Gardening & Farming

How to Start a Self-Sufficient Homestead

How to Start a Self-Sufficient Homestead

by | Jan 7, 2023 | , ,

Image by Fareed Mindalano, DALL-E 3. Self-sufficient homesteading is the practice of living independently and sustainably on a piece of land, producing or providing for one’s own needs, and minimizing reliance on external resources and systems. Homesteading offers a rewarding and meaningful lifestyle that promotes self-reliance, connection to nature, and a sense of community. It also has the potential to reduce one’s environmental impact and contribute to a more resilient and equitable society. However, setting up a self-sufficient homestead requires careful planning, hard work, and a willingness to learn and adapt. In this article, we will explore the steps and considerations involved in establishing a homestead and achieving greater self-sufficiency on a piece of land. Assessing the Site When setting up a self-sufficient homestead, it is important to start by thoroughly assessing the site to gather information about its unique...

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3 Reasons Why Your Peonies Didn’t Bloom & How to Fix It

Every spring, I’m amazed by my peonies. It still blows my mind that such a massive, frilly blossom comes from a bud roughly the size of a large marble. Aren’t plants amazing? But this past spring, one of my peonies was all buds and no blooms. Luckily, figuring out why peonies don’t bloom is pretty easy. And while there are quite a few reasons why it can happen, there are three major causes that are almost always the culprit. If you found yourself in the No Peony Pity Party as well this spring, let’s see if we can make sure it’s a one-time event and get those buds a bloomin’ next year. Peonies – the Old Faithful of Perennials Peonies are one of those perennials that, once established, can be counted on to show up decade after decade with their big, blousy blossoms. Because they don’t need to be divided…
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Here’s How to Make Free Liquid Fertilizer for Life

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email As someone who is constantly juggling various personal, professional, and homestead tasks, there’s one permaculture principle that’s proven to be incredibly important in my day-to-day life. It’s the principle of ‘the least effort for the most effect.’ Essentially it’s this idea that you want to work in a way where you get great results for a minimum investment of your resources (time, labor, money). I mean, who wouldn’t love that? Now, the problem with this is figuring out how exactly to do things in this ‘least effort for the most effect’ way. So today, I want to showcase the principle in action on my farm and give you at least one idea of what you could do, and as a byproduct, you’ll get an endless supply of free liquid fertilizer. In one of my earlier videos, I showed you my small permaculture nursery setup where…
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How to save money on plants – my simple plant propagation setup

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email From all the inputs you’ll need to establish your food forest, there is one that could break the bank more than any other. I’m talking about the sheer amount of plants you’ll need in order to grow your perennial permaculture paradise. The $$ numbers can be brutal when you do some math on the plants required. Let’s say you need to plant a few lemon balm patches as part of the guilds around your apple trees. You want to add some aromatic plants to confuse the pests. For each patch like that, you’ll need, let’s say, six lemon balm (trans)plants. I’m not sure how much a lemon balm plant costs in your neck of the woods, but let’s say it’s $5. That comes to $30 for one patch. And you need at least ten like this for your ten apple trees – $300. It turns…
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How to design a food forest or permaculture orchard (also: 3 spots open for DFY Food Forest Design service)

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email Here are the 5 steps you should go through when you design a food forest, so that you can grow 3-5X more food, with less maintenance, compared to conventional methods. By the way, if you’d like to hire me to do the entire design, I charge USD 3,000 for it and have 3 spots open. Apply by filling this application if you’re interested, and I’ll send over the next steps. (Note: If you’re a student of my Farm Design Course, do let me know! We’ll deduct what you paid for the course from the $3,000 service fee. Now let’s dive into the design process… STEP 1: What is the primary goal of your food forest? The most common goals are: Grow food for the family Regenerate the land Generate income Yes, a food forest will do all three. But you should lock in one PRIMARY…
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Here’s Your Plant Propagation Calendar (Free Download)

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email If you’ve seen my post about my simple plant propagation setup, you might have noticed that I have comfrey growing there. The thing is, I can’t get enough of this plant, no matter how much I produce it. I use it as a dynamic accumulator in my food forest guilds, as fertilizer for my garden, to accelerate my composting process, as biomass for mulching, and to attract beneficial insects. It’s a versatile plant with many uses, including medicinal ones. Luckily, propagating comfrey is pretty simple. You dig the plant’s root, cut it into individual pieces, and plant it. After some time, each root piece becomes a plant on its own. It’s that easy. However, it’s time-sensitive, meaning you can’t do that at any time of the year. I had to learn this the hard way. Before I had my nursery set up, I would go…
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Saying Good Bye to Mac

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You’ve Been Watering Tomatoes All Wrong! 6 Big Mistakes That Are Harming Your Plants

Tomatoes are the drama queens of the vegetable garden. One minute, they’re growing along nicely, filling out with flower clusters and beautiful fruit; the next, they’re throwing a full-blown tantrum. Yellow leaves, cracking fruit, blossom end rot, it’s never just one thing with these guys. But oddly enough, sometimes the root of the problem (pun totally intended) lies in how we water them. Let’s make sure your watering practices aren’t harming more than helping your tomato harvest. Cultivated to Be Finicky Unlike their scrappy native cousins in South America, the cultivated tomatoes we grow in our backyards have been bred over the centuries to enhance qualities like flavor and size. Unfortunately, that means many of their tougher characteristics, which help them survive, have fallen by the wayside. This means we need to be spot on when caring and providing for them. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, and, along with the right…
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