Every experienced tomato gardener knows the feeling: you’ve got more tomatoes than you can possibly eat, canning is a whole project, the freezer is full, and a significant portion of your harvest is going to go soft before you get to it. It’s one of the more frustrating ironies of gardening — you wait months...
Backyard Livestock
Backyard farming is considered to be a movement in which average folks who live in urban environments turn a portion of their backyard into a food-producing garden, complete with fruits, vegetables, chickens, and anything else that will fit!
Backyard farming is for anyone with a backyard! It doesn’t matter how big your backyard is, if you have one, you’ve got space for a backyard farm!
Whether it’s keeping a few chickens, growing some tomatoes in buckets, or putting in raised beds, a backyard farm is perfect for city dwellers as well as rural folks.
The size of the backyard doesn’t matter much! Even if you have a small backyard, you can still have a backyard farm. One of our mantras is make good use of the space you have!
Backyard farming provides tons of benefits for you, your health, your environment, and your local economy. A garden can be started any time of the year. There’s even gardening work that can be done in the winter most places!
Backyard farming also improves the biodiversity of your community and helping native species thrive, improving the environment, and relieve challenges created by urban and rural food deserts.
Setting up a backyard farm can even be profitable if you have extra! Keeping a few more chickens than you need and selling their eggs, or growing high yield crops like tomatoes and zucchini, you’ll have plenty to sell to friends and neighbors. If you’re the extra charitable, your friends, family, and neighbors will love your fresh, backyard farm produce as a gift!
You walk outside one morning and there’s a seething, basketball-sized mass of bees hanging from your apple tree. Thousands of them. Moving, humming, clustered together like something out of a nature documentary. Your instinct says: run. Here’s the thing — that instinct is almost certainly wrong. Swarming bees are one of the most misunderstood events...
Ducks are sold as the easy alternative to chickens. Friendlier, hardier, great foragers, amazing eggs — all true. What people don’t always mention upfront is that ducks are also genuinely messy, surprisingly loud if you pick the wrong breed, and going to be part of your life for the next decade or more. A Pekin...
Keeping your own flock of chickens is a real treat for a number of reasons. They provide fresh eggs, and hours of entertainment, and their manure can be composted and used in your garden. But not every type of chicken is the same. Some are larger, some are smaller. Some are docile and others can...
Nothing beats the thrill of watching your hens cluck excitedly as you toss them a handful of fresh kitchen scraps! Not only does this reduce food waste, but it also enriches their diet with vitamins, minerals, and fun foraging opportunities. Whether you’re a seasoned chicken keeper or new to the flock, knowing which scraps are...
Starting a backyard chicken coop for egg production is not only a fun project but also a rewarding one. Imagine waking up every morning to the fresh sound of clucking hens and gathering warm, freshly laid eggs. Whether you’re looking to embrace a more sustainable lifestyle, enjoy farm-fresh eggs, or just want to experience the...
When most people think about raising backyard poultry, chickens are usually the first birds that come to mind. However, ducks are an often overlooked but incredibly rewarding alternative that can offer numerous benefits over their clucking counterparts. Whether you’re looking for a steady supply of eggs, natural pest control, or simply some charming feathered friends,...
If you’re looking to get into beekeeping, chances are you’re going to need to drop a few hundred dollars for all of the equipment that you’ll need, like the hive and safety gear, as well as the bee colony itself. But there is a way to obtain at least the bee colony for free: by...
Raising backyard chickens has become an increasingly popular hobby, offering fresh eggs, pest control, and a connection to nature right in your own backyard. However, not every city is equally accommodating when it comes to keeping chickens. Some cities have embraced the trend, creating chicken-friendly ordinances that allow urban and suburban residents to enjoy the...
I grow tomatoes every year. They’re delicious plucked straight off the vine. But 3 years ago, I tried a new kind of fertilizer and frankly, I’ve never looked back. That fertilizer? Rabbit manure. I have never had a more bodacious crop of tomatoes in my life than the years that I used rabbit manure as...
Eggs make for a delicious breakfast and are a great source of nutrients like protein, fat, zinc, and vitamins B6, B12, A, D, and E. But there are lots of different eggs on the market to choose from, like duck eggs, chicken eggs, quail eggs, and so on. Chicken eggs are the most common type...
Keeping a flock of your own chickens can be a fun and rewarding hobby, and one of my favorite breeds of chicken are Buff Orpington chickens. I’ve kept buffs pretty consistently for more than a decade, and between their size, egg production, and their temperament, they are the perfect bird for any casual backyard hobbyist....