Resources

I have had many friends reach out and express enthusiasm for gardening – they see the benefit of sustainability and the loveliness of picking their own warm tomatoes off the vine, but don’t know where to start or how to maximize their current setup. Just a few years ago, we were in the same position as you – we wanted to garden but only knew the basics: soil, plants, sunlight, and water. I hope my blog can be helpful and inspiring to you to try new things, but I also know that sometimes we just need to explore, read, and chew on things on our own time. So, I have endeavored to compile a selection of books, YouTube channels, Facebook pages, and more that have provided a wealth of knowledge for us along the way. Please keep checking back as we update!

Gardening & Plants

Charles Dowding is one of our go-to YouTube channels – he has so much information about small-scale organic growing, no-till gardening, and more.
Touch base with your local Monarch Watch or Master Gardener’s Association – through sales hosted by these organizations I have gotten a lot of wonderful native perennials for our garden that have doubled as a plant that provides herbal benefits.
“PictureThis” is one of our favorite plant identification apps – no app is perfect, but this gets you darn close to recognizing plants on your morning walks.

Permaculture

Contact your local permaculture institute for more information and the opportunities to attend workshops and gain certification. For us, that means KPI, or the Kansas Permaculture Institute.

Herbalism

One of my passions – cultivating & developing health support right from your backyard! I believe in bringing your body and spirit back into balance with plants and focusing on your well-being. I got my start through following The Herbal Academy on Instagram and then started taking courses online. They offer many varieties of classes and mini-courses that can help introduce you to herbalism or even get you on the track to be a clinical herbalist with your own business.
Want somewhere to get started? Check out books and resources by Rosemary Gladstar, one of the mothers of herbal medicine.
One of my favorite herbal YouTubers is Yarrow, the Herbal Jedi – he has some fun and eclectic videos about herbs how they are used to support various elements of our bodies.

Chickens

I cannot stress how important it is to research today and buy tomorrow. I see too many posts on social media that exposes a severe lack of understanding for how chickens work and how it ultimately ends up hurting the birds and costing their owners time, money, and emotional discomfort.
My two favorite books are Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens and The Small-Scale Poultry Flock. Between the two, I had a great start on knowing how to support chickens and their needs as well as a more natural approach.
Another (addicting) support location is joining Backyard Chickens (BYC) on Facebook – this group provides a lot of support and troubleshooting and I followed it extensively before bringing home my chickens. It made identifying things like pasty butt and coccidiosis symptoms so much easier. (Thanks to watching some late night videos, I also knew what dust-bathing looked like so I could recognize the strange digging and burying behavior of my chicks rather than think they were half-dead or neurologic.)