Tag Archives: DIY Projects

Nov22

Homesteading video: Fish from Man Made Pond

Posted on by
Standard

So I feel a bit like “I’ve been gone and now I’m back”…hello again!  🙂  It’s been such a busy several months.  Kids are in more and more activities, busy with church, new job, garden…the blog has taken a back seat.  I’m thankful for a Facebook friend who has refueled my love for homesteading…and I thought I’d share some videos that he has shared with me.

This one is cool…fishing in their man made pond.  I’m wondering if any readers have done this?  We have 10 acres near where we live, and I’d like to tackle this as a project one of these years.  We are surrounded by farmland though, and I’m speculating as to what ickiness would eventually work its way into the pond if we did such a thing.  If anyone has personal experience or input, I’d like to hear it.

Anyhow, this woman has many videos on You Tube…if you want more, look up “Misty Prepper.”

Advertisement
Sep28

Seed Saving 101

Posted on by
Standard

This really is a “Seed Saving 101” since I’m kind of a rookie too. 🙂   But I’m having some fun with it and thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned…

Last spring we started about 120 plants in the house.   In spite of winter lasting alot longer than I personally would have liked and a subsequent long wait for planting outside, we had great success with these plants overall.  We had very few plants that did not make it, and what we didn’t have room for, we gave away to family and friends.

Last year I saved pie pumpkin and various squash seeds (Delicata and butternut) and had pretty good luck with planting those this year.  I simply cut open the raw pumpkin or squash – as you would for carving – wash off the “meat” from the seeds as well as you can – dry it out on a paper plate until thoroughly dry.   It may take a couple weeks to be totally dry.

I recently got the Suzanne Ashworth book “Seed to Seed” and have branched out a little more into saving seed from brassicas like arugula, radishes, and turnips.  When the plants start to flower, they put up little pods on their stems.  You can either pick these pods for drying, or hang the whole stems to dry out.  Once they are dry, the pods open easily and the little seeds come right out.

IMG_2195[1]

My little helper cleaning the turnip seed pods with me during some quiet moments at our garage sale last weekend…

IMG_2192[1]

The end result (I ended up with way more seeds than this, this picture was taken early on in the process):

IMG_2194[1]

I also saved seeds from both sweet and hot peppers simply by cutting the top off and removing the seeds.  Dry them on a paper plate, remove the seeds from the stem/flesh of the pepper, and store.

I attempted tomatoes….  You put the tomato in a blender with some water, blend, and them keep them in the water for 4-5 days.  There is a gelatinous sac around the tomato seeds that will interfere with germination so that needs to dissolve, which will happen in that 4-5 days.  Strain the water off, wash and dry the seeds on a plate or fine mesh screen and store.  I forgot about mine for about two weeks in the garage…they began to mold and grow maggots.  The smell was atrocious.   It was not pretty.  Lesson learned.  I will try that again when I have more time to deal with them.  Any which way, I wouldn’t recommend doing that process in the house because of the stink.

I got these seed storing envelopes from Amazon.com to store them until next year.

Here are some other good seed saving resources:  here, here, here, and here.  Oh, and here – a good story about the Svalbard, Norway Global Seed Vault.

Happy seed saving! 🙂

This post was shared at Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday;

Jan12

Growing Citrus Trees (and a couple recipes)

Posted on by
Standard

Today I ventured into new turf…growing citrus! My kids and I planted the Meyer lemon tree that I got for Christmas. I must say that playing in the dirt is wonderful in January! Perhaps this is how I maintain my sanity in the dead of winter…that and obsessing over seed catalogs… Anyhow, they thought it was super cool that we will grow our own lemons. 🙂

IMG_0531[1]
I saw recently (don’t ask me where, but it stuck in my mind) that someone was harvesting 100 lemons over the course of a year from one of these trees. Anyone with experiences with these plants…please comment! I would love to know how they have done.

During the colder months, we will maintain it in the house (hopefully :-)) and once it warms up enough, we will put it out in the yard.

We got this “one year old tree” from Four Winds Growers. I did ask the post office to call me when it came so it wouldn’t sit out in the cold, and it was just perfect when we got it. Fast shipping, great service, beautiful tree. 🙂 If all goes well, I would like to add a lime tree and a blood orange tree to the collection at some point.

They send really good planting instructions along with the tree. One recommendation though…the planting directions call for planting it in a mix of Perlite or cedar chips, with unfertilized soil (1/3 Perlite:2/3 soil). The soil did prove a little challenging to find in January but I was able to find it at a larger Super Walmart. The Perlite was found easily enough at a local hardware store. They also recommend a Vitamin B1 rooting complex for the first few waterings, which I ordered from Star Nursery. I also decided to get a new 5 gallon pot – I didn’t want to contaminate the tree with any possible fungus or disease from a previously used pot. In spite of the fact that my plant has sat in it’s wrappings for the past two weeks, it still looks great and has new growth, as you can see from the picture.

On that note…I figured I would add links to a couple of my favorite recipes involving lemon:
Tom’s Medicine Chest Smoothie (from the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen Cookbook – I use varying greens)

Our Nourishing Roots GAPS-friendly lemonade

I have never tried this one but I will be…it has me intrigued! Pickle Me Too’s Preserved Indian Hot Lemons…

This post was shared at Butter Believer’s Sunday School; Prairie Homestead’s Homestead Barn Hop; The Better Mom’s Monday’s Link Up; Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday; Cooking Traditional Foods Traditional Tuesdays; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays; GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursday; The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter; Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays;