Homesteading Home 🏡

[Neome]

Welcome to Homesteading Home for anyone with little or no direct contact with people outside their household.

This might be due to self isolation, precautionary low contact due to preexisting health conditions or living miles from anywhere and enjoying being a bit of a hermit.

What are we all doing to keep our lives and our children’s lives in balance today?

A day of screen time and popcorn may be called for or a day of baking, knitting and family yoga. Whatever you’re up to please feel free to share your triumphs and tribulations.

Best wishes to all who enter 🏡

Hello can I join you, homesteading has always appealed and now it seems is becoming a necessity. I sadly gave up my allotment over the winter but am going to get to work turning the front lawn to productive veg beds- no one likes mowing it anyway.

I have so many jobs to do but work is still keeping me really busy and preventing the DC from killing each other is taking up the rest of the time. I want to do the following this week:

• make some moth ball bags. I have the balls but need to make some little lavender bags type things for them from an old shirt of DHs. We have lots of lovely woollens and we need to look after them.

• make some lavender bags - I have the lavender collected last year and dried. Might see if I can interest DS2 in this task
• sort out the vegetable beds - this is a priority since I'm doubling the planting this year given the situation
• extend the chicken run. They generally get to free range but this leads to them digging up seedlings at this time of year. They also lay eggs in silly places if they free range and we need all the eggs we can get atm
• chop some wood. We literally have a mountain of wood on our driveway. Its taller than me and it was free. But its in large blocks and weird shapes and it needs splitting and stacking. There is probably about a weeks solid work here for two people..

- get the DC into a proper exercise routine. They drove me bonkers yesterday

• make quiche - I need to use eggs. The chickens are going into overdrive with the laying

Also want to get a sourdough starter going

I imagine it must be possible to turn dried yeast into live yeast and keep that going. Anyone heard of this?

I wonder how you make yeast extract...

Yes it’s displacement thinking 🐻

Easiest lavender bags I made with DS were cutting cotton circles, putting lavender (or moth ball?) in the centre and bunching like a mini steamed pudding as it were. Then tying with thin ribbon or embroidery silk.

Very quick, looks nice, can make a hanging loop when tying. If you have pinking shears even prettier and won’t fray.

Hello all

I'm still quite busy, so don't have a lot of time to post on the prepping boards at the moment, and lots of posters have better advice than me already.

I just thought I'd post this link to herbal first kits. it's a good easy starter in medicinal herbs. Although I strongly recommend that you research each herb for yourself as well, before using or taking advice from sites like these.

please remember this is not better than actual first aid you can buy, but a possible helpful alternative incase needed.

lovelygreens.com/how-to-create-a-herbal-first-aid-kit/

If you are interested in medicinal herbs,
This book is very good.

The illustrated Encyclopedia of healing remedies, by C.Normsn Shealy.

www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Encyclopedia-Healing-Remedies/dp/1862041873?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Ive only just come across this thread!
It really is like a warm hug
Thank you so much for this, it's really needed.

Ive also decided to teach my boys to sew. I'm not sure what reaction Im going to get from a 15 Y) and ` nearly 13 YO but they at least need to be able to sew on buttons etc.

Good idea Hasa - a life skill I can teach my kids while we are waiting for things to return to normal.

Went out early and bought some shopping including a small mint plant in Asda. I'll plant it out and sew some seeds to grow on my windowsill.

I'm teaching mine to bake bread this morning- useful skill I feel

It's finally stopped raining here and the sun is trying to shine! Just herding DC through some schoolwork this morning, then planning on getting out into the garden to tidy up, dig the veg patch and sow some more seeds in the mini-greenhouse. DH has found a badminton net in the garage and we need to see what is lurking in the shed - making plans for outdoor activity once the weather lifts and the heavy garden work has subsided.

We are also doing some outdoor stuff today. The DC need to release some energy. The sun is shining and so we are going to make the most of it. Not easy when DH and I are still trying to work full time from home but its necessary.

We have a Lego ‘Mobile HQ’ under construction then heading outside.

Best wishes to all

More news of our Lego mobile HQ: it has some chips, a pizza oven, a safe full of gold, a secret compartment to hide in, and all terrain track wheels!

Will the plans scale up?

Yes lovely thread.
We have loads of bricks I wonder if I can use them to make a veg bed? But no mortar or cement to bind them with

I have never grown tomatoes before . I guess I start them out as seeds on the window sill and then transfer them to grow bag?.

Hi is it ok if I chip in? @Lifesavesocialdistance As toms are hungry plants with deep roots. I have had better results with using a grow bag propped up on its long side rather than laid flat down IYSWIM?

@HasaDigaEebowai I would love to do that with my teen boy too, great idea. Agree they might be about it. Mine likes to tie dye Tshirts though. Also try sewing buttons on to make the thread into an arrow shape as well as boring x and line patterns. Of course you might persuade them to cross stitch with a skull or space invader pattern

I’m starting a gratitude journal. Just something for me, to help find positives, however small or daft. Today the birds were singing so beautifully.

Son gave granny a FaceTime tutorial on paper folding creations. Pillow fights and garden trampoline for exercise and laughter. Partner and son having an epic scalextric championship.

Cat is confused at us being home all the time. She seems quite put out that her peaceful days are interrupted!

I would love to join! Homesteading has always appealed to me :)

we live in a large Scottish town, 3 bed semi with a goodish size garden for this area, but I would love to have proper land. This year we are growing broccoli, a couple of different tomatoes, cucumbers, a large variety of chili and peppers, onions, potatoes, carrots, radish, lettuce, spinach, a mix of herbs and for fruits we have strawberry, blackberry and blueberries. Last year I didn’t grow as much so hoping things turn out well as have been nurturing a lot of seedlings and treating them like my babies lol. I grow everything in containers for now.

My kids are home educated so luckily the schools closing hasn’t been an issue for us. I’ve also been a food prepper for the last year. Me and DH had a talk yesterday and he said at first he thought I was a little crazy, now he’s very thankful and glad I made the decision to store food and household things etc.

I would love to have chickens, hopefully we will move next year to somewhere bigger and a little more rural and have a bigger space and that could be a reality.

On the lookout for more things to grow for next year, love hearing how everyone’s gardens are going. I find it so exciting, nothing beats your own food from your garden.

I try and teach the kids how to do most things. My parents never taught me anything, not even basic cooking and when I moved out at just turned 19 in with my DH, the two of us were absolutely useless! Today I’m going to make bread and will get the older two involved (11&8).

Busy day in the garden today.
Finally got the greenhouse up and all of us, including the kids, potted the onion, sweetcorn and squash seeds and planted the carrots.
We bought lots of different berry bushes that went in today. Blackberry, red currant, white currant and blueberry.

Peas and beans going in tomorrow and strawberries have been ordered.

It was really nice to spend some time not thinking about coronavirus for once.

We had a garden day too! Increased the size of the veg plot and planted out cabbages and leeks. Brought some bits of buddleia back from a walk in the woods and have stuck them in plastic bags to see if they can be cuttings. Nice to get outside - make such a difference to have the extra space.

I’m finding this thread really soothing even though I’m a truly terrible gardener! Ye have inspired me to plant some seeds to grow carrots, cucumbers, onions and lettuce and I’m waiting for my potatoes to sprout. They’re sitting on my window sill for now until i get the garden sorted out

I’ve really enjoyed the last week at home with the dc, not needing to go anywhere or meet anyone, and finding our rhythm as we attempt to home school. I could take to a hermit lifestyle too easily!

How lovely to see all your mumsnet names and hear your news.

I will restart my lapsed gratitude journal, its definitely a good thing.

Happy growing, baking and bouncing x

Gardening starts apace soon - still a bit chilly here at night.
Year before last veg gardening was great. Last year was bad. Loads of lessons learned.
Started my new thing - fermenting. Carrots and ginger first. At least I'll learn how not to do it if it doesn't work.