2018 Homestead Goals
It's been a crazy journey jumping into permaculture and homesteading from absolute scratch. We've had some serious bumps in the road that derailed our plans and ate up our time. But this year is on track to be the most productive since we first pulled up the sod and turned our lawn into garden. I'm excited and more motivated than ever, now that I can share my successes, failures, and revelations with others here on Steemit.
1. Double Our Gardening Space
Our first garden we established 5 years ago was 30 x 30. Pretty much our entire front yard. Since then we've expanded grow bed by grow bed, slowly and cleared out trees to gain more access to light. But this year, I have much bigger plans. I really want to start making a dent in our grocery bill, and simply need more growing space. This is going to be a lot of work, I'm hoping to etch out a new 60 x 60 plot. To do this I will need to clear out some pine forest. I'll need to figure out what to do with the stumps, and how to make use of the logs and brush, as I hate wasting resources. From there, I'll need to shape my beds and try to get as much organic matter in the soil as I can before planting time. Stay tuned!
2. Cover Crop
We haven't yet dove into cover cropping, but this will be the year. We've purchased straw before, and we usually mulch with leaves, but it seems like such a better option to grow our own straw, mulch, and fertilizer all at once. We'll need to purchase a few tools (a broadcast spreader and scythe) but it's well worth the investment.
3. Propagate our perennials and shrubs
I had some success last year with propagating currants and lavender, but I started way too late in the season. This year I'm hoping to expand my perennials through a massive propagation effort. Ribes, raspberries, honeyberries, lavender, sage, hyssop, to name a few
4. Store a years supply of pickles, krauts, jams, sauces, and onions
This year we were able to turn 40 lbs of cabbage into sauerkraut. It came out really great. My pickles all turned mushy though, and we just finished our last jar of tomato soup–so good! I want to make sure we're able to grow and process a full year's supply of jam, relishes, pickled veggies, tomato soup, sauce, and paste, and store enough onions to last us until next year's harvest. We've made strides, but this is the year to make a serious go at it.
5. Save seeds from the majority of the annuals we grow
We have successfully saved seeds for Spinach, lettuce, corn, pumpkin, cilantro, and a few other veggies. But I have yet to get serious about the effort. This year I'm going to attempt saving most of the seed from the veggies we grow, and diligently keep unwanted cross pollination out. This will save us a ton of money next year, especially as our garden expands. It will also begin the long term goal of breeding plants specifically for our climate, soil and needs.
6. Extend our growing season into winter
We have yet to do any successful winter gardening. At the bare minimum I'm going to build a few cold frames and use row covers with greenhouse plastic. If I get really ambitious, I'll build a small hoop house.
7. Beautify the landscaping
With the focus being on growing food for the past 5 years, the landscaping around our house has suffered. We're going to mulch with woodchips, cleanup paths, fill in empty spaces with beneficial perennials, propagate and expand ground covers and hopefully grade and restore our long beat up gravel driveway.
Those are some great and achieveable goals! We wish you the best!
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Yes I very much relate to extending the growing season. I tried some things outdoors like Mizuna but it is just a bit too cold. Time to make the most out of our polytunnel... I look forward to seeing your goals be achieved!
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Instead of annual crops, we have focused more on perennials, which have reduced our workload tremendously. Thank you for sharing your goals and wish you the best year ever!
Thanks! We have a lot of perennials going, and big plans for expanding a full orchard. But this year, I want to focus on building adequate annual space, and plan for the orchard expansions for next year. Being that I only have forest and hilly land, it's complex working out the designs for perennial food systems. The plans need to be 4 dimensional including time and succession. Learning to propagate and graft this year will give me the tools I need to go full force next year with the orchards.
Great goals! If you have not decided on a particular scythe, yet, I would recommend the scythe from Lehman's. They sell a nice kit that includes the snath, two blades, peening jig, sharpening stone, and book. And if you watch, they will have sales where you can save some money and get free shipping. Just a thought.
Drill some holes in those stumps and logs and inoculate them with fungi. Then you can have another dent in the grocery bill and fresh mushrooms all the time. I guess that all depends on ambient temperatures and the types of fungi you decide to go with. There are some good magazines and websites to check out and order from. I forget the one I used to use right now but when I remember I'll shoot you a message on here.
Hey, thanks for the advice! They are all going to be pine though, most edible mushrooms that grow in my climate usually prefer hardwoods, but I'll do a bit more research. I plan on using a lot of the logs to build a fence similar to this.
Yeah thats probably a better idea. I didn't take that into consideration.
Fantastic mate !! I am so jealous. Im guessing youre in the US as in the UK we just dont have the land or garden size to do this generally speaking.
Will be looking forward to following your adventures here! One area I'm particularly interested in is food storage and staggered planting .
Anyway, just for fun take a look at this you tube link. It was a very popular series about a very middle class English couple who quit work and attempted to become self sufficient in suburbia. Though its a great fictional comedy, Id guess a little part of so many people back then wished they could do the same !
Enjoy and have a great weekend :-)
Thanks! I live in MI, United States. In general, land is out of control expensive if you live near the coasts. But Mid West, and Central US is dirt cheap, especially after the 2008 housing crisis here. You sacrifice a lot moving away from a major city, but the land, space, privacy and freedom keep here. Cheers!
Propagating and saving seeds are two things that I will be working on also.
And the extended growing season, yeah, I have been looking into the differences/advantages between cold frames and hoop houses too.
Looking forward to following along with your adventures! I was hoping to do some season extension this last year, but apparently my old greenhouse plastic was thrown out or went missing. I’ve dabbled in it before, I’ve overwintered spinach, that’s about my only season extending achievement so far 😁
Oh no!!! Missing greenhouse plastic is never a good thing.
So you grew some spinach over winter- that's cool!
I did plant some set of garlic this past autumn so anxiously awaiting to see how it goes come summer.
great post, i think those thatr becoming vegan and realising the food industry for what it is should also take that extra step and realiize growing fruits and vegies locally for your self is the best and safest you can ever be. it is a forgotten human skill for the masses and its good there are people knowledgeable about it, and are wiling to share for free
Its been a dream of mine to get into permaculture, and by learning from people who are doing it its an avenue for me , great post and for the stumps how about growing mushrooms on them?