Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

An Introduction to Small-Scale Home Hydroponics

Build a cistern out of corrugated road culvert

Vermicomposting — Raise Worms to Consume Waste, Amend Soil, and Earn Income

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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...

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

The Homestead Greenhouse

By Charles Sanders Issue #67 • January/February, 2001 For those of us living close to the land, the production of a dependable and healthful food supply...

Seven tactics for planning next year’s garden

Green or Yellow: Grow Your Best Bush Beans Ever

Start a Self-Sufficiency Garden Even in a Cramped Apartment

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

Shake update

Build a homestead Copy Cart

Build a Composter

Build a Heated Germination Bed

Self-Reliance

Food security 101: part 2

Make a Quick and Easy Tipi

By Bob Van Putten Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 The native peoples of North America were a very practical lot. Over the centuries they developed some...

Your kitchen pharmacy — How common culinary herbs and spices can help you feel...

By Rebekah L. Cowell Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 In a perfect world, we would get all the nutrients and medication we needed from the food...

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: Alcohol

Gee-Whiz: Trees

Avian Flu — How afraid of this

Theories of the universe

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 gee-whiz! page: Animals, humans, extraterrestrials, and tools

Remembering what grandma used

Fried chicken for breakfast

The time-travel ad

Firearms

Reload your own brass

Just because

By Massad Ayoob Issue #144 • November/December, 2013 I generally recommend that people buy guns the way they'd buy power tools, or automobiles, or homes. Assess...

An economical battery of guns for the backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 Everything's getting more expensive. Food. Gasoline. Guns and ammunition. Not everyone who appreciates the rural lifestyle was "born...

Moderate power firearms

By Massad Ayoob Issue #110 • March/April, 2008 Robert Ruark, the great American writer of the mid-Twentieth Century, was also a big game hunter. One of...

Preparedness

No dentist? Oh, no!

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Avoiding heat illness

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

Building and stocking your pantry

Why you need to addsolar to your emergencypower backup plans

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...