“Buzz, buzz, buzz!” My ears perk up at the annoying sound, and my eyes that would much prefer to stay shut, blink open knowing that soon my backyard chickens will be singing their egg song and waking up a small portion of suburbia. I immediately grab whatever mobile device is close at hand and check my email and Facebook--my brain’s daily breakfast. Once my brain has been fed ...
GARDENING
4 Ways To Create A Zen Garden
Creating your very own zen garden is an ideal way to reduce stress, improve your focus, and enjoy a better sense of wellbeing. This post will help you to learn more about zen gardens and creating your own so that you can reap the benefits. image Zen gardens, also sometimes called Japanese rock gardens, appeal to those who like to rake sand and enjoy rock ...
Sprouting Fodder to Boost Protein for Small Livestock
As y'all probably have gathered, I am on a quest to learn how to mix my own feed for my animals. Along with the mixing of the feed, however, there are supplements to give. For instance, goats are prone to copper deficiency, so their diet must be supplemented with goat minerals. Laying chickens need a little bit higher protein diet than most chickens that aren't laying, and ...
How to Store Root Vegetables with No Root Cellar
As gardeners, the goal of growing our own food is to achieve good nutrition by providing enough healthy food to put on the table for the family throughout the year. Most crops are preserved by some sort of food preservation method: canning, dehydrating, freezing, etc. However, if you know how to store root vegetables properly, you can cut out a lot of extra work for ...
How to Use Mint Leaves: 7 Easy No Waste Steps
Springtime is prime time for harvesting herbs for medicines and teas. The temperate weather allows delicate and not-so delicate herbs to grow abundantly in the garden, and plentiful harvests are sure to follow. Mint plants produce and multiply like crazy and trying to figure out all the ways we can use it can be pretty tricky. Here is my 7-step formula on how to use mint ...
More Awesome Tips for a No Waste Produce Harvest
Gardening is a lot of work, and throwing some of the harvest even into the compost pile can feel like a waste! Learning the ways we can use all of the harvest can help us put more food on the shelf, feel good about our food production, and get one step closer to a no waste kitchen. Love finding ways to use up every bit of what you harvest from the garden you work so ...
Preparing Land for Planting Your First Vegetable Garden
People that are new to homesteading often get a bit of a shock when they buy a house with some land because they think that it will be all ready to go once they move in. If you’re lucky, the land may be ready for growing but a lot of the time, it isn’t. Your first big challenge is getting that land ready so you can actually start growing some food out there, and that can be a ...
All The Stuff You Need To Know When Germinating Seeds
Germinating seeds is a tricky business. If you plan on doing it (and being successful), here’s all the stuff you need to know. Wikimedia Commons Always Plant More Seeds Than You Need Nature has a way of disappointing you. You’d like all your seeds to germinate and develop into big, vigorous plants, but that’s rarely how it works in practice. More often than ...
Is It Time To Put The HOME Back In Your Homestead?
A homestead is many things to many people. It’s a source of self-reliance and independence. It’s a return to a healthier and more eco-friendly way of living. It’s an opportunity to ensure that your whole family gets to enjoy living on fresh, organic, home-grown produce. It’s a never-ending quest in which you’re always learning new skills and capabilities. Image by ...
How To Make Your Plants Grow Faster
In the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk, we see the manifestation of an age-old desire: for plants to grow faster. Unlike rabbits that bound around and frogs that hop from one lily to another, plants are among the slower organisms to live with us on Earth. Everything they do is in slow motion, making tortoises look like Olympic sprinters in comparison. Pixabay As ...
Dealing with Unwanted Garden Visitors
When you aim to grow food outside, it is highly likely that you will get some garden visitors. Of course, some of those will be wanted such spiders that eat flies, and ladybugs that eat aphids. However, you are likely to get some that aren't so desirable as well, including raccoons, rats, slugs, and the like. Luckily, you don't have to put up with unwanted garden guests. In ...
Tips for Keeping Your Soil Beds Healthy
Whether you’re an avid gardener or you simply want to put the space outside your house to good use this summer, you’re going to have to be sure of one thing above all else: the health of your soil beds. The ground is where the bulk of our crops are grown, and the Earth provides for us all, so it’s imperative you pay attention to the quality of your soil, and its ongoing needs ...
Kristi has been writing on homesteading topics for years here and at her previous blog, The Mind to Homestead. She has also guest posted at ThePrepperProject.com, From Scratch Magazine, and other sites around the web. Her family lives in Sunny Southern California on a one acre hobby farm where they work diligently to feed themselves by producing their own dairy, eggs, and produce. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and here, at Stone Family Farmstead.