8888 MEN Prem. Self-Sufficient Living 3rd Edition

Table of Contents

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4 Find Your Perfect

Country Property

Follow this advice to discover the property that’s just right for you.

9 Putting Food By The

Old-Fashioned Way

Cash in on the many benefits of reviving the art of canning homegrown food.

13 Start a Work-from-

Home Business

Our readers get down to business, offering advice on how to be your own boss.

16 4 Garden Plans for

Kitchen Herbs

Grow these supplemental garden delights within 20 paces of your kitchen door.

20 Even Better Compost

With Worms

All you need to know to get started with vermicomposting.

24 Everyday Solar Cooking

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and cook with free power from the sun.

27 Hot Weather,

Cool Chickens

Try these tips to keep your birds cool when the summer heats up.

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28

28 Renewable Energy Options

for Your Homestead

From homestead hydropower to human-powered machines, these ideas will help you decrease fossil fuel dependence and increase selfsufficiency.

32 Subversive Plots: Use Your

Garden to Disconnect From Industrial Food

Learn how your homegrown food supply may improve your health and change food culture.

34 Homemade Snack Foods

Break free from processed foods and try these quick, healthy, and inexpensive snack recipes.

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ADOBE STOCK/LARS JOHANSSON

Learn to make the most of your garden space with biointensive and squarefoot gardening techniques.

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40 37 DIY Wind Generator

A weekend project that turns any alternator into alternative energy with a few tools and inexpensive car parts.

40 Financial Planning for

an Off-grid Homestead

A young couple from Idaho shares their savings plan and investment decision for purchasing land and building their dream home.

42 Community + Self-

Reliance = The Good Life

Seven cooperative communities provide a how-to for collective and sustainable living.

50 Homestead Helpers: Sheep,

Cattle, Pigs, and Poultry

Let your livestock mow lawns, work garden soil, and dig stumps in addition to providing you with meat and eggs.

54 How to Raise

Chickens for Meat

Use our guide to fill your freezer with broilers in as little as six weeks from hatch to harvest.

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54 60 Grow More Food

in Less Space

Blending the best principles of biointensive and square-foot gardening will yield a customized, highly productive growing system.

66 Save Money on Groceries

Enjoy better food and lower your costs by 85 percent when you buy in bulk, freeze, and can fruits and vegetables.

70 The No-Mortgage

Natural Cottage

From treehouses to tiny homes on wheels, a no-mortgage shelter can help you eschew expensive rent and debt.

76 A Plan for Food

Self-Sufficiency

Learn how to achieve food security with these charts and guidelines and enjoy homegrown food year-round.

82 Food Preserver’s Garden

Practical suggestions for extending the bounty of your garden from tomato varieties to an outdoor harvest kitchen, these ideas will boost your food security.

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66 85 DIY Greenhouse for

Winter Growing

A low-cost, solar heated greenhouse makes growing a year-round possibility.

90 Grow Your Own

Shitake Mushrooms

Take these steps to fruit your own fungi for money, food, and fun.

94 Succession Planting

Make the most of your garden space by cultivating ways to harvest fresh vegetables in all four seasons.

100 Homesteading

Lessons Learned

From planning your home to laying out garden beds, a longtime homesteader offers advice 20 years in the making.

104 Homegrown Medicine

Medicinal herbs complement any garden and provide many hidden benefits.

110 13 Ways to

Beat the Heat

Follow these simple tips to keep your garden producing through the summer season with ease.

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HOMEMADE SNACK FOODS With help from author Kresha Faber, readers can break free from processed foods and learn to make healthy snacks without spending hours in the kitchen or breaking the bank.

By Kresha Faber

F

inding whole foods in grocery stores has become more and more difficult with packages often including ingredients that are not only harmful to our bodies but also unidentifiable by the average person. Every single

recipe in this book was created with your favorite products in mind as well as your health. To make these as close as possible to the store-brand versions, each recipe was designed and tested with whole food ingredients until it captured as much of those unmistakable flavors as possible.

And with 454 recipe testers from around the world, you can be assured that each and every recipe has been tested numerous times over to ensure it’s as easy and delicious as it promises to be.

Since you see exactly what goes into each recipe, you’ll know that each meal is 100 percent real — no high fructose corn syrup, additives, preservatives, GMOs, or

50-letter chemicals.

Snack foods can often be the bane of a person’s existence, especially when trying to eat foods bursting with wholesome, allnatural ingredients. Sure, you can munch on carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, and cheese, but those foods don’t always satisfy the cravings that we get. The following recipes will give you the tastes you love without sacrificing your nutrition or filling your body with processed ingredients.

They’re also great if you’re on the road a lot. Whether you’re just out running errands or crossing the country on a road trip, these delicious snacks will give you the energy to make it through your day.

Homemade Jerky Recipe Total Hands On Time: 24 hr Preparation Time: 20 min Cook Time: 24 hr Yield: 12 servings, or 1 pound of jerky • 3 pounds beef brisket or flank steak • 1 cup Worcestershire sauce • 1 cup traditionally fermented soy sauce • 1⁄4 cup honey • 6 cloves garlic, minced • 1⁄2 medium white or yellow onion, minced • 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper • 2 teaspoons liquid smoke

Cheddar Cheese Crackers

Total Hands On Time: 45 min Preparation Time: 30 min Cook Time: 15 min Yield: 8 servings, or 10 dozen crackers • • • • • • • • • •

⁄

1 2 cup tepid water

1 teaspoon active dry yeast 11⁄2 cups all-purpose flour 1⁄2 teaspoon salt 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast 1 teaspoon onion powder 1 teaspoon mustard powder 1 teaspoon turmeric (optional) 2 ounces (3⁄4 cup loosely packed) shredded Cheddar cheese • 1⁄4 cup butter or vegetable shortening, cut into pieces and chilled

Avoid processed ingredients and increase nutrition by creating homemade snacks.

1 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

2 Place the water in a small bowl and stir in the active dry yeast until it’s dissolved. Set the bowl aside, uncovered, for about 5 minutes.

3 Place the flour, salt, baking soda, nutritional yeast, onion powder, mustard powder, and turmeric in a food processor and pulse until combined. Add the cheese and cold butter cubes; then pulse until the mixture resembles the texture of fine crumbs.

4 Drizzle in the water and yeast mixture, pulsing or stirring until the dough is shaggy, or until all the ingredients have been incorporated. Gather it together on a lightly floured work surface and knead until cohesive, about 1 minute.

5 Divide the dough into two balls. Flatten one ball to about 1 inch thick; then cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the

refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the other ball of dough until it’s very thin, about 1⁄16 inch thick. As you roll, make sure the dough isn’t sticking to the work surface, flouring the surface and your rolling pin as necessary.

6 Cut the dough into a rectangle; then transfer it to the prepared baking sheet. Prick the dough all over with a fork about 1 inch apart and cut it into 11⁄2 inch squares with a pizza cutter or sharp knife. Set aside (in the refrigerator, if possible) and remove the reserved disk of dough from the refrigerator. Repeat all steps with the second batch of dough.

7 Bake both sheets of crackers, rotating the baking sheets if necessary, for about 13–16 minutes. They should be firm, dry, and just beginning to brown on the bottom. Keep a close eye on the crackers toward the end of the baking time, as thin crackers can burn quickly.

8 Remove pan from oven and place crackers on a cooling rack. Cool completely before storing them in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

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The Simply Home Community in Portland, Oregon (see Page 49), is made up of tiny homes encircling the backyard of a shared hub home, creating a true “bedroom community.”

Community Self-Reliance

Neighbors discover strength and security as they embrace a do-it-ourselves approach to more sustainable communities. Here, we feature seven of these resilient, cooperative Homestead Hamlets as models for other neighborhoods.

By K.C. Compton

T

he alienation and affluence so prevalent in our society can sometimes seem overwhelming. Happily, we’re aware of some amazing alternatives. As Mother’s readers dig in and put their homesteading skills into practice, they realize that 42 MOTHER EARTH NEWS • PREMIUM GUIDE TO SELF-SUFFICIENT LIVING

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Opener: Guillaume Dutilh/Tiny House Giant Journey

the work of self-reliance often goes better in community — more DIO, “Do It Ourselves,” than DIY. Partnering with neighbors, friends, local governments, and faith groups, they’re applying self-reliant skills to create paradigm-changing approaches to community living. We’re calling these communities “Homestead Hamlets,” a term that arose from an inspiring article in our April/

GUILLAUME DUTILH/TINY HOUSE GIANT JOURNEY (2)

THE GOOD LIFE

May 2014 issue about Hawley Hamlet in Lincoln, Nebraska.

(Read the article at goo.gl/nPZar5, or watch a brief video about Hawley Hamlet’s development at www.motherearthnews.com/ hawley-hamlet.)

In all of these groups, “community” is understood as more than congenial chatter over the potluck table. It involves sharing both burdens and benefits in practical, material ways. As society has grown increasingly fragmented, this sense of mutual aid can sometimes seem altogether lost in an impersonal world. The encouraging news is that the spirit of fellowship and connection is alive and well in communities throughout the country. The seven groups selected are doing their part to nudge our society toward lifestyles that are wiser, more eco-friendly, and way more fun.

Bryn Gweled Homesteads Though Nelson and Kristin Arias had never heard the term “intentional community,” a bit of research revealed that was just what they were looking for. They found their community in Bryn Gweled Homesteads in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“We’d always talked about how cool it would be if people who cared about the same things could get together and create their own neighborhood,” Nelson says. “We’d lived in ‘neighborhoods’

where people literally never talked to each other. Then, Kristin found Bryn Gweled online and we were fascinated.”

Now celebrating its 79th year, Bryn Gweled (pronounced Brin Guh-WELL-ed ) was formed by residents of a Philadelphia Quaker settlement house who pooled their resources to buy land together.

Bryn Gweled is a Welsh term meaning “Hill of Vision,” and the founders’ dream was a community where each family could have enough land to create individual homesteads, with opportunities to enjoy outdoor recreation while working together for the common good. The community now comprises 75 families, each with a 99-year renewable lease on a 2-acre homestead, plus about 90 acres of shared land, some of it in permanent conservancy. Work parties maintain roads, a community center, a swimming pool, a soccer field, a community garden, and woodland trails.

Susan Corson-Finnerty, who’s lived in Bryn Gweled for eight years, says residents share a wide variety of resources. There’s the wood chipper and wood splitter co-op, a 15-family CSA that’s hired a farmer to grow food and teach gardening skills, and groups that operate a food- and coffee-buying co-op and a monthly “freecycling” event.

“We have an online community Listserv that makes sharing resources and other kinds of help extremely easy,” Corson-Finnerty WWW.MOTHEREARTHNEWS.COM

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Buying in bulk and freezing or canning fruits and veggies are great ways to enjoy better food and cut your costs by up to 85 percent!

Save Money on

GROCERIES

By Roberta R. Bailey and Craig Idlebrook

H

aving a garden and putting by our own food is the ideal for which many of us strive. The food source doesn’t get any more local, the cost is low, the flavor is incredible, and the carbon footprint is not much more than a muddy footprint on your doormat.

Shopping at Local Farmers Markets Not everyone has the time or resources to tend a big garden, so we wondered: What if you bought your produce in season at a farmers market and preserved some of it for winter use?

To find out whether you’d still save money, take a look at the chart below, which compares the cost of canning or freezing produce bought in bulk at local farmers markets with the cost of buying canned or frozen organic vegetables at the supermarket. We found that buying at the farmers market and preserving at home yield substantial savings.

You can get the best prices on fresh fruit and vegetables if you buy when there’s a surplus during the peak harvest season.

Many canned foods show a savings of 25 percent, while the best deals can save you as much as 75 percent. For frozen produce, the numbers are even better, with many of the home-preserved foods saving you 50 to 80 percent over the store-bought versions!

To get the best prices, always buy produce when it’s at the height of the season. Tomatoes in early summer cost far more than they would in August or late summer, and their cost will rise again when the season winds down. Try shopping the farmers market at the end of the day, and seek out farmers who have a surplus of something they would rather not cart home.

Or, talk to farmers about special prices on surplus produce when it becomes available.

Organic Fruits and Veggies: Store-Bought vs. Home-Preserved

FROM LEFT: MATTHEW T. STALLBAUMER; FOTOLIA/CRLOCKLEAR

Whether you can or freeze the produce that you buy in bulk, you’re almost always going to save money compared to buying in supermarkets.

The chart below summarizes the costs of canning or freezing some typical items versus what you’d likely pay for them in a supermarket in 2011. In some instances, you can save more than 75 percent by canning — and more than 80 percent by freezing — produce purchased in bulk. Don’t forget to account for waste, such as tomato cores or corn cobs, if you do your own calculations for other fruits and veggies.

CANNED Home (16 oz) Store (16 oz)

FROZEN Home (16 oz) Store (16 oz)

Produce

Fresh Bulk Cost

Green beans

$1.00/lb

$1.00

$1.31

$1.00

$1.99 to $4.62

Sweet corn

$2.00/dz

$0.83

$1.31

$0.83

$1.99 to $4.62

Shell peas

$2.00/lb

$0.60

$1.31

$0.60

$1.99 to $4.62

Whole tomatoes

$1.00/lb

$1.50

$1.31 to $1.84

N/A

N/A

Beets

$1.00/lb

$1.00

$1.31

N/A

N/A

Broccoli

$1.50/lb

N/A

N/A

$1.50

$2.29

Spinach

$4.00/lb

N/A

N/A

$4.00

$4.62 to $5.74

Pears

$1.00/lb

$1.00

$2.59

$1.00

$3.59

Blueberries

$0.50/lb

$0.50

$2.19

$0.50

$3.59 to $4.78

Peaches

$1.00/lb

$1.00

$1.99 to $2.59

$1.00

$3.59

“Home” prices are based on reports from co-author Roberta R. Bailey and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

“Store” prices are for organic brands sold at Hannaford supermarkets and health food stores in New England.

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NATURAL COTTAGE

By Chris McClellan

W

hen our oldest daughter was 9, I caught her dragging my air compressor into the woods, where she had stashed a bunch of my building materials in preparation for building her first treehouse. Fast-forward 10 years: When she started attending the local community college, we were pleased that she chose affordable schooling and excited that she would be hanging around longer. But then she announced that she was moving out — not into a house or apartment that would cost more than her tuition, but into a treehouse that she would build herself.

It isn’t just children who dream of escaping the rent/mortgage treadmill in their own little cottage in the woods, but as we get older — and more weighed down by our jobs, responsibilities, and stuff — we accept the notion that we’re trapped. That only an expert can build a house.

That shelter has to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That zoning and codes make living your no-mortgage dream impossible. That you can’t just go out into the woods with an axe and a saw and build something you can live in. Fortunately, my daughter didn’t get those memos. Instead, the time she spent in her formative years

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From treehouses to tiny homes on wheels, a no-mortgage shelter can help you eschew expensive rent and debt.

with folks who had done just such a thing convinced her that she could do it too.

Locating Your Cottage I like to think of a DIY, no-frills cottage as a way out of being trapped. Moving into an apartment of her own would’ve cost my daughter at least $600 per month in our area. Instead, her total expenditure came to a little less than $2,000. If she stays there for four years and pockets the difference, she’ll walk away with more than $26,000.

To someone who’s just starting to dream, or who has their hands full just trying to keep their head above water,

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MIWA OSEKI ROBBINS; CHRIS MCCLELLAN (2)

The No-Mortgage

this type of living may seem for my cousins, but she lacked impossible, but variations on the time and money to do this theme are quietly playing anything about it. So instead themselves out all around us. of spending our money on Most of the people I know one month’s rent, we bought who have done something drywall and insulation and put like this haven’t owned the in a couple of weeks of work, land they put their cottage after which we had a place to on. Many of us didn’t have stay for a year, and my aunt had the cash or even a credit card a new rumpus room. There when we started, but we had a were definitely drawbacks, such plan we were willing to take a The author’s daughter (above) built her own treehouse (below). as going through the garage to Roofing scraps keep her snug while she saves up for siding. chance on. the other end of the house to If you don’t own land, use the bathroom (we had not such a plan might include yet discovered the composting a proposal to a landowner toilet), cooking with a hot where you want to live: “Let plate and microwave, washing me build a cottage on your dishes with no running water, land in exchange for five years and waking up at 6 a.m. on a of free rent. At the end of Saturday to the sound of the five years, if you like me, let garage door opening below our me stay with low rent. If you heads, but we made it out of like the cottage, let me build college with no debt. you another on similar terms.

In some ways, that attic room If you don’t like me or want was the perfect walk-away to do something else, start cottage. It wasn’t the hippie charging me a higher rent.” school bus we had dreamed At first, building a cottage of, nor the backwoods cabin, you might walk away from but it was close to school, a lot could seem silly, but this cheaper than a bus, and easier type of agreement works for to heat, and because it was an landowners because there’s a unused space inside an existing set timeframe and something building, it was certainly useful offered in exchange. I less likely to draw unwanted love my daughter, but knowing attention from our neighbors I would get a treehouse out of and the law. the bargain may have boosted To be clear, many areas of the my enthusiasm a bit. I might United States have regulations have also been a bit more that present formidable generous in giving her cool obstacles to the no-mortgage building materials from my cottage. Codes designed to hoard of treasures because, combat exploitative slum well, I want my — I mean housing and dangerously her — treehouse to be nice. substandard construction have combined a safe spot to park her tiny home at the Knowing you could walk away from with zoning that encourages economic next place she wants to live, making it your cottage will also help you focus on expansion (larger houses, larger loans) more of a burden than a dream. Building the basics. What do you really need to be and social expectations (“You can’t live a walk-away cottage was thus more praccomfortable? Can you scrounge it rather like that in my neighborhood — we tical and economical, leaving her with than buy it? Does it need to be perfect? have standards!”) to discourage tiny, selfmore freedom in the end.

My daughter didn’t really want to build built, cash-funded homes. In Seattle, for Code Considerations something she would have to walk away example, you can build an “accessory My wife and I got married in college in from, but the trailer frame alone for the dwelling unit” (also called an “in-law a town where housing was expensive. My suite” or “infill house”) but the rules are so tiny house on wheels that she wanted to aunt had an attic room above her garage stringent that hardly anyone can afford to build was more than twice her entire budthat she wanted to turn into a game room build one legally. get. She also wasn’t certain there would be WWW.MOTHEREARTHNEWS.COM

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THE FOOD PRESERVER’S GARDEN Boost food security and elevate winter meals by planting extra crops in your plots for canning, drying, freezing, and fermenting.

By Deborah Niemann Illustrations by Lyn Wellsand

O

ur vegetable gardens offer us beautiful, fresh bounty during the growing season — and they also have the potential to increase our food security the rest of the year. When you craft a plan to put up some of the crops you grow, you’re preparing for the future, simplifying winter meals, reducing waste, and saving money, too.

As you plan your garden with preservation in mind, consider what your family loves to eat versus what they merely tolerate.

Talk with your household members about what you want your meals to look like for the following year. If you’re aiming for yearround veggie self-sufficiency, calculate how many times per week on average your family eats a particular crop, and multiply that figure by 52 (number of weeks in a year). Then, use our chart of crop yields at goo.gl/uqZQpa to arrive at a rough calculation of how much of that crop to plant. Or, to start smaller, jump in with any of the following ideas, organized from the easiest to grow and preserve to the crops and storage methods that require more expertise.

When deciding what to plant for preservation projects, you’ll also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each crop variety.

If you use a large slicing tomato to make pasta or pizza sauce, for example, you’ll have to start with twice as many pounds of tomatoes as you would use if you had chosen a paste variety, which has denser, meatier flesh and less water content. You’d have to cook slicing tomatoes a lot longer to get the thicker consistency you’ll want. Although you can use any type of tomato to make a sauce, the paste varieties, such as ‘Roma,’ ‘Amish Paste,’ and ‘Striped Roman,’ will make the task much quicker. Also, remember that preservation projects needn’t be solo pursuits in a hot kitchen. Plan a canning party (even outdoors!) to share harvests and the labor.

So how many tomatoes should you sow? Depending on the variety and your growing conditions, you can expect about 15 to 25 pounds per plant, so make calculations based on how many pounds you think your family will go through in a year.

Many years ago, when we lived in the suburbs, we found that just eight ‘Big Boy’ tomato plants could produce enough tomatoes for freezing whole and canning pasta sauce for our five-person family’s annual needs. In Sustainable Market Farming Farming, author Pam

Dawling describes planting 250 paste tomatoes and 90 slicing tomatoes in a community garden for 100 people, and canning about 500 gallons of sauce annually from the harvests.

Tomato soup is a dish in which lots of different tomato varieties can really shine, and you can make big batches for the freezer.

‘Green Zebra’ tomatoes make a citrusy tasting soup, while ‘Great White’ imparts a smokier flavor. Try dehydrating some tomatoes, too. Paste types and cherry types typically dry best, although ‘Green Zebra’ is one of my favorites for drying in slices.

Cucumbers are a classic crop to pickle. Don’t be swayed by those called “pickling cucumbers,” as you can pickle any variety. The pickling types are ideal if you’ll be canning whole dill pickles, though, because they stay small enough to fit well in your canning jars. You can pickle hot peppers, such as jalapeños, serranos, and habaneros, as well.

Although my children were never fans of plain canned green beans, which require pressure canning, they loved pickled dilly beans. Because dilly beans are pickled in vinegar, the acid level makes them safe to water bath can. This keeps the beans crunchy.

Hot peppers, summer squash, and thick-leaved greens, such as kale or collards, are excellent crops for drying. Use your dried hot peppers in spicy Mexican and Italian recipes, and grind some into homemade spice blends. Stash dried greens and slices of dried summer squash for use in soups, veggie lasagna, quiche, or snacks.

You likely won’t have to plant extra squash to make this possible, as summer squash harvests come on strong, and gardeners are often searching for a way to use them up.

Carrots are freezer superstars. Try the uniform, heavy-yielding Nantes types, such as ‘Bolero,’ ‘Nelson,’ or ‘Napa.’ Slice, blanch and then freeze them in gallon bags to add to stews and other dishes all winter. Try growing a smaller spring planting of carrots for fresh eating through summer and fall, and then a large fall planting for the freezer.

More Advanced Crops Have more time and want to venture into crops and preservation projects that may present a few more challenges? Eggplant and

Draw a map of your garden, noting which crops and varieties you plan to grow, to ensure you plant to meet your preservation goals.

Easy Crops and Projects From a preservation perspective, some vegetables are more flexible to work with than others. I suggest starting with tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, green beans, summer squash, leafy greens, and carrots because, with proper variety selection, they’re all easy to grow in most regions, and they lend themselves to simple preservation projects, such as freezing, pickling, and water bath canning. Water bath canning and pressure canning each require a distinct type of canner and have unique safety guidelines; most beginners start with water bath canning.

Serious about canning? Try installing an outdoor harvest kitchen near your garden to make the task more accessible and enjoyable. Find plans for an outdoor stove at goo.gl/JkAarf.

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