I had come to accept my current situation.  That buying a house was pricy, especially when you want acreage.  That a balcony garden was all I'd have for a year.  But one day, we would have our own bit of own land to garden, have goats and chickens.  Well the universe saw things differently.

While not seriously looking, my husband and I still check the housing market on that 'in case' moment.  The 'in case' has just put us into contract on 21 acres with a nice, and livable,…

The Practical Prepper

A big part of preparedness planning involves managing and maintaining a food supply. In fact, we talked a little about food storage as an early step in prepping just a couple of months ago. Of course, food storage is only part of the…

This week's hour long podcast is now live. You can listen/subscribe directly here, or at itunes here. If you prefer to just hear this week's episode click here to listen right here, right now.…

           What is a free-range egg from a "pastured hen" and why should you switch from conventional, store-bought eggs to the kind your great-grandmother used to collect in her backyard? For oh so many reasons, but primarily because they are better for your health, produced in a more humane way, and their production helps rather than hurts the environment.

There's just no other month like April!  The grass is green and everything is starting to bloom.  It's the time of year that I get busy picking plants for medicine.  I have been called a squirrel when people hear about me walking in the woods every day with my clippers and bags saying I'm going foraging! I come back with bags and pockets full and lots of leaves pressed into my field guides of things I want to look up.  Each plant has it's ideal time for harvesting depending on what part of…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

Like everyone else that works a M-F job, I always look forward to the weekends. Back in the city it was a time to hangout with friends, go out to eat, get some beers and genuinely relax. I volunteered for a few charities and by most standards led a productive life. For some reason that drove me crazy. I felt extremely unproductive. The weekends were fun, in a way, but they weren't a good way to make up for a…

(3/3 catch-up post)

April 9th - lettuce just starting to peak through, 1 pea too!

April 11th - more peas!

April 12th - transplanted some raspberries

April 13th - planted 2nd group of peas and filled in a few gaps from first group of peas; divided and transplanted an old inherited rhubarb plant; planted cosmos in front flower bed; transplanted more strawberries.

April 14th - Planted broccoli and cauliflower inside in…

 Trough porch planters...…

Wild Wanderings Blog – April 12, 2012

Thanks my friends for all the feedback and newsletter sign-ups this past week…much appreciated! Oaks, being the main topic of my last post, are one of my favorite trees indeed. And, while it’s clearly not acorn season, I hope you are thus motivated and inspired to collect and utilize this amazing resource this coming Fall.

Wild edibles rock! I’m amazed and humbled by the variety and wild abundance that Nature provides…

I, like many of you, have those friends that don't don't understand why I want to farm.  They don't get why'd I'd want to take care of chickens and goats, spend the afternoon laying down pounds of compost, or stand over an stove all day making jam.  I just had one of those moments that I feel summarizes, for myself, all those reasons. 

I work in a lab the medical field.  Everyday, I see 3000 samples come through that I use for various tests.  When I look, at the end of my day,…

The Practical Prepper

With a fair amount of concern about whether non-stick coatings on modern cookware is healthy or not (e.g., this Consumer Report article), it's nice to know that the is a reliable and…

This week's hour long podcast is now live. You can listen/subscribe directly here, or at itunes here. If you prefer to just hear this week's episode click here to listen right here, right now.…

If your garden has not started producing yet or if you are in between cool and warm season crops and feeling the need for some fresh veggies then give sprouts a try.  Often in the dead of winter when all we are eating is canned and frozen veggies we feel our bodies craving the crispness and nutrients that only fresh veggies can provide.  Sprouts are the perfect thing to fill that gap because you can grow them in any season and under any conditions.  They are also packed with nutrients and…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

This weekend we got busy laying out the garden for the two of us. We are planting ~50% more than we think we will need so that one of two things happens. Either 1.) We get too much for us, and our neighbors, friends and animals…

(2 of 3 catch -up posts)

April 4th - planted 1/3 of the new strawberry bed; peppers and eggplants into newspaper pots inside.

April 5th - snowflakes again this morning, hail this afternoon.

April 6th - Garlic is sprouting! Tomato bed built.

Well, after years of dreaming, several years of researching, and hypothetical planning, we've finally "bought the farm" in a good way. We are now the proud owners of 44+ acres with a spring fed pond.  The land isn't as pretty as it could be.  Over half of it was clear cut sometime last year, but it has loads of potential.  The home has been vacant for a few years, so it needs a little TLC, but I can honestly say I feel at home here.  I love sitting on the front porch in the morning with my…

How do you start an apartment garden?  The same way you start a larger garden.  Get some dirt, some seeds.  Add water, sunlight and time.  Then presto!  Little green life has started up at a little of your guidance.

Yet for something so simple, few of us seem to do it.  Is it the mentality of living in an apartment?  The feeling that since we're not staying here, we should try.  Instead, we'll just wait until we've found our place to settle into.  If so, we are wasting good…

Right!  When I wrote The Politics of Food I didn't know there was a book (and entire movement) with the same title.  

Find out more here.



After my rant on Monday I decided to continue with a bit of revelation as to what organic consumers are actually consuming.  I'm not judging because I used some of these very products without know what's really going…

Wild Wanderings Blog – April 5, 2012

Happy April everyone! Spring is definitely in full swing here in western North Carolina, in fact it’s about 3 weeks early. I taught a Wild Edible plant workshop last Sunday, April1st…a class I had originally scheduled for April 28th! We identified and collected an entire meal from the landscape. Our salad consisted of chickweed, violet (leaves and flowers), dandelion (leaves and flowers), field garlic, wild leeks, field…

The Practical Prepper

This week on our other blog, Self-Reliant Info, it's "Spring Break," where we pause to recap some of our most popular posts for newer readers. So, we're doing the same thing here on The Practical Prepper…