New Homestead Bundle With a New Book by Me!

The 2026 Permies Homesteading and Permaculture Bundle is here. It contains $382 worth of homesteading and permaculture resources for just $35. This is a special introductory price! 

My own offering for the bundle is something new 

Goat Tales: Adventures, Misadventures, & Lessons 

Learned in Getting Started with Goats

Of misadventures and lessons learned, I've had plenty! All written to be enjoyed by others who like goats but don't want the adventure. 🐐This will probably be a Permies exclusive.

Here's a list of everything in the bundle:

• The Permaculture Design Toolkit 
• Homestead Pastured Poultry course by Diego Footer
• Growing Gourmet Mushrooms course with Michael Judd 
• Extended Truly Passive Greenhouse movie 
• Low Tech Laboratory Movie: The Extended Interviews 
• solar food dehydrator with rocket assist plans 
• freaky cheap heat movie as streaming plus one set of rocket mass heater plans
• Mark Shepard - Restoration Agriculture: Designing Your Perennial Farm presentation 
• log picnic table plans 3.0
• Goat Tales by Leigh Tate 
• worm bin design plans 
• Diego Footer on Permaculture Based Homesteads - from the Eat Your Dirt Summit 
• Laundry Detergent that Grows on Trees ebook by Kathryn Ossing
• Willow Feeders ebook 
• Living Woods magazine - Issue 10
• Cheesy Recipes by Kate Downham ebook
• Native Bee Guide by Crown Bees
• podcast gob 601-640
• 24 podcast review of "desert or paradise" by Sepp Holzer

The ones I'm especially excited about are the permaculture design toolkit (regular price $75), the growing mushroom course ($47), and the ebook by Kathryn Ossing ($9.97). I've also been wondering about a solar food dehydrator, but have been concerned that our climate is too humid. The rocket assist plans ($19.99) would solve that problem!

Here's the link, where you can find more details about all the items included. 

(And, I just realized I had the wrong link! Corrected now. Sorry folks!)

2026 Permies Homesteading and Permaculture Bundle

The special $35 price will be in effect for about a week. After that, it goes up to the regular price of $65.

New Homestead Bundle With a New Book by Me!

© June 2026 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

The Legacy of Books

 I recently had some of my father's books passed down to me. Not his entire library (he was an avid reader) but a sampling of things it was thought I would enjoy, because I inherited many of my interests from him.

Any of these can be clicked to enlarge, in case you're curious about the titles.

I'm guessing most people have a variety of interests. Some of these change over time and some stay with us for our lifetime. We can pursue them through a variety of means: magazines, clubs, internet content, borrowed books, etc. And then there are the books we collect, the books that make up our personal libraries. 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate that these are print books. I've always been a fan of real books. But when Kindle first came out, I got one. It pushed the popularity of electronic books, so much so that technophiles were saying that digital was the future of books and  print books would soon be obsolete.

I found my Kindle useful for fiction, and I liked the mobility. I could read a book while standing in a long line at the grocery store. But for nonfiction and research, I thought it left much to be desired. It boasted search and note-taking features, but I found these time consuming to use and inconvenient to find things again. I especially missed being able to flip back and forth between passages on several pages. And of course, the device was constantly nagging to be fed, and it was fussy about format. The Kindle will only read mobi formatted books. Other eReaders want different formats. Eventually my Kindle became outdated and obsolete. At that point, all the books I had stored on it were lost to me. That's pretty much when I abandoned digital books.  

My dad's books are part of his legacy to me. They aren't just the outline of his life, i.e. name, dates, places, and major events, rather they document the person he was. A peek into his soul, so to speak. They are a sampling of the things he was interested in, the things he cared about. He listed page numbers in the fly-leafs, underlined passages that spoke to him, and made a few notes in the margins. 

A few of them were my grandparents' books: my grandmother's Gregg Shorthand (1916 revised edition), Applied Mathematics (1939 for a National Defense Training program my grandfather was enrolled in), Child's Christ Tales (1896, a Christmas gift to my 4-year-old grandmother from her mother), and Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey and An Inland Voyage (1916, signed by two of my grandfather's brothers).

All of these are precious to me. They give me a sense of belonging. Rootedness. Groundedness. A sense of my personal heritage. They represent my father's legacy to me. 

What legacy of books will I leave to my children? Gardening, homesteading, permaculture, historical fiction, science fiction, biblical hermeneutics, natural animal care, herbs, historical bibliographies, classical literature, historical farming, traditional skills, DIY, cookbooks, nature identification, food preservation, history, fiber and textile arts. 

Do you have a book legacy to pass on to those behind you? 

The Legacy of Books © 2026 by Leigh

at https://www.5acresandadream.com

My 2025 Reading List

I really enjoyed keeping a reading list last year. So much so, that I did it again this year. Like last year's list, I didn't have a reading plan, I just meandered about in my selections choosing whatever struck my fancy. Also like last year's list, this one is just titles and authors, with no cover pics, reviews, or links. I'm happy to answer any questions about any of them and make recommendations, however, if anyone is curious.

Physical Books

• Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell
• Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge
• Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell
• Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
• Sharpe's Fortress by Bernard Cornwell
• What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama
• Sharpe's Trafalgar by Bernard Cornwell
• The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly
• Neurotribes by Steve Silberman
• Sharpe's Prey by Bernard Cornwell
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
• Slan by A. E. van Vogt
• Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
• Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
• That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
• Sharpe's Rifles by Bernard Cornwell
• The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
• Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave by Dave Breese
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
• Sharpe's Gold by Bernard Cornwell
• Sharpe's Escape by Bernard Cornwell
• Essentialism by Greg McKeown
• Sharpe's Battle by Bernard Cornwell
• Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison
• The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida
• Sharpe's Company by Bernard Cornwell
• The Amish Midwife's Bargain by Patrice Lewis
• Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
• Sharpe's Fury by Bernard Cornwell
• Sharpe's Sword by Bernard Cornwell

eBooks

• Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne
• The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph
• Disappearing Foods: Studies in Foods and Dishes at Risk, edited by Harlan Walker

Audiobooks

• The Tiger of Mysore by G. A. Henty
• Wulf the Saxon by G. A. Henty
• William the Conqueror by Edward Freeman
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
• Germania by Publius Cornelius Tacitus
• Agricola by Publius Cornelius Tacitus
• Struggles and Triumphs, or 40 Years of Recollections of P. T. Barnum by P. T. Barnum
• Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Beric the Briton: A Story of the Roman Invasion by G. A. Henty
• The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling
• The Book of Tea by Kakuzō Okakura 
• Tell It All: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism by Fanny Stenhouse
• Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Sir Wilfred Grenfell
• The Adventures of a Woman Hobo by Ethyl Lynn, M.D.
• Across Mongolian Plains by Roy Chapman Andrews
• Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia by G. A. Henty
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir
• The Cruise of the Corwin by John Muir
• The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
• The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells

Has anyone else kept a reading list? Care to share? I'm always interested in what others liked (or didn't like). 

 

My 2025 Reading List © 2025 by Leigh

 at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Holiday Series: The Cuisine of My Ancestors

I had a lot of fun doing last year's Christmas series, Christmas Songs of My Ancestors. One of my hobbies is genealogy, and exploring my family tree from a cultural point of view is really interesting. Earlier this year, I found this book at the public library . . .

Uhtred's Feast: Inside the World of the Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell. If you haven't seen The Last Kingdom TV series but like historical adventure, I definitely recommend it. It was based on the book series, which I've also read and enjoyed. (If you like historical fiction, anything by Bernard Cornwell is highly recommended.) When I saw this book on the library shelf, I immediately picked it up. It contains short stories and recipes from the time period of The Last Kingdom, the Saxon era of England. It interested me because I have Saxon ancestors. The idea for a cultural cuisine research project grew from there. 

My research goal this year has been to find and make authentic recipes from each of my genealogical culture groups, focusing on the time period in which they show up on my family tree. 

Here's the genealogical timeline I've been working with:

• American: from the early 1600s (New England) to present (Midwest, except me who's been  in the Southeast for decades.)
  
• Native American: 1600s
• Irish: 1800s
• German: 1400s to 1700s (I learned this year about this one)
• English: 1200s to 1500s
• Norman: 1000s to 1100s
• Viking: 700s to 900s
• Saxon: 400s to 1000s
• Celtic: Between 600 to 450 BC up through 400s AD

My research for this project focused on the regions of these peoples and the foods they ate. In planning the meals, I looked for traditional regional recipes. My goal was to use as many original ingredients and I could source, with an emphasis on ingredients that I can grow too. My cooking methods are modern slow-cooking ones.

Thanks to the internet, I've been able to find quite a few recipes from the time periods I'm looking at. When I couldn't, I had to settle for modern but regionally traditional recipes. 

I tried to choose recipes that focus on ingredients that can also be grown in my part of the world. But for the sake of authentic flavor, I was willing to buy additional ingredients as well. Even so, there were some things that I couldn't find at my local grocery stores. For these, I made reasonable substitutions. 

This project appealed to several of my interests: genealogy, cooking, cultural studies, and lifestyles that have a stronger relationship with nature than with technology. One happy lesson has been combining available foods in new-to-me ways, such as blueberries in stew and using cream in sauces and gravies. 

Anyway, my plan is to publish one "Cuisine of My Ancestors" post every 3 or 4 days or so until around Christmas. I hope you enjoy them.

Holiday Series: The Cuisine of My Ancestors

© 2025 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

A New Book For My Homestead How-To Series

If you read my Permies Kickstarter post, then you may have caught that I mentioned a surprise. And here it is! A new book for my The Little Series of Homestead How-Tos. This one is volume 15 and is entitled

How To Grow Grain On the Homestead

Growing wheat and other grains on a homestead scale

Here's my official blurb:

When Leigh Tate started homesteading, one of her goals was to grow as much of her family's food as possible. Her previous food growing experience included vegetables, fruits, poultry, and dairy. Grains, however, were more intimidating, especially considering how grain is grown in modern times. Yet grain growing is an ancient art which is found in all civilizations and cultures. Leigh reckoned that if the generations of the past could do it, then so could she.

How To Grow Grain On the Homestead pulls together her years of experiments, experience, and research. She covers selecting grains, planting, growing, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, and storage, all on a small homestead scale, and without expensive modern equipment. If you are interested in growing your own grain, she can will help you get started too.

Chapters:

Introduction

Why Should You Consider Growing Grain?

What Equipment Will You Need?

Harvesting

Threshing

Winnowing

What Grains Can You Grow?

Amaranth

Barley

Buckwheat

Corn (Maize)

Millet

Oats

Quinoa

Rice

Rye

Sorghum

Wheat

Getting Started: Start Small & Experiment

Recommended Resources

List price is $3.99

Available from:

• Permies.com in PDF format
• Kindle format
• Amazon.com (US)
• Amazon UK
• Amazon CA
• Amazon AU
• Amazon DE
• Amazon FR
• Amazon ES
• Amazon IT
• Amazon NL
• Amazon JP
• Amazon BR
• Amazon MX
• Amazon IN
• ePub format: 
• Apple
• Barnes & Noble
• Everand
• Fable
• Kobo
• Palace Marketplace
• Smashwords
• Thalia
• Vivlio

Questions? I'm happy to answer them. And for a complete list of all the titles in The Little Series of Homestead How-Tos (and more!) please visit my book website, Kikobian Books.

A New Book For My Homestead How-To Series

© 2025 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Winter Reading

Sam not reading.

Like much of North America, we are hunkered down to endure the frigid cold. We haven't broken any record temperatures, but this is the longest sustained stretch of cold that I recall in quite a few years. With critters, we still have outside chores and checks to do, but we have more indoor time, and for me, that means more time for weaving and reading. After keeping a book list last year, I'm inspired to do another one this year. Here are the first of my entries. 

 

Of physical book reading, I just finished Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell. If you like historical fiction, you'll find Bernard Cornwell to be one of the best. His work is extremely well researched and the stories are captivating. The Sharpe's series was about the only thing of his I hadn't read, because our library doesn't have the entire series, including this one which is the first book. But Dan got it for me for Christmas, and I'm hooked. 

Historical fiction acts as a springboard for me, as I wonder what the historical facts actually are and what life was like in that time period and region (in this story it's India in 1799). The book I've just started on is nonfiction, focusing on a small "undeveloped"  region in northern India.

Ancient Futures: Learning From Ladakh by Helena Norberg-Hodge is an extremely interesting book in two more categories I like: culture studies and agrarianism. The author spent a number of years in rural northern India as a linguist, experiencing their culture and witnessing the influence of encroaching global industrialism. While most of the world sees this influence as necessary and positive, the author saw the gradual destruction of a healthy, self-sustaining eco-community being pushed into dependency on modern consumerism. It impacts not only their so-called "standard of living" but also their mental, physical health, and cultural health, and not for the better. Her message is that we need to heed and preserve the benefits of such ancient socioeconomic systems. 

When I'm weaving or doing other handwork, I listen to audiobooks. 

While I was reading Sharpe's Tiger, I listened to G. A. Henty's The Tiger of Mysore, also fiction, also set in the same place and time period. It gave me a slightly different perspective and different details, which is another reason I like historical fiction. (The link is to Librevox, where you can listen to it for free, the physical book is available here.)

I thought Henty told a good story with interesting facts, so I chose another of his works to listen to next. This one related to my interest in genealogy, Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest. (That link is to Librevox. Physical copy can be purchased here.)  It's interesting to hear how one branch of my family tree fought and conquered another branch. That became a springboard for what I'm listening to now, William the Conqueror by Edward Freeman (title links to Librevox, physical copy here).

While I don't usually plan my reading too far ahead, I do have the next paper book and audiobook lined up: Sharpe's Triumph, the next in the Cornwell series, and The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond on CD.

How is everyone else faring the cold? Are you reading? What are you reading? Any good recommendations to share?

Winter Reading © Jan 2025 by Leigh

at https://www.5acresandadream.com

My 2024 Reading List

I have always enjoyed other bloggers' reading lists. So much so, that I was inspired to keep my own reading and listening list this year. I'm including audiobooks because I seem to have gotten through more of these than paper books. Weaving, knitting, mending, sewing, and mundane tasks like shelling seeds or snapping green beans lend themselves to listening to books! 

Mine is not a fancy list. No reviews, no links, no pictures of book covers. Just a list. But I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

Paper Books

• Queen Isabella by Alison Weir
• All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
• Killer's Wake by Bernard Cornwell
• Crackdown by Bernard Cornwell
• Wildtrack by Bernard Cornwell
• Babe The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith
• How To Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
• Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking by Kate Downham
• Never Grow Up by Jackie Chan
• Tying Up the Countermarch Loom by Joanne Hall
• Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
• How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis A. Schaeffer
• A Dyer's Garden by Rita Buchanan
• The Stowaway by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
• The Ark on Ararat by Tim La Haye and John Morris
• Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell
• Uthred's Feast by Bernard Cornwell with Suzanne Pollak
• Weave Classic Crackle & More by Susan Wilson
• A Crackle Weave Companion by Lucy M. Brusic
• The Last White Rose by Alison Weir
• People of the Wolf by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear
• Wideacre by Phillipa Gregory
  

eBooks

• A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe by Tom Findlay
• Permaculture Thorns by Paul Wheaton
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Audiobooks

• The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan
• History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• A Daughter of the Land by Gene Stratton-Porter
• The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
• Putting the Most Into Life by Booker T. Washington
• In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
• Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol
• Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
• All in the Day's Work by Ida Tarbell
• Vagabond Adventures by Ralph Keeler
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
• Across the Plains in 1844 by Catherine Sager Pringle
• The Backwoods of Canada by Catharine Parr Traill
• Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman
• By Ox Team to California by Lavinia Honeyman Porter 
• The Autobiography of a Clown by Jules Turnou
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Rez Life by David Treuer
• Fathers of Biology by Charles McRae
• Scott's Last Expedition Vol. 1, The Journals of Robert Falcon Scott by Robert Falcon Scott
• The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the Fram, 1910-12 by Roald Amundsen
• Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America by Herbert Spinden
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Artemis by Andy Weir
• Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
• Peaks of Shala by Rose Wilder Lane
• Across Asia on a Bicycle by Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
• The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, volumes 1 & 2, by Marco Polo as told to Rustichello da Pisa
• The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
• Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• The White Princess by Philippa Gregory
• The King's Curse by Philippa Gregory
• The Saga of the Greenlanders, author unknown, translated by Arthur Middleton Reeves
  
• The English Governess at the Siamese Court by Anna Harriette Leonowens
• Lucretia Borgia by Ferdinand Gregorovius 
• Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
  

 

My selections were random, i.e. whatever struck my fancy at the time. But I like that it's a relatively eclectic collection. I think by keeping the list, I made a more concerted effort to read. But also, by using my evenings for weaving instead of poking around the internet, I was able to listen to all those audiobooks (a more productive use of my time!) I plan to keep a reading list for 2025 too.

 

Does anybody else keep a reading list?

My 2024 Reading List © December 2024

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

What About Books?

I haven't done much to promote my books lately. Mostly because I assume that  regular blog readers who wanted them already have them. But with gift giving season upon us, I thought I'd give them a shout out, because books are always great gifts. 

My first book has been my most popular.

 

5 Acres & A Dream The Book: The Challenges of Establishing a Self-Sufficient Homestead

 

This is the book most people think of when "5 Acres & A Dream" is mentioned. It's been popular with people wanting to get started in homesteading, and even people who would never dreamed of homesteading have enjoyed it. That makes it a good choice for anyone interested in unusual lifestyles. 

 

What many people don't know, is that there is a sequel.

 

5 Acres & A Dream The Sequel: Lessons Learned in the Quest for a Self-Sufficient Homestead

It's the story of how reality changes dreams. Which is another way to say that we learned so much from our experiences, that things changed. Not only the way we do things, but the way we understand things: nature, seasons, goals, critters, priorities. 

If you or someone you know enjoyed my first book, consider gifting them with this one.

The next one is for folks who want to understand what goes into buying and owning livestock. 

 

Prepper's Livestock Handbook: Lifesaving Strategies and Sustainable Methods for Keeping Chickens, Rabbits, Goats, Cows and Other Farm Animals

It's different in style from the first two, because it's my one professionally published book. That meant I was writing what the publisher had in mind, and that was an interesting experience for an Indie author and publisher. I did a lot of research for it, and you know what? I still pull it out from time to time to look something up, because I intended it to be not just an introduction, but a resource. It remains a valuable addition to my homestead library.

And here's one for the cooks and bakers on your list.

How To Bake Without Baking Powder: Modern and historical alternatives for light and tasty baked goods

 

Oddly, I've had people think that this is a book about how to make baking powder, which is something one can find for free on the internet. WRONG! This is a book about kitchen chemistry and how to use everyday kitchen items to make light and tasty baked goods. It's a recipe book too, and so has a place on my cookbook shelf in the kitchen.

So if you're looking for something a little different for someone on your gift list, consider one of these. The prices are still very reasonable, which makes them a good option for everybody on your list.

What About Books? © December 2024

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

2024 Homestead Bundle: 3 Day New Year's Deal

Almost every year I participate in some sort of homestead bundle, and this year is no exception. I even updated a chapter from an almost out-of-print book, as my offering to the bundle.

Click or tap for a closer look-see

This bundle is offered by Permies.com and includes more than 35 resources for $35. That's less than a dollar each, all available for instant download. This price is for 70 hours only; after that the price will go up to $65. 

What you get:

• backyard forest gardening eBook
• fermentation mini-course
• cheese making webinar
• earth bag architecture eBook
• building a permaculture community eBook
• communication in community eBook
• aquaponics eBook
• how to evaluate solar panel potential eBook
• restoration agriculture Permaculture Voices video presentation
• sourdough eCookbook
• growing you own insulation webinar
• 12 issues of Tiny House Digital Magazine
• Chèvre making eBook
• how to make a spinning wheel from bike parts plans
• cooking with what you have eBook
• rainwater harvesting eBook
• honeybees (that's mine!) eBook
• seed breeding and epigenetics webinar
• regenerative agroforestry eBook
• 2 issues of Permaculture Design digital magazine
• Gaia's Garden and Toby Hemenway podcasts
• rocket ovens movie
• truly passive greenhouse movie
• replacing irrigation with permaculture webinar
• tour of Wheaton Labs movie (featuring 65 low tech things)
• 45 low tech things webinar
• farm animal relationships from Permies Permaculture Design Course video collection
• market garden playing cards e-book

For pictures, descriptions, and more information click here. Sale ends Jan. 3 at 11 p.m. M.T.

Click here to get yours.

2024 Homestead Bundle: 3 Day New Year's Deal 

© Jan 2024 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Last Day for the Bundle Bargain

I didn't want to close out this week without mentioning that two of my eBooks are part of Permies' Permaculture Adventure Bundle!

How To Get Cream from Goats' Milk and
How To Make Goats' Milk Mozzarella
by Leigh Tate

The discount price ends today at 2 p.m. Mountain Time. After that the price goes up.

To wrap up this week's sneak peek, here's the rest of what's included:

The Amazing Elderberry, a presentation by
John Moody from the Superfood Garden Summit

Building the "Easy-Bake Coffin" micro documentary
by Paul Wheaton

Ram Pumps webinar
by Tim Barker

The Hugelkultur Movie from World Domination Gardening
by Paul Wheaton and Diego Footer

Huge gob of permaculture podcasts
by Paul Wheaton

Garden Master Guide eBook
by Andres Bernal

The Garden Master Guide is the companion eBook to Helen Atthowe's online Garden Master Course.

To check out the entire bundle, just follow this link 

Permaculture Adventure Bundle

In my next blog post, I'll show you more progress on our greenhouse.

Last Day for the Bundle Bargain © July 2023

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Did I Ever Show You My Balcony Garden?

I have always been an avid gardener and whenever possible, I've had a large vegetable garden. Then, due to unplanned events, we spent four years in a "temporary" living situation of a small second story apartment. Our balcony overlooked a parking lot which wasn't very scenic. So our first summer there, I attempted an Old World style balcony flower garden. It was both prettier to look at and gave us a sense of privacy, as it somewhat shielded the view from the parking lot into the sliding glass doors.

The first year, I grew morning glories on trellises. The following year, I decided to branch out a bit, after I found some 10¢ packets of pea seeds. I bought them on a whim and planted peas instead. 


Eating our own fresh peas while cooped up in a small apartment made me feel incredibly happy.

Then, I found a bush tomato plant. I had looked for one of these before, but this was the first time I've found one small enough to plant in a pot.


My balcony only got late afternoon sun, so they weren't plentiful, but they were ours.

Other things I grew:

Catnip

I harvested the stems and leaves right before it bloomed, when they are the most potent. My kitties had dried organic catnip all year long. 

Aloe vera (on the left at at the top) and "cat grass."

My only regret was that I didn't develop this more. The hot afternoon sun was difficult to deal with and dried out the pots quickly, but if I'd known about permaculture then, I probably would have found solutions for that problem. Indoor gardening with grow lights too, is something I wish I'd explored.

I realized later that I could have done so much more, even living like that. And that's why I want to start off today's peek into the 2023 Permaculture Adventure Bundle, with a book that contains ideas for everybody, whether you live in an apartment or on a farm. 

Building A Better World in your Backyard Instead of Being Angry
at the Bad Guys by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop.

You can have your Permaculture and Eat
It too! By Robin Clayfield

Growing Fruit Trees with Ease: Fruit Tree Fundamentals
E-course by Susan Poizner

Working Together: The Homestead Tree
Handbook eBook by Harold Thornbro

Rocket Mass Heater Risers: Materials
& Designs eBook by Paul Wheaton
and Chris "Uncle Mud" McClellan

Carbon Negative Mass Heaters webinar by Alan Booker

2 issues of Permaculture Design Magazine

Click or tap here, to see everything you get.

Did I Ever Show You My Balcony Garden? © July 2023

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Permaculture Adventure Bundle (Books & More!)

Every year I have the honor of participating in a great book deal. They've been organized by different groups, but the very best (to me) has been the ones sponsored by Permies.com. And this year's promises to be excellent!

Permies.com 2023 Permaculture homesteading bundle

Of course, I'm supposed to give you a sales pitch. I'm not very good at that, but I will tell you that it's an excellent 5-day special offer. For $35, you get 43 digital resources selling separately for $514 USD. 

But why should you get it? Here's where sales rhetoric is weak, in my opinion. Mostly, I would say, if you watch or listen to the news, you know why. 

As my readers know, this blog is a journal of my homesteading projects and adventures. I don't talk about world events or politics, because these have very little to do with what we do here and why. 

What I will say, is this. Throughout history, the people who have best weathered hard times, whether political, military, medical, social, economic, cultural, production, or supply distribution issues, have been the ones who grew food. The ones who knew how to function outside of their customary routine. The people who relied the most heavily on the system suffered most. 

Maybe you're one of the optimistic ones who thinks life as we know it will weather the bumps, then continue to go on forever. I hope that's the case, but history isn't on our side for that one. If people can't recognize that there's a global power struggle going on right now, well, there's nothing I can say to change your mind. That isn't even my job. But I can say, look at this. Here's something important. Even if it's just bumps in the road, here's something that can help you. Here's something that can make a difference no matter what happens. That something is Permies' 2023 permaculture homesteading bundle.

The bundle includes eBooks, webinars, videos, building plans, audiobook, and podcasts. Here are 7 of the resources you get:

SMART Homesteading Plan Webinar by Nicole Sauce

3 issues of Tiny House magazine

Down the Carrot Hole, a film
by David Trood of the Weedy Garden

Mortise & Tenon Apprenticeship Series:
Foundations from Mortise & Tenon Magazine

How to Create a Resilient Off-Grid Home
eBook by Kate Downham

Simple Mead Making eBook by
Colleen Codekas of Grow Forage Cook Ferment

Grow Your Own Food on a Budget
Simple & Affordable Permaculture streaming podcast
with John Bush and Paul Wheaton

And new this year, everything is available for instant download! In the past we had to wait, but they've built in some software improvements that mean you have access as soon as you pay.

Available at the discount price through Friday, here's the link to see all the resources and get the entire bundle:

2023 Permaculture Adventure Bundle

Permaculture Adventure Bundle (Books & More!) 

© July 2023 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Permies Homestead Bundle: Day 2 Resource Reviews

The Permies Homestead Bundle has quite a few excellent gardening resources. The first title that grabbed my attention, was this one.

High Performance Gardening by Lynn Gillespie. Who doesn't want a high performance garden??? Even though I've been gardening for a lot of years, I'm never quite satisfied with it's performance. In reading the first couple of chapters, I realize that I've always had low performance gardens, complete with all the labor, weeds, and disappointing results to prove it. 

On the one hand, I've been gardening long enough that somehow I think I should have it all figured out. One the other hand, I'm never too old to take someone else's advice and learn!

While I've put many of her ideas into practice already, the two that have really hit home are BRIX indicators and mineralizing. I always thought BRIX was just a scale of sweetness/flavor, but I'm now starting to understand that it's also strongly tied to increased production, insect and disease resistance, and weather resilience. Minerals are the key, and they don't automatically show up in the compost. So, I'm taking all of this to heart and planning to make some simple changes in next year's garden.

This is one of the 35 resources found in the Permies Homesteading Bundle.

Also available at Amazon. 

Speaking of soil mineralizing, here's a homestead bundle resource that I'm particularly excited about. It's Neal Kinsey's Hands-On Agronomy video workshop, "Feeding and Balancing Your Soil." I did a book review on Hands-On Agronomy years ago, because it had such a profound affect on my understanding of soil health. The downside to the book is that is so packed with information, that it's difficult to pick out the key take-aways and remember it all. And that's what makes this video a gem; the most significant lessons from Neal's book are covered in this video. 

This is another of the 35 resources found in the Permies Homesteading Bundle.

Book available at Amazon.

And for you urban homesteaders out there, here's a fantastic resource: From Home to Small Town Homestead: Pursuing Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability On A Small City Property by Harold Thornbro. Chapters include, "What Is Modern Homesteading?," "Developing A Homesteader's Mindset," "Homesteading When You Don't Have Time to Homestead," "How To Homestead When Your Spouse Isn't On-Board," "Evaluating Your Property," "Finding Resources," and "5 Reasons You Might Fail As A Homesteader." Plus, it contains practical chapters on trees, berries, vegetable and herb gardening, getting started with compost, small livestock, harvest preservation, cooking from scratch, wild game, and foraging.

To see all the resources offered in the bundle, click here. 

Okay, last one, I promise. If the mention of cooking from scratch in Harold's book caught your attention, then I think you'll be interested in this one.

Cook with What You Have by Nicole Sauce. 

I'm guessing that almost all of us learn to cook using recipes. I know, I did. And there's nothing wrong with recipes, until one starts growing a nice portion of one's own food and can't find recipes to fit! While Nicole's cookbook does indeed feature recipes, she also teaches the principles of making substitutions, changing the amounts the recipe calls for, and adapting them to what's on hand. 

Sections are divided into main dishes, soups, salads, vegetables, breads, starters, and sweets.  You can find more information plus the other offerings in the bundle, here.

Not sure you can use these? The great thing about this particular bundle is that you can keep the codes for resources you want to own, or you can give them away as gifts to friends and family. You can check out the entire bundle by clicking or tapping here. 

Permies Homestead Bundle: Day 2 Resource Reviews

© Jan 2023 by Leigh at  http://www.5acresandadream.com