themanuelruello

[themanuelruello]

How to Organize Your Homestead with a Planner

One of the biggest struggles for Modern Homesteaders is figuring out good time-management strategies.

One of the questions that I get frequently asked is: “How do you do it all? or How do you juggle all these things?” At the end of the day, I don’t claim to have it all figured out, and there are a lot of things I opt-out of and things I say no to.

There are a lot of different things that I do in my life to maintain good time management, and I’ve talked about many of them before:

Practical Ways We Save Time on Our Homestead

My Top 10 Homesteading Time Management Tips

How to Cook From-Scratch With Limited Time

How I (Don’t) Do It All

However, my #1 favorite secret weapon for keeping all of the balls in the air (most of the time) is my paper planner. This is kind of like my security blanket that helps me organize my homestead and it is never too far from my side.

I thought it would be fun to tell you about the ways I really put my planner to use around our homestead and for all the different aspects of our lifestyle.

Love to listen instead of read? Tune in to my podcast episode here:

Best Tip: Planning Ahead to Help Stay Organized on The Homestead 

There are a lot of little tricks that I have adopted over the years, but I would say one of the biggest pieces that help me organize my homestead is to PLAN AHEAD.

Honestly, what it all boils down to is I love a lot of things. There are a lot of aspects of life that are very exciting and motivating to me. I want to be involved with a lot and there are a lot of different avenues to go down. Planning ahead is one of the ways that I do everything without losing my marbles.

Over the years when trying to keep things organized on the homestead, there have been a lot of instances where I’m super glad that I like to plan ahead. One example that sticks out in my head is when we had our fair activities in the summer. The fair is quite the undertaking; we live at the fairgrounds for a week with a steer, the horses, the kids, and everything else involved with our fair activities. It is a lot, and for one week we live and breathe fair life.

This particular year, we were scheduled to host a horsemanship clinic on our property with only a few days in between the clinic and the times at fair. The clinics are super fun and we love putting them on but that means keeping things clean and getting things ready. We also cooked lunch for everyone and had company staying with us during the clinic. 

We came home from the fair, and had to plan menus and there was plenty of cleaning to do. There were also some things with our businesses that we were getting ready to launch and school was right around the corner.

It was this kind of perfect storm of all things. Honestly, there were definitely a couple of days during that two or three-week stretch where I was like “there is a lot to do right now” but I never really got to the point where I was freaking out. This is because I PLAN AHEAD, I started by planning my rough menus for the horsemanship clinic before we went to the fair.

When you plan ahead, you don’t need to have everything completely ironed out, but it helps to just have some basic ideas planned out ahead of time. The process of thinking ahead about what I’m going to need and be prepared for is something I have learned over the years.

Planning ahead is a big deal for me. It may sound way too simplified but it really helps and I really believe that it is a big step to keep things organized.

The Best Tool to Use to Organize Your Homestead

There are a million different styles and ways to organize your homestead and life. Some people really love digital stuff: they use spreadsheets, apps, and the calendar on their phone. There is nothing wrong with any of those options, you just have to figure out what works for you.

It really comes down to what you are going to use! You can have the best paper planner or the best app in the world but if it’s not something that feels simple for you to use, you’re not going to use it.

I personally prefer using a paper planner, as you all know by now that I have a little bit of an old-fashioned streak. I have tried the digital time management options, but they haven’t really felt right for me. I think it’s because when I write it down with a pen, things stick in my brain a little bit better. I don’t know if everyone is like that but that’s how I am.

Of course, having an online business and doing a lot on the computer requires me to track some things online. Even though I spend time on the computer, I have this phenomenon where I can type something out in the notes app, Google Drive, or on a Word document and it doesn’t stick in my brain. There have been more than a few times where I have been going through old documents on my computer and been like “Oh my gosh, I wrote this stuff three years ago and I don’t recall doing it”.

I just can’t seem to remember things that have been typed out as well. That is one of the reasons that a paper planner like the one I created (FOR homesteaders BY a homesteader), The Old-Fashioned On Purpose Planner, makes sense for me.

Using The Right Pens Matter…

Before I talk about my Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner (and how to use planners in general for organizing homesteading stuff), let’s take a brief moment to talk about pens.

If you’ve never been into the world of paper planners, then allow me to explain: people can get really nerdy about pens. I am raising my hand as part of that club because the right pens really do matter. The wrong pen on a planner just doesn’t feel right.

Personally, I have high standards for pens, my favorite pens are erasable because I don’t like scribbling out in the planner. I realize a lot of the things I’m saying right now are making me sound a little crazy and that’s fine. I just had to be honest about how I don’t like scribble planners and I don’t like wrong pens (and I assume that hopefully, I’m not the only one…).

My favorite pens are called Frixion pens, they are available at most office supply stores. There is a multicolor pack that I usually buy. Recently, I discovered that the Frixion brand also makes erasable highlighters. This is not an ad for Frixion pens; I just really like them, go check them out or use whatever type of pen makes you happy. Whatever suits you is what you need!

Ways I use a Planner to Organize My Homestead

There are a million planners and lots of ways to use a planner. I just wanted to take you through just some of the ways I use my planner for homesteading. These are just some of the little things I’ve come up with over the years that help me stay on track.

Using Weekly Spreads

First off for me, the weekly spreads are definitely the most used portion of my planner. Some really lean heavily on the month at glance, that’s cool I just don’t. I have found that I don’t look at them as much as I do my weekly spreads. My personal preference is a planner that has each day of the week broken down into hourly blanks.

Hourly Breakdowns are Important

In the past, I have purchased planners where Monday was just one big white box of space. The empty space seemed harder for me and I always had to know when specific times were. I found it easier to plan for the different things that happen throughout the day to have a planner that has the hours written in.

Use Time Blocking to Organize Your Homestead

The easiest way for me to use those hourly blanks is as a time block for tasks. I like to use my highlighters or sometimes I’ll just use my pen and draw a bracket around specific time frames I’m blocking for tasks.

Putting tasks together within the time blocks is something that I try to do that helps me. If I am constantly switching tasks, bouncing around throughout the day, and doing things in 15-minute increments it takes more time. When I batch things whether it’s recording podcasts, cooking, meal prep, or cleaning the house it is just more efficient. This is where I will bracket those tasks out into my planner. 

When to Add Items and Checkboxes

At the beginning of each week, usually Sunday evening or Monday morning I will open up my weekly spread and fill out the standing appointments. This includes recurring calls that I have every week, soccer practices twice a week and I like to add in school. These are not really reminders, they are more like placeholders to organize your homestead life.

If you look at my planner right you will see that I draw my own little check box in front of each item. I check them off as they get finished. I guess I have this insatiable need to check things off and yes I know that sounds weird. Everything I put in my planner has a checkbox and hets checked off. It doesn’t matter if it is soccer practice, school for the day, working out, or making this supper.

Menu Planning Using a Planner to Organize Homestead Life

I’m not a huge super organized menu planner but at the end of each day around 6 o’clock, we eat supper. In the weekly spread in my planner around the 6 o’clock hour, I like to write what we are eating that day. Sometimes it is just two or three days in advance but even that is enough for me to know what I need to be thinking about. This helps give me a visual representation of what the plan is and also what food prep needs to be done.

A great example is one Saturday we were preconditioning our cattle. This is a big day, there are a lot of people helping and I help cook the meal for preconditioning. For Friday afternoon, I wrote in (with my little checkbox): ‘prep the food for preconditioning’. I have that built-in because it is very easy to look at that blank Friday spot and forget.

Adding Your To-Do Lists to Organize the Homestead

On the weekly spread, I like to have a work To-Do List and a personal To-Do List. At the beginning of the week, I write down all the personal and work stuff I need to do. You might not be splitting your life into home tasks and business tasks but you can split it up any way you want.

An example of what you will find on my personal To-Do List is getting the onions and cabbage dealt with, cleaning the playroom, and drying more tomatoes. On my work To-Do List, you will find things like: writing the newsletter, record podcasts, and write a blog post.

Once these lists are complete I can take those items and insert them into the days as I’m planning. If I leave the things down in the to-do boxes without assigning them to a day I don’t hold myself accountable to do them.

Habit Tracking in Your Planner

Another thing that I do is take a sticky note and add different habits I am working on. This can include things like working out, feeding the sourdough, or remembering to water the seedlings in the basement. I will make little check boxes on the sticky note and color them in or check them off as I go.

We did a challenge with some friends of ours once where the challenge was to run a mile a day. I needed to keep track of 31 miles in January so I made a sticky note with 31 checkboxes every time I ran a mile I would color in a box.

The Most Important Pages are the Back Pages

I love a planner with a lot of blank pages or helpful pages in the back. The back portion of my planner gets used more than any other part. I keep my planners, and they don’t get thrown away at the end of the year.

The reason I don’t throw them away is that there have been many times where I need to look back at something. This section ends up being a record of our lives. It has a lot of details of what has happened and I find it is really handy to keep around. The back of my planners are used as a way to keep track of any other details about our life or year.

Some ways that I use those back pages for organizing my homestead include:

Yearly Goals: Usually, the week between Christmas and New Year I sit down with coffee, a candle, my favorite pen and I work on goals for the year. These goals get broken up into homestead goals, business goals, and personal goals. One year, some of our homesteading goals were to build a greenhouse and to put up the hail netting in the garden. A personal goal might be to work out more. I remember to look at those goals. I don’t look at them every week, sometimes I forget to even look at them once a month but just having that moment at the beginning of the year to write things down is a big deal for me. This really seems to make a difference with how my year will start.

Garden Journal: Some of those back pages I like to use to keep garden notes on. We have a raised beds, but this would work even if you have an in-ground garden. One thing I always do is forget if I don’t write down what I put in the raised beds. There are 20 beds and they’re all pretty uniform so I make a simple sketch of my beds and then I number them. On the other side of the page, I write the number and what is planted there. I wrote little notes so that way I can do some crop rotation and I don’t have to worry about putting things in the wrong bed.

Book List: I like to create a list of books to read at the beginning of every year. As the year goes keep track of the books that I have finished and add more. If I read one that’s not on the list I add it, this is kind of a fun way to track what I’ve been reading throughout the year.

Animal Records: The back pages of my planner are also where I keep track of animal breeding and health records. This is really helpful to look back on to determine dates and what comes next.

Big Project Lists: If I have a big project, I like to break it down in the back of the planner just because if I put it on scratch paper a lot of the time I find that I lose it. Breaking down a project is when I do this thing where I write out the main steps that need to happen and then I break those into baby steps. Learn more about how I break down a project in my How to Set Homestead Goals article.

I really depend heavily on my planner to help organize my homestead and life. In the past, I have limped along for a very long time with other planners. I have used a variety over the years and they have worked okay, but they were not quite exactly what I wanted.

This is why I decided to make my own, The Old-Fashioned On Purpose Planner.

The Old-Fashioned On Purpose Planner

Planners truly have been very pivotal to my success as a homesteader. I have not yet found a planner that actually understands what we need to have success and stay organized while homesteading.

The Old Fashioned on Purpose Planner is a real paper planner with spiral binding. It is and has all the things I described earlier! Everything I have explained about how I use my older planners, we created in the Old-Fashioned On-Purpose Planner.

Here’s a quick glance at what I have included in the Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner:

Designed to simplify the life of a busy person who’s trying to keep all the balls in the air.

Helps streamline all aspects of your lifestyle, manage all the projects, & master new skills. ?

Quick-reference kitchen guides, areas for daily meal planning, & cheatsheets to save time & simplify in the garden, kitchen, & more.

A 253-page, spiral-bound, 15-month planner dated for 2022, made & printed in the USA.

Dated weekly & monthly spreads

Durable cover with section dividers & tabs

Monthly catch-all lists

Inventory & tracking pages

Learn more about my Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner here. There’s a video-glance at the planner pages and even more details on what type of pages are included in the planner.

I’m really excited about how it turned out and I hope it helps you keep your homestead and life organized like it does for me!

Regardless of what type of planner you decide to use, I truly believe that actively using a planner (whether digital or print) makes a huge difference in keeping both the homestead and our lives organized.  It might take some persistence on your part at first to get used to actively using a planner, but once you make it a habit in your life, you won’t regret it.

More Homesteading Tips:

How to Homestead When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed

How to Cultivate Community While Homesteading

How to Start a Homestead From Scratch

About Homesteading Stereotypes…

The post How to Organize Your Homestead with a Planner appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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[themanuelruello]

How to Start a Homestead From Scratch

We were newlyweds, staring at our newly purchased home and property. The house was tiny, the outbuildings were trashed, the fence lines were destroyed, and it was miles and miles from the nearest grocery store…

Our property was a disaster when we purchased it– falling down fence, a washing machine in the back pasture, and waist-deep trash piles in the barn and shop. BUT- we knew it just needed some sweat-equity to bring it to life.

We overhauled every single inch of the place (fence lines, gardens, pastures, landscaping, tree rows, siding, roofs, outbuildings, corrals, you name it…), so I feel like we know a thing or two about starting a homestead from scratch.

Our Prairie Homestead: the Early Years (aka when we had to redo the roofs on our outbuildings…)

Many of you are in the spot in life where you are getting ready to start a homestead or you’re looking at that being a possibility a few years down the road.

I love sharing what we have going on here at our homestead right now with you. Sometimes, though, it can be a little bit of a disconnect because we’ve been doing this for 12 years.

If you’re just getting started, trying to compare where you are now to someone that has been at it for a while can be confusing and cause lots of overwhelm.

A little over a year ago, my sister Jenna purchased 10 acres and decided to start homesteading. It made me think all over again about Christian and I’s early adventures on our homestead, and the challenges we faced in those first years. It got me thinking about those initial feelings and thoughts that can occur when you start a new homestead from scratch. 

While my goal here is to help you think through some important beginner homestead questions and thought-processes, if there is one major lesson you should get from here, please let it be this: you can’t do it all. So take a deep breath, take a read, and remember to take it all one step at a time. Ready? Let’s get started…

Love listening rather than reading? I cover this topic in-depth in this podcast episode here:

Why Are You Starting a Homestead?

Many people, especially in the last few years, have decided to make a change and start homesteading. Everyone has their various reasons why they have decided to make that change.

If you are reading this, it means that at some point, you probably came to that fork in the road where you want to get intentional about your future.

Start by asking yourself: where would you like to be a year, 5 years, or even 10 years from now? Consider writing down some homestead goals for you and your family for the next year and, while you’re at it, write down your long-term homestead goals, too.

Check out my How to Set Homestead Goals article for some inspiration here (or watch the video below).

Starting a Homestead from Scratch

When making the decision to begin a homestead, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are making the decision to relocate. It has always been my belief that homesteading is a state of mind and there are things that you can do no matter where you live (check out my Modern Homesteading Manifesto for more of my thoughts on that…).

If you are someone that lives in town, there is nothing wrong with doing homesteading stuff right where you are. There are so many things you can do with a small backyard or a limited amount of space. For example, my sister Jenna’s backyard was pretty small at their first house, but we talked about where they could put a garden and what else they could do.

There is a lot of potential for homesteading wherever you are. I’ve made a few videos about this, too. Watch as I show how I would make my parent’s 1/4 acre city lot into a small homestead. You can also watch as I show how I would transform the 100 year old house in our nearby town into a small homestead. Seriously, there are lots of modern homesteading skills and activities you can do, no matter where you live. I am a firm believer in this.

Homesteading in Small Spaces Ideas:

Square Foot Gardening

Raised Bed Gardening

Herb Garden

Container Gardening

Laying Hens

Cooking from Scratch (Check Out the Heritage Cooking Course  or My Cookbook)

Local Food Sourcing

Join a CSA

Milk Shares

Farmers Markets

Learning about Food Storage

Note: Before buying live animals, check with your homeowner association or township to see what your rules are.

Relocating to Start Your Homestead

I am a really big fan of going with your gut and if it is telling you that you’re made for more, then it is time to take action. You are the only one who will know when/if it’s time to relocate and possibly buy new land for your future homestead (you might want to check out my tips here on 12 Questions to Ask Before Buying Homestead Property).

Relocating and choosing something unfamiliar and different can be a scary hard decision. Take a step back, think about your goals and imagine what your life will look like a few months after taking that leap. 

It is important to remember that not all homesteads or properties are going to be the same. Someone else’s dream homestead will look different than your own. You don’t have to have 10 acres or even 5 acres. It will depend on where you live, what your land is like, and lots of other personal factors.

Choosing the right homestead property depends on what your long-term goals are, but also what type of place you see your future self in.

The Feeling of Starting Your Homestead 

When we bought our homestead, that was the first time I had ever lived on acreage that was my own. It is such a crazy feeling the first time you realize it’s your land. It might seem surreal at first, like you are just visiting or on vacation.

That idea of “it’s too good to be true” faded maybe a year or two after our initial purchase, but I do remember the very first weeks of living on our homestead it felt like I was floating on a cloud.

Our place was just such an absolute disaster, with all of the trash, overgrowth, and nasty outbuildings. And yet, I would just stand in the barn stare at the land and think with happiness: I can’t believe it…I just can’t believe it. Starting your homestead will probably be a wholehearted experience that you will remember for a long, long time. 

Even now, I sometimes get that feeling of awe. Recently, one night at the golden hour where the air was soft, the light was beautiful, the kids were quiet and I just had to stop. I sat on the edge of the chicken tractor, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I got the chills and this feeling encompassed every part of me. At that moment, I knew that I was supposed to be here and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.

I truly want every person to experience that, and that is partly why I’m such a fanatic about what I do. Not everyone is meant to homestead on tons of acres, but it is an amazing feeling when you are fulfilling your specific purpose.

Overcoming Comparisons When Starting a Homestead

Many times when my sister Jenna was buying her property, she would say “It doesn’t look exactly like Jill’s” and didn’t fully realize it. When Jenna verbalized her comparisons unintentionally with me, I simply asked “Do you want exactly what I have? Does my homestead fit your dream?”

Jenna answered these simple questions and realized that even though her 10 acres didn’t look like mine, it fit her dream. When you find yourself comparing your dream homestead to someone else’s, ask yourself these same questions and answer them honestly.

Don’t get caught up in the comparison game; stick to what you know you want. In the long run, only your dream will make you happy. Need more encouragement? Read my thoughts on Homesteading Stereotypes here. Comparison and feeling a need to fit one type of “homesteading” image does more damage than actually being helpful. 

Sacrifices and Roadblocks When Starting a Homestead

It is fun to talk about the beginning of things, there is excitement and it’s also fun to talk about the ends/results, because it is about your victorious end of the journey. Oftentimes, though, we don’t talk about the middle of the process.

So many people don’t get to see the roadblocks and no one tells you about the ugly part where you think you’re losing your mind. You are stressed out, not sleeping, and feel like you’re going to war every day for your dreams. Sometimes you’re left wondering if it’s gonna be worth it and you ask yourself if you even want it anymore.

Sometimes, things can get tough and when you’re buying property, there may be times when sacrifices will need to be made for your dream.

Budget-Friendly Sacrifice Ideas:

Cut Back on Vacations

Grocery Costs: Don’t Splurge on Things

Clothing Costs: Buy What You Need

Less or No Ordering Out

Choosing not to do something to save money for your dream can be uncomfortable and you will be missing out on instant gratification. In the end, though, once you have keys in hand and that feeling of “I can’t believe we did it!” you will know the sacrifices were well worth it.

Check out my article on Money Principles for Homesteaders to get a closer look at how Christian and I personally made our homestead goals work, especially in the early years on a strict budget.

Roadblocks: The Process of Starting a Homestead

The process of buying your house can be as stressful as preparing for one. When things disrupt the buying process or it isn’t going exactly perfect, people tend to get paralysis by analysis.

This can become a roadblock when there is a setback and then you start to think it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes I think that can be true, but other times, it’s more like a test to see if you have the fortitude to push through it.

Christian and I have had plenty of roadblocks and failures along the way. Take a closer look at our personal homesteading failures here:

The Biggest Homesteading Mistakes We Have Made (So Far)

The World’s Worst Homesteader

Killing My Garden with Bad Compost (AGAIN)

Why We are Teaching Our Kids to Fail (my philosophical musings on failing)

Things never look how you think they are going to, and keeping that mentality of “I will not throw this away just because things are hard and scary” is a huge life lesson. In the end, if it’s not meant to be, it is important to recognize that there was something to be learned from the process. Nothing is a total loss as long as you realize that you have learned something.

Buying your dream homestead may not have any roadblocks; it might go very smoothly, so please don’t go into this thinking all buying processes are doomed from the start. Your situation can be as simple as an offer was accepted and the keys are yours.

I just really wanted to emphasize that if you do hit some roadblocks, don’t feel like you have to just give up. If it is something that you want and it is meant to be, it will be worth the hard work in the end.

Learning to Manage Your Fear When Starting a Homestead

I have mentioned on social media that we purchased a fixer-upper and more recently the soda fountain in the little rural town north of us. Both need a lot of work, but we had the vision to bring some life into this little town. It is ok to feel a little scared when making those big buys, but I knew it was right and everything went smoothly.

No matter how right or enchanted you feel at the time the keys to your dream are handed to you, there can be an anxiety that rises after. Thoughts like “what have we done?” start to surface. I have now come to recognize that little bit of fear when diving into something new as a good thing. However, there is also that fear based on “I should not be doing this“, which is a bad thing, and there is a difference between the two. Just remember that feeling some of that same weird fear when you first buy your homestead is perfectly normal.

You may find yourself questioning the decisions that you had already thought out, or perhaps you have let other people’s comments get into your head. This is nothing to be ashamed of and this cycle of fear is completely normal.

One of my favorite books, is The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield, describes this type of fear. He says that the amateur feels the fear and expects it will eventually go away, but the professional knows the fear never goes away but they do it anyway.

This is something I think about every time I’m doing something uncomfortable. Buying a fixer-upper, investing in an opportunity, or doing any skill that I’m bad at. The professional knows the fear, has learned how to manage it, and keeps pushing through it. Your fear will eventually blossom into something beautiful but it is a part of the process.

Finding Your Homesteading Community

Another important part of starting a homestead is understanding that you are not an island. Find your people. If you are wanting to homestead, can, or sew, find people who will genuinely cheer you on.

I don’t mean the passive-aggressive friends who tolerate your weirdness but secretly think you’re crazy. Instead, find the people who are going to be your cheerleader, and pick you up when you’re discouraged. Look for those folks who will be excited when you grow your first tomato or knit your first dishrag. This is a really important piece and it doesn’t have to be right next door, it can be an online community of like-minded homesteading people.

Many people think that in order to build a community, it has to fit a certain model and the people that we are supposed to connect with are within arms reach. Communities of support can take all shapes and forms, it doesn’t change the depth of the connection.

Creating of finding a homesteading community can be scary and uncomfortable, and I actually talk in-depth about community in my article How to Cultivate Community While Homesteading. If you are a little nervous or interested in homesteading communities, give it a read.

Are You Ready to Start Your Homestead?

When you are ready to start your homesteading journey, please remember: don’t let others (or yourself!) to cause you confusion and overwhelm. Decide what you want your dream to look like, follow your gut and take action.  Starting can be exciting, but it also can be uncomfortable and scary. Push past the fear and I promise you will not regret the end results. 

More About Starting a Homestead:

7 Reasons to Start Homesteading Today

4 Questions to Ask Yourself BEFORE You Start Your Homestead

How to Start Homesteading When You Feel Overwhelmed

Homesteading With Kids: How We Do It

The Story of Our Prairie House

The post How to Start a Homestead From Scratch appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2021/10/how-to-start-a-homestead-from-scratch.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[themanuelruello]

How to Store and Use Bulk Pantry Goods

  I have talked about how to be more prepared and resilient in terms of growing your own meats, milk, eggs, and vegetables.

But what about the things that you can’t grow yourself on your homestead or in your backyard? I’m talking, of course, about how to keep a well-stock pantry, full of flour, bulk goods, etc.

Keeping a well-stocked pantry and buying in bulk is a major key to your family’s food security. And keep in mind that bulk food buying doesn’t just have to be for your long-term storage; it can also help you with your working pantry as well. 

Making fewer trips to the grocery store by saving time and money through bulk buying and storing is, in my opinion, a great thing for all modern homesteaders to try and accomplish. You don’t have to live on a farm in order to have bulk foods stored up in the home.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing a bulk food storage expert on my podcast. Let me just say, I was thrilled and excited going into the interview because there have been SO many questions about bulk food storage that I could never really answer.

You can listen to my interview with bulk food storage expert Jessica, from Three Rivers Homestead on my Old-Fashioned On Purpose podcast (it’s available wherever you like to listen to your podcasts). You can also take a listen to it right here:

However, I also pulled out some of the important questions from the episode in case you prefer to read instead of listen.

What is Bulk Buying Food Storage?

When bulk buying, there are two categories to focus on: your working pantry and your long-term food storage.

A working pantry is where you will keep the things that you use weekly or daily. The items in your working pantry will be cycled through, and they might not be in large quantities or have as long of a shelf life.

Long–term bulk food storage are the items that you are storing away for emergencies or food shortages (I don’t think any of us will ever forget the great Toilet Paper Shortage and Yeast Shortage of 2020…). Long-term bulk items are usually in larger quantities and can be stored out of sight for long periods of time.

What are the Basic Essentials in a Bulk Food Storage Pantry?

Modern food culture has become about specialized foods that are premade and prepackaged. However, our ancestors created food and meals from basic ingredients and that is what this type of bulk food storage is all about. Getting back to storing and using basic ingredients and whole foods.

A basic essential bulk storage pantry should focus on all the things that you will not be able to grow or produce yourself. This can include grains, sweeteners, leavening agents, and plant-based proteins. All these basic ingredients are extremely versatile and can be used to create any meal.

When you are looking to buy in bulk for long-term storage, it is best to buy items in their rawest whole forms. The whole versions store better than their refined counterparts, for example, buy wheat berries instead of flour, and dry corn instead of cornmeal.

Bulk Food Storage Essentials:

Grains:

Wheat Berries (This is the Hard White Wheat Berries I like to get, and this is the Soft White Wheat Berries I get for pastries)

Corn

Oats

Rice

When you are using whole forms of grain like wheat berries or corn, a grain mill will be required to transform them into flour or cornmeal.

Sweeteners:

Honey (I love this raw honey)

Molasses

Maple Syrup (this is one of my favorite maple syrup companies)

Baking:

Yeast

Baking Soda

Baking Powder

Salt (I LOVE Redmond’s Sea Salt)

Protein:

Lentils

Dry Beans

What are Wheat Berries?

When it comes to storing grain, people tend to have a lot of questions, especially about wheatberries. Wheat berries are the whole form of all wheat products. This basic form of wheat is ground down or refined into other forms, an example of this is when wheat berries are ground in a mill to create flour for baking bread.

If you are interested in learning more about grain mills and grinding your own flour take a look at my article on How to Use a Grain Mill to Make Your Own Flour From Wheat Berries

Hard & Soft Wheat Berries

There are two main categories that wheat berries fall into, you can either have hard wheat or soft wheat.

Hard wheat berries are generally used for making bread because they have a higher gluten content. Soft wheat berries are used to make things that require a fluffier texter like biscuits or pastries. Both types can come in a white or red variety. Red wheat berries are darker in color and have a stronger flavor. White wheat berries are lighter in color and have a milder flavor that does not overpower other ingredient flavors when used.

Check out my wheat berry article for tons of extra details on the different types of wheat berries and how to grind them and use them.

What Foods Should Not be Bought in Bulk?

Foods that are high in oils should not be bought in bulk quantities. This includes brown rice, nuts, and ground flours. Brown rice has a higher oil content than white rice, nuts just have lots of oils, and once wheat berries are ground down the oil starts to go into the flour.

If you would like to store foods like this, do it in smaller quantities and for less amount of time.

What Locations Are Best for Long -Term Bulk Food Storage?

A root cellar is an ideal location for any long-term storage, but not many modern homes have been equipped with them. Your storage location should be dark and cool with a consistent temperature. The ideal temperature range should be between 40- and 70-degrees Fahrenheit.

Long-term food storage doesn’t have to be anything fancy, it just needs to meet the light, moisture, and temperature requirements. If you are not sure what storage space you have, look at 13 Root Cellar Alternatives and Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar to get some different ideas.

Different Bulk Long-Term Storage Locations:

Closet

Basement

Outbuildings

Crawl Spaces

What Containers Should Be Used for Bulk Food Storage?

When deciding what containers to use for your bulk food supplies, you must know if these items are going to be in your working pantry or long-term storage. A working pantry will have different sizes and ways to store items compared to long-term storage.

Depending on your needs a working pantry can have food stored in different-sized food grade buckets, glass jars, or the original containers. Long-term bulk storage will almost always be stored in large food-grade 5-gallon buckets.

Food grade buckets that are used for long-term storage should not be used alone; your grains should be placed in a mylar bag then stored in the 5-gallon bucket. In the pantry, because you are in and out of your bucket all the time a bag is not necessary, but you may want to consider a gamma lid or a Smart Seal Lid (I LOVE these Smart Seal Lids from True Leaf Market).

What is a Gamma Lid aka Smart Seal Lid?

A gamma lid is a special lid that creates easier access to your food stores by screwing on and off. You can often find them at local hardware stores, but sometimes they will be sold at bulk food stores as well. Some bulk food suppliers will offer these lids as an option when you purchase your bulk food in a 5-gallon bucket.

I love these Smart Seal Lids from True Leaf Market. They come in different colors, which is not only fun but also great for being super organized (example: you can use different colors for different types of food).

Where to Find Food Grade Buckets for Bulk Storage?

Food grade buckets are pretty easy to find at a local hardware store. If you would like to find them a little cheaper you can always ask bakeries or restaurants if they have any they would like to be rid of.

You can also purchase Food Grade Buckets from True Leaf Market if you want to be more confident in the source of your buckets.

Why is Oxygen an Important Bulk Food Storage Factor?

Oxygen is an important factor when it comes to the freshness of long-term bulk food that has been stored. It is not as important for things in your working pantry that will be opened more frequently.

An important tool that can help lengthen the shelf life of your long-term bulk food items is an oxygen absorber. When an oxygen absorber is used, foods that would normally go bad in a year will now last approximately 10 years. An important rule to remember when using an oxygen absorber is that it can not be placed directly in a plastic food-grade bucket.

Your long-term bulk food and oxygen absorber should be placed in a mylar bag, then put into your food grade bucket. Plastic will leech oxygen through it, so placing the oxygen absorber directly into your bucket will cause it to compress.

I get these oxygen absorbers from True Leaf Market

I love these mylar bags from Lehman’s store.

When Should You Replenish Your Food Stores?

Storing bulk food will do you no good if you don’t go through what you have and let it go bad. Once a year, it is a good idea to go through everything that you have, try to use your stored up grains, and move the supply around.

One way that has been suggested to me in the past was a “shop your pantry challenge”. This is when you do not go grocery shopping and use only what is in your working pantry. The idea is that once your challenge is over, you will be able to move your long-term items into your working pantry and replenish your long-term food storage.

My best tips for you here is to be intentional and get creative with the things that you have; and these types of challenges can help you do just that. You will be forced to try new things and look up new recipes, and you never know what you will find or like along the way.

Where to Get the Best Deals on Bulk Food Items?

There are a few options when you are looking to buy your bulk food storage items. There are food co-ops like Azure Standard. Azure Standard is a very well-known food co-op where you can buy in bulk, they can ship items to you for a fee or you can find a drop-off site near you. I LOVE using Azure Standard for my bulk grains, beans, and other pantry staples.

Bulk food stores are an anther option and Amish bulk food stores are also a great option if you have them in your area (check out my post on Finding Local Food Sources for some tips to find local small bulk food stores).

Buying in bulk saves you money, and time since you will be making fewer trips to the grocery store. It is always a good idea to investigate what is available for bulk buying in your area.

How to Prevent and Control Pests in Your Bulk Pantry Goods

A common long-term food storage pest that likes grains is weevils. If you find that you have a bucket with weevils, the solution depends on your comfort level and how bad the situation has become. If you are not comfortable with the idea of getting rid of these pests and keeping your grain, you can always feed it to the chickens and start over.

If you are ok with getting rid of the bugs and keeping your stored grains, you will need to remove the grains and clean your container inside and out. You never know where those tiny eggs are hiding in there.

The next step to getting rid of bugs is to place the bag of grain into the freezer for up to 3 days to kill any live bugs. Next, take the bag out to thaw for a day or 2. If you are using this in your panty without a mylar bag and oxygen absorber, you will want to place it back in the freezer to kill the next hatch.

Long-term food storage containers with mylar bags and oxygen absorbers don’t have bug problems because of the lack of oxygen. Your pests can’t survive in a no-oxygen environment.

To help prevent pest problems in the bulk food pantry, you can add bay leaves to your buckets or place cloves, rosemary, or garlic next to your grains on the shelf. (Don’t add cloves or rosemary directly to the bucket, it could change the taste).

Mice can also be a big pest when it comes to food storage, that is why it is not a good idea to leave grains in their original bags. It is a good idea to check on your long-term food storage occasionally, to check for signs of mice. (They will chew on the plastic buckets to try and get to your grain).

Do your best to prevent pest problems in your bulk food storage, because it is a huge disappointment when all of that hard work gets spoiled by little critters.

Are You Ready to Start Building Your Bulk Food Storage?

If you are inspired and want to dive into building a well-stocked pantry, start small so that you don’t lose that momentum.

A few final tips that may make your bulk food journey less overwhelming are:

Start building your pantry one grain at a time and focus on what your family will eat.

Begin your bulk food storage journey by first building up your working pantry that you use day to day before you start working on your long-term storage.

Happy Bulk Buying!

More About Food Storage and Pantry:

Check out my Pantry Tour Video to see what my storage looks like!

How to Manage Your Garden Harvest (Without Losing Your Mind)

Cooking with Salt: Your Questions Answered

Water Glassing Eggs: How to Preserve Your Fresh Eggs for Long-Term Storage

My Favorite Ways to Preserve Food at Home

The post How to Store and Use Bulk Pantry Goods appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2021/10/how-to-store-and-use-bulk-pantry-goods.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[themanuelruello]

How to Store a Year’s Worth of Food for Your Family (Without Waste and Overwhelm)

We try to store at least a year’s supply of food in every possible nook-and-cranny on our homestead (someday, maybe, we’ll get more organized about it and have it all in one location…).

As a homesteader, I understand the need for self-reliance and food security, and both have a pretty big role in this lifestyle. I also firmly believe that you don’t need to be a Homesteader, Emergency Prepper, or Survivalist to take control and store a year’s worth of food. 

In the last few years, many have struggled through a pandemic, natural disasters, and shortages across the country. I think now more than ever it is time for people from all walks of life to start thinking about how to take control of their food supply.

When it comes to long-term food storage, I can’t offer you a one size fits all solution because there isn’t one. However, what I CAN do is explain different details that will help you learn how to store a year’s worth of food and help customize it to fit your needs.

Storing food long-term is no simple task and there are many things to consider before diving in. To have success with your long-term food storage, you will need to start with a well-thought-out plan and hopefully end with a well-stocked pantry.

Why Store a Year’s Worth of Food

Everyone has their reasons for deciding to stock their pantries for an extended period of time. If you are still on the fence about why you really want to start storing food long-term, here are a few reasons to help you decide.

Save Time – Storing food whether it be for a week, a month or a year will help save you time in the long run. Having food stored on hand will minimize the time you spend at stores, and in some cases minimize the time it takes to prepare meals.

Save Money – When you buy items in bulk you are saving money because most times the price per unit is lower than when purchased individually. Growing your own produce can save money as well, you are paying for the cost of seeds or transplants.

Emergencies – Emergencies can be natural disasters, a pandemic, the loss of a job, or a major injury. Many things can fall into this category. Having your food stored long-term means that you will have less to worry about at the time something like this occurs.

Environmental Friendly – Buying things in bulk and preserving uses less packaging and causes less waste. Canning jars can be used over and over again, and there are now reusable lid alternatives. 

We buy Redmond’s Fine Sea Salt in a 25 pound bag. It’s cheaper to buy in bulk and we use it for so many things (fermenting, preserving, and from-scratch meals) that it made sense to get a large bag.

Where to Begin When Storing a Year’s Worth of Food

If you have decided to take control of your food security and would like to attempt storing long-term, my best advice is to start small. Many make the mistake of jumping in both feet first when it comes to long-term food storage and then they end up overwhelmed and with food waste.

Tips Before You Start Storing Food:

Don’t try storing an entire year’s worth of food from scratch. Start small: plan for 1 month of storage and then build from there.

Keep track of your inventory and storage space.

Buying in bulk can save you time and money.

Store a few key ingredients at a time in bulk, and then move on to a different one.

If you have never preserved your own food, ease into it. Don’t depend on home-preserved food entirely until you have learned the ins and outs.

If buying fresh produce in bulk, buy in-season to help reduce the cost.

Have a Plan! Figure out what food you will store, how much you will need, and how you will store it.

It took me a few years to get to this point: making a meal for supper that was completely created from food made solely on our homestead.

How to Create a Customized Plan to Store a Year’s Worth of Food

Before you jump in and start buying or preserving your storage items you should start with a plan. This plan will help you get organized and prevent overwhelm. Grab a pencil and some paper, take some time to write everything out (or check out the back pages from my Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner)

Creating Your Customized Food Storage Plan:

(1) Set Realistic Actionable Goals The beginning of any great plan starts with setting goals and having a clear idea of what you would like the outcome to be. Start by writing down your short-term goals, long-term goals, and what is motivating you to take action.

(2) Write Down What Your Family Eats Figure out what recipes and foods your family uses most and focus on these. The goal is to store things that your family will eat.

(3) How much storage space do you have? Your goal is to store a year’s worth of food, but you should consider how much storage space you have and where you can create more if needed. 

(4) What Does Your Inventory Look Like? Start your food storage process by going through your pantry, freezer, and root cellar (if you are lucky enough to have one) to see what you already have on hand. You will want to take everything out, go through what you use, and what you can get rid of. Note: Organize your Pantry/Freezer, and then create an inventory sheet to keep track of what you have and what you need. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a piece of lined paper will do.

(5) Store-Bought, Homegrown, or Both? During the planning stage, you should decide if you will be growing produce, raising meat, preserving yourself, or buying everything. You can do all these things or only a few. If you can only raise chickens but are set on farm-fresh produce you can go to a farmers’ market. There are so many combinations and options, that is why customizing your plan to fit your situation is so important.

My Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner is the PERFECT way to organize homestead and schedule. The front section is a yearly planner and in the back, I included pantry inventory and food storage sheets, as well as other helpful organization charts and sheets to help balance the busyness of a modern life with a homegrown lifestyle. 

Last year’s planner SOLD OUT quickly, and we are currently printing new ones for the 2022 year. So stay tuned to my Instagram stories to learn when the new planners are available.

Organizing and Creating Your Long-term Storage Space

Before you worry about what and how much to store, you need to be sure that you have the space to store your food long-term. During your planning a list of storage space and existing inventory should have been made, now it is time to create, clean, and organize these spaces.

Note: When it comes to storage space it doesn’t have to be normal try to use what you have and get creative. Need proof? Check out my various storage areas around the home in the youtube video (above).

There are many different places you can store your food items, so consider the following spaces when deciding how much space you have to store a year’s worth of food. 

Different Storage Space Ideas to Consider:

Cupboards

Pantry /Larder

Root Cellar

Closets

Basements

Extra Refrigerator

Freezer

Outbuildings

You also can organize your larger storage areas by breaking them down using smaller containers. An important thing to remember is to label your containers so there is no confusion in the future.

Containers to Help Organize Your Storage Space:

Baskets

Crates

Totes

Boxes

Shelves

Glass Jars

Food Grade Buckets

Once you have figured out exactly how much space you have for storage, it is time to figure out how much food your family will need to store. Will your storage space be able to hold the amount of food required? Let’s find out!

What Food Should You Store for Your Family?

One of the major mistakes people make storing food long-term is stocking up on non-perishable items without considering what will get eaten. As mentioned earlier it is extremely important that you focus on storing things that your family will actually eat, because this will prevent food waste in the future.

In your plan (mentioned above), you wrote down favorite recipes and looked at foods your family consumes regularly. Now, you need to break down these recipes into basic ingredient lists, so later you will know what to include when buying or preserving.

If you are buying the majority of your stocked food you need to focus on things that have a long shelf-life like canned goods, pasta, rice, and dried beans. No one wants to stock up on something then find out it has spoiled in a short time.

Long-term Food Storage Items Include:

Grains (Wheat berries have a longer shelf-life than ground flour, but a grain mill will be needed)

Oats

Rice

Dry Beans

Pasta

Canned or Frozen Vegetables

Canned Sauces

Dehydrated Fruits

Dried Herbs

Nuts

Peanut Butter

Honey

Salt

Fats and Oils

Canned or Frozen Meats

How Much Should You Store for a Year’s Worth of Food

There are different methods and calculators (check out this helpful food storage calculator) out there that can help you get close to an estimated amount to store for a year’s worth of food. These can help, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so you will need to adjust to customize the amount for your situation. For instance, if you have growing kids, they may eat enough for two people compared to their 40-year-old mother.

Other Things to Factor in When Deciding Your Amounts:

Seasons – One thing that sometimes gets overlooked is the seasons. For example, if you eat vegetables with every meal, you might only need canned vegetables while fresh produce isn’t available.

Age – Remember to consider the age of everyone in your family when customizing your amounts.

Health – Health can be another determining factor when it comes to the amount someone will eat.

Different Methods for Figuring Out How Much You Need:

Method #1: Favorite Recipe Breakdown

Break down your favorite recipe into basic ingredients, and then multiply these by 12, now you know how much to store if you eat this once a month per year. Once you have stored that one recipe, you can move on to the next and continue until your calendar is filled with meals.

How you break down your recipes depends on how basic you would like to get with your ingredients. If you make everything from scratch, your list will include more items.

Example: Spaghetti Night

1 – 16oz Box of Noodles x 12 = 12 Boxes of Spaghetti Noodles 1 – Jar of Spaghetti Sauce x 12 = 12 Jars of Spaghetti Sauce 1 lb – Ground Beef x12 = 12 lbs Ground Beef 1 – Loaf French Bread x 12 = 12 Loaves of Bread

Note: This example is for a basic store-bought spaghetti dinner, with time and experience you can break this down further into the most basic homemade versions (like homemade pasta and homemade French bread)

Method #2: Food Per Person Per Day

Write out how much and what each family member usually eats per day, then multiply these findings by 7 and you now have an idea of how much is consumed in 1 week. Use your one week and build up to 1 month, and then a year.

Method #3: Batch Cooking

Batch cooking is one of my favorite ways to store food and save time. If you are planning on making vegetable soup for dinner one night, just make extra, and then either can or freeze the extra soup for dinners on different nights. You may not be able to batch cook for an entire year, but if you continue doing that for a time you can build up to it.

Using batch cooking for your long-term storage system again requires that you break down your recipes into the basic ingredients and multiply the amount of each ingredient by the amount you are making.

Example: Vegetable Soup Ingredients x 4 = 4 Dinners = 1 Vegetable Soup Dinner per 4 months

Ever since last year’s flour storage, I buy wheat berries in bulk and grind them into flour whenever I need it.

How To Build Your Food Storage

Tip 1: Buy More at a Time

In the beginning of your food storage quest, buying truly in bulk can be a struggle. There are a few different ways you can go about buying extra as you go. My number #1 tip: Focus on one product and start buying extra every time you are at the store in order to build up a supply and then move on to another.

You can also focus on one recipe that your family enjoys and buy your ingredients for it, and once you have your set amount, move on to the next one. This method can be continued until you have all your desired meals.

Tip 2: Buy In Bulk

Become a member of a large store such as Costco, where most of the things you will be looking for will be sold in bulk. When you are truly buying your items in bulk this will save you both time and money.

Tip 3: Grow Your Own/Homegrown

If it’s possible for you, grow your own food, and that can mean produce, meat, eggs, honey, or anything that you are producing yourself. If you have the time and space, you can grow a year’s worth of produce to preserve. Keep chickens for meat and eggs or maybe someday work up to buying and raising a pig (watch how to figure out the cost of raising your own meat here).

Growing your own produce and raising your own meat is great because you know exactly where your food supply is coming from.

If you have your heart set on growing your own produce you will need to consider:

Your Growing Space

Growing Zone/ Climate

What Vegetables Your Family Needs

How Many Plants Needed

When growing your own produce, you will have to figure out the number of plants you will need to plant to be able to preserve a year’s worth. If you are a gardening and preserving beginner, it might be easier to focus on one crop starting out.

Tomatoes are usually a go-to example because it is such a versatile fruit in many different recipes, you have your tomato sauce, tomato paste, pizza sauce, and even sun-dried tomatoes to name a few. To get enough tomatoes for any of these tomato products you will need 3-5 plants per person.

To get a better explanation, watch my video Know Exactly How Much to Plant to Feed Your Family where I talk you through an equation that helps me figure out how much to plant.

Tip 4: Preserve Your Own Storage Items

Preserving your food does not necessarily mean growing your own food, although they do go hand-in-hand. To preserve your own goods, you can buy them from farmer’s markets, roadside stands, or from a local producer directly.

If you have decided to take the leap into home preserving, then you should know that there are different methods. You can use just one method or a combination of them, whatever will make things easier on you in the long run.

Preservation Methods to Choose From:

(1) Canning The Canning preservation method is one of the most used for long-term storage. Depending on what you are planning to store you can hot water bath (learn how to water bath can) or pressure can your items. There are rules that should be followed, and canning safety should never be taken lightly.

Here are a Few of my Favorite Canning Recipes:

Canning Chicken (How to do it Safely)

How to Can Tomatoes Safely at Home

Canning Peaches with Honey and Cinnamon

If you think that canning is going to be too difficult or require too much fancy equipment, I can help with that! Learn how to can with my Canning Made Easy Course and also take a look at my tips on How to Can Food with No Special Equipment.

CANNING MADE EASY COURSE:

If you are a canning newbie, I just revamped my Canning Made Easy course and it’s ready for YOU! I’ll walk you through each step of the process (safety is my #1 priority!), so you can finally learn to can confidently, without the stress. CLICK HERE to have a look at the course and ALL the bonuses that come with it.

(2) Freezing

Freezing works well for certain types of vegetables and most meats, the downfall to freezing is that in an emergency where power is lost your freezer will not be working. This is also a method that may require some blanching before your things get moved to the freezer.

Here are a Few of my Favorite Freezer Recipes :

How to Freeze Green Beans

How to Freeze Tomatoes

No-Cook Strawberry Freezer Jam Recipe

(3) Root Cellaring/Cold Storage

This type of storage isn’t for all kinds of produce, it is used for winter squash, carrots, potatoes, beets, and other vegetables that like to be kept cool and in the dark. You don’t have to have an actual root cellar to store things this way, but it helps.

Here are some helpful Root Vegetable Tips:

13 Root Cellar Alternatives

Digging Up and Storing Potatoes for Winter

How to Grow Your Best Onion Crop Ever

(4) Dehydrating

The dehydrating method is when you use a dehydrator or oven to remove the moisture from the chosen food. Foods that are dehydrated can be great additions to soups because many can be restored by adding water. Dehydrated foods do not take up as much space as other preserved foods, so this can help if you don’t have much long-term storage space.

A Few of My Favorite Ways to Use a Dehydrator:

Dehydrating Bananas: Easy Tutorial

Simple Homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes

(5) Fermentation

This method of preservation has been used for ages and because of the salt brine used it is one of the safest. Fermentation is also a very basic method of preservation, only salt, vegetables and a jar are required.

A Few of My favorite fermenting Recipes

Homemade Fermented Pickle Recipe

How to Make Sauerkraut

How to Make Milk Kefir

I have personally use each of these food storage methods, and using a combination of each of them really helps achieve your food storage goals.

Never preserved anything before? That’s ok, learn more about each method and how to preserve your harvest here.

Are You Ready to Start Storing a Year’s Worth of Food Your Family?

The idea is to try and store enough to get you through one year, if you are new to food storage, just remember that the best way to prevent disappointment and waste is to start small. Create a customized plan that works best for YOUR family and decide what you will need to buy or produce yourself.

I hope your food storage journey is successful and that you are able to take control of your food supply. It is a great and satisfying feeling to finally be self-sufficient and prepared. 

More  Long-Term Storage Tips:

Water Glassing Eggs: How to Preserve Your Fresh Eggs for Long-Term Storage

The Best Resources for Safe Canning Information

My Favorite Ways to Preserve Food at Home

Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar

The post How to Store a Year’s Worth of Food for Your Family (Without Waste and Overwhelm) appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2021/09/how-to-store-a-years-worth-of-food-for-your-family-without-waste-and-overwhelm.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[themanuelruello]

Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar

You’re pulling in your garden harvest…it’s covering every surface of your home…and now you’re left with the familiar problem of “what are you supposed to do with all of this fresh produce?”.

Most of us have not been blessed with a traditional root cellar in our home. If you happen to be someone with a root cellar, I would just like to say that I am exceedingly jealous.

Fortunately, for the rest of us without a root cellar, I’ve got some good news: there are still plenty of ways to store our crops for later.

Christian and I have been contemplating putting in a root cellar for a while now. We have been seeing more of a need for one as our food growth continues to increase. Back in the beginning, I didn’t think a root cellar was necessary; I was still trying to figure out how to grow vegetables and we had smaller quantities to deal with.

Now we are in our homesteading groove (most of the time), but one of the big issues we continue to have as our growing capacity expands is storage.

An example is our potato storage. We have been Digging Up and Storing Potatoes for Winter for years now. In recent years, it has been huge amounts and we have had to come up with a plan to store them without your typical root cellar. Watch how I have managed to store over 200 lbs of potatoes without a root cellar. 

In the past, we have used our basement for storage, but it hasn’t always worked the way we would have liked. Now, we have started exploring our options; we even had a concrete guy come over recently and talk to us about the logistics of pouring a concrete root cellar.

Since there have been a ton of questions from everyone on social media recently asking me “what do I do with all of this food?”, I thought that I would gather up a bunch of info in this post. Hopefully it helps you get your ideas flowing and helps you take that first step towards storing food for later. For a more detailed in-depth look at storing vegetables without a root cellar, you can also take a look at these 13 Alternatives to a Root Cellar.

By the way, if you prefer listening to podcasts over reading info, I recently made a podcast episode on storing vegetables without a root cellar here:

Learn More About Storing Your Vegetables Without a Root Cellar

I have been reading books recently in order to do some root cellar research. So I thought that I would give you a book recommendation (and please know that I am really picky about the books I buy and recommend). 

I think that this book that I recently purchased is a good investment and I am so glad I bought it. It is called Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables, by Mike and Nancy Bubel. This is a really good book with a very common-sense title, diagrams, charts, and also discusses about how to build a root cellar. It also talks about how to create makeshift root cellar options and it gives a lot of information on storing vegetables without a root cellar.

The book explains how vegetables will handle different types of storage and what their requirements are. It’s really good, so grab a copy and start learning about root cellaring. In this post, I would like to share a few things that I have learned from the book but also some things that I have learned through trial and error over the years.

How to Store Vegetables Without A Root Cellar

The big thing you need to remember if you are storing vegetables is that not all vegetables are great options for a root cellar or long-term storage. Things like cucumbers, tomatoes, or green beans are what you focus on either freezing, fermenting, or canning.

Root crops like potatoes, beets, parsnips, and carrots are fantastic for root cellars or cold storage. You can grow a lot of those things and keep them for many months if you play your cards right.

Vegetables That Thrive in Root Cellar Storage Include:

Carrots

Beets

Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Parsnips

Onions

Garlic

Winter Squash

Pumpkins

Cabbages

Note: Keep in mind that each type of vegetable has its own set of instructions for pre-storage preparation and for how best to store them long-term. 

Creating a Root Cellar Environment

When trying to create a root cellar environment or mimic a root cellar, it needs to be cold, dark, and humid. A lot of these vegetables have specifics about how they should be stored, but the thing to remember as a beginner is: the colder the better. However, you don’t want things to get so cold they freeze. If things freeze and then thaw out, they tend to get mushy; you want your temperature to be right above 32 degrees Fahrenheit with some humidity if possible.

I have learned that when vegetables are pulled from the garden, they are still alive for a time. As they age, they start to lose some of their moisture. Having a humid environment slows that moisture loss and helps keep them fresher longer. Ideally, 32ish plus degrees Fahrenheit with some humidity and darkness is ideal, however, you can get away with something that isn’t exactly that. 

Creating A Root Cellar Environment for Potato and Onion Storage:

One thing to remember when storing vegetables like onions or especially potatoes they need to have some air circulation. You don’t want to take your potatoes stick them in a rubber-made plastic box with the lid clamped down and leave it. Some of your vegetables will rot and mold quickly without the proper air exchange.

What I do for storing my potatoes is putting them in cardboard boxes, place a layer of newspaper between each row of potatoes and then completely close the cardboard box. The box then gets put in a part of our basement that is super dark. One issue with things like potatoes is that if they get exposed to light, they begin to sprout and honestly, I still have sprouting potatoes even when I try to keep it as dark as possible. I don’t think our basement is quite as cold as I would like it to be but even though it’s moderately cool it still works.

This is also a good place to hang onion braids, you don’t have to braid your onions but it’s kind of a fun thing and it allows air circulation. If you would like to braid your onions to hang for storage, I would love to help you learn How to Braid Your Onions. 

Creating A Root Cellar Environment for Carrot Storage:

Due to the many carrot disasters I have had in the past when I have tried to store carrots, I don’t feel qualified to give advice on carrot storage in this capacity. There are a lot of people on the Internet that say you can store your carrots in sawdust or boxes of sand, and you sprinkle them with some water, and they’ll be good.

I attempted storing carrots in the box with sand method and it was a horrible failure. It was so gross that Christian was completely traumatized and will no longer allow me to try to store carrots in any kind of box.

This method is also very heavy; you will need a dolly to move the boxes around. My carrots turned out disgusting: they were rotted carrot mush, thought it is possible that I did something wrong. I cannot personally recommend the carrots in the sand method because it did not work for me.

So I currently simply store my carrots in the fridge, which is one way of storing vegetables without a Root Cellar.

If your storage is a little bit warmer, not quite as humid, or simply less than perfect, there are still things you can do to make it work. Your situation might not work for very long storage or work as well, but any kind of storage is better than just letting everything rot. I’ve never had a root cellar, so I have always just kind of had to make it work as best that I can, and you can do that too.

3 Ways to Store Your Vegetables Without a Root Cellar

Your root crops can be from your home garden, bought at the farmers market, or extra produce that a friend gave you. No matter where they are from, here are three ways you can store them even if you don’t have an actual root cellar.

Tip #1: Leave Your Crops Planted in the Garden (Depending on Your Climate)

This first option may work if you don’t live in a place like Wyoming. If you live in a more normal climate, then you can leave certain crops in the garden until you actually need them. Carrots and parsnips are great candidates for this type of storage.

As some root vegetables mature, their tops stick up out of the ground, and if you are leaving them in the garden, then you will want to make sure that they are completely covered. If any part of the skin is exposed and it freezes, then it’s not going to be good anymore. You will want to cover your vegetables with a HEAVY layer of mulch (approx. 18 inches thick is a good idea if you can make that work) in this situation.

You can cover your vegetables using straw, grass clippings, or, some people cover their rows with a tarp. If we were to use a tarp, we would have to anchor it down with concrete blocks because of the wind we get in the winter. If you don’t have as much wind or you do not get as much snow as Wyoming does, you can scrape away the straw mulch or move your tarp to harvest as needed.

I do use this method to a certain extent: I will leave my carrots in the ground until October or November but beyond that, it doesn’t work for me. The ground here freezes solid and then it’s impossible to get the carrots out. Another problem that happens is snowdrifts end up right on top of the carrot bed and then I would be left digging through 3-foot snow drifts to get to the carrots.

This may not work for me and my climate, but folks in a little bit more temperate climate have been storing root crops like this with great results. If this first storage trick is something that interests you, do a little research, talk to other gardeners in your area (or your local extension office), and find some information that will let you know if this is something that will work for your harvest.

We store food in our basement because we do not have a root cellar. It works pretty well!

Tip #2 Use an Unheated Room to Store Your Vegetables

The second tip is to use an unheated room in your house, garage, or another building. When I talk to other homesteaders, this is the one option that everyone uses the most. This method of storage is one that I have done for many years, we have a basement that is not completely unheated but cooler than the rest of the house. There is an old unfinished part of our basement where I have stored my potatoes, carrots, and onions in the past.

If you have an old farmhouse-type house with a room that is not very well heated and super drafty, this might be a great room to store crops. I have also heard of people using an attic or crawl space to store their food (although one thing about the crawl space that would be worrisome is rodents and pests).

An alternative to a basement might be a garage or outbuilding that is unheated but also is not going to freeze. If you’re going to use a building like this, perhaps you can use extra insulation around your storage container to make sure that it’s protected. It really is about being creative and finding ways to make your situation work.

In your unheated room, if you can afford it, you can also build an actual cold storage room; there are some pretty cool tutorials out there where people will frame off a corner of their unheated basements and make it into an actual root cellar. 

We looked at this idea quite a bit and the reason we didn’t use this method is that we could not see a way to add a vent to our basement. Having a vent to the outside that provides air circulation is a really important part of a root cellar.

As a vegetable ripens, it gives off ethylene gas, and ethylene gas causes the other vegetables around to spoil more quickly. This gas is one of the reasons why you will see vents in an old root cellar. If we could have figured out a way to vent our basement and build a cold room, I absolutely would have done this.

This idea of adding a root cellar or cold storage room is just another option to consider; first I would recommend doing a search on building a cold storage room. If this is something that you feel is a possibility, I would consider it because it would be really cool to build from what you already have. 

Tip #3 Store Root Vegetables in an Old Refrigerator

You may not have room in your regular house fridge, but it might be a wise investment to find an old fridge on Craigslist or Facebook. This fridge doesn’t have to be pretty; you can keep it in your garage, shop, or the backroom of your house.

As long as it’s not getting too cold and/or freezing the vegetables, it will be a great place to store some of your vegetables like carrots and beets. You can also put a little pan of water in there to help with the humidity. If it works well enough, you can even put your cabbage in there and your cabbage will store quite a while if you’re not wanting to make sauerkraut. An old fridge is a great option for root crop storage, and a bonus is that you can store your ferments in there as well.

If we ever build a root cellar, my goal is to be able to put my potatoes, carrots, and onions down there in baskets. There will also be shelves to store jars of sauerkraut and other fermented foods. Since I don’t have that yet, what I’ve always done with sauerkraut in the past is just store it in our shop refrigerator and it works well.

Get Creative with Your Root Cellar Storage

More ideas are coming out, such as burying things in the ground, like burying a trash can, or an old chest freezer in the ground and storing food inside. We have not tried this because I think it would have to be buried fairly deep to not freeze here in Wyoming.

In a milder climate, this could work, though I would look at a couple of different tutorials or instructions before starting to dig and bury trash cans in your backyard. I have seen ideas where people stack hay bales around a hole then put a window on top. This creates a greenhouse effect on the top and you would just need to make sure it didn’t freeze.

If you are looking for ideas there are a lot of creative ways people have been storing vegetables without a root cellar out there, you can learn more about them by reading 13 Root Cellar Alternatives. When deciding on a method, just make sure you’re following one that has good reviews and looks like it will work. It will still take some research on your part to figure out which type of cold storage you can do in your yard and climate.

Looking For Different Food Storage Options?

I hope this post helped you get your creative juices moving. If you aren’t sure if any of these cold food storage ideas will work for you, I suggest that you start thinking outside the box, because there are many ways to squirrel away that food for later besides cold storage.

If you would like to check out some other ideas for food storage, check out my article with My Favorite Ways to Preserve Food at Home. You can also check out my Canning Made Easy System if you would like to truly create shelf-stable food; that doesn’t require any sort of special root cellar or refrigerator.

More Vegetable Storage Tips:

How to Braid Garlic

How to Can Food with No Special Equipment

How to Manage Your Garden Harvest (Without Losing Your Mind)

How to Preserve Fresh Herbs in Olive Oil

The post Top Tips For Storing Vegetables Without a Root Cellar appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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[themanuelruello]

How to Manage Your Garden Harvest (Without Losing Your Mind)

You’re going along in your garden weeding, watering and mulching, and then BAM! It happens… harvest time is here, and it tends to come in like a whirlwind of chaos, especially if you’re not ready.

I’ve been gardening for over 10 years now, and I STILL deal with some “harvest overwhelm” every late summer and early fall. So I thought I would put together some thoughts on how to get organized and prepared for harvest season, not only to prepare you but also to help encourage myself.

Read on to learn about the strategies you can use to make sure harvest time doesn’t drown you in vegetables, especially in these recent years when canning lids are scarce. There are plenty of other great ways to preserve the harvest, so I’ll cover that as well. 

Prefer to listen to a podcast instead of reading articles? Check out this harvest info in my podcast episode below:

Planning for Harvest Time

Harvest time tends to be the piece of gardening that no one talks about, which I think is a bit silly. As gardeners, we obviously know that it is coming (I mean this is why we are growing a garden, right)? We are not just sowing seeds for the simple pleasure that comes from planting seeds; we are planting them to get a harvest.

Harvest time is formidable, if you have a garden of any size, and it will sometimes catch you off-guard. You kind of forget the vegetables are coming. I know it sounds silly, but it at least happens to me over and over again.

Has this ever been something you’ve dealt with?

During harvest time, I am thinking about back-to-school, fair, and 4-H, and then suddenly there are 80 million pounds of tomatoes on the counter that I have to do something with.

Tip #1: Get Organized

My first recommendation for harvest time is to mark it on your calendar or planner. Make a note on the month your harvest usually starts; write something like “hey don’t forget you’re going to have 80 million pounds of tomatoes to deal with.” Remember that you will have to address the situation in the middle of back to school and everything else.

Harvest seasons can vary, and mine (here in Wyoming) is pushed out a little further than others, but for a lot of folks, August is the month that preservation and harvesting begins to get a bit crazy.

I will still sometimes be canning tomatoes in October, not because they’re out in the garden but because I pulled green tomatoes from the garden (I usually have to ripen green tomatoes indoors before canning them). They are ripening in boxes in my house until October. From August to October, I have to start thinking about what to do with all of the vegetables, including the Cucumbers, greens, squash, and tomatoes. 

Tip #2: Plan Your Harvests Around Your Schedule (as best as possible)

The second thing I would recommend is to be careful if you plan to go on vacation during harvest. I wouldn’t cancel, but take into consideration that it could really squish some of your harvest efforts. For example, I had a reoccurring trip every September for many years and, without fail, there would be a crop in the garden that had to be dealt with the day I was leaving for the trip.

Trips and vacations during harvest time are doable but you have to make sure you have your vegetables preserved before you get in the car or on the airplane. There have been many times where I am up the night before I leave for a trip and I’m frantically canning, freezing, or dehydrating something so it doesn’t get rotten.

This is the nature of homesteading, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something to be aware of.  And if it is at all possible, when it’s planting season in the spring, try to schedule the harvest times around your planned August/September/etc. vacations and/or plans. Many seed companies (like my fave True Leaf Market) often include info on the seed packets about the “days to maturity”, so you can look at your calendar and try to schedule when to plant your veggies so that the time they are ready to harvest doesn’t mess with your vacation plans too badly.

Of course, the planting dates will also need to be figured out in balance with your garden zone info (read about garden zones and other beginner gardening tips here). Here in Wyoming, our growing season is super short, so I can’t play around with the planting dates as much as some of the more milder garden zones can.

Preserving any amount of food for later is going to take some effort, and you can really enjoy the process if you plan ahead. And even as you try to balance the chaos of harvest season and do as much preplanning as possible, try to remember that this really is a good thing. This is where the magic is happening: you are stocking the pantries and tucking food away for later, and this is going to take some effort.

What to Watch Out For During Harvest Time

I would like to start by saying “watch the sneaky vegetables!”

You will be out in the garden watering and weeding, then somehow you wake up to find there are a hundred baseball bat cucumbers hiding under the leaves. You thought they hadn’t started growing yet and sure enough there they are.

They have been growing on stealth mode, now you’re stuck with a hundred giant cucumbers, they are no good for pickles and your kids are tired of eating them with ranch dressing. You are now left trying to figure out what to do with them… seriously, this has happened to me countless times. Fortunately, I have a great Dill Pickle Relish Recipe that I use when the cucumbers have snuck up on me. 

Cucumbers are the worst sneaky vegetables; although green beans will do it to you, too. To avoid this, look at the back of your seed packet because it will tell you how many days till harvest. Count out the number of days, add a note in your planner that says when the Cucumbers and beans may be ready and when to start checking them.

Other plants to watch are your greens, arugula, and spinach; chard isn’t so bad but lettuce matures really fast and it’ll probably be one of the first things you get to eat. If you miss the window, then it’s all over; once they start to go to seed, the taste gets bitter. 

TIP: Keep in mind that most vegetables have the best taste and texture when they’re on the younger side. So put a note in your planner to start looking for harvestable veggies a tiny bit earlier than the seed package suggests.

When you let the zucchini get giant, or the cucumbers turn into baseball bats or when you let the beets get volleyball size, they’re not going to be as good to eat. Plan on getting some of those plants out of the ground sooner versus later.

And if you DO end up with those large overgrown vegetables, one option you could do is start saving seeds. If you are a brand-new gardener, this may be a little bit of a stretch your very first year (not that you couldn’t seed save, but it’s just one more thing for you to think about).

If you are going to save seeds, please realize that the plants need to be completely mature before you’re able to harvest the seeds. For example, kale and lettuces will have to completely bolt and start giving you seed heads, and that means that the entire plant won’t be good to harvest for edible leaves. So you will need to try and balance what vegetable plants to use for seed saving and what ones you keep and harvest while they are young.

Strategies to Manage Your Garden Harvest Now

When my kitchen counters are overflowing with garden bounty, this can honestly be pretty stressful for me. I don’t like clutter and chaos. I don’t like it in my garden and I don’t like it in my kitchen. So I try really hard to have some strategies on hand to use my harvest ASAP so that my kitchen counters stay relatively clear.

Strategy #1: Use Your Harvest to Plan Your Menus

I know there are always some vegetables you are probably planning to simply preserve, but some others are harder to preserve and should probably be eaten fresh. One of the things I like to do is craft my menus around the garden. I will go pick whatever is out in the garden, like beets, summer squash, and beans and bring them in the house, and then I simply google ways to use them in the menu for the week.

Create a menu based on what’s in the garden, rather than crafting your menu first and considering the produce later. This is one way that will help you use what you can’t preserve from your garden.

Strategy #2: Quick Pickle Your Small Harvests

Quick pickling is another strategy I like to use if I want to preserve something but I don’t have enough to make a big batch in the canner. I have a technique that basically is a refrigerator pickle or veggie, and you can just do a jar at a time in your fridge.

No heating the kitchen up is required, and it lets you preserve some of the stuff that is coming from the garden handfuls at a time. Use my quick pickle method to get those vegetables off your counter and you can use these as you go. I love to use the quick pickle technique for the small harvests like carrots and beans.

Managing Your Garden Harvest Time with Preservation

Recently, there has been a canning lid shortage and I have had a lot of concerned comments and emails coming through from people claiming that they aren’t sure if they should even plant a garden since canning equipment has been scarce. Before you panic, start by checking out my post on How to Can without Special Equipment, so that you can rest assured that canning is still probably possible for you, even in these crazy times where canning equipment is harder to find.

Canning Supply Concerns:

Jars

First, if you are set on canning and you need supplies, I have had the best luck looking at local stores for jars. Buying jars online has been iffy for me, which is actually just fine, because I would rather buy local anyway. These smaller stores don’t have a huge supply, but I have seen several of these stores with a few flats of canning jars available.

For good online sources, while you might have to keep checking their websites for availability, both Lehman’s and a Mason Jars website often have a good selection of jars, lids, and other canning equipment available.

Another great place to look for jars is garage sale groups, like craigslist or Facebook marketplace. I once traded beef for about 200 mason jars. It was awesome, and I’m pretty much set on jars now for a very long time. 

Lids

Lids are going to be a little trickier than finding jars. I have seen a couple of places online (like Amazon) where they have lids, but they make me a little nervous. If you read the descriptions, it looks like they’re coming from overseas somewhere, and I don’t know the quality of those lids. I’ve also seen some with bad reviews saying that they are knock-offs and that they don’t work, so buyer beware. 

I know some other homesteaders who have had some luck with getting lids from Uline.com. They are a generic brand (aka not Ball brand), but they seem to have decent reviews so far.

Reusable Lids

Reusable canning lids are another option, and it’s nice because you don’t have to use one-time only metal lids anymore. Reusable lids are plastic lids with a rubber gasket.

I have tried these many years ago and out of desperation, I decided that I was going to try them again. Harvest Guard makes the reusable lids that I have been using and I have been happy with them. I recorded a youtube video here to show you the learning process of using them for the first time.

Reusable lids are great because there is less waste and you just keep reusing them as you go.

How to Preserve Your Harvest Without Canning

If the worst-case scenario has happened and you have zero jars and zero lids, the good news is there are a number of ways you can preserve your harvest and have it still be good beyond canning. You have options, and I am going to share a few of those with their pros and cons below.

Option #1: Freezing

Freezing I think gives a superior texture to certain vegetables. For example, I like frozen green beans better than canned green beans. Other than beans, though, I personally do not freeze a ton of produce because I would rather use our freezer space for meat.

Pros of Using the Freezing Preserving Method:

Using a freezer is easy. No special equipment needed, just your vegetables and what you use to store your frozen food (freezer bags, etc.).

You don’t have to heat up your kitchen. There is no hours of using the stove like when canning, though you may need to blanch some vegetables.

The texture of your vegetables is usually better.

Cons of Using the Freezing Method:

You will see a decent amount of nutrient-loss long term. Frozen Foods need to be eaten within about 6 months up to a year to avoid major nutrient loss.

You may need to blanch certain vegetables. I hate blanching. I don’t know why, because I will can all day long but blanching irritates me. Blanching is a step where you dunk the vegetables in hot water for a couple minutes and then you immediately remove them and dump them in cold water. It can slow down nutrient loss and it keeps the colors of the food a little bit brighter. It is not a safety thing, so you can skip it without putting yourself in danger, but it does help with the texture of the food.

You need electricity for this preservation method and if there is a power outage, your frozen harvest is put in jeopardy.

My Favorite Freezer Foods:

How to Freeze Tomatoes (I love freezing tomatoes until I have enough time and tomatoes to can tomato sauce for the year)

How to Freeze Beans (This is my one of my favorite ways to preserve beans)

Peach Pie Filling for the Freezer (I LOVE having this peach pie filling available for quick and easy pies during the winter)

No-Cook Strawberry Freezer Jam recipe (I love having a quick and easy freezer jam recipe for those times when I’m too lazy/busy to can my jams)

Option #2: Dehydration

I personally have an Excalibur food dehydrator now, but for many years, I had the Harvest dehydrator. They both work well at dehydrating foods.

Pros of Using the Dehydration Method:

The dehydrated food is very lightweight.

They do not take up a lot of space.

The dehydrated food is easy to store.

You do not need a fridge or freezer.

You don’t need power (after dehydrating the food), so a power outage won’t be a problem.

Bonus: Using a dehydrator is also a really good way to dry herbs.

Cons of Using the Dehydration Method:

Dehydrating, depending on the food, can have the most nutrient loss of all the preservation methods.

With dehydrated food, there are a lot of recipes out there for things where you dehydrate and reconstitute with water, and sometimes the texture isn’t great.

Dehydrated food after rehydration isn’t as good as fresh or other preserved foods.

There are certain things that I love in the dehydrator like jerky, pears, and apples. Tomatoes are another, I have a home sun-dried tomato recipe that I make that is great if you have just a few Tomatoes at a time. 

Option #3: Fermentation

Fermentation is a little more like homesteading level 102 vs 101; it’s not hard but it’s definitely not the first thing people will go to for preservation. It’s fantastic though, because it’s one of the oldest forms of preserving food for later.

Using this method can be a little scary because there are weird bubbling noises and smells, so many people wonder if it is safe to eat. The truth is that due to the salt brine, it is one of the safest ways to preserve your food. You do not have the same concerns as botulism as you do canning.

Pros For Using the Fermentation:

The result is very safe to eat.

Fermentation is very good for nutritional purposes.

The natural bacteria created is very good for your gut.

It does not need special equipment; though you can get a fermenting crock like your great-grandma had, or you can get airlock lids. Technically, though, you can ferment just using a mason jar with a lid. I have fermented for years with extremely simple equipment.  You basically just need vegetables, salt, and a glass jar and that’s pretty much it. 

Cons of Fermentation:

It can be an acquired taste. Fermented foods are a little more polarizing: you either love the fermented food or you hate it. These foods do have a little bit of a tang to them, but my best advice is don’t give up after the very first taste. You will have to kind of teach our taste buds sometimes to learn to like these foods give yourself a little time.

Your fermented foods will need some sort of cold storage. You do put it on your counter for a couple of weeks but when it’s done it needs to be in a cool place like the refrigerator or a root cellar to maintain it. If you leave it in a warm place it will continue to ferment into oblivion. This isn’t a problem if you have just a few jars but 50 jars of sauerkraut are going to need a whole separate fridge to hold them just something to consider.

My Favorite Fermented Food Recipes:

How to Make Sauerkraut (We love sauerkraut so much, I doubt we’ll ever go long without a batch being fermented)

Fermented Green Beans (This is a great way to use smaller batches of green beans from the garden)

Old-Fashioned Fermented Pickles (This is my FAVE way to get crispy pickles)

Option #4: Root Cellar

The last option is using a good old-fashioned root cellar. I realize, though, that many of you probably do not have a root cellar. The old-time homesteaders and farmers stored tons of food using a cool place in the dirt. This will not work for tomatoes and cucumbers and beans, but it is great for potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, and cabbages.

If you don’t have an actual Root Cellar, then you can always find a cool or unheated portion of your house like a basement, crawl space, or garage. These spaces will need to be safe from mice, rats and will not freeze. You will need your root cellar-type storage to be cool, around 40 or 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but also not somewhere that freezes (cool storage food that gets frozen will probably start to spoil).

Awesome homesteading people have figured out how to dig holes in the ground and cover them with bales or straw and this can be a fantastic alternative on a smaller scale. I am not a pro on this alternative to root cellars, but this might be worth looking into if you are concerned about canning limitations.

I currently use my basement to store food (someday I hope to have a root cellar!). Here’s a video on how I store over 200 pounds of potatoes every year even though I don’t have a root cellar.

Are You Ready to Manage Harvest Time?

Plan on harvest being a little bit of chaos, but if you have a strategy of how you’re going to handle it, it can be a bit more manageable. My best tip is to be sure to have it worked into your schedule and your planner. Realize that harvest time can be both stressful and exciting, and try to be easy on yourself as you try to find the balance as best you can during the fall season. We can do this, folks!

Still feeling overwhelmed? Check out my article on Homesteading When You Feel Overwhelmed for more tips and strategies!

More Preserving Tips:

How to Braid Garlic

How to Braid Onions

How to Harvest Sunflower Seeds

Tips for Storing Potatoes

The post How to Manage Your Garden Harvest (Without Losing Your Mind) appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2021/08/how-to-manage-your-garden-harvest-without-losing-your-mind.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[themanuelruello]

Homesteading With Kids: How We Do It

“How do you homestead with kids?” This question seems to resurface every couple of months in my email and on social media. 

This particular question always leaves me scratching my head a little bit, because I am never exactly sure how to answer. I have spent some time recently thinking about our homesteading with kids, theories, and philosophies; (which may be slightly controversial) to try and give everyone an answer.  

For me and Christian, the children were a really big motivator for getting into the homesteading lifestyle back when we bought our property. I wasn’t even pregnant yet; we were just a year into marriage and kids felt kind of far off down the road. However, we knew even then that our land, property, and plans were something we wanted to be a part of the legacy that we would give to our children. 

A big piece of that way back in the beginning was that Christian and I were raised in town and we both always had this longing for the rural lifestyle. We wanted to give that to our kids, which goes back to the a familiar saying of something like “You often want to give your kids what you never had”. We just hoped that they would appreciate the homestead lifestyle in the process. 

From day one, we knew that we wanted our children to be a big part of what we were doing and that has really held true.

Do you prefer listening to podcasts? You can listen to this article in podcast-form below:

Our eldest as she proudly shows the cheese that she made from the milk of her very own goat.

Our Beginning Homesteading With Kids

Mesa, our firstborn, literally on the day we brought her home from the hospital, we took her out to the barn and introduced her to the animals. Looking back now, that probably doesn’t seem like a very first-time parent thing to do. But for whatever reason, we took her out to the barn, and then she was out there with us really from that point forward. 

We had dairy goats that were kidding when she was a newborn, and I had my horses that I was working, and she was just coming along for the ride. We put her either in her car seat, a stroller, or in a front pack, she took naps out in the barn, and I would nurse her wherever I could find a bucket to sit down on. That was her reality from newborn until now, and so when our second and third-born kids came along, they just rolled into that same routine.

Raising our old-fashioned kids means that they have been very much exposed to animals, dirt, manure, soil, and vegetables since they could walk. Which of course means they have eaten a lot of dirt (and occasionally probably a little bit of poop), but my theory is it just makes their immune systems more robust. 

Note: Our Way Isn’t the Only Way to Homestead with Kids

At the end of the day, we don’t know anything different. We don’t know what it’s like to homestead without kids. 

Having your first child in the middle of homesteading or moving your children to a new homestead property can feel a little bit foreign. With either situation, I understand the concern of not knowing how it’s all going to work.

Christian and I have our parenting philosophy that has made running a homestead and several businesses possible, all while homesteading with kids. I will admit there is some chaos at times, but there is also a specific kind of mindset (more about that below). This mindset and the way we have approached homesteading with kids has made all the difference. 

Before breaking down mine and Christian’s parenting philosophy, I’ll be honest, I have been hesitant to dive into this topic because I haven’t wanted to offend anyone. As my children get older and I have been around different parenting styles, it has become more apparent that our philosophy is uniquely old–fashioned. 

I do understand that what I am about to explain could feel a bit offensive and strange. It is not my intent to cast judgment on anyone’s parenting style and I am not saying our way is the only way. I would like you to understand that this is something I feel strongly about and for us, this is what works. 

There are plenty of different ways to raise and homestead with kids, but this is our way. Watching our children grow and seeing how they’re progressing has made me extremely happy with the results that have come from this philosophy. 

Homesteading With Kids: Our Way

Here we go…

The biggest thing that we have done that has enabled us to homestead, run businesses, and have children is that we have never taken the mentality that our life revolves around our children. In today’s parenting climate, I know that this sounds slightly shocking and possibly disturbing.

Our children are very important to us: they are a priority and we do make many choices where our children are the primary factor. For example, we chose to homeschool our children, which is a sacrifice both time-wise and convenience-wise.

However, as adults, Christian and I have always maintained the idea that we still have a mission and purpose on this earth beyond just our children.

I know a lot of times it’s easy for parents to become very centered around a child; and everything becomes all about the child’s dreams, goals, and activities. We make sure our children have the resources, time, and focus for their dreams, but Christian and I still have our own. This is something that I have noticed is somewhat rare in parents, and for some parents, it is easy for their world to revolve around the child.

As parents, we generally don’t do that: we are on our own path; we are on our journey. Our children are invited to come along with us while they’re in our home and while they are under our care. Watching our kids, I truly believe that they enjoy being a part of something bigger.

With small children, it is my theory that being the center of the universe can be a little bit disorienting. At first, it might seem like the kids are fighting for that, but when they get there, it doesn’t feel good. When an 8-year-old becomes the center of their adult’s world, I feel that it breeds a lot of negativity, poor attitude, and insecurity in the child.

A lot of times, when the parents have had so much focus on a child for so long, the parent feels like they can’t have their own hobby, dream, or goal. We do have times where our life revolves around a child’s activity like, for example, when we had our first 4-H Fair experience a year ago. It was intense and our whole family revolved around the fair for that week, but it’s not like that all the time.  

I want our children to know they are important in their value and that they are very much a priority in Christian and mine’s life. BUT they are expected to come along for the ride; we have things going on and we expect them to be a part of it. 

Three Expectations to Have While Homesteading with Kids

1) Give Your Child Responsibilities or Farm Chores

When you first start this, you should plan that it will take more time to do the chores, especially if you have kids that are not super keen on the idea of chores, or if they are very young. You have to make sure they are not hurting themselves, feeding the animals the wrong food, or leaving the gate open while they do their jobs. 

Giving your children responsibilities or farm chores does two things:

 It helps them feel like they’re a part of the bigger picture  

 It also takes a load off of your responsibilities/time (sometimes a lot of a load off of you, especially as they get older). 

Our oldest is ten and she is extremely useful, even as useful as an adult in some aspects. She does chores every morning, she handles the care of our horses, she milks her goat, and she has started taking over feeding our sourdough starter. She even helps sometimes with making some of the meals  (like when she surprised me with breakfast on the table when we were having a bad morning start with the cows (watch the video here).

Our eight-year-old does all the chicken chores; sometimes there are days at a time where I don’t even go out to the chicken coop. He is getting the eggs, giving them water, and feeding them. Some days it’s not perfect and he forgets things, but we guide him through it.

Our children not only have ownership in this lifestyle, but it makes life easier for Christian and me to have our kids as helpful team members that are part of the game plan. 

2) Teach Them That Being Uncomfortable Is Okay

Expect your kids to be uncomfortable sometimes and help them understand that being uncomfortable is not a death sentence. Our kids get cold when they go do chores in the morning and then they get hot during the summer if we’re out in the garden. They also get tired when we’re out stacking wood as a family, but I expect my kids to be okay with being uncomfortable. 

None of us love being uncomfortable, otherwise it wouldn’t be called uncomfortable. As adults, I believe that how we react to being uncomfortable is an important trait. Some adults don’t know how to be uncomfortable, so I wanted my children from a very young age to know that it’s okay to be hot, cold, or sometimes tired. You will not die from being uncomfortable, and you will come out the other end and feel good about it. 

This is something we have talked a lot about since the time they were toddlers. Explain what you are doing, and say things like ‘we’re going to stack firewood and it’s going to take a little while’. Tell your kids that it is a lot of work but when it is done, we’re going to come in and have a fire, yummy soup, and cookies for dessert. Let your kids know that when you are done, it is going to feel good because you pushed through the hard thing.

This is the narrative we have constantly in our house: “it’s hard, but you get to the other side and it feels good” or “if you’re cold, then you appreciate the hot fire in the woodstove that much more.” 

I want them to be aware that you can be uncomfortable in your life. Of course, there is some whining that occurs, because they are still kids. There is “my hands are cold” or “I’m sweaty I don’t want to do this anymore,” but we work through those moments.

So far, I’ve been pretty darn proud watching them work through the uncomfortable moments and come out the other side (NOTE: before you get angry at me: there is a difference between ‘uncomfortable’ and dangerous. We aren’t forcing our kids in dangerous conditions, like super cold or hot temps where frostbite or overheating are actual concerns).

3) Expect Your Kids to Entertain Themselves  

Expect your kids to entertain themselves. This is also something I don’t see happening a lot in today’s parenting culture. I will be honest: I didn’t start this plan because I had some grand aspiration of being a mom of the year, I started it because I’m selfish. I don’t have the ability or interest to sit on the floor 24 hours a day and entertain my children, nor do I think that it is good for them. 

From the time my babies could sit up, l would put them on the floor in a safe place with pillows around them and toys to play with. Of course, they ate with me and they had cuddle time with me, so they felt like they were connected to me, and they know mom is there when they need me.

But I would also say “here is your time to play and explore on the floor. Mommy’s going to go over here, you will be fine, you can hear me, and you can see me from a distance.” I expected them to entertain themselves, and it honestly didn’t take a lot for them to learn how to do that. They had things in front of them that were interesting, and they wanted to explore. 

We have built on this way of thinking as they’ve grown and I now have a ten, eight, and five-year-old that can entertain themselves really well. They love it, we get done with our homeschool or whatever we’re working on in the mornings and they are like “see ya Mom, I’m off”. They are off with a plan, and they already know which toys they are going to play with and what activities they want to do outside. This is their time, and they entertain themselves and enjoy it. 

People ask “how do you cook, work on your businesses or work in your garden when you have kids in the house?”. Honestly, at this point in our life, homesteading with kids feels pretty easy because they do so much happily on their own. 

Of course, there are of always exceptions. Smaller kids can be more of a challenge, but there are some tricks to getting things done. One thing that I figured out when my children were small was a fly net and an old playpen.

It has been a while since I bought a fly net, but they were available for purchase online when my kids were small. It is a cover made to go over the top of playpens or strollers and was a godsent. I bought a couple of those, and I would stick the kids in the shady barn during the summer while I was riding my horse nearby or cleaning livestock pens. The net over the top of the playpen would prevent the flies from bothering them while they napped, and I got things done.

For the most part, my kids do their own thing and they love immersing themselves in whatever they are doing. There is also a time and place when the kids are with us stacking firewood, helping me in the garden, or doing their chores. 

We by no means make them work all day, there are times where I am like “go play.” Go be kids, take off your shoes and run around in the grass, eat some dirt, go do your thing. They are very happy and content doing that. I believe fostering the ability for your children to entertain themselves is absolutely crucial. 

These are three things that we expect of our children and we hold them to this standard; it is what makes our parenting philosophy work. Keep in mind, of course that they are still children, so sometimes this philosophy works great, and sometimes it doesn’t. On the days those things seem to not be working, I am reminded that it is ok to fail and teaching our kids to fail is just as important as our expectations.

The Beauty Beyond Homesteading Expectations

It is important that your kids see this lifestyle as being sometimes uncomfortable, doing some hard work, and occasionally doing things we don’t want to. It is also equally important that they understand the beauty of it. 

Starting at a young age, I have talked with my kids a lot about the wonders of this life. We have talked about the wonder of seeds growing, vegetables appearing, and how it’s ok to snack right from the garden. These are things that I get excited about and when I get excited, they get excited. The beautiful, amazing, miraculous parts of this lifestyle need to be talked about too. 

I’ll bet a lot of kids will pick up on the beauty of it all, because children tend to have a beautiful way of viewing the world. When your children see an adult in their life embracing these things and celebrating them, it will make your children love it that much more. 

You Can Homestead with Kids Too!

Hopefully, my thoughts and our philosophy have given you some inspiration. Our way of doing things is not perfect, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. You might see pictures of us and the kids looking like we have created this blissful serene childhood, but it’s not always like that.

There are days when the kids fight a lot, I lose my temper, or something escapes, and these are the days when the homestead is teaching different lessons. Even with the ups and downs, looking at this lifestyle that we are building together, I can’t imagine a better way to raise your children. 

If you are looking to move into the country with your family or you’re just looking to create more of an old-fashioned on-purpose lifestyle with your children, I believe it is so worth it. There will be tough days and there will be amazing days, but no matter what your children will have this incredible foundation for what’s to come as they grow and mature. 

More About Homesteading with Kids:

Will My Kids Fall Behind? (And Other Homeschooling Questions)

7 Lessons My Kids Have Learned From Homestead Life

I’m Teaching My Kids to Fail

Raising Old-Fashioned Kids in a High Tech World

When She Leaves…(reflections on my eldest daughter)

The post Homesteading With Kids: How We Do It appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2021/08/homesteading-with-kids-how-we-do-it.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[themanuelruello]

Water Glassing Eggs: How to Preserve Your Fresh Eggs for Long-Term Storage

During the spring and summer, our coop is overflowing with freshly laid eggs…so many eggs!

As an experienced chicken keeper, I know that our wealth of eggs won’t last forever, and by late-fall, all of our hens’ efforts tend to take a hiatus, and it’s like they go into an egg-laying hibernation.

Once you have owned chickens for a time, you will become aware of your chickens’ laying habits. Not all chickens stop laying in the winter months, but in my experience, most of them do. When this happens, we homesteaders are left to fend for ourselves.

What if instead of waiting for the “no egg months”, we prepared for them?

One of the best ways to preserve a large number of fresh eggs is called water glassing. I know it sounds more like an art and craft project, but it is actually a historical way to preserve your fresh eggs.

If you’re curious about different ways to preserve eggs, in this video (below), I compare/contrast water glassing eggs, dehydrating eggs, and freezing eggs. Check it out if you’re curious about my discoveries on the three types of egg preservation!

What is Water Glassing?

Water Glassing is an old-fashioned method of preserving farm fresh eggs that dates back to the 1800s. Back then, it was common to use sodium silicate to make water glassing solutions. Sodium silicate is a type of concrete sealer that has many different uses; including being the original preservation item for water glassing eggs.

Today, calcium hydroxide, better known as pickling lime, is more commonly used to make water glassing solutions. Pickling lime is a white powder that was originally used in old pickle recipes. I personally prefer to use pickling lime because it is a more natural and less-sketchy-chemical option than the older use of sodium silicate.

NOTE: there are different types of lime out there, and only food-grade pickling lime should be used for water glassing. You can usually find pickling lime in the canning equipment section of nearby stores that sell canning equipment or you can purchase it online.

Both water glassing solutions are mixed in a container where eggs are then submerged. This process is used to seal the eggshells to prevent bacteria from entering the egg. Water glassing eggs is a preservation method that is used to store fresh eggs for an extended period of time.

What Eggs Can Be Water Glassed?

Any type of poultry egg can be preserved using the water glassing method. The eggs must be fresh, clean of any debris, but unwashed (unwashed is important!). You cannot use store-bought eggs for water glassing because eggs from the store have been washed and bleached, which destroys the eggs bloom coating.

What is the bloom coating and why is important?

Some folks don’t realize that eggshells are porous, meaning they are made up of tons of little pores. The bloom is the outer coating that protects the egg from air and bacteria entering through these pores. Washing your eggs will destroy the bloom coating, which will allow the lime to enter the egg during the water glassing process.

The bloom coating is sealed in place by the water and lime mixture during water glassing, leaving you with eggs ready for storage in your pantry. No bloom coating means no good when water glassing eggs.

Are Water Glassing Eggs Safe?

Water glassed eggs that have been submerged in a lime and water solution are safe to consume. Your water-glassed eggs should be washed well before using them because ingesting pickling lime is not good for you. One thing you should look out for are cracks in any of your eggs. Even the smallest crack can contaminate an entire batch of water glassed eggs.

Materials Needed For Water Glassing Eggs

Glass Jars or Food-Grade Bucket – The size of the container depends on the number of eggs you plan to preserve. Keep in mind that 1 quart of water glassing solution will cover about 15 chicken eggs.

Pickling Lime (Calcium Hydroxide) – This type of lime can sometimes be found with canning and preserving equipment in stores, or you can always look online.

Note: Sodium Silicate is still available to use for water glassing eggs. My instructions below are for the use of pickling lime which is more commonly used and it is my preferred method for water glassing eggs.

Water – Your water needs to be chlorine-free and fluoride-free. If you have good well water, there are no worries, but if you live in a city where fluoride is an additive, you can boil your water. You can also buy distilled or natural spring water from the store to be safe.

Eggs – Any type of fresh, unwashed, clean eggs will work for water glassing.

Note: You do not have to collect all your eggs the same day you make the water glassing solution. You can add eggs as you gather them.

How To Water Glass Eggs

Ingredients: 

Airtight Container (Glass Jar or Food Grade Bucket)

Kitchen Scale (For Measuring Pickling Lime)

Pickling Lime

Water (Natural or Distilled: must be chlorine-free and fluoride-free)

Eggs (Fresh, Clean, Unwashed)

Instructions:

Step 1: Mix Water and Pickling Lime (1 quart water to 1 ounce lime ratio)

In your chosen container, add a ratio of 1-quart water and 1-ounce lime. (This ratio is going to be used no matter how much of the solution you make.) You will want to make sure you have enough solution to cover your eggs by 2 inches. Mix the water and lime until completely dissolved.

Step 2: Gently Add the Eggs

You will gently place your eggs pointy side down and fat side up (aka Air Sack Side Up) in the lime-water solution. If one egg cracks, it will destroy the entire batch. SO DO THIS GENTLY!

Step 3: Secure the Lid and Store

Secure the lid on your air-tight container and then store your water glassed eggs in a cool and dark place until you need some farm-fresh eggs!

Using Your Water Glassed Eggs

Water glassed eggs can be used exactly how you would use eggs just collected from the coop, except if you are boiling your eggs. Water glassed eggshells have been completely sealed, so you will want to make a small hole in the shell to prevent exploding when hard-boiling your eggs.

When you are ready to use your preserved eggs, take them out of your container and wash them well. You do not want any lime water left on the eggs you are using. If you know that you will need eggs later in the week, you can pull some out and store them in the refrigerator for a few days.

How Long Do Water Glassed Eggs Last?

Fresh eggs with the bloom intact can be stored on the counter for about a month and refrigerated for up to six months. Eggs that are preserved with the water glassing method can last up to a year or more. The water glassing method seals the eggshell, keeping them fresh just like eggs just laid.

What If I Don’t Have Chicken Eggs?

No chicken eggs, no problem!

Any type of poultry eggs can be preserved using the water glassing method. If you raise ducks or quails, their eggs will work too. Just keep in mind that duck eggs are larger and will need more space when choosing your container for water glassing!

No farm-fresh eggs? 

Local farmers all over the country are selling farm fresh eggs, you will likely see a sign hanging at the end of their drive or an advertisement somewhere. If you find a local farm nearby selling eggs, stop and talk to the farmer. Ask them about their collecting practices and if you could purchase unwashed, clean eggs from them. 

Need help finding local food sources? Check out my article on How to Find Local Food Sources to get some tips on how to connect with your local farmers.

When Should You Collect Your Eggs?

As mentioned earlier, you can make your water glassing solution and continuously add eggs as you collect them. If your goal is to prep for your chicken’s winter laying hiatus, I recommend starting in late spring. This is the time of year we start getting flooded with eggs!

Before you start collecting eggs for preservation, you should consider the number of eggs you use in your daily life. You will want to keep in mind that you will be collecting your eggs for both current use and collecting eggs for preservation.

If you don’t have many chickens and you need to collect for use during the summer months, how many eggs will that leave you for preserving? If you are being flooded with more eggs than you can use, decide carefully the balance for which eggs to keep for eating now and which to preserve with water glassing.

Maybe Water Glassing Eggs Isn’t Right For You…

Maybe you have decided that water glassing eggs isn’t the right preservation method for you. Well that’s totally okay. There are other ways for you to preserve your eggs. Two different methods for preserving eggs that I have tried before are freezing and dehydrating.  

To learn more about my experience with these two different methods of preserving eggs you can read How to Freeze Eggs and How to Dehydrate Eggs.

Water Glassing Eggs as a Preservation Method: Final Thoughts

Are you ready to start preserving eggs for those short winter days when there are no eggs to be found?

Water glassing requires little time, very few supplies, and is a simple way to preserve your extra eggs for long-term storage. If you have made the decision that water glassing is right for you, just remember only fresh, unwashed eggs will do.

Preserving eggs for long-term storage is not a new activity in the homestead kitchen. All of the different methods and instructions can leave you a bit overwhelmed or confused. If you are looking for help overcoming your egg preserving confusion, listen to Taking the Confusion Out of Egg Preservation from my Old-Fashioned on Purpose Podcast.

More Articles about Preserving Your Fresh Eggs:

Eggs: To Wash or Not to Wash?

Do You Have to Refrigerate Eggs?

50+ Ways to Use Extra Eggs

What are Those Spots in my Farm-Fresh Eggs?

The post Water Glassing Eggs: How to Preserve Your Fresh Eggs for Long-Term Storage appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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How To Plan Out Your Fall Garden

Most folks assume that once summer is over, then the gardening season is complete.

But did you know there is a whole other world of gardening possibilities? Possibilities that can help increase your harvest and even passively improve your soil. 

Yep, I’m talking about fall gardening. I’ve kinda talked a bit about fall gardening in the past by listing 21 vegetables you can plant in a fall garden. However, that article didn’t get into the details on planning a fall garden or why you should have a fall garden in the first place.

I’m going to be completely honest, for the longest time, the idea of fall gardening completely confused me. I would hear people talk about fall gardening and all I could think about was how short our growing season is here in Wyoming and how it didn’t make sense to even attempt a fall garden.

I remember thinking “how can I plant seeds in the fall when I would have to try to harvest the plants in snow?” Thankfully, I have a much better understanding of planning a fall garden now. So I’m going to take you through some of the lesser-known steps you can take in the fall to seriously impact your garden’s productivity. 

By the way, even if you don’t want to mess with a fall garden, there are still lots of great things you can do to extend your summer garden longer and into the fall season. Check out my tips here on how to extend your summer garden season.

Why Plant a Fall Garden? 

For the longest time, I didn’t understand the power of stretching your garden seasons. I was in this mindset where the garden had to be planted in the spring and harvested in the early fall. The End.

If you can think outside the box and do things differently, it will impact your homestead garden drastically. A fall garden can increase the amount of food you grow and also improve your soil for success in the spring. 

Some are probably thinking “Jill, summer kicks my butt, I’m not sure I want to keep growing.” I have been there and totally get that feeling. There is no shame if you feel like you have been through the garden gauntlet and just need a break.  

But if you think you have a little bit of juice left and feel like you might have more energy to put into homesteading, fall gardening might be worth your time. Fall vegetable options are a little more limited but fall gardening does have its benefits.

Benefits of Planting a Fall Garden

1) Fewer Bugs

The first benefit from fall gardening that I always think of is fewer bugs. These plants are going to be in their prime after your first frost. This depends on where you live, but usually, the bad bugs are going to be dead. Those Cabbage Moths and annoying things that have been eating holes in the greens will be all gone.

2) Less Heat, Happier Vegetables

Most vegetables that you are planting in your fall garden are a thousand times happier when they are not in heat. This is very applicable if you live in a state or a place with really hot summers. I am in Wyoming and summers are not like they are down south, but I have a heck of a time getting spinach to grow without immediately bolting from the heat. Fall Gardening is cooler, and a lot of these plants are much happier, and you won’t have to fight with plants constantly going to seed or bolting. 

3) Fall Gardening Can Be Less Hectic

It depends on your schedule, but fall is sometimes less hectic compared to summer. Doing stuff in your fall garden might feel a little bit more relaxed and maybe a bit more enjoyable. 

The Best Vegetables For A Fall Garden

You want to steer clear of vegetables that are sensitive, like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and melons. You will want to avoid vegetables that you see turn black after one little temperature dip. Those are the types of vegetables you want to save for the summer garden. 

There is this whole other realm of gritty, hardy, tough vegetables that are like “go ahead freeze, I can handle it”. When I think of cold-hardy vegetables, I believe there are 3 categories that do really well in the fall: the cabbage family, greens, and root vegetables.

By the way, my favorite place to buy vegetable seeds is True Leaf Market. They have tons of great selections and I’ve been impressed with all of the seeds that I have planted from them so far. They also have a handy ‘hardiness zone’ area on the left-hand side when you select a specific vegetable, so that you can look at only the vegetables that grow in your hardiness zone. I love them!

Fall Garden Vegetable Categories 

1) The Cabbage Family 

This family is your brassicas you have broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower. These all handle the cold and are great additions to add when planning your fall garden. Bonus: some of these taste even better after a few frosts (especially brussels sprouts).

2) Greens  

Spinach, Chard, Mustard Greens, and Lettuce are easy to grow and should be considered when planting your fall garden. Last year I grew Mache, it is tough as nails, and did well in the cold. There are also greens like kale or arugula that do really well with cold weather and can handle some light frosts.

Most of these plants are very susceptible to pests, like our previous incident with the kale and grasshoppers. Greens are less likely to have these pest problems in the fall, so it’s way less time-consuming to have them in a fall garden since you don’t have to pick off all the bugs as much.

3) Root Vegetables 

To be perfectly honest I don’t plant in this category very much, but root vegetables are great for a fall garden. Root vegetables to plant in the fall include radishes, beets, and carrots. Radishes grow lightning fast; beets are a little bit slower but if you harvest them when they are small, they taste better. Some people will grow their second crop of carrots in the fall. All of these root vegetable options are great for planting in your fall garden. 

Garlic

One specific crop you will always want to plant in the fall is garlic. I usually plant my garlic at the end of September or the 1st of October for my zone. Make sure you plant your garlic according to your garden zone. Learn your garden zone here and then learn when to plant garlic in your garden zone from my how to grow garlic article.

Garlic grows over the winter, so you will get a little bit of growth, you mulch it, and it just hangs out until spring. In the spring, your garlic starts to come up through the soil, you water it, and then harvest it at the end of June or early July (depending on your garden zone).

When planning a fall garden make sure you set aside some room for the garlic. An important thing to remember is to put a marker where you planted it. In the spring when I get back out to the garden, I often forget which beds they are in and I often second-guess myself.

There are some awesome options when it comes to fall planting, and I know there are at least 21 Vegetables For Your Fall Garden, within these categories. All of these cold-hardy vegetables are the ones you will want to focus on for fall. 

Figuring Out Fall Planting Dates

The next piece of this puzzle is figuring out WHEN you should start planting your fall garden. This is the part that will catch many off-guard. A fall garden is a bit of a misnomer because you don’t start a fall garden in the fall, you start it in the summer. 

In July, you’re not thinking about planting seeds, you’re thinking about weeding and garden care.  You are full-swing in summer gardening and it can be hard to remember to start your fall garden. 

For a successful fall gardening start, you will need to go back to planting-mode and get ready to plant your fall crops by mid-summer. Some seeds can be directly sown into the garden, while others will need to be started indoors. Dust off the grow lights, get the shelves cleaned off, and get ready to start some fresh seedlings.

Additional Seed Starting Help:

Listen to my Seed Starting podcast episode (where I talked about seed-starting in the basement) 

Simple DIY Seed Starting System

Seed Starting Guide

Seed Starting Tips (video)

Finding Your Frost Date

You already know your last frost date for spring, now you are going to find your first frost date for fall. My first frost date on average is around September 15th, and anything past this in the garden is in the danger zone for frosts and even blizzards.

Starting Fall Garden Seedlings – 12 Weeks Before Frost

Figuring out your planting date is pretty simple now that you know your first frost date. You will find your first frost date and count back roughly 12 weeks, the date you land on should be when you are starting your seedlings indoors. 

12 weeks before my first frost date brings me to the end of June. The planting of my main garden is done by June 1st, so fall planting comes very early for my short season. Once my main garden has been planted, I only have a month until I have to get back in seedling mode. 

This is when I need to start any of the cabbage family, they tend to germinate better when it’s not blazing hot. This includes cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower, if you are planning on growing any members of the cabbage family this is the time to plant indoors. 

You could also start the chard or some of the greens inside but in my experience, they honestly do better when planted straight into the garden. 

Transplanting Fall Garden Seedlings – 10 Weeks Before Frost

10 weeks, about 2 weeks after you have started your seeds indoors, you will want to transplant them to your garden. Your summer garden should be in full swing, so all you will need is a well-protected clean bed. These baby plants will need a little extra protection from both the elements and any pests your main garden is attracting. 

10 weeks out from your first frost you can also direct sow some of the other vegetables into your garden. This is the time to plant your lettuce, and also your root veggies like the carrots, beets, and radishes.

These are the fast-maturing crops that you can repeat sow from the middle of July to the beginning of August. I usually keep planting a few hardy things like spinach, mache, and a few more bits of lettuce. Here’s a list of fast-growing vegetables that you can add to your garden throughout the summer and into early fall.

You want to make sure your plants have a good start with enough time to get growing and germinating. At this point, you are now moving into the time when they need to be a little stronger. If you feel your seedlings are still vulnerable, you could potentially cover them with plastic, a row cover, or a low tunnel. 

A fall garden starts in the summer, but you get to reap the benefits throughout the fall. Starting early will allow your plants the correct soil temperature to germinate. If you try sticking seeds in the garden in October, you might get a little germination, but it may be touch-and-go. 

Your fall garden will need a strong start in the summer and then in the fall, it is all about maintaining those plants and keeping them alive during frosts. They won’t be actively growing as much, just hanging out in the garden waiting to be harvested. It helps if you get something to cover them, as they will keep growing if the soil is warm enough. Check out my article on how to extend the gardening season for a bunch of ideas (from cheap to expensive) for helping your fall garden plants keep growing.

Cover Crops: a Fall Garden Alternative/Companion 

The alternative or sometimes companion to fall gardening can be cover crops. I used to be completely confused by the idea of cover crops. Parker from True Leaf Market gave a crash course in cover crops in Episode 26 on the Old Fashioned on Purpose Podcast, which cleared up a lot of my confusion. 

What Is a Cover Crop?

A cover crop is simply a mass of plants, that you plant to cover your garden soil during the fall, winter, and early spring. There are all different kinds of cover crops that you can pick from, some do better than others depending on your location.

Why Plant a Cover Crop?

Nature hates bare soil, when you have exposed soil erosion in nutrients and poor soil health are the results. These cover crops keep garden soil covered during dormant months but also puts some amazing stuff back in the soil. Cover crops can help our soil nutrients stay safe from the elements, put nitrogen back in the soil, and suppress weeds. 

Cover Crops as a Companion/Alternative

If some of your garden has been planted with fall vegetables but you still have areas that aren’t in use, then this is where you can plant cover crops in the unused area as a companion to your fall vegetables. 

Cover crops are also an awesome option if you have zero desire to grow vegetables in the fall, and you’re over it and need a break. If you would like to make sure your garden is healthy and protected over the winter, then this can be done by eithing using mulch or planting cover crops. 

The biggest objection I had to cover crops for years was that I thought they had to be planted in the summer. I believed that I had to plant cover crops in July to get good growth for them to work. This was not an option because I still had tomatoes and cucumbers in my garden. July is when the garden is in full swing, and I was not going to rip out a crop to put a cover crop in.

In the interview with Parker from True Leaf Market (in this podcast episode), he explained that is not how it works. You can wait and plant the cover crops after everything is harvested, and the only trick is to make sure they get planted before the first hard frost. 

Last year (2020), I decided to experiment and planted my first cover crop. I chose to plant winter rye in a couple of garden beds that were very clay-heavy. Winter rye is known as being a great cover crop option for clay soils; it grows long roots that go down into the soil and break up the clay. 

I bought my rye seeds from True Leaf Market and broadcasted them out in late September or early October. I watered the beds, and it grew a good 4 or 5 inches before it kind of slowed down. I read somewhere that in the spring the rye will pick up where it left off and keep growing.

Depending on its condition, you can try using it as a living mulch or tilling it back into your garden. I was super excited to see how my cover crop worked, since I now know that it has to be better for the soil versus just leaving it open to the elements.

I showed the amazing results from my rye cover crops in this instagram video, in case you’re interested in seeing how it went. Basically, we used a weed whacker in spring to chop down the very-tall rye cover crops in our beds, and I left the roots in place and grew my tomatoes around them. The tomatoes are growing really well and the rye did an awesome job keeping the beds covered until I needed them and also amending the soil.

Cover crops can be planted in any type of garden; it doesn’t have to be in raised beds like mine. You just want to be sure your seeds get planted, watered, and given a chance to start before things get too cold. This is a great passive way to improve your soil, since you just sit back and watch it grow.

Cover crops are simpler than creating new topsoil or adding more compost and I like simple!

Saving Seeds: A Great Fall Gardening Option

Another fantastic fall garden activity is seed saving, especially since during this past year, the seed industry has been so volatile.

The goal of our homesteading is to eventually close the loop and figure out how to become more sustainable. We are always thinking of ways to create opportunities where we don’t constantly have outputs. Outputs are not bad necessarily, but it is interesting to see how sustainable we can become. Seed saving can be one of those opportunities to help close that loop.

I have dabbled with seed saving, but it has fallen to the middle or lower portion of my homesteading priority list over the years. Not because seed saving is hard necessarily but sometimes it’s just one more step. Seed-saving might be a higher priority for you, but honestly, I’ve opted to buy most of my seeds in the past. 

Easy Vegetable Seeds to Save:

There are a number of vegetables that are easy to save seeds from. Many are pretty common in home gardens today.

Easy seed-saving vegetables include:

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Peppers

Squash

Melons

Peas

Beans

For these vegetables, all you need to do is harvest the seeds, make sure they are dry, put them in an envelope, and then keep them in your refrigerator till next year.

  How to Save Seeds: Let the Fruit/Vegetables Mature

The trick to seed saving with even simple vegetables is you have to let the plants mature before you save the seed. I think a lot of people don’t realize you will have to leave some of the fruits or vegetables on the plant. 

You will need to let it almost go bad or what we think of as bad before you’re able to harvest the seeds. Often you can’t eat the fruit/vegetable, and this may not be ideal for those that have a small harvest or plan on eating everything.

Cucumbers are a great example of this; the seeds are not mature enough to save when you pick the cucumber for pickling or slicing. You will have to leave some cucumbers on the vine and let them get bloated and yellow. Once they get to that point, then you can pick it and save the seeds.

Sometimes, we have so much of a certain vegetable that it’s okay to leave some of them out in the garden. With other vegetables like tomatoes, however, they haven’t matured enough before the frost kills the plant. This means you are picking green tomatoes; a green tomato is not going to give you seeds that can be saved. 

Some plants are quite an ordeal to save seeds from, this is what I would consider homesteading level 5 versus homesteading level 1. For example, things in the cabbage family are biennial, you will not get seeds the first year. It takes two years to do that, so you have two options.

Option #1: You can leave the cabbage in the ground over the winter. If you live in a mild climate or if you live in a place like I do, the cabbage will die when it’s below 29 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Option #2: Gently pull the cabbage plant out of the ground to winterize it in a safe cool place and then replant it the following year. That is not something I am not quite equipped to do, so just buying a package of cabbage seeds doesn’t bother me.

A book that is a fantastic resource to learn about saving seeds is The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds, by Robert Gough. It has everything you need to know about saving seeds and great, high-quality, color pictures. He tells you about the simple way and the more complicated methods to saving seeds, and I highly recommend it.

Seed saving is something that I think I am going to start playing with more this year. Up to this point, it has been one of those things that trickle down the list. You can decide what works in your situation and if seed saving is for you this fall. For the time being, I don’t mind supporting some awesome seed companies (like True Leaf Market) while I try figuring it out. 

Are You Planting a Fall Garden This Year?

I believe that planting a fall garden gives us a chance to expand what we think is possible. Of course, there is no shame in needing a break at the end of your gardening season, and I have been there and I know that feeling. 

As you grow in your homesteading knowledge, just remember that there is a lot you can do in the fall. Planting a fall garden, cover crops, and seed saving can make your garden more productive and hopefully be more enjoyable. Keep these fall gardening activities in mind and do what works best for your situation.  

More Gardening Tips:

True Leaf Market: a great place to purchase your vegetable seeds!

How to Extend Your Garden Season

8 Ways to Prepare Your Garden for Winter

21 Vegetables to Plant in Your Fall Garden

How to Plant Garlic in the Fall

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Top Reasons For Tomato Leaf Curling

There is nothing more amazing than harvesting those ruby-red romas or vibrantly colored heirloom tomatoes.

Many home-gardeners pride themselves on the success and health of their tomato plants. When something out of the ordinary happens, it can be heartbreaking. And finding that your precious tomatoes have tomato leaf curl can be one of those heartbreaking moments.

I have been one of those gardeners left wondering “Why are my tomato leaves curling?” (read my personal story with curled tomatoes leaves here). There are so many reasons for tomato leaf curl and I have learned that a little digging will be required to find your specific answer.

What Do Your Tomato Plants Look Like?

A healthy tomato plant (like the image above) is a nice shade of green, the shade can vary depending on your variety. The leaves should be open but may appear slightly droopy (the droop downward is normal especially with longer leaves). You should be able to see healthy new growth and flowers present.

When you notice that your plant doesn’t look healthy and the leaves are curling (see image below), it is time to start digging. Start by examining your plant and taking note of all abnormalities. You will want to look at the plant’s coloration, leaves, and stem to help weed out the many reasons your tomato leaves are curling.

Top Reasons Your Tomato Leaves Are Curling 

1. Environmental Stress

Water Stress 

Not Enough Water Hot and dry conditions during summer months can create drought conditions, these conditions can cause your tomato leaves to curl. Tomato plants will curl/roll their leaves to help conserve water as a type of self-preservation.

Too Much Water Too much water is another form of water stress that can cause your tomato leaves to curl. The ground around your plant should be moist, not soggy, and definitely should not be standing water.

Too Much Nitrogen

If you think too much nitrogen is the reason for your leaves curling, a soil test will give you answers. When there is too much nitrogen in the soil the leaves on your plant will curl and be a darker shade of green.

You can use a home soil test for quick results, but if you want really accurate ideas about your soil, I highly recommend getting a soil test done by a lab. You can contact your local extension office to find the nearest soil testing facility. It’s amazing what info you can find out with an official soil test. Here’s my story on what I learned from getting a soil test done. Nowadays, I try to get a soil test done every other year.

Excessive Salt

Too much sodium in your soil can cause your tomato plant’s leaves to turn yellow and curl.

How do you get too much salt in your soil? If you purchase compost or manure from feedlots, there tends to be more salt content. You can also find this issue in colder climates that have salted roads in the winter, because it can cause runoff that will leave you with extra sodium. Gardens that are on the coastline near the ocean can also get excess salt from ocean spray.

If you believe that too much salt is in your soil is the cause of your tomato leaf curl, there are ways to manage soil salinity. 

Overall, environmental tomato leaf curl is not a big deal and can be fixed if taken care of right away. If the stressor is left long-term, however, it will affect your harvest yield, plant growth and in some cases be fatal.

2. Broad Mites

A broad mite infestation is another common cause for tomato leaves to curl. Broad mites are tiny mites that you can’t see without magnification. An infestation can easily be confused with heat stress, water stress, or root damage.

Broad Mite Symptoms Include:

Stunted Growth

Leaf Curling

Slight Yellowing

If your tomato plants are heavily infested, it may be best to remove them from your garden. Remember to destroy the plant. This will kill the mites and prevent further infestation. Minimally infested plants can possibly be saved, remove the damaged leaves and spray your plant with organic insecticidal soap.

3. Disease Can Cause Tomato Leaf Curl

Tomato plants are very sensitive and have many diseases that trouble them. Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus, Tomato Mosaic Virus, and Cucumber Mosaic Virus are usually blamed when leaves start curling.

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus is a disease that is spread by whiteflies on young infected transplants. It takes an infected plant up to 3 weeks to start showing signs of the disease. When symptoms do appear, you will see changes that affect the leaves, flower buds, and growth.

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Symptoms Include:

Yellow Coloration of the Leaves

Upward Curling Leaves

Stunted Growth

Lack of Flower Development

Unfortunately, Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus has no cure, and the best thing to do is remove and destroy the infected plants.

To help prevent Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus, you can try to keep weeds down (read more about natural weed control here) and also try to encourage beneficial natural predators to your garden by planting a diverse variety of plants in your garden that might draw different helpful insects (especially flowers and herbs).

Tomato Mosaic Virus and Cucumber Mosaic Virus 

The Tomato Mosaic Virus and Cucumber Mosaic Virus are spread by infected seeds, plants, and equipment that have been exposed to the virus. There are symptoms to look for if one of the mosaic viruses is the cause of your tomato leaf curl.

Tomato Mosaic Virus and Cucumber Mosaic Virus Symptoms Include:

Mottling of Leaves

Mosaic Pattern of Yellow and Green on the Leaves

Leaf Curling that Creates a Fern Like Appearance

Like the Yellow Leaf Curl Virus, there is no treatment for either type of these infected plants. You should pull all the diseased plants and burn them to prevent further spread of the virus. Cleaning your garden equipment regularly is a way you can help prevent the spread of the virus. 

4. Tomato Leaf Curl Caused by Herbicide Poisoning 

Over the years herbicide poisoning has become a larger problem for home gardeners. Aminopyralid and Clopyralid are the most common types of herbicides doing the poisoning. These are chemical weed killers that target broadleaf weeds, leaving grasses untouched.

Aminopyralid and Clopyralid are usually used in places like grass hay fields, not home gardens. Herbicide drift and herbicide residue are two ways these herbicides can find their way into your garden.

Herbicide Drift:

Herbicide drift is when the wind carries some of the sprayed herbicide to your plants.

Tomato plants fall under the category of extremely sensitive, so even a small amount of drift can affect your plant’s growth and fruit yield. Poisoning from herbicide drift can vary depending on the amount that has landed on your tomato plants.

Herbicide Residue:

Residue refers to the contamination of your soil that directly affects the root system of your plant.

Residue poisoning found in your tomato plants can come from contaminated manure, mulch, compost, or direct application.

Aminopyralid and clopyralid can live through the digestive system of animals; if they have consumed feed sprayed with these herbicides their manure becomes contaminated. 

Compost can become contaminated by grasses, hay, and animal manure that have these herbicides on them.

Hay or grass mulches that are sprayed with these herbicides will also contaminate your garden, allowing herbicides to leech into your soil.

Herbicide Residue and Herbicide Drift Symptoms Include:

Downward Curling of the Leaves

Stunted & Twisted New Growth

Coloring Can Remain Untouched

Affects Other Broadleaf Plants in Your Garden

Here are some helpful images of herbicide poisoning symptoms.

You can also check out my recent video where I learned for the SECOND time that I had tomato leaf curling due to herbicides in my compost:

Removing Residue Contamination

Unfortunately, this kind of herbicide contamination can last for years in your soil, mulch, or compost. If one of these has been contaminated, there are only a few options.

Contaminated Mulch unfortunately has already done damage to your garden soil, but it can be removed and destroyed.

Contaminated Compost should stop being used. Then, it can be left alone and watered down. The water will help dilute the herbicides. In my video (above), I also talk about how spreading the compost out in a thin layer can help speed up the process of aging-out the herbicides from your compost. I would recommend testing your compost before any future use. 

Contaminated Soil is by far the hardest to deal with, and the things you can do include:

Removal of soil (depending on your type of garden)

Move your garden to another area

Plant a grass cover crop in the affected area (learn more about cover crops here)

Water the area down to dilute the Herbicide

Wait it out, which could take many years

Herbicide Poisoning Plant Fatality

There is no reversal to herbicide poisoning, and the fatality depends on the degree of contamination.

Herbicide drift damage will depend on the amount of exposure. The damaged leaves can be removed, and new growth may not be affected. If entire tomato plants have been affected, remove and destroy them.

Herbicide residue damage is always fatal, and the tomato plants should be removed and burned to prevent future contamination.

Herbicide Poisoning Prevention

As home-gardeners, all we can do is do our best to avoid the nightmare of herbicide poisoning. There are things you can try to prevent these herbicides from entering your garden:

Herbicide Drift Prevention 

Politely ask neighboring farms if they use these herbicides and if you could be notified before spraying. This will give you time to cover as much as you can ahead of time.

If herbicides are being sprayed, you can try to place your garden in an area less likely to get drift spray.

Herbicide Residue Prevention 

Create your own compost with only known sources.

Choose your source CAREFULLY when purchasing hay for deep mulch gardening or feeding your livestock.

Ask hay sellers if Aminopyralid or Clopyralid have been used in the last 18 months.

Do not use manure in compost from animals that have eaten feed that has been sprayed with these herbicides within the last 3 days.

Herbicide poisoning can turn your gardening dream into a nightmare, especially when you believe everything has been done right. Many are unaware of what is happening until something like tomato leaf curl shows up.

Why Are Your Tomato Leaves Curling?

Tomato leaf curl can be a scary thing for a home gardener who is looking forward to their beautiful harvest. Try not to jump to conclusions or think the worst. Do some digging and find out if your tomato leaf curl journey ends with something as simple as an environmental stressor. At the very least, consider getting a lab-run soil test done on your garden ASAP when you spot the first signs of tomato leaf curl so you can get the best idea about what is happening. 

I also want to gently remind you that mistakes can happen and you should try not to feel overwhelmingly guilty if something is wrong with your tomato leaves. I have had TWO bad cases now with tomato leaf curl and they were both based on herbicides and left me with a less-than-desirable garden situation (learn about my deep mulch poisoning here and my compost poisoning here).

Both times were tough, but the blessing-in-disguise was that I took those opportunities to learn a ton of info about my plants and my garden and where I need to purchase mulch and compost in the future. 

More Gardening Tips:

The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Garden

DIY Organic Aphid Spray for Your Garden

Making and Using Compost for Your Garden

How to Plant Cover Crops

  The post Top Reasons For Tomato Leaf Curling appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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How to Cultivate Community While Homesteading

No Homestead is an island.

When it comes to homesteading, there is a lot is said about self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and blazing your own trail.

However, one thing that hasn’t been talked about much is the important role community plays in building that self-sufficiency and how to cultivate community while doing it.

Engaging with community can be a tricky thing for anyone, especially if you are an introvert like me. Over the years, I have learned how important and valuable a community can be to your personal and homesteading life.

Whether you are in small town America or a big city, it is time to start taking on more of an active role in your community. Start by learning how to create a homesteading community wherever you are.

What is Cultivating Community and Why is it Important? 

Whenever people think of cultivating, it is usually in relation to garden soil and not people or communities. In this case, cultivate just means promoting the growth or improvement of your local community.

Being self-sufficient doesn’t mean that you will never need anything from anyone else. Community gives us the opportunity to recreate the old-fashioned barter & trade system, support our local businesses, and work with others to build strong and sustainable homesteads.

There is a story that I like to share that truly reminds me why community is important. It is great example of how we can share each other’s strengths to build something that can withstand anything.

Our Story…

A friend of ours and his wife use wood heat and, just like us, love the process of heating with wood. Due to his health, he wasn’t able to get out to chop the firewood that they needed.

His co-workers and our small-town community decided to have a firewood day for him. We were asked to host the firewood day in our back pasture. This is where we always chop our own firewood and have large log piles hauled in from the mountains.

At 9 a.m. on a super chilly Saturday morning, in late February or maybe early March, the trucks and people descended on our Homestead. People from the community brought chainsaws, tools, tractors, and trailers. Everyone was out there for 5 or 6 hours chopping, splitting, and stacking.

It still gives me chills thinking about how the men, women and children of our small-town community came together to help a family in need.

It was an emotional day, because this is the kind of thing you don’t see often with community these days. Especially after this past year when people have been so disconnected and scared of one another.

This was a special experience that renewed my faith in humans and underscored how important building human connection and community truly are.

How to Cultivate Community and Build Connections

Homesteading can be all about community, but we don’t always talk about how to build a homestead community these days. In this modern age, there are online communities, and this type of community is really big for me (for example, my Project Homestead mentorship group, which is made of homesteaders like me who love to learn new skills). The online community has carried me through for many years, especially when I felt like I didn’t have a lot of local connection.

As the years have progressed, however, I find myself at a different stage in life and I feel that it is just as important to understand how special local connections are.

As homesteaders, I believe it is essential for us to understand the importance of investing locally. There will be times when your homestead won’t be able to provide you with everything. Creating connections with other people, local farms, producers, and other homesteads will give you the chance to do just that.

Forming new connections can be easier said than done, especially if you are coming into a small-town community and you are brand new to the area.

I am by no means an expert, but I would like to share some steps and advice on how to cultivate community while homesteading that have given us some pretty great results.

Step #1: Be Humble

The first and biggest step I would recommend, especially in agricultural, ranching, or farming communities, is to be humble. For the best possible outcome, approach this type of situation with a learning attitude and a growth mindset.

I have noticed while working with all sorts of different people within these communities that there can be a suspicion of anyone that comes in and acts like they know everything.

This doesn’t mean walk around cowering with your eyes on the ground, or letting people treat you differently. But it does mean that you should try to be respectful when you are coming into a place where people have been doing things one way for many years. Even if you have different opinions, practices and beliefs.  

An example of this that I have noticed is when ranchers and homesteaders kind of butt heads a little bit. A lot of ranching folks are more conventional; they are going to do things the way they have always done them and there is a reason for doing them that way. Homesteaders, on the other hand, have been doing different research and have their own ideas about being healthier and more sustainable.

Neither group’s opinions or practices are wrong, it just means that both sides need to come into the situation with an open mind.

They must be willing to compromise and talk things through before just passing those blanket statements. Coming into a community and telling someone who has been doing something for fifty years that they don’t know what they’re doing isn’t generally helpful. Going about things that way won’t help win friends, influence people, or cultivate your community.

I’m not saying you have to give up on your convictions; stick to your guns on the things that you believe are important. Just keep in mind it is important to have a humble spirit as you come into a new small-town community.

Step #2: Try to Avoid being Cliquish (aka Get Out of Your Comfort Zone)

Cliques in a community is not just a small-town thing: humans are naturally pretty cliquish. Everyone tends to gravitate towards what is familiar and what they know. I believe it is natural for people to have a harder time bringing new people into the fold.

You will always find different friend groups within places like churches and schools; even whole towns can be a series of different friend groups. 

Introducing yourself to a new group takes more effort, so most tend to go to where it is easy, and where they feel comfortable. If you feel like you are constantly waiting to be invited to something, don’t be afraid to make the first step. Take a bit of a risk, get out of your comfort zone and create your own opportunities to introduce yourself to different groups.

We have noticed that in our little town, when we reach out of our comfort zone, it has yielded pretty big results. It has given people the opportunity to see that we are here to help, rather than just being those ‘weird homestead blogger people on the hill’.

Let everyone know that you are there to support the community and its people; and ask what it is that you can do to help.

We started moving away from being the out-of-town people who kept to themselves’ when we purchased the little fixer-upper house in town last summer (see the fixer-upper house tour in this video).  That fixer-upper house investment helped people understand and acknowledge that we really would like to help out and see the town improve.

You don’t have to go buy a house and fix it up to create opportunities; that was just a step that made sense for us.

Find something in your wheelhouse that might require a bit of risk-taking on a smaller scale, and show people you are invested in being part of the community.

Be the one to come up with an idea for community improvement. Just realize that it might be hard to get people rallied around it at first. That’s okay, take the risk and see what connections you can grow and how to cultivate community from there.

The fixer-upper house needed lots of TLC from us.

Step #3: Give People Time to Accept You

My next recommendation is to just give people some time to warm up to you. Sometimes it takes people a little while to feel you out and to make sure that you are someone trustworthy. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there but give others some space to decide what they want to do moving forward.

Going about things this way has helped me create more opportunities and great relationships within our community.

Small towns are a little slower and they just have a different pace, which can be wonderful and charming. This also means people are going to need awhile to ruminate on things. Change, new faces, and especially new faces with ideas can be rough on a small-town community.

Be friendly, give folks in your community time to warm up to you, and let them decide what is the best way to move forward for them. I believe you won’t be disappointed with the results in the end.

One way we are giving back to our community is by preserving (and updating) our beloved town’s old Soda Fountain.

Step#4: Avoid Contributing to Community Division

This last one I think holds true no matter what sort of community group you find yourself becoming a part of. I know that when we started to get to know people in our area, the common theme seemed to be community division. There was no one person or group; it just seems sometimes in a small town there can be a lot of grudges.

Everyone has lived in a close location for hundreds of years, and some families have been there for a very long time. There have been many instances where I was talking to people that are from our local area, where there is a story about best friends not speaking anymore or how some families haven’t been speaking for generations. Sometimes you almost feel like there is a Hatfield and McCoys dynamic going on.

There are a lot of parts of the community that have been shattered by division and I imagine that this is true for any community.

One of my biggest goals is to not contribute to division, and I challenge you to do the same within your community. I know that it can be really hard because whenever humans are involved, we tend to muck things up. 

If you feel like someone has wronged you or maybe you wronged them, the goal should be to try to keep those accounts short. Get them cleaned up and cleared out as much as possible, so you are not contributing to more breaking apart of relationships in your community.

Some communities may struggle more than others within this dynamic of division, but for our area, my goal is to cultivate community and  create more connection.

How to Build a Homestead Community

This past year, with all the quarantines and food shortages and tensions, really underscored the importance of communities to me. In the spring 2020, we really pulled inward, and we started to lean more on local people and our little town. This experience has shown me that whether you are homesteading or just living life in general, community is important.

It has also made Christian and I look into the next phase of our homestead, and it’s becoming less about what we can do just for our own needs. It has us thinking, how can our homestead project help serve our community as a whole?

Major parts of our homestead that could become ways to help our community that I have been thinking about are our new milking parlor and how we built our greenhouse.

Possible Ways to Contribute to Community

Provide Local Milk One of our driving forces when we remodeled our milking parlor, was that maybe one day we won’t just be providing milk for our family. Someday, maybe, we would be able to provide to others in our local area as well.

Vegetable Starts Building our greenhouse is another asset that could be used in the future, and there’s definitely enough room for me to grow extra food in there. I could also provide organic heirloom vegetable starts in my greenhouse to sell to the local people around me.

These are two ideas that our homestead might be able to provide for our community in the future. You may not be able to use these ideas, but there are so many different possibilities:

Local Homegrown Meat

Local Free Range Chicken Eggs

Natural Local Honey

Maple Syrup

Organic Produce

Firewood

Maybe you can’t provide a physical product, but you are really good at a specific trade. You could think about providing a service:

Painting

Chopping wood

Repairing fences and buildings

Animal Processing

Baking

The list of ways your homestead can help cultivate community is endless, it all depends on what your community needs and what you are able to provide.

Bringing a Homestead Community Together

I think the best way to get to know someone is to do a project together. It is a great way to start creating a more laid-back connection.

I often hear or read accounts of old-time farm communities and pioneer communities, and they leaned heavily on each other. Some of my favorite stories are of barn raisings and the threshing parties where everybody got together to work on a common project. I believe this is what community is all about!

I think that this is a really special part of homesteading; it is one of the old-fashioned pieces that we should highlight and bring back into what we’re doing.

It reminds me of a term I once read in Braving The Wilderness, by Brene Brown, called “Collected Effervescence.” It is referring to the that dynamic that happens when a group of humans come together and work towards a common goal.

That is what I know we felt when we were out there chopping firewood in the sleet that day. We were freezing but I think all of us felt pretty warm and fuzzy. It’s that dynamic of people coming together and working on something that’s bigger than themselves.

There is so much potential in small-town America and I believe you can create that same dynamic as you cultivate your community regardless of where you are.

Start sharing eggs, sharing vegetables, and asking if people want to come over and help. Reach out to your neighbor and see how you can get involved. Cultivate your community by strengthening your local food production and bringing back the local bartering and trade system.

These are all a really big step towards cultivating community and creating opportunities to be less dependent on larger outside resources.

And if you are living in a city, you probably have more people around you and yet it might feel more difficult to create community. However, I firmly believe that no matter where you live, you can start thinking (and acting on it!) about how you can build more bridges, create more connection and how to reach out in your  communities.

Take a listen to this info in my podcast episode here:

Learn More on Homesteading and Community:

Join my online Project Homestead mentorship group, where we learn a new homesteading skill each month and encourage each other as we learn these new skills.

How to Find Local Food Sources Near You

Raising Old-Fashioned Kids in a High-Tech World

Modern Homesteading Manifesto

How Two City Kids Became Homesteaders

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[themanuelruello]

The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Vegetable Garden

Perfect… Healthy… Well Balanced… Soil…

..the kind of soil that encourages disease-free vegetable plant growth and produces amazingly high harvest yields.

Every Gardener’s Dream! Well, this gardener’s dream anyway…

The reality is that most of us won’t find the perfect soil patiently waiting for them in the vegetable garden. I know it has never been out there waiting for me.

Soil health is an uphill battle for any homestead. However, the good news is there are ways for you to help improve your soil while providing your plants with all the nutrients they could possibly need.

Some TLC with good soil amendments and the best organic fertilizers is a great way to start building your perfect, well balanced vegetable garden soil.

What is an Organic Fertilizer?

What exactly is an organic fertilizer and how is it different from a chemical fertilizer?

Organic fertilizers are natural products that are used to feed your vegetable plants and contribute to your overall soil health. Synthetic or non-organic fertilizers are made from inorganic materials that usually provide a quick boost in plant nutrients then disappear.

The best organic fertilizers are good to use when your soil is missing nutrients your plants will need and when you need help building better soil for your future planting.

The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Vegetable Garden

1. Compost

Decomposed organic material such as leaves, vegetable scrapes and other organic kitchen scrapes. It can be mixed with garden soil to add needed nutrients to promote healthy plant growth. Compost can be applied in solid form or in a liquid form known as compost tea. 

Check out my article here to learn more about how to make compost. There’s an easy (lazy) method and a more exact method for making compost, and I cover both of those methods in my article. 

NOTE: whether you make compost or purchase it, be careful about avoiding toxic-chemicals in the compost that can destroy your vegetable garden! Check out my youtube video to see what I learned recently about my compost.

2. Manure

Animal waste from herbivores that has been decomposed into a soil like substance. Manure works best when mixed well into the soil where you will be planting your garden. 

Fresh manure can be too hot for plants and may burn them, so it’s best to use composted or aged manure. If you are using fresh manure, just be sure to add it in the fall and let it sit all winter. (Don’t apply most fresh manures to growing plants)

Chicken Manure: Highest in nitrogen, but also one of the “hotter” options. Definitely let it compost and age well before applying.

Horse Manure: Easy to find, but may contain the most weed seeds (although if the compost pile reaches a high enough temperature, this can reduce the weed seeds). We use a lot of composted horse manure in our garden, since we have two horses, and they poop. A LOT. 

Cow Manure: A great all-purpose manure that doesn’t burn plants as easily, due to a lower nitrogen content. Generally less weed seeds than horse manure. 

Goat/Sheep Manure: A drier manure that is less smelly and gentle to plants (won’t burn as easily). The little pellets make it easy to apply, too.

Rabbit Manure: This is considered a “cold” manure, so you can add it directly to plants, with no worry of it burning plants. Just grab some of the “pellets” and sprinkle away! They will disintegrate slowly over time and release their nutrients into the soil as they break down.

**Important Note** If you are using horse, cattle, goat, or sheep manure, be sure to ONLY use manure from animals who have NOT been grazing or eating hay from fields sprayed with herbicides. There are several types of herbicides that can survive an animals gastrointestinal tract and come through the manure to wreak havoc on your gardens. Learn more about this situation in my youtube video.

3. Bone Meal

Bone meal is cooked or smoked bones that are ground into a granular or powder form. Bone meal is great source of phosphorus for the vegetable garden.

4. Blood Meal

Blood meal is a powder made from dried animal blood, that is used when high amounts of nitrogen are needed. It can be applied in powder form or dissolved in water and used as a spray. This form of fertilizer works well for green leafy plants.

5. Worm Castings

Worm Casting is just another word for worm manure. Worm castings that are sold as organic garden fertilizer is the worm manure that is created when and earthworm eats its way through compost. Worm castings are full of nutrients and should be added to soil or potting soil that is going to be used for gardening.

6. Guano

Guano or Bat Manure is a fertilizer that has been used to amend soil for centuries. Guano is collected from bats that feed on insects and fruits. It can be used to amend the soil or feed your plants directly.

Each of these fertilizers can be found at your garden centers or online. When you are searching for organic fertilizers, make sure you read the packages to be sure what you are buying is certified for organic gardening.

7. Fish Emulsion

This is a fertilizer that is used to give your garden an extra boost of nitrogen when needed. Fish Emulsion is a liquid concentrate fertilizer that is made from fish and fish parts. The liquid is diluted with water and then sprayed in the soil around your vegetable plants.

8. Seaweed Fertilizer

Seaweed is a term used for all different varieties of marine plants; these plants can be used as an organic fertilizer in your vegetable garden. Seaweed fertilizer can be used as mulch or sprayed in a liquid form. Seaweed fertilizer provides lower amounts of nutrients then other fertilizers but is less likely to leech into the soil as others.

9. Kelp Meal

Kelp is a specific kind of seaweed that can be used in your vegetable garden as an organic fertilizer. The kelp that is collected for fertilizer is dried and then ground down into granules called Kelp Meal.

Kelp Meal can be added to the soil directly or mixed with water to create a liquid version. This specific type of seaweed is used to amend the soil and promote disease free plant growth.

Get Your Soil Tested

Each vegetable garden is different and fertilizing your garden will depend on your specific needs. To decide what the best organic fertilizer is for your vegetable garden you will need a soil test.

Starting with a soil test will tell you what nutrients you will need to provide to increase plant growth. Getting your soil tested has become an easy task that can be done at home with tests found online or at your local farm store. You can also contact your local extension office to provide you with a more in-depth soil test that is sent out to a lab.

Getting your soil tested is something I highly recommend that everyone does with their garden soil. I learned a lot of awesome information when we got our garden soil tested. I like to get the soil tested from our local extension office every two years.

Reading Your Soil Test Results

The results of your soil test will show you what type of soil texture you have, the Ph level of your soil and which nutrients are needed in your garden.

Soil Texture There are a few different textures that could show up on your results, you could have clay, sandy, silty, or loamy soil. The texture of your soil is good know so that you can understand your soil’s ability to retain water and how it impacts your plants root growth.

Ph Level The ph level on a soil test is the measure of acidity of your soil, the PH measure is represented by a number ranging anywhere from 0 to 14. 0 on this scale means that your soil is extremely acidic while a 14 means your soil is very alkaline. When amending your soil or adding fertilizer, most try and shoot for a 6.5 or 7, meaning the soil will have a neutral Ph level. Neutral or slightly acidic is good for most crops that are grown in home gardens, but there are always exceptions.

Nutrients There are three main plant nutrients when you are reading your soil results and looking at fertilizers. These nutrients are represented by the letter N – P – K.

Three Main Plant Nutrients

Nitrogen (N)

Phosphorus (P)

Potassium (K)

You want your garden soil to be loamy and slightly acidic, and most soils do not have this perfect soil combination to start with. I know that our soil was far from perfect when we started our gardening adventure, and it took a lot of soil amendment and hard work to get it right.

Understanding your soil results is the first step to better garden soil, they will help you decide what is the best organic fertilizer for your garden and tell you how to amend your soil to promote future growth.

Buying The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Garden

When you are looking at fertilizers in the store, you will notice 3 bold numbers on the package; this is called the fertilizer grade. The fertilizer grade is based on the amount of each specific nutrient (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) per the weight of the bag or container.

When you are compare the fertilizers on the store shelves you will notice that the NPK numbers are smaller than the ones found on the chemical fertilizers.

Don’t let the lower numbers scare you off!

Chemical fertilizers have nutrients that are ready to give your garden a quick fix, but they will disappear in a short time after you have applied them. Organic fertilizers stick around in the soil longer, adding nutrients over an extended period.

You decision to buy organic fertilizers, was you making the choice to invest in the long-term health of your garden soil and your future vegetable plant growth.

While a good-quality garden nursery near you should have many of these organic fertilizer options available for you, if you cannot find any, you can find a few of them from my favorite online gardening store True Leaf Market.

Dual-Purpose: Organic Fertilizer and Soil Amendment

Soil amendment is all about starting at ground level, you are adding materials to the soil to help improve the overall structure. The goal of soil amendment is to add organic material to help promote the root growth of your plants, while fertilizing is when you are adding nutrients to feed your plants.

Amending soil is not the same as fertilizing it, but one of the benefits of using organic fertilizers is that they can double as natural soil amendments. Compost is an example of one that is frequently used and talked about, but there are other fertilizer/soil amendments to help improve your garden soil.

When Should I Add Fertilizer to My Vegetable Garden?

When to add fertilizer to your garden depends on a few things, including: what types of vegetables you are growing; what stage your garden is at; and, of course, what your soil test results showed.

Organic fertilizers can be slower to release nutrients and can be applied to your garden soil before planting as an amendment using your soil test results as a guide.

If you already have plants growing and want to add fertilizer, there are usually directions on your seed packages that will tell how often to feed your plants until harvest. If you don’t happen to have instructions, adding fertilizer every 4 weeks won’t hurt. At this stage, you can also use your plants color and overall health to help you decide.

Some vegetable plants are “heavy feeders” and might need fertilizer added more often than other plants would require. Knowing which heavy feeders you have in your garden and watching for a change in their appearance will let you know when they need more.

Common Heavy Feeder Crops

Corn

Tomatoes

Broccoli

Asparagus

Peppers

Pumpkins

Squash

Many common vegetable plants are known heavy feeders, these are just a few plants that you know will need addition nutrients. Planting instructions found on the seed packages can be helpful, to determine how much more they will needs and how often to apply fertilizers.

Choose the Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Garden

Your soil has been tested, you know what your garden needs; it is time to start the process of amending your soil and adding fertilizers. Remember the best organic fertilizers double as a soil amendment they will feed your plants and build up your soil.

Now is the time to invest in your vegetable garden’s long-term health and production by starting to use organic fertilizers in your garden. Your garden will love them, and you can rest assured that you are providing the best healthy options for your family and the garden.

More Natural Garden Tips:

Organic Aphid Spray for Your Garden

Organic Pest Control Spray for Your Garden

7 Simple Ways to Naturally Improve Your Soil

Check out True Leaf Market for Organic Garden Seeds and Supplies

Common Gardening Mistakes That Cost You Vegetables (video)

The post The Best Organic Fertilizers for Your Vegetable Garden appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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[themanuelruello]

Beauty

A client came in last week wearing a tee shirt that had the word BEAUTY printed across it. A few days later her Mom came in, wearing the same shirt.  I have no idea as to the origin, intent or meaning of that word having been printed on that shirt. I did not ask. But [...]

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[themanuelruello]

A Pergola From Branch Studio

  I am several years into a landscape project with great and ever so patient clients. In 2019 we removed their old dysfunctional driveway, regraded the entire front yard, and added back a new driveway and a landscape to go with. So far, so good. The back yard has been the subject of our efforts [...]

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[themanuelruello]

On The 4th Floor

Detroit Garden Works has a milestone of note in its immediate future. It was the evening of the 28th of March in 1996 that we announced the opening of the shop via an evening reception to loyal friends, family, and clients of Deborah Silver and Company. That following morning, we welcomed anyone and everyone with [...]

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[themanuelruello]

A Perfect Moment

By late January, winter has an immutable grip on my zone. It’s cold, but the cold is not the spirit breaker. Its the gray. All the imperceptibly different versions of gray. The massive and almost daily uni-cloud that covers the entire landscape from the sky on down. We have weeks and weeks of it yet [...]

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[themanuelruello]

Old-Fashioned Sourdough Gingerbread Cake Recipe

The wind is blowing mach 9 and the snow drifts have formed mini-mountains on my deck…

Welcome to winter in Wyoming. 

People ask how we survive our brutal winters here, and honestly, I’ve just learned how to be content with lots of indoor projects over the years. 

I used to fight the long, dark winter nights, but now I sink into them.

We read, we play games, we create, and we bake.

And this simple, old-fashioned gingerbread cake recipe is everything you’ve ever wanted on a cozy winter’s night.

Sourdough… in a Cake?!

Believe it or not, sourdough can be an excellent addition in cakes with strong flavors, such as chocolate or spice cake. (Or in the sourdough brownies I included in my cookbook). 

And even if you have family members who aren’t exactly sourdough enthusiasts, odds are they won’t even notice the addition of a bit of sourdough, as the sweetness generally masks it quite well.

Plus, this sourdough gingerbread cake is the perfect way to use up sourdough discard you may have left over after you feed your starter. 

The Best Type of Sourdough For Gingerbread Cake

Any starter will do for this gingerbread cake– even if it’s been in the fridge for a while and isn’t active. Since we add a dash of baking soda to this recipe, it will do the heavy lifting as far as leavening goes, so the discard doesn’t need to provide any rising power. 

(Bonus– if you are a sourdough beginner or have struggled with sourdough breads in the past, this is the perfect sourdough newbie recipe- it’s hard to mess it up!)

If you don’t have a sourdough starter at the moment, you can learn how to make one right here OR keep scrolling for a non-sourdough version! 

Sourdough Gingerbread Cake Recipe

Yield: One 9-inch cake

Cake Ingredients:

3/4 cup brown sugar or sucanat

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup molasses

2 eggs

1 cup sourdough starter

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup flour

1.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup hot water (100 degrees F)

Caramel Sauce Ingredients:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon organic cornstarch

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (how to make your own vanilla extract)

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9-inch pan.

Beat the brown sugar and butter together in with a mixer (or by hand) until smooth.

Mix in the molasses, eggs, sourdough starter, and baking soda.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. 

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stir, then mix in the hot water until just combined. 

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, then bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

Serve warm, with caramel sauce drizzled over the top. 

To Make the Caramel Sauce: 

In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the sugar and cornstarch, then stir in 1?4 cup water and whisk until smooth. Add the cream and butter and cook until the sauce is thickened and bubbly. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. To reheat, warm in a small saucepan over medium heat until heated through.

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cake (no sourdough)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup packed brown sugar, preferably organic whole cane sugar

2 large eggs

3/4 cup hot water (100°F)

3/4 cup molasses

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch square pan.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix the butter, sugar, and eggs until well combined, then whisk in the hot water and molasses. Add the molasses mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve warm, with the sauce drizzled over the top. The gingerbread will keep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

Kitchen Notes:

Normally you add baking soda to the dry ingredients, but adding to the wet mixture in this recipe helps the cake not to fall in the middle.

You can also top your cake with powdered sugar or homemade whipped cream, but the caramel sauce is pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself… 

For another old-fashioned holiday favorite, try these Old-Fashioned Molasses cookies

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Old-Fashioned Sourdough Gingerbread Cake Recipe

Author: Jill Winger

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Category: Desserts

Ingredients

3/4 cup brown sugar or sucanat

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup molasses

2 eggs

1 cup sourdough starter

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup flour

1.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup hot water (100 degrees F)

Caramel Sauce Ingredients:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon organic cornstarch

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9-inch pan.

Beat the brown sugar and butter together in with a mixer (or by hand) until smooth.

Mix in the molasses, eggs, sourdough starter, and baking soda.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stir, then mix in the hot water until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, then bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Serve warm, with caramel sauce drizzled over the top.

To Make the Caramel Sauce: 

In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the sugar and cornstarch, then stir in 1?4 cup water and whisk until smooth. Add the cream and butter and cook until the sauce is thickened and bubbly. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. To reheat, warm in a small saucepan over medium heat until heated through.

The post Old-Fashioned Sourdough Gingerbread Cake Recipe appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

from Gardening https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2020/12/sourdough-gingerbread-cake-recipe.html via http://www.rssmix.com/