2019 Spring Reality Check

Every winter, around February, I get super exited for the spring season. This year was no different, in fact, that excitement was amplified due to the prospect of officially starting our homestead.  A couple of months ago, I posted this list of goals and dreams.

• Fence in a play area for the kids.
• Build a chicken coup and run.
• Purchase chicks and raise them.
• Combine two vegetable gardens and fence it in.
• Plant trees for a privacy wall in front of the house.
• Tear out our juniper hill and start plans for herb/tea garden.
• Learn to bake bread.
• Organize our recipe library.

Looking at this list that I put together just a few months ago conjures all kinds of negative feelings.

What the heck was I thinking?!

Achieving these goals meant that quite a bit of heavy work be completed in March and April.  I meant well, I was excited, motivated, and felt like I could accomplish everything and anything regardless of our time constraints.

Fence in Play Area for Kids

So this is a very important project for us, but we have not done it yet.  It is kind of a catch-22, we need it to do other projects more easily, but this project requires a lot  of work and some expense that we haven’t had. 

With limited time, it was more important that we scramble to get our garden planted within a reasonable time.

I am hoping that this can be accomplished by the end of the summer and hope that by having it, next year’s projects will be that much easier.

Chickens!

Ha! This one makes me laugh because I sure did have some high hopes for getting some chicks this spring and raising them.

We narrowed down a space that you see in the picture below.

We think that this area will be perfect for a chicken coop and run.  It is far enough away from the house, as well as the neighbors that the noise shouldn’t be an issue.  However, it is close enough that we will  be able to see and observe the chickens every time we go to our car.

The issue this is that right now with this area is that it is currently overgrown with wineberries and will need need to be cleared in order to put in a chicken run.

They are a horribly invasive, but truly delicious, plant that produces raspberry like fruit every June. We love having them on our property but controling the spread of them is really challenging.  I am sure I will write more about them when they start producing.

We should have cleared it out in March before they started growing but we just did not get around to it.  Now this project will probably have to wait until later in the summer.

My goal is to have it cleared and a chicken coop and run built by the end of this year so that we can actually get chickens next spring.

Vegetable Gardens

We FINALLY put our vegetable garden in about a week ago. FINALLY! We had some setbacks. We started our tomatoes and peppers from seed on 3/13/12019.   We kept them at my mother’s house since she has more counter space that we do in our kitchen. They were growing really nicely until the tomatoes stopped growing.  After they sprouted and the plants were about 3 in tall, they just kind of stopped. They never died or anything, just stopped growing. The peppers were another story. They were growing really nicely until one of my mom’s cats ate them all.  SO DISAPPOINTING! The seeds that we used were gifted to us from Burpee.  They sent us a collection of free seed packets when we became affiliates with their company.  I was so excited because they included the ^4th of July tomatoes which I just love and have only been able to find through Burpee.

Here are the plants that we started from seed on 3/13/2019:

Pepper, Sweet, Costa Rican Sweet Hybrid 1 Pkt. (40 seeds)

Once we got these seeds started, we had several decisions about the garden we had to make.

We debated for several months how we were going to handle the garden this year.

Were we going to move the garden to the area where we really want it, even though that area is not prepped yet?

Are we going to keep it where it is, but fence it in?

Are we going to till the ground or are we going to try some raised beds this year?

We actually decided not to move our garden this year. It would just be too much work to have it ready in time.  In March and April, we are still battling rainy/cold weather and it is really hard to get a head start on projects.

We plan to prep the area (take down two trees, remove gravel and pavers, and fence in the new area so that we can use that next year.

We are using pots and made 3 raised beds this year.  We decided not to till the ground and to raised beds because I really wanted to test out the benefits.

This year we have this set up:

3 Raised Beds, 12 Pots, 2 window sill pots.

Raised Bed #3:

Hot Pepper – Jalepeno Gigante

2 rows of Carrots

2 rows of Buttercrunch Lettuce

12 Pots and 2 window sill pots with herbs

• Broccoli
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Sweet peppers
• Bush Peas
• Basil
• Lavender
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Parsley
• Lemon Balm
• Mint

Fingers crossed…

Natural Privacy Borders

Our front yard is relatively dangerous because we sort of sit up on a hill and there are portions of our yard that drop off to a road in front of our house. Right now there is a fence bordering with honeysuckle and other vine plants.  This fence covers about 80% of the opening to the road.

While this helps a lot!  Toddlers, if loose, are sure to run right to the area without a fence.  For this reason, it is extremely important for us to address this area.

Unfortunately, after much research, it became clear that this project would be expensive and time consuming.

We would need to have some sort of fence already in place when planting the trees because it would take several years at a minimum for the trees/bushes to grow and form a natural privacy border.

This requires more research and planning before taking action.

Remove Juniper Bushes and make way for Herb/Tea Garden

We have not started this project yet.  Since we were focusing on planting our vegetable garden, I had planned for this project to be started later in the summer.

I have planted some herbs in pots that I would love for our tea garden.

They are:

• Mint
• Lemon Balm
• Lavender
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Dill
• Oregano
• Parsley

I am sure I will plant more herbs. I am a sucker for buying herb plants!

I did start taking more care in pruning our juniper bushes.  I wrote an article for Mother Earth News about how to properly maintain and care for Juniper.  Check it out here: Landscaping with Juniper: Maintain and Prune this Hearty Conifer.

Learning to Bake Bread

I have been having a lot of fun with the bread making.  I have made this REALLY simple white bread recipe several times now and it has turned out so good.

I love that it makes two loaves! I usually make one and have it with dinner. Then I use that other one for french toast the next day.

I can never find bread thick enough to use for french toast so this is always perfect.

If you have any bread recipes that you love, please comment with them, I am looking for difference recipes to try.

Organizing My Recipe Collection

I have not completed this project yet.  I will probably hold this project for a rainy day or for later in the winter after the garden is over.  More on this later.

Do you have a system for organizing all of your recipes for meal planning? Leave a message, I would love to hear about your brilliant methods!