Growing our Homestead

-The trials, triumphs, and growing pains of settling into a garden, and expanding a homestead.-

In our last two posts, we were able to give you a little glimpse at all the things that have been keeping us busy this spring and summer. We are now getting close to our first harvest of potatoes with the use of our nifty potato box, and we are over the yearly trial of fending off our insect nemesis. Now it is finally time to update you on all the rest of the little additions we have made since last summer that have been keeping us occupied.

When you are starting out with a homestead, there is so much dreaming and planning going on. From garden and livestock starters, to upgrades and expansions, there is so much to consider and so much that could be done. It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the things. Since our family is still very young, we are being purposeful at growing our homestead slowly, but surely. My husband still has a full-time job, and I have mine with trying to keep our two lovely boys alive!

This year our baby steps included the addition of two blueberry plants, two apple trees, and some strawberry plants.

We acquired the blueberry plants last fall, and they were instantly claimed by our oldest son, who now considers them as his own. He checks in on them and waters them on a regular basis. They are still quite tiny, but they were flowering this spring, so we are keeping our eyes peeled for any minuscule berries.

Last summer, we had acquired a free strawberry plant which we installed in our deck planter. What we didn't realize was how shallow the planter was. Though it looks to be a foot or deep, the dirt only goes a few inches below the surface. This means that the berry plant did not survive the winter.

So it was back to the drawing board.

We bought two strawberry plants this year, and planted them in the same spot, but will come up with an alternate wintering solution that is yet to be determined. The planters are really the ideal spot for them, being closer to the house makes them safer from our wildlife picking them off.

Pinterest also provided us with a little life hack that seems to be working so far (you can check out the original post about it here). Basically, you paint a few strawberry-sized rocks a nice bright red before the plant starts producing fruit. The idea is that all the birds and little creatures that want to eat your tasty fruit will be lured by the red rocks, try them, and realize that the fruit from those plants are horrible. lol. Then, when your tasty fruit actually appears, they don't bother. Pretty clever, and so far so good!

Ever since we moved here, I've been daydreaming of creating a little orchard of fruit trees. Apples, cherries, pears, and plums. This was the first spring we were able to make strides towards that goal with two apple trees!

I'm not a big Macintosh fan (#sorrynotsorry ) and neither are the kids. Because of that, we decided to go with one Gala -a perennial favorite here- and a Honeycrisp, which we've never tried, to my knowledge, but whose description sounds perfect.

We don't have a large vehicle, so you can imagine that it was quite the sight when I loaded two apple trees and two kids into a car one rainy spring day.

The kids were so excited and wanted to plant them right away. It was May 15th, which in the Catholic Church is the feast of Saint Isidore the Farmer, so we knew that it was meant to be. Later that evening, when Daddy had gotten home from work, we went out and dug two holes for our new apple trees and said a little prayer to St. Isidore asking him to ask God to watch over them and keep them safe, and to provide us with lots of tasty fruit for years to come.

Though our apples trees did flower, they are still very young, and, as expected, they did not produce any apples this year. Hopefully this time next year, we will be looking at our first apple harvest!

And that's what we have been up to this season!

And if you forget where we were at this time last year, you can go read all about it, and our Year of the Zucchini.

Until next time,

God bless,

Cheryl