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...
Make a quilt out of Levis
By Dorothy Ainsworth
Issue #77 • September/October, 2002
Back in the 80s I worked as a waitress in a busy little café where our mandatory uniform was a pair of Levis and a T-shirt. The only...
Couponing, refunding, and stockpiling will make your money stretch
By Mary Kenyon
Issue #92 • March/April, 2005
Seven years ago, when my brother John helped us move into our current country home, he commented wryly, "If you ever fill those cupboards upstairs I don't want...
Homestead burnout — What it is and how to avoid it
By Jackie Clay-Atkinson
Issue #134 • March/April, 2012
We've all been there: the roof is leaking on your temporary housing while you try to build a start on your new homestead. It's rained for a week...
Build a compost tumbler
By Joe Mooney
Issue #151 • January/February, 2015
A few years back, I caught myself becoming a bit frustrated with my compost pile. It seemed that I just couldn't produce compost as easily as I'd seen...
Beef and Cabbage Soup
Recipe of the Week
Beef and Cabbage Soup
Courtesy of
Troi Young
Ingredients
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 stalks celery, chopped
16 ounces kidney beans, drained
1/2...
Woolen winter mittens in minutes
By Anita Evangelista
Issue #84 • November/December, 2003
There's nothing so comfy and warm in the snowy dead-of-winter as a pair of thick, soft woolen mittens. Many of us have fond childhood memories of a favorite...
A history lesson from Ayn Rand
By Dave Duffy
Issue #44 • March/April, 1997
For the past several weeks I've been reading the Letters of Ayn Rand, which is a collection covering her letters from 1926, when she arrived in America from...
Preserving plums
By Kristina Seleshanko
Issue #171 • May/June, 2018
I’ve read that the Chinese believe plums symbolize good luck; perhaps that’s why plums are one of the most cultivated fruits on earth. (Or maybe it’s just that...
How to select the right backup generator
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #82 • July/August, 2003
Now that the threat of terrorist sabotage to our utility infrastructure has been added to our basic concerns about storm related power outages, this may be...
Hamentaschen
Recipe of the Week
Hamentaschen
Courtesy of
Richard Blunt
You'll find this recipe and over 400 more in Backwoods Home Cooking.Click Here
Ingredients
Cookie dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 lb. margarine
2 Tbsp. honey
2 eggs
grated...
Hunting to Fill the Dinner Pot
By Len McDougall
Issue #110 • March/April, 2008
It was November in northern Michigan, and I was supposed to be deer hunting, but it seemed I'd brought the wrong gun today. The deer I did see...
Drawing the line on timber trespass
By Paul Lamble
Issue #78 • November/December, 2002
Over the 4th of July weekend, my wife and I learned an important lesson the hard way. We live near Kansas City, but for several years we've owned...
Self-reliance for women — Surviving a biochemical attack
By Kelly McCarthy
Issue #94 • July/August, 2005
Three and a half years ago, on the morning of September 11th to be exact, I was just ending a White House tour with my husband, children, and...
Snapping Turtles
By Jason Akers
Issue #136 • July/August, 2012
When the first of the snapping turtles roamed the lands during the Oligocene epoch in the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era some 40 million years ago, they...































