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  • HOMESTEAD LIVING
    • CRAFTS & DIYS
    • GREEN CLEANING
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  • REAL FOOD
    • BEVERAGES
    • DESSERTS
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    • PRESERVATION
    • SIMPLE RECIPES
    • TIPS & TRICKS
  • BACKYARD GARDEN
    • BACK TO EDEN
    • GARDEN TIPS
    • GETTING STARTED
    • ORGANIC SOLUTIONS
    • SEED STARTING & SAVING
  • HOMESTEAD ANIMALS
    • CHICKENS
    • DUCKS
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    • HOUSE PETS
    • QUAIL
    • RABBITS
  • INSPIRING HOMESTEADS
    • URBAN HOMESTEADS
    • SUBURBAN HOMESTEADS
    • RURAL HOMESTEADS
    • FARMSTEADS
    • MORE INSPIRATION

Backyard Garden

One of the greatest skills a homesteader can acquire is the ability to produce food for yourself. Not everyone is blessed with acres to grow their own food, but even a pot of patio tomatoes can change how you and your family eats. Our quarter acre is home to over 1,000 square feet of backyard garden as well as a mini-orchard. Discover how to maintain your gardens and outdoor spaces.

Maintaining a garden can be relaxing and fun, or it can be a colossal pain in the bum. It honestly comes down to the tools you have on hand. Having high quality garden supplies will make the season a lot easier and more enjoyable. Having said that, there are a lot of garden supplies you really don't need.
Discover to get your seeds, how to choose the type you want and best of all, I'll cover what are the jargon on the seed packet means.
Homesteaders are growing food, cooking with it, and preserving it. You may think you don’t have the space or time, but I assure you, you can do it.
Are you ready to learn how to grow food indoors? There are a lot of options that are suited to indoor gardening. Here's what to grow and how to grow it.
Regardless of whether you garden indoors or out, you should be composting. It can seem overwhelming, but I;m going to simplify the process for you.
This is the gardening film that transformed the way I thought about gardening. It takes all the things I love and it combines it into something magical.
Water conservation has a great number of benefits. The homestead is ripe for opportunities to save water. Here are a just a few to get you started!
Anyone can plant pretty flowers, but it takes time and effort to maintain a garden and keep it looking beautiful day after day.
You've come home from the garden show. Now what? Get garden savvy and you'll be excited to start a new garden on your homestead every year.
No garden is complete without tomatoes. It's the star when planting on a patio or in a huge garden. Here are tips for growing amazing tomatoes.
Fertilizing a Back to Eden garden corrects what little bit of nitrogen binding occurs with the application of wood chips to your garden.
Mary's Heirloom Seeds currently offers over 300 varieties of open-pollinated, non-GMO & non-hybrid, non-patented, untreated, organic, heirloom garden seeds.
I found three specific elements essential to the perfect garden design. You need a focal point, hardscaping is important, and you need a color scheme.
Nature Hills Nursery, Inc. started as a local tree nursery, but has grown their offerings as well as their geographical reach. You'll love their selection.
Sage (Salvia officinalis) is commonly referred to as common sage, or garden sage, but common doesn't do it justice and it deserves a space in the garden.
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) is a member of the mint family and you'll want to make room for it in your herb garden this year.
Many products are now compostable, keeping them out of the landfill. Some companies are taking it to the next level with things you plant after using
Every garden is as unique as the person who plants it. If you want to try something new, do it! If you want to plant a hundred of this and none of that, go for it!
I promise, if you try Back to Eden container gardening, you'll be very pleased with the results. The result were just as impressive as they were in the garden.
Plant your produce in rich, healthy soil. Go a step further and choose organic and natural amendments to enhance your soil quality and correct imbalances.
Whether you are a backyard hobby homesteader or an avid homesteader on your journey to live off-grid, these are the homesteading articles you want to be reading.
Black gold. It's essential in the garden. Most choose the bovine poo, but there are many manure options to choose from, each with their own unique benefits.
Gardening Hacks: Save money and make gardening just a bit easier with these great tips and tricks. I bet there are a few that will amaze you. Happy gardening!
Frozen and canned produce is good, but sometimes fresh produce off-season is better. Discover how to use Fresh Storage to enjoy fresh produce year round.
I'm an outdoor garden person. It's where my thumb shines the greenest. These five tips have helped me keep my houseplants happy and healthy.
Get tips for putting your vegetable beds to bed for the winter. These tips will help you have an amazing garden in the spring.
Most of North America's soil has been damaged by poor agriculture and construction practices. Thankfully repairing damaged soil is not incredibly hard or expensive to accomplish.
Burlap saves you from many of the struggles that come with carrot starting: soil drying out, seeds being unearthed, ants destroying your emerging seedlings.
One of the only locations where weeding may be necessary in your Back to Eden garden is where you've pulled back the chips to plant seedlings or small plants.
Powdery mildew is one of the most common garden problems and it affects gardeners from coast to coast. Enjoy these natural powdery mildew treatments.
One of the best organic pest control techniques involves making your property an ideal environment for beneficial bugs. Did you know you can buy beneficial bugs?
Foraging has become quite trendy in the last few years. It is as old as life itself and not nearly as overwhelming as it can seem by the current trend.
A resource for everything you could need to know about seed saving, from vegetables to herbs to flowers. Learn how to properly save seeds.
Planting potatoes in a Back to Eden garden increases your yield and produces a cleaner and less marred harvest. Discover how to plant your potatoes using BTE.
The concept behind Back to Eden gardening is to cover the soil in the same way nature does so that the soil is not exposed to the harsh elements of sun and wind.
World Naked Gardening Day is an occasion that allows me to really bond with the family. Sometimes even the neighbors come by to join in the fun.
Before you start digging, there are two key things you need to know to make sure your plants are successful in the garden - hardening off and transplanting.
There’s nothing like vegetables fresh from the garden, but not all of us have the time or energy it takes to stay on top of garden upkeep.
Hugelkultur involves building a raised bed that is filled with rotted wood. This wood acts as a sponge to hold moisture and it provides a home to beneficial insects.
Urine (aka: pee) contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are essential in plant health. If you include wood ash in your compost, you've replicated most commercial fertilizers.
Succession planting is basically growing one crop after another. It's easy in warm climates, but even those of us up in Maine can do it.
More people are turning to growing their own organic vegetables in their backyards. Setting up a veggie garden in your backyard has many advantages.
Regardless of the size of your homestead, you can create a Monarch habitat by providing food, water, cover, and a place for the caterpillars to grow.
Native bee populations are suffering.They refer to it as Colony Collapse Disorder. You can help by planting native bee-friendly flowers.
Learn neat tricks to improve your garden with items found at the grocery store. Grocery gardening is an inexpensive way to transform your garden.
There is often some confusion about what gardening zones and frost dates are. Also, things these tools don't tell you that are important to the gardener.
Galvanized bins make handy planters and they are pretty cool looking too. Best of all, this DIY project is one you can easily complete over a weekend.
How do I know what to sow and when to sow? What kind of containers can I use? What about watering? I've got the answers to these questions and more.
Discover ways to vegetable garden in a small space. With a little creativity and ingenuity, you can provide food for your family even in the smallest of small spaces.
You can tap many types of trees for syrup. The list is quite long and includes all varieties of maples as well as walnuts, birches, sycamores and ironwoods.
Not everyone has a full open area to grow their produce, but there are actually a lot of garden vegetables to grow in your shaded areas. Here are just a few.
Before launching into 8 super-cool herbs, let's talk about permaculture. It's an ecological design science that is modeled after nature and used for sustainability.
The greatest thing about vermicomposting or composting with worms is that anyone is able to do it, regardless of how much space they have.
Making your yard eco-friendly is a process, not an all-or-nothing imperative. Every improvement brings a benefit to the environment.
Sprouts, herbs and shallow-root vegetables can be part of your garden indoors. If you have the space you can plant pretty much anything. Here's 10 reasons to start.
The human footprint on planet Earth continues to grow, but you can make a difference in your very own backyard. Create an eco-friendly yard and garden.
Disaster can strike your seeds when you least expect it. Maybe you had an earthquake or tornado that destroyed all your packets. Maybe you have a toddler.
Move a portion of your garden south. How? you might ask. It is simple, with a greenhouse! You just need to find your correct greenhouse for your goals.
Greenhouses are large enough to walk into. Cold frames allow you to plant directly into the ground. Polytunnels give you the best of both.
Making leaf mold isn't a quick process. It takes time, but the results are worth the wait. It adds compost to the soil and it acts as a free mulch material.
Marigolds flowers are more than just a pretty flower. They are miracle flowers. After reading this, you'll never look at a marigold flower the same way.
Tulips are also one of the easiest flowers to grow in your garden. Plant the bulb in fall and leave it alone to find great flowers in the spring.
Seed saving is an amazing skill to learn. Not only do you save money and control the quality of your plants from year-to-year, it a rewarding step toward...
Broccoli is a vegetable that I find incredibly difficult to harvest. It's not actually the harvesting part that is difficult, it's the timing that's hard.
Mike the Gardener is the man behind Seeds of the Month Club, a monthly subscription service that delivers open pollinated, non-GMO seeds to your mailbox.
Many people wonder when and how to prune their tomatoes. What are tomato suckers? How do you remove them? When shouldn't you remove tomato suckers?
Our Home & Garden Show is so much fun and now it the time of year they are popping up. Be successful at your next home and garden show with these 7 tips.
Sun Mapping is important so you know where to put your plants. This is critical for flowers as well as vegetables and other produce. Map out your sun.
Swales are an amazing permaculture implementation for your homestead - It's a designing system that work harder than you do.
There is much debate on whether or double digging is a good idea. May big-time gardening experts say you should, other say "no way! It destroys the soil!"
Trellises serve an important function in the garden. They can be completely utilitarian or they can be a work of art. A trellis for any price range.
It's time to think beyond nursery pots on the front porch. Container gardening can offer so much more. Make a statement with your containers.
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