Natural Home

Native to the Middle East, the pistachio tree (Pistacia vera) is a long lived desert plant that bears clusters of small reddish drupes. Pistachio drupes need long, hot, and dry …

Christmas is coming. I don’t know about the goose getting fat, but I sure am. Cooler days and long nights mean I slow down and eat heavier foods. One has …

The sound of the crackling fire, the smell of the burning wood, the dancing flames, and warmth that penetrates deep into your bones – are all perks of heating with …

Sawdust, otherwise referred to as wood shavings, is a beneficial by-product of working with wood that has many applications on both urban and countryside homesteads. The further you get from …

Have you ever seen a simple and elegant wreath at a craft show and thought “I could do that!”? Some people pick it up straight away, while others stumble through …

Whenever I’m wandering through the woods, I always have a basket or a mesh bag with me. There’s rarely a time when the forest doesn’t provide me with some treat …

For many people, the start of fall is signified by an eventful and colorful change in the leaves, as well as darkness arriving earlier and earlier each evening. One of …

I’m a fan of walking in the garden every day, especially in the late afternoon when the sun warms the plants so that all manner of herbal and vegetal smells …

Unless you have a bidet, you likely have a constant stream of toilet paper rolls coming through the home. While you can certainly recycle them or tear them up to …

When you think about washing clothes by hand, you probably conjure up images of someone in a calico dress scrubbing furiously on a washboard, up to their elbows in hot, …

While bees and their remarkable raw honey generally get a lot of buzzingly good press, we often lose sight of the other amazing gifts they have to offer. Beeswax is …

Castile soap is an entirely natural soap. Originally, the term applied to a soap made with olive oil, named for the Castile region in Spain. But nowadays the term is …

Living sustainably is often about finding new ways to use old things. One person’s trash is, after all, another person’s treasure. By reusing and upcycling old tires, for example, we …

Clay is often underneath our very feet, whether we are aware of it or not. Which leads to a somewhat serpentine thought process regarding its ample abundance. Consider for a …

Plastic milk containers or milk jugs can be recycled. But the high quality plastic can also be used in a number of different ways around your home and garden. Before …

You’ve seen bags of it in the health food store and you have pinned images of the fine powder stating its health benefits on Pinterest, but have you gotten around …

Humanity’s quest for cleanliness is nothing new. The first evidence of soap making extends as far back as 2800 BC when ancient Babylonians boiled fats with wood ashes to create …

On a homestead, there are always plenty of things to do. One of the great things about homesteading is that there are almost endless ways to improve your home, garden …

If you use your imagination, you can find plenty of ways to use reclaimed materials in your garden. In fact, if you are living sustainably, you should be able to …

If you live near a shoreline, seaweed may be an untapped natural resource at your disposal. You may not realise it, but there are many uses for seaweed around your …

The very first fences were put up in the Neolithic era, right around the time humans settled in one spot and began to farm. Fences provide security and privacy, and …

If you are keen to make soap, but a little nervous of the processes involved in making it from scratch, melt and pour soap could be the perfect solution for …

All throughout the year, glass jars are in season. Pickle jars, mustard jars, jam jars, peanut butter jars, Mason jars… Tall ones, short ones, blue ones, clear ones. Glass jars …

Many homesteads rely on wood-fired stoves or boilers for space and water heating. Many people also cook in a wood-fired range or regularly do so over an open fire. Even …