The smell hits you first when you walk into the garden shed — that dusty, spider-web smell mixed with whatever Ben spilled last time he was mixing up his “mystery fertilizer.” I was hunting for the row cover when I realized I hadn’t sprayed anything in the garden for two months. Not neem oil, not…
Our pallet raised beds have been in the ground for eight months now, and half of them are falling apart. The tomatoes are still growing fine in the rickety ones, which makes no sense, but here we are. When I started researching how to build raised garden beds from pallets last spring, every blog made…
I spent two weeks researching the easiest goats to raise for beginners on small farms before we brought home our first pair. Read every forum, watched YouTube videos until my eyes burned, made spreadsheets comparing feed costs. Then we drove to a farm an hour away and fell in love with two dairy crosses that…
The whey from store-bought yogurt works just as well as expensive starter cultures for making yogurt at home without starter culture. I’ve been doing this for eight months now, and it’s saved me probably sixty dollars in mail-order starters that would’ve expired in my refrigerator anyway. You strain the whey from any plain yogurt—the clear…
I spent two years fighting the shade on our property before finally admitting defeat. Half my garden sits under oak trees, and I kept trying to force sun-lovers into spots that barely get three hours of direct light. The tomatoes were pathetic, the peppers nonexistent, and Ben kept saying I should just work with what…
I was pulling weeds around the herb spiral when Ben wandered over with a beekeeping catalog he’d been reading on the porch. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a picture of pristine white hives lined up like soldiers. “We should get bees.” I looked at our property – the leaning greenhouse, Pepper standing on…
Three weeks ago I was squinting at my herb spiral, wondering why half my medicinal plants looked like they were plotting their own demise, when Ben walked over with that look that means he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. “You know that drainage thing you keep reading about? Maybe actually check…
I thought simple aquaponics system designs would be perfect for our shed—grow fish and vegetables together, save space, work smarter not harder. Three months later, I’m staring at a half-functional setup that’s taught me more about what doesn’t work than what does. If you’re considering aquaponics for a small-space homestead, here’s what actually happened when…
There are five essential hand tools every beginner homesteader should have in their shed, and I can predict which ones you’ll actually use. After three years out here, I touch three of them weekly and the other two collect dust behind the paint cans. Ben thinks I overthink tool selection. He bought a twenty-dollar machete…
Ben keeps asking why we didn’t just buy a greenhouse kit. I tell him it’s because we wanted to learn how to build a low-cost DIY greenhouse for year-round growing on our homestead, but honestly, after wrestling with our slightly leaning $200 creation for the past eight months, I’m not sure I have a good…