Archive for the ‘Growing Vegetables’ Category
Tuesday’s Tip: Adding income to the homestead budget.
July 6th, 2010
Whether the economy is good or bad, the fact that the homesteader has a wide array of options has never changed. Here are some ideas for adding some income to the homestead budget:
1. Farmer’s Markets – From home-grown fruits and vegetables to freshly baked bread, farmers markets offer many areas of income opportunity to the homesteader. Many homesteaders bring their honey, beeswax candles, flowers, seeds from the last harvest and herbs. The variety of things that can be sold at a farmers market is vast!
2. Farm Tours - Many people from the city and suburbs are often intrigued with farm life and excited to learn new skills that you may have already acquired. Set specific tour and lesson dates and get the word out. You may be surprised to find how many groups want to dig in the dirt and get in touch with where their food comes from. Sheep shearing and wool spinning are often interesting events along with a host of other typical homestead activities, that others don’t have the joy of sharing in unless you invite them.
3. Lessons – As we have seen more and more people are getting back to the basics of living more simply. The trouble with that is, many who move to the country don’t have the benefit of having had generations who passed down the skills to do so. You could teach bread baking, canning or animal husbandry with your neighbors who are new to the area.
4. Share your skills for a fee – Again touching on the newly arrived, greenhorn homesteader, you may want to offer a service of bush-hogging land they wish cleared, tilling the garden spot, hauling in or out debris or livestock for a small fee. You might be surprised what a tiny ad in the local paper may turn up as others move to your more rural neighborhood.
These are but a very few suggestions for making more income come into your homesteading budget. Count your blessings even in the tougher economic times and see just how many options you have as someone who has even the smallest of homesteads, or at least some homesteading skills!
Until next time!
Best Blessings!
Donna
The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Chemical Free and Organic Grains, Grain Mills, Bread Machines,Grain buckets, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tips to Putting up the Garden Harvest…
June 9th, 2010
If you’re new to homesteading or even a seasoned veteran – one topic that often has many many tips to it is how to preserve your harvest once the garden starts putting out food!
Below are a few options:
Canning - This is one of the most widely used forms of preserving and putting up the harvest used in (at least) America. You can CAN just about everything and many items last for several years!
Looking for canning items? CLICK HERE
Dehydrating - Dehydrating is one of the oldest forms of preserving. Beef (and other meat) jerky came from the sun drying process that is so closely related to dehydrating. If temperatures are kept low enough, this is the most reasonably close method to keeping foods at a nutritional peak for long term storage.
For many dehydrating options – CLICK HERE
Fermenting/Pickling – This is also another low heat option for storing the garden harvest. The composition of each item does change a bit and the taste may be an acquired one, but the process is more simple than one may think. Nature does most of the work and you get the extra nutritional benefits!
Harsch Miracle Fermenting Crock – CLICK HERE
Freezing - Nothing replaces a good sized deep freeze on the homestead for keeping the harvest lasting long into the winter months. One trick is to be sure items are dry and as free of air as possible when you put up the harvest for freezing.
Most homesteaders put up the harvest in a variety of ways. The biggest tip to saving your garden harvest is to try many methods for each food and find what works best that you’ll use the most!
EnJOY the journey!
Best Blessings!
The Millers
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tags: canning, dehydrator, fermenting, food storage, freezing, garden, harvest, pickling, preserve | 
2 Comments »
Homesteading Lifestyle: Preserving Vegetables
August 28th, 2009
It is time to prepare for Preserving Vegetables during the winter months.
Are you looking for a healthy option to your daily diet? Then homesteading and gardening is your answer. For a small outlay, you can reap handsome dividends in the form of health and wellness at low cost. Your backyard provides you with ample land to cultivate a garden of vegetables and raise livestock for a constant source of nutritious sustenance.
Since we are coming up on the Fall Harvest, in this post we are going to share some thoughts on…
Keeping Your Vegetables Fresh Through Winter.
You don’t have to waste your vegetables in winter. By following a few simple steps, you can make your vegetable crop last right through the cold period, even six months after you’ve picked them from your garden. Here’s what you should do:
- Cold storage. Pack your turnips, cabbage and carrots in a freezer. Keep them in cold storage just after you’ve harvested and washed them.
- Freeze or can. Summer squash and peas can be kept in your freezer. Beans and tomatoes are better canned. Make sure you’re careful with your tomatoes as they bruise easily.
An old refrigerator will be enough for storing crops harvested from a small garden. If you have a much larger harvest, you might want to consider building a root cellar. You can convert a section of your yard to a root cellar or you might consider building it under your house. To keep the frost out, you have to insulate the door properly. Your garden produce will remain fresh in the cold cellar throughout winter.
Check your crops carefully to make sure they’re not diseased or damaged. Cure your potatoes for two weeks at 70oF and pack them in partly wet sawdust. They keep well in temperatures below 40oF. For garlic and onions, spread them out on shelves in a place that’s at least 60% humid – perhaps in a chilly basement.
Adequately storing your garden produce can provide you with fresh vegetables throughout winter. And you’ll soon be brimming with health and vigor with hardly a dent in your pocket!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Ideas for Better Homesteading and Gardening
August 11th, 2009
It’s satisfying to spread your table with your garden produce when you’re an avid homesteader and gardener. Your organically grown vegetables aid in enhancing your health and provide you with excellent nourishment. The following ideas can improve your homesteading and gardening:
1. Cultivate Potatoes in Barrels
Potatoes can be grown in plastic 50 gallon barrels, which are difficult for rodents to chew. Stack the barrels on a raised platform, then drill a few holes at the base for drainage purposes. Take a few potatoes, which have begun to sprout, and slice them into squares. Dry them out to prevent wet rot, then plant them in the barrels with some soil and compost. As the plant reaches the top of the barrel, plant horseradish or bush beans as a companion plant to ward off pests. When the potatoes are ripe for harvest, kick over the barrel and collect your crop.
2. Plant Herbs and Flowers with Your Garden Produce
You can attract pollinators to your vegetable garden by inter-planting your crop with a variety of herbs and flower species. Flowers in rich hues of blue and yellow lure bees, which encourage pollination. You’ll be assured of good crops in your harvest of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. Herbs such as dill, fennel and parsley entice beneficial insects like ladybird beetles. These feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers and lay their eggs on the crops. The larvae will gorge on pests that threaten your vegetables.
3. Mulch Your Garden
You can prevent weeds from insidiously destroying your vegetables, and retain ground moisture, by mulching. Additionally, mulching permits you to moderate the temperature of the soil. It’s best to resort to material that decomposes, thereby adding organic matter to the soil. Your mulch material can range from shredded leaves to newspaper and cardboard:
- Shredded leaves. This nutrient-rich mulch is ideal for vegetables, flowerbeds and fruits. Shred the leaves with a lawn mower before covering the ground.
- Newspapers and cardboard. Smother the weeds around the pathways and plants with several layers of newsprint and cardboard. Blanket the material with shredded leaves or bark in a thick covering. Replace the paper as your garden grows.
- Tree bark. The most common form of mulching, you can obtain them by the bag from gardening stores. Take care that you purchase real bark. Then spread the pieces over the soil in your garden.
Adopt these recommendations for better homesteading and gardening, and observe your crops burgeon. Live happily off your land!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tuesday’s Tip to Homesteading: Heirloom Seeds
April 21st, 2009
If you’ve not been homesteading long or are just beginning, it may be tempting to go to your local farmer’s market and buy some of those nice, pest-resistant, hybrid plants that are supposedly easier to grow. After all, they are ‘made’ to be more user friendly right? Well, that depends.
They are often genetically modified plants (GMO) that have had artificial genes grafted into their make up to make them resist draught or blight or bugs. That’s why some tomatoes don’t really taste like a tomato. Not only that, but by being hybrids, they are sterile or infertile for next year’s seeds. The plant you grow this year will not produce seeds for next year’s garden. You get to go spend money again on another hybrid seed.
Heirloom seeds will give you seeds to use each year from the crops they grow. Eat them this year, dry and save some for next year. Repeat. Now that’s money in the bank!
Take a look at this place that offers heirloom seeds with fast, free shipping:
Grow a Patriot Garden
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
