Sourdough starters used for baking have been around since the cultivation of edible grasses began thousands of years ago. People have been creating healthful and delicious breads of an astounding variety for millennia. It was only after the advent of large-scale industrial baking that instant yeasts (with their quickness and ease of use) asserted themselves as
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Introduction To Integrated Pest Management
There’s one major challenge that applies to all levels of agriculture, from starting a garden to running an orchard, and everything that falls between. It’s a shared challenge that growers face regardless of location, climate, or economic resources. It’s pests – whether it’s weeds, ants, beetles, caterpillars, goats, sheep, cats, or even other humans (the last
13 Beneficial Chicken-Friendly Plants To Grow Next To Coops
If you’ve had chickens for long, you probably have noticed that they eat all day long. They peck and scratch at the soil and eat every last bit of our kitchen scraps and leftovers. Letting your chickens free-range, or giving them access to plenty of natural vegetation and/or rotating their grazing parameters, is the key
Earthbag Homes
Earthbag Construction, Sandbag Buildings
Top 10 Reasons to Live in an Electricity-Free Home (PPB #27)
When I designed my cob house here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage two years ago, I decided that I was going to live without electricity. I had no plans to buy a solar power system or a wind turbine. I was going to make the leap to live electricity-free in my home, in order to live
Chicken Mites
Like many animals, chickens can play host to parasites that live on skin, in feathers, and around their living spaces. One such parasite is Dermanyssus gallinae, the chicken mite, a tiny pest found worldwide, that stresses chickens, reduces egg production, and can also transmit diseases. Finding parasite infestations in your birds is always scary, but
Stinging Nettle: A Medicinal Herb
Stinging nettle (many gardeners’ adversary) can be a powerful medicinal plant. Generally, when we hear a plant name that has the word “sting” in it, the associations aren’t good. May this article broaden our horizons! Stinging nettle has been a staple herb medicine since ancient times, dating all the way back to ancient Egyptians using
Raw Milk
There is nothing more bucolic and familiar in our imagination of a farm than the image of milking a cow by hand into a bucket, and then pouring a glowing glass of milk for two or three smiling children. How charming. How American. There is a serious disconnect between that image and the reality of
How to Grow the Vanilla Plant
Donโt you just love the fragrance and flavor of vanilla? Most folks do. In fact, the United States is the second largest consumer of vanilla per capita worldwide. While much of the world’s vanilla extract is synthetic, gourmet chefs and foodies alike know there is nothing like the flavor of pure, natural vanilla to add
Powdery Mildew: What It Is, How To Identify It, And Treatment Methods
You walk into the garden, wiping sweat from your forehead in the summerโs boggy heat. The peppers are dangling like hidden jewels beneath their glossy leaves. The okra is dazzling with its tropical, hollyhock-like blooms. And the tomatoes are looking fine — even though you flicked a hornworm to your chickens as a treat. But
8 Of The Best Egg Laying Chickens For Daily Farm Fresh Goodness
Fresh eggs, warm from the coop, laid by a contented flock of beautiful birds. Itโs the stuff of self-sufficient dreams, isnโt it? A flock of laying hens is integral to the fabric of the homestead, giving you a wonderful source of nutrition for a small amount of infrastructure and work. But for those who are
How To Get Rid Of Pests In Your Vegetable Garden
Pests can harm your garden, but there are natural solutions available. A new piece of property, fertile soil, and lots of sun and water is all you should need for a successful vegetable garden. However, there are the invasions that you probably didnโt consider. For instance, you have the blue jays that peck mercilessly at
Saws and Their Homestead Uses
Few tools come in as many different shapes and sizes as the humble saw. To the uninitiated, two saws may look the same, and one may even think that any saw can fulfill the duty of another. Trust me, little could be further from the truth. If you have a chance to take a gander
Homesteading Stories: Maple Sugaring
There are a lot of different types of maple trees โ at least 128 species. Some grow better than others. Some are a harder wood, making them ideal for use on bowling alley floors, while others are considered a weed maple because they grow too big, too fast and too soft. Thereโs the silver maple,
Can I Compost Flowers?
Fresh or dried, flowers are more than just their visible beauty. Some flower types can contribute to your compost pile under optimal conditions and correct preparation.
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 ofย satisfaction.
Medicinal Benefits of Paper Birch
โIโd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.โ -Robert Frost
How To Harvest And Transplant Wild Asparagus
Asparagus has gone wild! Foraging for asparagus is easy and fun. When itโs asparagus season, you can dodge the high prices at the supermarket just by going out and harvesting some for yourself. Where To Find Wild Asparagus My favorite spring vegetable is wild in every U.S. state and most of Canada. Asparagus grows wild
Manual Tools for Off-Grid Land
When it comes to living and working on an off-grid homestead, there are a lot of different tasks people need to accomplish. Many of these tasks are in the area of land maintenance. Trust me, if you donโt take care of the land, it will be an overgrown mess in no time flat, and then
10 Heirloom Seeds and Their Strange Histories
Heirloom seeds offer much to the backyard and homestead gardener. They reproduce true-to-type, affording you seed self-sufficiency if you grow and save them from year to year. But for those who love a good story or who really enjoy delving into history, these seeds also offer something for the intellect and curiosity, as well as
How To Make the Most of Garden Failure
โOh, fiddlesticks! Another dratted hornworm has eaten a plant. How exceedingly grumpy I am.โ Youโd correctly guess these were not my exact words as I plucked the corpulent caterpillar from the stick formerly known as a lush jalepeรฑo pepper, but theyโre close enough for this article. I felt an understandable wave of schadenfreude as I
20 Charming Little Free Library Plans
What we all need right now is community. Whether the community you belong to is online, across the country, or right in your own neighborhood, getting to spend time with people who share your interests or hobbies is incredibly special. And if the community that you feel most connected to is your neighborhood, there are
Grinding Your Own Flour
One of my favorite college coffeehouses was across the street from a milling company. I spent many hours sketching and sipping their various brews, the mood-lit ambiance of the cafe constantly underscored by the low hum of unseen machines turning grain into flour. Anyone who parked more than an hour on the that street would
16 Cheap Fence Ideas For The Suburbs And The Country
When buying a new property — whether in the city, suburbs, or country — you may also inherit broken-down, ugly, or absent fences. With a small patch of land, this may lead to privacy concerns. On a larger acreage homestead, bad or nonexistent fencing can lead to problems like your sheep escaping and eating the neighborโs
Beautiful Handmade Wooden Spoons
I’ve been crawling etsy for the past few days looking for a gift and have been amazed by the number of hard-carved wooden spoons that are on the site. Here’s photos of some of the most elaborate wood spoon carvings I’ve come across – click on the photo to see the original listing. These include woods like
20 Smoker Recipes
Heat, air, and smoke. Thereโs something almost primal about the satisfying taste experience of eating food infused with the flavor of wood smoke. As Chef Ben Vaughn says of smoking, โit only takes a little effort to turn the average cut of meat into something spectacular.โ Not just a flavoring technique, smoking is also a
Old Boats Become Furniture
Artlantique Boat Furniture
Cardboard Furniture
Cardboard Reuse — Cardboard Furniture
Salvaged Kitchen Cabinets
Reuse Kitchens
Best Table Saws
If youโre serious about the DIY pact you made with yourself, then itโs time to get a table saw. A table saw makes clean, perfectly straight cuts that your circular saw cannot. A table saw uses the inside edge of its blade and an adjustable fence to guide your work material. This system ensures both
Cob Construction
Cob Under Construction
Rocket Mass Heaters: What Are they, How They Work, And Photos
Rocket Mass
The Basics of Firewood
Of all the ways that we heat our homes, none goes as far back in time as wood. Coal, electricity, and natural gas are all recent newcomers on the block in comparison to wood. Something about the light of a wood fire has always held the hearts of man โ long can you stare into
Wood Stove Decathlon
Wood Stove Decathalon
27 Cheap Lunch Ideas
Whether you have a 9 to 5 job in an office or youโre someone who works from home, your stomach will inevitably start to grumble around midday. As a freelancer, I usually start to get hungry around noon, but I donโt always have a prepared lunch on hand. The best days are those when I
Best Broadfork
Broadforks are garden tools that are a perfect middle ground between a scuffle hoe and a full-on tiller. Theyโre a hand tool, but they can cover plenty of ground. Best of all, broadforks will help you irrigate and aerate your soil without disrupting the delicate biome that makes the difference between good soil and great
Using Straw Bale for Construction
Straw bale construction is a relative newcomer to the world of alternative building methods. It does not have the millennia-long history of cob or adobe, but it certainly has a viable place at the table of natural building methods. Indeed, it has seen a surge in popularity in recent decades, and many people the world
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 doesnโt mean people havenโt 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 Storeyโs Guides to Livestock at their local library, browsing websites like Insteading
BPA Free Cans
List of cans with and without BPA
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
7 Best Veggie Burgers
Best Veggie Burgers
25 Gorgeous DIY Coffee Table Ideas To Build This Weekend
Iโve always thought coffee tables were incredibly overpriced. Most of the time, they consist of a slab of wood, and very few of the more stylish choices offer any significant storage space. Building your own DIY coffee table means you can create a piece of furniture that meets your exact specifications. Canโt find a coffee
Potting Benches
Potting benches are functional pieces of outdoor garden furniture that not only allow you to pot your plants with ease, but offer all sorts of storage for your gardening tools. Cabinets, drawers, and hooks work to keep your tools easily accessible and organized. Once you’ve invested money in high-quality trowels, hand rakes, and pruners, the
Ground Rules for Foraging Safely
Foraging is more than a hobby. Itโs 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
Growing Raspberries
Across the country, market demand for raspberries far exceeds availability and provides an ideal opportunity for homesteaders to cultivate the fruit for local markets as well as home use. A berry patch of an acre or less can provide a significant cash crop with little expense for equipment or supplies. Brambleberry production is ideally suited
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 โ a colonizer of empty lots, a squatter in industrial gravel piles, roadside inhabitant, and pasture weed. For years, its subliminal association
Fork and Spoon Chandeliers
Fork and Spoon Chandeliers
Beer, Wine, And Liquor
Eco Friendly Toys Ages 3-7
Eco Toys Ages 3-7
Black Walnut Trees
The black walnut tree is a part of the tree species Juglandaceae. While theyโre native to some parts of Canada, you will most likely find black walnut trees in the United States. In the states, black walnut trees are found in Georgia, Florida, South Dakota, and Texas. In Canada, you are most likely to see