Aged Chicken Manure – What It Is, How to Make It, and How to Use It Safely
If you keep even a handful of hens, you already have a steady supply of what old-timers used to call brown gold. Chicken manure is genuinely one of...
10-10-10 Fertilizer – The Complete Guide
10-10-10 is probably the most recognizable bag on the fertilizer shelf, and also one of the most misunderstood. It gets reached for as a default,...
How to Grow Spinach – The Complete Guide
Spinach is one of the first things I plant every spring, and one of the first things I lose to bolting if I'm not paying attention. It's a fast,...
2,4-D Weed Killer – What It Is, How It Works, and Whether It’s Safe to Use
If you have ever bought a bag of "weed and feed" for your lawn, there is a good chance you already own 2,4-D without realizing it. It is one of the...
Why You Should Bury Your Cotton Underwear in the Garden
You take a look at your garden and it looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The tomatoes are heavy and bright red all the way up the vine. The beans have run to the...
Never Plant These Vegetables in a Container or Bucket
Maybe your garden is small. Maybe the only decent soil on your place sits in the wrong spot, or you're renting, or your back isn't up for digging...
Foods That Grow Under Snow – A Homesteader’s Guide to Winter Harvests
The first winter I left carrots in the ground past the first snowfall, I figured I had just lost the crop. I was wrong. When I finally dug through...
How Are Cover Crops a Good Solution? A Homesteader’s Guide
I used to leave my garden beds bare all winter, figuring the soil just needed a rest between seasons. What I actually got was compacted, weedy,...
How to Grow Sunflowers from Sunflower Seeds (Complete Guide)
Every summer I plant a row of sunflowers along the south fence of my garden, mostly because nothing else gives me this much payoff for this little...
Bee Balm – How to Grow, Harvest, and Use It On Your Homestead
I put my first bee balm in the ground along the edge of my herb beds mostly because I wanted more pollinators around the vegetable garden, and it...
These 10 Watering Mistakes Waste 50% of Your Water
There’s a high chance you water the garden, walk away, and maybe think the job's done. But a lot of the water you use never gets near a root because...
Organic Weed Killer – The Complete Guide to Every Method That Actually Works
I gave up on chemical weed killers years ago, not because of any single scary headline, but because I did not want that stuff anywhere near the...
How to Grow Bell Peppers – The Complete Guide From Seed to Harvest
Bell peppers earn their spot in my garden every single year, and if you have ever paid grocery store prices for a bag of three peppers, you already...
Planning a Cottage Garden – A Practical Guide from My Own Backyard
When I started planning my own cottage garden, I made every mistake you can make with a wheelbarrow and a stack of seed packets. I bought plants...
Calendula Oil – How I Make It and Use It
Calendula is one of the first things I planted when I started my homestead garden, and it's never left. It reseeds itself, it keeps blooming from...
Why Your Garden Wilts in July Even When You Water Every Day
It’s such a beautiful summer day and first thing in the morning, you walk into the garden to see what’s happening over there. Everything seems fine,...
Seaweed Fertilizer – The Complete Guide to Feeding Your Garden with Ocean Nutrients
The first time I hauled a feed sack of storm-tossed kelp up from the tideline, my neighbor asked if I'd lost my mind. Two months later, when my...
Glyphosate Herbicide Weed Killer – What You Need to Know
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many of the most widely used weed killers on the market, most famously Roundup. It is a broad spectrum, non...
Spider Pest Control – A Complete Guide to Managing Spiders Indoors, Outdoors, and on the Homestead
Spiders occupy a genuinely complicated position in the homesteader's world. They are, by any practical measure, some of your most valuable allies...
How to Get Rid of Poison Ivy for Good, Without Chemicals
You pulled it last summer and you were sure you got it. Then this spring it came right back up along the fence line like nothing ever happened, and...
What to Grow in a Greenhouse – A Complete Homesteader’s Guide to Year-Round Production
A greenhouse changes what is possible on a homestead in ways that a good outdoor garden never quite can. You are no longer entirely at the mercy of...
