Growing Skills Now + My 2025 Garden Recap: The Home & The Maker – Episode 27
What are some of those things you can learn now when you might not have the homestead yet? The Home & The Maker podcast host Megan shares a recap of her little garden this year along with some of the skills she has learned or practiced over the summer, like using a dehydrator and trying new things with sourdough. If you have any questions, feel free to email Megan at megan@shine.fm!
It’s apple season! But what does it take to grow apples? This episode covers information about apple production, including what an integrated pest management approach is for an orchard, and some “seeds” of information that may help you if you’re interested in planting your own home orchard. Thank you to Paul from Royal Oak Farm Orchard in Harvard, Illinois for sharing his expertise on the podcast! To learn more about Royal Oak Farm Orchard, you can visit https://www.royaloak.farm/ .
Recipes with healthier swaps for your body? Yes please! Claire, author of the blog and Instagram account “Secretly Healthy Home,” and her cookbook Healthy Copycat Treats, shares what she’s learned about balancing the nutrients found in our food as well as a healthy way to view the food we eat. She also shares about her passion of developing recipes that swap out ingredients to be more healthy for the body! On top of that, Claire shares encouragement and advice for navigating meal/snack prep as a mom of young kids. Thanks for listening!
It might be one of your dreams to have your own dairy cow on your homestead, and Tiffany from the blog Growing Dawn shares with Megan her experience with bringing a dairy cow to her family’s home, and what that looks like for them now. There’s a lot to learn when it comes to dairy cows, but this episode may provide you with some of that information as well as some information about raw milk. To see some of the information referenced in this episode, you can visit Tiffany’s blog https://growingdawn.com/.
In this episode, you’ll learn about the start of Mission Farm and how Jessica and her family hope to bless the nations in the name of Jesus through the endeavors of their farm in Indiana, including the latest venture of planting dahlias! This episode speaks encouragement for the dreaming heart, with a great reminder to live with the Kingdom in mind. Other fun elements of this episode include stories on beekeeping and making maple syrup!
Yes, there are organic farms out there to visit and pick your own fruit! Megan and her husband Garron visited an organic blueberry farm and share their experience in this episode. If you’re familiar with picking blueberries, this episode holds no surprises, but Megan and Garron discuss their observations of the organic blueberry farm, the joys of the experience, and how a blueberry farm reveals God in His creation.
Just because you don’t have lots of acreage, that doesn’t mean you can’t start homesteading or learning to homestead right where you are. And, one of the things you might learn along the way is how to be content with and steward what you have. Courtney from “The Heart of Home” YouTube Channel and Instagram account joins Megan on the podcast to share what she is doing on her suburban homestead and how she is choosing contentment and stewardship while waiting for more.
If you’ve heard the term “functional medicine” and wondered what this is, this podcast will hopefully shed more light on this subject for you! You’ll learn from Megan’s sister-in-law Shelby, a nurse practitioner, how functional medicine is a holistic approach and how it can serve as an adjunct to conventional medicine, and you’ll also be reminded of the beauty of God’s creation of our bodies and how taking care of our bodies ultimately helps us better serve God’s Kingdom.
“Crunchy” has another meaning when in the context of healthier living! It’s a word you might adopt to describe your choice to invest in cleaner products and foods for your body, but it’s not always possible to do it perfectly! Sharing encouragement about this imperfect journey towards cleaner living (or being kinda crunchy!) is Jessica Kay, a registered nurse, wife, and mom who posts about this on her Instagram page @imperfectlyholisticmom. Be encouraged – you don’t have to give up the mini donuts!
For the one who’s interested in what it takes to venture into beekeeping, this episode is for you! There is so much to learn, so join Megan in a conversation with guest Joy about some initial things to consider when thinking about starting a hive and things you might not know about caring for bees. That is Megan’s big takeaway from this episode; this isn’t something you just pick up – there is a lot to research beforehand!