Prepped Living Blog

Christmas tree display in a nearby town As promised in my newsletter, we have put together a gift guide for those who have preparedness, self-sufficiency, and homesteading on their mind. We hope this gives you some ideas for useful gifts that will last for years. Prepped Living Gift Guide Note: Some of these links are affiliate links. As an affiliate, we may earn from qualifying purchases. Any earnings help to support our website and blog. Thank you for your support. Essential Resources – I found these books to be so incredibly helpful that I created an affiliate link for each of them. While some of these are available in digital format, I recommend having a hard copy on your shelf. Even if you are on grid and don’t live where the electricity goes out on occasion, you just never know… The Self-Sufficient Backyard – There is a review of this book on our website (see here). I use this book as my main resource for all projects related to self-sufficiency, preparedness, and homest

  Homemade Laundry Soap   We finally got to the end of our bucket of laundry soap, so Saturday was the day to replenish our supply. I used the same recipe we have used for the past several years. It is low-tox, easy, and quick to make. You can find the instructions on our website here . This time, instead of adding tea tree oil like I usually do, I used rosemary oil, which also has anti-microbial properties. I like to keep a small bottle of laundry soap on hand as a back up just in case I pack the laundry downstairs only to find the soap bucket empty - as I did on Saturday. I found this brand that I like really well. It has only five ingredients and yet seems to work quite well. Another Jean Quilt in the Works I also spent some time on Saturday cutting out blocks for another jean quilt. I finally have enough pieces for the jean side and have just started cutting strips to make blocks for the other side. I have made a quilt of some kind for each of our children - regular quilts for the

Wrapping up this year : I started the week by adding more dirt and compost to our garden beds and planting some garlic. This is my first time planting garlic in the raised beds. I planted them according to directions I found on the internet - about 1" deep - and then covered it with mulch. I am hoping for a good crop since garlic is not only wonderful to have in the kitchen for seasoning, but is also a great herbal aid for fighting colds, flu, etc. I also collected a few ground cherries that were ready.  We have so many more this year than we did last year, though I suppose it isn't difficult to top the two lone cherries we harvested previously! (I did say this is a space to share successes AND failures!) This variety of ground cherry is supposed to have a pineapple flavor, but my first bite tasted buttery, like shortbread, before evolving into a more fruity flavor.  It is such a fun plant to harvest. Have you tried these? They look like a tomatillo plant and are harvested in

Last week I spent a bit of time tidying up the garden for fall. I gave my tarragon and mint their last trim for the year.  I bundled the bounty and hung it in the attic to dry along with some dill.  I had three nice bundles of orange mint, two smaller bundles of tarragon, and one of dill. I also filled the dehydrator with borage, winter savory, oregano, and mullein. I gathered some seed from the nasturtiums, dill, cilantro, and calendula. I then picked the ripe tomatoes and pulled the onions. What did well in our garden this year? Our tarragon produced very well. I think this was my third or fourth cutting of this year.  I am pleased we have enough to share with the girls and a couple of friends as well. The orange mint I planted last year also produced well as did the dill, pepper plants, and the nasturtium. We were pleased to have a nice crop of potatoes, too. The potatoes produced well for the 3 foot by 3 foot area we planted (we were following the square foot garden method).  I lef

I love to experiment with new recipes, different methods of preservation, and ways to avoid waste.  Here are last week's efforts: Water Glassing Eggs  I finally tried water glassing eggs this past week.  I read about this method of preserving eggs a long time ago, but I needed to get unwashed farm fresh eggs in order to try it AND I needed to have enough eggs on hand to not cut us short in our weekly egg usage (we eat a lot of eggs throughout the week). Last week was finally the week. I got the pickling lime I had been saving for this purpose out of storage, picked out the cleanest unwashed eggs I had purchased from some friends down the road, and preserved 18 eggs in a gallon sized glass jar.  I followed the instructions from The Prairie Homestead, which can be found here . Why preserve eggs in this manner? Since we do not have our own chickens, we rely upon a couple of friends having extra eggs to sell. I wanted to preserve some eggs for those times when we cannot get them fresh