Every year I make a new list of goals for the homestead. Some people don’t like making new year’s goals or resolutions, but I love them! They help give me something to work toward throughout the year, keep me accountable, and I just love that feeling of satisfaction of achieving one of my goals.
Our children are involved in all aspects of the homestead and love to be a part of our homestead planning and projects. We had a fun homeschool project this month to brainstorm and create our list of homestead goals for the new year. Here’s the list of project goals we came up with:
1. Add three new raised garden beds to expand our garden growing space on the homestead. This was actually a goal the last two years that we didn’t accomplish. I was working at the local community garden the last two summers and our family had a free plot since I was an employee of the garden. This gave us quite a bit of extra space in addition to our garden space on the homestead so we weren’t very motivated to expand our home garden at the time. I’m not working at the community garden this year so I’m able to put my time and energy into finally expanding our gardens at home.
2. Plant more perennial fruit shrubs and plants. We have a couple haskaps, cherries, and blueberry bushes but would like to expand. Currently these shrubs offer enough fruit to eat fresh but not enough to preserve to eat throughout the year. Our goal is to have enough perennial fruit shrubs to produce an abundance to preserve. Our raspberry and strawberry beds are naturally expanding every year and slowly producing more every year.
3. Grow the number of beehives we have by buying two more nucs this spring. (Here’s why we prefer to buy nucs instead of package bees.) Last year we lost both our beehives over the winter so bought two nucs last spring. These new hives did well over the summer but they weren’t established enough for us to harvest the amount of honey our family consumes in a year. We’re hoping our two current hives make it through this winter so the addition of two more hives is a good amount for us as hobbyist beekeepers.
4. Tap our maple and box elder trees this spring. We’ve done this in previous years but sadly we missed the sugaring season last year. We absolutely love the syrup from the trees on our homestead, especially the box elder syrup! I’ve been watching the weather forecast and waiting until the temps hit the sweet spot to go tap our trees. Watch for a post on tapping maple trees coming soon!
5. Hatch eggs from our chickens and sell chicks again. This is a project my kids did two years ago and absolutely loved. The challenge is getting them to not keep every chick they hatch! We always have fertile eggs for sale when our chickens are actively laying (they’ve been taking a loooonnng break over this cold winter!). As soon as our hens start laying again, we’re planning to set up the incubator and get this project started!
We are looking forward to tackling our list of homestead goals for the year. It’s going to be so much fun, and of course a lot of hard work that is so worth it!
What are your homestead goals for this year?
ritascountryways2022
Hope your health issue is improving and your “bucket list” is great. My list contains some of yours and my monthly “to-do” list is coming along famously. Glad you are back!!!
Rita
Annie Bernauer
Thank you Rita, it’s wonderful to be back and I wish you the best of luck with your “to do” list!
Demolition NZ
I love reading about other people’s homesteading goals, and this post was no exception. The author’s goals for the coming year, like building a greenhouse and planting fruit trees, are really inspiring. I appreciated the emphasis on sustainability and self-sufficiency, and the author’s honesty about the challenges of homesteading. Overall, a great read for anyone interested in the homesteading lifestyle.