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In my area, a farmer absolutely could make a living on 20 acres. Not with monocropping, though. CSA, farmstand, keep pigs and chickens to eat the unsaleable stuff, keep bees, buy a few products from smaller producers for resale in the farmstand, etc. CSA shares sell out fast here. There is a...

The TB issue was also from infected dairy workers coughing into the milk. Completely closed systems have eliminated that risk. How many nursing mothers do you know that pasteurize their breast milk before feeding it to their infants? :lau I finally got goats because I visited the only farms...

You do not need 20 acres to be self-sufficient. You need that much if you manage it like a modern factory farm. If you manage it by working with natural ecosystems, you can be very self-sufficient on much, much less land. How much? Depends on the size of your family and how much they eat...

Duh! It was on the fermenting thread on SufficientSelf.com, of course. Here it is: It got better and better with age. I repacked it into several half-pint jars so most could stay in my basement fridge and my upstairs fridge would be more reasonable.... :rolleyes:

Yes, that is whey! You can also strain the yogurt through a layer or two of cloth to get more, and make a nice, thick yo-cheese. I'm still trying to locate my recipe that I used last year, but what on earth did I do with it??? I'm pretty sure I just used the mustard recipe from Nourishing...

Just make sure it is a live culture, plain yogurt without added pectin or gums or anything like that...it won't drain. Trust me. I made a horseradish mustard last year and have one small jar left. Time to dig up the horseradish and make another batch! Fermented, of course. Yum. Live...

This year I used a fresh grape leaf or two on all my ferments, weighted down with a scrubbed rock. You can also use horseradish leaves if you like that taste. I've also used a ziploc freeze bag filled with brine (in case of leaks) and that worked really well....I'm just trying to remove...

Google "cucumber salsa recipe" and a bunch will come up. I made some last year (fermented, of course!) and it was a huge it, surprisingly good.

Botulism in home-fermented foods in only a concern if you then can them. If you don't heat-process your saurkraut, pickles, condiments, salsa, etc, you don't need to worry about botulism. Fermenting creates an acidic environment that will NOT support the growth of botulism. When you kill the...

I picked up a five gallon pail tonight, leaving immature ones on the vines. I found an "experienced" lady who told me "when the stems start turning brown, not when they are still fully green."

This is the first year I actually got some winter squashes! Baby Blue Hubbards. Every time I've attempted to plant them in the past, the local groundhog population got sleek and fat. This year I planted enough for everyone, apparently. So several of the squashes are blue and the plants are...

If you can put your compost pile (well contained) where your chickens have access to it, they will turn it and it will break down much faster. Also, ask your neighbors for grass clippings, leaves, weeds, etc....anything you can add to your compost pile. My neighbors leave their full...

Like pie, cobblers can be eaten at room temp or even cold! Yummy!

You could make a plum cobbler, crisp, or pie. Quite yummy! Use any recipe and just put in the unpeeled but pitted and sliced plums. You can mix them with something like blueberries to make it more interesting. Major yum. I made a plum liqueur that is now aging and is starting to smell quite...

Certainly he was teasing! How can someone who owns chickens think that??? :rolleyes:

:lau Oh, can you imagine? My goats would be knocking down the door at first light looking for their coffee! I tell 'em, "Get out there and free-range, because it is FREE!" (Nods to OFG....) Seriously, there are a lot of factors that contribute to the amount of milk one gets at each session...

I think what vfem described goes far beyond not using another brand in public....Sounds like she can't rent Food Inc to view in her livingroom or have a conversation with someone who knows what Monsanto is up to. A private conversation at a private party. She could've listened politely and...

Wow. Wow. Wow..... I answered one of the people who joined...was it ss or byh? and started up with the pro-Monsanto crap. I PM'd her saying she did not have to be a pawn of such an evil company, she was free to get a job elsewhere and not contribute to the evil in this world, etc. She never...

Ha-ha, they are probably pretty sick of me over there..... I cook with them, not being a big fan of raw onions (except a few scallions in a "spring salad" of leaf lettuce, salt, and sour cream!). I like the fermenting method because it uses far less salt than the salting method while still...

I do weed my onions. My grandmother grew them in Northern Maine, zone 3 or lower, and my zone is 4-5, although we have had some deep freezes the past few years that killed many perrenials that were decades old. If they get too weedy, you can always let them go to seed, collect the seeds, and...