The Prairie Homestead

Homesteading | Self Sufficient Living | Living off the Land

Jill Winger

16 Comments | |    Last Updated: July 13, 2021

Flavoring Kombucha When You’re Making it at Home

I'm not a cookie-cutter kinda gal. When Jill asked me to share some details with you last week about how to make your own kombucha (& why), I was all in, because I'm pretty passionate about this amazing fermented drink. Of course, why wouldn't I be? It's a delicious way to improve gut health, and making it yourself saves a ginormous amount of money! But the thing I love the most about making my own kombucha? I can customize it, ...Continue Reading

4 Comments | |    Last Updated: May 12, 2022

How to Bottle Kombucha at Home

Tea is fermenting in my kitchen as I write this. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to shell out the big bucks that grocery stores charge for this stuff, so I decided to start bottling my own kombucha again at home. While I’m getting back into the rhythms of first and second ferments and discovering what teas and flavors my family likes, I thought I’d call in the big guns and ask Michelle Visser to explain not only what ...Continue Reading

20 Comments | |    Last Updated: October 16, 2019

How to Harvest and Roast Sunflower Seeds

I may have harvested a lifetime supply of sunflower seeds. For some reason, the sunflowers grew like gangbusters this year, even while everything else struggled. (Funny story: all of my sunflowers were volunteers this year, and when they first popped up, I thought they were bean plants... so I transplanted them into a nice little square in one of my beds, and then was promptly embarrassed when I realized I'd planted 9 sunflowers ...Continue Reading

47 Comments | |    Last Updated: June 30, 2023

Canning Pears in Maple Syrup

Some folks like a little fruit with their sugar. I'm not one of them. I mean if I'm going to the trouble of canning good food for my family, I'd rather it be good food, not half fruit, half refined sugar, right? I recently shared how I can cherries with honey and how I can apple slices, and today I'm super excited that my friend, and a member of The Prairie Homestead Team, Michelle Visser, agreed to share her amazing recipe for ...Continue Reading

18 Comments | |    Last Updated: August 10, 2021

Why You Should Plant Cover Crops In Your Garden

  I don't know why homesteading makes me so impulsive... Whether we're talking about my propensity to impulse-buy farm animals, or my tendency to fire up a canning project in the middle of a busy morning when I have no business standing there peeling peaches, I guess I just have to blame it on my passion for this lifestyle. This week (like literally this week-- just a few days ago!) I decided to do a 180-degree flip on my ...Continue Reading

36 Comments | |    Last Updated: December 22, 2021

How to Use a Fermenting Crock

My kitchen currently resembles the laboratory of a mad scientist. There's my sourdough starter bubbling away by the oven, a container of continuous brew kombucha doing it's thing on the island, and a 2-gallon crock of sauerkraut fermenting away in the corner. I've come a long way, considering I used to be scared of fermented foods. Both the sights and smells of fermenting foods turned me off for years, not to mention the worry it ...Continue Reading

Nice to Meet You

I’m Jill. I’ve never been very good at following prescribed paths.

For the last 15 years, that instinct has led me through homesteading, entrepreneurship, and creating a life my younger self could have only dreamed of.

These days, I’m less interested in living the perfect "old-fashioned life" and more interested in knowing which ideas are worth carrying forward. The first half of this story was about building a homestead. The next part is about building a life that actually fits.
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