How to Cold Stratify Seeds
Do you want to grow some perennial seeds that require cold stratification? Many perennials that are adapted to temperate climates with cold winters require undergoing a cold-moist period to unlock their dormancy before they can germinate. This guide is meant to help gardeners learn why and how to cold stratify seeds successfully. It is thorough…
Purslane: A Particularly Welcome, Luscious Summer Weed
Purslane has been a garden friend of our family for years now. In the colder, wetter days of early winter I am already starting to reminisce back to the long days of the hot summer and all the gifts we received from our humble homestead garden. Some gardeners are familiar with purslane, if not by…
Cleaning Seeds: Enjoy Quality Seeds, Nourishment & Deeper Relationships
Having an opportunity to harvest and process seeds from the plants that we tend with love all season long is such a beautiful gift. Collecting, cleaning and replanting seeds allows us gardeners to more fully participate in the continuous green spiral of life. What a joy to receive and experience these gifts! If you’re reading…
Learn to Harvest & Clean Seeds with Abundance
I am excited and honored to share that our seed cleaning course is ready for enrollment! Seed Processing for Abundance was first launched last fall. This season I revamped the course to make it an even better resource for gardeners and seed growers. What I really love about seed cleaning is that there is no…
Wet Processing Seeds: A Sticky, Juicy Proposition
It’s now early October and all of our summer crops are ripening. Corn, squash, tomatoes, watermelons, okra… the list goes on! And the ripening will go on too… all the way up until our first hard frost. What a blessing! This season we’ve been enjoying luxuriously warm fall temperatures which are helping our garden’s summer…
Fall Deer Browse: Land, Life and Equanimity
I am writing this letter to you during Fall equinox, the mid-point between the summer and winter solstices. Equinox is when night time and day time are approximately equal, depending on our latitude. So far this fall has been a happy time for humans and critters alike. We usually associate fall with harvest time. Indeed…
Little Boy With Big (Life) Questions
At age 5 our son River just completed his first week of kindergarten at the local small town, rural public school. It’s an emotional time for everyone in our family as we adjust. Its also a proud time for my son. When I pick him up from school he takes great pride in sharing stories…
Now is a Great Time to Start a Homestead Seed Business (or Gig)
There has been no better time to start growing, saving and selling or sharing seeds from your homestead garden. I’m talking this season, next season and the coming years ahead. Seeds are at the core of what it means to be human. Most modern humans forgot this truth about seeds generations ago. And… Our culture…
Winnowing Seed (Give) Thanks to the Wind
Its mid August and our family is still collecting seed crops from our gardens. Some plants are just starting to make seeds while others have been done for months. Still others are just now starting to flower! We are harvesting and processing seeds as we go. Flower seeds and veggie seeds. Tree seeds and herb…
Screening Seeds from Bits of Leaves, Stems & Chaff
Bringing seeds in from the garden is a regular family activity during the late summer and fall time. Most plants want to make flowers to reproduce while the days are long and the air is warm. The bees, flies, wasps, moths, butterflies, hummingbirds and many others are very happy to oblige! I absolutely love watching…
Threshing Seeds to Release the Magical Seeds of Life
I’ve been enjoying collecting seeds from many of our garden plants this season. It’s early August and we still have several months of seed harvesting to go before frosts, cold weather and shorter days bring a close to the season. Here we are in the cross-quarter days between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. Even though…
Summer Deer Browse: Protecting Trees When Other Food Is Drying Up
Summertime for gardeners is associated with a time of lush growth and the onset of berries, veggies and fruit. In our climate summertime is also associated with heatwaves, dry fields and vegetation, regional wildfires and often drought. Our summers get little rainfall when there is any. As the grasses and other annuals make seed and…
