About the Author

Jennifer Vanbenschoten

Growing up in suburban New Jersey, I never dreamed that I would find myself living on a small farm in upstate New York before I was 30. But for the last 13 years, my husband and I have been busy raising chickens for eggs, keeping bees for honey, and gardening, all while raising our son. In 2011, I discovered home remedies for anxiety after conventional medicine didn't work for me, and since then I have been educating myself through formal training and not-so-formal training about creating my own herbal remedies for common ailments. We love living the life of simple homesteading in the heart of the Adirondack mountains. We've dabbled in vermiculture and using worms to create great compost for our gardens, raising ducks for meat, and do all we can to reduce our carbon footprint. I spend my days in the kitchen cooking wonderful meals for my family, writing creative nonfiction and poetry, teaching yoga in a variety of settings, and creating handmade beaded jewelry of all types.
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Articles by Jennifer Vanbenschoten

Beat Colds and Flu with this Fire Cider Recipe

Since busy moms and dads don’t often get sick days, I make sure that I make up plenty of my favorite fire cider recipe to keep on hand.

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Fun and Flavorful Garlic Scapes Recipes

Don’t have any garlic scapes handy? No worries. You can substitute green onions in most of these garlic scapes recipes.

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Have a Wasp Sting Home Remedy Ready This Summer

When you spend most of your time outdoors, whether your in the garden or in the woods, you’ll want to have a wasp sting home remedy handy.

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How to Work a One-Acre Homestead

Add to Favorites When we purchased our home in upstate New York, we had no intention to create a one-acre homestead. We were thrilled that we had so much space …

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Epsom Salt Hacks for Wintertime
February 20, 2022 · · Self-Reliance

Trying to stay healthy in the winter is a challenge so I have some Epsom salt hacks that will help when you’re feeling under the weather.

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Goldenrod Uses for Herbal Home Remedies
September 8, 2021 · · Growing

When most people think of goldenrod, they don’t necessarily think of goldenrod uses for herbal medicine and home remedies. Goldenrod is usually thought of as something that causes seasonal allergy symptoms like runny nose, puffy eyes and sore throat.

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Fermentation Food Preservation Made Easy

Add to Favorites Do you want to learn simple fermentation food preservation methods that don’t require a lot of fancy equipment, boiling water, or slaving away over a hot stove …

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How to Make Kombucha: The Big Book of Kombucha

Have you ever wanted to learn how to make kombucha? For thousands of years, kombucha has been used as a health drink.

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Homesteading Basics — Backyard Homesteading by David Toht

Add to Favorites Backyard Homesteading I grew up in an urban part of northern New Jersey where homesteading basics weren’t something that most people were concerned about. Aside from the …

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Naturally Bug-Free: Natural Pest-Controlling Methods That You Can Make At Home!

Add to Favorites Natural pest-controlling methods are becoming more popular as we learn about the detrimental effects of chemical sprays and poisons on the environment. Do you cringe at the …

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How to Tell If You Have a Healthy SCOBY

Of all the things that couples argue about, I’ll bet the last one you’d ever think of is whether or not you have a healthy SCOBY in your kombucha jug. Yet that’s exactly what my husband and I were debating not too long ago after my first attempt at learning how to make kombucha from a healthy SCOBY given to me by a dear friend.

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3 Natural Home Remedies for Fleas
October 18, 2019 · · Self-Reliance

Add to Favorites Home remedies for fleas don’t have to be expensive, smelly or toxic. When I was a veterinary technician 20-odd years ago, the number one query of most …

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A Guide to the Best Greenhouse Plants
June 30, 2019 · · Growing

After years of putting our gardens in the ground, we decided to build our own greenhouse and pick out the best greenhouse plants for extending our growing season.

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How to Raise Edible Crickets

Add to Favorites My first exposure to edible crickets was innocent enough. We took our son to a local natural history museum for their bug festival, and one of their …

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Stuffed Grape Leaves Recipe Using Fermented Grape Leaves

Add to Favorites When we planted a dozen grape vines on our backyard homestead 10 years ago, we weren’t thinking about ways to use them in a stuffed grape leaves recipe. …

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