Growing an Herbal Pharmacy

Did you know that you can grow most of the herbs you need to keep you healthy and to treat minor illnesses? Here are some great suggestions to grow your own medicine cabinet:

Herbs have been used for healing purposes for thousands of years. Herbs also form the basis for many of our prescription medications today. It's easy to grow your own herbal pharmacy and you'll be ready the next time you have a headache or a cut or burn . 


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Gardening with Kids: How to Grow Your Own Pizza Garden

A fun project for families and a great way to show kids where food REALLY comes from!

One very entertaining and educational activity to share with your child is to plant a vegetable garden. What makes it more fun is to give the garden a theme, in this case, growing a pizza garden. 



You don't need to have a half acre of farmable land in order to grow vegetables. Setting up a few pots on your patio will give you all of the ingredients you need to grow your own pizza garden. Your first step will be listing out those ingredients that you and your kids like to have on pizza. Do this planning stage together and it will get the kids more involved in "their" pizza garden project. 


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How to Make the Most Out of Your Big-Box Club Memberships

There are certain staples that we will always need to buy from the store unless we are completely self-sufficient. Here's how to pay the least for them:

Buying a membership to a big-box club store such as Sam's Club or Costco may seem like a great money-saving idea. Unfortunately, most big-box shoppers don't know if they are actually saving money. Follow these tips to maximize the money you save on big-box purchases. 


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Growing Heirlooms: All About Hutterite Soup Beans

The Hutterites were an Anabaptist break-away group established in Moravia under the leadership of Jakob Hutter in 1529. In 1874, a colony of Hutterites emigrated to the United States from Russia, fleeing religious in-fighting and external persecution. 


Colonies of Hutterites still live in South Dakota today, but more than 75% live in Western Canada, where many emigrated in 1918, after a violent incident where two sect members were killed by the U.S. military. 


When the Hutterites came to North America, they brought with them the seeds they knew how to grow and that they knew would sustain them. One of those was what is now known as the heirloom Hutterite Soup Bean. 


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Growing Heirloom Tomatoes: With a Mediterranean Summer Salad Recipe

Growing heirloom tomatoes in your home garden is one of the easiest and tastiest projects imaginable. The tomatoes that you can buy in the grocery store have been bred specifically for their ability to be shipped without damage all over the world. They are frequently picked green then sprayed with ethylene gas to finish the appearance of ripening. Home-grown tomatoes, however, especially heirloom varieties that have been grown in back yards for hundreds of years, can be picked at the absolute pinnacle of ripeness and enjoyed immediately. 


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Growing Heirlooms: Moon & Stars Watermelon

One of my favorite summer plantings!

Growing watermelons is amazingly fun and satisfying and easy enough for the novice gardener. The watermelon variety "Moon & Stars" is a variety that was originally introduced commercially in 1920 as "Sun, Moon, and Stars" but was growing in American family gardens for decades before that. In the 1970s, Kent Whealy of the Seed Savers Exchange began a long search for this reputedly delicious and easy to grow melon. For several years, his search was futile and he concluded that this heritage watermelon was lost forever.


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