Homesteading Guide Blog

Natural Health Remedies: Homesteading Alternative To The Chemist

Herbal medicine has many supporters. It also has many detractors that claim it is hocus pocus and witchcraft (of course, many of these people are also in the industry sponsored by large drug companies). Whatever your view on natural medicines, it cannot be denied that not very many years ago herbal medicines were the only alternative and this had been the case for thousands of years.

The great thing for people involved in urban homesteading is that many of these herbal medicines are made from plants that require very little space to grow. This places natural remedies within reach of most people. If you save yourself one trip to the chemist each year your home herbal garden will probably have paid for itself.

Some natural health remedies can be as simple as applying egg whites to burns, or yoghurt to sunburn, while others may involve more exotic concoctions of wild plant extracts. What they have in common is that they are natural products working in natural ways. The alternative is chemically modified substances working in non-natural ways that often create more problems than they solve further down the road.

If using natural health remedies to cure ailments is a step too far for your comfort zone at the moment you can begin by using herbal prevention. One simple step you can take is to cut back on coffee and start drinking green tea. While coffee is natural, and in small doses can be beneficial to performance, the over-all effect that coffee has on your body is negative. Green tea has quite the opposite effect. It is a great source of natural alkaline intake which creates in your body a bacteria fighting environment and boosts your immunity.

Garlic, Cinnamon, Mustard, and Horse Radish are all renown for their ability to fight the bad guys and build your immunity. Increasing these foods in your diet will aid your ability to fight coughs and flues over the winter period.

If you haven’t got green fingers, or don’t have access to a supply of natural herbs then you can buy fresh mountain grown herbs and herbal remedies from Spirit Horse Herbals. Having personally sampled their product I can vouch for their professional presentation and mountain fresh fragrance combined with very friendly service.

However you go about it, we at HomesteadingGuide.com want to encourage you to trying natural health remedies as part of your healthy living choice. Your body and our planet will thank you for it.

Best Tasting Eggs – What To Feed Your Chickens

In The News

What do you feed chickens to get the best tasting eggs?

Home grown free-range eggs are always going to taste better than factory produced eggs, that goes without saying. But is true that feeding chickens the right food will make a great tasting egg even better?

Nina Lalli of peebottlefarms fame believes there is a difference in chicken diets that gives some eggs a superior taste. When exploring the options of the ideal diet she considered such things as:

A carnivorous diet
Dried whole corn and grains
Pasture supplemented food
Dry grass, legume hay, kelp meal, and fermented hay
Fish oil and fish meal

The basis for the carnivorous diet stems from the fact that chickens when left to forage for themselves naturally eat worms and bugs which are very high in protein. This could be why free range chickens have the best tasting eggs. Or as Dan Barber, chef and farmer, states “We just don’t know what exactly happens when chickens are able to forage outside, and express their full chicken-ness. Maybe it’s the moon, maybe it’s the attitude of the flock.” So maybe there is more than just diet that contributes to the flavor of the eggs.

The color of the egg can be influenced by the chicken’s diet which is why some farmers feed their chickens a diet of marigolds. The marigold translates into a richer colored egg yolk. Other farmers feed the chickens a diet high in corn or alfalfa because that makes a yellower egg yolk. Rob Thompson of the Center for Discovery in N.Y. believes that egg color was greatly influenced by the quality of supplemental feeding in winter.

For the full discussion check out Nina’s post, but the long and short of it was that she decided more testing needed to be done in her Brooklyn homestead farm.

The Chicken Feeding View Of Homesteading Guide

Natural is best!
We run our chickens free range because we have the space to do so. They have the run of almost quarter of an acre fenced off for their benefit. It is in grass and has numerous fruit trees growing in the pen as well. When the grass gets out of hand the sheep go in and help eat the grass down. The chickens also get table scraps and some chicken pellets when there is little or no other food to supplement their foraging.

Not having had the famed Italian eggs that Nina was comparing hers to, but I can say that our chickens produce a pretty tasty egg. Is it the diet, the happy disposition or breeding of the chickens, or is it a photosynthesis reaction from the sun? – I cannot say. But the balanced and healthy diet leads to healthy chickens which would surely be a strongly contributing factor in the flavor of the eggs.

If you have other opinions or evidence please let us know. We love to hear the experience of our homesteading friends.

Rooftop Urban Farming – Hydroponic Gardens With Zero Food Miles

In The News

Food miles could be a thing of the past with cities growing their own food supplies on rooftops and in unused lots. Volkmar Keuter of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology in the German town of Oberhausen is exploring the potential of cities to grow their own food.

Keuter has come up with a number of radical ideas that could change the way we design cities in the future. He suggests such things as:

Heat from industrial installations being harnessed for green houses in the winter.
Rooftop Hydroponics NY
Treating and sanitizing waste water from buildings to feed crops.
Recycling the nutrients in sewage and waste water as fertilizer.
Hydroponic systems that measure electrical conductivity of their plants’ water for optimum rates of fertilizer.
Even creating multi story green house buildings.

For the full story on urban farming slashing food miles read the article at dw-world.de. It is a thought provoking examination of the way we do cities and how we might do them differently in a environmental responsible future.

Inner city gardening and food miles from the perspective of Homesteading Guide.

Hydroponics are an excellent way of producing food in the inner city when “dirt” is at a premium. A lot of the water that falls, or is used, within cities is flushed straight out to sea (or into rivers) via the waste water systems. Using that waste water to produce food helps the environment in many ways. It helps reduce the demand for water both in the city and in rural areas trying to supply enough food to feed the cities.

Having more vegetation in cities will create a more oxygen rich environment aiding the health of urban dwellers. Food miles become irrelevant as food is grown and supplied within walking distance. And lets face it, nature is a lot prettier than the concrete monstrosities that we create – so the mental health and stress levels of city people will improve as they are surrounded by fresh green gardens. Homesteading and urban rooftop gardens are the way forward.

Inner City Gardens: Growing Food On A Balcony

In The News

When it comes to urban homesteading most people living in apartments rule themselves out. However, there is a growing trend (pardon the pun) of balcony gardens designed to produce a rich harvest. The Edible Balcony a new book by Indira Naidoo

Naidoo’s story began at the Sydney Farmers Market where a stall holder offered her a cherry tomato as the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Indira Naidoo popped it in her mouth and kept walking. “But when I bit into it, it tasted like a bite of candy,” says the former ABC and SBS newsreader. “It was just so sweet and so juicy. I could taste Turkish delight and toffee apple. I thought, ‘Hang on, where did that tomato come from?'” Naidoo turned on her heel to ask the stallholder where she could buy them. “He said, ‘You can’t. But you can save some seeds and grow your own”

Featuring 60 delicious recipes showcasing her home-grown produce, plus plenty of practical advice, The Edible Balcony charts a year in the life of Indira's balcony garden and gives a season-by-season account of the triumphs and challenges she faces. This warm and engaging book will inspire even the most reluctant green thumbs to channel their inner gardeners and reconnect with nature, while also saving money and reducing their carbon footprint.

From that Epiphany in the Farmers Market to growing a fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruit on her thirteenth story balcony and now releasing her own book, Naidoo has joined the many other urban homesteaders on a quest to become as self sustainable as possible

Naidoo describes how she could have been like many others who dream of one day having a garden by which they can sustain themselves, however, they take no action because their living situation is not suitable. She encourages you start today by planting the space you have available. Even thirteen stories up Naidoo has managed to grow tomatoes, capsicums, zucchini, eggplants, carrots, mushrooms, rocket, lettuce, all manner of herbs and even a curry leaf tree in pots.

What we think at HomesteadingGuide.com

It is too easy to come up with excuses as to why you can’t grow healthy home-grown produce, but apartment dwelling examples like that of Naidoo show that we are all capable of doing something toward sustainable living. Take a step in the right direction by turning your balcony into a veritable garden of abundance and health. Your taste buds will delight in flavours you never existed from commercially harvested “fresh” produce.

Surprise your friends with culinary treats whipped up from your own garden – see if they don’t stare with amazement at your green fingers.

Carnivorous Plants: Insect Eating Plant Fly Traps

Gardening TIps

What Are Carnivorous Plants?

Carnivorous plants, or flesh eating plants, are natures natural insecticide. Although they are not quite the monsters that science fiction portrays carnivorous plants are finely tuned killing machines. Each variety of these insect eating plants has very specialized ways of trapping a particular insect group, and some even target slightly bigger prey. They feed off the nutrients from the trapped prey to supplement the traditionally poor soil that they grow in.

The Carnivorous Pitcher Plant — Pitcher Plant - Carnivorous Fly Eating Plant

Why Choose A Carnivorous Plant?

One of the main reasons I chose to grow these plants is because anything that eats insects is in my book a great thing. Not only does make for a more pleasant living environment when it is insect free, it is actually quite entertaining watching the plants eat flies and insects. My children have been keeping a track of all the flies eaten and checking on the plants is one of the first things they do when they get home from school.

So you have entertainment value, and you have cost effectiveness. Compared to the cost of insecticides and fly spray the insect eating plants soon pay for themselves. They require very little attention to grow. Carnivorous plants do not require fertilizer, and in fact applying fertilizer will probably kill them. They do like water, as the majority of them (certainly the ones native to New Zealand) are swamp plants.

The third reason to choose a carnivorous plant is health related. Natural pyrethrin or not, the fact you have to cover goldfish bowls and remove other pets from any room being fly sprayed suggests chemical methods of insect control are detrimental to good health. There are even some reports of people and animals contracting neuro-muscular degenerative diseases from contact with pyrethrin (which attacks the nervous system).

Caring For Carnivorous Plants

Sundew Carnivorous Plant — Sundew Insect Eating Plant

The soil conditions are the most crucial aspect of carnivorous plant care. They like an acidic soil and Peat or Sphagnum moss are an ideal soil base. If the moss is rotten or smells then the plant needs re-potting.

Water is the next most essential element to keeping your plant healthy. During the summer months the plant must not be allowed to dry out, and sitting the pot in a water bath is a good way to ensure ample moisture. Do not soak the pot too deep in water (about 1cm is ideal for most small pots) as this will rot the soil. In winter apply just enough water to keep the soil damp.

Sunlight and plenty of it keeps your carnivorous plant looking healthy. They like ample amounts of sun, and a lot of sappy growth is an indicator of insufficient sunlight.

That is all that is required to grow healthy carnivorous plants. Do NOT fertilize the plant as this will burn their roots and kill them.

Climate conditions for growing carnivorous plants: as already stated they like plenty of sunlight. However, this does not mean that they are not a hardy winter plant. In the winter the plants will go into dormancy and can handle a frosty out-door environment.

Allowing your plants do to die back in the winter will ensure a healthy growth in the spring. Artificially promoting growth over the winter months will eventually weaken and potentially kill the plant. The Pitcher plant stems may be cut back at this time of year.

For more detailed information on carnivorous plant care you can download this free PDF brochure from a Christchurch carnivorous plant supplier

http://www.florax.co.nz/cmscontent/File/Plants/Carnivorous_Plant_Brouchure.pdf

Carnivorous Fly Trap Pitcher Plant — A Living Fly Trap - Pitcher Plant

Urban Homesteading Bee Keeping

In The News

Bee Keeping is the latest craze in urban homesteading in Britain.

Rooftop beehives are the new “chicken coop” as urban dwellers attempt to combat the falling local bee populations.

urban bee keeping — Bee Keeping Picture by The Telegraph

The added bonus it the free honey the bees produce, but the real drive is to encourage pollination of the local plant life.

The shrinking bee population is a world wide phenomenon with the increase in herbicides and insecticides along with the destruction of the natural bee habitat. In central London alone there are over 2,500 hives and more than 700 beekeepers. Not to be out-done the queen also has her own beehives.

The rooftop apiary craze is spreading across the USA also, despite a failed bid by the New York city authorities to ban rooftop beekeeping.

Join the global push to repopulate the bees of the world and future proof pollination of our plant species for generations to come.

Source http://ecosalon.com/chim-chimney-beekeeping-the-new-homesteading-287/