Celebrate the Harvest

Homesteader’s Supply and Countryside & Small Stock Journal invite you to preserve the harvest and reap the many gifts the earth provides this time of year. Click on the photo or link above to enter.

This week’s prizes are a one-year subscription to Countryside & Small Stock Journal, a FD-61 food dehydrator, and a box of Pomona pectin.

Enter weekly to win a prize package from one of our sustainable living sponsors. Your weekly entry will also be included in the grand prize drawing (value of $5,000) in September!

Summer Money Saving Tips

I’ve been thinking about my plans for the homestead a lot lately. It’s been more than a year since we moved to Tennessee to homestead and operate Homesteader’s Supply. With such a long list of things to do, money has to be part of the plan. What can we do on the homestead without spending a ton of money this summer? Plenty! We shared Money Saving Tips for Homesteaders last winter, and a second part, More Money Saving Tips for Homesteaders. And now, more ideas! Summer money saving tips.

Summer Money Saving Tips

1. Eat what you have and avoid the grocery store. Seasonal eating is your chance to gorge on what’s ripe now. I’m a little tired of rhubarb but now that the strawberries are starting to ripen and show up at farmers market, I can add a little variety. The garden is doing well. We’ll probably all be tired of eating the same things often before the next fruit or vegetable is ripe, but we can change it up. Try new recipes. Put up what you can for winter.
2. Buy seconds from local farmers. You might save a few more dollars if you can pick the fruit or vegetable, or at least pick it up at the farm. Summer money saving tips.
3. Build inexpensively, but build it well. When you put your building skills to use you should build sturdy and attractive things. In the long run it will last and you’ll be happy with your work.
4. Co-own. If you need a piece of expensive equipment too often to rent but not often enough to own yourself, consider co-owning. I tried to rent a rototiller three times before I actually got one. I don’t need a rototiller often but when I do, it’s time sensitive. My friend and next door neighbor chipped in and together we bought a tiller. I thought about doing this with a snow blower now that I live in an area with some snow but that’s a little too time dependent.
5. Wild harvesting is always going to be one of my most favorite money savers. I can pick gallons of berries each summer on a wildlife refuge for the price of a gallon of gas to get there and back. They’re $4 a pint in the grocery store. Summer money saving tips.
   
6. My current favorite money saving tip for homesteaders covers entertaining. We are having a blast. A group of friends take turns hosting potluck. The host supplies the drinks. I didn’t want to buy plastic silverware and tablecloths and paper plats each time it was my turn to host. We sometimes have 30 people at a meal. That’s a lot of settings to buy and throw away. Here’s what I’ve done: Summer money saving tips.
   • Buy inexpensive silverware and tablecloths. Check yard sales!
   • Buy inexpensive plates, serving bowls and glasses. They don’t have to match.
   • Until you’ve built up your inexpensive but nice tableware, BYOS. Bring Your Own Setting.
   • BYOS, Part II. Bring Your Own Seat.
7. Progressive meals are a lot of fun. Start with appetizers and move from homestead to homestead through the courses. The food doesn’t have to be fancy, just good.
8. Dessert night. After a long day of chores it’s really nice to get together with friends over dessert. Who needs dinner when you’ve got homemade dessert? Tarts with fresh fruit, cheesecake with fresh cream cheese, cakes, pies, ice cream…

Enjoy the summer! Summer money saving tips.

Foods You Don’t Have to Refrigerate

It’s getting warm, sometimes downright hot. Gardens are starting to produce at least spinach and other cool weather greens that need to be stored in the refrigerator. We have pitchers of iced tea and lemonade taking up lots of room. According to the Food & Drug Administration, refrigerators should be kept at 40°. Not all foods must be kept that cold and for some, it’s detrimental. Here’s a list of foods you don’t have to refrigerate. It might help make room for the foods that do need to be that cold.

Bread is one of those foods you don’t have to refrigerate anymore. It was common back in the days of making ten or 12 loaves at a time. As it turns out, bread won’t mold as quickly in the refrigerator but it does go stale faster.

Tomatoes, peppers and melons should be left on the counter, out of the sun. Refrigeration causes a breakdown in sugars and acids and changes the texture. Sweeter melons are grown with less water (did you know that?) and kept on the counter.

Herbs store well in fresh water on the counter. Some of them, such a mint, will develop roots if left too long, and the taste will water down. Cut only what you’ll use within a few days for best flavor or dehydrate extra for use later.

Apples and Grapes like to be cool but not cold. Polish them up, put them in a pretty bowl and use them as an edible display. We eat a lot of each when they’re easy to see and reach all the time. My exception to cold grapes in freezing them. I like to freeze them in the summer to use in my lemonade.

Honey is a natural anti-bacterial (when used topically on wounds). It won’t spoil, and it will take longer to crystallize when kept in a dark cupboard. Molasses is another sweetener that doesn’t have to be refrigerated. There are mixed thoughts on Maple Syrup. I didn’t refrigerate an open quart of real maple syrup (not pancake syrup) and it molded. If you need room you can take the maple syrup out but put it back as soon as there’s room.

And the list of foods you don’t have to refrigerate grows longer! Vinegar based, salty and fermented foods don’t need refrigeration. I like cold pickles but they’re the first thing to come out of the fridge when I need more space.

Eggs are the controversial item on the list of foods you don’t have to refrigerate. Did you know that in many countries eggs are never refrigerated? It’s true. In Europe, farmers vaccinate their laying hens for salmonella bacteria. They don’t wash eggs the way we do here in the United States. we concentrate on washing the shells to keep salmonella out of the egg. Washing removes the bloom that covers the egg as a means of keeping salmonella out. The US has 1.2 million cases of salmonella a year. England and Wales recorded less than 600 casaes in 2009.

Do you wash your un-vaccinated chickens’ eggs? What do you leave out of the fridge? Inquiring minds want to know!