Your Practical Guide To Self Reliant Living
When the peaches come in, our preservation kitchen goes into overdrive. Peaches are high sugar and high acid, which makes them perfect for canning, but that also makes them ideal for homemade peach wine. Once the canned peaches are put up, it’s time to break out the fermenter.
How did primitive potters harvest clay? People have been making pottery for millennia, and convenient hobby shops have only been a thing for a few decades at best. Before that, people harvested their own clay right from the soil. Clay is present just about everywhere, and even soils described as “sandy loam” can contain as…
There’s a theory that the tastiest things need the best defenses. If you’ve ever stepped on or brushed by a bull thistle, you’ve experienced their robust defense system. What on earth are they hiding behind all of those thorns? A bit of research reveals that every part of thistle is edible so long as you…
Peach jam was the very first thing I ever canned, and nearly 20 years later I still love making it. I’ve yet to find peach jam in the store, and that’s part of the appeal. If I want peach jam, I’m going to have to make it myself. Once you have the process down, it only…
I began growing ground cherries nearly a decade ago, and at this point, our garden wouldn’t be complete without them. Hidden amongst row upon row of savory vegetables, ground cherries are a sweet treat and a much-deserved break while out weeding. The problem is, once they really start to bear fruit in the early fall,…
Elecampane (Inula helenium) is a perennial herb that grows wild around the world. It’d been used for generations as a flavoring and condiment, and it’s still used to make absinthe in Europe. Herbalists know it as a powerful expectorant, and harvest the roots to make herbal cough remedies.
Home canned peach pie filling on the pantry shelf is like having a homemade dessert ready at a moment’s notice. It works wonderfully to top a cheesecake or coffee cake, and it’s perfect for whipping together a homemade pie in minutes. Every year I put up a big batch of canned peaches, and in the…
No one enjoys the sound of a noisy lawnmower. I hated it, along with the vibration shaking my hands, and the smell of gasoline and engine fumes filling the yard. When I started researching other options for keeping the yard under control, I kept coming across references to scythes. Time and time again I’d start…
Every summer I make a huge batch of no sugar dill pickles with the tiniest cucumbers I can find. I save the monster cucumbers that get lost on the vine for sweet dill pickle relish, but that leaves me a lot of dill in my canning pantry. I searched for quite a while before stumbling…
Canning peaches is surprisingly easy to do at home. All you need is a few jars, a big pot and a little sugar and you’re on your way. Home canned peaches stored in glass mason jars also taste dramatically better than store bought peaches in tin cans, and if you have your own peach tree they’re…
As the opioid epidemic worsens, people are desperate for natural pain relief options. Wild lettuce has been used for millennia as a natural herbal pain reliever, and now survivalists are touting it as a form of morphine that grows in your backyard. I’ve seen that catchy, click-bait headline a dozen times at least. “Wild Lettuce…
