Farm Hand’s Companion is an online companion to self-sufficient farms and homesteads. It’s sort of like an old time Mother Earth News with loads of low cost, low tech, alternative/natural building, homesteading and simple living ideas.
gardening
$300 Underground Greenhouse Grows Food Year Round
“From vertical farms to solar-powered “farms from a box,” we’ve seen how farming technology has grown leaps and bounds in recent years. But for those who prefer something a little more rustic, growing food from a hole in the ground is as low-tech as you can get. A walipini, meaning “place of warmth” from the … Read more
Be the Change You Want to See – What this Blog is Really About
Over the years we’ve profiled thousands of affordable and sustainable housing ideas that include affordable homes made with natural building materials, earthquake and hurricane resistant housing, renewable energy, appropriate technology, permaculture, and on and on. In fact, we’ve covered almost the whole range of homesteading and sustainable living topics in addition to our main focus on natural building. We’ve done this because all these things are so closely interconnected. How can you have a sustainable home without a sustainable toilet, a renewable energy system and home garden? How can you build a sustainable home without affordable land? Most affordable land nowadays has depleted soil, so how do you improve degraded land to support a homestead?
Larry Hall’s Rain Gutter Grow System
Larry Hall in Minnesota has come up with a very interesting and highly productive gardening system you might want to look into. This gardening system is perfect for renters, tiny house owners, those who travel a lot and can’t oversee the plants except once a week, and those with limited garden space and/or bad soil. If you ever have to move, you can pack up everything in an hour and go.
Forest Gardens for Biodiversity
Forest gardens have many benefits, one of which is sequestering carbon from the air and storing it in soil. A large diversity of plants, like found in nature and forest gardens, maximizes the carbon storage process. The image above lists the advantages of storing carbon in the soil.
Korean Natural Farming with IMO – Indigenous Microorganisms
Adding IMO (indigenous microorganisms) to gardens is one of the most important steps to gardening success. Drake, the speaker in the video, talks about how his neighbor who’s been an organic gardener for 40 years and has good soil suddenly doubled the size of his vegetable starts by adding IMO. His recommendation is to propagate trillions and trillions of the ‘good guys’ (desirable organisms from your area) and spread them throughout your garden and fields so they can fend off pests and boost plant growth.