It has been a while since I have done one of these and I have had plenty to report too! I really want to get into the habit of updating this blog more often and along with it these updates. I am trying to keep a photo journal of everything we do here, as we go along, to go with my updates as well.
An early spring has put planting season into full swing, our neighbor brought over his tiller as promised and to my immense gratitude tilled up my garden for me. The garden is not huge, and I am pretty sure next year we will be enlarging it some, but planted wisely this garden will provide a lot of produce for my family.
I used an online planner to plan out my garden (more about that later!) not because I could not do it myself but because I really wanted to get as much in the garden as I could to ensure maximum yield. But after looking at the soil in my garden and realizing it badly needed some help and more help than I could give it this year, we decided to space the planting out some. We have a nice compost started, but it is going to take some time before it is ready for the garden.
Planting has started we have onions, peas, rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries in the ground and I just started a bed full of greens such as lettuce and spinach the day or two ago. I have about 30 starts of broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts to go in as well, hopefully that will happen tomorrow.
Everybody is out helping right now, my husband is putting up the fence around the garden, we had a deer use the garden as a freeway right before he started putting it up, so I urged him to move a bit faster. My daughter is helping with getting the sod out of the garden and planting, so we are making good progress overall.
We have ducks now, these are my husband’s birds not sure what he wants to do with them yet but he is certainly having fun with them. We have also purchased some Cornish crosses for meat and plan to get some more this weekend and have some Americanas that will be dual purpose birds.
On the other hand our layers are laying between 20 and 25 eggs a day right now, we put up a sign to sell eggs but so far we have not had any takers, It has only been up for a couple of days though so we will see how it goes. We already knew some of these birds might end up going to the freezer because it would be too many eggs.
My husband still has to finish permanent home for the ducks, they are still in a little pen, but we have a big shed and yard planned for them. Hopefully this week they will get their new home I will be sure to take pictures as it goes up.
Future Plans
Coming up we are going to try to get some berries in this year still, the local nursery has some beautiful raspberry plant starts we would like to get, and my husband wants blueberries as well. We want fruit trees but may have to wait until next year for that expense.
We plan to get goats soon, but it may be next spring before that happens, we have a lot of fencing to do first, and need to build them a shelter as well, but they will be our next investment in terms of food production.
Planting is ongoing, I feel very fortunate because the last couple of years, I have ended up having to plant my entire garden all in one week due to the weather, this year we have good weather and the garden is going in, in stages. Being as this garden is 3 times the size of my old garden this is a good thing, I don’t think I could plant this entire garden in just one week.
That is it for this update; I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and following our path. We have lots more coming, this year will be filled with a lot of things that need to be done, our ultimate goal is to get as close to self-sufficiency as possible on our 2/3 of an acre plot.
You are just slightly ahead of us in your schedule of garden/livestock. We are building on 5-acres on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. Our fencing was delivered last week, and as I type, my husband is using a friends excavator to put the irrigation into our first big garden (we have a small test garden we put in in 2009 when we started clearing the property). Our hopes are to get chickens, ducks and possibly goats this year. We are helping care for some goats, and have been offerred some of the kids. I look forward to following your progress – and comparing it to ours.
Janice I wish you luck and prosperity, My first homestead was in Western Washington, so I am jealous of your location, I miss the west!
A thought on fruit trees…if you don’t mind waiting a few years for your return this company has wonderful trees. We are a military family with a home 14hrs from here that we don’t see often. I ordered and then staged our plants in an old horse feed bucket….poor little guys stayed in that bucket for over a year before moving to a second “staging” area in my old garden. They have survived drought conditions and total neglect due to us being so far away and family only getting over there now and again to mow around them. We look forward to having fruits on the tree in about 2 years now. Fruit doesn’t just happen over night unless you are buying the large already bearing trees! Anyway, just a thought of a good resource for you…http://www.summerstonenursery.com/
I’m reading an old post where you are offering to give eggs away? Do you ever pickle them? June
Yes we have pickled them, I also freeze them as well, but we have cut back to just a few hens and ducks so too many eggs is no longer a problem.