So, in case there’s another crazy farm lady (or guy) out
there who thinks the same, here’s my Homestead Holiday Letter for 2019.
 |
| My 2018 garden - adding more space for 2019 |
This year was our first full year on the homestead. In 2018
we basically had a smaller version of what we’d left at the old house – our laying
hens, a batch of broilers, a couple of pigs, and a little bit of a garden (a
few cucumbers, a butternut squash, and just enough tomatoes to keep up with
what my daughter would grab and eat when she walked through the garden). Most
of my energy was spent on getting settled into the house.
In 2019, with the house a little more organized, I got more serious. The fall before, I’d expanded my
garden footprint to about three times its previous size by laying down cardboard
and covering it with a deep layer of leaves and grass clippings. I let the
chickens run through it all winter, so the soil was well fed and ready to plant
in the spring.
 |
| Planning the 2019 garden |
I rebuilt my mini-greenhouse (the flimsy metal frame had
crumpled under the weight of the squash I tried to store on it over the winter
in 2016) and started most of my garden seeds indoors, since I’d learned that
transplants are easier to plant into deep mulch. I’d only done this haphazardly
before, starting what I guessed would be a good number of seeds about 6 weeks
before our last frost date. This year I took some extra time and planned out how
many of each plant I needed for each bed, which companion flowers and herbs
would benefit each vegetable, and made a seed starting schedule. (You can see my basic seed starting plan by clicking here). I really think
planning made the biggest difference in the garden this year. It may seem
counter intuitive, but my work indoors in January had the biggest effect on my
harvest in the fall.
 |
| Making maple syrup in the snowy March weather |
With my seed schedule set, starting my seedlings was easy, which
left time in March for trying something new. I’d taken a class on making maple
syrup, and I’d tagged as many maple trees as I could identify in the fall, so
it was time to put that information into practice. I set up a little trial-size
boiling station in the garden (hoping the ash from the small fires would help fortify
the soil even more) and set to work. It was fun to try something new, and a
great excuse to sit around a campfire two or three times a week. When all was
said and done, I’d made a little over 3 gallons of maple syrup, which was just
enough to cover the cost of the supplies I’d purchased. I look forward to making
even more syrup this year - now that I know what I’m doing! And this year, it
will all be free, since I saved enough making syrup last year to offset the
cost of the infrastructure! (You can read about my maple syrup adventures by clicking here, here, here, or here).
 |
| Getting the garden ready |
Syruping finished up in April, which left a little time for Easter
travels before it was time to start garden prep. We needed to mark off the
garden beds (I used as many straight(ish) logs from the woods as I could haul
over for borders for my beds), scrape the good compost off of the paths and
into the beds (it was all one big chicken-scattered bed after the winter), lay
down another layer of paper mulch (we’d saved up our feed sacks from the pigs
and chickens the year before, so we had a good stash – but even so, we didn’t
have as many as we would have liked), cover the paper on the paths with pine
needles, and add strips of compost where I was going to be planting seeds (a
friend from church brought over a dump trailer full of broken down manure from
their beef cattle barn – leading me to wonder what exactly it said about me
that one of my most-appreciated gifts of the year was a literal load of crap!)
 |
| Apple blossoms on our one year old tree |
May, as always, came with a rush – baby bunnies and baby
chicks to cuddle and care for, baby garden plants to be hardened off and
planted outside, homeschool classes to finish up and field trips to take. It was
a wet spring, and the wildflowers were spectacular (the not-so wildflowers on
the apple and plum trees were also wonderful). In the middle of all of this
rush, I injured myself (not moving logs or hauling feed bags, but moving furniture
to wash the living room floor!) I had a herniated disk in my lower spine, which
put me out of commission for most of the summer.
Thankfully, my daughters really stepped up and helped out.
My youngest daughter, in particular, took on the bulk of the outdoor
responsibilities. She fed the laying hens every day, collected eggs, and raised
the broilers pretty much single-handedly (and did a great job – probably better
than I’ve done!)
 |
| Harvesting wild strawberries |
She also took upon herself to forage as much food as she could,
hunting out wild mushrooms (after carefully identifying them, of course!), wild
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, rose hips,
and hazelnuts from our property and along the side of our country road.
My oldest daughter decided that she would be in charge of
the tomatoes (which only made sense, since she ate most of them!) We had a
little under 20 plants this year, and although she didn’t tend them as
carefully as I would have, she did a good job and we ended up canning a good
amount (read: it’s almost January and they aren’t all gone yet – a new record!)
My middle daughter took over raising the pigs, which was a
major undertaking, since we move our pig pen (four 16-foot hog panels lashed
together at the corners, with an old truck topper for shelter) at minimum every
10 days, depending on how much they tear up the ground (toward butcher time it’s
almost every day). The pigs ended up a little smaller than usual, but without
her help we wouldn’t have had them at all, so I’m very grateful for her
efforts!
As you can imagine, with four teenagers in the house (all
five will be teenagers this coming year!) we had a busy summer. They discovered
sailing, and took their little boats out as often as they could manage. We also
took a stay-cation this summer, seeing as much of our little corner of the world
as we could fit in over the course of a week. On our last day, a
record-breaking storm went through our area, so after our relaxing week we had
a week of hard work cleaning up downed trees (a task my husband is still
working hard on – turning all of that destruction into firewood!)
In August, our energy turned to harvesting and enjoying the
fruits of our labor. We had enough corn for two big meals of corn on the cob, quarts
and quarts of pickles and dilly beans, and just when we thought we could handle
the bounty, the apples were ripe. Our own trees are too small to bear (we
planted them in 2018 – the first spring we lived here), but friends offered us
their surplus and we took advantage of the opportunity. What the kids didn’t
eat out of hand we made into applesauce, apple jelly, apple cider vinegar, and apple pie filling until we ran out
of jars, and made the rest into cider. The skins, cores, and wormy apples went to the pigs and chickens to be turned into bacon and eggs.(You can read my post about how many things you can make all from the same apples by clicking here)
Our last harvest of the year was our pumpkins. My middle
daughter (who also tended the pigs this summer) always claims the privilege of
raising our carving pumpkins every year. They must have liked the mulch, because
they were huge – too big to reach my arms around – and prolific – we ended up
with about a dozen that size! Needless to say, the kids had a great time carving
those giants this fall!
Now the garden is all snug under its blanket of snow, waiting
for spring so that the chickens can again clean out all of the over-wintered
bugs and add their little packets of fertilizer before I shut them out for the
summer growing season. I love how God made all of the seasons so different, so
that we can enjoy each one as it comes around again. Each has its own
challenges and joys, beginning with hope and excitement and usually ending with
an exhausted farmer ready to move on to the next thing!
I’d like to wish each of you reading this a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year – may your harvest be bountiful, your animals stay
healthy, and your family grow in love and productiveness!
Drop a line in the comment section below and let me know how your homestead did this year, whether it's a pot of herbs on your windowsill or a farm on 100 acres! I love to hear what everyone is up to!
