Homegrown & Homemade
For years I’ve tried making pickles- everything from bread and butter refrigerator pickles to classic dills… and for years I’ve never found a recipe I have fallen in love with, until now. I didn’t realize how much my general lack of pickling skills was weighing on me- I mean, a homesteader should be able to make a great pickle, shouldn’t they?! Well, I feel like …
Potato beetles showed up in my garden this year, and I was ready- here’s what I did to get rid of them organically and naturally without harmful pesticides… and it actually worked! Did you know that potatoes are on the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen?” This is the top twelve produce items with the most pesticide residue on them- the ones you should always try …
You might take one look at our garden and wonder if we’re preparing to be invaded by werewolves, vampires, and other evil spirits. Currently, a good 1/6 of our garden space is planted in garlic! My next post should really be on how to combat garlic-breath! Have you seen “garlic soap” before? If you’ve tried it, I’d love to know if it works because… I went from …
We’re still pretty “new” as far as beekeeping goes. Newbies, if you will. See what I did there? Of course we’ve had ups and downs over the past few years, but overall I consider us successful beekeepers. The first year we didn’t take any honey from the bees, but the past two years we were able to harvest 70 pounds each year. Excited, elated, blown away …
I’ve always thought sweet potatoes were only okay- I’ve never been crazy about them… even the beautiful glowing purple ones we grow in our own garden. And Karl is simply just offended by sweet potatoes, maintaining that they are indeed “not a potato.” I had to start calling them Yams, just so that he would consider eating them! Yes, it worked. They really are a …
Basil: the quintessential smell of summer around here! If only there was a way to preserve it… Oh, but there is! And I’m not talking about basil-scented soap and basil hand lotion. I can’t quite decide if these products are a good way to get a basil fix, or completely weird?! While I agree that there are quite a few foods that fall under both the …
Do you ever notice how certain dishes always taste better when somebody else makes them? Chicken salad was one of those things for me. That is, until I really thought about what it was that I liked about other peoples’ chicken salads, and set out to finally nail down the perfect recipe. What I came up with was this: Sweet Apple Chicken Salad! It’s perfect, and it …
Little Henny was one of our original chickens, she was on the homestead for three years with us. The name “Henny” is because we had five Buff Orpingtons who I couldn’t tell apart at first, so they were all called “Hennys.” As they got older and developed personalities they got additional descriptors… Little Henny was the smallest of the bunch. We’re wildly creative. Little Henny had a …
My parents planted a Christmas tree farm when I was just a young girl, so I grew up learning to make holiday decorations to sell for extra spending money at the tree farm. As a 16-year-old, I was a Christmas craft extraordinaire! And also a really big geek, but that’s a story for a different day. Evergreen Kissing Balls, wreaths, garland… I can make it all! But probably my …
This is autumn in a crockpot. You know how I know that? Because it’s autumn… and I went right outside and harvested the sage from my herb garden. We picked the apples from our tree and the onions from our garden just a couple weeks ago! And because when I walked into the house and was hit with the smell of herby, apple-y, slow-braised meat, …
