Table of Contents
43
4 Our Quest to Create
a Sustainable Farm
By growing our own food and producing our own energy, we’re getting closer to achieving a practical and productive farmstead with a positive net impact on the planet.
8 Earn a Living Doing
What You Love
These backwoods breadwinners offer guidance for thinking outside the box to make a living in a rural setting or from your home.
16 Start a Self-Sufficient,
1-Acre Homestead
Live off the land with these strategies for establishing selfsufficient food production, including advice on crop rotations and raising livestock.
26
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21 65 Self-Reliance Tips That
Will Save You Money
Apply a DIY approach to any facet of your life and you can start saving big today.
26 A Plan for Food
Self-Sufficiency
Enjoy local, homegrown food year-round! Estimate how much to grow or buy, and learn how to achieve food security with these charts and guidelines.
32 Save Money on Groceries
Buying in bulk and freezing or canning fruits and vegetables are great ways to enjoy better food and cut your costs by up to 85 percent.
32
36 Cut Your Food Bills in Half It’s true! You can enjoy more healthful food while spending much less to feed your family.
43 Tips and Techniques for
Water-Wise Gardening
Tap these efficient gardenwatering systems to save on your water bill while still growing food despite drought and heat.
48 Seed-Starting Basics
Start seeds yourself to get a jump on the growing season and enjoy unique plant varieties.
52 Drying Herbs:
Easier Than You Think
You’ll never buy dried herbs again after you try one or more of these six methods for drying your own herbs at home.
COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ALAMY/ALL CANADA PHOTOS
To keep your crops’ thirst quenched, try some options outlined in this round-up of water-wise gardening strategies.
The MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Living on Less
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57 54 Use Cold Frames
to Grow More Food
Sow seeds in simple frames to add more than a month to your spring garden season.
57 Heat Your Water
With the Sun
A solar water heater is a good choice for the planet and a smart decision for your wallet.
62 Homemade
Convenience Foods
Need quick snacks and meals? Drop processed, store-bought fare, and opt instead for these healthful edibles that work well in a pinch.
66 Easy One-Pot Meals
Want to serve up convenient, well-balanced dishes without making a mess of your kitchen? Now you’re cookin’!
70 Easy Ways
to Preserve Food
Pack your pantry with the help of this crop-by-crop guide to food storage.
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62 76 Daily Breads: Potato,
Oatmeal, White, and Rye With a Starter
Make flavorful sandwich bread out of quality ingredients to save money and warm a gathering or just your kitchen for the day.
82 Raising Rabbits for Meat
and Breeding Stock
These multipurpose lagomorphs require little and yield lots; an ideal quality that supports raising rabbits for meat.
87 Want Milk? Get Goats!
Dairy goats can supply your family with fresh milk inexpensively. The fun’s just a bonus.
92 How to Raise
Chickens for Meat
Don’t just wing it if you’re new to raising meat chickens. Use our guide to fill your freezer with broilers in as little as six weeks from hatch to harvest.
98
66 98 Pressure Canning Meat:
Master the Technique
Ease pressure on your lofty selfreliance goals by learning how to safely can beef, chicken, and more right at home.
102 The No-Mortgage
Natural Cottage
From treehouses to tiny homes on wheels, a no-mortgage shelter can help you eschew expensive rent and debt.
108 Make Your Own
Natural Laundry Soap
When you’re the soap-maker, you’ll no longer have to guess about the mysterious chemistry in your wash.
110 Make Soap the
Old-Fashioned Way
Learn how to make your own lye from ashes, and then use it to cook up a mild, soft soap perfect for personal use.
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EARN A LIVING
Doing What You Love
These backwoods breadwinners offer guidance for thinking outside the box to make a living in a rural setting or from your home.
T
he readers of M’s pages are drawn to simpler, hands-on lives that reimagine the 9-to-5, cubicle-enclosed lifestyle. They choose instead to find fulfilling work by repairing a trusty piece of equipment, clearing a garden of weeds, or creating a functional table from scrap wood. Care to join them? You may desire to live in the country on some acreage or in a small, quiet town. We hear from many of you, however, that making the switch to living out your rural homesteading dreams is a challenge. Often, the biggest obstacle is a lack of dollars and sense — you need money and inventiveness to support a homestead. This feature is dedicated to exploring the diverse methods of making ends meet — whether you’re way out in the sticks or settled in a rural community. We’ve compiled the research and experience of several successful modern homesteaders who have made it work, each by following a unique path. Beginning with jobs in small towns and rural areas, Ann Larkin Hansen provides an overview of full- and part-time positions,
along with seasonal employment opportunities that rural residents can patch together to make a comfortable living. From elder care to grain mill operation, there’s something for everyone. Next, author and DIY expert Steve Maxwell explains how digital-savvy readers can make a living from their laptops. He calls these homesteading technophiles “digital peasants” because of their ability to couple old-time skills with modern technology. Cam Mather, another longtime M E N contributor, details how he and his wife make ends meet by running a 50-member community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. Finally, we round out the article with advice from the exemplary entrepreneurial couple John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist. Co-authors of nearly a dozen books and innkeepers at Inn Serendipity, this team tackles how to make a living from your kitchen with a cottage food enterprise. We hope these stories and practical pieces of advice will inspire ideas for how you, too, can earn income creatively and independently.
Ann Larkin Hansen has been raising livestock and growing vegetables on her Wisconsin homestead for more than 20 years. Along the way, she spent six years as a staff writer for a farm newspaper and has been a freelance writer all the while. Her book The Organic Farming Manual is available at bit.ly/1n1BsFZ.
You’ve got to have some cash. No matter how self-sufficient, homesteaders still need money for property taxes and services or goods that are difficult to scavenge, grow, or make — such as canning lids, new chains for the chainsaw, dental work, and coffee (necessary for me, at any rate). Selling the excess goods that your homestead produces, such as free-range eggs, vegetables, meat, or body care products is one option. But if you aren’t ready to do that or don’t plan to run a full-time farm, you’ll need some other income sources. A part-time, seasonal, or even full-time job off the homestead can provide greater financial flexibility for you and greater economic stability for your small community. Fortunately, more earning opportunities exist in rural areas than you might imagine. If you explore
your options, you’ll likely find several ways to bring home what comedian W.C. Fields called the “elusive spondulix.” Here are some big-picture statistics on where to find rural jobs, and a chart listing some of the employment and entrepreneurial possibilities available (see Page 9). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service’s (ERS) 2014 edition of Rural America at a Glance states that although rural and urban unemployment rates are pretty much the same, the types of jobs available in rural areas are different. Rural areas have fewer professional and managerial jobs but have more jobs that require manual labor and technical training. Although these jobs are lower paid, they offer more part-time, seasonal, and self-employment opportunities that may
ANN LARKIN HANSEN; RIGHT: TERRY WILD STOCK
Small-Town and Rural Jobs
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Lead image: Blend Images/K
Start a Self-Sufficient,
1-ACRE HOMESTEAD Live off the land with these strategies for establishing self-sufficient food production, including advice on crop rotations and raising livestock. By John Seymour
E
ach person will have a different approach to keeping a selfsufficient homestead, and it’s unlikely that any two 1-acre homesteads will follow the same plan or methods. Some people like cows; other people are afraid of them. Some people like goats; other people can’t keep them out of the garden. Some people will not slaughter animals and have to sell off their surplus stock to people who will kill them; others will not sell off surplus stock at all because they know the animals will be killed; and still others will slaughter their own animals to provide their family with healthy meat. For myself, on an acre of good, well-drained land, I would keep a cow and a goat, a few pigs, and maybe a dozen hens. The goat would provide me with milk when the cow was dry. I might keep two or more goats, in fact. I would have the dairy cow (a Jersey) to produce milk for the pigs and me. More importantly, I would keep her Hay to furnish heaps and heaps of lovely cow manure to increase my soil fertility, because in order to derive any sort of living from that 1 acre without the application of a lot of artificial fertilizer, the land would have to be heavily manured.
Movable pigpen
Cow with calf
Cabbage
Peas
Kale
Broccoli
Raising a Dairy Cow Cow or no cow? The pros and cons are many and various for a self-sufficient homestead. In favor of raising a cow is that nothing keeps the health of a family — and a farm — at a high level better than a dairy cow. If you and your children have ample high-quality, fresh, unpasteurized, unadulterated dairy products, you will be well-
Rutabagas
Cauliflower
Brussels sprouts
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positioned to be a healthy family. If your pigs and poultry get their share of the milk byproducts — especially whey — they will likely be healthy, too. If your garden gets plenty of cow manure, your soil fertility will continuously increase, along with your yields. On the other hand, the food you buy for this family cow will cost you hundreds of dollars each year. Compared with how much money you would spend on dairy products in a year’s time, the fresh milk supply from the cow plus the increased value of the eggs, poultry, and pig meat that you will get — along
with your ever-growing soil fertility — will make a family cow a worthwhile investment. A serious counter-consideration, however, is that you will have to take on the responsibility of milking a cow. (Read “Keep a Family Cow” at goo.gl/cwU6JQ for different milking plans and estimated savings.) Milking a cow doesn’t take very long (perhaps 15 minutes). It’s very pleasant if you know how to do it and if she is a quiet, docile cow — but you will have to do it. Buying a dairy cow is a big step, and you shouldn’t pursue it unless you don’t intend to go away very much, or unless you can make arrangements for someone else to take over
Your 1-acre homestead can be divided into land for raising livestock and land for raising fruits, vegetables, and some grain and forage crops.
Beehives Mobile chicken coop
e
Fruit trees
Toolshed Compost piles Cowshed
Greenhouse
Cold frames
Grass Spinach Peas
Runner (pole) beans Lettuce
roccoli Parsnips
Leeks
Onions
Herbs
French beans
bagas Celery
Currants
Broad beans
sprouts
Potatoes Beets
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Fodder beets
Rhubarb
Raspberries
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Save on expensive air conditioning by opening windows and letting in the breeze.
65 SAVE YOU MONEY Self-Reliance Tips That Will
Apply a DIY approach to any facet of your life and you can start saving big today.
By Kale Roberts
T
hroughout the years, M E N readers have proved to be a clever lot. You’ve shown time and again that you can save a bundle when you apply resourcefulness and a little elbow grease to home
economics. Frankly, our consumer culture pressures many of us to live above our means. The good news is that making a personal and household commitment to a more frugal lifestyle can be a fulfilling, healthy choice — and the following tips to save money can start you on that journey.
Imagine what your life will be like when you slash your grocery or utility bills in half, or when you’re able to pay down your mortgage. We’ve assembled the following tips from you, our readers, and from our Amazin’ Archive — 44 years’ worth of articles about living on less and loving it. WWW.MOTHEREARTHNEWS.COM
CREDIT opener: Photoshot/Simon McBride/Red Cover
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CREDIT egg man: Fotolia/WavebreakMediaMicro
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Tips and Techniques for
WATER-WISE GARDENING
Tap these efficient garden-watering systems to save on your water bill while still growing food despite drought and heat.
JERRY PAVIA
By Barbara Pleasant
T
his gardening season, with climate change causing higher temperatures and desperate droughts in multiple regions, many of us will experience weeks or even
months in which sparse rainfall won’t keep pace with the sun’s hot rays. To keep your crops’ thirst quenched, try some options outlined in this roundup of water-wise gardening strategies, from familiar irrigation methods — such as soaker and drip hoses — to
a lesser-known system called “partial root-zone drying.” The best watering methods will depend at least partly on planting arrangement and crop type. Planting leafy greens, onions, and other shallow-rooted plants in blocks rather WWW.MOTHEREARTHNEWS.COM
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Average Last Spring Frost Dates Mean Last Freezing Temp (dates)
In t
Rare or no freeze Jan 1 - Feb 28 Mar 1 - Mar 31 Apr 1 - Apr 15 Apr 16 - Apr 30 May 1 - May 15 May 16 - May 31 Jun 1 - Jun 30 Jul 1 - Jul 31
Colorful fresh he clude ch Grilling fill a fre quality v baked b dietary f
TOP: NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION’S OFFICE OF CONSTITUENT SERVICES; BOTTOM: DREAMSTIME/JEAN-FRANCOIS GUIGNARD
MELANIE POWELL; ABOVE: DREAMSTIME/DMITRY MIZINTSEV
For more information about your location, search for “last spring frost” at www.motherearthnews.com.
easy on the fertilizer if plants receive a hibit certain plant diseases. If only a few lights, with wavelengths especially suited less-than-ideal amount of light. seedlings in a particular batch are affected, to the purpose, are effective. I’ve also had Most seedlings need less warmth you can sometimes save the rest by regood results using one cool-white and one than germinating seeds. Temperatures moving the affected seedlings, improving warm-white tube in pairs. between 60 and 70 degrees are fine, drainage and air circulation, and spraying Diseases down to 50 degrees for lettuce and the survivors with chamomile or garlic tea. parsley. Young plants forced to make The most common disease of young Hardening Off, do with inadequate light should not be seedlings is damping-off. Caused by a Planting Out kept too warm; they will stay stockier fungus, the main symptom is unmistakand greener during short winter days if able: When an otherwise healthy, greenSay it’s a week or two before the safe not overheated. leafed young plant falls over, you’ll notice planting-out date (see map above) for Sixteen hours of light a day is ideal, the stem at soil level looks pinched. your hardier seedlings. It’s time to toughen and you’ll need to use fluorescent lights Preventing it is easier than curing it: your new plants to withstand the harsher to provide this much light in the winter. From the start, provide good air circulaoutdoor conditions. Do this by watering My setup is simple: two sets of double tion and avoid overwatering. You can also less, keeping them a bit cooler, and not 48-inch tubes topped by metal reflector top off the soil surfaces around the seedfertilizing. Hardening off takes a week shades and hung on chains above a counlings with milled sphagnum moss, which or so; it’s when you first set your plants ter in the basement. Sometimes I keep contains beneficial bacteria known to inoutside but before you put them in the the lights on day and night, ground. At first, give them a rotating my seedling collechalf-day in a sheltered place. tion so each tray receives 13 Gradually work up to full days hours of light daily. in full sun and, if a frost warnPlants need darkness, too, ing is issued, cover your tender to use absorbed nutrients for young plants at night. new growth. For most effiThe ideal planting-out day cient use of the lights, keep the is cloudy and damp. As you tubes clean and position the set each plant in its hole in plants so their leaves are close the ground, water it in and to the tubes — no more than then cover the roots with fine 4 inches away. To reflect more loose soil — never with rough chunks of ground or mud. On light onto the plants, prop a bright, sunny day, you might mirrors, white glossy boards, want to cover the seedlings with or pieces of cardboard covered berry baskets or a span of fabric Basil seedlings ready to go into the garden. They’ll be set 10 to 12 with aluminum foil next to the inches apart, well after the potential for frost has passed. row cover for shade. lights. Special plant-growing WWW.MOTHEREARTHNEWS.COM
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Chili and cornbread, cooked together in a slow cooker, make a flavorful and simple stew (see recipe on Page 68).
By Rebecca Martin
B
usy cooks have a taste for one-dish meals, ranking them among their favorite recipes. When cooked together, individual foods blend flavors to produce a delectable dish that’s better than the sum of its parts. These dinners also minimize prep time in the kitchen and reduce the number of dirty pans to clean after everyone has pushed away from the table.
Each of these meals comes together in a single pot, although you may need smaller bowls for mixing. Plan ahead to use leftover mashed potatoes in the Shepherd’s Pie (Page 69). Use a pressure cooker to shorten the cooking time of Short Ribs With Root Vegetables (Page 68).
Spicy Eggs With Kale Kale is the nutritious green at the heart of this recipe,
Want to serve up convenient, well-balanced dishes without making a mess of your kitchen? Now you’re cookin’!
but you can also substitute spinach, Swiss chard, or collard greens. Cook the eggs lightly, keeping the yolks slightly runny to create a rich, creamy sauce for the greens. Lightly adapted from One Pot of the Day by Kate McMillan. Yield: 4 servings; cook time: 15 minutes. • 2 tbsp unsalted butter • 4 green onions, chopped • 2 cloves garlic, minced • 1 cup vegetable or chicken broth • Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 bunches kale (or an equivalent amount of spinach, chard or collards), stems removed, roughly chopped • Zest and juice of 1 lemon • 4 eggs Directions: Melt butter in a large skillet over mediumhigh heat. Add green onions and garlic. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add half of the kale and sauté, stirring frequently until it begins to wilt, about 2 minutes. Stir in the remaining
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ISTOCK/EUROBANKS; TOP: ERIN KUNKEL; OPPOSITE: BEN PIEPER
EASY ONE-POT MEALS
Water Bath Wonders
Pickles, acidic tomatoes, sweetened chutneys, and fruit preserves have a pH level of 4.6 or lower, which delays bacterial growth, allowing them to be canned in a water bath canner. A water bath canner is nothing more than a large pot with a metal tray or rack to hold glass jars at least half an inch from the bottom. Canners aren’t expensive to buy new, and you can often find used ones at thrift stores and yard sales. Canning jars will last for decades, so look for those secondhand, too. Each time you reuse a jar, you’ll conserve the materials and energy needed to create a replacement. Jars sealed in a water bath canner need no refrigeration. (See “Learn to Can for Homegrown Flavor” at goo.gl/jYrMk for instructions on canning via both the water bath and pressure canning methods.) Closely follow recipes and the instructions that come with your canning equipment to steer clear of food contamination.
Crop
Peak Season
Handling and Storage Tips
Cucumbers, pickled
Summer
A salt and/or vinegar brine will turn cucumbers and other vegetables into pickles. Add sugar, fruits, and additional veggies to make chutneys.
Fruits, whole or chopped
Summer to fall
Any well-washed fruit covered with sugar syrup can be canned this way. Use a pressure canner for sugar-free fruit canning. (May also be frozen.)
Fruit preserves, jams, and jellies
Summer to fall
Jams and jellies concentrate the harvest into small containers, plus small jelly jars require only 10 minutes of processing time. (May also be frozen.)
Rhubarb
Early summer
Sweetened rhubarb pie filling is easy to can. Add strawberries if you have them. (May also be frozen.)
Tomatoes
Summer
Tomatoes with herbs and lemon juice or citric acid added can be canned in a water bath canner, but use a pressure canner if including okra, zucchini, or other low-acid vegetables. (May also be dried or frozen.)
FOTOLIA/ALISON HANCOCK; OPPOSITE: FOTOLIA/ELANATHEWISE; INSETS: MATTHEW T. STALLBAUMER
Success Under Pressure
You’ll need a pressure canner to preserve foods that have a pH level above 4.6, because higher temperatures are necessary to kill bacteria in non-acidic foods. Despite the heftier price tag of a pressure canner in comparison with the cost of a water bath canner, reusable jars and no refrigeration requirements for pressure-canned food still make this a practical method of food preservation. Some cities have community canning kitchens that maintain an inventory of canning equipment for residents’ use. Pressure canners require care and periodic testing, but perhaps the biggest challenge with pressure canning is the heat it creates. This is why rural homes used to have a place on the porch for a canning stove, or sometimes a canning kitchen in the corner of a shed. A propane cooker can help you move pressure canning to your deck or patio, though it’s still best to prepare the food and jars in the kitchen.
Crop
Peak Season
Handling and Storage Tips
Fruits, unsweetened
Summer to fall
Process unsweetened fruits whole in a pressure canner and then purée into sauce or preserve as juice. (May also be dried or frozen.)
Green beans
Summer
A good vegetable for novice canners. Thick-fleshed Italian and heirloom varieties will stand up to processing better than delicate filet beans. (May also be dried or frozen.)
Tomatoes
Summer
Tomatoes with herbs and lemon juice or citric acid added can be canned in a water bath canner, but use a pressure canner if including okra, zucchini, or other low-acid vegetables. (May also be dried or frozen.)
Vegetable mixtures
Summer to fall
Combine low-acid vegetables such as beans and corn with tomatoes and herbs for use in winter soups and stews. Processing time will vary by ingredients and equipment. (May also be dried.)
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