What changes will you make next year on your homestead?

plan a garden, finish the barn and get some chickens.(with accompanying coop, of course) Some stuff inside the house as well.

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" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

We need to take down a couple of old buildings, get some chickens, add some fruit trees and blueberry and grapevines, make sure all buildings get painted, start out in bees in April (we already have 3 hives ready to go just need bees) and finish making the washhouse into a outdoor kitchen. Man am I tired already better go rest before I get started.

I'll be replacing some plants that didn't make it through this drought. Since hubby will be back to stay, we'll have a garden again! Woohoo! I couldn't manage one the last two years with him gone.

I'll try again to enlarge the chicken flock. This year I bought 60 new pullets, and then had dogs get in twice. There are two survivors of that, plus my old birds. But this year I have a new target .22 with night vision laser sights, so I can see my target in the dark! Gift from hubby! Another Woohoo!

I'm phasing out all waterfowl this year, and next year I'd really, really like to phase out turkeys, too. Hubby likes them, though, and doesn't want to. He's already disappointed about the geese. I think after he's home next summer and watches them lay waste to the garden he's looking forward to, that he'll change his mind! I don't know, though. He knows they ate all the grapes, so he's planning on building a huge cage around the arbor. Maybe he'll just roof over the garden!

I'm also increasing my French angora rabbit herd. They're productive, and earn their keep, even if they do require more time...it's relaxing time.

So, with luck I'll whittle us down to the chickens, rabbits and sheep. Eggs sell well enough that the chickens have paid for all the feed, not including hay, every year but this one And wool sells well, too. Not to mention the three different types of meat from them. I think we'll manage very nicely with those three. And the turkeys...for a while.

Meg

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All life requires death to support itself. The key is to have an abiding respect for the deaths that support you. --- Mark T. Sullivan

Wow, what a great thread! We are hoping to purchase our homestead within the next year so it's great to read about what everyone else is planning. Lots of ideas here! Once we find our place I think we will take a rest after that excitement and just "be" with the property for 6 months or a year just to get to know it before we begin any major projects. Of course, that is if we can restrain ourselves that long .

I plan on finishing my stone wall and getting the wood flooring upstairs done also. I will do my best to get a full time job in the spring as well. Chris

add ducks and expand my garden to even larger than last year.
I also plant more blueberry bushes every year along with more fruit and nut trees and bushes every year so i am constantly adding more and more each year.

Possibly adding irrigation as this would take a load off me.

No veggies here. Squirrels/coon ate everything I planted this year! Only thing I've been able to harvest is gourds so I might build a wooden patio with a wire set up on top so that the vines can grow up from there and the dogs will get more shaded areas to relax. I am thinking about possibly aquaphonics but on my own system since this area doesn't have everything listed that I can get for a set up. My tomatoes died to two causes: over fertilizing (is there such a thing?!?!?) and too many plants being planted in a pot plus I never got any tomatoes from them. Might buy some plants instead of raising from seed next year. I'm gonna try to concertate on flowering plants. Tried to kill the rose bush from hell. It's coming back up!!!!

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

Well we're hoping to be moved into the new house sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas (depends on how fast I can finish the electric, flooring, and trim).

I've got big plans for next year, now if only I can get them done.

1) clean out the pond and prep it for catfish
2) built and plant 6 - 4'x32' raised beds for veggies
3) finish the cross fencing (hopeing for 6 1/2 acres paddocks)
4) plant the small orchard (2 apples, plum, nectarine, banannas, and kiwi)
5) plant the blueberries and blackberries
6) get more sheep
7) start meat goat herd
8) build new turkey pens
9) build new chicken pens
10) build pasture pens for chickens
11) build portable shelters for the paddocks
12) and whatever I come up with between and the end of next year

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Bob D. in FL

"Good decisions are made from knowledge, not from numbers" - Plato

BobCat Acres - blog.bobcatacres.com
home of Chickens, Ducks, Turkeys, Goats, Sheep, and Bunnies

Fencing inside the south field for permanent paddocks.

Fencing around the perimeter of the north field and mountain fields.

Develop more springs for water in dry months.

Maybe dig another pond.

More animal sheds on winter garden paddocks.

Continuing work on our tiny cottage - hopefully do the new spring house / cold room.

Maybe be ready to get a cow.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

1. figure out what to do with the concrete slab
2. build more chicken tractors
3. grow a nice garden
4. get into vermiculture
5. possibly fence in our property

Put in a huge garden! And flowerbeds. Hopefully I'll have enough compost by then ...

Also, build a chicken coop and get some birds!

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

Just had my offer accepted on 165 more acres with about 150 workable. Assuming it closes ok (it's a relative, not too worried), it'll probably be going into soybeans. Then next fall, pull the trees out of the fencerows, push the brush back on to the fences to dry out, and no-till wheat. Then, summer of 09 after the wheat's off, we can go in, burn off the brush, and take out the rest of the fences. Lots of wood to cut.

No big plans here. I want to expand the garden, mostly. Also, plan to buy a ram lamb next fall for new blood in the sheep flock and get better (faster) at my hand shearing. We may raise a big batch of meat chickens, too, if I can find a processor not too far from here.

Each year we try to make sure we make improvements in each of
our special endeavors, which we divide into categories.

For instance, these are some of our categories:
garden
trees and shrubs
household
barn
emergency preparedness
animals
diet

As we set our goals for the coming year (which we traditionally do on New Year's Day), we go down our list of categories, see if we met our goals during the previous year and set new ones up and coming.
Doing it this way helps us keep track of our progress, and ensures we aren't
forgetting to deal with our less favorite areas of interest.

So far it's falling into place like this:
Garden - Switch from row garden to square foot gardens - 3 boxes per person.
Experiment with Terra-Preta/bio-char.

Trees and Shrubs - since our new place is naked, in our opinion, our main problem is getting things planted and keeping last year's new plantings alive. I expect the goal will be "plant as much as possible" for another three years or so. We need shade, privacy, fruit and hedgerows. Must make sure hubby doesn't mow invisible little seedlings! Buy lots of Surveyor Tape.

Household - Improve storage systems. Get buckwheat futons for cooler summer sleeping with no a/c. (Latex mattress is too bloody hot).

Barn - Improve the manure management system. Look into govt subsidies for this (EQIP program).

Emergency Preparedness - Install windmill to pump water to stock and gravity feed to the house in power failure.
Purchase five extra non-perishable food items at each grocery trip - store the extras in emergency pantry.

Animals - Start doing routine fecal worm checks at home - experiment with alternative/natural remedies - check for proof of efficacy with actual worm egg counts.
Acquire first dairy animals and learn to milk them.

Diet - add home-made dairy products to the list of home produced food.
Eat more eggs.
No more store bought mayonnaise - homemade only.
Bake bread at home at least once a week - use cob wood burning oven.

Other- Build cob woodburning oven.

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Hut on the Hill Farm
http://www.hutonthehill.org

I hope to start my garden earlier now that it is fenced. Am planning on building a larger chicken house, screen in and convert my covered deck into a summer canning kitchen. Also use the rest of my rocks to make a couple more raised planting beds AND add more fruit bushes and trees.

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Eternal Optimist

Having a pole barn built is at the very top of my list for next year.

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We are the Mid-West Distributor of Island Pride Carbolic Germicidal Bath Soap.

www.GeneralMerchandisingCompanyOfKy.com

Get down to only milking 12 does next spring, get 5 more retail stores so I can quit selling milk and put it all into soap, hit more shows, appraise here at my farm, put in 2 more 8x8 raised gardening beds, get my water garden going, add hens and paint all the barns and hen house. Broadcasting 300 pounds of seed in the pastures Monday, and this spring a new buck barn in the woods that looks better than the 21 year old shed we built before we knew what we were doing This winter a new gambrel roofed two story loft cabin for my brother who is now here permanently and working for us! Start the septic, then a new well for my sisters new home, nice to have all three California siblings back together on the farm, watch out Texas! Vicki

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Vicki McGaugh
Nubian Soaps
North of Houston TX
www.etsy.com/shop/nubiansoaps

A 3 decade dairy goat farm homestead that is now a retail/wholesale soap company and construction business.

Minnikin, Could es-plain this please? Thanks

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Goat milk soap & Wool products
www.littlemeadowsfarm.net
http://littlemeadowsfarms.blogspot.com/

Since we're moving to a much smaller house (which we're re-roofing this month) BUT sits on 2/3rds of an acre, I can finally have as big a garden as I want - even a grain patch and a small plot of cotton for my spinning. Shoot, I'll even have room for my herbs again! Only problem is that it's still in town so the ONLY animals we can have besides dogs and cats is up to 5 rabbits. (I'm running for city alderman in April which would give us the theoretical majority to instate an ordinance to allow at least chickens, though) Add a couple fruit trees to the walnut trees we already have there (we barter the nuts to neighbors since they're black walnuts and I can't stand the taste) and maybe some brambles, and we'll eat rather well.

So, I'll be figuring out how to maximize productivity and preparedness given extreme limits. Oh, and adding a 'real' spinning business .

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~Falcon

Spreading lanolin love one fleece at a time.
It's a wooly job, but someone's got to do it.

Terra Preta refers to patches of "dark earth" - mysterious, richly fertile, man-made soil that can be found throughout the Amazon Basin.
" Through plot work, researchers claim terra preta can increase yields 350 percent over adjacent, nutrient-leached soils...

The properties of terra preta are amazing. Even thousands of years after creation, the soil remains fertile without need for any added fertilizer.

Chock-full of charcoal, the soil is often several meters deep. It holds nutrients extremely well and seems to contain a microbial mix especially suited to agriculture." (from the Farm Press)

Bio-char is the term used for the type of charcoal they have found in terra preta soils. They believe the key to making this key ingredient is to burn
brush and other vegetative waste very slowly. Slow burns at low temps
keep many nutrients in the charcoal rather than releasing it into the atomosphere.

I am trying to learn a technique to achieve this slow burn. We are practicing by piling our vegetative waste in the area where we will garden next year, and burning it slightly damp. We're smouldering it, actually. We're experimenting with throwing on old but wet hay pats, green grass clippings, and algae skimmed off the ponds.

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Hut on the Hill Farm
http://www.hutonthehill.org