Quickest, easiest homestead things you do

fffarmergirl · #1 01/25/12, 08:27 AM

There are a few things that are so quick and easy to do, I can do them no matter how busy and hectic my life is.

What really quick and easy things do you do? Things that tend to work out well even if you procrastinate or get lazy or busy?

Here are some of my examples (we're in zone 4, with a very short growing season). I've been working a lot of overtime and only the really easy stuff was successful for me this year.

Tomatoes and tomato sauce - picked the tomatoes whenever I got a chance and popped them into the freezer whole. Now, every once in a while when I have a day off and a few extra minutes available, I drop a few into some hot water and peel them and fill up the crock pot. Some time when they're thawed enough I go through them and pick off the stems and leave them in the crock pot with the lid off to cook down. I just give them a stir every few hours when I happen to be walking through the kitchen. The next day I turn off the crock pot and when the sauce is cool I pour it into a bag and freeze it. Eventually all of the tomatoes will be turned into frozen sauce, then I'll put all the sauce together and can it. I love doing it this way because I don't have to do it on any schedule - just whenever I have a little bit of time.

Cantaloupe - I've only done this once, but I'll be doing it every year now. In the early Spring, we put down a layer of black plastic in kind of a low area of the garden. When it was time to plant the cantoupe, all the weeds under the plastic were dead. We planted the seedlings through it, with a little rabbit manure around them. Water runs down to that area and the soil stays moist and warm - no further maintenance necessary until the cantaloupes were picked. I got about 200-300 lbs of cantaloupe this year in zone 4 this way. I didn't realize they are good frozen so I gave most of them away. This year I'll freeze a bunch.

Winter squash: Planted the same way as the cantaloupe. Last year I totally neglected my garden after August but I still got a big boston marrow (type of winter squash) harvest. Just picked them when they were ripe and popped them on a shelf in a cool room, and they'll be good until around April or May at least.

Corn - did it the same way as the cantaloupe, through the plastic with rabbit droppings as fertilizer. I planted 8 seeds in small circles four feet apart. Weeded it twice - just after it came up and when it was about 8 inches high, did water it a couple of times. Let the guineas loose in the garden to eat the bugs and got a nice harvest of big ears and no worms without very little maintenance. We scalded it and froze it on the cob.

The perennial stuff, of course, was low enough maintenance that I got a harvest (rhubarb, etc) & I actually managed to find and dry a bunch of morel mushrooms - nice, because I didn't have to grow them.

I was too busy to pick my green beans and then too busy to take care of drying beans. I managed to harvest some broccoli and peas early in the season but then let it all go to seed when I got busy at work. My annual herbs all got lost in the weeds and I never got around to digging up my leeks or potatoes.

I really appreciate those things that did well and gave me a harvest despite being neglected. Any easy and dependable suggestions?

BoldViolet · #2 01/25/12, 10:16 AM

I bake bread. (easy, but can be time consuming if you've got to knead, punch down, knead, punch down, etc. I use the 5 Minute Artisan recipe often, and it doesn't require kneading or punching, so it's nice when I'm busy)

I've got a pair of chickens and a pair of rabbits. They don't take much time at all.

I grow a garden, and I WISH I knew what my garden's cantaloupes tasted like- my girl dog steals them every summer. :cry:

I have yet to successfully grow broccoli, cilantro, or salad greens.

I've been saving my paper grocery bags to put down between this year's garden rows to keep the weeds down.

I'm glad you're having such success in zone 4. I want to move to western Montana at some point (fully aware that I'll be building a greenhouse/polytunnel or something), and it's reassuring that you're able to grow in such a short season.

Homesteader · #3 01/25/12, 10:36 AM

I buy the big "tubes" of ground beef and cook it up. I package it up in one-dinner size packages and freeze them. It saves the "brown one lb. of ground beef, drain" step every time!

HilltopDaisy · #4 01/25/12, 11:20 AM

Yep, I'd have to say "Cook from scratch, in bulk quantities".

I'll prepare several meals at once and freeze in single serving portions. I have a super cheap/healthy lunch or dinner in no time.

Also, I freeze fresh veggies from the garden in snack size ziplock bags, so I can grab one, and it's the perfect size.

BarbadosSheep · #5 01/25/12, 11:29 AM

I canned the last deer hubby harvested last year. Now when I am short on time, I can just open up a jar and the meat is fork tender and yummy. I plan to can many jars of spagetti sauce this summer, with ground lamb already added.

fffarmergirl · #6 01/25/12, 11:36 AM

Oh, I can't wait to can some deer. I wish my husband had shot one this year. He doesn't like the mess & the hunting but I want the meat! We can chicken and it is so good and tender and convenient.

jcatblum · #7 01/25/12, 11:59 AM

Collecting rain water is effortless once you set up the barrels. Rain water is great for plants & the animals. Plus if the well is out then we still have water.

Compost is another easy one-- plus my compost pile is my chickens favorite place to hang out-- any time I open the coop they make their way to scratch in the pile.

Hatching your own chicks & other poultry, with a good incubator takes no time & you can also sell the chicks & keets for a much higher price than if you were only selling eggs.

The best use of my time & resources is prob our hay pasture leased to a guy that takes care of it & in return I get all the hay we need & he gets plenty for himself too. dh talks of us cutting the hay ourselves bt for the expense of equipment & time involved I find it better to let someone else cut the hay.

fffarmergirl · #8 01/25/12, 12:05 PM

We just got a Berkly water filter - we could even drink the rain water now. I think we need to do that. Our well tends to go out in the winter, though. Do you collect it off the roof? How do you get it to the animals?

We're doing the compost thing - and rabbit droppings. Last year was our first year composting so we haven't got to use any yet.

What kind of incubator do you use? We used one of those cheap styrofoam ones one time and it was a disgusting mess.

We have a hay pasture. We let our neighbor cut it for free. I wonder how we'd go about leasing it?

fffarmergirl · #9 01/25/12, 12:07 PM

Oh - just thought of two more very easy and worthwhile things we do. Canning deer carrots and potatoes.

You can buy a 50 lb bag of deer carrots for I think $3. They make great canned carrots. We canned our potatoes one year and they're great for frying. A friend buys deer potatoes and cans them, so that's what I'm planning on in the future. I hate growing potatoes.

jcatblum · #10 01/25/12, 02:27 PM

Our rain barrels catch rain off the roof, and they are made so a water hose can hook up to them. The pressure is gravity, so takes a bit longer than using the hose but the water is much better.
For our incubator, I have a brinesea eco that I LOVE, but it is small. I also have a sportsman professional & a sportsman hatcher. When I run across another used cabinet incubator I will purchase it as well. We hatch LOTS of guinea eggs along with a good amount of chicks. There are several chicken auctions we take chicks too, plus word of mouth sells some. All poultry is DD hobby, she does the work & is responsible for the cost of up keep. She easily makes a few hundred a month, good money for an 11 yr old. I work hard staying on her to keep her chicken chores done, but it is worth it. She loves the birds & money is a plus for her.
Hay leases are pretty common around here, google & you can find some examples. Many people do halves around here. About a month ago I think there was a thread on hay leases on this forum as well.

fffarmergirl · #11 01/25/12, 02:56 PM

DH is outside measuring stuff so he can buy troughs and downspouts to harvest roof water. It's one of those things we'd thought of doing in the past, bought a couple of barrels and a stock tank, and then never got around to. Thanks for giving us the idea again - and giving him something to think of other than filling this whole house with stockpiles of stuff.

I never thought of hatching guinea hens and selling them, either, but we have guineas and a little incubator. Finding their eggs is a challenge, though.

ChickenMiss · #12 01/25/12, 03:49 PM

For now since I still live at home, I can only do so much.

I'm cooking more and more from scratch.

Attempting to bake my own bread.

Planning and hopefully putting in a veggie garden in the backyard within the next week or two. The weather's mild enough for it now.

Trying to come up with cheap and effective homemade detergents for the washer and dishwasher. If I had my way I'd be washing the clothes in a tub in the yard and hanging them to dry but that's not possible yet (not to mention my family would think I'd gone crazy). Hoping to get a foldable large drying wrack soon. Have to save up for it first.

Blackbear · #13 01/25/12, 04:33 PM

BOLDVIOLET- What is the 5 Minute Artisan recipe?

Can you freeze a head of lettuce or bag of lettuce, one question my wife and I had a few months back?

DamnearaFarm · #14 01/25/12, 07:13 PM

Blackbear- nope.
Chickenmiss- search the family forum for NickieL's honey oatmeal bread. It's a no fail recipe.
fffarmergirl- Luvtofarm cans her cantaloupe. She says it's AWESOME.

TheMartianChick · #15 01/25/12, 07:55 PM

Taking care of my (admittedly few) chickens and quail doesn't take much time at all. Neither does saving scraps in a coffee can for their snacks. I also cook in quantity and freeze ahead. I hang laundry on the line and that only takes a few minutes to do if yhou work steadily. The bread machine can make my bread dough if I don't have the time to poke at it, but I've also used the no-knead bread recipe with good success.

willow_girl · #16 01/26/12, 12:12 AM

Quote:

You can buy a 50 lb bag of deer carrots for I think $3.

Oh, I miss being able to do that! PA doesn't allow baiting, so no deer carrots here.

Back home, I'd make carrot cakes all though the fall, 'til we were sick of them! LOL

Any carrots that were too woody to eat went to the horses. They didn't mind.

gracie88 · #17 01/26/12, 12:19 AM

Chickens - My "fast food" dinners are generally breakfast -scrambled eggs and scone, or fritatta (eggs and veg) or quiche... and chickens take almost no input if you let them out during the day.

Saurkraut - I did buy the cabbage for my sauerkraut, it's so cheap and takes up so much space in the garden. It takes a little time to chop and pound it in the crock, and then again to can it, but it's simple and tasty. That and tomatoes are what I can the most of.

Blackberry bachelor's jam - Turns out, if you fill a canning jar with blackberries (the first year we used a qt jar, this year we used 3 qt jars, and a 1/2 gal jar

) and some sugar , say 1/2 to one cup depending on the jar size, then cover them with rum (or vodka) and give them a shake once in a while, around November-December you have a drink that tastes like fresh blackberries and takes a little of the winter chill off. You can also then use the berries in recipes (brownies come to mind). For us, the blackberries are easy as well since they grow wild on our neighbors' side of the fence and our goats keep the fence-line clean.

fffarmergirl · #18 01/26/12, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RamblinRoseRanc

Blackbear- nope.
fffarmergirl- Luvtofarm cans her cantaloupe. She says it's AWESOME.

Canned cantaloupe? I want to know more!

Quote:

Originally Posted by willow_girl

Oh, I miss being able to do that! PA doesn't allow baiting, so no deer carrots here.

Back home, I'd make carrot cakes all though the fall, 'til we were sick of them! LOL

Any carrots that were too woody to eat went to the horses. They didn't mind.

I haven't done the carrot cakes because of all the trouble involved in peeling the carrots - do you have a secret for peeling them quickly?

[QUOTE=gracie88;5659520]
Saurkraut - I did buy the cabbage for my sauerkraut, it's so cheap and takes up so much space in the garden. It takes a little time to chop and pound it in the crock, and then again to can it, but it's simple and tasty. That and tomatoes are what I can the most of.
[QUOTE]

I've grown cabbage and it did well, and we also have deer cabbage available for so cheap it's not worth the trouble of growing cabbage. I've always wanted to make sourkraut but it sounds so complicated - fermenting it in a crock. Where do you keep the crock and what recipe do you use?

luv2farm · #19 01/26/12, 07:20 AM

[QUOTE=fffarmergirl;5659686]Canned cantaloupe? I want to know more!

It is yummy.......I'll hunt the recipe up when I get home and post it.....I think it is in the BBB

7thswan · #20 01/26/12, 07:34 AM

First thing in the morning I light the stove with a match,save them for lightting the cookstove. Then make a cup of coffe with my strainer,the grounds go on the bluberry bushes and roses.Then add wood to the woodstove,the ashes go on the garden,which I also burn off,for the ash and to burn any surface weed seeds.Course I'm wearing my homemade nightgown while sitting here drinking my coffee. Nothing goes to waste,scraps go to eather the chickens,bunnys or dogs. I also cann deer carrots(something in my soil makes holes in carrots here) and lots of goods from the garden trees bushes and the beef we raise,make all our bread-Honey Bread, very easy. Today I will finish up on spinning some dog undercoat for $.Fire up the cookstove and make a turkey pot pie out of the turkey I cooked on Monday,it will be entirely homemade from my pantry of homecanned foods and potatoes from the garden.I'll dress in homade skirt and put some homemade flannel bloomers on and go out and feed critters. Could go,but I know you're getting bored....

ps, I never heard of frozen or canned cantalope,sure sounds good!