I've never planted a fall garden because... I always forget. OK... that's really not the truth. Do you wanna know the REAL reason? You sure? It's because I'm usually am ready to be DONE with the whole garden-thing come October. Yes... Jill-the-Homesteader-Girl just admitted she gets tired of gardening sometimes. You can forgive me for saying that, right? You see, I love living in a place where we have four seasons. By ...Continue Reading
Showing all results for: pear
How to Freeze Green Beans
Here I go again, breaking the rules... First it was canning peaches with honey, and then my no-sugar canned pears, and now I'm becoming a green bean rebel. You see, I have an extreme aversion to two things when it comes to food preservation: Super intricate methods with seemingly unnecessary steps (Ain't nobody got time for that when you have 15 bazillion bushels of food to put up...) Using boatloads of sugar to preserve ...Continue Reading
10 Things Your Non-Homesteading Friends Just Don’t Understand
Have you ever noticed kind of a gap? Sometimes it feels like there's a bit of a disconnect between me and my non-homesteading friends. Ever been there? Thankfully, considering I've been chasing this homesteading dream for about 7 years now, most of my friends/family now understand that Jill is just weird. And they're used to it. No one even raises their eyebrows anymore when we bring home a new farm animal or start building a new ...Continue Reading
6 Strategies for Fly Control in the Chicken Coop
"Keep your mouth shut..." That used to be my routine bit of advice for anyone entering my chicken coop during the summer months. Fly control in the chicken coop used to feel like a losing battle for me, and the results were... gross. The cloud of black, buzzing flies used to be so thick when you'd open the door, you almost needed a welding helmet to keep them out of your eyes and mouth. If you think I've been talking about bugs a ...Continue Reading
Our Deep Mulch Garden — Year Two
I'm really good at messing things up. Lest you think the Prairie Homestead girl has it all together and things always run smoothly, let me be the first to assure you, they most certainly do not. I've had more than my share of flops over the last six years of homesteading, including horrendously awful dehydrated eggs, a hugelkultur bed that refused to grow anything the first year (not even weeds), goats that annihilated my very ...Continue Reading