Farm and garden Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Caring for your chickens in winter

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson As winter approaches, we all are thinking of ways to make our livestock and poultry as comfortable as possible when the cold weather hits. Visions of blowing and drifting snow swirl in...

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

By Roy Martin Issue #104 • March/April, 2007 A hotbed is a miniature greenhouse that is heated to protect new seedlings from cold. The hotbed differs from a cold frame in that it has an internal...

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

By Tom Kovach Issue #61 • January/February, 2000 Winter is a good time to plan your spring tree plantings, deciding what and where you want to plant. When spring arrives you'll be ready. Spring is the best...

Fermenting Chicken Feed

By Melissa Souza Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 On our homestead, we eat yogurt, kombucha (fermented tea), sauerkraut, and kimchi to add probiotics to our diet. These beneficial bacteria promote good digestive health, strengthen the immune...

Sweet Potato Greens

By Tim Scullen Issue #168 • November/December, 2017 By now, you’ve no doubt figured out how good chard, spinach, and kale are for you. But did you know that sweet potato leaves are loaded with vitamins...

Pruning Blueberries

By Kristina Seleshanko When we purchased our mountaintop homestead, I was excited to discover four blueberry bushes that were already established on our property. Not all of them were large, but they were an excellent...

Start a Self-Sufficiency Garden Even in a Cramped Apartment

By Nancy Wolcott Issue #61 • January/February, 2000 You are sitting there in your recliner chair in your small city apartment desperately longing for the day when you can escape to the country and become a...

Saving Seeds

By Jackie Clay Issue #129 • May/June, 2011 I go through dozens of garden seed catalogs in preparation for each year's new (and better!) garden. I have a lot of "old reliable" varieties that I grow...

Elderberries — Hospitality, Health, And Beauty

By Gail Butler Issue #124 • July/August, 2010 When friends stop by for a visit I like to offer them a hospitable and healthful libation of elderberry cordial. When served in a small aperitif glass or...

Testing Soil

By Tom Kovach Issue #119 • September/October, 2009 Testing the soil content of a garden is very important and is quite easy to do. Soil tests are needed because some plants prefer slightly acidic soil, while...

Fruit Trees

By Alice B. Yeager Fall winds down with the ripening of a Japanese persimmon known as the Fuyugaki variety. Issue #104 • March/April, 2007 There's not one of us who...

Time to Forget About Snail and Slug Bait

By Lyle Dykes Issue #135 • May/June, 2012 Years ago when traveling on business, I looked out of the window of my motel one morning in Newport, Oregon, and noticed a little Chinese lady flipping over...

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

By John Silveira Issue #44 • March/April, 1997 My engineer father was not fond of wasting time or energy. He was always searching for a better, more efficient way to perform chores, especially chores that reoccurred...

Hügelkultur for the Homestead

By Rose Shelton Issue #176 • April/May/June, 2019 Last spring, I finally completed a long-planned homestead project of constructing two hügelkultur beds. What is hügelkultur? It’s basically a method of recycling junk wood to make a...

A Small Space Yields a Big Crop of Garlic

By Howard Tuckey Issue #131 • September/October, 2011 In less than an hour last fall, I tilled up a 4x8 foot garden bed and planted 250 seed cloves of Chesnok and Russian Red garlic. I've been...

Love Those Green Beans

By Alice B. Yeager Issue #68 • March/April, 2001 Anyone with some gardening space, a sunny location, and good loamy soil with pH 6.0-7.5 can grow snap beans. With some good recipes, you'll have people begging...