The Nourishing Hearthfire

Welcome to the first email for the new Nourishing Hearthfire mailing list.

If you’ve received this, you were either subscribed to the old mailing list, or had said ‘yes’ to the mailing list question on my cheese book Kickstarter survey 3 years ago (yes, I am a bit slow with these things!), or you’ve found this through my Floury Friday sourdough mailing list.

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About The Nourishing Hearthfire mailing list

The Nourishing Hearthfire mailing list will be sent out around once a month. I’ll be sharing new posts, updates on what we are doing on our homestead, plus highlights and reflections from ten years of blog archives.

From the homestead

We are in the early stages of winter here, when the warmth of our wood stove and hot cups of tea are most appreciated. It’s a time to slow down, reflect, and plan ahead.

There’s not a whole lot to do in the garden. The hens are not laying, but we have an abundance of goats milk and cheese, pigs in the forest, and lots of kale, garlic, and other winter-hardy crops in the garden. I’m reading gardening books, taking notes, and trying to refine our crop rotation system and planting calendar.

Planning a successful garden from experience is a matter of finding balance. Balance between the things we most want to eat, and the things that reliably produce food here. Balance between not biting off more than we can chew, yet still having enough growing space to produce all (or nearly all) of our own vegetables.

Over the years we see what works, what doesn’t, and refine our priorities and growing systems. I’ve been growing vegetables on various homesteads since 2007, and there are always new things to learn and observe.

From the archives

Young Liflin

https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2019/07/11/young-liflin/

“I dream of a summer and autumn ahead where I make one or two hard cheeses a week and store them away for the winter and spring…”

It sends shivers down my spine to read this post, and know that everything worked out fine all those years ago, and that this year I’ve been making hard cheese every day or two and feeling a sense of dairy abundance. With homesteading on land that isn’t really ideal for growing food it feels like we’re living on a razors edge at times, and that things can (and do) go wrong. It’s been nice to read old posts like this one and be reminded that things turn out right a lot of the time, and perhaps the near-misses at total failure make the journey more meaningful along the way.

Real French onion soup, made with bone broth

https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2023/09/11/homemade-french-onion-soup/

An absolute classic, made the slow and delicious way.

Garden tools for self sufficiency

https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2022/10/12/self-sufficient-gardening-tools/

My favourite tools for self sufficient food gardening.