March 8, 2013

Teach Your Child to Love Vegetables: Gardening with Children

Childs hands holding vegetables

By Diana, Contributing Writer I'm always so excited to share a bit about my passions here at Keeper of the Home.  Recently, I've enjoyed sharing a couple of posts on budgeting in real food and cooking with seasonal vegetables that both nourish and taste phenomenal. Many of you have started to follow me on instagram where I frequently post pictures of my ridiculously good lunches for kids. As you can tell, I enjoy loading up my children's diets on vegetables.  A frequent question that I get is, [...]

Filed Under: Children, Family life, Gardening, Good stewardship, Healthy kids, Homesteading, Keeping the Home, Living healthy, Living Simply, Nutrition, Raising healthy eaters, Real, whole food, Seasonal eating, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , 18 Comments
December 5, 2012

Could you have a farm… in your own backyard?

farm in backyard

About 5 years ago, I first stumbled upon the "homegrown revolution" and the idea that it was not only possible, but liberating to be able to grow one's own food. From that first spark, my backyard gardening attempts have continually grown, and I've learned how to support local farmers for my meat and dairy, and the produce that I am not able to grow myself. I wouldn't say that I have a backyard farm. At this point, I'd call myself a somewhat ambitious suburban gardener, [...]

Filed Under: Books, Gardening, Homesteading, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments
July 19, 2012

From Cube to Farm: Surviving and Thriving as a Stay-at-Home Mom

Image by Heather Bryant - Copyright 2012

Guest post written by Heather Bryant Once upon a time I used to wear a suit to work. Each morning I would plod through a labyrinth of cubicles to my lowly station where I would sit for hours on end with a headset on. From time to time I was required to leave my little den of technology to convene with the other cube dwellers in a boardroom where presentations would drone on for hours.  During these meetings I would frequently catch myself daydreaming out [...]

Filed Under: Homemaking, Homesteading, Mothering Tagged With: , , , , 36 Comments
September 13, 2011

Backyard Chicken Challenges

002

Written by Sharon Kaufman, Contributing Writer It's been about about 2 1/2 years since my husband and I - inexperienced as we are - first took on the hobby of keeping backyard chickens; and what a joy it's been. But we've most certainly seen our fair share of chicken woes also. It's just bound to happen that with 8-10 chickens, problems "crop up". I hope you can benefit from reading about the challenges we've dealt with over the past few years. Feather Picking and/or Cannibalism Certain chickens [...]

Filed Under: Homesteading, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , 26 Comments
March 29, 2011

Plan & Plant Now for Sustainability, Freedom, and a Backyard Revolution

jars

I am not an expert gardener and have only spent the last few years taking a stab at preserving what we eat and eating what we preserve. Every year, though, I grow more and more excited because every year we are learning, producing, and preserving more. I have learned that amazing things can happen when you simply choose to work at producing and preserving foods rather than spending time doing other things. I have been greatly encouraged and informed by the new book Surviving Off [...]

Filed Under: Gardening 101, Homesteading, Preserving Food, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 22 Comments
March 21, 2011

How to Plan Your Garden

garlic-and-peas-and-rhubarb-growveg

In our Gardening 101 series, we’ve talked about a lot of different things so far... how to select seeds for better success, growing herbs, gardening based on where you live, square foot gardening. I know that the process of planning what and how much and when and where to plant everything can be one of the most daunting aspects of gardening. It’s a place where a lot of people get stuck. They’ve got an idea of things they’d like to grow, they know where the [...]

Filed Under: Gardening 101, Getting organized, Homesteading, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 21 Comments
March 14, 2011

How to Plant a Garden That Works for Where You Live

cabbage in garden

When I first began, I suppose I had this idea that gardening was the same everywhere... you dug up some dirt, put in seeds, fertilized and pulled some weeds, then enjoyed a harvest. A little naive (or maybe just hopeful), I now know that there is more to making a garden work in your specific neck of the woods. This is part of our Gardening 101 series, where we're covering a lot of basics, and I certainly don't want to complicate things. But I do [...]

Filed Under: Gardening 101, Homesteading Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , 15 Comments
August 31, 2010

Beekeeping 101: Let’s Get it Started

bee-on-yellow-flower

Guest Post by Kate Ferry A few weeks ago, I introduced myself and talked about my past experience with beekeeping in a post titled “Beekeeping: A matter of the heart”. The response was quite welcoming and many people were interested in getting more information about beekeeping as a hobby. Keeper of the Home invited me back and asked me to put together both a “Beekeeping 101” intro for those of you who are interested in possibly starting beekeeping and another snippet on “Welcoming Honeybees” that [...]

Filed Under: Homesteading, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , , , , , 8 Comments