One of my assignments at MOTHER EARTH NEWS is to “clean up” some of the articles on the website — articles from the 1970s and ’80s that were not scanned accurately. Recently, I’ve been focusing on the Plowboy Interviews. These 90 articles, published from 1970 to 1986, are conversations with prominent, if not always well-known, individuals from every walk of life — science, agriculture, business, medicine, philosophy and more.

Many of the Plowboy Interviews are on controversial topics, such as population, which has recently been debated on the pages of the Mother Earth News magazine and on the website. Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, was interviewed in 1974. Paul and his wife, Anne, subsequently produced a column, Ecoscience, on current environmental issues for the magazine.

It seems that some readers believe we should honor the magazine’s sustainable-living roots and stay away from politically-sensitive topics such as population. What these readers aren’t aware of is MOTHER EARTH NEWS has reported on controversial topics since its humble beginnings in 1970 — the Viet Nam war, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Reagonomics (in fact all of the presidents have been mentioned in the magazine), economics, the national energy policy, pollution and nuclear proliferation. The magazine was considered one of the leading anti-establishment, pro-environment publications, offering alternatives to the status quo.

To learn more about the early history of the magazine and it’s environmental/sustainable living focus, check out The Story Of Mother Earth News from the 20^th anniversary issue (March 1990). And search Plowboy Interview on the website to read the 90 interviews with people who had a profound impact on the country and the world.

My backyard is looking a bit barren since I cleaned out the four raised beds and covered the bare soil with mown grass clippings and leaves. I did leave the nasturtiums that were still blooming. Their vibrant yellow and orange flowers, and large light-green leaves really stand out now that they are not overwhelmed by tall zinnias and pepper plants. In another bed, the lacy, yellow-green fronds of asparagus are still waving. The asparagus did well for the first year, putting up many stalks throughout the summer. It will be hard next year not to cut the spring spears and just let them go to seed — again! In order to develop hardy, productive asparagus crowns, it is recommended that the spears not be harvested for the first two years.

In preparation for next year’s crops, I planted some garlic cloves a few weeks ago. In September, I attended the Maine Organic Farmer’s and Gardener’s Association (MOFGA) Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine. What a fabulous three-day event that is, with about 60,000 visitors and hundreds of vendors. I visited with a couple who raise a couple dozen kinds of garlic. They recommended I try three kinds —  all hardneck varieties — Romanian Red, Georgian Crystal and Phillips. I’m anticipating the moment next summer when I can gently dig the heads and sample the different flavors of the garlics.

My last gardening chore is to find a way to protect the lavender I planted on the south side of the house next to the foundation. It's a great location for heat loving herbs, and they have done well. But I want them to survive the winter. I’m considering cutting the lavender and other herbs back and covering them with upturned flower pots stuffed with leaves for insulation. I’ll let you know how that works.

In the meantime, it soon will be time to peruse the garden catalogs and make lists for next year’s garden. Wishing you a bountiful Thanksgiving!

Photo from Fotolia

You want to go into business, but no one is willing to loan the upfront capitol necessary for your full-scale business plan. What do you do!? In an online excerpt from its upcoming book, The Wall Street Journal Complete Small Business Guide, the Wall Street Journal suggests you start small with your own capitol — an entrepreneurial approach called bootstrapping — and then slowly build the business to a place where investors see the its potential. Another option, once the business has grown in size, is to skip outside investors all together, put the company’s profits back into the company, and retain full control over your business.

Home-based businesses are not just about childcare and craft sales. With the Internet at your fingertips, you can make, market and sell any product or service you can think up, and do it all from your garage, basement or home office. For decades Mother Earth News readers have bootstrapped their home-based businesses, turning dreams into successful business opportunities. Are you one of the folks who has developed a bootstrap home-based business or do you have plans to start one in the near future? If so, tell us your story in the comments section, below.

We’ve said before that our magazine specializes in both the here-and-now and the later-and-wow. With no limitations, what would your ideal future homestead look like? What would you grow? What animals would grace your pastures? Close your eyes, plan it out, and tell us all about it. If you are lucky enough to be living your dream, go ahead and brag about it!  

Coming up in the October/November issue, contributing editor and DIY expert Steve Maxwell shares the many lessons he learned during his twenty years as a homesteader. Man, is there a lot of trial-and-error involved in the process of honing those skills! Veteran homesteaders: Please, please share your wisdom with those of us who are just getting started down the path to self-sufficiency — what are the most important lessons you learned along the way?

Photo by iStockphoto/Moira De La O

Helen and Scott Nearing lived, celebrated and wrote about the good life. Their definition of the good life might not be everyone’s, but the Nearing's simple, well-ordered life of work, reading and writing, and involvement in the community, has inspired generations of homesteaders to emulate the results. For seven decades, the Nearings developed their New England homesteads by hand, building stone buildings and garden fences one rock at a time, earning cash from maple syrup and blueberries, and educating younger generations on the virtues of simplicity, hard work and self-sufficiency.

Helen and Scott said, "We maintain that a couple, of any age ... with a minimum of health, intelligence and capital, can adapt themselves to country living, learn its crafts, overcome its difficulties, and build up a life pattern rich in simple values and productive of personal and social good."

The Forest Farm, the Nearing’s home near Harborside, Maine, is now an educational facility, The Good Life Center. It is open year round for tours of the property, and in the summer sponsors Monday evening lectures on important topics of the day. They also offer workshops and classes on growing food, building low impact shelters and care of the natural world.

If your travel plans include a visit to New England, you might want to include a visit to The Good Life Center. It’s located right on the coast, on the beautiful Blue Hill peninsula, just south of Acadia National Park. If you go there, you can also visit the nearby farm stand of Mother Earth News contributors, Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch. Sometimes the road taken can be life changing.

Photo by Jennifer Smith-Mayo

Here at MOTHER EARTH NEWS, we have chickens on the brain. First, we’re hatching dozens of eggs as part of our Community Chickens project, and there’s also our recent feature,  Raising Chickens for Meat, a fantastic how-to article on broiler chickens by SARE communications specialist Gwen Roland. In it, Roland discusses the benefits of raising your own table birds: lower price, better flavor and the satisfaction of avoiding factory-farmed meat. 

We know a lot of you raise chickens for superior eggs, but how many of you raise broilers? Is the thought of butchering your own birds too macabre? Let us know by posting a comment below.

Photo by iStockphoto/Eric Delmar