Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Use Plastic to Get a Head Start on Corn in the Fall

Tips for finding your affordable home

Water: a safe supply when you’re off the grid

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Grow some winter squash this year

By Lisa Nourse I love summertime — I love the green of the trees, the warm weather, and growing my own food. I especially love...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow Your Own Dishrags

By Alice B. Yeager Photos by James O. Yeager Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 Some of us are thrifty beyond measure, even growing our own dishrags. None...

Leaf Mold is Another Way to Build Your Soil

Follow Jackie Clay-Atkinson and her husband, Will, as they homestead a 120-acre piece of northern Minnesotan woods entirely off-grid. Sharing their homestead are horses, beef cattle, a milk cow, dairy goats, chickens and turkeys.

Massad Ayoob on Guns

This blog, from a retired police captain and self-defense instructor, covers the use of different firearms, political musings, and self-defense tactics.

Building

PVC pipe in the home, garden, farm, and workshop

Build a Vertical Storage Rack for Cans

Eye-catching signs with mirrors

Make your own lumber with a chainsaw mill

Self-Reliance

Sew a baby quilt in two days… for a lifetime of memories

Building and stocking your pantry

By Jackie Clay Issue #125 • September/October, 2010 At the turn of the 19th century, most country homes had a walk-in pantry, as well as a...

Bath herbs

By Cynthia Andal Issue #86 • March/April, 2004 The visceral pleasure to be gained from drinking wild herbal teas that you have harvested yourself pales in...

Animals

The homestead cat

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson We have had at least one cat in our home ever since I was a young child. So it’s no wonder we...

Cheaper than Store-Bought Eggs

Raising your own beef

Fermenting Chicken Feed

Keeping homestead animals healthy

Science and Education

Gee-Whiz: Bad Fish, Big Fish

The world is coming to an end… and this time, I’m not kidding

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

Energy

Solar power for farm and ranch

By Jeffrey R. Yago, P.E. It may be surprising to learn that there are now all kinds of do-it-yourself solar powered devices specifically designed to...

Power-up bag

Amateur Ham Radio – The Ultimate Tool for Survival Communications

Keep the Ice On

Power Up

Americana and History

The Great Depression — A reminiscence

Quilts — Masterpieces of the heart and windows into women’s history

Biological and chemical weapons through history

Declaration of Independence: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Firearms

How big a gun do you need?

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

By Massad Ayoob Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Long a supporter of the Appleseed concept, Backwoods Home Magazine hosted one in Gold Beach, Oregon, in second...

How to shoot a handgun accurately

By Massad Ayoob Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 "I want you to do an article on how to shoot a handgun accurately," Dave Duffy told me....

Understanding the gun debate, part 3

By Massad Ayoob Issue #163 • January/February, 2017 Click Here to read Part 1 Click Here to read Part 2 As noted in the two previous parts of...

Preparedness

Battery-Powered Tools are Changing

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

Moving on: A small town can be a haven during a depression

Caring for wounds in the field

Bartering for bad times

Articles By Dave Duffy

My View: Call Me Miracle Man!

By Dave Duffy Issue #177 • July/August/September, 2019 Superheroes are the rage these days at movie theaters. Even I am fascinated by them. Old style heroes...