Why You Should Put Plastic Forks In Your Vegetable Garden
Food gardens have been an existing self-provisioning practice in families for centuries now. Since their first appearance in the urban context in 1760, it has only been gaining more popularity and importance. During the first world war when the government encouraged...
Blue Milk
As more and more people acknowledge the importance of a healthy lifestyle and a good diet, a certain superfood has made its way into the spotlight. It’s called blue spirulina, and not only is it really cool to look at, but it’s incredibly high in essential nutrients...
How To Spot Fake Cheese
Cheese used to be simple. Milk, salt, time, and care. Today, many products sold as “cheese” barely resemble it. They melt strangely, taste flat, and leave a waxy feeling behind. Most people sense something is off, even if they cannot explain why. Learning to spot fake...
9 Better Winter Insulators Than Foam
You've probably installed foam insulation because every building supply store pushes it first. I did the same thing on my barn renovation five years ago. The R-value charts convinced me, and the installation went fast. Then problems started showing up. The foam...
Homemade Medicinal Nettle Soap (Step By Step Recipe)
Stop uprooting Nettles! You probably remember just how much it stings, but did you know what it can actually do to your skin? Rich in silica, magnesium, chlorophyll, and trace minerals, nettle supports circulation, soothes dryness, and strengthens both hair and nails....
7 Medicinal Seeds You Need to Start Stockpiling
Let’s face it, when a disaster strikes, you can’t always rely on your local pharmacy being open or well-stocked. But what if you had a mini pharmacy growing right in your backyard? Sounds a bit far-fetched, right? Actually, it’s not. Stockpiling medicinal seeds is one...
Bury These 8 Items Before The Next Crisis
When the world seems to turn upside down, having a secure backup plan is not just smart—it’s crucial for survival. Looters, desperate neighbors, and even authorities can quickly become a threat to your hard-earned supplies post-SHTF. One of the best ways to keep your...
Add These to Your Pantry While You Can Still Afford Them
If recent years have taught us anything, it’s that the supply chain stability we rely on every day can be disrupted overnight. Whether it’s inflation, shipping logistics problems, ships hitting bridges, trade wars, supply chain breakdowns, or global or natural...
The Natural Garden Booster Hidden in Most American Kitchens
You just cooked and drained a pot of cloudy water into your sink. Maybe you do this three times a week. After cooking dinner, prepping food, or boiling vegetables. Most of us do. If you're running a tight homestead, you might even pride yourself on zero-waste...
20 Plants That Attract Birds to Your Garden
I used to spend two weeks hand-picking tomato hornworms off my plants every morning. My back ached. My patience wore thin. Then I noticed a Carolina wren working the same row I'd just finished. She was pulling caterpillars I'd completely missed from underneath leaves....
How to Keep a Greenhouse Cool in Summer Without Electricity
Knowing how to keep a greenhouse cool in summer is one of the biggest challenges for gardeners who rely on passive growing systems. Greenhouses are excellent at trapping heat, but during summer months that same benefit can quickly turn into a problem. If temperatures...
Do This Immediately Before You Start Composting
Most avid gardeners have a compost heap. It’s an ideal way to add rich nutrients to garden soil. But there’s more to composting than just piling on a bunch of grass clippings, kitchen scraps and pulled weeds. The fact of the matter is that a successful compost heap is...
RM43 Weed Killer – What It Does And Why Many Homesteads Are Choosing Another Path
There is a moment every gardener reaches when weeds feel relentless. Paths disappear, fence lines creep inward, and carefully tended spaces begin to feel overtaken. It’s often at that point that people hear about RM43 weed killer, a product known for its strength and...
Medicines With Natural Alternatives You Don’t Need To Stockpile
Being prepared means being ready for anything – and that includes medical problems. Without access to the modern healthcare system, in a crisis your first line of defense will be whatever medications you have stockpiled. The problem is medicines can be expensive, or...
67 Methods to Get Rid Of Weeds Naturally
Weeds usually appear because of compacted ground, exposed soil, or imbalanced growing conditions. And the fastest way to get rid of them is to use chemical herbicides. But before they were invented, people relied on healthy soil practices, steady maintenance, careful...
Replace Your Harmful Pesticides With THIS
Weeds actively compete for water, sunlight, and minerals your crops need to grow strong. Left alone, they weaken your plants, reduce yields, and turn good soil into infertile soil. If you want your harvest to be as it should, plentiful, you have to deal with weeds....
Hurricane Ties: The Complete Guide to Protecting Your Home
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew tore through South Florida with winds exceeding 165 mph. When the devastation cleared, investigators made a shocking discovery: thousands of homes lost their roofs not because the roofing materials failed, but because the roofs were never...
9 Practical Toilet Paper Alternatives for Emergencies and Off-Grid Living
Take a second and try to remember the last time you thought about toilet paper. Probably your answer is “not that recently,” and this is totally understandable. Most of us take toilet paper for granted until it’s suddenly unavailable. That’s why you should be aware of...
This DIY ‘Ghost Fence’ Works Better Than Electric Fencing – With No Power Needed
If you’ve never heard of a ghost fence, that’s no surprise. Most fences are defined by barbed wire, chain links, or are electrified. They’re all relatively expensive and require varying degrees of maintenance. In the case of electrified fences, they’re not only...
7 Amish Blacksmithing Skills That Will Save You $500 a Year
Blacksmithing is a skill that the Amish have embraced for centuries. It’s one of the key skills that enables their self-sufficiency and provides resources from the home to the barn to the farms and fields. It’s a simple craft and the primary tools include an anvil, a...
DIY Herbal First Aid Kit
Let’s face it: no one ever plans to cut their hand while doing household tasks, come down with a nasty cough after a weekend trip, or wake up with a bloated stomach and no idea what triggered it. But it happens. And when it does, it’s better to be ready with something...
10 Ingenious Uses for Flour Around Your Home
Usually when we think of flour we think of bread, biscuits, pie crusts and cookies. But flour has some surprising characteristics that lend it to other uses. On the one hand, it’s a mild abrasive. On the other hand, it acts as a lubricating powder. When added to water...
The Pioneer Way to Dig a Well by Hand (No Equipment Needed)
Water is survival. Without it, even the toughest homestead will fail at some point. Long before power drills or modern rigs, pioneers dug wells with nothing but shovels, and you can too. Forget waiting on contractors or pricey equipment. In this guide, I’ll show you...
How To Start Your Own Apothecary in a Small Space
For years, I prepared medicinal herbs on the kitchen counter between baking bread and washing dishes. It was inefficient and risked cross-contamination. I needed a dedicated apothecary—a small space reserved for preparing and storing plant-based remedies. Think of it...
Homemade Bagel Recipe – The Traditional Method, Proper Texture, and Why It Still Matters
Bagels are one of those foods that appear deceptively simple. Flour, water, yeast, salt. Nothing exotic. Yet anyone who has attempted a proper homemade bagel recipe quickly discovers the truth: bagels are not just bread with a hole. Traditional bagels are defined by...
This 200-Year-Old Trick Keeps Meat Fresh Without Salt, Smoke, or Refrigeration
Back in 2003, a historical society in Lancaster County stumbled upon something strange during an estate sale. Down in a farmhouse basement, they found a sealed crock. Inside? Pork preserved in lard, probably from the 1940s, based on the newspaper covering the top....
Freeze Dryer vs Dehydrator – Choosing the Right Tool for a Self-Sufficient Home
When you begin preserving your own food, it’s natural to wonder which tools truly belong in your home. Two names come up again and again: freeze dryers and dehydrators. Both promise long-lasting food. Both are used by homesteaders, gardeners, and families focused on...
Cowboy Candy Pickled Eggs
I still have the photo of our first egg. We keep chickens in a suburban backyard, and we fought for the right to do that. The photo is of my son holding a single egg in his two little hands. All these years later the humble egg has become one of my favorite foods, an...
How to Make a Perfect Bee Pollen Smoothie
Bee pollen has earned its reputation as one of nature’s most concentrated foods. Collected by bees from flowering plants, it contains a unique mix of carbohydrates, amino acids, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. When used correctly, it can be an excellent...
Have You Been Using Fake Honey?
If you think honey is your health’s ally, today's article might come as a shock to you. Do you know those little plastic honey bear recipients on supermarket shelves? They might contain nothing but high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors,...
$0 Bill Full Meal
If the grid went down tonight, how many of us could still cook a proper meal? Most people wouldn’t last a day without power or fuel. Put those together, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Matter of fact, you don’t even...
Shelf-Stable Foods That Kept Coal Miners Alive During the Great Depression
When the Great Depression struck, coal miners and their families were among the hardest hit. With their paychecks slashed and the mines shutting down without warning, putting food on the table became a daily battle. Every meal was uncertain, and survival often came...
Varroa Mites: The Silent Threat Destroying Backyard Beehives
Beekeeping is one of the most rewarding self-sufficiency skills you can develop. Bees support pollination, food production, and honey harvesting. But there is one threat responsible for collapsing more hives than nearly any other problem. Varroa mites. If you keep...
7 Low-Maintenance Animals That Thrive on Small Homesteads (Best Choices for Limited Space)
One of the common activities that defines a homestead is animal husbandry. But raising animals can be a challenge if space is limited for any variety of reasons. Fortunately, there are numerous farm animals that can live and grow in a very healthy way in limited...
What Do Pigs Eat? A Practical Guide for Healthy, Happy Animals
If you’ve ever raised pigs or thought about adding them to your homestead, one question always comes up early: what do pigs eat to stay healthy, productive, and content? Pigs are known for eating almost anything, but that reputation can be misleading. While they can...
10 Things I Wish I Knew About My Chickens Before Spring
Spring is a special time of year for chickens. Everything seems to explode all at once, from egg surges to a hormone, broodiness, and highly territorial roosters. The commonsense step is to be prepared for what’s to come. Assuming, of course, you know what's coming....
Build a Self-Cleaning Chicken Coop
The recent spike in the cost of eggs has led a lot of people to construct a chicken coop and raise chickens for the first time. There’s plenty of information on the Internet about how to build a coop or buy one, and how to raise chickens. What some people don’t...
Can Chickens Eat Carrots?
When you raise chickens, you quickly learn that a healthy flock starts with a varied diet. Fresh kitchen scraps can be a wonderful supplement to their grain, especially when those scraps come straight from the garden. Among the most common vegetables to find in the...
Is Rabbit Manure a Good Fertilizer?
Gardeners have used animal manure to enrich soil for centuries, but not all manures behave the same. Rabbit manure stands out as one of the most valuable and beginner friendly fertilizers you can add to your garden. It is naturally balanced, rich in nutrients, and...
Livestock Guardian Dogs: The Silent Protectors Every Homestead Needs
Livestock guardian dogs have been part of traditional farming for thousands of years, and for good reason. Long before modern fencing, alarms, or surveillance existed, a well-trained guardian dog was the only line of defense between a shepherd’s animals and the wild...
Why Homesteaders are Hanging Empty Jars on Trees
Homesteaders have been hanging jars in trees for centuries, Some of the traditions were based on superstition. It was the idea that evil spirits would be captured in the empty jars in the tree. What they did with the evil spirits in the jar after capture is a mystery...
7 Surprising Uses Of Hydrogen Peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is one of those household staples that often sits unnoticed on a shelf, waiting for the rare scraped knee or small cut. Many of us remember its gentle fizz from childhood. Yet this simple solution has long served people in ways that reach far beyond...
Aluminum Foil for Faraday Cage
In uncertain times, many people quietly look for simple ways to protect the tools and devices they rely on every day. One question that often comes up is whether aluminum foil can be used for a Faraday cage. The idea may sound surprisingly simple, but it comes from...
Life Hacks Everyone Should Know
There is a certain wisdom hidden in small, everyday solutions. Long before convenience products and specialized tools came along, people learned to observe how things behaved, how heat softened, how moisture traveled, how time changed textures. The life hacks below...
The Hidden Costs of Country Living
The appeal of living in the country is the assumption that life will be simpler and less complicated. That’s true to some degree, but what many learn quickly is that some things actually can get more complicated and far from simple. Most of these factors are driven by...
How To Store Your Dried Plants (For Years)
It’s inevitable that harvest season is always going to provide us with way more fruits, vegetables and herbs than we can use in a week let alone months or maybe even years. This is especially true for herbs, spices and grains. The hard part is often figuring out how...
Why Do Amish Drink Raw Milk?
The Amish are often portrayed as people frozen in time, but that picture misses something important. Their choices are rarely about nostalgia. They’re about function, tradition, and results that have worked for generations. Raw milk is a good example. While most of...
The Hidden Dangers of *Toxic* Woods
When most of us think of trees we think of firewood, fruit and shade. We also take some time to admire the Fall color as some trees lights up in shades of orange, red and yellow. But some trees present something else that we might not recognize. Various compounds in...
How to Make a Dakota Fire Hole That Burns Without Smoke
A good hot fire is essential in survival situations for warmth, sanitizing water, and cooking food. The problem with fire is that both the light and smoke can give away the location of your camp. This is not usually an issue, but you will probably want to hide your...
DIY Non-Toxic Dyes
Long before harsh chemicals came to dominate colors across fabrics and furniture stains, natural sources were used to dye clothing and everything from structures to furniture. If you think about, many fruits, and other natural elements like flowers, spices and even...
10 Medical Home Emergencies and How to Manage Them
What if your body suddenly betrayed you with a raging migraine, a blood sugar crash, or a night you just can’t sleep? When medical help isn’t right around the corner, knowing how to take control can mean the difference between panic and peace of mind. This isn’t about...
You Never Thought You Can Hide These In Plain Sight
Caching isn’t just a survival tactic. It’s a time-tested strategy that has helped humans preserve food and essentials for thousands of years. From Stone Age hunters storing meat underwater to modern homesteaders tucking gear into outbuildings, rock piles, or even...
How to Survive a Flash Flood
You won’t get a warning. That’s what makes flash floods so deadly. One minute, it’s raining hard—and the next, a wall of water is ripping through streets, sweeping away cars, homes, and anything else in its path. These floods kill more people each year than...
How to Sew a Button (and Why You Should Learn It)
In a world where it's easier to toss something out than to fix it, sewing a button might seem like a small, outdated skill, which is why many do not know how to sew a button. But ask anyone who's torn a shirt while traveling, lost a coat button during a winter storm,...
How Does a Faraday Cage Work?
In today’s world, technology is everywhere. From the devices we use daily to the infrastructure that powers our homes, we rely heavily on electronic systems. But what if something went wrong? What if an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or a strong electrical storm could...
10 Common Household Items You’ve Been Using Wrong
Many of us are quick to throw things away. That’s a good thing because clutter is unsightly and an obsession with keeping everything leads to hoarding. But there are many uses for some of those things that we’re quick to dismiss as garbage, or that we simply see as a...
What January Says About Your Homestead
For most of us, January is one of the coldest months of the year. It can make a lot of outdoor activities challenging or at least difficult to accomplish. It’s also a time when clutter, disorganization and occasional chaos seems to take over. The long warm days of...
The Holistic Guide to Wellness: Herbal Protocols for Common Ailments Book Review
When I first received The Holistic Guide to Wellness: Herbal Protocols for Common Ailments, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve seen herbal guides before that are either overwhelming with medical jargon or just a list of recipes with no real structure. This book felt...
DIY Anti-Microbial Laundry Soap
Whenever possible, I try to use a natural product that is safe for me as well as the environment, but finding a detergent that fulfills both criteria can be difficult. So, when it comes to pre-treating stains and hand washing clothes, I prefer to use my DIY...
How to Make a Dakota Fire Hole That Burns Without Smoke
A good hot fire is essential in survival situations for warmth, sanitizing water, and cooking food. The problem with fire is that both the light and smoke can give away the location of your camp. This is not usually an issue, but you will probably want to hide your...
8 Backyard Projects You Can Make on a Budget
For many of us, our backyards represent both a comfortable and functional living space. How much we use that space can be limited by the seasons in some areas, but even in winter there are backyard projects that can extend the time we spend outside behind our homes....
How I Made a Solar Herb Dryer with Scrap Materials
You need a reliable way to preserve your harvest without plugging into the grid. Hanging herbs indoors works sometimes. But it’s slow, risks mold in damp weather, and often loses precious flavor and color. A solar herb dryer solves all of that using free energy from...
DIY Non-Toxic Dyes
Long before harsh chemicals came to dominate colors across fabrics and furniture stains, natural sources were used to dye clothing and everything from structures to furniture. If you think about, many fruits, and other natural elements like flowers, spices and even...
10 Medical Home Emergencies and How to Manage Them
What if your body suddenly betrayed you with a raging migraine, a blood sugar crash, or a night you just can’t sleep? When medical help isn’t right around the corner, knowing how to take control can mean the difference between panic and peace of mind. This isn’t about...
