My first post on here was in November.....and here we are May. Yikes. So I guess I'll fill in with where we are this year on our attempts to be more prepared. It's kind of tricky with some of the trees and perennials because we haven't been here long enough to reap from our efforts.
My goal this year- double the garden, make better use of our wild forages, make more cheese, can more goods. Get my 6 month food supply in place before winter. Plant more perennial food crops. I think much beyond that is too much for me to handle with little kiddos in the house.
Garden: Seed starting, lots of it. Those seeds are being hardened off now. We expanded the garden to double it's original size so we now have lots of room. I haven't measured with a ruler, just one foot in front of the other and figured it to be about 16'x24'. That space, I'm dividing into 4x8 blocks and companion planting as well as doing some double dug sites for crops that really set up deep roots. Block 1: potatoes, 2: kale, chard, 3: contender bush beans, cabbages (6 different kinds), 4: 8 different carrot varieties planted with radishes and marigolds, 5: sweet corn, more beans 6: lettuces with onions and beets. That's the first third in. I still have to work in squash, nightshades, more corn, a grain section (trial, I've not grown grains before in a garden) and sweet potatoes. I'm hoping between companion and succession plantings that we'll have plenty of goods to can for the year.
Update, I filled in some more plots: watermelon and melons on hills with radishes and nasturtiums with marigolds in between the rows. Then squash planted in the same fashion, cukes as well.
Berries: I just ordered honeyberry (4) and goji berries (2). We lost all but one of our blueberries in the drought and all of the raspberries we planted. The strawberries made it fine and look great so I'm expecting to be swimming in those. I planted some ben lear cranberries, but it'll be awhile before we see anything out of those. I also put in an aronia berry in with all the front stone fruit trees. The grapes look good but it too early to tell if we'll actually have any grapes. I did take a bunch of cutting to try to root. So far I have one rooted to plant but the other 10 I started later haven't done anything yet. I bought a couple Chicago figs but it might be years before we see anything from those and I think we'll need to put them in pots.
Orchard: We lost 2 apple trees last year with the drought, 7 remain. 2 of the 7 are ones that were here when we moved, the other 5 are very young...so not expecting to see much in the way of apples. 3 pear trees, all survived, one flowered but I'm not expecting anything out of it either. 2 cherry, I believe one is sweet, one sour so I need a pollinator for them. 2 plum, no blooms, 1 existing old apricot, loaded with blooms and they didn't get killed off this year so here's hoping that's another fruit I'll have to stash away. 4 peach, no blooms.
Maples: We made maple syrup for the very first time this year. It was so easy, just time consuming. We ended up with right around a gallon which should keep us for 6 months or more. I figured that the equipment was paid for by the savings of that gallon, but we pretty much broke even. We'll be id-ing maples for next year's tap so we should have even better ROI.
Poultry: We borrowed an incubator this year from a fellow homesteading friend and we've been hatching non-stop since it's arrival. 5 goslings, 1 duckling, 12 chicks.....the plan is that boys go to freezer camp, girls going the laying crew. Should be good quality protein for us. I have in the incubator now turkey and more ducks eggs. Our fresh eggs sales help offset the chicken/duck/turkey/goose feed. Part of this self sufficiency thing has to include animals that pay their way either in grocery bill savings or by product sales.
Rabbits? : The plan was to add rabbits this year, but I'm having doubts that we will. Things are just moving so fast and I kind of hate to move rabbits in with summer's heat coming soon.
Milk: Ahhh, we finally have a milk source. Her name is Siren. She's a dairy goat. Actually she's the second goat we purchased this year. The other one is Zada, bred to our buck, Sonny, and due in July. Any boys will go to freezer camp, girls we'll add to the dairy crew. The other great thing about goat's milk is of course soap. I'm planning to head to the farmer's market this year with goat milk soap and other goat milk products that are legal in Indiana .
What else. Hmm. I think being the wife of the house I tend to worry most about food and nutrition preparedness. My husband tackles things like guns, ammo, home repairs,.....we have that going on too.
