Farm and garden Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

Leafy Green Vegetables — The Underrated Heroes of the Garden

By Jackie Clay Issue #104 • March/April, 2007 When you mention "garden," everybody immediately thinks of sweet corn, green beans, and tomatoes, with a few peppers and cucumbers thrown in. But a whole lot of folks,...

Grow Open Pollinated Seeds for Self-Reliant Gardening

By Jackie Clay Issue #56 In the past I've grown hybrid vegetables, mostly the varieties that have been developed to produce early yields. Because of this, I was able to grow things like sweet corn in...

Propagating Grapes

By Sylvia Gist Issue #107 • September/October, 2007 As a kid in western South Dakota, I enjoyed picking wild grapes and using the delightful juice they produced, so when I eventually acquired property in Montana, I...

Caring for your chickens in winter

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson As winter approaches, we all are thinking of ways to make our livestock and poultry as comfortable as possible when the cold weather hits. Visions of blowing and drifting snow swirl in...

Raised Bed Gardening — Neat and Productive

By Alice B. Yeager Issue #74 • March/April, 2002 Are you tired of raising a big row crop gardenone that keeps you busy from dawn until dusk? Do you really need to raise enough vegetables to...

Victory Gardens

By Alice B. Yeager Issue #54 • November/December, 1998 There have been very few times in our nation's history when "We, the people" have banded together so fiercely as we did during World War II. We...

Build a Top-Bar Bee Hive

By Jereme Zimmerman Issue #175 • January/February/March, 2019 My journey to becoming a beekeeper has been a long one, and I’m still not quite there yet. For the past five years or so, I have read...

Rotten Luck: The Skinny on Composting

By Patrice Lewis Issue #141 • May/June, 2013 For much of human history, people have tried to prevent things from rotting. Literally every food preservation method we've come up with in the past few thousand years...

Build a Heated Germination Bed

By Charles Sanders Issue #92 • March/April, 2005 Many of us who garden have learned the benefits of starting our own vegetable and flower plants. There are several benefits to having a spot to start your...

Elderberries — Hospitality, Health, And Beauty

By Gail Butler Issue #124 • July/August, 2010 When friends stop by for a visit I like to offer them a hospitable and healthful libation of elderberry cordial. When served in a small aperitif glass or...

How to Grow Great Carrots

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #153 • May/June, 2015 Carrots are an old-time homesteader favorite. They can be frozen, canned, dehydrated, or simply stored in a cool location. They are nutritious, too, being a great source of beta...

Tomatoes, the Essential Garden Crop

By Charles Sanders Issue #123 • May/June, 2010 Tomatoes are one of the most favored of all garden crops. They originated in South America, but in the early 1500s were taken back to Italy. Today, many...

Gardening the Year ‘Round

By Alice B. Yeager Website Exclusive • September, 2006 Normally, we gardeners tend to make plans to begin planting our gardens during early spring. We select vegetables such as garden peas, lettuce, mustard, radishes, onions, and...

Propagating Plants

By Jackie Clay Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 We all love the idea of having a big, productive garden, full of all the nutritious, tasty foods our hearts desire. But the prices in the nursery catalogs...

Gardening with a Chicken Tractor

By Brianna Stone  Issue #161 • September/October, 2016 This spring, my parents let me enlarge my garlic business and till up three 600-square-foot beds for planting...

Graft Your Own Designer Fruit Trees

By Jackie Clay Issue #121 • January/February, 2010 Although I've been homesteading for more than forty years, there's always something new to learn. (I figure that if I don't learn at least one thing every day,...