Terra do Milho

Tag: Making your homestead at home.

  • Finding A Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    Finding A Homestead Location with Good and Sufficient Fresh Water

    Having good quality fresh water is essential for your Homestead. Water is essential to life. You will not be able to survive on a location without water. Water is needed for cleaning and drinking, for us humans and for our animals and plants.

    From our experience we know how essential it is to find a location with sufficient water. In this blog you will find the information you need to find a Homestead Location with good and sufficient fresh water.

     

    Resources of water you can find on a location

     

    On a Homestead there can be a view resources of water:

    • Rainwater that is collected: rainwater can be collected on a roof or any other clean flat surface. This rainwater can be stored in a big tank for use.
    • Surface water: spring, creeks, rivers, lakes: water from these resources can be stored in a tank for use.
    • Water that is pumped up from deeper level through a borehole: in some areas there will not be enough water on the surface or not be sufficient rain. There can be underground sources like an aquifer. You can tap into these aquifers by making a borehole and using a pump to pump the water up.
    • The grid: some places will be simply connected to the grid of a town or village.

    You will need one of these resources on your homestead as a basic minimum. It will be securer to have more resources available at the same time.

     

    What do you need the water for?

     

    On the Homestead you will need two types of freshwater

    1. Treated fresh water of a good quality for your household and for animal husbandry.
    2. Untreated fresh water for irrigation. This water does not need to be potable but still needs a good quality for not poisoning your crop. When your water resource provides a good fresh water quality you can also use the water for animals.

     

    How much water do you need to run a Homestead?

     

    How do I know how much water I need?

    From your water bill you can easily read how much water you are consuming. The amount can be rather shocking.

    Are you going to use the same amount of water on your homestead? You might. When you think that you can bring down your water consumption try it while you are still where you are. This way you can practice and see where you will end up when you do your best to save water. Doing so you will know what the minimum amount of water needed for your household will be. It will also be useful to figure out what uses most water.

    Now, your household will be one thing. Running a homestead with trees and a vegetable garden will be another thing. You might even want to keep animals that will need water too. A Homestead household will most likely use more water than an apartment. The irrigation of a vegetable garden and trees takes much more water than a household.

    That does not mean that the ecological impact of living on a Homestead is bigger than of living in an apartment in a town. A lot of the water consumption of living in a town is hidden and not direct. The vegetables that are consumed in an apartment were watered too. It just does not appear on your water bill.

    Any way, the thing that is important to know is that you might use more water for your Homestead then what you would expect.

     

    The influence of climate zones on water consumption

     

    The amount of water that you will need in your orchard or garden will depend heavily on the climate that you will be living in with your Homestead.

    In Holland, which has a temperate climate we would never water the fruit trees. In Portugal, where we live now, in summer we have to water the fruit trees twice a week. Portugal has a mediterranean climate.

    The amount of water that you need depends on the annual rainfall and evaporation.

    In Holland it rains all year round. There are some exceptional year in which you might have to water your orchard. But it never used to be the standard.

    In Portugal it rains during the winter and the summers are dry. The evaporation in summer will be much higher than in Holland because the temperatures in summer are much higher in Portugal. That is why we need to water the trees in summer in Portugal.

    For the vegetable garden it is a bit different. We did water our vegetable garden in Holland sometimes. In Portugal we water it a lot.

     

    Water Consumption and soil

     

    The climate you will be living in will be the main influence on the amount of water that you will need for your Homestead. However the soil will be of an influence too. Sandy soils will consume a lot more water than clay-loam soils.

    To find out more about soil click on the link:

    How to Analysing the soil from your vegetable garden.

     

     

    To get an idea about the numbers in water use

     

    The Orchard

    Here in Portugal each tree, each time, gets something like 20 l (two buckets). When you have 100 trees it means you will need 4000 l a week. The summer without rain lasts up to 5 month. Well, that is about 80.000l of water in a summer.

    If you would use rainwater catchment in Portugal, you would need a tank of 80 m³ to collect enough water for the whole summer, to provide that amount of water. Since we have a small creek that flows the whole summer we can use a much smaller tank for daily use. Our irrigation tank for the vegetable garden and orchard is 6 m³, we empty and refill the tank twice a day.

    The size of the tank that you will need depends a lot on the inflow and use of water.

    The vegetable garden

    I do not have measured figures of what our vegetable garden needs but this is my estimate: 6 m³ per week for about 400 m². That is another 120 m³ added for the whole summer. I am sure you can bring this number down by watering more efficient, which we will do in the future.

    The total use of water for irrigating

    Still if you could bring the number down to halve, being 60 m³ you will still need 140 m³ of water for the orchard and vegetable garden together in a summer for 100 fruit trees and 400 m² of vegetable garden.

    This is just to indicate that you will need a lot of water when you are growing things in a Mediterranean climate, which usually has wet winters. You will need a serious water recourse to run your homestead. Especially in areas where there is a high evaporation in summer.

     

    How do you know whether the location you want to explore has enough water?

    Surface water resources

    It is important that rivers and creeks run all year around, especially in the summer month when you need most water. A small creek like we have can be enough.

    Water from some lakes can be used as fresh water. You might be lucky to have excess to such a lake. Lakes however have to be big. I am not talking about something the size of a big pond, but a real huge lake. The water quality of big ponds can be very questionable for fresh water use. However some big ponds size lakes can function as a rainwater collecting tank. This water can, in some circumstances be used as fresh water when treated.

    Rainwater

    Rainwater collection can get you a long way, but you need to be sure that there is enough rain in the climate zone you want to start your homestead in. Since the weather is never predictable years ahead I would never solely depend on this water recourse, but combine it with other resources.

    Important is also that you have enough surface to collect the water and a tank that is big enough to store it. Our neighbors are very happy with the rainwater collected from their roof during winter. They store it in a big tank below the house. The collected rainwater is enough for the household in most years, but never enough for irrigating their orchard and vegetable garden.

    For the location you want to buy, you will have to check the annual rainfall to know whether you will have enough rain for your household. Don’t forget these are averages over many years. So there will be years with more or less rainfall.

    Although very coarse, this map gives an indication (also check the evaporation map):

    http://www.waterandclimatechange.eu/rainfall/average-monthly-1985-1999

    Boreholes

    Concerning boreholes you have to measure if they deliver enough. Boreholes can also run dry depending on the source they tap in. Especially when they are not deep enough.

    Borehole pumps can break and they are costly to replace.

    When you have to make a borehole check what the costs are, it can be very expensive. I personally would avoid having a borehole. But maybe you do not have a choice.

    The grid

    A grid would most likely provide you with enough water. But it is better to check it out.

    Water from the grid can be cheaper then having your own water. This will not be true for all areas in the world. But it is for us.

    The water quality of our creek is very high. However we do need even higher standards for drinking water because we have a rental place on our land. We rent out a holiday house during the summer month. This requires a licence on the water quality, meaning that we need some expensive filters to make top quality drinking water. Although it sound romantic to have your own fresh water resource, making your own water filter system work can be quite an effort and costly.

    Water from the grid might not sound “homesteady”, but is definitely worth checking out. If we would have excess to the grid I would use it. This would have made our renting out a lot easier.

     

    Water quality: salinity, minerals, pollution

    Salinity

    Water in coastal areas can be saline even when it comes out of a borehole. With an increasing water usage in a coastal area, fresh water levels can drop. This can result in more salt water from the sea pressing itself into the underground.

    Even some inland areas can have problems with salt water in deeper levels.

    I areas where hardly anything wants to grow, salt water can be a problem.

    Minerals in the water

    Another mineral that can decrease the water quality is iron. You can recognize this when a creek has loose rust colored flakes at the sides. This means that the springs can contain water with a high iron level. This problem can be solved, but it would be better to have a none ironed source as well.

    On our land we have a spring that contains iron, we will only use it in case of emergency. It needs to be heavily filtered. The filters need a lot of maintenance. Normally we use water from a clear spring or from our creek.

    Chemical pollution

    Water pollution can also be a worry when choosing a site. You will actually have to take a look at the creeks and lakes near the site you are checking to know.

    Water from resources can be best tested when in doubt. There are some do it yourself kits on the market to make a quick test on chemical pollution.

     

    Water, water, water

     

    We have talked about the main resources of water that you can find for your homestead. From there we looked into the amount of water that is needed to run a homestead and also how you can recognize whether a site has enough water for your needs. We briefly looked into some water quality issues.

    Seen from our experience, these are the main things around the topic of fresh water to consider when you are looking for a Homestead.

    When you still have some questions about this topic please leave a comment below in the comment section. We will try our best to help you out.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area

    Homestead and Freshwater

  • The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    The sun is important for a lot of things. Your vegetable garden will not thrive without enough direct sunlight. The use of solar panels is only worth the effort when you have enough direct sunlight at the right angle. Light in your house during the day is desirable.

    Knowing the position of the sun on your location is key to whether you will have enough sunlight on your Homestead.

    At the other hand shade can also be important in places where it gets very hot in summer. Having to much hot burning sunshine in your vegetable garden will not be good for your lettuce and radishes. These crops, that need a lot of moisture will not grow in the burning hot sun.

    Your house might heat up to much, instead you would want some coolness in the house in hot summers.

    The latitude and the position of the sun

    Why is it important to consider the latitude where you are? Apart from that the latitude partly defines the climate zone you are in, it also defines the height of the sun and the number of sun hours per day.

    The higher the latitude the lower the maximum height of the sun. At a higher altitude the days will be longer in summer and shorter in winter.

    The lower the altitude the less this difference in length of day and night get. In the tropics the days and nights are always almost equally long.

    What you need to know about the sun’s position on your location

    How to use this knowledge when you are looking for your ideal Homestead location?

    There are two ways to use this knowledge for finding your Homestead location.

    The first research behind your desktop

    You can either look it up on a map and figure out what the position of the sun is on a location. You will have to look up the position of the sun in different seasons to get a complete picture. This way of figuring out the positions sun on a location might be useful in the first coarse surges for a location. Like when you are still working out a location behind your desktop. You will find out more about this at the end of the blog.

    Checking out the sun´s position at the location

    Once you have fount an area and you are going to investigate pieces of land the other way of inquiring the suns position comes in.

    While you are standing at the location you want to check out, imagine that you are the center of the universe and picture the following things:

    Picture the sun´s arch

    1. Where exactly on the location does the sun rise and where does it set? Midsummer and midwinter, since this can be very different.
    2. How high does the sun rise? Midsummer and midwinter. This is something you will have to look up and estimate or ask for specifically (scroll a bit down to “Looking Deeper into the Position of the Sun”). Knowing the altitude where you are can help you to find out.
    3. You will have to picture the arch that the sun makes midsummer and midwinter. This way you will get an idea how much sunlight you will have in both seasons. In summer you will have the maximum amount of sunlight and in winter the minimum amount.

    Where is the sun and where is the shade

    Once you know the sun´s arch in summer and winter, you can go a step further. The next thing will be: what time does the sun appear and disappear in midsummer and midwinter at the location? It seems to be something you can look up in a calendar.

    Yes, you can. And it will work on flat terrain, but it will be different when you are looking somewhere in the mountains for a location. Mountains will be blocking the sun and will make a big difference in the amount of sun hours that you will get on a specific location.

    Apart from mountains you could be checking out a location for other obstacles that can block the sun, like buildings or large trees. Where do these objects shade the location in summer and winter.

    The location that you are checking out might be a larger area. Walk around on the location and see what differences there are on the location at any specific point.

    How does your homestead fit in?

    • How would that work out for your garden or for your solar panels?
    • What would it mean for the heating of your house?
    • Will the winter sun still heat up your house? Will the house be warming up to much in summer?
    • At what time in spring would the sun hit your house or vegetable garden for the first time?
    • You will have to position all the objects you will want to have on your Homestead and figure out what sunlight and shade means to these objects. It can be anything like: house, chicken house, barn, vegetable garden, orchard, guesthouse, etc.

    Looking Deeper into the Position of the Sun

    The position of the sun per season

    This video made by the University of Nottingham gives a deeper inside about the position of the sun in different times of the year and in different altitudes.

    The exact position of the sun on your location

    For those who want to dive in even deeper this a tool that shows the exact position of the sun on any place on earth. It does not take the obstacles into account though. Based on the graphs you can picture it in real time. Although there is a tool that calculates the length of a shadow.

    Click on the link below for the tool that shows the exact position of the sun:

    SunEarthTools.com

    Being sure that your location is right for you

    I hope that this blog will help you to find the right location for your Homestead. Finding out the position of the sun can be of great help. Both methods of finding out about the amount of sunshine on your location, behind your desktop or on site will be useful in combination.

    The video and site that I found will help you a little further when you are interested in making a technical effort on the subject.

    If there is anything you would like to know more about the topic of the blog, do not hesitate to leave a question or comment below in the comment area.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    Finding A Homestead Location With Good And Sufficient Fresh Water

    Starting A Homestead In A Remote Area

    Best Homestead Location

  • Starting a Homestead In a Remote Area.

    Starting a Homestead In a Remote Area.

    Once you have decided to start your own Homestead one of the questions will be: where are we going to start our Homestead?

    Are you thinking of starting a Homestead in a remote area, please read on.

    Sure, I would not want to stop you from doing so. We did move out into the countryside, far from the city buzz and pollution. And we enjoy it very much.

    There are some things you really should consider though. Making the wrong choice here could make your dream more challenging than you thought. If you do choose for remoteness you better be prepared for the challenge.

    So when you have this itching tendency to get away as far as possible from where you are now, this is why you should not follow that feeling blindly.

    By the way: our place is about 6 km (15 min) from a small town and 20 km (45 min) from a bigger town with more facilities and shops. The roads are of a good quality. The area is very low populated. We are just far enough to have the remote feeling and close enough to have excess to what we need.

    The Long Way to the Shop

    Ones you are out in your Homestead you will be self-sufficient, that is why you do not need a shop any more. Wouldn’t that be ideal? Yes, I agree. But how realistic is it. Just look around in your house and you will know.

    Screwdrivers, screws, plates, jars, batteries, solar panels, building bricks, hinsches, saws, they do not grow in trees. And even if you are a handywoman like me, you will not be able to make everything yourself.

    Especially at the beginning. You will be lucky when your vegetable garden is a success in year one. Your just planted fruit trees will only carry enough fruit after about 6 years. How are you going to get your trees for planting? What are you going to eat those first years?

    The remoter you are the harder it becomes to get your Homestead going. Being in the mountains or living on the water can make it even harder.

    Even if your ultimate goal is to be totally self sufficient you will still need a shop every now and then when that time comes.

    It is an illusion to think you will never attend a shop anymore when you move out. The contrary might be the case. In the first years we travelled many kilometers to find all our building material.

    We have a big vegetable garden, but some years we simply do not manage to maintain it well enough because of all the activities on the farm. Like improving the goat shelter, making fences and taking care of our fruit trees. So some times of the year we use the vegetable shop to keep us fed.

    Although we have a lot ourselves, we still buy things from the supermarket. Every month we spend some 200€ in the supermarket. It might not be a lot, but we still have to go there.

    The same counts for the animal feeds, it is very hard to get all the feed from our farm, so we buy extra. It all pays back at the end. Which brings me to another consideration.

    Market stall

    Selling Products From Your Homestead

    Whether it is milk, cheese and eggs or handicraft. You will have to travel to the people to sell your products. Even if it is only to the local post office to ship your goods to your clients.

    If you want to live from your farm and sell some products you will need some clientele that lives not to far away from you.

    Being on a remote Homestead might mean you have to travel long distances to sell your things, which might not make it worth doing. In that case making a living becomes a real challenge.

    II am very happy our farm is just a 15 minutes drive from the small town of Monchique. This makes running a market stall every Friday to sell our produce very possible. We combine it with a Friday social lunch in one of the towns lovely restaurants and it makes it into a pleasure.

    Neighbours and Job Opportunities

    Many Homesteaders in the area where we live do small jobs for others. Like land maintenance, rental management, garden work or dog sitting or other things. Maybe you had something similar in mind.

    If so, consider living not too far from the people you want to work for. Here in the mountains the windy roads consume a lot of traveling time. A friend, whose land I can see from the top of our land lives 45 min driving (walking takes even longer) away.

    When you live in a big city, driving to your work in 45 minutes is not an exception. But be prepared to find the same kind of driving times to your work in the countryside. Going too remote will make these kind of jobs very hard to persevere.

    I gave up my rental management activities because the driving from one property to the other simply costed to much (unpaid) time. Now I am running my blog partly from home and partly from an office in the small town. My internet is too costly to run it all from home. There is always hurdles to take when you live remote, but I am happy as it works now.

    Internet & mobile phone

    A thing that might have crossed your mind is selling stuff through the internet. Which is very possible if you are doing some sort of affiliate sales or if you provide a service.
    You do need to make sure that there is internet reception in your place. There are some pretty good satellite facilities. But they will most likely be more expensive than the internet provider that you are used to.

    Ones you have internet you could also run your mobile phone on it. But do not expect any phone reception in remote areas.

    Cat

    Doctor and Vet

    When you want to live remote it is all going to be far away.

    A doctor and a vet (in case you want animals) can be needed in an emergency. It is a good thing to check whether they are around.

    The very friend that lives 45 min drive away, one time was unblocking her water pipe with an iron rod. It got stuck in the pipe and she tried to pull it out of the pipe. It suddenly came loose and drove right through her knee sticking out the other side of her knee. She managed to get it out herself and drive herself to the hospital. She was incredibly lucky. With a bit less luck she would have died in her remote place. Which is in the end only 10 km from the small town. Imagine being really remote.

    I realise this is a shocking story, but it is a reality to take into account. Working with a chainsaw or even an hand ax is not without danger. I will never use my chainsaw when there is nobody else on the land.

    I also realise that the distance to the small town which has an ambulance increases my chance of surviving an accident. The example with my friend shows that you do not need a chainsaw to have a bad accident.

    I was also very happy that I could drive one of my goats to the vet quickly after she had eaten very poisonous rhododendron.

    Very remote means you will have to deal with these life threatening things all by yourself. I would find that very stressful.

    Kids at School

    When you have children, a daily drive to school can be an effort when the school is far away. It is just another time consuming thing. Time that you would rather like to spend on your farm.

    Homeschooling is an alternative, but do not underestimate the time that it takes either. Sure it are your kids and you want the best for their future. Homeschooling however can be quite intense when it is combined with running a self-sustainable place. When you are very remote it might also be hard for the kids to meet other kids. Something the kids might also appreciate at a certain age. Some parents around here got really fed up driving their kids around for miles to other kids.

    Cabin fever

    Ever heard of cabin fever? Sometimes you just have to get out. Go to town, see and speak to other people. You get so restless that you just have to go. This is called cabin fever. It is well known amongst remote living Homesteaders.

    I always notice when people have cabin fever. They come by and drink a cup of tea at ours. And chat, and chat, and chat, endlessly. Then they say goodby and go into town just to be among more people. I do not know anybody around here who does not have it every now and then. You might have it too.

    Some people also like to be involved in social things in town to avoid the cabin fever. They are a member of a church or an association and do some good work in town.

    So again, being remote means being far away from social activities you might not like now, but also might miss ones you are remote.

    Wanting to move out

    Coming from a town’s life in a very busy country I do know the feeling of wanting to move out. I had that feeling. And I did move out.

    I had the feeling that I moved into the middle of nowhere, that feeling changed as things improved around us. It was very funny.

    When I came to live on our Homestead I had the feeling I was living very remote. My husband was a lot in Holland still to work and I was a lot on my own.

    Now my feeling is completely different. The road got improved, neighbours moved in, we have a much more suitable car for this area, we have a proper internet connection, many things have improved. Knowing what it is like to live remote as was the case at the beginning, I am so happy with these changes that brought me closer to the community.

    It gives me the opportunity to run a business. To be able to sell our produce and run my blog makes our chance to keep on living where we are now, so much higher. I enjoy the place where we are a lot. I can see the sea on the horizon, hear the birds singing and breath clean air. It’s golden.

    Summarised & find out more

    If you want to move out into a remote place take the distance have to drive to all that still bind you to a community. Like the distance to the shop for tools or for groceries, the job that you make money with at your neighbours, the vet, the school from your kids and the social events you might want to join. We are more connected to the world we live in then we think.

    Moving out far is worth considering very careful. Being in the world we are in now moving as far away as we can might seem very attractive, but as it has good sides it has challenging sides as well. It is important te be prepared for this move.

    Find out more about what it takes to start a Homestead.

    Check this blogpost by clicking on the links:

    5 Phases in Building a Homestead

    Preparing for Your Homestead.

    5 Reasons Why We Started Our Homestead

    The Best Homestead Location and the Position of the Sun

    Finding A Homestead Location With Good And Sufficient Fresh Water

     

    Starting a Homestead

  • 4 Easy to Learn Homesteading Kitchen Skills for Starters

    4 Easy to Learn Homesteading Kitchen Skills for Starters

    When you want to start your own Homestead (or just started one) you can feel overwhelmed with all the things you need to learn.

    This is how we tackled the feeling of being overwhelmed: we took our time. There is no way you will be able to learn everything at once when you have your Homestead.

    The good news is: you can start learning some of the skills without having your dreamed Homestead.

    In this blog we will introduce you to 4 easy to learn kitchen skills that you can start learning right now:

     

    4 skills that you will need when you have your Homestead with your own vegetable garden and fruit trees. All 4 skills are more deeply discussed in linked blogs as you will find out down below.

    Vegetable gardening for beginners

    Seasonal Cooking, That Is What You Are Very Likely Going to Do.

     

    When you will have your own Homestead with your own vegetable garden, seasonal cooking will be the thing you will do.

    Seasonal cooking is different from cooking with non-seasonal ingredients. For example: it is end of summer and there is an abundance of tomatoes, bell peppers and zucchinis. You need to find or design recipes that use exactly these ingredients.

    Other times of the year like in spring there are only broad beans and peas to cook with.

    In that case you will need a variety of recipes with broad beans or peas that taste very different from each other.

    As you practice you will get better at it without boring your family members with broad beans or peas.

    As you go, you can start making your own database with recipes that use broad beans, peas, tomatoes, bell peppers and/or zucchinis.

    In my blog: “Learning Easy Homesteading Skills: Seasonal Cooking” I explain how seasonal cooking works. Click here to get to the blog.

    Canning

    Canning, a Must Have Homesteading Skill.

     

    Canning is something that is also very connected to having your own vegetable garden. Having a well working vegetable garden usually means having more to harvest than you can eat. The same will happen when you have a well producing fruit tree (or trees). There will be too much fruit to eat.

    Because canning is an easy skill that you can learn anywhere, why not start learning it now? It will save you a lot of stress later when you will have the pressure of growing vegetables that want to be harvested.

    But what are you going to can when you do not have a vegetable garden?

    No problem, just buy some. When you stick to seasonal vegetables and fruit it is most likely very affordable.

    In my blog: “Learning Easy Homesteading Skills: Canning” I will tell you all you need to know about canning. It gives you a simple way of starting to can and also tells you how you can do your canning save.

    Click here to get to the blog.

    Dehydrating

    The Advantages of Dehydrating Fruit and Vegetables

     

    Every year our trees carry fruit. It starts in early summer with apricots followed by plums then apples and pears a bit later in the summer. In fall we have our lemons, oranges and persimmons ripening. Once your Homestead is well established you will probably have the same richness as we are having now.

    Dehydrating has some good advantages over other ways of preserving food. It is quick, easy, does not take a lot of storing space and keeps the vitamins in the vegetable or fruit.

    It is a very easy to learn skill and it gives a lot of joy eating the dried fruit. With a dehydrator you can also make fruit leather and candied fruit. And then you could dip the candied fruit in chocolate, making your own candies. It’s a lot of fun.

    I wrote a blog about Dehydrating in which I explain how it works and what is needed for it. I also explain how the advantages of dehydrating work out.

    Click here to go to the blog: The Advantages Of Dehydrating Fruit And Vegetables

    Juice

    Why Using A Steam Juicer Is A Good Idea

     

    Apart from canning and dehydrating fruit, I love to make juices from our home grown fruit.

    Using a Steam Juicer makes Juicing to an easy job. Pick the fruit, wash it, put it in the steamer and after about an hour I have got some bottles filled with pasteurised fruit juice. When the juice is filled into well sterilised bottles and is well sealed it will keep forever.

    The juice can be good for drinking, but also serves as a good ingredient for making jellies or sauces or even wines.

    I especially like to use the steam juicer for soft fruit.

    In my blog: “Why Using A Steam Juicer Is A Good Idea”, you will find exactly why I think Steam Juicing is great. Click on the title to find out more about it.

    4 easy skills in 4 blogs

     

    This being just an overview of 4 skills that you can learn right now while you are still dreaming about your own Homestead, I would like to invite you to check out my blogs:

    Learning Easy Homesteading Skills: Seasonal Cooking

    Learning Easy Homesteading Skills: Canning

    The Advantages of Dehydrating Fruit and Vegetables

    Why Using A Steam Juicer Is A Good Idea

    I wish you a lot of reading pleasure!

    Homesteading

  • The Advantages of Dehydrating Fruit and Vegetables

    The Advantages of Dehydrating Fruit and Vegetables

    Don’t you know what to do with an overload of fruit and vegetables in summer and fall?
    Do you only have little time for preserving your dear harvest?
    Is your pantry not big enough to store all the goodies from the land?

    This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using this link to buy a product we will earn a small commission. This way we will be able to continue providing you with the best information we have about Homesteading. 

    Here is what you can do: dehydrate your fruit and vegetables.

    Check this short video to see what a dehydrator is and how it works.

    An overload of fruit and vegetables in summer and fall.

    Every year our trees carry fruit. It starts in early summer with apricots followed by plums then apples and pears a bit later in the summer. In fall we have our lemons, oranges and persimmons ripening.

    Some trees carry a lot of fruit, like our plum and persimmon trees. The persimmon trees can carry up to 100 kg. The plum trees something like 80 kg. Far too much to make jam from or to can. We would never eat all that jam or canned fruit in a years time. So I find the dehydrator a good solution to deal with these big amounts of fruit. Combined with the use of a steam juicer and with canning I manage to process a lot of it.

    Another thing that I love to dehydrate is tomatoes. Every year we have an overload of tomatoes in fall. Dehydrated tomatoes are very tasty and can be used the rest of the year when there are no fresh ones. They are lovely in pasta dishes .

    By dehydrating you will preserve vitamins.

    Our apple and pear trees carry less, but I still like to use the dehydrator to preserve these fruits since dehydrating means keeping the vitamins preserved as well. Apple and pear sauce tastes very good and I do make it, but by heating the fruit vitamins get lost. This is not so much the case when you dehydrate your fruit. So dehydrating is also a healthy way to preserve fruit and vegetables.

    Dehydrating is Easy and quick

    For canning or jam making a lot of steps are required. Not so much with dehydrating. I think it is a lot quicker and easier. That is why I like it.

    You do need to clean the fruit or vegetable so there is no dirt on it before it goes into the dehydrator. After that you just dry the fruit and put it in the dehydrator.

    When you dehydrate apples or pears it takes a bit more work. You need to take the center with the seeds out. If you want it more fancy you can peel the, something I do not do. It is a matter of taste.

    When you have a lot of apples or pears you can use a special knife to cut the center out. The are also practical peeling devices to make the peeling quicker.

    Saving space by dehydrating vegetables.

    Except for the tomatoes we did not dehydrate a lot of vegetables yet, but our neighbouring friends do. They dehydrate practically all their surplus vegetables. The reason is that it saves a lot of space to store dehydrated vegetables instead of canned vegetables.

    Dehydrated fruit can be a healthy, heavenly candy.

    One of the best things of dehydrated fruit is, I think, that you can produce super nice healthy candies.

    We always like to have some snacks in between. And sure you can make a cake or some muesli bars for that purpose. But the thing is: they contain added sugar… The dried fruit or fruit leather does not. For me (being over 50…) this makes dehydrated fruit the perfect snack for in between.

    As already mentioned dehydrating fruit also keeps most of the vitamins in the fruit.

    Costs

    Yes, you do need to buy a dehydrator. When you buy the one we have it will cost you a bit over 100€. There are also some smaller dehydrators for a bit less as well.

    Other then buying the dehydrator the costs are very low. Most dehydrators are pretty efficient in electricity use. There is no significant difference in our electric bill when I have been dehydrating fruit even though the dehydrator runs a long time. I try to use the dehydrator overnight even saving more since the night price of the electricity we buy is lower than the day price.

    Once done and packed away, there are no extra costs involved.

    [button_simple link=”https://www.brouwland.com/nl/bier/?tt=25813_12_329799_Dehydrating&r=%2Fen%2Four-products%2Fkitchen-canning%2Fherb-fruit-drying” target=”_blank” background_color=”#ffffff” border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Click here to check out what a Dehydrator costs.[/button_simple]

    What can you dehydrate?

    You can basically dehydrate all fruit and vegetables but some things are nicer to dehydrate then others.

    On our farm we use different techniques for preserving: canning, steam juicing and dehydrating. Simply because some techniques work better for some things then other things. And sometimes we use different techniques for one thing to get a bigger variety.

    Hard fruit like apples and pears do not steam juice very well when they are not 100% ripe. Sometimes we harvest the fruit earlier because if we leave them hanging birds and fruit flies will consume them. Making the fruit to hart to steam juice. In that case we use dehydration to preserve the fruit.

    Softer fruit like plums, figgs and apricots as well as berries do very well in the steam juicer, but can also be dried in the dehydrator. We do both. The juice can be used for making syrup or jelly. The dehydrates fruit can be eaten as candies. The juice and the dried fruit can even be used in fruit sauces. Soft fruits can also be canned or made into jam. Something we also do.

    Persimmons a special fruit

    Preserving persimmons is a story on it’s own. You can make jam and wine, but none of the two have proved very satisfying for us. We have about 100 kg of persimmons every year from just three trees, which is a lot to process.

    I can sell some of the fruit on the market to people who do not have persimmon trees. But because almost everybody has them I never sell a lot. So I get stuck with the fruit.

    Steam juicing persimmons is impossible.

    Making jam from persimmons gives us an excellent jam. The only problem is that you need to make small quantities at a time. Somehow the jam does not set well when you have a big pot full of fruit pulp to process into jam. So we do make some Persimmon jam but not a lot. The jam is not suitable for selling since it oxidizes, showing a brown coloring in the jar.

    The best solution for processing persimmons we found is dehydrating the pulp into fruit leather. It makes a wonderful candy without any additives and without sugar. The good thing is that I can process all the fruit we have. It will also sell very well because it is absolutely delicious. It can be packaged in paper wraps or jars easily.

    Check our short slideshow on making persimmon fruit leather.

    So that’s it about dehydrating fruit and vegetables.

    I think dehydrating fruit and vegetables is very easy. It saves space, costs and time. For me it is a great way to make nice healthy snacks.

    And the fruit leather…. , is sooooo good.

    [button_simple link=”https://www.brouwland.com/nl/bier/?tt=25813_12_329799_Dehydrating&r=%2Fen%2Four-products%2Fkitchen-canning%2Fherb-fruit-drying” target=”_blank” background_color=”#1e73be” border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Click here to buy a Dehydrator[/button_simple]

    Dehydrating food

  • Why using a Steam Juicer is a good idea.

    Why using a Steam Juicer is a good idea.

    Do you have a lot of soft fruit at once in your Orchard? Do you find it hard to process it all at the same time? In that case using a steam juicer is a good idea.

    I struggled processing our fruit in the late spring. Hardest were the small plums which I had to de-stone before making jam. 70 kg of fruit to de-stone is very time consuming. It took all of my days to process them and there was still so much to do on the farm.

    Then my friend told me that she had bought a steam juicer. I had heard about using a steam juicer but had no idea how it worked. I bought one on her advice and I was surprised. It took me a lot less effort and time to process our fruit.

    This blog contains affiliate links. When you buy something trough these affiliate link you will help to keep us alive and be able to make more interesting blogs.

    The advantages of a steam juicer.

    For me there are a lot of advantages using a steam juicer.

    You can process a lot of fruit in a very short time span without a lot of labour. Up to 10 l of fruit at a time. You can use the whole soft fruit and do not need to take the stones out.

    The process of steam juicing is not complicated. There is not much that can go wrong.

    The fruit juice that comes out of the steam juicer is pasteurised. When poured in a clean sterilised bottle it will keep for a very long time.

    Steam juicing is very cost effective. Once the juice is made it does not need any extra electricity to keep it. It is ideal when you have a solar system. You can use gas to steam juice your fruit and then keep it forever without any extra energy input.

    You can use the juice as a basic ingredient for all sorts of tasty home mades. Like Jellie, syrup to make drinks, sauces and ice cream. We use it to enrich our kefir drink.

    In a steam juicer, you can also use over ripe fruit. So you will lose less fruit during the process.

    A disadvantage is that it does not work as well for hard fruit, like hard apples or pears. For us this is not really a problem because it is easy to dry apples and pears in our dehydrator. To know more about dehydrating click on this link: “The Advantages Of Dehydrating Fruit And Vegetables“.

    To go short, steam juicing is easy and it provides a quick way to process a lot of fruit. In our case it proved to be very effective to juice grapes, plums and berries.

    How does a Steam Juicer Work?

    Watch the short video to see what a steam juicer looks like and how it works.

    What do You Need for Steam Juicing?

    First of all you will need a good Steam Juicer. Mine is a 10 l one. So I can process enough fruit in one go. That saves me time. Through this link you will find the 10 l Steam Juicer we bought.

    The other thing you will need is bottles with a lid, washed and sterilised. For this I reuse beer bottles with a screw cap, rubber cap or a flip-top. You can also go fancy and use a special weck juice bottle.

    I reuse just any kind of bottle. I wash them well and sterilise them. How to do this? Click on the link and see my blog: Sterilising Bottles in the Oven.

    Summarising

    Steam juicers are very useful for processing large quantities of fruit into juice. In this way you will save time for doing other things on your farm.

    The juice can be stored for a long time and be used as a basic ingredient for lot of recipes.

    I hope you enjoyed my blog and have a great steam juicing time.

     

    Steam Juicer, Juicing

  • Don’t waste food, for a more sustainable household.

    Don’t waste food, for a more sustainable household.

    Did you know that one third of all the food that is harvested on the planet is thrown away? One third of all the effort that was put into growing vegetables is wasted! Don’t waste food. Here is how you can do it.

    This blogpost contains affiliate links. By using them you support our homestead.

    Fruit and vegetables are wasted because it is not perfect.

     

    When I was young one day I was helping at a farm in Holland. We were harvesting carrots. Most of them we had to put away because they were not strait. Luckily this was an organic farm that also had cattle. The carrots that were not for human consumption were given to the cattle. Still I thought it was a crazy thing to not sell all those carrots. Since the taste was as good as the straight ones.

    Later when we started our homestead here in Portugal. We are producing organic lemons. As a producer we discovered that the supermarkets, even the organic ones had very high standards. So lots of our lemons do not meet these high standards and we are not able to sell them. Not because they are not good lemons… Even if you take all the measures to grow the perfect lemons, there is no way all the lemons would meet the standard from the supermarket.

    You know why the supermarkets have such a high standard? The supermarkets state that the consumer does not want a fruit that is not perfect. Is that fair to accuse you as a consumer? You don’t even have a choice. And if you had a choice. Would you only go for perfect if you would have known that for this very reason so much produced fruit is wasted?

     

    Food is wasted because of a arbitrary expire date.

     

    Did you know that there are no legal rules for setting an expire date for most products? I discovered this when I started producing our organic jam. Because I had to put an expire date on the label I started looking for regulations. What I found out is that it was up to the producer. So I had to make up a date until my jam could be eaten. How long does jam keep when it is properly made, sealed and stored? 20 years? Then why are the expire dates so short? I have no clue.

    What I know is that a lot of products are tossed away by the supermarkets because they are off date. An incredible amount…

    Check out this trailer of the film ‘Just eat it, a food waste story’

    [button_round link=”https://amzn.to/2EymN3B” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Buy the film here[/button_round]

    Wasting food is wasting your money.

     

    Not wasting food is also good for your wallet. On average 20% of the bought food for households is thrown away. That is one shopping back full on every 5 full shopping bags.

    Did you know that for the average U.S. household of four, food waste translates into an estimate 1350＄-2275＄ in annual losses*? You could go on a nice holiday for that money!

    Did you know that you can do to address this world wide problem of wasting food?

     

    What can you do?

     

    • Plan ahead what you will eat. Make a shopping list and stick to it when you go shopping. This saves money at one end and saves wasting food on the other end because things will not get stuck in your fridge and go wasted.
      Do not buy on impulse. The offers might look very cheap, but if you do not use the products that you buy, you will only end up throwing away your money.  You could buy on offer what you already planned to buy. This way an offer is something you can really benefit from.
    • Keep your fridge organised.
    • When you have leftovers, keep them cool in the fridge and reuse them.
    • There are many recipes to reuse leftovers such as bread. Making bread into delicious French Toast or bread cake. From vegetables and meat you can always make soup for the next day  or for a supper. Adding some herbs or spices can dramatically change the taste, so you don’t even notice you are eating leftovers. Fried rice is also a good one to reuse leftover vegetables and meat.
    • Did you know that you can use the leafy things that get shrivelled in your fridge can be used as an ingredient in soup? This way you do not need to throw them away.

     

    Do you really want to solve this problem and become an expert?

     

    I have found two interesting cookbooks for you that each have an interesting but different approach to solve the problem of wasting food in your kitchen.

    [button_round link=”https://terradomilho.eu/2018/10/want-to-know-how-to-stop-wasting-food/” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]I want to know more![/button_round]

    Victoria Glass gives you lots of recipes and Dana Gunders leads you through methods of optimising the organisation of your shopping and kitchen. Both provide you with practical tips to tackle the problem of wasting food.

    [button_round link=”https://terradomilho.eu/2018/10/want-to-know-how-to-stop-wasting-food/” target=”_blank” background_color=”#8224e3″ border_color=”#000″ text_color=”#000″ ]Read more…[/button_round]

    *https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf