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🌱 We exist to help you grow. 🌻 Our seeds: @botanical_interests
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Comment HOMESTEAD and I’ll send you the link to grab a copy of Epic Homesteading with a FREE pack of @botanical_interests seeds, and a FREE supplemental guidebook.
When I first saw this little 1,000sqft house in suburban San Diego, I KNEW I had to build a homestead here. It was the biggest house I could afford, but more importantly it had empty land on it - untouched.
So I got to work. Adding an orchard with @jacquesinthegarden, a chicken coop, rain capture, solar panels, in-ground gardens, raised bed gardens...and so much more.
If you think “homesteading” isn’t for you...I can’t blame you. Frankly, I think the word has been gatekept a bit by folks suggesting you need 100,000 acres, a cattle farm, a log cabin with no electricity besides a wooden stove from 1823, and more.
To me, a homestead starts where you are. It’s the act of becoming a LITTLE more production-focused in your life. Capturing a little rain, growing a little food, caring for chickens. You can pick one and slowly build, or you can go crazy like I did and try to do them all at the same time.
This book is the culmination of three years of experimentation, design, learnings, and lessons that I’ve collected into a 224-page tome, chock-full of photos, charts, graphs, diagrams, explainers, and more.
It also comes with a supplemental digital guide that links you to ALL of the Epic Gardening and Epic Homesteading content that’s relevant for each chapter:
Site Selection
Outdoor Food Growing
Indoor Food Growing
Productive Orchards
Composting
Energy Systems
Water Conservation
Mini Livestock
Food Preservation and Storage
I hope you enjoy Epic Homesteading. May you go out and use the knowledge to better your life and the life of your family and loved ones.
Keep on growing,
Kevin
459.1K likes · 11.4K comments · 25 Jan 2024
What if your fence could grow food instead of just taking up space? A fruit fence turns a simple vertical structure into a productive growing system, and passion fruit is perfect for the job because its climbing tendrils naturally grip onto nearby supports.
The science is pretty cool. Passion fruit vines grow rapidly, spreading their leaves across a trellis to capture sunlight for photosynthesis. With enough light, water, and nutrients, the plant converts that energy into vigorous growth and eventually flowers and fruit. Training the vines vertically also helps you use space more efficiently, turning an otherwise unused area into productive growing space.
And here’s the best part: a well-established passion fruit vine can produce an impressive harvest while giving you a living privacy screen. Instead of building a fence that only blocks the view, why not grow one that hides the eyesores, adds greenery, and produces delicious fruit? That’s a whole lot more value from the same footprint.
05 Nov 2026
Hardneck garlic relies on a process called vernalization, where prolonged exposure to cold temperatures triggers the physiological changes needed for proper bulb development. Without enough chilling, the plant may grow leaves but struggle to form the full, well-developed bulbs you want.
Refrigerating hardneck garlic for about two months can help simulate winter, even in a warm climate. That cold exposure influences the plant’s growth signals, helping prepare it for the transition into active growth once temperatures rise. It’s essentially giving the garlic the seasonal cue it needs, without having to live somewhere with an actual winter.
Once you plant those chilled cloves, they can resume growth with the cold requirement better satisfied, improving the chances of developing well-formed bulbs. It’s a great example of how understanding a plant’s biology lets you work around your climate instead of being limited by it.
378 likes · 13 comments · 28 Oct 2026
Hanging peppers might look like an old-school gardening trick, but there’s some cool science behind it.
When you hang peppers to dry, moisture gradually evaporates from their skin and inner tissues into the surrounding air. The key is airflow and low humidity, which help carry that moisture away so the peppers can dry more efficiently. As their water content drops, it becomes harder for many spoilage microbes to grow, helping preserve your harvest for longer.
Here’s why the way you string them matters, too. Threading through the calyx, the leafy cap at the top of the pepper, helps avoid puncturing the fleshy fruit, where damaged tissue and trapped moisture can encourage rot. Give your peppers a dry, well-ventilated spot, and you’re using evaporation and moisture control to turn a fresh harvest into a longer-lasting supply of homegrown heat.
1,507 likes · 20 comments · 27 Oct 2026
What if you could turn a chicken into part of the process of growing a giant pumpkin? When Gucci, one of my original hens, passed away, I buried her beneath an Atlantic Giant pumpkin. Here’s the cool part: as bacteria and fungi break down organic matter, they recycle nutrients back into the soil. Plants can’t use all those nutrients immediately, though. Decomposition transforms them into forms roots can absorb, making decomposers an incredibly important part of a healthy garden.
But growing a giant pumpkin takes more than nutrient-rich soil. I buried the vines so more nodes could develop roots, giving the plant additional access to water and nutrients. I removed competing flowers and fruits to focus the plant’s resources on one pumpkin, then added sand and plywood underneath to support its growing weight. Even with all those tricks, powdery mildew showed up and eventually slowed its growth. That’s what makes giant vegetables so fascinating: genetics, photosynthesis, growing conditions, and even the length of your growing season all play a role in how big you can get them.
After four years of trying, I finally grew my biggest pumpkin yet at 74.1 pounds, even though I planted it halfway through summer. And the best part? I got to share it with Gucci’s flock. Within a day, her old friends had devoured the pumpkin, leaving their own pattern of beak marks behind. It’s a reminder that decomposition, nutrient cycling, and the garden’s food web are all connected. Even in death, Gucci became part of something growing.
12.4K likes · 169 comments · 26 Oct 2026
You don’t need a garden bed to grow potatoes, and the science behind it is pretty cool. A seed potato already contains the energy and nutrients needed to kickstart new growth. Once it sprouts, the roots pull water and nutrients from the soil, while the leaves capture sunlight and convert it into energy that fuels the development of new potatoes underground.
The tricky part is creating the right environment for those tubers. We’re using @foxfarmsoilandfertilizer Ocean Forest soil to give each potato a consistent growing medium with nutrients to support early growth. Potatoes need consistent moisture, but soil that stays too wet can limit oxygen around the roots and encourage rot. Good drainage helps maintain that balance, which is why the container you choose can make a bigger difference than you might expect.
That’s what makes this potato experiment so interesting. Different containers can change how quickly soil dries out, how much heat it holds, and how easily excess water escapes. By keeping the soil and growing conditions as similar as possible, we can see which setup gives potatoes the best chance to grow. You might not need a garden bed to grow your own food after all.
2,175 likes · 34 comments · 23 Oct 2026
Ever look at all the rain hitting your roof and wonder how much water you’re letting go to waste? A rainwater capture system puts that water to work. Every inch of rain falling on a 1,000-square-foot roof can produce around 600 gallons of water. Gutters collect the runoff and direct it into a system that can help keep your garden watered.
The science is all about collecting and filtering water before it reaches storage. A leaf filter catches larger debris, while a first flush diverter sends the dirtiest initial runoff away from the tank. This matters because dust, bird droppings, and other contaminants can build up on your roof between rainfalls. Removing that initial runoff helps keep your stored water cleaner.
This rainwater capture system stores up to 5,750 gallons across the property, with underground pipes directing collected water into a main 5,000-gallon tank. That stored supply can then help irrigate the garden during dry spells, reducing reliance on municipal water. It’s a practical way to work with your local rainfall patterns and make every storm count.
16.3K likes · 189 comments · 21 Oct 2026
So @jacquesinthegarden stumbled across a mystery pomegranate tree growing near his house, and the fruit turned out to be the sweetest he’d ever tasted. The science comes down to genetics. Pomegranates grown from seed can have a unique combination of genes from their parent plants, so the fruit may taste completely different from what you’d expect. That’s why this mystery tree outperformed one he had intentionally grown for three years.
If you find a pomegranate with incredible flavor, you’ll want to clone it rather than grow it from seed. Hardwood cuttings can develop roots and grow into genetically identical plants, preserving the traits that made the original fruit so good. Keeping those cuttings warm while providing indirect light can help encourage root development, especially during cooler weather.
And here’s the fun part: birds like crows can spread seeds to new places, creating unexpected seedlings throughout a neighborhood. You might not know what you’re growing until it fruits, but that’s part of what makes gardening so interesting.
4,897 likes · 84 comments · 19 Oct 2026
GARLIC GERMINATION
Unlike most crops, garlic actually benefits from a period of cold to support proper growth and bulb formation. Garlic cloves need time to develop roots before winter, and exposure to cold helps regulate the growth cycle that leads to proper bulb formation. Skip that cold period, and you can end up with a plant that grows but never develops the big, divided bulb you were hoping for.
Here’s where temperature and timing matter. Garlic uses a process called vernalization, where prolonged cold exposure helps prepare the plant for later growth and bulb development. Planting in fall gives the cloves time to establish roots while the soil is still workable, then experience winter temperatures before spring growth kicks in. Planting too late can limit root development, while planting too early in warm conditions can encourage too much top growth before winter arrives.
Clove size matters, too. Bigger cloves contain more stored carbohydrates, giving the developing plant more energy to establish roots and produce strong shoots in spring. Plant them pointy side up, about 3 to 4 inches deep, and add mulch to help insulate the soil against temperature swings. Once spring arrives, consistent moisture helps the leaves grow, and those leaves become the energy source that fuels bulb development underground.
2,747 likes · 49 comments · 16 Oct 2026
CARROT GERMINATION
Carrots have a reputation for being tricky to germinate, and honestly, I get why people try all these hacks. But before you spend 45 minutes making a cornstarch slurry, let’s talk about what carrot seeds actually need to sprout.
Carrot seeds have a thin seed coat, so they’re especially vulnerable to drying out during germination. They need consistent moisture to activate the enzymes that kickstart growth and get the embryo developing. If the soil dries out before the seedling establishes itself, germination can stall or fail completely. That’s why keeping the top layer of soil moist is way more important than finding some fancy planting trick.
We tested eight different carrot germination methods side by side, and the winner was surprisingly simple: plant seeds about a quarter inch deep, keep them consistently watered, and let them do their thing. Some viral hacks actually performed worse than the basic method. Sometimes, the best gardening hack isn’t a hack at all. It’s just understanding what your plants need.
1,340 likes · 46 comments · 14 Oct 2026
GREEN GARLIC HACK
Those tiny garlic cloves you usually leave behind when planting your biggest bulbs? Don’t toss them. You can turn them into green garlic, and the cool part is that you’re growing them for their leaves instead of waiting months for a full bulb to develop.
Garlic cloves already have stored energy to kickstart new growth, so once you plant them in soil and give them enough moisture and light, they’ll start producing green shoots. Since you’re harvesting the leaves before the plant matures and forms a full bulb, you can plant the cloves close together and get more out of a small pot.
Once the greens are tall enough, just snip what you need and let the plant keep growing. They have that mild, oniony garlic flavor that works great in sautés, eggs, and pretty much anything that could use a little extra garlic. It’s an easy way to turn leftover cloves into something useful for the kitchen.
1,767 likes · 20 comments · 12 Oct 2026
TOMATO SEED SAVING
Saving tomato seeds isn’t just about scooping them out and letting them dry. Fresh tomato seeds are surrounded by a gelatinous coating that can inhibit germination, so removing it helps prepare them for storage and future planting. @jacquesinthegarden shows us how fermentation makes this process easier.
He squeezes the seeds and pulp into a jar, mixes everything into a slurry, adds a little water, and covers it loosely. After about five days out of direct sunlight, fermentation helps break down the gel coating. Mold may form on top, which is normal during this process. He then removes the mold, adds water, and stirs the mixture so the pulp and debris can be poured away while the seeds settle at the bottom.
After a few rounds of rinsing, spread the clean seeds out to dry completely in a cool, dark spot. This step matters because leftover moisture can encourage mold and reduce seed quality during storage. Once they’re fully dry, store them somewhere cool and dry until planting time. A little patience now helps keep your saved tomato seeds in good shape for next season.
2,252 likes · 38 comments · 10 Oct 2026
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