It's been 13 days since I started this homestead endeavor in earnest. If I am honest about it, I would say it is all proceeding at a snail's pace. That is good enough for me! Actually, in not too many days, I will have far too much to do all at once. Why is that? To begin with, I ordered a lot of vegetable seed from Victory Seeds. Then I ordered some plants from Burpee Gardening. And today I ordered fruit and nut trees from Jung. I am sure there will be a few more plants I will want to add to the garden over time, but they will have to wait. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew with what I have already ordered. I will suffer the Wrath of Hera should that happen. Translated: My wife will be miserably vexed and flayed!
I must begin construction of the raised beds tomorrow, rain or shine. Once those are completed, I will need to raise the fence around the garden area. Then I'll lay down the weed barrier cloth and cover that with the shredded hardwood mulch I have yet to purchase. A lot of what I have already done and am still doing is planning. It seems the more I read, the more my garden layout changes. At some point, I will just have to say, "Enough!" and just do it. Then I can make needed changes to next year's garden.
One of the books I'm reading right now deals with companion planting. Yes, I know it sounds sort of hippy-dippy, but I think there is some merit to it. And you really never know about something until you've tried it and worked at it a bit. Another gardening technique I'm reading about is succession gardening. When a crop dies off in the garden, you can follow it up with another crop, but you need to make sure that they are compatible. Apparently certain plants perform better or worse if they are planted after other plants in the same patch of garden. I suppose they shouldn't be planted next to each other in a bed either.
There is so much to consider in starting a homestead. The garden is actually the least of our challenges. What I really need to work on is energy considerations for both running electronics and energy for heating sources. If we can't keep the house warm in the winter, then we are in bad trouble. If we can't keep the freezer and refrigerator running in the summer, we are in moderate trouble. Later this summer I will start looking at options in earnest. Hmm... I seem to like the word, earnest. It's the second time, third including this time, that I've used it in this post. I suspect we are looking at solar power and maybe a wind powered back up. There are other things as well, but further down on my list. If the goal is to be as independent as possible, then we need to move away from a sceptic system and to a composting toilet. I'm not sure what that looks like, but the idea of the radical changes to our home scares the heck out of me! I'll have more to say about these other things later.
It's been a good day today! It's time to make dinner for my family and cart my youngest off to piano lessons after that. God is good!
I must begin construction of the raised beds tomorrow, rain or shine. Once those are completed, I will need to raise the fence around the garden area. Then I'll lay down the weed barrier cloth and cover that with the shredded hardwood mulch I have yet to purchase. A lot of what I have already done and am still doing is planning. It seems the more I read, the more my garden layout changes. At some point, I will just have to say, "Enough!" and just do it. Then I can make needed changes to next year's garden.
One of the books I'm reading right now deals with companion planting. Yes, I know it sounds sort of hippy-dippy, but I think there is some merit to it. And you really never know about something until you've tried it and worked at it a bit. Another gardening technique I'm reading about is succession gardening. When a crop dies off in the garden, you can follow it up with another crop, but you need to make sure that they are compatible. Apparently certain plants perform better or worse if they are planted after other plants in the same patch of garden. I suppose they shouldn't be planted next to each other in a bed either.
There is so much to consider in starting a homestead. The garden is actually the least of our challenges. What I really need to work on is energy considerations for both running electronics and energy for heating sources. If we can't keep the house warm in the winter, then we are in bad trouble. If we can't keep the freezer and refrigerator running in the summer, we are in moderate trouble. Later this summer I will start looking at options in earnest. Hmm... I seem to like the word, earnest. It's the second time, third including this time, that I've used it in this post. I suspect we are looking at solar power and maybe a wind powered back up. There are other things as well, but further down on my list. If the goal is to be as independent as possible, then we need to move away from a sceptic system and to a composting toilet. I'm not sure what that looks like, but the idea of the radical changes to our home scares the heck out of me! I'll have more to say about these other things later.
It's been a good day today! It's time to make dinner for my family and cart my youngest off to piano lessons after that. God is good!
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