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...

read more

The Permaculture Book of DIY

Curated Content From Around the Web

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…
Read More

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…
Read More

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…
Read More

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…
Read More

LIVE: When to Pull Summer Crops & Plant for Fall (Don’t Waste Space!)

Not Today Rats-my tomatoes live another day!

7 August Garden Jobs That Can Make or Break Your Garden

August has always struck me as a weird month. It’s a month of impatient transition. We’re still dealing with the scorching temperatures of summer; the countertop is hidden beneath a myriad of tomatoes, and if you say zucchini is on the menu for dinner, there’s an audible groan. Yet, there’s a subtle shift that happens, too. You start to feel it in the mornings, and in the softness of the evening light, fall is right around the corner. It’s an incredibly important month in the vegetable garden. August is the month that decides how your garden will end this year and how next year’s garden will begin. I know it might seem like a pretty big claim to make, but I find it to be true every year in my own garden. A lot of what happens, or in most cases, doesn’t happen in August plays a role in what…
Read More

We Grew Garlic 7 Different Ways, Here’s What Happened 🧄

These Are the Products I Used the Most in My Garden in 2025

Now and then, you pick up a product, not expecting much and lo and behold, it turns out to be pretty darn great. Naturally, you tell friends and family about it. So, I thought, why not share with you some of my favorite finds that I’ve been reaching for over and over this summer. Gardening has been a wild ride this year. From a tornado in my backyard, to starting a garden from scratch, to torrential downpours, seventeen-year cicadas and humidity that would not quit. Through it all, these products definitely pulled their own weight this season. I have a pair of Felco pruning shears, which are spendy, but you only need to buy them once. They’re the sort of tool you yell at your kids for leaving out in the rain, knowing full well you can clean them up easily, and their kids will inherit them.They’re just that good.…
Read More
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 … Page 335