As a lovely spring week comes to a close, we are thankful for all the good things that have happened. Ripening Peaches This week we harvested our first peaches of the season! Many more are ripening on the trees. It’s been years of watering, pruning, and otherwise taking care of these trees as they grew and […]
Archive for the ‘Garden’ Category
Friday on the Farm 6/09/17: Peaches and Pigs!
Posted in Garden, Hogs, tagged fruit, hogs, pork on June 9, 2017 | Leave a Comment »
Farm Fresh Food: Duck Egg Crustless Quiche with Goat Cheese
Posted in Ducks, Food & Beverage, Garden, Goats, tagged cheese, ducks, eggs, food, garden, goat milk, goats, milk, raw milk on July 5, 2016 | Leave a Comment »
While we have all these lofty reasons for having a homestead, at the end of the day what keeps us going is that we get to eat amazing food. We produce some pretty delicious stuff! This quiche is one of our favorites in the spring and summer as it’s quick and easy, which is exactly what […]
Fall Garden Cleanup
Posted in Garden, Goats, tagged garden, goats, hay on October 29, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
Its that time of year when you see everyone’s formerly green and bountiful garden turning brown and looking more like a jungle. We decided that rather than fight it, we’d embrace it and turn all that unused plant life into free feed for our goats! We put our two junior does into the garden and let […]
Book Review: Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist
Posted in Garden, Reviews, tagged garden, gardening, homestead, hugelkultur, Permaculture, review on January 21, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
Michael Judd’s book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist: How to Have Your Yard and Eat it Too was an informative read that we have already utilized in our yard. This book was great! It took a few permaculture principles, and explained each to a depth that made me feel comfortable immediately implementing the principles […]
Book Review: Groundbreaking Food Gardens
Posted in Garden, Reviews, tagged book, garden, plans, review on January 9, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
I was recently inspired by reading Niki Jabbour’s Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden. At first I was skeptical as I didn’t see how a book that included 73 different garden plans could do justice to any of the plans. After reading just a few pages, though, […]
Truck Bed Unloader Review
Posted in Garden, Reviews, tagged compost, garden, load, manure, review, tailgate, truck, truck bed unloader, unloader on January 3, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
2014 was the year of livestock here on the farm. New additions included Goats, Ducks, Chickens, Rabbits, and Hogs. 2015 is going to be the year of the garden. We plan on, at a minimum, having a 5,000+ square foot vegetable garden, in addition to perennial beds closer to the house and edible landscaping out […]
Feeding Fodder
Posted in Garden, Hogs, Layers, Rabbits, tagged american guinea hog, chickens, eggs, feed, fodder, hens, hogs, homestead, Rabbits on January 3, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
For about a month now we’ve been experimenting with a fodder system for feed. It’s still in the experimentation phase, but I thought I’d share our results so far. After some research, we decided to play around with growing barley fodder. It could lower our feed costs, plus we really like the idea of having […]
Homesteading and Hazardous Chemicals
Posted in Food & Beverage, Garden, Household, tagged candlemaking, candles, cooking, garden, gardening on January 2, 2015 | Leave a Comment »
I wrote this book review addressing the challenges regarding potentially hazardous chemicals in our everyday products. We have discussed how we would like to lessen any unnecessary chemical exposure in our home. Our homesteading work has done a lot to give us chemical-free options. Our organic garden gives us food free of herbicides and pesticides. We […]
2014 Spring & Summer Summary
Posted in Chickens, Garden, Goats, Hogs, Mealworms, Rabbits, tagged american guinea hog, bees, chicken coop, chickens, eggs, food, goats, hens, hogs, homestead, pastured poultry, Rabbits on October 1, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
This spring and summer were our first on the homestead, and we are very happy with how much we accomplished. We were able to begin producing some products to sell, chicken and eggs, but primarily this year was a foundational year of laying the groundwork for various endeavors. Meat Chickens In the spring we raised about […]
How to Make a Raised Bed, with Some Help From the Hens
Posted in Garden, Layers, tagged chickens, dogs, gardening, hens, homestead, raised beds on September 4, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
Step One: Wheelbarrow over a lot of rocks. Arrange them to make a border. Step Two: Lay out cardboard to smother grass, weeds, etc. (In retrospect, I would lay out the cardboard before setting out the rocks, that way the cardboard could be under the rocks. It was hard getting the cardboard over the greenery […]
Building a Hoop House: Part 1
Posted in Animals, Chickens, Farm, Garden, Layers, tagged chickens, garden, gardening, hens, homestead on August 5, 2014 | 1 Comment »
We are building a hoop house! This will house hens over the winter. The bedding from the hens will decompose, creating great compost. In the spring we’ll move the hens out and plant vegetables. The basic structure for the hoop house is a 2×4 wood base, with two cattle panels as the hoop, connected […]
The newest additions: rabbits!
Posted in Animals, Farm, Garden, Rabbits, tagged gardening, homestead, prepared, Rabbits on July 18, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
We have meat rabbits! Well, we have a breeding trio whose offspring will be our meat. The breed we decided to have is silver fox, a heritage breed. Harley had purchased cages and supplies from Bass Equipment, and we’ll post an article detailing the rabbitry once the rabbits are settled in. For now, enjoy the […]
Book Review: The Self-Sufficient Life by John Seymour
Posted in Food & Beverage, Garden, Household, Reviews, tagged garden, garden bed, gardening, homestead on August 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve spent some time absorbing all of the information in The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live it by John Seymour. This book is an amazing resource that covers so many aspects of homesteading! Since the book covers a wide range of topics, it doesn’t go into too much depth on any one. I could […]
Book Review: Exposed by Mark Schapiro
Posted in Food & Beverage, Garden, Household, Reviews, tagged book review, chemicals, environment, health, review, toxins on August 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I read the book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power by Mark Schapiro. This book was clearly written with a liberal bias. The author praises the European way of addressing the chemicals present in everyday products, and is very anti-Bush administration. I could be okay with […]
The Little Sage Seedlings That Could!
Posted in Garden, tagged dogs, food, homestead, seedlings, yard on July 31, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
A couple weeks back I planted some seeds in pots. Well, then these ruffians knocked over the pot with the sage seeds! It’s actually the rightmost pot in front of Molly in the picture, not knocked over yet. When the pot was knocked over, the dirt and seeds spilled all over, and sage seeds are […]
We have a pepper!
Posted in Food & Beverage, Garden, tagged food, growth, homestead, pepper on July 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Our first pepper is growing! I can’t wait to eat it. We have many other pepper plants, but they haven’t grown fruit yet. So right now this one is getting lots of attention and love.
Mornings on the Homestead
Posted in Garden, Water, tagged conservation, homestead, water, yard on July 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Since it’s summertime, I’m off! It’s a great part of being a teacher. I enjoy doing some morning chores around the homestead a few days a week. I usually begin with filling a bucket from the rainbarrel, and using that water to water the plants around the yard. I will also take a bucket of […]
Wildlife
Posted in Garden, tagged creatures, deer, frog, homestead, turtle, wildlife on July 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
One of the things that George and I love about the homestead is all the wildlife! We chose the homestead because it is adjacent to a wooded park. We like being as close to nature as we can get, and this park gives us a lot of critters to enjoy! This year we haven’t used […]
Making a Raised Bed from Pallets Part 1: Pallets, Planning, and Prepping
Posted in Garden, tagged conservation, garden, garden bed, homestead, pallet, raised bed, reuse, wood on July 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
George and I want to grow more goodness in our garden! We discussed how to do this, and decided on creating some raised beds. The first will go right where this row of dead bushes is. We transplanted the bushes from a friend’s yard. We hoped they would screen the beehives a bit and protect […]
We’ve Only Just Begun: Growing a Garden
Posted in Garden, tagged edging, fence, garden, gardening, harvest, plants, seeds, weeding, weeds, winter on April 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
We moved into Independence Homestead at the beginning of the summer in 2011, so almost a year ago. Last year was spent improving the inside of the house and settling in. While we did routine maintenance on the yard, that’s about all we did outside. The prior owners were obviously not gardeners, so we started […]
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