Guides

When you buy a piece of land, you usually inherit whatever the people before you decided to plant. Then, over the years, you add a few trees of your...

For years, I had one hard rule on my homestead. Animal manure could go in the garden. Cow, horse, chicken, rabbit, all of it, once it had aged. But...

I resisted buying a butter bell for years, mostly because the whole idea sounded like a gimmick. Butter sitting in a little ceramic cup, upside...

If your garden gets a little smaller every year because your back can't take what it used to, keep reading. You till in spring. You fight weeds all...

I go through a lot of cheese on this homestead, and like most of you, I've had blocks go dry at the edges or shred sitting in the fridge longer than...

Maybe this already happened to you.  You walk into your pantry and you notice that there’s a bag with a hole in a corner. It looks chewed and the...

By August, you can already see the rewards the summer season had for you. The garden is full of tomatoes, the mornings start to feel a little...

The first time I collected eggs with a smear of coop bedding stuck to the shell, I did what most new chicken keepers do. I ran straight to the sink...

Every summer, you pay good money to fight the heat. The AC is on all afternoon, the electric bill keeps rising, and the house still feels hot by the...

I've brought home more than one "great deal" piece of furniture that turned out to be a smoke bomb in disguise. Estate sales, thrift stores, and...

A while back, I kept running into the same problem every summer. I felt like I didn’t have a reliable water source in case of an emergency. My rain...

You might think the big work is done by July. You’ve planted your vegetables, the animals are settled, and all you have to do now is just water and...

Somewhere between a backyard garden and a full working farm, the homestead occupies a unique space in modern life. It is a place built around...

You probably have a box of cornstarch sitting in your pantry right now, and you probably think it is only good for thickening gravy and pie...

Yes, they're cute and all, but deer are a huge problem all over the country. You might have encountered them in your garden eating your crops, and...

We started the journey of this series in the winter and here we are… It’s already June! How is time even flying this fast?  This is technically the...

The modern world has led us to be dependent on stores, public services, and the grid. But you might not want to put your lives in the hands of...

When May is here, you know things are going to move fast. This month comes with a lot of wonderful changes, such as rising temperatures and longer...

A dull lawn mower blade does not cut grass cleanly. Instead, it tears and shreds each blade of grass, leaving ragged brown tips that invite disease...

April is finally here, and there's a lot to talk about. Most folks see it as that in-between month where spring has shown up, but winter's leftovers...

As soon as spring comes, it’s time to get out and about and do some summer maintenance. But before I start on the yard and garden, the equipment we...