There are plenty of ways to achieve greater self-sufficiency at home. Raising animals, growing a garden, planting an orchard, and learning how to process and preserve foods are all central to being ...
How to Introduce New Chickens into an Old Laying Flock
When I first started chicken keeping, I didn't realize how much raising chickens was like keeping a garden. By that, I mean there's the routine daily maintenance like feeding, watering, and coop ...
How to Sell Shiitake Mushrooms and Make Profit from Your Mushroom-Growing Hobby
What started as a hobby because of a fascination with exotic mushrooms and French Cuisine, has now turned into a profitable business. The last guide on Growing Shiitake Mushrooms explains how my ...
Incubation & Gestation Calculator for Livestock, Insects, and Aquatic Animals
I am lazy at math. So, whenever I expose my female goats to my buck, I always have to track down an online gestation calculator to figure out when I'll have babies due. Then, I have to do the same ...
Downy Mildew: Identification, Plants at Risk, Prevention, and Treatment
Most homesteaders can easily spot the signs of powdery mildew in their garden. The tell-tale signs of a powdered sugar looking substance on the tops of plant leaves is hard to miss. Downy mildew ...
Are Nematodes a Friend or Foe for Your Garden and Livestock?
Nematodes often get a bad wrap on our homesteads. We worry about root-knot nematodes ruining our tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, okra, peas, and more. Those sneaky little critters attach to our plant ...
A Beginners Guide to Using Fungicide in the Organic Garden
There was a time in my life that I used to think anything called a fungus was a bad thing. Now that I grow an organic garden with soil full of beneficial fungi and eat shiitake mushrooms daily, I ...
How to Kill Spotted Lanternfly and Save your Fruit Trees
A few years ago I signed up to receive all the agricultural pest and disease notifications for my region by email. Mostly, I get to ignore the notices because they don't apply to organic gardeners. ...
Growing Fenugreek: Plant Varieties, How-to Guide, Problems, and Harvesting
Conjure the scent of that "maple-flavored" syrup you put on pancakes as a child. You know, that comforting, caramelized candy scented stuff that wafted across the kitchen entrancing you to the table. ...