Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

In the classroom and at home, this system will help you grow self-reliant kids

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

Plant Your Irish Potatoes This Fall or Winter

By Robert L. Williams Issue #48 • November/December, 1997 My family has made a practice of planting Irish potatoes in the fall rather than in the...

Garden Seeds — A Great Winter Pastime

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

We built John Silveira’s chicken coop/garden

Build a chicken house in a day

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

Building and using wattle fences

Self-Reliance

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

Digging a shallow well

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #165 • May/June, 2017 When we first looked at the land which is now our off-grid homestead, the realtor mumbled an apology...

Avoiding heat illness

By Dr. Gary F. Arnet Drink early and often to avoid dehydration. The body normally needs two to three...

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

The coming ice age

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

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

Zombie Apocalypse

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

George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance

Who were the best…and worst U.S. Presidents?

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

Remembering what grandma used

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...

1911: The classic homeland security pistol

By Massad Ayoob Issue #83 • September/October, 2003 If you've read American firearms history at all, you know the lore of the .45 automatic. How during...

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

Keep the Ice On

Medical kits for self-reliant families

Caring for wounds in the field

Power-up bag

Food security 101

Preparedness for travelers

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...