Welcome to Willowbottom

Your Complete Guide to Modern Homesteading & Sustainable Living

Homesteading isn’t about having the perfect setup. It’s about using what you have, right where you are. Whether you’re growing a full garden, tending a few windowsill herbs, or just trying to live a little more sustainably, you belong here.

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Thinking about starting a garden but not sure where to begin? Or looking for a better way to plan and manage what you’re already growing? Wherever you are in the process, this is your space to learn, stay organized, and enjoy the experience of growing your own food.

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Three Sisters Gardening Method

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Building Great Garden Soil

Understanding Your Growing Zone

Organic Pest Control

Growing your own food starts with knowing where to begin. Our free guide gets you started, and it connects you to a whole library of resources to grow your knowledge right alongside your garden.

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  • We followed monarch caterpillars in our garden for weeks, watching them grow and looking for their chrysalises, and then we found one! We got to watch this monarch emerge. She slowly pulled herself out, hung onto her old chrysalis, and began stretching herself out. If you watch closely, you can see a little droplet of enzymatic oral fluid around her mouth. She's using it to help put together her proboscis. This is the long feeding tube she'll use to drink nectar. When she first emerges, it's actually in two separate halves that have to come together. So while she's getting her wings ready for her first flight, she's also putting together the feeding tube she'll need for her first meal. I love that we got to see all of this happen right here in our garden. What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever discovered in your garden? monarch butterfly garden, monarchs in the garden, wildlife garden, pollinator garden, native garden, backyard wildlife, garden biodiversity
  • Those leaves aren't just covering your garden. They're part of it. Think about a forest floor. Nobody rakes it clean every fall, yet year after year it becomes rich, dark, crumbly, and full of life. That's because the leaves aren't waste. They're part of the ecosystem. And the same thing is happening in our gardens. Firefly larvae spend years living in soil and leaf litter. Bumblebee queens overwinter beneath leaves. Fungi, bacteria, earthworms, and countless other organisms are breaking those leaves down and returning nutrients to the soil. So when we remove every leaf and leave the garden completely bare, we're not just making it look tidy. We're interrupting a process that was already working. The leaves were already doing the job. We just interrupted the process. This is Part 4 of my Don't Clean Up Your Garden series. Follow for Part 5 Dont Clean Up Your Garden, Fall Garden, Wildlife Garden, Fireflies, Pollinator Garden, Native Plants, Gardening For Wildlife, Healthy Soil, Soil Health, Garden Ecosystem, Ecological Gardening
  • Those dead stems might be full of life. When you look at dried-up goldenrod, aster, coneflower, or Joe Pye weed in winter, it can be tempting to cut everything down to the ground. But some of those stems are being used as winter nurseries by native bees and other insects. Our native bees don't all live in hives. Many are solitary, and some use hollow or pithy plant stems to create tiny chambers for their young. Even goldenrod galls have a story to tell. An insect larva can spend the winter inside, protected by the plant itself, and eventually become food for birds like chickadees and woodpeckers. So those dried stems aren't just dead plant material. They're habitat. This is Part 3 of my Don't Clean Up Your Garden series. Follow for Part 4. There's even more happening underneath those leaves. DontCleanUpYourGarden, NativeBees, WildlifeGarden, NativePlants, GardeningForWildlife, PollinatorGarden, BeeFriendlyGarden, GardenHabitat, Goldenrod, FallGarden
  • That "dead" flower might actually be next year's garden. Those brown coneflower and black-eyed Susan seed heads aren't just garden debris. They're winter food for birds like goldfinches, and some of those seeds actually need winter before they'll germinate. So when we cut everything down in October and haul it away, we may be removing more than we realize. We're removing part of the winter food supply… and potentially the beginning of next year's garden. This is Part 2 of our Don't Clean Up Your Garden series. Follow for Part 3 → We're getting into what's happening inside those dried stems. DontCleanUpYourGarden, WildlifeGarden, NativePlants, PollinatorGarden, GardeningForWildlife, FallGarden, NativePlantGarden, BirdFriendlyGarden, Goldfinch, GardenTips
  • Your garden isn't dead just because it looks dead. Every fall, we rake the leaves, cut back the flowers, clear away the dead stems, and make everything look neat and tidy. But what if all that "dead" material is actually full of life? Seeds are waiting. Insects are overwintering. Birds are searching for food. And beneath the leaves, an entire winter ecosystem is getting ready for the cold. Winter isn't an empty space between growing seasons. It's part of the life cycle. This is Part 1 of my Don't Clean Up Your Garden series. Follow for Part 2, where we start looking at what's actually happening in that garden you thought was finished for the year. DontCleanUpYourGarden, WildlifeGarden, NativePlants, PollinatorGarden, GardeningForWildlife, FallGarden GardenTips, WildlifeHabitat, EcologicalGardening
  • Cast Iron Banana Bread We've all been there: you have three bananas on the counter that nobody is going to eat. They went spotty two days ago, and then they went past spotty, and every morning you move them a little further down the counter like that will change something. This recipe saves them. Comment 'BANANA BREAD' and I'll send you the recipe. banana bread, whiskey banana bread, banana bread recipe, cast iron banana bread, from scratch baking, homemade banana bread,