One of the utility bills that keeps going up (like everything else) is the water bill. People on municipal water sometimes have to wonder when the price hikes will stop. And even if you don’t have municipal water, relying instead on a well pump or other water resources, collecting rainwater is an easy way to have water on hand when and where you need it. And it’s free.

Rainwater collection is a standard practice for people living off-grid and it makes sense following a disaster when power outages can shut down the well pump or the pumps that refill municipal water towers.

The Easiest Way to Collect Rainwater

To collect rainwater, you have to catch and channel the rain. There’s something most people have that makes that easy: your roof. A roof is a large-scale rainwater collector, and as it sheds the rain from your house, it directs it to gutters and downspouts. You don’t have to build a thing; they’re already there.

The Critical Step

There are downspout attachments that will gather water from the downspout and direct it to a hose running into a rainwater collection barrel. The barrels have a screened set of openings on the top.

They usually have a spigot towards the bottom of the barrel for harvesting the water.

Another downspout collector is attached to the bottom of the downspout over the rain barrel. It has a screen to prevent debris from falling into the barrel.

Either way, you’re collecting up to 50 gallons of water every time it rains. You can expand the amount by running the overflow from a barrel into another barrel and as many additional barrels as you choose.

If you don’t have the overflow running to another barrel, you should attach a hose to an outlet that is usually located towards the top of the barrel.

Run the hose to a part of your yard or garden where you could use additional water, like trees or gardens away from the house foundation.

Another overflow option is to connect the overflow hose to a soaker hose. This will distribute the water across a garden or plants and shrubs, once again directing the water to places that benefit from extra watering.

How to Safely Store Rainwater

As I already mentioned, each time it rains, you’ll manage to get around 50 gallons of water. This is a lot and it can easily turn into a problem if you want to keep this water long term. The thing is that you can take advantage of every rain to, let’s say, water your greenhouse or use the water to wash your car, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to store all that water for real emergencies? Maybe you want to be able to use that water in case of a severe drought, or have it there for the next time the taps run dry and the stores are empty. You never know when the grid decides to quit on you and the main resource that will keep you alive is water.

The problem with storing water is the fact that doing this correctly might be kind of tricky. Water on its own doesn’t get bad, but what’s around it does. The water you store picks up all of its problems from the containers you use for storage. Some of the most common problems include algae and bacteria. For example, if you don’t sanitize the container properly and you seal it up, well, you’ve basically sealed up an entire ecosystem that will keep growing and growing and literally destroying your emergency water.

Also, you need to be very careful about the place where you store all of this water, as it’s very sensitive to light and temperature changes.

Then there’s the space problem. Maybe your property doesn’t allow you to store gallons of water in barrels because you don’t have space for a setup like this one.

So, even if you want to be prepared and have an emergency water resource, this might seem impossible because of all these factors that simply make everything more difficult.

Considering that water is the main resource you need to have in case things go sideways, this has been a highly debated subject in the homesteading and prepping communities. This is how the following long term water storage system was born. This is a simple system that was created with the average US citizen in mind. It is meant to help you store considerable quantities of water under proper conditions without having to think about all the problems I listed above.  This is a setup that perfectly fits in any shed, backyard, or apartment.

All you have to do is to follow a simple set of instructions when you decide to build your water storage system. This system can be built using 55-gallon plastic drums, jerry cans, or even soda bottles for those that don’t have enough space. Also, the guide pays careful attention to sanitation so you can be sure that water stays safe to drink.

To this day, this is the most complete solution when it comes to storing water for long term use because it was designed to cover all of the needs related to water storage from containers and storage space, to sanitation and freshness.

👉 Click here to find the whole set of step-by-step instructions

Can You Drink Harvested Rainwater?

Yes, but. You really should filter it and purify it. The rain runs over lots of stuff on the roof, from dust and dirt to bird droppings, pollen, and anything else carried in the wind. The sooner you harvest the water from your barrel for purification, the better. Over time, any bacteria in the barrel will have time to multiply. Boiling for at least 3 minutes is the best bet.

This is one of the best water filters that I used and it’s all DIY. It’s a high-capacity activated charcoal filter that can be easily attached to the system I presented above. But you can also use it independently.

I like this approach the best because over time I used various activated charcoal water filters I bought from Amazon and the main problem with them was that once the filter got old and was not able to clean the water properly, the only solution was to buy a new filter. Doing this over and over again is not sustainable, especially in this economy.

That’s how I decided to go with the DIY approach. Once you build the filter, all you have to do is change the activated charcoal from time to time. But here’s the advantage: one big bag of activated charcoal is $15! You can use this bag for a whole year. If you were to change the filter once every few months, you would pay 1t least $25 on a single filter.

Click here and see how to build your own water filter and never waste money ever again →

The Ideal Use for Harvested Rainwater

Rainwater is naturally soft water (usually). Plants thrive on soft water, so using your collected rainwater for watering a vegetable or flower garden is a great idea. It’s also a great way to water gardens that are far from the home or homestead. Sometimes a hose just isn’t long enough, and your usual option is hauling watering cans of water to remote gardens. A rain barrel next to a shed, barn, or other outbuilding in a remote location can get the water out to the distant gardens.

Another idea is to collect rainwater for chickens or livestock. At times, the coop or pens are some distance from the house and you’re back to hauling the water in buckets. A rain barrel collecting rain runoff from the roof of the coop or pigsty keeps a ready supply on hand. You can even hook up your rain barrel so it automatically refills chicken waterers or watering troughs.

And if you have a greenhouse, the greenhouse roof is perfect for collecting the rain and funneling it into a barrel.

You can even put the barrel inside the greenhouse where it will always be easy to draw some water to keep everything in the greenhouse green.

When There is No Roof

There are times when we don’t have a roof over our heads. A hunting, fishing, or camping trip is one set of examples. Following a disaster or an evacuation is another. At those times, you need to improvise and a tarp or even a Mylar emergency blanket can work in a pinch.

The tarp or Mylar blanket is suspended between 4 trees. It will catch the rain and as it pools in the tarp or Mylar, it will cause it to bow towards the center. You can punch a small hole in the tarp or blanket under this pool and allow the water to drip or drizzle into a bucket.

The good news is that water collected this way is probably purer than water collected from a roof. But birds still cover tree branches with their droppings, so don’t make assumptions and always purify it. And if it’s autumn, you may find that any brown leaves soaking in the rainwater have released some tannins, discoloring the water.

Filter it and purify it and give it a taste. If it tastes off, harvest the rainwater sooner so the leaves don’t have a chance to soak for too long, or clear the leaves out as they accumulate.

One of the most efficient ways to make sure the water you drink is clean is rock boiling. This is a method the pioneers used and it still works as well today.

Click here to see the main 4 methods the survivalists use to purify water in the wild →

If your goal is to fill a 40 to 50 gallon barrel, all you need is a very large tarp and a heavy rain. This can work for those distant or remote gardens we mentioned where you don’t have an outbuilding with a roof. Once again, you’ll be looking for 4 trees that will let you suspend your tarp. If you don’t have the trees or are missing one or two, you can substitute supported poles with guy lines to keep them straight and support the weight of the water while it drains into the barrel.

How to Preserve Water The Amish Way

Ok, now if you want a more professional long term water solution, there’s the Amish way of doing that. This is once again a method that takes literally no space in your backyard because everything is underground. The only disadvantage of this problem is that, compared to the one I mentioned above, this one will never work for those living in apartment buildings.

Why is the Amish method so good for long term storage? They were very well aware of the main problems that make water undrinkable, and they decided to make these problems disappear once and for all. That’s how they took everything underground. Here, there’s no more light that grows algae and the temperature is stable. Also, it takes no space and everything is nicely concealed. This makes it a good strategy when you also want to hide your emergency water.

👉 Click here to get the blueprint for the Amish underground water cisterns project

It’s Easier Than You Think

Give it a try. Get on the Internet and buy a rainwater collection barrel and one of those downspout hookups and start to get some experience with rainwater collection. Over time, the cost of the barrel and downspout hookup could pay for itself. That’s when you can think about adding to the barrels and getting really serious about rainwater collection.

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The post How to Build a DIY Rainwater Collector first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

Flies are by far one of the most annoying thing about summer. No matter where you are, inside the house or outside in the garden, flies are a constant thing. They buzz around your face, they land on food, and they always appear when you think they’re gone. 

But something nobody tells you about them is that flies appear in certain conditions. For example, there are a bunch of items that, if you have them around, flies will be guaranteed. This is what I want to talk about today. I want to tell you exactly what these items are so you can get rid of them ASAP. 

In this article, you’ll find a list of seven common things that attract flies and what you can do about them. 

Let’s start. 

Overripe Fruit

This is a big one because fruits and the hot summer days don’t mix well. If you feel like flies love your house a little bit too much and you keep fruit on the counter, this might be the reason. 

The problem is that summer is also the season when all of your garden blooms at once and this means you’ll probably have a lot of fruits to harvest. This can also attract flies to your garden and yard. If you don’t harvest the fruits and just leave them outside to rot on the ground is what makes your yard a fly magnet. 

And the thing is that it doesn’t take much. One soft banana, a peach that starts to leak, or a tomato that has been sitting a little too long can bring fruit flies into the kitchen. At first, you may only notice one or two. Then, a few days later, they seem to be everywhere.

The flies are drawn to sticky spots, juice drips, and anything sweet that has started to ferment.

What you can do is take a close look at the fruit bowl. Toss anything rotten or leaking. Move ripe fruit to the fridge. Then wipe the counter, the bowl, and the area around it. Even a small sticky patch can keep flies interested.

You can do the same thing in your garden. Make sure you don’t leave anything behind that might pique the interest of the flies. 

Now, if this is the case for you and you are suddenly drowning in fruit because summer has given you a big harvest, there’s a simple solution. There’s no need to leave the fruit to rot when you can make jam or syrup out of it. Or you can simply can them as they are and keep them long term. 

This is what has actually saved me. I had a big harvest of strawberries, cherries, and peaches. I had no idea what to do with them. There were simply too many, and I was not in a position to sell them at that time. Canning them or making jam was the easiest thing to do, but I was skeptical about it because I believed it would take me ages, and I didn’t feel like I had time to spare. 

But it’s not like this. Canning fruit is easier than you might think. Just give it a try. 

I actually wrote an article about this here:

→  The Secret Trick That Cuts Fruit Canning Time in Half

What to do with all that jam

Ok, now if you canned fruits or made jam out of them, you might think you won’t eat that every day. But the idea of these canned fruits is to have them as a treat and also keep them in the pantry for emergencies because they store well for a long time. 

And you can also use them to pair with some good old Johnny Cakes. 

I know what you might be thinking: “What the heck are Johnny Cakes?” At least this was my first reaction when I first heard about them. These are also called jonikin, ashcakes, hoe cakes, cornpones, or mush bread and are basically a flat bread that, instead of wheat flour, uses corn. This gives Johnny Cakes more flavor but at the same time makes them more nutritious. 

These flat breads were one of the foods that saved the lives of American colonists during the Winter of 1621. Food was scarce, but this simple meal was so nourishing that it managed to keep the colonists well fed in their journey. 

I prefer to eat Johnny Cakes for breakfast or dinner and I discovered that adding my homemade jam to them was spectacular. They are simple to make; it takes only 15 minutes, and they are also perfect to take with you on the road. I have to say they are one of the most convenient foods out there. 

👉 If you want to try them yourself, you can find the full recipe here

Kitchen Scraps and Compost Bins

Flies are attracted to smelly things. And if there’s one smelly thing you might have in your home or backyard, that’s for sure the compost bin. 

Fruit peels, vegetable ends, coffee grounds, eggshells, and leftover food all start to smell as they break down. You may not notice it right away, but flies have a special sense when it comes to this; they will smell it for sure. A warm, damp bin with a loose lid gives them exactly what they want.

So what you can do is simple. For the bin you keep inside, empty it often, especially in summer. Rinse it after you dump it. Keep the lid closed tightly. If flies are already bad, keep food scraps in a bag or container in the freezer until you can take them outside.

Do the same kind of check with your outdoor compost pile. If fresh scraps sit uncovered on top, flies will find them. Cover kitchen scraps with dry leaves, straw, shredded cardboard, sawdust, or another dry brown material.

A compost pile should smell earthy, not like old food. If it smells sour or rotten, add more dry material and mix it in. 

Drains and Garbage Disposals

If you clean the counter and toss the fruit but still see tiny flies near the sink, look at the drain.

Drains can hide a lot. Food bits, grease, soap, and grime can stick to the inside of the pipe. Garbage disposals can also hold food under the rubber flap. This gives small flies a place to feed and lay eggs.

This is the reason your sink might look clean, but it still has flies around it. 

When cleaning, don’t rely on bleach alone. It may make the drain smell better for a short time, but it often does not remove the buildup stuck to the pipe.

Use a drain brush or pipe brush and scrub inside the drain. Clean around the garbage disposal opening too. Lift the rubber flap carefully and scrub underneath it if you can. Then rinse with very hot water.

If your pipes are plastic, skip boiling water. Very hot water can damage some plastic pipes.

A dirty drain is easy to miss because you cannot always see the problem. But when flies gather near the sink, it is worth checking.

Also, if you want to clean plastic pipes properly, you can use the same technique homesteaders use to clean plastic blue barrels that they use for long-term water storage. 

This is the safest option when it comes to plastic pipes and once you try it, you can be sure everything is squeaky clean. 

The best thing is that the method is simple and uses stuff you might already have at home. When people need a solution, they become creative and this mentality applies perfect fot this cleaning technique. 

👉 If you want to see how to clean plastic pipes safely and also how to build a long-term water storage system, you can find the whole guide here

Pet Food and Spilled Feed

Pet food bowls and spilled animal feed are another common problem that attracts flies.  

I know that a few pieces of kibble under the bowl may not seem like much. Some grain spilled near the coop may not look like a big deal either. But the issue is that once the feed gets damp, flies will appear quickly. 

What I did is simple. Inside the home, I never leave my cat’s food out for too long. He has specific hours when he gets fed and after that, anything that remains is put up for later or thrown in the trash. Also, make sure you keep bags of feed closed or better pour them into sealed containers.

If you have a barn or a coop, pay attention to the food that contains water. Now, a couple of grains here and there won’t attract flies, but you still clean around once a week. 

Manure and Animal Waste

If you keep chickens, livestock, or even just a dog that uses the yard as a bathroom, this is for sure the number one fly source. Manure is where house flies prefer to lay eggs, and once a pile gets going, the flies get more and more numerous. 

A single female house fly lays a few hundred eggs in her short life, and in warm weather, a new generation can finish growing up in about a week. That means a small fly problem in early June can turn into clouds of them by the Fourth of July if you ignore it. House flies can go from egg to adult in as little as 7 to 10 days in warm weather, according to the University of Florida IFAS Extension.

The fix is simple: take care of the moisture. Flies need wet manure to breed. If you dry the manure out or move it away, the cycle breaks. So, try to clean your coop weekly. Fix leaking waterers fast, since a dripping waterer turns dry bedding into a swamp overnight. Move your manure pile away from the house if you can. Compost it hot, which kills eggs and reduces volume. If you have horses or cattle, drag the pastures so the piles break up and dry in the sun. 

Standing Water and Damp Spots

Standing water gets blamed for mosquitoes, and rightly so. But flies use it too. Drain flies need it to lay eggs. Fruit flies will happily breed in a damp mop or a forgotten sponge sitting next to the sink.

But you should be careful about the sneaky ones too. A saucer under a houseplant that catches water and never gets emptied. A leaky outdoor spigot dribbles all summer. A clogged gutter is dropping water against the side of the house. A pet water bowl that sits with a half inch of stale water in the bottom for days because nobody bothers to dump it.

Take a slow walk around your house and yard with this in mind, and you might be surprised by what you find. Squeeze out wet mops and hang them outside to dry. Toss old sponges. Empty plant saucers after you water. Fix the leaks. Clean the gutters. Every drop of standing water you take away is one less place where flies can lay eggs.

Your Sourdough Starter, Kombucha, and Other Active Ferments

If you have a sourdough starter on the counter, a kombucha jar going on a side table, a sauerkraut crock in the basement, or a brewing bucket in the corner, you might have built something all flies appreciate, something that smells delicious to them. 

Active ferments give off acetic acid and a bit of alcohol while they work. That is the same smell signal a fly gets from a soft banana on the counter. It does not matter to them that the ferment is intentional and clean. The smell pulls them in just as hard.

The classic mistake is covering a ferment with a single layer of cheesecloth and trusting it to keep flies out. It will not. The weave is loose enough that fruit flies walk right through, and once they are inside your starter or your kombucha, you usually have to dump the batch and start over.

So, use a tighter cover. A clean cotton flour-sack towel, a coffee filter, or a piece of fine-weave cheesecloth folded over on itself all work well, secured tight around the rim with a rubber band.

How to Get Rid of Flies

Ok, now that you know what attracts flies to your property, you might also want to know how to get rid of them.

The first thing you can do is take care of all of the things listed in this article. But the problem is that some of the suggestions might sound a little bit unreasonable. For example, you can clean the chicken’s coop or take care of leaking and pooling water, but this will not solve the problem forever. 

As any other living being, flies try to survive and they will find a way to prevail. They can lay eggs in some of the most unexpected places where they can find a little bit of water and if we are real for a second, you can’t really control that. It’s just nature doing what nature does. 

This is why there are so many fly control options out there. But if you take a more careful look at “all of these options,” you might realize that they are truly limited. 

First of all, we have the expensive solutions restaurants use, such as the indoor UV light traps. These are not things most people use, so most of the time they are not really an option. 

Then the most popular one is by far the insecticide spray. But this one only kills flies on contact. And the worst thing about it, besides also being toxic for you and your pets or livestock, is that there is research that shows flies have managed to build resistance against most sprays you find on the market. 

Another common choice is sticky fly ribbons. This is the cheapest option that works. The old-fashioned strips you hang from the ceiling pull flies in and trap them on the glue. They look terrible, but in a kitchen corner or a barn, they catch a steady stream. The only problem with them is that, despite being cheap, you need a lot of them if you have lots of flies flying around. 

So, since I didn’t want to spend my money on sticky fly ribbons all summer long, I decided to see if there’s anything I can do for free at home. This is how I found out about this DIY fly trap. All you need are four items you already have at home and you can set up an effective fly trap. 

The thing with it is that you can scale it. For example, if you want to use it outside, you can simply build it bigger and it will be more suitable for outdoor use. Or you can place it in the barn or chicken coop. 

The trap uses a bait and you can change it depending on the type of flies you want to catch. For fruit flies, you will use vinegar and for house flies, the best thing is a small piece of meat.  Once you build the bait is the only thing you will need to change. But this is far less expensive than buying new sticky strips every week. 

👉 If you want to build this trap and try it yourself, you can see the instructions here.

Final Thoughts

So, a fly problem is a clear indicator that something is happening on your homestead. Most of the time, something that attracts flies is out of control and the easiest way to make them leave your property is to take care of that problem. 

But the reality is that no matter how hard you try, there will still be flies that are more sneaky and for them you can use traps. 

I keep a little trap going on the windowsill behind my sink from late May through October, more out of habit than anything else. Some weeks, it catches a few. Some weeks it sits empty, which is when I know I am keeping up. 

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The post 7 Everyday Things That Attract Flies (Get Rid of Them ASAP) first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

The first time you reach into a nesting box and pull out a blue egg, you stop and stare. I did. It was sitting right there next to the usual brown ones, and the blue color was so clear and so unexpected that I was almost sure something had gone wrong with my hen.

It hadn’t. That blue egg is one of the prettiest surprises a backyard flock can hand you, and there’s a real reason behind it. So I want to walk you through why it happens, which hens give you those eggs, and how to get blue ones if that’s what you’re after. At the end, I’ll show you how to figure out which hen in your flock is laying the blue ones.

What Makes a Blue Egg Blue

Every eggshell starts out white. That’s just the calcium it’s built from. The color comes later, from pigments the hen adds while the egg is still forming inside her.

A brown egg gets its color near the very end, almost like a last coat of paint brushed over the outside of the shell. That’s why a brown egg is still white on the inside when you crack it open.

Blue eggs are different because the pigment gets worked all the way through the shell while it’s being built, instead of going on at the end. So the egg comes out blue outside but also inside. If you crack one open and look at the inside of the shell. It’s blue there too, and that’s the easiest way to tell apart a real blue egg from one that’s only tinted on the surface.

And the pigment itself? It’s the same stuff that gives a healing bruise that greenish color. The hen’s body makes it on its own, and in blue-egg hens, a little of it gets into the shell.

The Strange Reason This Happens 

This is the most surprising part. 

Hens lay blue eggs because… *drum rolls*

It all happens because of an ancient virus. A very long time ago, a harmless virus slipped a tiny piece of itself into the DNA of some chickens, and instead of causing a disaster, that little piece flipped a switch that told the hen’s body to send blue pigment into her eggshells.

The switch got passed down, generation after generation, all the way to the hens in coops today. So every blue egg you’ve ever seen traces back to that one event. And it happened twice, on its own, in two different corners of the world. Once in South America and once in Asia. Two separate weird events, leading to the same strange result.

When you hold a blue egg, you’re holding the tail end of something that happened thousands of years ago.

Now, this was all about a harmless virus, but eggs can also be infected by viruses that can make you sick. Is there a way to recognize an infected egg? If you’re thinking about the color, well, you’re not looking in the right place.

Usually sick eggs come from sick chicken. I’ll leave an image for you to see what a sick chicken looks like. I had no idea about this at first, but someone who grew up on a homestead showed me this photo, and I immediately understood… so if you see a chicken that looks like that, think twice before eating the egg. It might be very bad.

Some chickens seem fine, but if they sit down as you see in the image, stay away! I’ll leave you the resource right here that taught me how to see if a chicken is sick before it lays eggs.

Does the Color Change the Egg Inside?

This is the question most of us have and I want to make things clear from the start. 

No. A blue egg is the same inside as a white or brown one. Same taste, same nutrition, same everything. The shell color only tells you about the hen’s genetics.

It has nothing to do with her health or her feed either. You can’t feed a hen something to turn her eggs blue, and a brown-egg hen will never start laying blue ones no matter how well you treat her. It’s all settled before she even hatches.

So when someone tells you blue eggs are healthier, it’s just misinformation. No matter the color of the shell, the eggs are all the same.

The Coop That Will Make Your Chickens Lay More Eggs

Before I tell you more about what breeds to choose if you want blue eggs, I want to talk a little bit about how to give your chickens the best conditions. After all, this is the only way to boost egg production. 

The #1 cause of a sudden drop in laying is stress. Yes, chickens stress too and this affects how many eggs they lay and also their overall health. This is why you should strive to offer them the most comfortable coop possible. 

Their coop should be designed to meet all their needs, things like enough light, good nest boxes, ventilation without drafts, protection against extreme temperatures, and enough space. I know all of these sound like common sense, but meeting all of these needs is not always that easy. 

For example, hens need around 14 hours of daylight to keep laying steadily, which is why production drops off on its own as the days get short in fall. Yes, you can let them roam free most of the day, but this is mostly possible during spring and summer, depending on where you live. Winter is another story, but they still need all that light even during colder months. 

What you can do

Now, you have two options: you can buy an already built coop or build one yourself. 

The first option might be tempting, and I get it; getting the whole thing already done is so convenient. But here’s the catch: since you don’t want to compromise on quality, you’ll have to pay. Really, if you want to buy a coop that meets all of the requirements to have a happy and healthy flock, you are going to end up spending thousands of dollars. 

So, let’s take another glance at the other option, building your own coop. The effort might sound off-putting, but if you think about it, this is probably the best option. You control how everything is made and how much you spend. And trust me, you can make a perfectly functional coop on a budget. 

When my husband and I built the coop we use today, we wanted to make it by the book and be sure it’s comfortable for our chickens. That’s how we found out that the Amish build their chicken coops following a strict set of rules they preserved for generations. 

You can imagine that once we heard about that, we wanted to build the Amish chicken coop since it seemed like a great option. The problem is that we were not able to find information about this anywhere. So, we started asking around. 

At some point, someone from the local Facebook group reached out and told us that they might have what we’re looking for. They told us about this book that has this project and maybe we would like it. 

And indeed, there we found the full instructions for building the Amish chicken coop, with pictures and materials and everything you need. This is the coop that we have today, and it truly meets all the needs our chickens have. The needs I listed above about space and light. 

👉 If this is of any interest to you, there’s more info about this project here

The Breeds That Actually Lay Blue Eggs

If you want blue eggs in your basket, you need the right birds. Here are the ones worth knowing.

Ameraucana – This is the breed I usually point new folks toward, and I’ll tell you why through my own dumb mistake. My first two “Ameraucanas” came from a feed store, and I didn’t find out they were something else until they started laying green instead of blue. 

Turned out they were Easter Eggers wearing the wrong label. A true Ameraucana lays blue, full stop. They’ve got a fluffy beard and muffs around the face that give them a friendly, whiskered look, and they take the cold just fine. Just buy from someone who actually knows their stock, not a bin by the register.

Araucana – Here’s the original blue-egg breed, the one all the others came from. They’re rare, a little tricky to breed, and they have no tail and tufts of feathers near their ears. Beautiful birds, but harder to find, so most homesteaders go with one of the others.

Cream Legbar – A good layer that gives you blue to blue-green eggs, with a little crest of feathers on the head. There’s a bonus here too. You can tell the boys from the girls the day they hatch by their markings, which saves you the wait and the surprise roosters.

Easter Egger – This is the fun one, but you’ll want to understand it before you buy. An Easter Egger isn’t a true breed. It’s a mixed bird that carries the blue gene from a blue-egg parent crossed with something else. Because of that mix, you don’t know what color any single Easter Egger will lay until she gives you her first egg. She might lay blue, green, pinkish, or even a soft tan. 

That surprise is exactly how people end up with green when they were promised blue, and I’ll explain why that green happens in a minute. None of it makes them lesser birds, though. Those two accidental Easter Eggers of mine turned into some of the sweetest hens in my coop.

If you want a guarantee, go with a true Ameraucana, Araucana, or Cream Legbar from a real breeder. If you like a little mystery and don’t mind a rainbow basket, Easter Eggers are usually cheaper and just as fun.

One thing to set straight before you order a dozen chicks. None of these are heavy layers. My Ameraucana gives me about four eggs a week in her good stretch, while my brown hens hand me six or seven without breaking a sweat. 

That’s the trade. So if you want eggs to sell, keep some steady brown layers in the mix and treat the blue ones as the bonus. And don’t be surprised when the color fades a bit as a hen ages or lays hard. The first eggs of the season come out the most vivid, and they soften over the months. That’s just how it goes.

Also, there’s a pretty common problem most people have when they start to raise chickens. And what’s funny about it is that when experienced homesteaders hear what this “problem” is, they’ll smile because in reality this is a blessing people don’t know how to take advantage of.

So, what happens when you realize you have too many eggs? Yes, this might happen and you might be baffled by it. As I mentioned earlier, one way is to sell them. This is a great way to make some extra cash. Also, if you want to learn more about bartering items just like the Amish do, you can find more info here.

But besides this, there is one more thing the Amish do with eggs. They add a secret white powder and nobody knows for sure why they do this. Some say it’s for preservation; others think it serves another purpose, but what we know for sure is that they do this only when they have a surplus of eggs. This is one of the most well-kept secrets of the Amish community.

So, why the Amish coat fresh eggs with this mysterious white powder?

👉 Click here and find out the real answer straight from an ex-Amish.

Why Some “Blue” Eggs Come Out Green

If you bring home a blue layer and start finding green eggs in the box, you haven’t been cheated. This is the most common surprise with these birds.

The first time one of mine came out a muddy olive, I was sure the hen was sick, or the egg had gone bad somehow. Nope. She was just doing exactly what her genes told her to.

Green happens when a hen carries the blue gene and the brown gene at the same time.

Remember how blue goes all the way through the shell and brown gets painted on top? Well, when a hen does both at once, you end up with a blue shell wearing a brown wash, and your eye reads that combination as green. The more brown she lays down, the more olive the egg looks. A little less brown, and it stays closer to a soft blue-green.

So a green egg isn’t a blue egg gone wrong. It’s just a blue egg wearing a light brown coat. This is why Easter Eggers are such a tossup, and why olive and sage and teal all show up in the same basket.

How to Tell Which Hen Laid Which Egg

Once I had a few colored layers going at the same time, I kept finding eggs in the box with no idea which hen to thank. It bugged me more than it should have. So I found a simple way to match each bird to her eggs, and it doesn’t cost a thing.

Start by watching their faces. A hen that lays blue or green eggs usually has what’s called a pea comb, which is that small, low, bumpy comb sitting flat against the head, instead of the tall single comb you see on most brown-egg hens. It’s not a perfect rule, but it’ll narrow the field down fast.

Next, do a little detective work over a week or so. All you need is a soft pencil and a small notebook you can leave out in the coop.

Keep your hens penned in the run one morning instead of letting them out, so every egg gets laid in the box where you can find it. Check the box a few times through the morning rather than once at the end of the day. When you find a colored egg, see which hen is sitting in there or has just stepped out, and write down what she looks like and the egg color on the same line.

Do this for a few mornings and a pattern starts to show up. The same hen keeps turning up with the same color egg, and pretty soon you can match each bird to her eggs without even thinking about it.

Final Thoughts

Blue eggs are one of those small but fun things about owning chickens. 

If you want them, get a true Ameraucana or a Cream Legbar and you’ll have them. If you’d rather be surprised, a few Easter Eggers will fill your basket with every shade under the sun.

I still have my first blue layer’s daughter out in the coop. Every time I find one of her eggs, I think about how far back that color goes, and how it found its way to me through nothing more than a hen doing what hens do.

New to Chickens? Start Here 

If reading this article has you thinking about starting your own flock, I am happy to hear that. But I want to tell you some things I wished somebody told me when I first started. 

When I got my first chickens, I made lots of mistakes and all of them cost me money and time. For example, I lost a couple of birds to a raccoon I should have planned for, bought feed and gear I never used, and picked breeds that didn’t suit my space. 

None of it was the end of the world, but it was a discouraging way to begin, and most of it came down to not being properly informed. Simply, I was lacking knowledge. 

But you don’t have to go thoug all of this. I know that when you’re about to start something new, buying your first chickens feels exciting, but try to take a step back and make sure you first know what you need to do. 

There’s no real reason to buy gear that you don’t really need and lose money. This is the most common mistake homesteaders make. And I get it; I did it too, and it is hard, especially nowadays when the internet is full of products for everything just a click away. 

Try to focus on the important things. How to pick breeds that fit your climate and space, how to set up a coop the right size with the gear you truly need, a simple daily routine, and how to keep your flock safe from predators and sickness. 

If you want to see more, you can find everything you need in Emma Harrison’s First-Time Chicken Keeper’s Checklist. This is a 5-out-of-5-star guide when it comes to chicken raising and offers you a deep understanding of the first steps you need to take when starting your own flock. 

Inside you’ll find 6 modules: 

• Getting Started – the first decisions to make before any birds arrive
• Coop Essentials – size, ventilation, nesting, and build-or-buy
• Choosing Your Chickens – picking breeds for your climate and goals
• Daily Care Routine – feeding, water, and the everyday rhythm
• Seasonal Management – keeping the flock healthy through summer and winter
• Problem Prevention – spotting and avoiding the common, costly mistakes

This will prepare you to welcome your first blue egg-laying hens. 

👉 Find out more about this guide here

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The post Why Some Hens Lay Blue Eggs first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

Maybe you’ve decided you want to grow fruits; after all, they are an amazing investment for self-sufficiency since you can make jams, can them, dry them, freeze them, or make delicious drinks and syrups. They’re the whole package. 

The problem is that you walk into the nursery, you find a healthy little blueberry bush or a fig in a pot, and the tag says $25. You want three of them, maybe five, and just like that you’re about to spend over a hundred dollars for a row of plants that are barely taller than your hand. 

I want you to know there’s a better way, and it costs you almost nothing and after you finish reading this article you’ll know exactly what to do. 

Most of the fruit on your homestead, or on your neighbor’s, will grow a whole new plant from a snipped piece of branch. That’s all! 

One cutting gives you a plant, a handful gives you a row, and a few years down the line that row is feeding your family while everybody else is still paying full price at the garden center.

It’s one of the most satisfying things you can learn out here, and easier than you’d think. Let’s start with the ones that root easiest and fastest, then I’ll walk you through how it’s done step by step. 

Figs

If you have never rooted a cutting before, you can always start with a fig. They’re the easiest fruit I know of, and I think every new homesteader should try this one first. 

Figs root so willingly that I was surprised the first time I tried it. It was too easy.  

You’ve got three ways to go: stick the cutting straight in a pot of soil, drop it in a vase of water on the windowsill, or wrap the bottom in a damp paper towel inside a plastic bag and set it on top of the fridge where it stays warm. All three work. Most varieties throw roots in three to six weeks.

The hardest part is honestly just deciding how many you want, because one tree hands you dozens of cuttings. Depending on where you live, you can find fig trees on the street and this is how you can get cuttings for free. 

For example, I was once visiting around L.A., meeting a good friend, and in those suburbs you find fig trees hanging over fences and sidewalks. I couldn’t resist and took some cuttings back home. 

Currants and Gooseberries

My whole currant patch started with a few cuttings a neighbor handed me over the fence, and now I’m the one passing them along. Currants and gooseberries are cousins and they root the same easy way, so I’ll cover them together.

They’re tough, forgiving, and they handle cold incredibly well, which makes them a good bet if you’re up north. Push the cuttings into a nursery bed or a deep pot in late fall or winter. By spring, most of them will have rooted and started to leaf out. You’ll rarely find these bushes cheap at a nursery, which is half the reason I bother. 

How to Make Cash From Currants and Gooseberries

This is one pro tip I want to share with you because I know how money-hungry a homestead is when you start. Maybe you need to buy land, maybe you want to build the house, you name it. 

Also, even if your homestead is already established, you need money each time you want to begin a more ambitious project. Like the type of project that is expensive up front but then it makes its money in the long run. 

So, a question a lot of fellow homesteaders have in mind is “how can I get more money”? And it’s a fair question. We all ask ourselves this constantly, even more considering we are living in a world where things get more expensive once every three months. 

Being self-sufficient also means being able to make money out of your homestead. This is a big one. That’s why I decided to tell you more about currants and gooseberries and how they can help you get some extra cash. Sometimes a lot of extra cash. 

These berries are known to be the “you can’t buy this anywhere”  type, and that’s why a lot of folks would pay a small fortune for them. Many times, restaurants need a reliable source to get currant jelly and gooseberry preserves and this is where you get it. You can become their reliable supplier and get some money from them. 

How to make high-quality products

The quality of your products is important and that’s why following the right recipes is a must. The internet is full of various recipes; you can find them everywhere: from websites to Facebook, but the real question is, can you trust these sources? 

Most of the time, when you want high-quality preserves, the best idea is to follow the traditional recipes our grandmother used. Unfortunately, most of these recipes are not on the World Wide Web… 

Each time I tried recipes found on random sites, they didn’t work how I expected. At some point I got sick of it and simply decided to buy a book. And not any book; I went with a book recognized in the homesteading community for its reliable content. 

The Amish Ways has everything you need to know about canning and preserving. It presents some of the secret Amish recipes they have been using for hundreds of years. This is why the jams you buy from them at the local farmer’s market are so good. 

Once you master their techniques, your preserved goods will taste better than before and you can start your own batch of currants and gooseberries and then sell it to make a profit. And even if you’re not chasing profit, who doesn’t like to have some good jam in their pantry?

👉 See how to make canning goods just like the Amish

Grapes

Grapes are right up there with figs, and a mature vine gives you an almost silly number of cuttings every time you prune it. Take eight to ten-inch pieces with two or three buds on each.

There’s one mistake that’ll waste the whole effort, though. A cutting stuck upside down won’t root, so you have to plant it the same way up it grew. I cut the top of each one at an angle so I never get them backwards. Push them in deep, just the top bud showing, give them something to climb, and a few years on you’ll have so many grapes you’ll start to think about selling them. 

Mulberry

If you’ve got a mulberry, or know someone who’ll spare a branch, you’re in luck. Sweet fruit, and very productive plants; they root well from cuttings. They’re a little slower than figs or grapes, so a dab of rooting hormone helps and you’ll also need some patience. Keep the cuttings warm and the soil consistently moist while they get going.

Fair warning: a mature mulberry produces so much fruit that it’s able to feed you, the chickens, and every bird around your property. My flock appreciates the little treats and the wild birds that come to my yard after the fruits keep some pests away. It’s a win-win and I’m all in for it. 

Elderberry

Elderberry might be the most generous plant on this list. It grows fast, roots like crazy, and the berries and flowers are good for syrups, jelly, and old-school remedies. It’s so eager you can shove fresh cuttings straight into damp ground in early spring and walk off. I’ve done it that way and in pots both, with good luck either way.

The catch is that it spreads. Give it room, or stay on top of pruning, because a happy elderberry will take over a corner of your yard before you’ve noticed.

One thing elderberries are known for is their strong immune support. People have been using them since forever for this purpose and after one winter when I kept getting sick all the time, I decided that I might give it a chance too. 

That’s how I made the Immune-Boosting Elderberry Syrup. At first I thought it wasn’t working, but then I found out that the secret is to be consistent. You have to take it every day for a couple of weeks until it becomes effective. 

Once you have the syrup, you can keep it in the fridge and take a tablespoon every day for immune support. If you want to try the recipe I used, I’ll drop the resource I used here. 

If you feel like it, you can give it a try too. 

Also, if you’re not growing elderberry or you simply don’t feel like you have the time to make the syrup, you can make things easier and use this Dual-Extracted Elderberry Tincture. For this, you simply add a few drops to a glass of water or your favorite drink, and you are good to go.

👉 Choose the fast option 

Pomegranate

If you garden somewhere warm, a pomegranate is worth a spot, and it’s one of the easier fruit trees to clone from a cutting. Take a ten-inch piece of year-old wood, stick it two or three inches deep with the top buds showing, and keep it bright, warm, and just barely moist. Roots usually show up in a month or two.

The reason I go with a cutting over seed is the head start. A cutting can fruit in a year or two. Start one from seed, and you might wait five years, then find out it doesn’t even taste like the parent.

Blackberries and Raspberries

I’m putting these together because they share a trick that does most of the work for you.

When a blackberry or trailing cane arches over and its tip hits the ground, it’ll root right there on its own. That’s called tip layering. You can nudge it along by bending a cane down in late summer, burying the tip a couple inches, and pinning it with a rock or a bent piece of wire. By spring you’ve got a rooted plant you can cut free from the parent and move wherever you want it.

Raspberries do something similar with the shoots they send up from their roots, called suckers. Dig one up with a bit of root attached and transplant it. 

Honeyberry

Honeyberry, or haskap if you’ve heard it called that, is one I wish more people grew, especially in cold country. It resists hard winters, fruits earlier in the season than just about anything, and the berries taste like a blueberry crossed with a tart grape. Root it from soft green growth in early summer, or from dormant wood in winter. Either way, keep the cuttings moist and out of the wind while they take.

You won’t find these at most nurseries, and when you do, they aren’t cheap, so rooting your own actually saves you real money here.

For honeyberries, I want to tell you that you can also grow them in a garden bed instead of a pot. If you want to start a new DIY project that takes only a couple of hours, you can see how to build improved garden beds. 

You can find more in the video below. 

Blueberries

I saved blueberries for last because I want to be honest with you. They do grow from cuttings, but they’re the fussiest thing on this list, so don’t make them your first attempt.

The thing is that they won’t root in regular potting soil like all the other plants listed above. Blueberries need an acidic, peaty mix, and even then they take a good three to four months to grow roots worth bragging about. 

Water them with rainwater if you have this possibility, since they’re touchy about the chlorine and salt in tap water. Expect to lose a few, and start extra so the losses don’t get you down. Get the hang of it and you can fill a whole patch for free. I still encourage people to start a blueberry patch because if you were to do it from plants you got from the store, it would cost you a fortune. With cuttings, it’s mostly free. 

How to Take a Cutting Properly and Make Sure It Will Have Roots

Now that you’ve picked your fruit, here’s the whole routine you need to follow if you want healthy cuttings that will grow in strong and fully established plants. For most of these, the steps barely change, so learn it once and you’re most of the way there.

Take a cutting six to eight inches long off healthy growth, about as thick as a pencil. Make the bottom cut just below a node, the little bump where a leaf or bud comes out, since that’s where roots form easiest.

Strip the leaves off the bottom half. If it’s a green cutting with big leaves up top, cut those in half too, so it doesn’t lose water faster than it can drink. Dip the bottom inch in rooting hormone if you’ve got some. Most of these root fine without it, but it speeds things up and improves your odds.

Push the bottom two or three inches into a pot of moist, well-draining mix. I like something that holds moisture but never sits soggy, because soggy is what rots a cutting before it ever roots. Water it in, then cover the pot loosely with a clear plastic bag or a cut-off soda bottle to trap the humidity. Keep it warm and out of harsh sun.

Then you wait. Keep the soil damp but not wet, and somewhere between a few weeks and a couple months you’ll feel resistance when you give the cutting a gentle tug. That’s roots.

What to Use Instead of Tap Water or Rainwater

I just mentioned that rainwater is a strong choice when you don’t want to use tap water. But if you don’t already have rainwater stored somewhere, what will you do? It’s not like the rain starts when we wish for it. This would be amazing, but unfortunately reality doesn’t align with our wishes. 

Ok, so when rainwater and tap water are not your options anymore, you need something more reliable. This is how the Water Smart Box was created. 

This is basically a device that gathers the water from the atmosphere and transforms it into fresh liquid water you can use to drink or use in your garden. The thing with it is that it’s completely independent from the grid. You don’t need to dig or connect it anywhere. It’s simply a stand-alone device you can easily build in just four steps and delivers you fresh water even when there is a drought. 

If you are curious about how it works, you can see more here in this video. 

When to Take Your Cuttings

Timing comes down to two kinds of cuttings, and which one you take depends on the time of year.

Hardwood cuttings – You take these in late fall or winter, after the plant has dropped its leaves and gone dormant. The wood is firm and woody, which makes it forgiving and easy to handle. This is the one I point beginners to, and it covers figs, grapes, currants, gooseberries, elderberry, mulberry, and pomegranate.

Softwood cuttings – You take these in late spring and early summer off the soft green new growth. They root faster, but they’re fussier, since the green stems dry out quickly and need extra humidity to pull through. That’s your window for honeyberry and blueberry.

So it depends on when you’re reading this. If it’s summer right now, you can get going with softwood cuttings today. If you’d rather wait for the easy season, mark the calendar for late winter and take hardwood ones then. WSU Extension has a clear breakdown of these cutting types if you want to go deeper. 

Always Avoid These Common Mistakes

After doing this for years, I see the same few mistakes trip people up, so let me save you the trouble.

Take more cuttings than you think you need. Some of them won’t root, and that’s true even for the easy ones. Want five plants? Start ten. The spares cost you nothing but a few minutes.

Wipe your snips with rubbing alcohol between plants. Ten seconds, and it keeps you from carrying disease from one cutting to the next.

Don’t let them dry out, and don’t drown them either. Damp but never soggy is the spot you’re after. That balance takes a little practice, but you’ll get a feel for it fast.

And label everything. I promise you won’t remember in three months which cutting was the sweet grape and which was the sour one. A little tag with the name and the date saves you a lot of squinting later.

Final Thoughts

If you ask me, this is the essence of the homesteading life. You start with a single cutting in a pot by the window, and a few years later you’re walking past a whole hedge of berries you grew yourself and you’re also able to help others who were just like you when you started and give them a few cuttings to start their own plants too. 

I’ve got a row of little fig pots on my potting bench right now, rooted off the cuttings from California I took three summers ago. Every time I walk by, I think about how that one branch turned into all of this, and that’s about as good a return as a homesteader can ask for.

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The post 9 Fruits You Can Grow from Cuttings first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

You probably have a cabinet full of plastic containers. I sure do and some of these plastic containers are stained orange from spaghetti sauce, a couple are missing their lids, and at least one smells faintly of last week’s leftovers no matter how many times I wash it. 

For a lot of jobs, plastic is just fine. It’s cheap, it doesn’t shatter when you drop it, and it stacks nice and neat. But some of the food and supplies you reach for every day are going bad faster, losing their punch, or even pulling chemicals out of the plastic and into your meal. The biggest problem is that nothing about it looks wrong from the outside.

Keep reading to discover ten things you should keep out of plastic, why each one matters, and where to put them instead. A few of these are going to surprise you, especially the ones that aren’t even food.

Let’s get into it.

Tomatoes and Anything Acidic

I’m putting this one first because it caught me off guard. I’ve been storing foods with tomatoes in plastic containers all my life and besides being a little bit annoying when I was cleaning the containers, I thought nothing was wrong. It turns out that doing this regularly is actually dangerous and unhealthy. 

Tomato sauce, citrus, vinegar dressings, pickled anything. They’re all acidic, and acid slowly eats away at the surface of a plastic container. Once that happens, you’ve got a problem. Research has shown that chemicals like BPA leach out of plastic easily when there’s acidic food sitting in it.

You’ve probably seen this without knowing what you were looking at. That container that’s stained permanently red and smells like tomato sauce even after a hot wash? That’s a clear sign the plastic is breaking down. 

Keep your sauce, salsa, and citrus in glass or ceramic instead. A plain glass jar with a lid is perfect and wipes clean every time. I keep a few wide-mouth mason jars set aside just for this, and if you cook with tomatoes much, that one swap will save you a whole drawer of stained tubs.

Hot Leftovers Straight Off the Stove

Dinner’s done, you want it put away, so you ladle that hot soup right into a plastic tub and put the lid on. I’ve done it plenty of times myself.

The trouble is that heat is exactly what makes plastic release chemicals into your food. Pour something hot in, and you’re warming the plastic and making it leach right into the food. The trapped steam doesn’t help either. It turns into moisture inside the container and your food spoils faster and goes soggy.

Let your food cool down on the counter before you put it in a plastic container. Or even better, use glass or stainless steel for anything still warm. I let soup cool a bit, store it in glass jars, and then put it in the fridge. 

Vitamins and Supplements

Here’s one that isn’t food at all, and I’d bet almost everyone reading this has a plastic pill organizer somewhere in the house.

Those weekly organizers are handy, no argument here. But moving your vitamins out of their original bottle and into plastic for the long term is not a good idea and works against you. The bottles they come in are built to block light and moisture, and a lot of them have a little desiccant packet tucked inside. Every time you open a plastic organizer, a bit of humid air sneaks in, and that moisture breaks down the sensitive nutrients like vitamin C and the B vitamins. They lose their potency, and now you’ve paid for vitamins that aren’t doing much.

Keep your supplements in their original containers with the lids snug, somewhere cool and dry. Not the bathroom, where shower steam does a number on them, and not in a cabinet over the stove. If you love your weekly organizer, just fill it one week at a time instead of dumping a whole bottle in and letting it sit for months.

To do all of this “by the book,” here’s an ingenious way to stockpile prescription medicines, including insulin. From how to get them to how to store them the right way, you can find all you need here in this guide.

Raw Meat

This one is all about your safety. 

When you open a package of meat and want to save the rest, the easy move is to drop it in a plastic container. 

The problem is that raw meat leaves juices behind, and when these are in a sealed plastic container, they transform into a warm, wet little pocket where bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli multiply fast. Older, scratched-up containers are worse, since bacteria can enter into the grooves.

If you’re keeping meat in the fridge for a day or two, leave it in the original packaging or wrap it tight and set it on a plate on the bottom shelf so nothing drips down onto your other food. For anything longer, freezer paper or a glass dish with a lid is the better call.

Olive Oil and Cooking Fats

Oils and fats don’t get along with plastic, and most people are completely unaware of this. 

Fat works its way into the surface of the plastic, which speeds up how fast the container breaks down and pulls those chemicals into your oil. Plastic also lets in light and air, and those two will turn good oil rancid in a few months. 

That’s real money lost when you’ve bought a nice bottle of oil. Store your oils in dark glass or stainless steel and keep them in a cool, dark cabinet, away from the stove. If yours came in a clear bottle, just tuck it somewhere dark and you’ll stretch its life by months.

👉 22 Smart Secrets To Make Food Last Longer

Flour and Cornmeal

If you bake from scratch like I do, this is something you need to remember. 

Flour almost always comes home from the store with weevil eggs already in it. You can’t see them, but they’re there, and those little bugs have no problem chewing through your plastic container. Once they hatch, you’ve got bugs running through your whole baking shelf. 

Whole grain flours have another problem on top of that. Their natural oils go rancid as air works through the plastic over time.

So here’s what you can do if you don’t want to deal with all of this. Put any new bag of flour in the freezer for three or four days first. I know it sounds unusual, but this kills the eggs before they ever hatch. 

After you do this, store the clean flour in a glass jar or a heavy food-grade container with a tight seal. For the long haul, Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers will keep flour good for years. 

Bulk Beans, Rice, and Dry Grains

For anyone building up a real pantry, this is the big one.

A plastic tub or an old soda bottle seems plenty good for dried beans and rice, and for a few months it works fine. But plastic isn’t a true oxygen barrier. Air can make its way around through the walls and the seal, and over time it dries your beans out, spoils them, and invites bugs in. 

To make your pantry staples truly last, you have to keep all the air out. The standard among long-term storage folks is once again Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, then set inside a food-grade bucket or metal can so rodents can’t chew through. This is an amazing trick, but this bucket works as a physical barrier. When we’re talking about long-term food storage, a lot of invisible threats could destroy your stockpile in just a few months. 

Avoiding this is easy when you have the right knowledge. I learned this the hard way when I somehow managed to lose my stockpile, the big one I keep in my root cellar, over one summer. It was a terrible and stressful experience and I want you to learn from my mistakes.

You can learn more about “the pest triangle”, the most common food storage pests and how to combat them here.

Stored the right way, white rice and dried beans will sit on a shelf for twenty or thirty years! I keep my everyday beans in glass jars in the pantry and my long-term stash sealed up in Mylar and protected against pests down in the cellar. 

Garden Seeds

I’d guess you weren’t expecting seeds on a list like this, but if you save them, stick with me.

A lot of gardeners drop their seed packets into a plastic baggie or a bin and assume they’re all set. The catch is that plastic has tiny pores that let in air and moisture. The problem is that moisture is the number one thing that kills stored seeds. 

One gardener ran a five-year test and found that seeds kept in plastic bags dropped to around 65 percent germination, while the same seeds sealed in glass jars still came up at 90 percent after the full five years. That’s a big gap when you’re counting on those seeds to feed you next spring.

Make sure your seeds are bone dry, then store them in a sealed glass jar. You can leave them in their paper envelopes and just set the envelopes inside the jar. Toss in a silica gel packet too to pull out any moisture. Keep the jar somewhere cool and dark, and your seeds will hold their life far longer. 

But one thing a lot of people overlook is the quality of their seeds. You can have the best storage method, but if the seeds are not good, they’re not going to last. This is why planting seeds from your personal storage ends up in plants that refuse to grow or, even worse, seeds that simply don’t sprout.

If you want to get some high-quality, non-GMO seeds that have been stored properly, this is your chance. Here you can find a lot of useful seeds to have on a homestead. This is the place where I like to buy seeds for my stockpile and I am pleased by the results. All seeds are packed here in the USA.

👉 Get your own pack of seeds

Onions, Garlic, and Strong Cheeses

Strong smells and plastic have a long memory, and this one sneaks up on you.

Onions, garlic, and aged cheeses give off powerful odors, and plastic soaks those smells right into its surface. Once it’s in there, it never fully comes out. That’s how you end up with cookies that taste garlicy. 

Onions and garlic don’t need to be sealed up to begin with. Keep them somewhere cool, dry, and airy. Try something like a mesh basket or a paper bag in the pantry.

For strong cheeses, wrap them in parchment or wax paper first, then loosely in foil, and keep them in the fridge. They’ll stay fresher, and the rest of your food won’t pick up the smell. 

Or if you want a better preservation method altogether, you can simply wax your cheese. This is a method that’s been used for hundreds of years by the Amish and the pioneers. They relied on it to keep cheese fresh for up to 3 years.

The way it works is simple. The wax acts like a seal that keeps the cheese safe and protects it from the dry air and the mold spores floating around. The waxed cheese keeps aging slowly and gently inside its little sealed shell. The perfect process for a great and properly preserved hard cheese.

This is the easiest way to wax cheese. It’s the method I’ve been using since I started my homesteading life and what I like the most about it is that it takes very little time. Once you’ve got the cheese, you need one hour to make it last for years. Incredibly convenient. Here you can find the full process and all the materials you need.

Fresh Herbs and Berries

This last one will save you money every single week. If your basil wilts in two days and your strawberries turn to mush before you can finish them, the plastic is part of the reason.

Herbs and delicate fruit need to breathe. Plastic seals them up tight and traps the moisture they give off, and that trapped dampness is what makes them rot and grow mold. Berries, avocados, and tender greens all slide downhill fast with no airflow.

For herbs, trim the stems and stand them up in a jar with a little water, like a small bouquet on the counter. For berries, skip the sealed clamshell. Spread them in a shallow glass or ceramic dish, or a bowl lined with a paper towel, and leave them loosely covered so the air can move. I’ve watched strawberries that used to last three days stretch close to a week just from getting them out of that sealed box.

A Quick Word on Which Plastic Is Worse

Before I wrap up, here’s one practical tip. Not all plastic is the same. The Michigan State University Extension warns that older containers and single-use plastics deserve the most caution, since they’re the ones most likely to contain BPA, and any plastic that’s scratched up or has been microwaved over and over should never hold your food again.

So if you’re going to keep using plastic for the everyday stuff, at least reach for the newer, food-grade containers that are still smooth and clear. Toss the cloudy, cracked, stained ones. They’ve done their time.

Final Thoughts

You don’t have to march into the kitchen tonight and throw every plastic container in the trash. Plastic is still incredible around the house for plenty of jobs.

What I hope you take from this is simpler. Some things should never be stored in plastic containers.

Move those few into glass, ceramic, stainless steel, or proper long-term storage, and you’ve fixed it without spending much at all.

I made most of these swaps slowly, one jar at a time, as old containers gave out and I replaced them. Now my pantry shelf is mostly mason jars, and I can’t remember the last time I had an orange-stained tub. 

Just start with the most urgent things and then work from there. 

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The post 10 Things You Should Never (Ever!) Store in Plastic Containers first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

Has this ever happened to you before?  You go into your pantry ready to grab a jar of whatever you canned last season you look at it… and something is… not right? 

The jar does not look the same way it used to when you put it in the pantry and this is kind of unsettling. You know that some changes are normal, but at this point, you are not sure whether this is a safe jar or not. 

The thing is that there’s a clear difference between food that’s just a little ugly and food that’s actually dangerous. The problem is, nobody tells you what to look for. 

So today I want to walk you through the signs I look for every single time I pull a jar off the shelf. Some are probably things you already know, while others are little tricks you learn as you get more and more experienced and I really want to share them with you. 

How to Make Sure You Get the Best Canned Goods

Before we start, I want to make it clear that if your canning process is proper, your goods will be too. If you respect the technique, you almost never deal with dangerous jars that can get you sick.   

Something that helped me big time was learning the right way to can food. You and I both know canning is not rocket science, but there are some tips most homesteaders don’t know, especially those who have just started living independently. 

For example, things like knowing the right temperatures for each product you want to can, the “fingertip tight” method, or why living up in the mountains means you have to can differently than folks closer to sea level. These are all things most people are not aware of, and this is why your canned products are short-lived. 

I wanted to get the best info, and that’s why  I decided to learn from the best, learn directly from the Amish. Their canning methods have been tried and tested for generations. You probably saw it for yourself if you ever bought something from them at the local market, or at least you’ve heard about it anyway. 

So, in this article, you’ll see how you can spot a dangerous jar, but if you want to avoid all this trouble in the first place, you can steal some knowledge from the Amish. 

Here are some unusual recipes I learned from them: 

• Amish Poor Man’s Steak

• Beef Stew With Vegetables

• Hot Packing

• Beef Chilli

They are not your usual recipes when it comes to canning, but once preserved properly, they can last for years in your pantry and all of them are perfect when you want a quick, healthy meal but you don’t have time for a full cooking session. 

You can see more about these recipes and the canning techniques used by the Amish here. 

If you want video support, you can join The Amish Ways Academy. All videos are presented by Eddie Swartzentruber, who grew up in Minnesota’s largest Amish settlement and has firsthand experience with all the canning techniques the Amish use. 

👉 See more info about the Academy

How to Spot Spoiled Jars

Now, if you already have some canned goods in your pantry or cellar, you’re here to learn how to differentiate between safe jars and dangerous ones. 

Here are the best ways to tell your food has gone bad, all based on visible clues. 

Be careful, because even just one of these signs means your jar should no longer be in your pantry. 

Let’s start! 

The Lid Doesn’t Pop

This is the first check I do. Run your finger across the center of the lid. It should be slightly concave, pulled down by the vacuum, and it should not move when you press on it. If it gives even a little, if you hear a click when you push down, the seal is broken. Don’t taste it. Don’t smell it. Just toss the whole jar.

A lid that lost its seal somewhere along the way means air got in, and once air gets in, bacteria follow it.

Bulging or Swollen Lids

This is the opposite of a popped lid, and it’s a bigger warning sign. If the center of the lid is pushed up or the lid looks puffy and rounded, this means gases are building inside. 

Spoilage bacteria and yeast produce gas as they grow, and that gas has nowhere to go, so it will just accumulate inside the jar and create that swollen lid look. A bulging lid means something is alive in there, and it shouldn’t be.

For store-bought cans, the same rule applies. If the ends of a metal can are pushed outward or flip when you press on them, do not open it. It’s for sure spoiled and not safe. 

Streaks of Dried Food Running Down the Outside

Here’s one you might miss. Hold your jar up at eye level and slowly turn it. Look very carefully for streaks of dried food running down from under the lid. 

Those streaks mean the jar leaked at some point, probably while it was processing or cooling. Even if the seal sealed back up afterward, the contents are no longer safe.

I do this check on every jar before I even open it. It takes about three seconds and it made me get rid of some troubled jars. 

Spurting or Fizzing on Opening

When you crack the seal on a properly canned jar, you should hear a soft pop or hiss of air going in, not out. If liquid spurts up when you open it, or the contents foam, hiss, or fizz like a soda, gas has built up inside, so it means bacteria have made their way into the jar. 

I’ve had this happen a couple of times over the years, and it’s the kind of thing you don’t second-guess. Cap the jar back up if you can, double-bag it, and get it out of the house.

Rising Bubbles in the Liquid

Hold the jar steady at eye level and just watch. If the jar is properly sealed and properly processed, the liquid should be still. If you see little bubbles rising up through the food, that’s once again gas being produced inside the jar, so it’s a jar that is actively spoiling. 

This trick works best with clear liquids like pickle brine or fruit syrup. With cloudier foods like soup or chili, you may need to tip the jar gently and watch how the liquid moves.

Here’s What Causes All of These Problems

The 5 problems listed above all have something in common: they are all caused by two factors: mechanical/processing problems or biological problems. 

Now, some can be caused by both factors at the same time, but for example, the bulging lid or the fizzing on opening are almost always caused by bacteria that somehow managed to survive the canning process, so biological causes. 

The first category, the mechanical/ processing problems, means there was something wrong with your jars to begin with. Maybe a chipped rim, a ring put too tightly, or you simply reused the flat lid, and this compromised the jar. 

Things like these can happen, and it’s not a big deal when you need to toss one jar. But what would happen if this affected your whole batch? 

Oh well, this is a completely different story, and I am sure it’s one you’d want to avoid. 

The easiest way to keep your jars safe is by not making common mistakes. For example, here are 7 “deadly” canning mistakes anyone can make. Once you know them, you’ll have safe cans that last longer. 

👉 Click here to see the mistakes. 

Weird Color

You know very well that foods have their colors. For example, green beans should be green, not gray, right? Tomatoes should be red, not brown. Beef should be deep red-brown, not black or pink-gray.

Some color shift is normal over time, especially with light-colored vegetables or anything stored where light reaches it. But a big shift from what you canned, or any color you can’t explain, means the food is not safe.

Cloudy Liquid Where It Should Be Clear

Pickles should sit in clear brine. Fruit should sit in clear syrup. Broth should be clear or close to it. If the liquid has turned milky, cloudy, or hazy, something unpleasant is going on in there.

I want to still say that some foods naturally throw a little sediment to the bottom of the jar. For example, both tomatoes and spinach do this. If it’s just a thin layer of debris on the bottom, it’s usually not a big deal. 

But if you notice cloudiness floating in the whole liquid, you can be more than sure that you are looking at a jar that should no longer be in your pantry. 

Mold

This is an easy one. If you see mold, it’s clear that something is not going according to plan. Mold can show up as cotton-like white, blue, black, or green growth on top of the food or stuck to the underside of the lid. 

As you can see, mold comes in many ways, and sometimes it’s just a tiny dot, but other times it’s a whole fuzzy colony.

What I want to tell you now is some unfortunate news: even a tiny dot of mold means the whole jar goes. The old advice about scraping mold off jam or applesauce is outdated and dangerous, so please don’t follow it. 

Mold sends roots down into the food that you cannot see, and some molds produce toxins that can make you sick. So, just throw the jar out.

An Off Smell

A good jar of canned food should smell like itself; it should smell like good food you want to eat. 

If you open a jar and get a whiff of something sour, yeasty, fermented, sharp, or just plain weird, that’s for sure spoilage. 

But here’s the catch, and I want you to remember this. A jar can carry deadly botulinum toxin and smell completely normal. The smell test only helps you catch some kinds of spoilage. Smelling fine doesn’t mean a jar is safe to eat. That’s why it’s also important to consider the other sigs I have put on this list. 

According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, the toxin is invisible and odorless, which is why the rules around suspect jars are so strict. Never, ever taste food from a jar to see if it’s still good. If a jar looks wrong, it goes in the trash. 

Sharp Dents, Rust, or Leaks on Store-Bought Cans

In case you’re buying some commercial cans too, this matters. Run your finger around the top rim and bottom rim of a can. Then check the side seam, which is that subtle vertical line down the body. If there’s a dent crossing any seam, especially a sharp dent with a point or crease you can feel, the seal may be compromised. 

According to the USDA, a deep dent is one you can lay your finger into. Those go in the trash.

The same is true for rust. Surface rust that wipes off is usually fine. Rust that has pitted the metal or eaten through it is not ok. The holes produced by rust are tiny, but air still uses them to enter the can, and this is how bacteria start growing. 

Strange Texture

Open the jar and look at the food. The food you canned should still hold itself and should not look mushy.  

For example, pickles should be crisp or at least have some bite. Meat should hold together. If something has turned slimy, slick, sticky, or come apart in a way it shouldn’t, set the jar aside.

Funny Behavior of the Jar Itself

This is a lesser-known sign that I want you to know about. Sometimes a jar of bad food will start to weep liquid out from under the seal slowly. 

You’ll see a little ring of stickiness around the jar on your pantry shelf, or you’ll notice the rim is wet when nothing else around it is. 

This means the seal failed and the pressure inside is pushing food out.

Walk through your pantry every couple of months and look at the shelves themselves, not just the jars. Any sticky ring or dried drip is your sign.

How to Store Canned Goods (the Right Way)

Most of us keep our jars in the pantry. This is not a mistake; a lot of panties are perfect for that, but the most important thing you need to keep an eye on is the temperature. 

For example, I know many families who have their pantry in their kitchen. This makes it accessible and it seems like the perfect spot for a pantry. But let’s look at this again and this time let’s keep the above information about temperature in our minds. 

If you think about it once more, you might realize that a pantry attached to a kitchen might not be the best idea at all. 

The kitchen is the place you cook and this means hot temperatures and humidity. This is exactly where you DON’T WANT to keep your canned goods. Most of them should be kept in a dry, cool place. The exact opposite of a kitchen pantry. 

This leaves you with very few right options. If you have space, you can try to keep them in your basement, and if you don’t, you can try a root cellar. 

The root cellar is the gold standard when it comes to storing canned goods. Temperatures stay in the 40s to low 50s naturally, humidity is balanced, and there’s no light.

The food you store in a root cellar can last its full shelf life because the conditions are perfect and this slows down every chemical reaction that makes the food spoil faster. 

This is also how the Amish manage to store their food for crazy long periods of time without spoiling, sometimes for years in a row. 

👉Here you can find a short documentary-style video about how to build a root cellar the easiest way possible. 

Spoiler: The presented root cellar does more than keep your stockpile safe…

Final Thoughts

I know that after all the hard work you put into canning those jars, throwing some of them out feels terrible. I understand this feeling very well because it happened to me many times. But I’d gladly toss a jar of canned meat than end up in the hospital. 

Hopefully, when canning is done right, by following tested recipes and processing times, spoilage is rare. Most of the jars on your shelf are going to be just fine. I don’t want you to be afraid of canned food. After all, this is one of the most reliable practices on a homestead. All I want is for you to be more careful about spoilage signs. 

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The post 12 Signs Your Canned Food Has Gone Bad first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

Has this ever happened to you? Staying in your backyard on a nice summer morning, thinking about what to do with this beautiful day and then BRRRRRR!!! You start hearing this unbearable sound and all you want to do is just go somewhere quiet. 

Most of the time, it’s your neighbors mowing their lawn, making a BBQ, or listening to loud music. Things like these happen and the only thing you can do is take some steps to make your yard more soundproof. 

At least this is what I did. And today I want to show you one of my projects that transformed my backyard into a quieter and more private place. Also, I’ll present two extra projects so you can choose whatever fits better for your property. 

Keep reading and please let me know if you’d like to try any of these yourself somewhere in the future. 

Why a Regular Fence Is Not Enough

I want you to know this upfront so you do not waste money on the wrong build.

A standard wooden privacy fence has gaps, hollow spaces, and not much weight to it. Sound just slips through or jumps right over the top. I see neighbors put up six-foot cedar fences hoping it will quiet things down, and then they wonder why they can still hear the highway.

A quick note on decibel numbers, because I throw them around a bit in this article. Every 10 decibels roughly cuts the loudness in half to your ear. So a wall that blocks 50 decibels is not just a little better than one that blocks 30. It is dramatically quieter on the other side.

My Straw Bales Soundproofing Project 

I built this wall on my own property, and it has held up beautifully for going on four years now. A 20-inch straw-bale wall blocks around 60 decibels, which is more than a 6-inch concrete wall manages. According to the Acoustical Society of America, straw is a good sound insulator. 

Bales can be laid flat or stood on edge. Laying the baes flat is better as it gives you a wider 20-inch wall, and that is what gets you the sound blocking. Standing them on edge gives you a narrower wall and a faster build. For the best noise reduction, you want them laid flat.

The bales themselves come in two sizes. The 2-string bales run roughly 14 by 18 by 36 inches and weigh around 40 to 50 pounds. The 3-string bales are bigger, about 16 by 24 by 48 inches, and weigh closer to 70 or 80 pounds. I used 3-string because they are denser. The thing with them is that they are also heavier to lift onto upper courses, so if you do not have help on build day, the 2-string bales are easier to handle. 

To estimate how many you need, figure that each bale, laid flat, covers about 4 to 5 square feet of wall face. A 7-foot-tall wall that runs 20 feet long needs roughly 30 to 35 bales.

Materials and Cost

Here is what you need to gather: 

• Straw bales, $5 to $10 each in most of the country
• Gravel for the foundation trench
• Polypropylene or burlap bags to fill with gravel for the toe-up
• Rebar in two lengths, longer for anchoring the bottom course and shorter for pinning bales between courses
• Earthen or lime plaster for the final coat
• A wooden top plate or beam to cap the wall
• Basic tools: a shovel, a level, a mallet, and a sharp knife

For a 20-foot wall built with 3-string bales, plan on somewhere between $600 and $800 total if you have to buy everything new. The biggest variable is the plaster, since earthen plaster mixed from your own clay costs almost nothing, while bagged lime plaster can run $200 to $300 for a wall this size.

The bales are the heart of the wall, so I advise you to get the best quality available. Get them tight and dry. A loose bale will sag and let sound through, and a damp bale will rot from the inside out very fast. 

Preparing the Foundation

Start by marking out the line where you want your wall to run. Use stakes and string to keep it straight. A crooked foundation will sabotage your entire build.

Dig a trench along that line about 12 to 18 inches deep. You want to get past the topsoil and down to firm, undisturbed ground. If you hit roots or soft spots, keep digging until the bottom feels solid under a shovel. Make the trench at least as wide as your bales, plus a few inches of breathing room on each side.

Fill the trench with clean gravel and tamp it down in layers as you go. This gives you a base that drains water away instead of holding it against your bales.

Once the gravel is level with the surrounding ground, lay your gravel-filled bags on top. This raised gravel layer is called the toe-up, and it is one of the most important parts of the build. The toe-up lifts the bales off the ground so groundwater cannot wick up into the straw and rot it out from below. Aim for 8 to 10 inches of toe-up height in most parts of the country, and more if you get heavy snow or runoff where you live.

Take your time on the foundation. It is what makes the rest of the project go smoothly, and I rushed mine the first time and paid for it later.

Stacking and Pinning the Bales

Lay your first course of bales directly on the gravel bags. Press them down so they sit firmly and snug against each other. There should be no gaps between bales, and if you have any, stuff them tight with loose straw before you continue building.

The bottom course gets anchored down into the gravel with long rebar. You want pieces that match the bale height plus another 12 inches to drive down into the gravel below. For 3-string bales laid flat, that means rebar around 28 inches long. Drive two pieces straight down through each bottom-course bale, all the way through, until the tops are flush with the top of the bale.

For the second course, stagger the joints like you would with bricks. A bale should never sit directly on the seam between two bales below it. Pin each upper-course bale straight down through to the course below using shorter rebar, around 20 to 24 inches long. Tap them in with a mallet.

Keep stacking until you reach the height you want. I built mine to 7 feet, which is tall enough to block both the sight and the sound from the nearby sawmill. If you are framing in gate or window openings, do it as you stack, using rough timber to support the bales above.

Capping the Top

When you reach the top, set your wooden top plate across the bales and anchor it down with long pins driven all the way through to the second-to-last course. This holds the wall together at the top and gives you something to attach a small roof to.

The roof cap is the part most builders get wrong.

A straw-bale wall resists better if you are able to keep it as dry as possible. Plaster is durable, but it is not waterproof, and rain hitting the top of the wall will eventually work its way down through the bale. You need a real roof cap, not just a board laid across the top.

I built mine with a simple shed-roof design using 2-by-4s and metal roofing. The overhang sticks out 18 inches on each side of the wall. That is the minimum I would recommend. If you can go to two feet, even better. The wider the overhang, the better protected your plaster will be from rain. 

Plastering Both Sides

The plaster is what turns a stack of straw into a real sound-blocking wall. Without it, you only have insulation.

You have two options here, and they are worth understanding before you make a choice.

Earthen plaster is the cheaper one. It is basically mud, mixed from clay-rich soil, sand, and chopped straw, stirred together in a wheelbarrow until it has the consistency of thick cake batter. If you have decent clay subsoil on your land, you can dig it up and mix it yourself for almost no money. It looks beautiful and breathes well, but it does not hold up to driving rain as well as the other option.

Lime plaster costs more because you have to buy bagged hydrated lime from a building supply store and mix it with sand and water. It is harder, more weather-resistant, and lasts longer on the outside of a wall. I went with lime plaster on the outside facing the weather and earthen plaster on the inside facing my yard. That combination gave me the best of both worlds.

Plan on roughly 1.5 cubic feet of plaster per 100 square feet of wall face per coat. Apply the plaster in two or three coats. The first coat gets pressed hard into the straw with your hands or a trowel so it grips the fibers. Let it dry partially before the second coat, which evens out the surface. A third thin finish coat smooths everything out and seals up any cracks.

What I Learned From Building It

The big one was underestimating how much I needed. That covered both the plaster and the patience for keeping the bales dry. You have to keep those bales bone dry while you are working, which means tarping every night until the plaster goes on. 

And you should mix or order more plaster than you think you need, because running short halfway through a coat means an unplanned drive to the supply store. I made both mistakes the first time.

The other one was the toe-up height. I made it too low and I was patching the bottom of the wall every spring until I rebuilt that section properly.

The labor is not bad if you have a friend or two to help. I had the wall up in a weekend, plaster done over the following weekend, and the noise from the sawmill is now a faint hum I barely notice.

Rammed Earth Is A Good Alternative 

If straw bales do not suit your land, rammed earth is the other building method worth mentioning. A 12-inch rammed-earth wall blocks over 50 decibels and can last for generations once it is up.

Rammed earth is a real undertaking and a step up from the straw-bale build.

The work involves building strong plywood forms that can take the pressure of repeated tamping without bowing or coming apart, then shoveling moist soil into them in 4-inch layers and compacting each layer until it stops compressing. 

Hand tamping a whole wall is brutal, so most folks rent or buy a pneumatic tamper before they start. The soil itself has to be the right mix, roughly 50 to 75 percent sand with some clay, and the moisture has to be just right at around 10 percent.

If this is the route you want to take, take a weekend workshop first, or at least buy a detailed book on the technique before you start. Your county extension office can also test your soil to see if it is even suitable. Or you can test the structure of your soil yourself with this mason jar soil test.

You can find it in this book and I also tried it to see if my garden soil is suitable for planting tomatoes. I preferred to do it this way because it’s cheaper and less time-consuming than asking for a test from the Cooperative Extension Service. 

See how to make the test yourself here. 

Adding a Living Wall

A densely planted green wall knocks 9 to 15 decibels off ambient noise. It is not as much as the heavier builds, but layered in front of a straw-bale or rammed-earth wall, it adds another round of sound reduction while looking beautiful.

The first thing to know is that these walls get heavy fast. A fully planted, well-watered green wall can run 200 to 400 pounds for a 4-by-6-foot section. Whatever you are mounting it to has to be solid. You want a substantial wall, a sturdy outbuilding, or a freestanding frame built for the purpose.

You can build a modular green wall planter system. Try a DIY wall-hanging garden. This is a project that takes a couple of hours, and besides insulation, it offers you extra space to plant whatever you want. This is a perfect project if you struggle with “space problems.” Why leave all that unused space above the ground empty when you can grow a thriving vertical garden? 

After you have the green wall, you can easily set up a drip line by running a thin tube along the top with small emitters that drip into each pocket. The line connects to a regular garden hose spigot, and a battery-operated timer runs the watering schedule for you. 

If you want to try something more self-sufficient, you can do it the Amish way. See how they collect water on their homesteads and how they build simple, but efficient piping systems to move this water everywhere they need it. 

Try this project and you will be able to water your brand new green wall for free by taking advantage of the nature around you. 

Choose plants that suit your light and climate, and lean toward native species that will not struggle on your land. Fill each pocket with potting mix, plant everything, and water thoroughly. After a few months of growth, the wall fills in densely and starts doing real acoustic work.

If you want something that grows faster but is very useful on any homestead, you can use the wall-hanging garden to plant medicinal herbs.

I would not rely on a living wall by itself for blocking loud machinery. But as a second layer in front of a heavier wall, or as a way to soften noise around a patio or sitting area, it is a lovely addition.

Final Thoughts

Building a sound-reducing wall is indeed a lot of work, but if you ask me, it’s a homestead project that pays you back every single day. Mine has given me back my mornings, my evenings, and a quiet kitchen where I can think straight again.

All of these projects take real work, real planning, and a willingness to learn as you go. But the materials are simple, the techniques have been used for centuries, and the end result is something solid you built with your own hands.

Summer is just around the corner and one of the biggest problems you might not be ready for is the lack of water.

The last few summers have been brutal across most of the country. Droughts stretching longer than they used to. Heat waves knocking out power for days at a time. Towns putting watering restrictions on lawns and gardens. This is the actual reality, and unfortunately, you are the one who needs to deal with all of this.

You might tell yourself you are self-sufficient because you have a rain barrel. But the rain barrels run dry in a long dry stretch and the towns put restrictions on outdoor watering right when your garden needs it most.

The following project, the Smart Water Box, is a small device you can install in your backyard that pulls drinkable water out of the humidity in the air.

Once it is up, it produces clean water without needing rain, a well, or the town water supply. It uses the moisture that is already sitting in the air around you, even on dry summer days. You know that sometimes it gets so hot you feel like you have no air to breathe. That’s humidity and with this device, you are able to turn all of it into water you can use on your homestead.

See how the Smart Water Box works here.

Make this summer easier on yourself. Set things up now so you have water on hand, no matter what the weather, the grid, or the government throws at you.

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The post DIY Natural Noise-Cancelling Walls first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

Every once in a while, somebody emails me asking the same thing. They want to know where in the country they should move if they are serious about starting a homestead. They want land, fair weather, decent taxes, and neighbors who will not call the county on them for raising a few chickens in the yard.

This is a fair question, and I have thought about it for a long time. There is no single perfect state, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.

But some states do make this life easier than others. These states have it all going for them. Affordable land, good weather, taxes that will not eat you alive, and neighbors who respect what you are doing.

I pulled together seven of them here. I also included some stories of folks already doing this work in each state, because nothing beats seeing it lived out by somebody real.

Tennessee 

Tennessee is one of my favorite recommendations for somebody just starting out, and I want to tell you why.

The tax bill is what gets my attention here. A typical homeowner pays around $1,488 a year, which is about half of what folks pay in plenty of other states. Farmland averages around $5,700 an acre. This is not exactly cheap, but I think it’s fair for what you get.

The growing season is long and warm. Summers are warm, but comfortable with temperatures sitting around the 80s, and the rain comes in steady all year. You can grow two or three rounds of vegetables in a single season if you plan it right, plus orchard fruit, nuts, pasture for goats and cows, and just about any medicinal herb you could want to put in the ground.

You may have heard that Carrie Underwood lives on a farm outside Nashville. In an interview not too long ago, she talked about raising chickens, cows, sheep, donkeys, and horses, and keeping a big garden. She said straight out that she thinks her family could feed themselves if supply chains ever fell apart. When somebody with her kind of money and options picks this life, it tells you something about what Tennessee has going for it.

For me, this is the easiest choice for a new homesteader. The land is forgiving, the rain shows up enough, and the rural folks still respect this way of living. 

Missouri 

You find it in the middle of the country, and that location matters more than you might think.

The thing about having a homestead in Missouri is that it depends a lot on how far your money goes. Pastureland and recreational acreage runs in the $4,500 to $5,700 an acre range, which means you can buy a good piece of land here for what a small suburban lot would cost you in places like California or the Northeast.

The climate gives you four full seasons. Hot summers and real winters, and that contrast is part of why the soil is as good as it is. Corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, and pasture all do well, and the Ozarks down in the south make for beautiful orchard country.

There is a former Army Ranger named Joshua Morris who built a 360-acre off-grid homestead in Missouri called Cold Spring Farm. He has been at it for over twenty years. His home is earth-sheltered, built to handle tornadoes, and runs on a mix of solar, wind, and hydro. He raises goats and cattle, and he keeps a pond stocked with fish.

He has said that watching things fall apart during his deployments overseas is what pushed him to build something that could stand on its own. His place is what a serious Missouri homestead can grow into if you give it time.

Missouri has plenty of water from rivers, lakes, and aquifers, and the hunting and fishing are some of the best you will find anywhere. If you want to be central, productive, and surrounded by people who get rural life, you cannot do much better.

Also, foraging is pretty big in this state. It is especially popular in the Ozarks, river valleys, and wooded parts of the state. Morels, chanterelles, chicken of the woods, pawpaws, persimmons, black walnuts, berries, greens, and various rare medicinal plants, you can find all of them here.

But the question is, do you know how to correctly identify them? One small confusion and you might end up in the hospital or even worse…

If you want to go foraging and stay safe at the same time, you first need to know how to recognize useful plants. This is incredibly easy when you have a full picture guide on hand.

Kentucky

Kentucky surprised me the first time I really looked into it. Here’s exactly why. 

Property taxes are around 0.75 percent. Farmland averages around $5,300 an acre, with pastureland closer to $3,770. Summers stay in the 80s, winters are cool but not brutal, and rainfall is generous, especially in the eastern half of the state. So why not take advantage of all of this rain and build a 3-barrel pressurized rainwater harvesting and purification system? You can see how to build one here. 

The rolling hills create little microclimates from one holler to the next, and the spring-fed creeks running through them are a dream if you want to do gravity-fed irrigation or a small hydro setup.

Congressman Thomas Massie lives on a 1,000-acre off-grid homestead up in northeastern Kentucky. He and his family built a 4,400 square foot timber-framed house using wood and stone from their own land. They run the place on solar with a Tesla battery bank, and they have a sawmill and a blacksmith shop on the property.

Massie has said that building it themselves taught the family skills no school could have. His setup is bigger than what most of us will ever build, but the point is that Kentucky still has the kind of land and freedom that lets a place like his exist in the first place. 

The state has a long tradition of small farming, bourbon, tobacco, and craft work, and that culture is still going strong. Farmers’ markets and co-ops are easy to find and I am sure you can find many like-minded people. 

Idaho

Idaho is the dream state for anyone who wants some privacy, space, and a homestead that feels remote.

Here is where I want to warn you about things getting expensive. Demand has been heavy for a few years now, and good land is not as cheap as it used to be. That said, property taxes are still low at around 0.50 percent, and if you stay out of the popular valleys around Boise and Coeur d’Alene, you can still find pasture and timber land at fair rates. 

The trick is to look at the smaller towns and the more remote counties before they catch up to the rest of the state.

The climate is what they call high desert. Cold winters, warm and dry summers, and big differences depending on where you settle. The northern panhandle gets a lot more rain and is greener than people expect, while the Snake River Plain down south is dry and dusty without irrigation.

A family I read about, Josh and Carolyn Thomas, left Southern California and ended up on 40 acres in northern Idaho with their ten children. They grow potatoes, corn, and wheat, and they keep goats and cattle. The kids rotate through the chores like weeding, feeding animals, and putting up food.

They worked their way into this life slowly, starting from suburban life and picking up the skills one at a time. If you ever wondered whether a big family can really make a go of it on a homestead, look up their story.

Idaho is for folks who want elbow room. The neighbors are far away, the views are big, and the local culture respects independence. 

Maine 

Maine was called “the homesteading country” long before the word even got trendy.

Maine is going to ask more from you on taxes than the southern states. The effective rate is around 1.02 percent, and a typical tax bill comes in around $3,000 a year. 

But the land itself is one of the better deals in the whole Northeast. Farmland averages a little over $3,000 an acre, which is unheard of compared to neighboring New Hampshire or Massachusetts. 

The climate is where you need to compromise. Winters are long and cold, but summers are mild and pleasant, and the rain is reliable. About 90 percent of the state is forested, and there are over 3,500 miles of coastline. You get woodland and saltwater within a short drive of just about anywhere you would want to settle.

There is a couple, Linda Tatelbaum and Kal Winer, who left their academic jobs back in 1977 and bought 75 acres in rural Maine. They built a little 16-by-24-foot house by hand and put solar panels up decades before anybody else was doing it. They have never been hooked to the grid.

They raised a child while hauling water and cooking on a wood stove, and they are still living that life today. Almost fifty years on the same piece of land. 

The growing season is shorter, but root vegetables, potatoes, berries, and maple syrup all do beautifully here. You can supplement your garden with fish, lobster, deer, and timber. The back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s left behind a culture that still welcomes newcomers who want to live simply.

Vermont

I want to be straight with you about Vermont, because the taxes are no joke and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

The effective rate is around 1.59 percent, and a typical homeowner can pay over $5,000 a year. That is real money coming out of your pocket. The land itself is more reasonable, around $4,100 to $4,400 an acre, and you can find affordable acreage if you look in the Northeast Kingdom or up in the southern mountains.

So why is it on this list? Because the culture and the local food system in Vermont are some of the strongest anywhere in the country. Farmers’ markets are everywhere, organic agriculture has been the mainstream here for forty years, and the state has homestead exemptions and farm-use valuations that take some of the sting out of those taxes if you actually work your land.

The climate gives you cold winters and warm summers with steady rain. Dairy, sheep, apples, maple syrup, and cold-tolerant vegetables all do well.

A homesteader named Teri Page moved her family to Vermont in 2018 and put up a 20-foot yurt while she built her house with local lumber. She looked at paying around $20,000 to hook up to the grid and decided instead to put that money into expanding her solar setup and staying off-grid.

She has talked about how Vermont’s local food economy means she can buy meat and dairy from neighboring farms while growing her own vegetables and herbs. That is Vermont in a nutshell. You can be independent without having to do every single thing alone. It’s an amazing place for anyone who values community. 

If you need some reliable non-GMO medicinal herb seeds, you can get your own pack here. Packaged right here in the U.S., they are an amazing choice for any homesteaders who want to start a herb garden.

Montana 

If you want room to breathe, Montana is the answer. 

This is also where the land prices made me check the number twice. Farm real estate averages around $1,230 an acre. You read that right. For the price of a single acre in coastal California, you could buy yourself a small Montana ranch. 

Property taxes are ok too, around 0.72 percent. The trade-off is that some of this land is going to be remote, dry, and a long way from anywhere, but if you want space without having to be a millionaire to afford it, this is where you find it.

The climate is split between the Great Plains out east and the Rocky Mountains in the west, so you have options. Eastern Montana has warm summers, cold winters, and supports cattle and dryland wheat. The valleys in the west are cooler and better suited for hay, vegetables, and small mixed homesteads.

Two stories from Montana have stuck with me. The first is Kelsey Vick, who runs the Homemade Montana Homestead. After she saw the empty grocery store shelves back in 2020, she went back to basics. 

She cut and peeled her own logs to build fences for her pigs, started raising chickens and rabbits, and taught herself fermenting and canning. She is honest that self-sufficiency is a long road and not something you finish in one season.

The second is Susan Gregersen, who lives off-grid on a 20 acre place near Fortine. She is three miles from the nearest power line. Her whole solar setup cost under $5,000, and it does not run a refrigerator, so she cans her meat, dehydrates her eggs, and built a root cellar instead.

She raised seven children out there and supported her family through her writing. Her story shows you can do this with very little money if you have the right skills and the right attitude going in.

Final Thoughts

Picking a state is not the whole thing about homesteading. I have known plenty of people who built strong, self-reliant lives in places that would never show up on a list like this one. 

The land you have is almost always better than the land you are dreaming about, and the work you start today matters more than the work you might start someday in a place that seems perfect.

One More Thing Before You Go

Picking the right state matters, but the land alone won’t build your homestead or save it in case of an emergency. The skills you have are the most important and just think about it: nothing can replace knowledge.

Even if you’re scouting your first property or you’ve been homesteading for years, the checklist is still the same. Don’t let yourself be vulnerable! Being prepared is the best thing you can do for you and your homestead.

Here are five skills every homesteader should master:

1. A way to catch and store water on your own – No matter where you live, there are still bad years when it comes to rain. A gravity-fed rainwater system that holds 165 gallons and needs no pump is one of the smartest things you can put in your backyard. Get the exact build here.

2. A way to preserve eggs long term – Chickens are one of the best purchases on a homestead.  But what are you going to do with all the eggs? One bad heat wave during a blackout can cost you months of work. Hopefully, the Brits had a method back in 1941 that kept eggs good for ten years without refrigeration and this is still a gold staple when it comes to food preservation. You can find the method here.

3. An alternative to antibiotics – Cuts, splinters, sore throat. What are you going to do when the doctor is not around? Knowing how to make something like Amish Amoxicillin from three plants you might already have in your garden is essential. Find the step-by-step recipe + video instructions here.

4. A way to keep food cold without electricity – Meat is precious on a homestead and I am sure you don’t want to see all of it spoil just because your generator malfunctions once. The Amish have been doing it without power for generations. You can get the build for the Amish electricity-free fridge here.

5. A plan for the property line – Rural does not mean safe, and you can’t stand guard at three in the morning. A few traps and alarms in the right spots will take care of your property. Find everything you need to be safe here.

Your homestead is a system that keeps evolving with you. It grows alongside you, and the more skills you bring to it, the more it gives back. I’ve seen people get discouraged because they think they’re behind, or because their neighbor has chickens and a greenhouse and a smokehouse and they’ve barely got a garden going.

Please don’t fall into this trap. Most of us, the ones who choose this path, started from scratch.

I think that what matters the most is your willingness to keep going, to keep learning, and to keep building. Just one of these five skills will already get you a little bit more ahead of where you were last month.

You may also like:

States That Will Punish You for Harvesting Rainwater. Do You Live In One Of Them?

Off-Grid Water? This Weird Device Is Changing Lives in the Desert (Video) 

The Worst States for Living Off Grid

2026 Natural Disaster Map. Is Your Area on the List?

You’re Not a Real Homesteader if You Don’t Grow This…

The post Top 7 Best States to Be Self-Sufficient first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

The traditional methods for water purification have usually involved boiling the water for at least 3 minutes or treating it with chemicals with either a chlorine or iodine base. They all work, but they have some downsides. Chemical treatments often leave a chemical aftertaste, and boiling can sometimes leave the water tasting flat.

There are solutions, including treatment tablets that neutralize the chlorine or iodine aftertaste, or, in the case of boiling water, pouring the water back and forth into containers to aerate it. But there’s another solution many people might not be aware of.

Ultraviolet Light Sterilization

Ultraviolet light (UV) radiates from the sun on a constant basis. Ultraviolet is at the far end of the light spectrum and is even invisible at higher wavelengths. What’s curious is that UV light at certain wavelengths will actually interfere with the nucleic acids and DNA in microorganisms, effectively killing them and preventing reproduction or spread. It’s called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI).

Once you have clean water, it’s incredibly important to be careful about how you store it. Store it wrong and you might compromise your entire stockpile in a couple of days. Water gets contaminated easily if you don’t store it correctly.

The average adult human needs about 1 gallon of water per day. This means you need to keep your stockpile in containers that are able to satisfy this need for weeks.  Hopefully, building a safe water storage system is a project that takes a few hours.

Click here if you want to see how to build a safe water tank for long term storage. 

UV Light 101

Ultraviolet light emanates from the sun at all wavelengths. Fortunately, the harmful wavelengths are absorbed by the Earth’s ozone layer. Without the ozone layer, DNA in “all” organisms would be affected.

The wavelength of UV light is measured in nanometers (nm). A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. The wavelength for UV light ranges between 400 nm and 100 nm. Across the UV spectrum, there are three basic levels indicated by the letters A, B, and C:

• UVA (320–400 nm): longest UV wavelengths; penetrates deepest into skin; used in blacklights and tanning lamps.
• UVB (280–320 nm): medium wavelengths; responsible for sunburn; partially absorbed by the ozone layer.
• UVC (100–280 nm): shortest and most energetic; germicidal; mostly absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere.

What’s worth noting is that the shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy. As for the visible spectrum, that ranges from 400 to 700nm and infrared goes from 700 to above 3,000 nm.

The Perfect UN NM Wavelength

The ideal UV wavelength for sterilizing water is 254 nm. That wavelength is lethal to the DNA structure of harmful microorganisms. But there’s a big note of caution. UV light at 254 nanometers can cause blindness, serious burns, and potentially damage human DNA. That’s why the UV sterilizer we’re going to build is totally enclosed. The UV light is contained and is shut off anytime the interior of the unit needs to be inspected or is not operating.

Timing

We’re going to install a valve on our UV sterilizer to control the flow rate of water passing under the ultraviolet lights. The ideal flow rate is 1 to 3 gallons per minute. This will ensure the water is exposed to the UV light for a sufficient time to sterilize it.

The Importance of Water Clarity

For a UV water sterilizer to be effective, the water must be clear. That’s why filtering is often the first step to remove any particles causing cloudiness. Any turbidity will diminish the UV effectiveness significantly.

To do this, you’ll need a water filter. Now, you have two options. You can buy one for hundreds of dollars, or you can build one yourself for a few bucks. If you follow this method, building your own filter will cost you x3 times less than buying one. All you need are some basic tools and a couple of materials you can find in any speciality store.

Click here if you want to see how to build a water filter in less than 3 hours.

Building a UV Water Sterilizer

MATERIALS:

• 2-foot x 4-foot sheet of plywood
• 2 – 8-foot 2×4’s
• 20 feet 1-inch diameter clear plastic hose
• Wood screws
• 20 1-inch clamps
• 1-inch diameter valve
• 36” x 60” sheet metal
• Rivets and rivet gun
• 3 – 254nm UV lights (mercury lights)
• Electrical connections for each light

INSTRUCTIONS:

• The Water Box

1. Cut the 2×4’s to two 48-inch lengths and two 24-inch lengths.
2. Cut a 90-degree angle on the corners.
3. Attached the 2×4’s to the 2-foot by 4-foot sheet of plywood.
4. Attach the 2×4’s to the perimeter of the plywood with wood screws.
5. Drill a 1-inch diameter hole at the top side and opposite bottom side of the water box to allow the 1-inch tubing to slide in and out.
6. Slide the tubing through the top side hole and the end through the bottom side hole so both are protruding from the box.
7. Use the 1-inch C-clamps to attach the tubing to the bottom of the plywood, creating a snaking progression through the box.
8. Attach the valve to one end of the tubing where the water will exit.

• The UV Light Box

1. Cut the corners of the sheet metal at a 45-degree angle, 6 inches long.
2. Fold in the sides to create a box and rivet together. (Wear leather work gloves).
3. Install the UV lights in the box equally spaced and parallel
4. Drill a hole in the side of the light box and run the power cord to the UV light setup.

• Final Assembly

1. Place the light box on top of the water box.
2. Turn the UV lights on.
3. Connect the water supply to the plastic tubing and adjust the flow rate on the spigot to 3 gallons per minute.
4. Bottle and store the sterilized water.

Critical Steps

• Always make sure the water is filtered and clear.
• Test your purified water for pathogens to ensure you have 100% sterilized water.
• The average lifecycle of a 254nm UV bulb is one year of constant use. Even when the light appears to be as intense as it originally was, the UV wavelength could have diminished over time. Another reason to test the water from time to time.
• If the water does not test 100% sterile, decrease the flow rate so the water moves more slowly through the water box.
• NEVER look at or expose skin to the UV lights. Keep the box enclosed and always turn the UV lights off before lifting the light box lid. UV light at 254nm can cause blindness and burns.

Where to Locate Your UV Sterilizer

The whole setup is rather large, but you can always downsize it to fit a certain space. Some good locations include a basement, garage corner, or shed. You just want to make sure that kids and pets don’t get around it. In fact, some locking clamps attaching the light box to the water box might be a good idea

You may also like:

How to Harvest 1000+ Gallons of Water from Your Roof

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8 Invisible Threats Hiding in Your Water Supply

Why You Should Add Alum Salt to Your Water

The Native American Way To Self-Water Your Backyard

The post DIY UV Water Sterilizer That Kills Every Pathogen first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.

The first time I planted thyme, I spent $4.99 on a tiny plant from the hardware store. That was eight years ago. The same plant is still out there in my garden, and I haven’t bought thyme since.

If you’ve ever gone to the supermarket and thought the prices for herbs are insane, then you might be in the right place. The grocery store wants you to come back every few weeks. Meanwhile, the herb you are spending money on is something you could plant once and harvest from for the rest of your life. 

One thing I find interesting is that some of the herbs on this list might outlive us. So, it’s easy to say they’re a long term investment. 

Having herbs on my homestead is a priority, as they always come in handy. Besides the obvious, such as using them when you’re cooking, they are very good bartering items, and I also use them to make various remedies.

Here’s what to plant, where to plant it, and how to keep each one going forever. I also included some DIY projects since I know you like them so much. 

Chives

If you’ve never grown anything before, start with chives. They’re foolproof, they’re cheerful, and you’ll have them regrowing by the end of the first summer.

Chives grow in neat clumps with hollow green stems, purple pom-pom flowers in late spring, and leaves that taste like a soft, mild onion. The flowers are edible too.

Plant them in full sun. Chives shrug off cold winters and don’t mind drought once they settle in. You can harvest lightly the same year you plant them, but the real bounty comes the following spring, once the clump fills out.

How to keep them forever

Every two or three years, dig up the clump in early spring. Use a sharp spade to split it into smaller chunks. Each chunk should have at least five small bulbs at the bottom so it has enough to grow on its own.

Replant the divisions and give the rest you can give them to a neighbor. This keeps the plant young and protects it from getting woody and tired in the middle.

After they flower, cut the whole plant down to about two inches. Within a week, fresh tender leaves push up. If you don’t want chives popping up everywhere, snip the flower heads before they go to seed.

I keep a clump right by the kitchen door so I can grab a handful for scrambled eggs without having to go in the garden. 

Thyme

Thyme is a small woody herb with an earthy, slightly peppery smell. The flavor is intense and savory, perfect for roasted meat, soup, beans, and anything you’d cook in a Dutch oven.

Plant it in full sun, in soil that drains well. Sandy or rocky ground is perfect. Keep it away from soggy soil! This type of soil will give you great tomatoes, but it will rot the roots of your thyme. You can harvest a little in the first summer, but go easy. The plant really takes off in its second growing season.

How to keep it forever

The trick with thyme is fighting the woodiness. Older plants get tough, sticklike stems with not many leaves.

During the spring, I give mine a pretty rough treatment, but this is the only way, believe me.  Take off up to half the plant before new growth shows up. It looks brutal, but the fresh growth that comes back is tender and full of flavor.

Every three or four years, take cuttings from your healthiest stems. Strip the bottom leaves and stick the cut end in damp soil. Within a few weeks, you’ll have new plants. Pot one up in the fall and bring it inside for a winter supply on your kitchen windowsill.

Quick remedy

Thyme tea is one of the oldest cough remedies in the book. Steep a tablespoon of fresh leaves in a cup of hot water for ten minutes. Strain and add honey to taste. It’s warm and soothing, and it helps you with the cold. 

But thyme is so much more powerful if you know how to use it. Sure, a hot drink will always make things better when you are congested and can barely breathe, but using thyme the right way will unlock its natural properties and make it even stronger.

That’s why thyme is one of the main ingredients in this “Mighty Lungs” Tincture. And the name is not an exaggeration. The first time I made this tincture, I couldn’t believe how good it was at opening up my airways. I was finally able to breathe properly after three sleepless nights.

If you often struggle with congestion, you should give this tincture a try. It’s easy to make at home and if you store it correctly ( all you have to do is keep it in a dark cupboard), it lasts at least 2 years. Add a couple of drops in your favorite tea or juice and you’ll notice how you start to breathe better.

See the full 5-step recipe, click here.

Oregano

If you’ve only ever tasted oregano from a jar, you haven’t really tasted oregano. Real Greek oregano is sharp, peppery, and so much stronger than the store-bought version. I need to add just half of what I was using in my recipes. When I throw a few sprigs into pasta sauce, the whole kitchen smells like an Italian pizza place. 

Don’t grow it from seed, because seed-grown oregano often comes out bland. Buy a started plant from a nursery, sniff the leaves first, and pick the one that smells the strongest. You’ll get a small harvest the first summer and a generous one starting the following year.

How to keep it forever

Oregano barely survives cold winters. If you live somewhere with hard freezes, mulch heavily with straw or evergreen branches after the ground freezes. This insulates the roots and improves your odds.

Take stem cuttings or divide the roots every few years to make new plants.

If you want to harvest leaves all summer, snip off any flower buds the moment you see them. Once oregano blooms, the leaf production slows down and the flavor is not that potent anymore. 

Lemon Balm

Lemon balm is a plant I planted once and now can’t get rid of. But I’m not complaining. The leaves smell like fresh lemon when you crush them, and the tea is one of the most calming things you can drink in the evening.

It grows in upright bushy clumps about a foot or two tall. Happy in sun or partial shade. Not fussy about soil. Lemon balm is fast, and you’ll be harvesting leaves in the same season you plant it.

How to keep it forever (and under control!)

The challenge isn’t keeping it alive. It’s keeping it from taking over your whole garden. I learned this the hard way. By the third year, I had lemon balm in three flower beds and the cracks of the patio.

Cut off the flower stalks before they go to seed. In mid-summer, give the whole plant a haircut down to about half its height. This stops the seeding, refreshes the foliage, and gives you a big harvest of leaves to dry for tea.

Quick remedy

Honestly, lemon balm might be the best thing when you deal with lots of stress. Why? Because it has a compound that helps your brain access its natural “off switch” for stress and anxiety.

Lemon balm is amazing at making your body relax after a hard day and when your body is calmer, your mind tends to follow. People have been using this herb for thousands of years when they needed to relax and sleep well. You can do the same and today the process is so much easier than it was for our grandparents. 

They made the lemon balm tincture themselves, which isn’t complicated, but it needs 4 to 6 weeks to extract properly.

If you don’t want to wait, you can get your own lemon balm tincture now from here.

Mint

This herb spreads by underground runners that send up new shoots wherever they please. You’ll be harvesting from a brand-new mint plant within weeks of putting it in the ground.

Don’t plant mint directly in the ground if you can help it. Use a pot, or sink a bottomless container into the soil so the roots can’t escape sideways. I made this mistake in my first year, and we still find sprigs of mint in places it has no business being in, the same fashion as with lemon balm. 

If you’ve already planted it in the ground and you can already see it taking over, dig it up while the patch is still small and move it to a container.

Related: DIY Amish Toothpaste From Mint Oil 

How to keep it forever

If you keep it contained, mint will live for decades. Harvest stems regularly to keep it bushy. If you don’t do this, it gets leggy and falls over.

Every couple of years, dump out the pot and split the root mass with a knife. Replant a healthy chunk and compost the rest, or share it with a neighbor.

In the fall, leave mint in containers outside in most of the country. If your winters are brutal, haul the pots into a cold garage.

I dry mint every summer for tea and to add to my homemade ice cream.

Rosemary

Rosemary is the one perennial here that really struggles with cold winters. If you live somewhere warm, it grows into a small evergreen shrub four to six feet tall. Anywhere else, you’ll need to keep it in a pot and bring it inside for the cold months. A nursery-bought plant is ready to harvest from the day you bring it home; just don’t take more than a third of the plant the first season.

How to keep it forever

If you live somewhere cold, here’s how it works. Grow rosemary in a big pot. Outside in full sun all summer. Bring it in before the first hard frost.

Indoors, give it a cool, sunny spot. Most rosemary plants die indoors because of watering mistakes. Overwatering rots the roots, but rosemary also dies suddenly from drying out completely because it doesn’t wilt to warn you. Let the top inch of soil dry between waterings, but don’t let the pot go bone dry. Mist the leaves to keep humidity up.

Look for the variety called ‘Arp.’ It’s the most cold-tolerant rosemary on the market and can survive moderately cold winters with heavy mulching.

Take cuttings in late summer. Snip a four-inch piece and strip the lower leaves. Stick the cut end in damp soil. You’ll have a new plant by winter.

I cut a whole branch off our rosemary every time I make roast chicken. It’s the kind of thing that sounds small until you’ve been doing it for years and you realize you’ve never once paid for fresh rosemary at the store. This is what I love about homesteading. 

Comfrey

Comfrey isn’t something you cook with. It’s the plant that homesteaders grow to stop buying fertilizer. The leaves are huge and fuzzy, and they hold serious amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which makes them one of the best free fertilizers you’ll ever use. And the fact that you can grow it yourself gives it a huge head start compared to expensive fertilizers. 

It also has a long history in folk medicine. Traditionally, people make a poultice or salve from the leaves to help with bruises, sprains, and minor wounds. Don’t take it internally. The plant contains compounds that can damage your liver. External use only, and check with a doctor first.

A new comfrey plant from a root cutting will give you usable leaves within a few months. By the second growing season, you’ll be cutting leaves three or four times a year.

Quick remedy

For a simple bruise salve, chop a handful of fresh leaves and warm them gently in olive oil over low heat for about an hour. Strain through cheesecloth, then store the infused oil in a clean jar in the fridge. Rub a little on bruises, sore muscles, or minor sprains. Just remember, never apply to broken skin and never take internally.

I keep a small jar of this in our medicine cabinet for whenever Mark or I need it. And there’s something so satisfying about reaching for a remedy you grew in your own backyard.

Another thing you can make using comfrey is Comfrey and Lavender “Herbal Oil for Joint Support”. This oil reduces inflamation quicky and helps you keep your joints functional.

If you ever feel like your joints let you down when trying to climb a flight of stairs, this oil might help. It is soothing and if you use it regularly, you can feel it acting and actively making your joints less swollen. You can see how to prepare yourself here.

In case you don’t want to make this oil at home, you can get this Joint & Movement Salve. Considered a miracle worker by many, this salve is made to support your joints and muscles. Your knees will thank you!

How to keep it forever

Pick the spot carefully. Comfrey has a deep root, and once it settles in, it’s nearly impossible to move. Plant it where you want it for the next twenty years.

Propagate from root cuttings two to four inches long. Plant them two to three inches deep and within a few weeks, you’ll have new plants.

Cut the leaves three or four times a season for compost or fertilizer tea, leaving a few leaves each time. A well-tended comfrey patch lasts decades.

DIY Project: Herb-Infused Honey

This might be one of my favorite homestead cooking projects. Raw honey takes on the aroma and flavor of whatever herb you steep in it, and the result is something you can drizzle into tea, spread on toast, glaze on chicken, or take by the spoonful when you feel a sore throat coming on. 

Thyme honey is my favorite for cold season. Rosemary honey is incredible on roasted meat. Lemon balm honey makes the calmest cup of bedtime tea you’ve ever had.

There are two ways to do this: with fresh herbs or with dried. Each has a different shelf life, which I’ll get to at the end.

What you need:

• 1 cup raw honey (local if you can get it)
• A small handful of fresh herb sprigs or 2 tablespoons dried herbs
• A clean glass half-pint jar with a tight-fitting lid
• A chopstick or a clean spoon

How to do it:

1. Pick and prep your herb. If using fresh, wash the sprigs and pat them completely dry with a clean towel. Any water clinging to the leaves can introduce moisture and spoil the honey. If using dried, you can skip this step entirely.
2. Pack the jar. Place the herbs at the bottom of the clean jar. Don’t crush them, just lay them in.
3. Pour in the honey. Fill the jar slowly to leave room at the top. Use a chopstick to stir gently and release any trapped air bubbles. Push every leaf down so the honey covers it completely. Any herb sticking up above the honey can mold.
4. Cap and label. Put the lid on tight. Write the date and herb on the label so you don’t forget.
5. Let it infuse. Set the jar somewhere cool and dark. Turn it upside down every couple of days for the first week to keep the herbs coated. Most herbs taste good in one to two weeks. Stronger flavor comes after three to four.
6. Strain (optional). Once the flavor is where you want it, you can warm the jar gently in a bowl of hot tap water to loosen the honey, then strain through a fine mesh sieve into a clean jar. Or you can leave the herbs in for a more rustic look.

Storage and shelf life:

• Fresh herb honey needs the fridge (Did you know you can build a fridge that uses no electricity?). Use it within 3 to 4 weeks. The moisture from fresh leaves can cause the honey to ferment if you leave it at room temperature. 
• Dried herb honey keeps for up to a year in a cool, dark cabinet at room temperature.

If you ever notice bubbling, an off smell, or the honey looks like it’s separating, throw it out. That’s fermentation, and the batch is no longer safe to eat. It’s rare with dried herbs and almost unheard of if you keep things clean, so don’t let it scare you off the project.

DIY Project: Herb Finishing Salt

Specialty stores charge $14 for finishing salts. You can make them in your kitchen for almost nothing. I make a big batch every fall when the herb beds need cutting back, and we use it all winter long.

What you need:

• 1 cup loosely packed fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives)
• 1 cup coarse salt (kosher or sea salt, not table salt)
• A blender or food processor
• A baking sheet lined with parchment paper

How to do it:

1. Wash and dry the herbs. Pat them completely dry with a clean towel. Any moisture left on the leaves will cause clumping later.
2. Strip the leaves. Pull them off any tough stems. Tender stems on chives are fine. Woody rosemary stems should go in the compost.
3. Pulse with the salt. Add the herbs and salt to your blender. Pulse until the mixture turns evenly green with finely chopped herbs throughout. You’re not making powder, just a coarse, sandy texture.
4. Spread on the baking sheet. Lay the mixture in a thin, even layer on the parchment-lined sheet.
5. Dry it in the oven. Set your oven to its lowest setting, around 175°F. If your oven won’t go that low, prop the door open with a wooden spoon.
6. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Stir once halfway through. The salt is done when the herbs look crisp, the green color has lightened, and the mixture feels completely dry to the touch with no damp clumps.
7. Cool and store. Let it cool completely on the counter. Transfer to a clean, dry glass jar with a tight lid. Store in a cool, dark cabinet.

Sprinkle it over roasted vegetables, eggs, fresh bread with butter, grilled meat, popcorn, or anywhere you’d use plain salt. Once you have a jar by the stove, you’ll reach for it all the time.

Final Thoughts

Look, I know seven herbs feels like a lot to think about when you’re staring at an empty patch of dirt. You don’t have to plant them all this weekend.

If you only plant three, make them chives, thyme, and oregano. They’re forgiving, productive, and will live for years with almost no attention. Add the rest as you go.

A handful of these plants in the ground today is a pantry that fills itself for the next thirty years. That’s the whole point of perennials. You do the work once, you harvest forever.

You may also like:

Rosemary Plant Care: The Complete Guide to Growing, Pruning, and Harvesting

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7 High-Yield Crops for Small Spaces

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2026 Spring Medicinal Planting Guide

The post Plant These Herbs Once and You’ll Have Them Forever first appeared on Self Sufficient Projects.