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 🏡

It’s lovely to picture everyone’s growing spaces and thank you for the tips! Eating food I have grown is very good for my mental health and when my 6 year old occasionally joins in with weeding, watering or harvesting I feel I’m passing on important experience.

This week I’ve been looking ahead to another homesteading activity - sewing.

My mum made, mended and lengthened a lot of clothes for us when I was growing up. I need to dust off those skills and organise my stash of cloth and old clothes that can be upcycled. It’s a perfect winter activity and if I plan ahead a little I should have a working sewing machine and other elements in place for the days when outdoor gardening isn’t my chief homesteading activity.

I've been doing a bit of gardening (mostly pottering tbh) early morning and late evening because it's been too hot for me during the day. I've missed my sleep, but have enjoyed the quiet time, mostly to myself. Then I skulk inside like a vampire until the heat of the day has passed. We've managed to get the house quite cool and shady with blinds, through-drafts and frozen milkbottles (with water, not milk) in buckets in strategic positions.

I’m also keeping an eye out for good blackberry picking spots when I am out dog walking.

Our plum tree is laden with fruit too so I have high hopes for lots of crumble filling and some jam.

We had a brilliant blackberry picking spot in a field just up the road. The field belongs to a caravan park and they have now closed it except for visitors to the caravan site. I'm most upset as it's a great dog walking place too...need to look for a new blackberry place now

@Rowdythree dawn raid for blackberries?

Ha ha, yes I could go in disguise 😆

Just found a local cherry tree and I'm so excited. Need to work out how to reach the cherries but I managed to get one today and it was delicious. Also made rhubarb blondies with homegrown rhubarb and there were great. I love having the time to homestead.

I picked a cabbage from my garden yesterday which was too big to eat all at once, so Shredded, blanched and froze the rest.

allmyfavouritepeople is there a map with free food local to you? My town has produced a foraging map, which shows all the community orchards and odd bits like nut trees that are on common land. I love the idea.

I seem to recall fruit picking nets a bit like kids fishing nets, Ill have a google

Looks like a proper preppers solution 🙂

A foraging map sounds ideal. I will get googling. As for the home made fruit picker, that's genius!
Managed to get quite a few cherries by jumping and grabbing branches today!

If you have a local transitions towns group, they often have maps of local fruit/nut trees etc. Sadly we don't have one here, but they were a good resource where we used to live.

Hello homesteaders whether growing in pots or fields, I’m starting to think about autumn bed preparation and mulching.

I hope you are all well and as happy as possible given everything 🍅🍓🥗

Hello all. We've started picking plums and blackberries here. Just the beginning of the harvest so I'll be preserving soon. I always just stew plums and freeze them for crumbles or to have on porridge. Any other brilliant ideas for preserving them? Same for apples, I always resort to stewing then freezing in small portions.
I'm going to make elderberry cordial for the first time too (hopefully adding a bit extra vit c to our diet over winter). I've made rosehip syrup in the past but don't have a ready supply of hips anymore.
I've also bought a spare freezer which I'll fill with batch cooks and fruit. May have to investigate a small generator too as we are rural and had power cuts last winter.

One more thought, I normally leave all the hazel nuts for the wildlife, but I'm thinking of harvesting some this year. I'd love some ideas of how to make use of them!

I've just read the thread properly. @Neome I'm so sorry to read about your dad, I hope you are doing okay

Hello all homesteaders. Hoping that summer has been peaceful for you all. Giving crab apple jelly a go this afternoon - never tried it before, but thought it was a good year to attempt to use our crab apples instead of picking them up off the ground and wishing it was a proper apple tree. I dream of a cooker tree. Our pears have been a disaster this year and barely any cherry plums. But soft fruit has been brill and autumn raspberries are just beginning.

I think I have found a damson tree in nearby woods - has anyone used these?