Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Raised Bed Gardening — Neat and Productive

Annie on Everfree Farm, Part I

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...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

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

By Roy Martin Issue #104 • March/April, 2007 A hotbed is a miniature greenhouse that is heated to protect new seedlings from cold. The hotbed differs...

Build a Heated Germination Bed

Use Old Newspapers to Make Your Starter Pots

Green or Yellow: Grow Your Best Bush Beans Ever

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

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

Building and using wattle fences

Tools and hardware for the backwoods home

A house a tornado helped build

Self-Reliance

Woodstove cooking

The raging torrent — Respect it even when you play

By Scott Stoddard Issue #70 • July/August, 2001 Years ago, while learning to sluice gold from a swollen mountain stream in southern California, I saw something...

Harvesting the wild: Acorns

By Jackie Clay Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 When I was just a little girl, I used to collect acorns by the boxfull as they fell...

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: Trees

Gee-Whiz: Insects

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

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

Fried chicken for breakfast

Was the first government gun confiscation attempt foiled by an unsung colonial heroine?

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

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

Firearms

Firearms handling refresher Part I: Handguns

Cold weather shooting considerations

By Massad Ayoob Issue #126 • November/December, 2010 Winter will soon be upon us. Cold weather makes a lot of things more difficult. Running. Walking. Navigating...

Firearms — Tools of rural living

By Massad Ayoob Issue #91 • January/February, 2005 So, editor Dave Duffy and I got to talking about guns. We agreed that for some people they...

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...

Preparedness

Start a fire in any weather

Battery-Powered Tools are Changing

Frostbite — Don’t flirt with this sneaky danger

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Survival storeroom

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

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...