seeds”?
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. These massive food stores, however, depend on a supply chain that is much more fragile than it might appear
How To Grow Sunflowers
I love sunflowers. Sunflowers display a bright splash of cheerful color against the garden fence, they provide an abundant crop of seeds which both our family and the birds enjoy, and they are so easy to grow. It doesn’t matter if you have a green thumb or not. If you can stick a seed in
All About Sage
Experienced homesteaders suggest that if you want to attract birds, bees, butterflies, and wildlife to your rural homestead, plant and grow sage. Sage is a favorite in homestead herb gardens because it is one of the easiest plants to grow. A member of 200 genera and more than 3,200 species of the plant family Lamiaceae,
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
What is Organic Farming?
Organic farming! It’s becoming more and more familiar and popularized these days. Every time you’re at the grocery store, you see two different types of veggie options: organic or nonorganic. What Makes Organic, Organic? Organic farming’s aim is to be environmentally sustainable. To do this, organic farmers utilize methods of pest control and soil fertilizers
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
Homestead Stories: How Does It Grow?
I use a lot of cinnamon when baking. I love the smell it leaves in my cupboard, the aroma that wafts through the house when I’m baking, and of course, the flavor. That said, cinnamon is expensive. I think my last jar cost close to 15.00 USD. I use so much that I always buy
4 Powerful Anti-Inflammatory Plants
Inflammation is a common and seemingly widespread health ailment that many people experience. Most have either heard of or dealt with it, but what is inflammation? And how can we provide ourselves with solutions to help alleviate symptoms associated with it? More specifically, solutions that are beyond stereotypical pain killers (ibuprofen, aspirin, etc.) that aren’t particularly
Tropical Homesteading: How to Harvest Coconut for Fresh Water and Meat
Coconut palms are astoundingly useful to tropical or subtropical homesteaders. They provide everything from wood to medicine to nutritious, high-calorie food. They’re hardy, need minimal to no care, and produce (on average) anywhere from 50-200 coconuts per tree, per year. The icing on the cake? You can process the fruit to make oil, coconut milk,
Pesticide Lobby Bugged by Michelle Obama & White House Organic Garden
Are you worried that an organic garden on the White House grounds might cause some Americans to start eating a wide variety of chemical-free, locally grown produce? The Mid America CropLife Association, a lobbying group for agribusinesses giants, is. Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White
Kitchen Gardening: Sprout Your Own Seeds
Sprouted seeds contain vitamins and calories while bringing a garden to any space. You don’t need special tools or seeds to have a sprout garden either.
Homestead Stories: The Monkey Orchid
If my Insteading readers have been following the orchid stories, you’ll know how much I love this charming plant. There’s my general, informative article on orchids, the unusually-shaped bat flower, and the swaddled babies. I keep finding more orchid varieties as I browse the local nurseries or share my discoveries with friends. I want to
The Five Best Things About Organic Farming
I have posted a number of blogs and documents over the past two years that address some of the common myths about Organic farming. From that, one might conclude that I am “anti-Organic,” which I am not. There are many things about Organic that I have appreciated ever since my grandfather first taught me about
Insteading Giveaway – December 2019
Regardless of whether you had a large harvest of food from the garden this year, or simply found a lot of cucumbers on sale at the grocery store, preserving food is an excellent way to provide yourself with a little more self-sufficiency in the winter months. While canning and dehydrating are common methods of food
32,000 Years and Counting: Re-Seeding the World’s Oldest Plant
Have you ever wondered what grew on the planet before the Ice Age? There must have been plants of some description. How else would the prehistoric creatures have survived? Whatever happened to these plants? Was it the overgrowth of plant life that pushed the planet into ice? Is it possible that some of the plants
Food Companies Fighting GMO Labeling
Washington State’s GMO Labeling Ballot Initiative (I-522) I-522 would have mandated clear labeling of genetically engineered (GE) ingredients on food packages. The initiative was voted on in 2013. It lost, 51% to 49%. Among the companies who fought the labeling requirements, and money they spent on the ‘No on 522’ campaign were: Monsanto: $5,374,411 DuPont: $3,880,159
Growing Peas
Every vegetable that bursts out of the ground is a gift to me. The wispy little feathers of emerging carrots, the blink-and-they’re-there sprouts of lightning-quick radishes, and the first true leaves of a tomato plant — heralding the impatient wait for it to grow and produce the fresh tomatoes of summer. Peas, however, are extra-special.
Growing Asparagus
If you had told my 10-year-old self that I would one day be deeply emotionally invested in growing asparagus, I would have said “Gross!” Love it, or hate it, this early spring crop has a unique place in both the kitchen and the garden. But even after I developed a taste for asparagus, I hesitated
Growing Basil
Nothing adds that je ne sais quoi to a dish like basil. Whether you use it as a garnish, a dried seasoning, or in pesto, basil is delicious. And lucky for us, it’s not hard to grow! Here are some tips and tricks for growing basil. There are dozens of types of basil, from culinary
Josey Baker’s Scrumptious Gluten-Free Bread Recipe
This incredibly delicious, yet incredibly healthy, gluten-free bread recipe comes from Josey Baker Bread, the fun, new eponymous cookbook from the charming San Francisco–bread maker. With thirty-eight core recipes and lots of variations this new cookbook will teach you how to think like a baker!
Growing Swiss Chard
If a garden was a high school movie drama, tomatoes would be the prom queen cheerleader, corn would be the basketball star jock, fennel would be the weird kid who dislocates his fingers and thinks it’s entertaining, and Swiss chard would be the really nice, helpful girl who just isn’t popular. And I think that’s
5 Things You Absolutely Need To Know About GMOs
What’s all the fuss about? Even if you’re out of the loop on the GMO debate, here are five things you want to know about GMOs and the food supply. 1. GMOs are hidden in many foods. It turns out that genetic engineering is used in the production of countless products. For example, additives made from GM
The Scoop on Organic Fertilizer: Is It Right for Your Garden?
Nothing could be simpler, or more complex, than organic fertilizer. Garden stores make it seem like it’s something that you buy in bags. Big Agriculture makes it seem like it’s something that’s less efficient than chemical fertilizers, and therefore useless unless you have a special interest for using it. Online, the options for organic fertilizer
15 Canned Chicken Recipes
Affordable, delicious, convenient, and easy to stack and store, canned chicken is a staple in my pantry. As a high protein, gluten-free, low-calorie snack, canned chicken is a guilt-free meat treat. Low in fat, a 2-ounce serving of canned chicken provides 15 grams of protein and 100 calories. And when it comes to nutrition, canned
Big Vegetables in Small Spaces – How to Start a Container Garden
If you have a deck, porch or even a window sill, you can have a garden. Container gardening can be a great way to start gardening, try something new, out wit predators, or bring kids into gardening. Having a garden, even a modest one, will bring beautiful food to your table and a sense of satisfaction.