Reflections of a first-year Homesteader

After truly diving in to this so-called homstead adventure this year, I thought it would be nice to sum up some of my thoughts, lessons learned, and plans for next year. The end(ish) of the harvest is a good time to reflect on what went well, what could have gone better, and what really does not need to even be bothered with next year. So let's do that.

Planting/Production-
Worked well:
Potatoes did really well. Need more
Onions were awesome, easy to care for. More, I say!
Lettuce was delicious, although slower than I expected, since I am impatient
Carrots are easy to fit along borders, smaller spaces. Yes!
Tomatoes... mmm! Canned over 18 quarts of tomato sauce. More next year!
Basil was great- need to utilize more
Jalepenos were just hot enough, great in chili and other dishes

Not so well:
Strawberries did not produce like I wanted, didn't have enough. No strawberries next year
Raspberry plant grw like crazy, produced 5 berries. Is young plant, however
Blueberry bushes similar- 5 berries. Oh well!
Celery was kind of a cool novelty, but took up vital space for other stuff
Glacier tomatoes kind of tasted gross. I'll just wait for the real thing

Seed starting-
Worked well:
Lettuce indoors was awesome
Basil was brought in at beginning of Oct and is doing well

Not so well:
Need to start things on time :)

Preserving-
Worked well:
Peaches were delicious
Apples were easier to do with apple core and peeler machine

Not so well:
Tomatoes went quickly- need more for sauce next year
Pickles- more next year


Storing-
Worked well:
Onions are storing well so far- will run out quickly since we use a lot
Potatoes- same story!
Carrots- could store next year as well

Not so well:
More!

Purchasing-
Worked well:
Getting into pattern of going to Co-op for most things, Kroger for snacks and processed only
Getting local meat, eggs, milk, butter and bread delivered to our door! :) :) :) :)
Not so well:
Went to farmer's market a lot towards end of summer- need to work on it!
Living-
Worked well:
Getting pretty good at buying recycled paper products consistently
Moon cup
Most cleaning products are eco-friendly
Can now recycle 1s-5s! :)

Goals for 2011-2012

Plant-
20 potato plants
75 onions
50 heads of lettuce
20 tomato plants
4 basil plants
200 carrots
4 jalepeno plants
10 bulbs of garlic
2 watermelons
2 bell pepper plants
4 pumpkin plants
4 zucchini plants
dill
rosemary

*Expand into "raspberry bed"
**Make potato bed deeper

Seed Starting-
Start everything possible indoors
*Have saved many seeds already!

Preserving-
Canned:

6 pints Pickles
20 quarts Tomato Sauce
20 pints Peaches
10 pints Pears
3 pints Cranberry Sauce
5 pints, 30 4 oz Applesauce
12 pints Baked Apple preserves
5 pints Blueberry jam

Frozen:
12 half-pints Corn
4 quarts Beef Chili
16 frozen Raspberry Muffins

Dehydrate:
4 bags apples rings
6 bags banana chips
fruit leathers?
2 bags dried cranberries

Storing-

200 potatoes
50 onions

Purchasing- TBD

Living- TBD

Epic fail, hopefully turned into a epic.. success?

I forgot to tell all 11 of ya'll about the epic soil/compost fail that I had 2 weeks ago. Remember how I built my raised-beds and they were gorgeous?

 I remember if no one else does :)

What happened to City of Ann Arbor compost you were going to so easily obtain the next day, you might ask? Well I hired a nice guy with a pickup truck (first mistake) to meet me there to have the compost loaded into his truck. Except no one at A2 Compost took the time to tell me that would be ridiculous. And they also forgot to mention that they load the compost in with a fucking bulldozer. Maybe this is common knowledge to others, but unfortunately I do not have common sense.


Bascially a nice guy with a truck met me at the compost place, followed me around for 10 minutes trying to figure out where to go, and then stood there for another 10 minutes trying to figure out how the hell we were going to load compost into his pick-up truck (that had an attached cab. Not a box, ugly cab. A flat cover cab.) Needless to say, this nice guy left with $20 dollars and I sped away with embarrassment. I was a crazy 24 year old hippie driving my honda civic into the Compost Center.

Oh well. SO compost from Lodi Farms in A2 delivered by dump truck tomorrow? Wonderful. :)