Garden Dreams and Compost Calculations

Published on by reluxerenderings7 Comments

Are you dreaming of a big, beautiful garden full of lush, tasty vegetables and fruits? Can you image the smell of a ripe tomato or of the earth as you carefully loosen pounds of perfect potatoes from your rich, loamy soil? Do your future beans, corn, and sunflowers climb 12 feet in the air and tower over you like benevolent garden giants?

Is your imagined garden abuzz with all the pollinating insects and beneficial pest eaters? Do borage, nasturtium, calendula, marigolds, and other companion flowers line your paths and intermix with your vegetables? Do you picture yourself cutting fresh herbs from a stunning array of ever-giving plants?

Oh, I love that dream! There is nothing so soul-moving and life-altering as a growing (or even imagining growing) a vibrant garden. And you can absolutely make that dream a reality using simple steps if you know how to grow a garden.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Besides the basics, like seeds, plus sufficient water, light, and air (to be covered in detail later), there are just two more things you need to grow your very own garden of Eden.

  1. You need soil that is about 2 feet deep, loose in texture, and high in humus content.
  2. Then, you need a way to return nutrients to your soil every time you harvest.

Now, don’t panic! Remember in the pep-talk post, when I said that as long as you do it slowly, methodically, and with careful intention, then homesteading is easy?

Well, I need you to keep that in mind as you start planning your garden. This is important because the garden is where most new homesteaders start to go really wrong.

Here’s why.

You’ve got big dreams, but little skills. And the garden is an excellent teacher. If you start too big, your garden will quickly teach you the limit of your skills. That can be very disheartening to new gardeners. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Grow According to Your Skill Level

Starting simple, by right-sizing your garden to your skills, will get you much better and quicker results than overreach. With that said, how big should you make your garden?

Well, here’s a good rule of thumb.

Match your garden size to your finished compost production.

If you are just getting started, you won’t even have finished compost for at least a year from when you start collecting materials. So, you’ll likely be buying compost for your first year of gardening.

In fact, you’ll probably be buying some things for the garden for at least the first 5 years until you get your soil in shape to qualify for point number 1 above. But, if you don’t want to be spending a fortune on your garden for the rest of your homesteading life, then using your ability to produce compost as your garden-size guide is the way to grow.

Why?

Because, if you don’t add enough fresh compost annually to your garden, it will produce less and less each year. Plus your pest, pathogen, and crop failure problems will increase in direct relation to your lack of compost.

Homestead gardens do not grow on dreams alone. The dream is just the seed that gets you started. After that, you must feed the garden dream. For that, you need compost!

How to Start Growing a Compost Driven Garden

Even if you have never composted before in your life and barely know what it is, I will tell you an easy way to estimate your compost capacity.  Then I’ll give you a simple way to get started making compost right away.

Estimate Your Compost Capacity

A 5-gallon bucket works great for estimating your compost capacity. The number of times you can fill that bucket in a year equals the number of square feet you can grow in your garden using your own compost.

Think of it like this. Each time you fill that bucket, you’ve earned a square foot of garden space for one year. So, if you fill that bucket once a month, then in a year, you’ll have enough compost for a 12 foot long by 1 foot wide garden.  If you fill it twice a month, your compost capacity can support twice that amount so you get 2 rows that are 12 feet long.

You can also rearrange those square feet of space anyway you like.  For example, you could have a 6 foot row that is 2 feet wide. Or you could have three square beds that are 4 square feet each.  Maybe you prefer a keyhole bed?  That part is up to you.

Garden Bed Possibilities

If you’ll be container gardening, the bucket calculation still works. You may just need to do a little math to translate the shapes of your containers into square feet.

It’s easier with square and rectangular containers. For round containers, though, you can go back to your high school algebra or just use an online calculator to convert the diameter of your pots to square feet.

Compost Approaches

There are two theories on compost. The first is the theory that you can only compost uncooked vegetable and plant matter. The second theory is that you can compost almost everything that was once living or that came out of something once living.

– The Limited List Compost Approach

Nature composts everything. It just breaks some things down at a slower rate. It also breaks some things down using methods we humans can be a bit squeamish about. For example, cooked meat is often composted by stinky bacteria and maggots.

As such, the primary reasons to limit what you put in your compost piles are to reduce potential unsavory smells and get ready-compost faster.  Many people prefer to use the limited list approach to composing so they don’t offend their neighbors or have to protect their compost piles from pesky pests (or pets).

The list below is taken straight from the EPA page on composting.  (Under the don’t compost side, you’ll see the reason why you might not want to compost this stuff.)

Compost

Don’t Compost
Fruits and vegetables Black walnut tree leaves or twigs
Eggshells – Releases substances that might be harmful to plants
Coffee grounds and filters Coal or charcoal ash
Tea bags – Might contain substances harmful to plants
Nut shells Dairy products (e.g., butter, milk, sour cream, yogurt) and eggs*
Shredded newspaper – Create odor problems and attract pests
Cardboard Diseased or insect-ridden plants
Paper – Diseases or insects might survive and be transferred to new plants
Yard trimmings Fats, grease, lard, or oils
Grass clippings – Create odor problems and attract pests
Houseplants Meat or fish bones and scraps
Hay and straw – Create odor problems and attract pests
Leaves Pet wastes (e.g., dog or cat feces, soiled cat litter)
Sawdust – Might contain parasites, bacteria, germs, pathogens, and viruses
Wood chips Yard trimmings treated with chemical pesticides
Cotton and Wool Rags – Might kill beneficial composting organisms
Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
Hair and fur
Fireplace ashes

Note: Limited list composters may also compost some animal manure. But they often compost manures using different methods than for pure plant matter.

– The Compost Everything Approach

The compost everything approach requires that you have a composting system you can protect from rodents and bigger critters or pets. It also requires that you wait 1 year from the time your pile is 4 x 4 feet tall and wide (large enough to generate heat) to apply the compost to your garden.

The pile size requirement and the waiting period are both necessary to give slower composting materials time to break down and to minimize risk of pathogen reinfection.

What Not To Compost EVER!

Warning! For both composting approaches, there are 3 things to keep out of your pile.

  • Plant matter from walnut trees because these may contain juglone – a naturally occurring plant growth inhibitor.
  • Diseased plant matter because many fungal pathogens can survive composting and persist in the soil for up to 10 years.
  • Chemical-laced organic matter because some herbicides (and other chemicals) can take 2 years or more to decompose in compost. If you want to learn more about this, check out this fact sheet on Understanding Persistent Herbicides from the US Council on Composting.

Which Kind of Composter Are You?

The limited list compost camp is easiest for beginners. It has few risks and doesn’t require any special equipment. You can even just build your pile on some twigs on the ground without using a bin.

The downside of being a limited list composter is that you’ll have a lot less material to compost. Either that or you’ll have to do a lot more work to gather materials to increase your compost capacity.

When you take the compost everything approach, though, it’s hard to switch back to the limited list approach after you start. You’ll already have stuff in your pile that needs time to decompose. So, you’ll need to keep your compost pile protected until it decomposes. Or you’ll need to bag that stuff up and deliver it to the landfill. So, consider this option carefully.

In rural areas, composting everything may make a whole lot of sense. But in a small apartment, when you only plan to grow a few containers, then limited list composting might be the perfect solution.

There is no right or wrong answer here, just the one that makes the most sense for you.

Start Composting Now

I’ve given you a lot to think about. If it doesn’t all make perfect sense now, don’t worry.  it will come.

For now, just start to move in the right direction.  For your next steps do the following.

  1. Get yourself a 5 gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid.
  2. Take a little time to decide what kind of composter you think you want to be. If you are undecided, then start with the limited list approach. You can always start composting more things later when you have more experience.
  3. Start collecting your composting materials in your bucket. Put the bucket under your kitchen sink or next to your trash can. Or, put the bucket elsewhere (e.g. in the garage, in a shed etc.) and then keep a small container on your counter to fill and empty into your bucket.
  4. Be mindful about your new composting habit. Remind yourself to sort your  compostables into your bucket every time you throw something away until this becomes a habit.
  5. Make note of the date you start collecting and the date you fill the bucket. Keep track of this information for several months to get a reliable estimate.

Upcoming Posts

There’s a bit more to learn about composting and gardening before you are ready to plant your first seeds. We’ll be getting deeper into those topics in future posts.

In particular, we’ll look at a few easy methods for turning those 5 gallon buckets of collected material into actual compost. We’ll also look at ways you can increase your compost production by sourcing materials for the purpose of composting.

We’re also going to start preparing a garden together. Yep, I am going to start one from scratch so I can show you how to begin and what to do each step of the way.

Remember,  simple steps are all it takes. Don’t worry about all that other stuff yet. Just start filling your bucket. That is all you need to do to start composting.

Also, take pleasure in knowing that each bucket you fill brings you that much closer to the garden of your dreams!

Tomorrow, continue your simple homesteading journey with Simple Vermicomposting.

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Recognizing Resources

Published on by reluxerenderings3 Comments
The world is a mess. The climate is beyond repair and all we can do now is wait for disaster after disaster to destroy us. All of our institutions are so completely fragile that the next big event might mean the end of our entire way of life.

If you really believed that, would you be spending your time reading this website on how to homestead?

The Practical Optimist

OK, you might be worried. And yes, there are things to worry about. But if you are interested in becoming a homesteader, then you must be an inherently optimistic person.

You are probably also a practical person. You know that big changes are coming in your lifetime. And you’d rather have a bit of control over the outcome.

Being willing to believe that potentially difficult changes are coming and taking practical steps to improve your chances by homesteading are completely compatible beliefs. However, thinking the world is ending and nothing can be done about it, then trying to homestead anyways is pretty much the definition of crazy.

This point is important because I don’t want you to waste your time on something you don’t believe in. If you really believe the worst, if that intro paragraph rings absolutely true, then please stockpile, focus on your survival skills, and get your shelter in order.

But if you really are a homesteader at heart, own the fact that you are also an optimist. It will make this process a whole lot easier because optimism is actually a necessary skill in homesteading.

Think about it.

Early homesteaders literally set out to live in places that were absolutely inhospitable to human life. They were starting new lives on tracts of land that were wild, desolate, isolated, unpredictable, and unquestionably dangerous. Many homesteaders had few skills to speak of and even fewer possessions.

The Glass Is More Than Half Full

It is really important to get your head around this idea of optimism being necessary because successful homesteading requires that you see possibilities other people don’t see.

As the old saying goes, the pessimist sees the glass as half-empty, the optimist as half-full, and the realist sees half a glass of water. Personally, as an optimist, I see a whole lot more than a half-full glass of water.

I see a glass that can be used to sprout seeds on my counter, water plants, cover outdoor seedlings like a cloche in bad weather, a storage vessel, a rain collection device, a measuring cup, and so much more.

Homesteading requires you to see an abundance of resources where other people see problems or perfunctory things.

Practice Optimism

Even though I know, with certainty, that any true homesteader is an optimistic person by nature, not all of us have been practicing this skill regularly. In fact, we might be a bit wishy-washy on the optimism front.

We might have gotten into the habit of letting other people diminish our creativity or convince us to be conventional. We may have just gotten lazy and started seeing resources as only having narrow utility.

Optimism is still in you. It’s still a fundamental part of the person you are. It’s just a bit rusty.  So, before you start making plans about all the stuff you want or need, do me this favor.

Take some time to practice homesteading optimism.

Look around at the things you already own or have free access to. Then, start to see the myriad of ways you can use those resources to advance your homesteading dreams.

Don’t look online to try to find all the ways other people have used a mason jar for example. It’s important that you come up with your own ideas so you can awaken this sleeping skill.

Instead, hold that glass of possibility in your hand and try to imagine all the ways you might use it on your homestead. Then write all those ideas down.

Resource Abundance

There is another side to this idea of homesteading optimism. As I said before, there are real reasons to worry about the future. Particularly on the resource front. This is a finite planet and it is in peril in some ways.

Making ecologically sound choices in our homesteading practices is one way we can avoid being contributors to our global problems. So many of the skills we modern homesteaders aspire to evolved out of the necessities of the times they lived in.

Basket weaving began because containers were needed and pliable young willow swatches were abundant. Earthen shelters were built in the desert because wood was scarce and dry earth was abundant. Log cabins were standard in forested areas because wood was plentiful.

Rather than starting with a long list of specific wants for your homestead, how about starting with recognition of the resources that are abundant in your area and on your property.

Sometimes the things that are “abundant” seem repugnant at first blush. For example, to the grass grower, fields of dandelions and clover are like a curse on the land. To an optimistic homesteader looking at the available resources and making a plan for how to use them – those lawn weeds become wine, tea, coffee substitute, salads, and honey bee food.

A neglected cow pasture reclaimed by brush and kudzu might look like a mess to a cattle farming. To a homesteader though, that is a perfect place to put some goats out to pasture.

Look around your area with a homesteader’s optimism. Note what’s abundant (and sometimes irritating) and imagine how that excess can be put to good use on your homestead.

Start to make lists of all the ready resources you already have. In fact, use your weather observation notebook for this too. Go front to back on weather notes and back to front on resource notes until you meet in the middle with a full-notebook.

You may have already figured this out, but resource recognition has a lot in common with natural observation. You are starting to look closely at things that have been ignored and overlooked to develop your homesteading skills.

Tomorrow, continue your simple homesteading journey with Garden Dreams and Compost Calculations.

The Importance of Observation

Published on by reluxerenderings5 Comments

How did we figure things out before the internet? Did we learn at school?

In the US, children weren’t required to attend school until about 100 years ago. As such, schools have only been a source of learning for large populations in recent times.

Did we learn from books? Books have been around for thousands of years. For most of that history, though, books were not widely available. It wasn’t really until about the 18th century, during the enlightenment, that books became available to all of us ordinary folks.

Did we learn from our parents and our community? Certainly, for most of human history, a good deal of learning came by way of other people. But, then how did we increase our knowledge? Did we just go out meet new people and ask them to give us their knowledge? Likely we did.

Yet how did those who taught others first learn? How did humans first determine what was safe and healthy to eat, what and where to drink, how to live?

There’s a lot of speculation on the subject of how early humans figured out what was safe to eat and how to create and use tools. We may not have fully unraveled those mysteries. However I know one thing for certain.

Before all these other methods of learning evolved, nature was our teacher. We are designed to learn directly from nature.

Many of us have forgotten how to learn from nature because we are so accustomed to learning by other methods. As a homesteader though, I promise you, nature is still a better teacher than any others you will have.

Predicting the Weather

Most of us can get weather predictions from a website or app  in just a click or two. But can you walk outside and know what kind of day it’s going to be?

I can.

Quite frankly, I am much more accurate at it than the meteorologists who report predictions for my area. I can literally feel if rain is coming, or snow, or warm, or wind – even hours to days before it happens.

I can also predict long-term trends accurately. I can tell whether winter will be exceptionally cold or not in August or September. I can come within a week of knowing our last frost day three months before it happens.

You can do all of this too if you put your mind to it.

How to Know What Nature Knows

I didn’t start out with this ability to predict the weather. I used to be as dependent on weather reports with limited accuracy as everyone else. But after years of carefully observing and recording the weather, my body and brain simply know what’s coming. 

I didn’t have to take a class on how to read the different cloud types. I didn’t have to attend a nature course to learn how to recognize the natural patterns around me.

All I did was start paying attention to the weather every day. I kept a notebook to record the date and the weather conditions. I also recorded anything that stood out related to the weather or the time of year.  Here are some examples of what I wrote down.

Peepers

I marked the first date I heard the peepers (singing tree frogs). Then, I marked when the peepers singing increased, when it stopped, the nights when it was so loud it almost broke my ear drums, and the nights they failed to sing.

Weeds

I recorded when new weeds appeared, when they started to look stressed, and when they disappeared from the landscape. If I didn’t know the name of the weed, I gave them one as a placeholder. Later, when I had time, I looked them up and learned as much as I could about them.

Blooms and Pollinators

I noted when flowers and weeds bloomed and what insects visited those plants. Again, if  didn’t know the exact name, I made up my own. As time allowed, I used online databases to identify them. I kept track of populations based on my perception.

Personal Physical Changes

I also noted physical changes in me. My body seemed to know things my brain didn’t. For example, even though we keep our house thermostat set to the same temperature most of the time, my toes are always cold on mornings when it’s cold and damp outside.

I have ringing in my ears before big, windy storms. My hair and fingernails start to grow noticeably faster a few weeks before our last frost each year.

The Expansion Effect

How to tell the weather is just the beginning of what you can learn from nature. Once you begin to make observation a habit, you quickly develop accurate, intuitive instincts for almost anything you do regularly.  For example, you begin to understand:

  • How to grow things well
  • How much liquid to add to anything (batter, soil, concrete) to get the right consistence
  • Whether something will fit in location or space
  • Whether or not a recipe, instruction set, or idea will work
  • How much things weigh without a scale
  • When to be cautious
  • When to charge ahead

Now, this doesn’t mean you will automatically listen to yourself on these subject. We’ve become accustomed to relying on external resources for our knowledge. So it can take a while before you truly trust your own natural expertise.

It can also take a while before your instincts begin to be right most of the time. A healthy dose of self-skepticism, at the outset, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Observation Triggers Intuition

Still, I know with certainty that the more time you spend observing the natural world, the more spillover you have into all the facets of your homesteading life.

I don’t know exactly why this is true. But I believe that once we begin using our powers of observation acutely for one thing, then they just keep working in everything else we do. Observation is like a muscle, the more you build it, the better it works.

Eventually, we simply become attuned to all the different forces at work in our various activities. We notice signals we missed before. We become better able to feel the answers.

Why Weather Observation

I am going to offer you some basic ideas on how to use weather observation as a gateway to expanding your observation skills. I chose weather because it is something we all already have around us. That makes it an equal opportunity tool for any new homesteader regardless of where or how you live.

Knowing your weather patterns is also critical to so much of your homestead planning and decision-making. Even if you are skeptical about the benefits of weather observations on something like baking a cake, knowing your weather patterns in general is still a key homesteading skill.

Though, please believe me, weather also makes a huge difference when making a cake. It also impacts ripening, harvesting, cheese-making, bread production, fruit and vegetable fermentation, seed germination, livestock behavior and so much more.

Useful Tools

You do not need to buy anything for this exercise. However, having access to a few tools will enhance the experience.

Notebook

It will be easier if you record your observations in a bound notebook so you can carry it with you and find all your observations in one place. But, if you don’t have one, you can also write them on scrap paper and then collect them in a grocery bag.

I know you may be tempted to record this in a text file or spreadsheet. That can be awesome for long-term data collection.  However, we have a tendency to forget data we store electronically since we know we can find it easily when we need it. Recording this information using a pen and a paper is like a signal to your body that this information needs to be integrated into your brain.

Trust me, writing it down is important. But you can also record it in an electronic file too if you want to use it later.

Gauges

Ideally you will want some way to confirm your own observations on the temperature, humidity, quantity of rain, and strength and direction of the wind.  You can use formal gauges for this like thermometers, barometers, rain gauges, and wind vanes.

If you don’t have the budget for these things, though, you can simply use the reported data from your closest weather station. Weather services like Weather Underground allow you access to the data from Personal Weather Stations (PWS) that might be much closer to you than the regional airports that may not accurately represent your conditions.

How to Start Observing the Weather

Now that you have chosen your tools, it’s time to start observing.  Personally, I recommend doing this three times a day to start.  When you wake up, mid-day, and evening.

  1. Step outside or open a window. If you can’t (e.g. you live in a high-rise or are stuck in an office), put your hand on a window and look outside.
  2. Look around you for clues as to the weather conditions.
    • Are leaves rustling? Is trash blowing? How fast, how hard? From which direction?
    • Is there frost, snow, rain, moisture, dryness? Does it seem hot, cold, in between?
    • What are people wearing?  What are animals doing?
    • What sounds do you hear? Do they seem louder than usual or more distant?
    • Does anything stand out to you outside or inside?
    • How does your body feel?
  3. Guess what the conditions are based on your observations.
    • Estimate the temperature
    • Estimate the wind speed and direction
    • Estimate the humidity level
    • Guess at how much rain or snow a given storm system will drop or whether rain or snow is likely
  4. Check your gauges or the reported conditions at your nearest weather station.
  5. Contemplate the similarities and differences between what you noticed and what was confirmed by the gauges or weather station.

Your observations may be way off base when you first start paying attention to the weather. Or, you may be a natural at this. For now, it doesn’t really matter how accurate or inaccurate you are. The real benefit comes simply from making observation a habit.

At some point in the future, you will become a walking weather station. It could take months or years depending on where you live, your background, and how consistently and completely you do this exercise each day.

Don’t worry about your performance, just keep at it as often as you can. Even if you can’t do it three times a day, or even every day, just do it as much as you can. The more often you do a thing, the better you get. However, even a little learning here and there can start to add up.

Purchases to Consider

As I promised early, you do not need to buy anything to develop  your powers of observation and become a walking weather station. However, if you do plan to make some purchases, I have a few recommendations listed below.

I am an Amazon affiliate. So I do receive a small commission if you click on the link below to purchase your homesteading tools. This is how I support this website. However, I also understand if you prefer to buy from other vendors or make your own.

All-in-One Weather Station

This is a complete weather station that costs about $110. It’s a big purchase on a homesteader’s budget. I personally would only spend this much money if there were no personal weather station locations reporting conditions similar to mine. But if you aren’t able to get local data online, then it is worthwhile to have.

AcuRite 01512 Wireless Weather Station with 5-in-1 Weather Sensor: Temperature and Humidity Gauge, Rainfall, Wind Speed and Wind Direction

Individual Weather Tools

You can save money buying individual tools instead of a weather station. You won’t get all the data in one easy to read panel. But you might pick up more natural clues if you have to go out and stand in the wind to get a reading or go to your potential garden area to check your rain gauge.

The tool belowl tells you the temperature and humidity indoors and outdoors.  It’s usually under $20.

ThermoPro TP-60S Digital Hygrometer Indoor Outdoor Thermometer Humidity Monitor, with Temperature Gauge Meter, Wireless, 200ft/60m Range, White

Next is a manual rain gauge that you can locate around your property to track specific rain fall. It measures to 6 inches and must be manually emptied. It is also under $20 and stands up well to prolonged exposure to sun or bad weather.

OUTWEST TRADING Professional Outdoor Rain Gauge for Yard, Heavy Duty.

Last is a wind gauge for around $25 and gives wind speed and windchill data each time you take readings. You’ll need to observe the direction of the wind using other markers (like the leaves of trees). This handheld option is an economical choice that can be used anywhere.

HOLDPEAK 866B Digital Anemometer Handheld Wind Speed Meter for Measuring Wind Speed, Temperature and Wind Chill with Backlight and Max/Min

Inspiration

This book is under $20 and is basically like a crash course in awakening your natural observation skills.

Tomorrow, continue your simple homesteading journey with Recognizing Resources.

Seed Starting

Published on by reluxerenderings4 Comments

Seeds may look like tiny, innocuous things. But they have the power to explode into life with the least bit of encouragement. Often, a little water and warmth can ignite that spark of transformation.

The Seed Life Cycle

The tiny living being that emerges has no idea what waits on the other side. All it knows is that when the conditions are right, it must try to become.

When soaked in water, the contents of the seed swell. This swelling expands the outer shell allowing the little life inside to begin to breath. As it breaths, it grows and develops until it bursts through the seed exterior. 

In the beginning, that little seedling is completely supported by nutrients from the seed and its own will to live. Within just a couple of days though, the seedling loses its independence. Then, it must rely on its environment to provide for its needs.

Tentatively, plant parts start to reach up for sun. Simultaneously, almost imperceptible roots reach down for nutrients in the soil. As the plant feels sun and tastes soil, it begins to grow.

Its original seed-breaking leaves, called cotyledons, eventually give way to true leaves. These leaves are tiny versions of what the mature plant leaves will look like. The delicate, young roots also branch and dig, anchoring themselves into the earth. 

The stem of the developing plant is something like a service elevator. Leaves use the stem to send encapsulated sunshine (or sugars) down to the roots. The roots use the stem to send nutrients and water drawn from the soil up to the leaves.

As long as that exchange of energy keeps happening, day by day, the roots grow deeper and wider and the plant grows taller and larger. This growth is very slow at first, but as the plant gains size, the growth speeds up.

Eventually, the plant bears fruit. All plants bear fruit in some way.

Fruit is a metaphor for the plants reproductive method. It may be the actual fruit, like an apple, that contains seeds. It may also be a flower head that produces seeds. Sometimes it is fat roots that store enough energy to send up new plants (e.g. ginger rhizomes and potato tubers). 

The dream of a seed is to grow into a plant so that it can send more seeds out into the world. In other words, it wants to be fruitful and multiply. 

The Intricacies of Seed Life

That’s a very simple explanation of the seed life cycle. But most people don’t even look that closely at this magical process that forms the basis of life as we know it. When you do begin to pay attention, it becomes obvious that all life starts from some kind of seed which is either nurtured, or not, by the environment around it. 

Gardeners know better though. We realize how delicate, hopeful, and incredible seed life is. We respect this process and depend on it to sustain our bodies and our souls.

For example, we know that some seeds will only start when exposed to warmth, moisture, and sunlight. If the outer seed skin can’t feel the sunlight, or something like it, then nothing happens.

Other seeds will only germinate in darkness. They must believe they are enveloped in soil to attempt the treacherous trek from seed to a living, breathing plant form. 

Frankly, some seeds are simply too weak to spark to life even when offered the perfect conditions. That’s why we always start more seeds than we need. We are hopeful, yet we are also practical. 

We gardeners also know that even the strongest seeds only grow into healthy plants with proper encouragement. We do this by starting our seeds in loose disease-free soil. We add fertilizer and water as necessary for growth. Then we ensure warmth or coolness and sun or shade to make our plants feel at home. Much like taking care of any baby, proper care is essential to plant growth. 

The Homesteading Life Cycle

Homesteading is also very much like this. Your dream of homesteading is like the seed. With the right conditions, it can spark a whole new life for you. However, you have to create the right conditions for that to happen. 

To sprout the seed, you must commit to start homesteading now. That act alone will generate all the energy you need to break through and actually begin living your dreams. 

Yet, to grow the dream from its early development phases to something grand and life-encompassing, you must also feed it.  Similar to the way the leaves and the roots work together,  in homesteading your mind and body must also work together to grow your dream. 

The Mind Body Connection

You must learn new concepts with your mind. Then you must practice them with your body. Many people who want to become homesteaders stop at the learning part. They gather so much information but never put it to use. 

The result is basically like sprouts grown on your counter. They start out with all the promise of a new plant. Without soil though, they will never become more than sprouts. 

Some people stay at the sprout phase of homesteading. They try a new recipe that is closer to cooking from scratch. Or, they buy some herbs from the garden center and grow them in a sunny window sill until the plants get root bound or light deprived and start to die.

There’s nothing wrong with doing these things. However, if you really want to grow to your full potential, you need to follow the entire life cycle of your dream, from seed to seed. You must germinate your ideas, feed them, and give them the care they require to be fruitful. 

For today, it is enough to understand the magic contained within the seed. Soak in this idea of how seeds become plants, how dreams become realities. Revel in the absolute wonder of the fact that something so small and seemingly inert can be the basis of an entire new life. 

Time to Try

If you are feeling adventurous, and have the time, then why not also try to sprout some seeds to begin developing a deeper understanding of how things grow. 

Don’t just go through the motions.  Pay attention to the process.

Write down observations like how long you needed to soak your seeds until they swelled or how long it took them to germinate. Also, notice if any of the conditions in your home seem to have an impact on the seeds. Did most of the seeds sprout during the day when your house was warmer or at night when it was cooler?

Observation is one of your best tools for becoming an effective homesteader. Start practicing it every day. 

How to Grow Sprouts

Most of us are used to seeing or eating the mung bean sprouts from the grocery store. However, that’s just the beginning of what you can sprout. If you can eat the leaves and seeds of a plant, then you can generally eat its sprouts too. 

What to Sprout

For this exercise, you probably don’t need to buy anything.

Do you have any dried whole beans  in the pantry (pinto, Northern, kidney, cranberry, turtle, black-eyed peas, lentils, etc.)?  Start with those. 

If you don’t have any whole beans, then you may need to buy those. But you can get them for a couple dollars at any grocery store and most convenience stores. 

Easy Sprouting Tray

Next, do you have any plastic take-out food containers or other inexpensive plastic storage container to sacrifice to this project? Flat, rectangular containers work really well. However, any container will do. 

Because your seed begins to breath from the moment is saturated with water, poke a couple holes in the lid of your container to allow for airflow.  Those takeout lids tend to crack when you poke them with a knife, so I typically only make one hole on each side of the lid. 

For Straining

Other than that, all you need is a fine sieve to strain your soaked beans.

If you don’t have one of those, a colander lined with a thin towel or part of an old sheet will work too.

Basically, you just need something that will allow you to strain the excess water from your beans without damaging them. 

Start Sprouts

start sprouts

As with any food preparation, wash your hands and clean up your kitchen work area and utensils before getting started.  

  1. Wash your beans thoroughly by putting them in a fine sieve, or towel-lined colander, under your running faucet for several minutes. Cold water is fine.
  2. Spread your seeds in your container and cover them with water to soak for 4-12 hours or until they plump. 
  3. Once your beans are plump, strain away the extra water using the sieve or towel-lined colander. Then wash them again. 
  4. Spread the beans out in your container so each bean gets good airflow. Put your punctured lid on top to increase the warmth inside the container and help maintain the humidity. 
  5. Twice a day, transfer your beans back into your sieve or colander, run water over them, and then spread them out in your container again. Washing keeps the beans moist and prevents mold and bacteria from building up.
  6. After a couple days of doing this, your beans will start to sprout. At this point, stop transferring them to the sieve or colander. Instead, just add water to your container and then carefully tip it sideways to drain completely. 
  7. Within 1-2 days of germination, your sprouts are ready to eat. Shake lose the seed shells and enjoy. 

Safety Warning

Similar to eating any uncooked vegetable product (e.g. lettuce, spinach) that has come into contact with potential soilborne pathogens, all seeds may contain E. Coli, Salmonella, Listeria, etc.. As such, your sprouts may be a potential source of foodborne illness. 

I personally eat them raw all the time. But, food safety experts say the only safe way to eat a sprout is fully cooked. Please use your own discretion on eating raw agricultural products.

One Skill, Multiple Uses

Once you have an understanding of how seeds germinate, you can use this information to start an entire garden or food forest. There are a few more steps involved after starting seeds. However, it begins with a seed and the courage to start something new.

Down the road, when you add livestock to your homestead, you can use your knowledge of sprouting seeds with water, warmth, and light to grow fodder for your livestock. The only difference between growing sprouts on your counter and growing it on a grand scale for your livestock, are the tools used.  

In homesteading, all skills are simple, sometimes they are just scaled up to a level that makes them appear complicated. Sprouting seeds on your counter is only the beginning of something much bigger. 

Tools for Easier Sprouting

If you enjoy growing your own sprouts, and expect to do it often, it might be worth investing in some seed sprouting equipment. A 2-tier sprouter is about $13 and and 3-teir is about $20. If either of these fit in your budget, and would make sprouting easier for you, then please use the link below to make a purchase on Amazon.  

Please note, if you click the image below and buy one of these seed sprouting kits, I will get a percentage of your purchase. This is how I support this website. However, I also understand if you prefer to buy from other vendors or make your own. 

Gardens Alive Two-Tiered Seed Sprouter

Deluxe Kitchen Crop 4-Tray Seed Sprouter by VICTORIO VKP1200

Tomorrow, continue your journey with The Importance of Observation. 

Simple Homesteading Starts Now

Published on by reluxerenderings4 Comments

Why do you want to homestead? Greater security? Self-sufficiency? To increase your skills? For a deeper connection to nature? Better health? Tastier food? To live a simpler life?

All of the above and then some?

We all have different reasons for wanting to homestead. Each of us also has unique ideas of what homesteading means. I think, that’s how it should be.

Homesteading is a deeply personal act. This is your dream. This is your life.

Now, I may not know your exact dreams or reasons for wanting to homestead. I also don’t know your personal living conditions, your financial situation, your challenges, or your aptitudes. We are strangers connected only by our desire to homestead.

Yet, even without knowing you, I know with certainty, there is only one big difference between you and those people who are already living their homestead dreams.

Here it is.

Those other people got started.

That’s it!

They are not smarter than you. They are not more creative. They don’t have magical powers to grow things or make things that you simply don’t possess. But they did make up their mind to start homesteading.

Start Simple

You have to start the journey one day, one idea, and one activity at a time. Simple steps are all it takes. Trying to do anything other than starting simply is an invitation to frustration and failure.

In fact, if you choose the simple path to homesteading, then deciding to homestead is the hardest part. It gets much easier from here.

Make up your mind that you will start now. Don’t wait until you have your dream property, more time, or more money.

Begin exactly where you are. Use the things you already have. Rely on the skills that have gotten you this far in life.

Then, take focused, but simple steps toward your ultimate dream each and every day. Even the smallest steps in the right direction move you forward toward the homesteading future you want.

No Excuses

I know the excuses are already starting to line up in your head. I heard them all too.

I don’t know how. It’s too complicated. I don’t have land. I don’t have money. I’m afraid. It’s selfish. It’s too late. My family won’t understand. I don’t deserve a beautiful life.

These are all lies. They are the lies we tell ourselves so we don’t have to take risks and reach for the things we want. And they are a total waste of time.

As someone who lives on the other side, on the homestead of my dreams, I assure you, the only difference between me and you is that I heard the excuses. Then, I made the commitment to homestead anyway.

My Wish For You

Now, I may not know you personally, but I want this life for you. I want it for you because you are the kind of person who would wish for self-sufficiency over mindless consumerism.

You want to grow your food so that it is wholesome and nutritious — not just for yourself but for our planet.

You want to raise your own livestock – whether it be worms, honey bees, quail, chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, cows, pigs, or other animals  – so you can treat them with dignity and face those relationships honestly.

You want to make things yourself so you don’t have to bring home endless plastic packaging and support hidden human and environmental costs.

I want this for you because you are the kind of person who wants a meaningful and mindful life. So, even though we might be strangers, we’ve got some things in common.

Simple Steps

I started this website so I could share simple steps to help new homesteaders start living their dreams right now. That’s because I know homesteading is only hard if you try to do it all at once or take on more than you are ready for.

When you do it slowly, methodically, with careful intention, it is easy. It’s personally enriching and downright enjoyable. Plus, you get faster results doing it the simple way than you do bull-dozing into it without laying the ground work first.

No, it’s not going to be perfect. Yes, there is a lot of work involved. But, your life is not perfect now. And you are no stranger to hard work.

The difference is that when you start taking simple steps to create your homestead, the hard work you do and the imperfections that result are somehow exactly what you need to feel at home in your own life.
Home – as in a place to belong – is the defining word in homestead. And I think it’s what we are all really looking for.

Yes, this is the pep-talk post. Truthfully though, just by making a commitment to start living the homesteading life you want — choosing that act of bravery — sets in motion the start of your incredible homesteading journey.

Today, make this promise to yourself.

Simple homesteading starts now.

 

Tomorrow, continue your journey with Seed Starting.