Got a question or thought to share? 🤔💬

Head over to the blog post -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/family-farms/ -- and drop it in the comments—we’d love to hear what you think and we’ll be sure to reply!

Description

In this episode Deborah Niemann is joined by Brian Reisinger, journalist and author of Land Rich, Cash Poor, to talk about a subject close to both their hearts: the alarming disappearance of family farms in the United States.

Brian grew up on a multi-generational Wisconsin farm and brings a unique perspective as both a writer and someone with deep roots in agriculture. Drawing from his family’s story and extensive research, Brian explains the historical, economic, political, and technological forces that have shaped—and in many cases, harmed—family farming for over a century.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why family farms have been disappearing for over 100 years
• The ripple effect of labor, policy, and market changes on farm viability
• The critical role of government research and how its decline hurts innovation
• Why private companies should care about saving small farms, too
• What we can do to protect the 2 million farms still standing today

📘 Featured Book

• Land Rich, Cash Poor by Brian Reisinger
  • Buy on Amazon
  • Buy on Bookshop

Love This Episode?

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your sustainability-minded friends.

Find all episodes and transcripts at:

🔗 thriftyhomesteader.com/bookchat

Got a question or thought to share? 🤔💬

Head over to the blog post -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/building-a-pantry-from-scratch/ -- and drop it in the comments—we’d love to hear what you think and we’ll be sure to reply!

Description

In this episode, Deborah Niemann welcomes Kris Bordessa, author of Attainable Sustainable and the new follow-up, Attainable Sustainable Pantry. Kris shares her inspiration behind writing a book focused entirely on pantry staples and kitchen self-reliance, especially after the overwhelming response to her first book.

Whether you’re a complete beginner or already comfortable in the kitchen, this conversation is packed with practical tips, money-saving ideas, and sustainability-minded advice for taking control of your food.

What You’ll Learn

• Why Kris’s second book is a deep dive into pantry-focused self-reliance
• How to replace boxed foods like pancake mix and instant oatmeal with homemade versions
• What to do when you run out of ingredients like brown sugar or oat flour
• Kitchen tools that make homemade cooking more accessible (hint: stand mixer wins!)
• Tips for using up food instead of throwing it away (like turning failed bread into croutons)
• Easy ways to start preserving food without a pressure canner, including:
• Quick pickling
• Dehydrating
• Freezing in oil
• Unexpected DIY recipes like crystallized ginger, red wine vinegar, and garlic powder
• Kris’s favorite pantry snack: homemade cheese crackers (goodbye, Cheez-Its!)
• Why this book is especially timely for anyone struggling with rising grocery costs

Resources Mentioned

• 📘 Attainable Sustainable Pantry by Kris Bordessa
  • Buy on Amazon
  • Buy on Bookshop
• 📘 Attainable Sustainable: The Lost Art of Self-Reliant Living
  • Buy on Amazon
  • Buy on Bookshop
• 🧂 National Center for Home Food Preservation (used for vetting preservation recipes)

Connect with Kris Bordessa

• 🌐 Website: attainablesustainable.net
• 📱 Social: @AttainableSustainable on Facebook, Instagram, and more

Love This Episode?

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your sustainability-minded friends. Find all episodes and transcripts at:

🔗 thriftyhomesteader.com/bookchat

Whether you're a chicken keeper or someone who simply gets annoyed when reading children's books that are filled with misinformation about animals, Diane Sorenson's, The Tales of Mr. Ken Rooster and the Six Sassy Hens, is a fun little gem that's sure to delight young children, as well as the adults reading the book to them.

The book includes short stories about the seven chickens in the author's backyard, and many of the stories, such as the ones about the fox and the raccoon, are based on true events.

In today's episode, we are talking to Diane about her chicken-keeping journey and her inspiration for the book.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/backyard-chickens-in-childrens-book/

To see the most recent episodes, visit ThriftyHomesteader.com/BookChat

If you want to grow a garden that is in sync with nature, then you need to check out Chris McLaughlin's ninth and newest book, The Good Garden: How to Nurture Pollinators, Soil, Native Wildlife, and Healthy Food — All in Your Own Backyard.

In this episode, Chris and I are talking about several of The Good Garden concepts presented in her book, starting with knowing your ecosystem. We talk about how pollinators and wildlife are your partners in the garden, how to control weeds naturally, and how to keep bad bugs at bay. Then we talk about enlisting the help of domestic critters in your garden, and Chris give examples from her own life with rabbits, chickens, and goats.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/growing-a-good-garden/

To see the most recent episodes, visit ThriftyHomesteader.com/BookChat

It only seems natural that after you perfect a homemade delicacy for your family and friends, the next step is to start selling it. Until recently this was financially impossible in many states due to regulations that meant you would have to invest big bucks in infrastructure to start a business. However, now that all 50 states have cottage food laws, you can start selling food directly from your home kitchen.

But before you start baking and selling, be sure to listen to this episode with Lisa Kivirist, co-author of Homemade for Sale: How to Set Up and Market a Food Business from Your Home Kitchen. There are still some things you need to do to stay legal, but it is now so much easier than it was before the cottage food laws were passed.

In this episode we are talking about exactly what you can and cannot sell from your kitchen, as well as where you can sell your products. We talk about the difference between hazardous and non-hazardous foods, and we even get into what needs to be included on your product labels. Not sure how to price your products? We talk about that too.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/how-to-start-food-business-from-home/

To see the most recent episodes, visit Sustainability Book Chat Podcast.

When talking about weeds, people use words like enemy, battle, and war. No one wants weeds in their garden, right? Well, it depends!

In this episode, author and gardener Tasha Greer talks about why we can't win the "war on weeds," and why we don't really need to. In fact, it's entirely possible to make peace with weeds in our garden.

Tasha goes way beyond the usual suggestions for mulching and pulling weeds. In fact, she tells us why pulling weeds is actually a bad idea. And mulching can even cause problems when used with the wrong weeds. Instead, she talks about what we can learn from our weeds and how weeds can actually help us.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/weed-free-garden/

To see the most recent episodes, visit ThriftyHomesteader.com/BookChat

One of the reasons we decided to start raising pigs almost 20 years ago was because I thought it was the only way we could produce our own homegrown cooking oil — also known as, lard. I assumed that creating oil from seeds and nuts would simply be too challenging for a non-professional.

In this episode, author, gardener, and oil maker Bevin Cohen talks about his book, The Complete Guide to Seed & Nut Oils. He dispels that myth that I fell prey to — that making oils at home is too challenging or even impossible for your average person. He also talks about the modern commercial process for making seed oils, and the difference between chemical processing and cold pressed oils.

The book includes instructions on growing and foraging dozens of seeds and nuts for making oil, and in our interview, he talks about walnut oil specifically. Why? Because we have a walnut grove on our farm.

But I also learned that black walnuts grow in the wild across the US, so even if you don't have a cultivated grove on your farm, you might be able to forage black walnuts growing in the wild.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/how-to-make-nut-and-seed-oil/

To see the most recent episodes, visit ThriftyHomesteader.com/BookChat

You might think that someone who write a book about bugs would have been a bona fide bug lover forever. But author Jessica Walliser admits up front that she used to think nothing of spraying pesticides all over plants to kill bugs, even if the pesticide was blowing back in her face and she could smell it and taste it!

Jessica is the author of the second edition of Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, which should be arriving in bookstores right about the time that this episode drops.

In her interview, we talk about her history with bugs, as well as how she started to appreciate them and their role in the ecosystem. She goes into an amazing explanation of how bugs find their prey, which gave me a whole new appreciation for the wisdom of bugs and how everything fits together.

We discussed a couple of specific bugs mentioned in her book that surprised me. I had no idea that there were so many different types of stink bugs and that some of them are actually beneficial. And who knew that fireflies did anything other than light up the fields in summer?

We talk a bit about purchasing beneficial insects, but Jessica really sold me on the idea of creating a garden that will naturally attract beneficial insects.

Full show notes here -- https://thriftyhomesteader.com/attracting-beneficial-bugs-to-your-garden/

To see the most recent episodes, visit ThriftyHomesteader.com/BookChat