Category: Sustainable Agriculture

I Hated the 9-5 RAT RACE | Now I Homestead

Many years ago I left the city life and the rat race to homestead in an ecovillage in rural Missouri. Now I set my own schedule as a digital homesteader, working part time to make ends meet while I grow as much of my own food as possible.

In so many homesteading videos they seem to talk about their gardens and give you a tour, but rarely do they seem to show you what they’re actually harvesting and eating. Many will also exaggerate the amount of food they’re growing for themselves. I don’t do that. I’ll show you what I harvest and I’ll be realistic about the limits of what I can produce for myself.

I always hope my videos will give inspiration to some to ditch the 9-5 and live a simpler life off the land. And don’t forget to cooperate with your neighbors because it’s impossible to go it alone.

#selfsufficiency #homesteading #sustainableliving #ditchthe9to5 #ecovillage

Most OFF-GRID Homesteaders Get This Wrong




Someone I live with at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage calls off-grid homesteading a Ponzi scheme. I’ve often thought the same thing. Because our crazy consumer society is so destructive both personally and environmentally, because we are made to feel like just numbers working our lives away until we die, a lot of people are understandably attracted to this way of life that we’re told involves disconnecting, living off the land, living a peaceful, easier life in the country away from the hustle and bustle of society and the city.

And most of what we see in the advertising and propaganda about off-grid homesteading is praising a life of rugged individualism, making do by yourself, free from grid dependence, producing your own electricity, heat, water, and food.

But is it real? Can it really be done? Or do the majority of people fail at this or live miserable lives because they can’t produce all these things for themselves? Do they actually end up disconnecting from the grid, or do they just connect to the grid in a slightly different way? Are they being made to feel like failures if they can’t make it alone in the wilderness, or is this an unrealistic expectation set for them by the propaganda that attracts them to the life in the first place?

I think off grid homesteading is very possible, and a lot more of those who take the plunge into this lifestyle would succeed if they just stop listening to this one bit of the propaganda, if they stopped making this same mistake that is based on one major aspect of the romance of off-grid homesteading.

A TRICK to Get HUGE Second Broccoli Heads

Gardeners who love broccoli wait months to get that big delicious head. And broccoli plants take up a LOT of space in the garden for what they produce if you are only going to harvest one head. But once you’ve harvested that first head, you don’t have to pull out the plants, and you don’t have to be relegated to tiny little side shoot florets that are mostly leaf. In this video, I show you a trick to getting HUGE second, third, fourth, etc, heads throughout the season off the same broccoli plant.

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Double Your Grape Vines in a Couple Months With This Method | 100% Success Rate

Grape cuttings are usually rooted using dormant cuttings taken in the fall or winter. These are great and can have a success rate of 70% or so in ideal conditions, but there’s another way to have 100% success and get rooted cuttings in just a month. And it’s easier than any other kind of grape propagation. In this video, I’ll show you the few easy steps to make layered grape cuttings.

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Permaculture in an Organic Vineyard at a Radical Ecovillage

I live in what is probably North America’s most radical ecovillage, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. I moved here over 15 years ago to live in the country closer to the land, and to devote my life to reducing my impact on the planet.

Spring is the time for getting the garden in. Part of my garden is in my organic vineyard. I don’t just grow grapes. I grow cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and melons between my grape vines. And in the past few years I’ve also been growing perennial flowers to provide an additional cash crop from the space. I use comfrey within the rows of grapes to smother the grasses and other weeds that would otherwise rob the grapevines of water and nutrients. Most vineyards would just spray herbicide to control the weeds. Permaculture is possible even in a vineyard.

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