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Review Of: Dirt to Soil

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As always, when I do a review, I am going to give you my honest opinion of every book, tool, and product that I do. Reviews do no good if they are not real. I recently reached out to a homesteading Facebook group in search of a couple books about building good, healthy soil. Man, did they deliver! The first book is Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $55 value for $39.99!

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Why I Read It

I absolutely love all things soil and biology. We are also working with Georgia clay in our gardens which is causing a far amount of issues with it. The soil in our big garden is very compacted in the areas that we haven’t covered it. We’ve had a ton of issues with the soil this summer between soil and water run off, compaction, and stunted plants.

So my goal was to spend this winter learning as much as humanly possible about soil. My first question is why is my soil not great. The second was what can I do to fix it. So off I went in search of a book that could answer those questions but also the more technical questions about the biology of soil.

I already knew we had clay soil, but…

I didn’t realize that I could “fix” it so quickly! I thought it would take years and years to properly build up my soil. I had considered that we were going to have to bring in a lot of inputs to get the soil back to a place where it was healthy.

Save on Seeds

I already knew that we could use the animals to work with us to bring our 8.5 acres back to life. But I wasn’t sure how to do it exactly. I knew that we could rotate the pigs through areas to root the soil and break it up. Doing this would allow organic matter to get into the soil. We could also seed the areas that they had worked and pray that we could keep the chickens and goats out of the seeds.

But nothing we were doing actually worked. We really struggled to hone in on the finer points of building soil.

While the book doesn’t offer clear, concise, step by step instructions on HOW to build soil, Gabe DOES give his 5 soil principles as well as a very thorough recounting of what he did. He even goes in depth about how he has made his farm profitable. Giving a little bit more interest and insight on how to make a homestead or farm profitable.

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Where To Purchase

I purchased my copy from Amazon because it’s what’s easiest for me. However, I found it at Barnes and Noble for close to the same price. Sadly, we don’t have bookstores that are local to us, so Amazon tends to be where I get the majority of my books.

How The Book Reads

I love the style of the writing in this book. It’s very conversational and Gabe walks through how he got started on his farm. As the book moves through, he not only tells you how he did it, but gives the basic foundation for what you can do.

There is an amazing compilation of science, experience, and options for you to try as well. But the foundation stays the same. Follow these principles, experiment, and watch your soil grow.

My Take Away’s From Dirt to Soil

There are 4 main points that I took away from Dirt to Soil, though they aren’t in any specific order.

Cover Crops

I knew the importance of cover crops, but couldn’t wrap my head around exactly how to do it. Do I plant things I can harvest? What if I still need that space? Which crops do I plant? Isn’t the soil still going to be bare in the winter when the plants die back? Won’t I have to remove the cover crops when I plant for spring/summer? Gabe answered most of these questions in his book.

Tillage Kills

There is a lot of satisfaction when tilling because you can see that beautiful soil (or clay in my case) break up and see the bed take shape. Except, I always struggled because I knew earthworms are GREAT for a garden, but I was rending them into pieces every time I tilled. So how do I create beds that don’t require tilling but keeps the soil healthy and beneficial critters happy? Simple answer? Stop tilling, start using cover crops, limited to no inputs.

Building Soil Is…. Easy?

I figured this out when I started using our animal bedding as compost. Within a few months of using the animal bedding, I noticed that had actual soil in my beds. Now, I had added top soil to my beds when we created the kitchen garden. But I found actual soil when I started planting for fall!

Use The Animals

We have been using the pigs and the chickens to work the soil and it’s been working pretty well. But one of the things we have been “struggling” with is that we let the goats and chickens free range. We had not truly been practicing rotational grazing. Sure, we rotated the chicken tractors through the gardens but we never really did much with them or the goats.

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My Garden Process After Reading Dirt to Soil

My garden process now is actually quite simple: animal bedding to compost over time, a couple inches of compost or top soil, plants, then mulch. When the bed is done producing, we cut all the plants down and lay them to the side. If we are “done” with that bed for a season, we add a cover crop then put the plants we cut and put them over top as mulch.

Once the cover crop has been established, we let the goats go through and eat down an area. Then we put the pigs through, and finally the chickens. This process has been amazing because the goats cut down and tamp down the crop. The pigs tamp it down more, and eat closer to the ground. Finally, the chickens come through and peck through the poop and spread it. They also eat all the bugs and parasites. This has GREATLY dropped our need for dewormers.

The following season, when we are ready to plant, we chop and drop the cover crop. Usually, we will use the cover crop as mulching until it fully composts down.

This process has been working well for us and I’m excited to see what happens in this summer when we plant the big garden!

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4 Ways To Reduce Food Waste

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The simple answer is get a couple pigs or chickens. That’s it. End blog post here. But that’s not an ideal answer. If you can’t have pigs or chickens, or you don’t like or want livestock. What are your other options? How can you reduce food waste?

reduce food waste

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $55 value for $39.99!

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Can It!

Sometimes reducing food waste is as simple as making a larger batch and canning it. For example, beef stew is literally the easiest meal on the planet to can. Make a big batch of it and can the left overs. You will need a pressure canner. Though it’s not absolutely required, it is strongly recommended.

If you don’t want to make a large batch but still want to get a couple jars of left overs canned? This little canner is a great option. It’s a little pricey but for the ease of use and not having to lug out one of the big canners? I think it’s definitely worth the investment.

Canning can be pretty nerve-racking to start. Especially, if you are teaching yourself how to start canning. But I promise, the old days of pressure canners exploding are WAY less likely to repeat themselves.

Dehydrating To Reduce Food Waste

I talked here about my new love for dehydrating and I have to say it’s one of my favorite ways to not only reduce food waste, but also to put up food for a rainy day. I love the “set it and forget it” ability with dehydrating food. With a couple hours of prep (for large batches), I can fill up my trays and be done. One of the ways that I work my dehydrator schedule is to cut a large batch of a veggie while prepping/cooking dinner and then fill the trays. Usually, by morning it’s done and ready to be put into jars.

If you are only cutting a cup of carrots but have another pound that will go bad? Just cut all of them and throw what you don’t need in the dehydrator.

When it comes to using a dehydrator to reduce food waste, I mainly use it when I find great deals or sales. Or when my garden is over abundant. I have two dehydrators, one that is a DIY that we picked up from our local Habitat For Humanity and our Excalibur. I have to say the mac daddy one that we picked up? Absolute favorite because it is MASSIVE.

reduce food waste

Can You Feed Food Scrap Your Livestock

Another fantastic way to reduce food waste is to feed it to your animals! This goes for ALL animals on the homestead but is only where applicable. We have a 5gal bucket on our back deck that is strictly for our chickens and pigs. Every evening fill the bucket about half way with feed if it’s not full and throw it on the ground for them.

By feeding kitchen scraps to your livestock, you can effectively reduce not only your food waste but also your feed bill! In fact, we have a whole section of the garden that is for livestock fodder. Another cool hack is to bring a small covered bucket to work and have your co workers fill the bucket with their food scraps! We have been feeding our pigs and chickens for months like this.

A word of caution though, not all animals can eat all food scraps. So be aware and prepared for that. Goats can’t eat meat. It’s taboo for a chicken to eat chicken. Cows shouldn’t have large apples. Etc. So just be cautious when feeding your livestock out of your kitchen scraps.

Meal Prepping To Reduce Food Waste

Lastly, meal prepping will help you reduce a lot of food waste. I talked here about how to stretch your meals out to reduce the stress of cooking after a long day of work. When you have a plan of what you are going to eat for the week, it really helps to reduce food waste and stress!

If you are working towards reducing your need of processed foods, that not only feed your family but the scraps go to your livestock, I talk about cooking from scratch here. Because buying the non-gmo, no corn/soy feed for your meat animals doesn’t make a lick of sense if you turn around and feed them a box of mac and cheese.

Bonus Tip: Compost!

The reason why this wasn’t included in the main group is because composting has some “rules”. The general rule of thumb for compost is to put in organic matter. Things like leaves, grass clippings, garden waste, and most kitchen scraps. BUT!

You really don’t want to put meat scraps in your compost. You can put meat or bones in your compost, but you chance predators or the meat going rancid and causing problems in your compost. Another problem is using things like oil, butter, etc can also go rancid. But if you have left over carrot caps, watermelon rinds, etc? Abosultely put them in the compost.

How To Save Money On Livestock Feed

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Whether you homestead on a large scale or small, livestock feed is expensive. To be fair, raising livestock in general is expensive. But with the holidays on us, plus supply chain issues and inflation, saving money is becoming more and more important. These tips are how we save money on livestock feed.

How To Save Money On Livestock Feed

  1. Just Add Water
  2. Grow it
  3. Microgreens or Sprouts- Another great way to stretch feed
  4. Buy in bulk
  5. Reduce animal numbers.

You could also make your own, but that is an entire post all on it’s own so make sure you subscribe below to be updated on that post!

Let’s talk about each one of these a little more in depth.

Before we get too far into this, I have a great course on the basics of goat care. I call it Goat Crash Course: Goat 101. In this course, I explain things like types of shelter, types of feeds and hays, basic assessments and so much more! Check it out!

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Just Add Water

Soaking feed is number one for a reason. It is hands down the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to stretch your feed. All you need is a 5 gallon bucket with a tight lid for each different feed you plan to soak. For example: I soak/ ferment pig, chicken and goat feed, plus alfalfa and beet pulp, which I do together. So I have 4 buckets.

What’s the difference between soaking and fermenting? Time. If you leave your feed for too long in a bucket it should ferment. And if you leave it too long past that, it will mold. We soak our pig feed and the alfalfa/beet pulp overnight. The chickens and goats get fermented feed that we start 2-3 days prior and then add more as we go.

PS: if you ferment your pig feed for too long, or if there is corn in the feed, you will have drunk pigs…. Don’t ask how I know.

Grow It

Right now growing isn’t as easy because it’s winter. But growing crops for your animals is hands down the cheapest way to reduce feed costs. In fact, I would dare say that if you have enough property, or not a lot of animals, you could feasibly never buy a bag of feed. Between grasses for grazing, pasture rotation, and then expanding your garden to grow corn, barley, buckwheat, winter squashes, and more, you could never buy a bag of feed. This could save you thousands of dollars a year for just a few seed packets. You can get almost all of your seeds from Territorial Seed Company or Eden Brothers.

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What kind of fodder crops should you grow for your animals? That really depends on what animals you have and what they can eat. But corn is a great plant that is easy-ish to grow, store and feed out. Another good plant is pumpkins, and our animals love it. Winter squashes are another really great veggie that does well despite most attempts to kill it. It’s very easy to store and will last a long time in proper conditions. Another good option is putting your animals in your gardens after harvest. They can get all the left over yummies in there and clear your garden at the same time.

Microgreens/ Sprouts

This one can get very in depth and long winded. But to give you the highlights: take a tray, add soil, add microgreen seeds (densely packed), and then soak. With proper lighting and care you can grow fodder for your chickens and even pigs and goats. The 104 Homestead has a great post on sprouting barley. The Homesteading RD also has a great post on the different microgreens and the process of growing them. Just make sure that your animals can eat the greens. Rainbow Heirloom Seed Co. has some great seeds on Amazon.

What kind and how much to feed? Honestly, we are just starting out with our microgreens and there just isn’t that much information out there on feeding microgreens to livestock. But I will say this, we are growing greens that they can eat the plant or seed of. So if goats can eat broccoli we will feed them half a tray of broccoli microgreens and see what happens. I’ll post more when we know more or find more research of it.

Buy In Bulk

Buying bulk depends completely on two things; your ability to load/unload and your ability to store. When I talk about buying in bulk, I’m talking about half ton totes like these. We have neither the ability to unload or store, so buying in bulk isn’t really a good option for us per se. But we do get a discount on how many pounds of feed we buy at a time. At our feed store if we buy a total of 500# of feed, we get a discount on all of the feed. It doesn’t matter if it’s pig, chicken and goat. I can move and store 10 50# bags of feed, I cannot do that with a ton of pig, a ton of chicken and a ton of goat feed.

What do you need to load/unload and store? Dolly’s to start if you are planning to store in 55gal drums. But if you are buying those big 1 ton totes? You’ll need pallets, pallet jack, and probably a tractor to get it off the delivery truck. There are places that you can go and fill 55 gallon drums but you have to find them first.

Another caveat to this is to shop around. While I absolutely adore Tractor Supply, I cannot afford $25-30 for a 50# bag of chicken feed. Not when I can get a better quality for half the price at my feed store. So ask other homesteaders/farmers in your area where they go for feed.

The other thing that buying in bulk helps with is reducing the amount of feed bags laying around your garage….. Not that I have that problem.

Reduce Your Animal Numbers

No one wants to talk about this, and for good reason. I don’t want to cull, sell or give away any of my animals. On our homestead we can’t keep around animals simply because they are cute. If an animal doesn’t have a purpose, they don’t stay on the farm. The best way to save money on feed is to not have so many animals to feed. It’s just the cold hard truth. If you are trying to reduce your spending, buying feed from the feed store isn’t going to reduce your spending.

If you are having trouble choosing who needs to go, ask your self this: who is the oldest? Who is the meanest? Who is the fattest? Who is the hardest to handle? This should start to help you narrow it down a bit. Again, while not ideal and it breaks my heart, I know who is on the chopping block if we ever get to that point.

Saving Money On Livestock Feed

There are a million different ways to feed your animals. But at the end of the day, feed is an expense that you need to be okay with. If you’re not, then you need to reconsider the amount and type of animals you are getting. Meat chickens require tons of feed but pigs can be maintained on kitchen scraps and good pasture. It’s all in how you want to raise your animals.

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Welcoming American Guinea Hogs To The Homestead

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About a month ago, we welcomed Bacon and Delilah to the homestead. We had talked about wanting to get pigs when we started the homestead, but I never really put a lot of thought into it. After a ton of research and a swift kick in the pants while at The Homesteaders of America Conference? We picked up two American Guinea Hogs.

American Guinea Hogs

Why We Chose The American Guinea Hog 

When we started looking at adding pigs to the homestead, there were quite a few concerns that I had about pigs. I was told that they are mean, bite, root, escape and eat a ton of food. The trade off was that if you could keep them contained and fed for six months, you would have a pig at market weight. Well, I’ve got some problems with that.

Mean/ Biting

While I don’t normally mind animals that are…. difficult, I do have a problem when they are large animals that are potentially deadly. I’m not saying that pigs are deadly. But I am saying that aggressive animals have no place on our homestead…. except Blu….and Bella.

After doing a ton of research we were really leaning towards the Berkshires, Duroc and Kune Kune. These breeds have great personalities and are rarely aggressive. Plus they are heritage breeds which is really important to me.

Rooting

Another issue with pigs is the damage they can cause to the soil. Our soil is extremely compacted with red clay under it all. But the top? It’s all sand. We want SOME rooting to help break the soil barriers so that more organic material gets mixed up in the soil. But we don’t want them to root so much that the soil biome is ruined. Or worse, stay in one area so long that they compact it with wallowing. Also, I was wanting a pig that would graze more than root. But since I don’t have pasture or grass yet, I need them to root.

This is getting to be a tall order for pig breeds.

Escaping

When looking at various breeds and watching many videos, we learned that pigs are incredibly smart. They are also more than willing to use their brute strength to break down fences. The only one that wasn’t going to constantly try and break free was the Kune Kune. But the Kune takes a long time to reach market weight, like 14+ months. This is getting harder and harder to pick a breed.

Feed Bill

The faster you want your pig to reach market weight, the more they are going to eat. The problem is, I don’t want to buy any more feed than I have to. The Duroc will reach market weight in five months, but to do that, we would have to give it grower feed, which is expensive. I talked about the real cost of raising livestock here. I’ve already got a $600/mo feed bill. Let’s not add to that.

I really wanted a grazing pig that would eat table scraps and left overs but ultimately would eat grass if we didn’t have scraps to give them.

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Enter The American Guinea Hogs

The American Guinea Hogs are amazing pigs and up until about 75 years ago, it was a staple animal on almost every single farm in the US. But with the rise of super markets and city living, they fell out of favor. In fact, up till recently, there were only about 100 on in the country.

American Guinea Hogs are grazing pigs that will get bigger than the Kune and do it faster. But AGHs are a small heritage breed of pig. That means that it’s not going to be one of the monsters that will yield hundreds of pounds of pork. But that’s okay. Because they are smaller, it makes raising and butchering a lot easier.

Save on Seeds

Bacon is extremely friendly, needing to have all the snuggles and scratches. If I come outside, he is at the gate grunting at me to come snuggle and scratch. Delilah is a little stand-offish but she is coming around. The good part about that is that they come when they are called. There have been a few rainy days here and the solar chargers have run out of juice. If they slip the fence, it’s not a big deal. I simply call them and they come running, no food needed.

Another great thing about the AGH is that I have bought two bags of feed in the six weeks they have been here. Between the table scraps and fermentation, they haven’t even eaten a whole bag yet!

Tractor Supply

American Guinea Hogs Care

So what do you need to care for American Guinea Hogs? Not much if you already have livestock. We have been soaking and fermenting everyone’s feed, so we needed a few 5 gallon buckets. We already had feed buckets to bring them feed so no added expense there. We also bought a couple of Premier 1 fences with a solar charger. I mentioned above that our other charger ran out of juice, I suggest highly getting the one linked above. It doesn’t run out of juice! We just bought ours and it’s been amazing.

You do need to make sure you have some sort of a shelter. Right now, they are in our old kidding shed and that is working out very well. If they out grow it, we will look for something else but for right now, it’s good. They can handle lower temperatures as long as they are dry and have deep bedding.

Our AGHs are doing great and I absolutely love them. Butchering day is going to be brutal but at least I know they had the best life possible.

Is Homesteading Worth It?

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When the shutdowns hit the US, a lot of people were stuck inside with nothing to do. They were scared of the virus and scared that they couldn’t find the basic supplies they need. All of this caused a huge uptick in people learning about homesteading. Mostly because they were stuck at home and bored out of their mind. This in turn caused a lot of people to start gardens, learn how to process foods, and in general adopt the homesteaders mentality. Is homesteading worth it? Absolutely!

Black and brown goat with blue eyes

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $55 value for $39.99!

Buy Now

How To Get Started

I wrote an entire blog post about how to start a homestead and how to homestead on 5 acres. You don’t need to have a million acres to homestead. To be honest, you don’t even need 5 acres. You just need the right attitude to get started. I talked, in depth about what homestead means here and the reality is that no two homesteads look the same. An urban homestead is just as amazing as a country homestead. A 100 acre homestead is just as awesome as a 5 acre homestead. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what homestead means because YOU are the homestead. It’s your ideas, your dreams, and your needs, not someone else’s.

What Do You Want?

Do you want to have a veggie garden, fruit trees or a container garden? Should you have chickens, rabbits, or quail because you only have a quarter acre in the city? What about a couple of goats or pigs? What about converting your lawn into a veggie garden? Or removing non edible landscaping and replacing it with edible, like raspberry bushes, grapes, or a salad bar?

All of these questions should be floating around in your brain about how to get started. The only thing that should be limiting you, is you. Set your goals and get to work. If you are on a small property, get creative. Instead of having a huge garden plot, go vertical. There are hundreds of posts on vertical gardening but my favorite is this one from The Homesteading RD. If you follow her, especially on Instagram, you can see all the wonderful ideas she has.

Becoming Self Reliant

We are in an age where shortages are a thing. Toilet paper, baby formula, you name it. What is next? So, I’ll ask the question again: Is homesteading worth it? Yes. Because if you become self reliant, you will do yourself and your family a world of good.

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Being self reliant can mean many different things. It could mean having the ability to grow, harvest, and preserve your garden. It could mean having the knowledge and understanding of what animals can eat, how to make them grow faster for meat, and to butcher them humanely. But it also means adding new skills to your toolbox and not relying on others to fix it.

By being self reliant, you can barter for goods or services. If you suck at growing veggies but you have the space for extra meat birds. Strike a deal with someone who does grow veggies but doesn’t have the space for meat birds. If you have never canned anything, find someone who has and start learning.

Is Homesteading Worth It?

At the end of the day, you need to make that decision for yourself. I can say this, it is the most amazing feeling knowing that I made most the food in my food storage room. It’s also pretty cool that if I’m out of something, I know how to make a lot of things from scratch. Like that time that Jaxson wanted hamburger helper but I haven’t bought that stuff in years. Instead, I was able to make my own cheese sauce from butter and cheese that I made.

The question is, do you want that? Do you want to cook from scratch? Does a garden appeal to you? You have to know your why.

Every decision you make and goal you have should start with a Why. Why is it so important to you? This helps keep you on track when things get hard… And they WILL get hard. If you remember your why, every single decision you make will be a lot easier.

Our Why

Our why is simple: to not rely on others for things we can do ourselves. When it comes to the blog our why is equally as simple: To help beginning homesteaders with setting up their homestead and avoid the pitfalls of doing things “wrong”.

I have said for many years, if I just had 5 years and 5 acres, I could get us about 75% self reliant in terms of produce and meat. I could get our infrastructure set up to a point were trees, bushes, and other perennials require minimal effort with major results.

While we have had some major set backs, we have made a good sized dent in our infrastructure and are working towards doing more. I have to remind myself daily that our neighbors homestead has had over 100 years of work done to it. Ours only has a couple. They may have what we are moving towards, but we are starting from scratch. We’ll get there, though, and so will you.

So Join Us

The homesteading community is an amazing resource for all of us. It doesn’t matter if you are a master gardener or a beginner. It doesn’t matter if you have 1/8th acre or 800. We are a supportive group that only wants you to be successful.

YouTube is an amazing resource, as well as Instagram. The vast majority of us want to chat about anything and everything from livestock to gardens to preserving. Don’t be afraid to reach out!

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