How To Brainstorm Homestead Income Ideas
Brainstorming is a helpful tool for exploring a new idea or practice, such as a homestead business, or ways of generating income from the homestead. But more than that, a good brainstorm can be fun, refreshing, inspiring, invigorating, empowering and enlivening. I’ve used this process to brainstorm many things in my life. I’ve often used…
My Journey From Suburbs to Rural Homesteading
How did I come to call myself a homesteader? I’d love to share the story with you because it is unique and fun. It wasn’t a straight line from point A to B and includes a few leaps of faith. My story begins about 13 years ago. In my past life I was a suburban…
Planting Garlic
Fall garlic planting is always a favorite garden activity in our family. Popping the cloves off of the heads and sticking them in the ground is easy and fun. There’s probably a hundred and one ways to plant garlic, but the truth is its hard to do it wrong because garlic is not too picky…
Garlic Harvesting, Tasting, and Braiding
Oh the amazing garlic. Garlic is one of our staple crops and a key ingredient in most of our meals. I could write tomes on garlic, but today I’m going to focus on how to obtain two harvests from garlic, the results of our garlic tasting (we trialed 10 different varieties this year), and curing…
Planting Fava Beans in the Fall
This fall we are planting fava beans in anticipation of next year’s harvest. Before I started gardening I had no idea what a fava bean, or broad bean was. They are substantial in size compared to other beans that we are used to eating and the flavor is delicious! We love using them in chilis,…
Designing for Short Term Yield
Many of our homestead and permaculture projects take multiple seasons to plan and execute. They should be worth the wait, but in the meantime its also nice to have some smaller wins along the way that complement our greater objectives. This case study shares a design process for a single experimental crop over the course…
Living in Season
It’s fall here in southern Oregon and this time of year often brings back memories of my first fall. The first time I experienced fall was my 2nd year in college. Up until then, I had never really known what four seasons was like. I grew up in Vietnam and moved to southern California with…
Why Do I Homestead?
I started gardening in 2009 with about 300 square feet of soil in our suburban tract condominium. Watching plants grow from seed that I had planted with my own hands quickly became my favorite pastime. Those garden plants began to nourish my creativity, spirit, body and mind. I began to feel connected to our earth.…
