Homesteading update

 It has been soooo long since my last update, so please bear with me - this will be a long post and full of photos.

Over the last year, we have been working diligently to get our little homestead up and running. I hesitate to call it a homestead at this point, because we still have a very long way to go until we are self-sufficient. That is however, the ultimate goal, and we have to start somewhere, right?  I feel like we've made large strides over the last year, so here is a very condensed update.

We started near the end of Winter by placing a tarp over the area of the garden we wanted to expand.  We let it sit until all the grass underneath had died off. With the grass dead, we tilled the area and then picked out the rocks. I'm not talking pebbles either - look at my little self-professed "Rock Queen" below...

In the future, we now know we should be tilling and adding the soil amendments in the Fall so it has time to decompose. We learn something new all the time - that's part of what I love about gardening. I couldn't keep a plant alive to save my life three years ago, so this is HUGE for me.

We added organic mulch and peat moss to the soil and then raked it all in, doing our best not to trample the freshly tilled soil.

(I love my helpers so much)

A few days after mixing the soil, I went out and made rows of hills and transplanted all 80 (yes I'm hoping to spend days canning away this summer) of our tomato and bell pepper plants. They were started from seeds we had left over from last year. We put red onions, spinach, carrots, beets, basil, peas and string beans out at this point as well. I started late this year and could have had the cold weather crops out sooner - hopefully I stay on the ball next year. We again moved the tarp to kill off more grass.

 Shortly after this, our less than a year old dryer broke (of course it did) and we had to wait a month and a half for the parts and service. Buuuut, hello silver lining (there's always a bright side), this was the exact encouragement my husband needed to build a clothesline. I had been begging since we moved in - so I'm super excited about this.

The plan is to paint it white so it matches the other things we've built (just a little bit of Type A going on in this house).

 Speaking of other things we've my husband has built, here's my older daughter's rabbit hutch. I love it, and so does her rabbit. The free DIY plan came from Rouge Engineer - you can view the original here.

Caramel the rabbit resting in the shade. Don't worry, she gets out on adventures around our house and has a never ending supply of fresh veggies and hay.

Our ladies a.k.a. the chickens, have been laying consistently for months now and bring in about 8 multi-colored eggs a day. They're the goofiest little things to watch and thankfully, so far, have stayed out of the garden.

 They did like to lay in between the garlic plants over the Winter and Spring, but thankfully all the garlic survived and we had a pretty good harvest.

Fresh garlic tastes amazing and is so incredibly easy to grow. You need to try it, I promise you won't be disappointed. We have the garlic curing on a wire shelf in our house right now.

Last week we expanded on our fruit orchard. There are a total of 20 plants - 10 raspberry (multiple varieties) and 10 blueberry (multiple varieties).  Behind the berry patch are 4 pear trees and 5 apple trees - again, in multiple varieties in an effort to increase fruit yields. We only have one single pear out there though. I know I didn't prune them correctly over the winter, so I have some studying to do.

The kids and I were giddy when we found ripe blueberries already attached to the young bushes.

We also added three plum trees, these are next to peach trees we put in last year.

Back to the ever expanding garden. My favorite place here.

We will definitely be using a different layout next year. We want long straight rows and plan to use irrigation tape to keep the soil evenly watered. Right now it's a bit of a hodge-podge of vegetables.

 

I'm super sad about our strawberry bed. I let it go and it's so crowded out, we only ended up with a small handful of berries. The plan is to drastically thin it out and hope for a better turn out next year.

We will likely add a few more raised beds next year as well.

As far as future projects this year, a chicken tractor is in the works and likely to be finished in a day or so. We plan on raising meat birds this summer. We will hopefully have some sort of hoop house or row covers too.

We have a lot going on, and interesting things to share. I started working out of the house this Winter and haven't had much time to write. I have the summer's off though and plan to update regularly and share recipes and homemade remedies. Please come back and see what our little family has been up to.

One last photo of an amazing sunset.

There is never a shortage of beauty here in the Ozarks, I love it.