You can easily substitute fresh pumpkin for canned pumpkin, but a couple extra steps are needed to ensure the final product is perfect. Follow these steps to ensure you end up with a perfectly roasted pumpkin that is superior in both flavor and texture. Selecting the Right Pumpkin Your journey to the perfect pumpkin puree begins with choosing the right variety of pumpkin. Those big
Homesteading with Kids
This is what homesteading with children looks like. Fox, now a toddler, picked these precious San Marzano tomatoes, which he’s been doing periodically all summer. And, yes, it drives me I.N.S.A.N.E. But the alternative is to keep the kids out of the garden or, worse, stop gardening altogether out of frustration. And then everyone loses. Let me tell you why. Continuing to homestead on our
Homestead Update: Year Five
Can you believe we’ve been digging our roots into this homestead for five years already? I’m returning for intermittent blogging after taking a couple years off. And I wanted to let you all in the garden gate and show you how things have grown. Modern homesteads are about some degree of self-sufficiency, so our space has always been intended to offset our food supply. The
One More Seat
It turns out there was one more seat at our family table. We get to welcome a baby boy into the world in early October, just as summer is fading into fall. Although I am not blogging regularly anymore, the news just feels too big to not share. Life feels very full, but somehow I just knew we weren’t quite done with our family. Juniper
Homestead Tour
Check out before-and-after photos, garden plans and lots of pretty photos of our homesteads. See how our current home is in the process of transforming into a productive homestead after just two years. Or view images from our original homestead where we planted roots for eight lively years.
Slowing Down
I have been chronicling my journey through modern homesteading for nearly a decade, and many of you have been with me for much of that time. This website began as a place to show everyday folks like you and me what homesteading on a small, urban lot could look like. There were very few resources at that time for urban homesteading or small-scale permaculture, but times
What Makes a Homestead
“What makes a homestead?” is a question I have been asked a lot over the years. Most definitions have a common theme: it’s a home attached to the land. My belief is that your perception is what makes your home into a homestead. Here are some examples of how our home life is integrated into the land we sit upon. Sense the seasons I don’t
Landscape Design
LANDSCAPE DESIGN Renee Wilkinson received her masters degree in landscape architecture from the University of Oregon. She works as a residential landscape designer in the Portland metro area helping homeowners transform their outdoor spaces. Renee partners with licensed contractors to ensure the design vision becomes a well-constructed reality. Renee is especially interested in planting design, edible landscapes, nature-play spaces and sustainable landscape practices. She incorporates ecologically-sensitive design
First of the Season Berry Picking
I had the pleasure of spending a recent sunny morning at a nearby farm picking berries with my friend Denise and my 3-year old Juniper. It’s been an annual early-June tradition since long before Juniper was born and each year this day marks both the kick-off the u-pick season and also the passage of time. I remember when a decade ago nearby Sauvie’s Island was
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