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Self Sufficiency & Homesteading
Serious food gardening, raising homestead animals, and off-grid self reliance from The Nourishing Hearthfire.
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Cooking year-round on a wood cookstove: the dream, the reality, and the practicalities of relying on our own firewood and being off the gas grid
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The dream and the reality of living with a wood cookstove or slow combustion stove For many years I dreamed of a life with a wood-fired cooking stove slowly humming in the background, ready at all hours to make a cup of tea. Relying on our own firewood has made the reality of wood-fired cooking a bit different, but it is just as lovely, in its own way. Most off-grid people I’ve met here in Tasmania don’t use their combustion…
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Reflections on homesteading and self sufficiency, and our journey over the past two years
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Around two years ago I wrote a big update about what we were up to, and our plans for homesteading and self sufficiency over the next year or so. There have been so many changes and reflections since then, so here is an update some changes here, and on our progress with self reliance and growing food on old logging land. Changes New babyBorn in April 2024. She is beautiful and healthy and loves homemade cheese. No hay, no cowEvery…
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How to cook with tallow, how to render it, how to store it (and why)
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Cook with tallow: Tallow as a reliable, local, stable cooking fat Many events in recent years have caused me reflect on the expectations of the industrial food system and modern lifestyles, and how rewarding it is to return to simpler ways. Olive oil is in short supply this year, and this offers another opportunity to create better alternatives for cooking that can be produced on a homestead or by local farmers. Most of the olive oil in supermarkets is adulterated…
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How to make black drawing salve
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How to Make Black Drawing Salve Here is how to make black drawing salve, one of the most important natural remedies that I use. We use black drawing salve on all kinds of bites and stings, as well as on splinters, puncture wounds, and anything that looks like it might need possible toxins or infections drawn out of it. I also find it a really helpful remedy around the homestead for wounds on animals – it’s so thick that it…
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Root cellaring without a root cellar: Simple off grid food storage
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Root cellaring without a root cellar You may be wondering why I have three buckets of leaves in my laundry… This is how I store root cellar vegetables through the winter: 1. Gather dry leaves in autumn It can be a bit tricky here some years finding the right time when the leaves have fallen but have not become a sodden mess from autumn rains. I’ve used both maple leaves and blackwood leaves, and both work well, as long as…
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How Homemade Dairy can Transform your Homestead
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Self reliance I sometimes get asked “how do you live without a fridge”, or “how do you get by without having to go grocery shopping all the time” and my answer every time is the same thing: We raise dairy animals and make the most of the milk they produce. When we have dairy, we have the key to self reliance. When you have milk coming into the kitchen fresh every day, there is no need for refrigeration. Milk is…
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Growing our homestead this past year… Achievements, failures, and goals for the year ahead
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This has ended up being quite a long post, as there has been a lot happening on our homestead in the past year. I’d like to try and share updates more frequently for this coming year if I am not too busy. We are in really exciting times on our homestead and I’d like to share a little about what we’ve learned and achieved. Growing our homestead Maremma livestock guardian dogs This has been a long story with some sad…
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How to Start a Homestead: Priorities, Staple Crops, and Survival
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The best time to start a homestead was ten years ago, the next best time is now. This is what I would focus on if I were wondering how to start a homestead now. How to start a homestead: Animals for food and fertility Look at what resources are around you and find the right animal to make the most of what is growing where you live. If you’re starting with lots of pasture, cows and sheep are good choices.…
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Quinces: How to prepare, cook, and preserve them
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Quinces are an easily-grown fruit that’s often ignored in modern diets. Not many people know how to properly prepare them, and they can seem a bit fiddly and slow to cook compared to other fruits. I think it’s definitely worth learning to prepare and cook quince – they are like no other fruit, and there’s something deeply warming about the way they taste on a cold autumn day. My favourite way to cook them is to slowly simmer them in…
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My favourite tools for self sufficient gardening on rough land
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Here are my favourite tools for serious self reliant food gardening, with some notes about what I use them for and what to look for. These garden tools are suited to tall people and people with bad backs, and are tough enough to work on compacted soil and clearing scrubland. My four favourite tools for self sufficient gardening on rough land Metal broadfork A broadfork gently aerates soil without inverting it, giving some oxygen (but not too much) to the…
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Easy ways to preserve tomatoes off the grid
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How to preserve tomatoes off the grid In A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen I included recipes for five of my favourite ways to preserve tomatoes with water bath canning – as tomato passata, tomatoes in brine, pizza sauce, salsa, and tomato relish. I’ve recently tried a couple of different methods that I’d like to share here. These are excellent methods for preserving tomatoes without electricity or canning. Fermented tomatoes I’ve been intrigued about fermenting tomatoes for a while, ever…
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My favourite leafy greens to grow for survival, self reliance, and taste
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Some of my friends and readers are ordering seeds at the moment, so I thought I’d share some of my favourite varieties of greens to grow. The varieties below are all fairly easy to find at the moment from online seed sellers, and all are open pollinated, so if you end up liking them as much as I do, you can save seeds from them too. Why grow leafy greens? Greens yield a lot of nutrition in a small amount…
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