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 🏡

For winter I have kale, broccoli and pumpkin so far, I will also do some onions and possibly parsnips and sprouts if I can clear a bit more space. I've never gardened over winter before so it's new for me

I was wondering if anyone has ever grown Artichoke? I have a new border in my garden and was thinking about growing a perennial veg instead of just plants.

I'd be interested in others experiences

I have one in my border. It's HUGE. Not to be attempted unless you have lots of space for it.

Aah, that's good to know, thank you. I have a decent amount of space but not sure I want to use it all in one plant! do you have any other suggestions for edible perennials?

My artichoke is about three feet wide and nearly six feet tall.

I don't know about perennial veg really, sorry. I do have a patch of the border devoted to herbs and things like chives, thyme and oregano just come up every year. It is so much cheaper than supermarket herbs so that would be my recommendation. Also they smell nice.

I've not had much luck with asparagus, but it was some years ago. My current succesful perennials are horseradish, fruit (rhubarb, fruit bushes) and herbs (rosemary, bay, sage, mint have been robust survivors over the winter. Also loveage, which I suppose is a herb but I find is very versatile - we do a potato and lovage soup which goes down well.

Have you thought about looking into permaculture? It's on my to do list, and seems to be based on setting things up once in a proper system and leaving them to it. A basic resource may have perennial or self-seeding suggestions.

I'm trying perennial kale and spinach this year. I love eating both so I'm hoping for success.

Hello everyone, I was on the prepping for pandemic threads but dropped off for a while. I’m realising now that this is going to be a long term kind of thing so am looking to do a few more permanent style things than just keeping stores up.

We’ve got a tiny little backyard with no grass but DPis spending this lockdown redoing it so have potential for a few planters and window boxes. I’ve earmarked the boxes for herbs like mint (for mojitos- something I’ve realised is an essential over the last few weeks!!) and will plant coriander and chives too. I’ve been keeping the ends of my spring onions and am planting those too.

I’m also going to try making my own yoghurt too, does that count as homesteading?

Hello I've been following the prepper boards for a while (brexit & pandemic) and they've been a life saver. I've been a low level prepper for a while due to where I live & niggling health.

My garden isn't suitable for growing anything as the soil is too hard so I'm growing in pots instead. Mainly salad, summer veg & tomatoes to keep me out of the shops. I'm researching winter vegetables and what if anything can be grown in grow bags or pots. If not, I'll stock up on lots of frozen and tinned veg mixed with whatever is available fresh.

I think I’m going to have a google later and see if I can find an idiots guide to what to plant when I’m a fairly intelligent adult but, for some reason, I’m terrified of gardening!!

I'm the same Aloha! It always sounds so complicated I'm a definite novice when it comes to gardening. Herbs I've had success with have been rosemary, chives and mint. I've just planted outside coriander so I hope that will add to my collection.

Iloveparmaviolets I've had success growing potatoes in grow bags. I cut them in half vertically and stand them on their end. You might be able to grow other root veg in the same way?

@Rowdythree thank you for the potato advice, I've planted some old spuds in an old carrier bag for life. Hopefully they will give me a new crop of potatoes and I can plant another bag next week. I might do butternut squash and perpetual spinach as well.

I’ve just chopped some veg for tea and I’ve kept the root end of an onion and a swede. The swede already has a green shoot showing... can I just plant the onion and swede and they grow from there?

I don't know about onions and swede, but I've done similar with garlic and potatoes. Why not give it a go and see what happens? Or hopefully someone that knows will roll up and proclaim their knowledge!

Oooh have you done it with garlic? What does the plant look like?

I've done it with spring onions and garlic, also celery but that wasn't successful, although that might have just been me you could try putting them in water for a few days and see if any roots develop

I’ve got a lovely little staggered crop of spring onions that are doing well from the ends I’ve collected and I’m so excited about those I think I’ll just do as you said and stick everything I have in water for a bit and see what happens!

I meant to pick up live yoghurt this week as a starter to making my own, but forgot. I go through a bit of yoghurt because someone had a recipe for labneh, homemade cheese, on here that I’ve made every week since. It’s like Philadelphia, which I love but would never buy as it seems a bit of a luxury! But it’s cheaper and incredibly low calorie... so my thinking is it’s cheaper to make my own yoghurt and then Male the labneh from that.

I Also made my own butter last week, as so far cream is cheaper than butter, so I’m glad to know that I have another option if that makes sense.

Wow Aloha! That's awesome. We don't eat dairy so I don't think I can make my own marg, I've tried to make dairy free yoghurt from cultures but it didn't work out, it's really difficult to do! If anyone can offer advice on this I'd appreciate it.

I've just watered my garden and noticed I have several self seeding potatoes in random places in the garden, and also something that looks like a squash seedling. So I'll let them grow and see what happens

It’s so nice to see Homesteading Home being tended. I’m having rather a difficult time but growing stuff is still helping me cope.

If you’re new to growing maybe growing potatoes in some kind of tub or bag would work for you? I hope this is a Spud bag pic to illustrate what I mean. It’s a bit misleading and you don’t need a fancy bag but it gives you an idea of what I mean.

I’m starting to sprout mung beans indoors again, easy cheap and fun. Lentils and other things work too if you haven’t got beans.

Best wishes to all 🌱

Thinking of you, Neome. I hope your tough time gets better soon.

Thank you Neome. I hope the difficulties ease with time.

I've used a sainsbury's bag for life for my spuds. I pierced a few drainage holes at the bottom & they seem to be doing OK. Green shoots have sprouted at the top & I've been watering it regularly.

I may imitate the bag for life spud method with some left over seed potatoes. Ive been planting courgettes directly into compost bags (drainage holes made and compost de lumped) to make use of an area that can't be planted directly.

Do hope everyone is ok 🌺

Wilko sell grow bags for £3, there's nothing on the packaging to say there's two bags in there, but there are two. I've got potatoes, runner beans, french beans and squash happily growing in them.

Good luck with the bags for life spuds. Lots of my spuds are almost ready to harvest so I'll have to start some more off ready for autumn.

Today I've planted cabbage, parsnip, celeriac and swede seeds and cleared space in one of my raised beds. I also have cauliflower seeds to plant in a few weeks.

I'm pleased with how my garden is doing, we've had a lovely ceaser salad for dinner tonight picked from the garden. I just need to make sure I don't lose momentum and make sure I'm always thinking of the next thing to grow.

Hope everyone is well.

Hello Homesteaders. Lovely thread thank you @Neome.

I have managed to create a growing space reusing some old planters that my dad made from decking boards. So far I have mixed lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and mange tout growing.

We have a small garden but just before Xmas the DD’s trampoline was blown over in a storm and was badly damaged. They weren’t fussed for another one so by not replacing this I have got myself a small growing space.