2026 Homesteading Goals

Last Updated on January 11, 2026 by Annie Bernauer

I love to start out every new year creating a list of homestead goals. I am very motivated by setting goals and making checklists. I just love to check in on my list of homestead goals every month and celebrate the successes and progress! It helps keep me on track or know when I need to pivot and adjust my time, energy and focus.

My friends and I always joke that I’m a “Type A Planner” so I love to take advantage of this restful time of year on the homestead to plan out our homestead goals for the next year. I have shared quite a few lists of homestead goals over the years and appreciate all the support and encouragement in achieving our homestead dreams!

A year ago I finally formalized our homestead farm as an LLC and had big plans for the year. Well, life happened and I didn’t accomplish as much as I had hoped in regards to our farm business goals. But it was a good start nonetheless and that just sets us up this year for expansion.

Now that I am starting out 2026 as a single parent, making a living from our homestead is even more important than ever!

Compared to our homestead goals in years past, many of this year’s goals are focused on increasing our income from the homestead.

Recently as part of our homeschool learning, I taught my children how to write a business plan. We read about SMART goals and why it’s important to create measurable goals. I included my children in every step of the process of writing our homestead business plan because this is their small farm business as much as it is mine. 

How could I call it a small family run farm without the input and help from my children? Granted my children are teen and tween age so they have more maturity and life skills than younger elementary age so are capable of offering valuable input and taking agency in our farm business.

While our list of homestead goals is long, we are prioritizing the goals that focus on expansion of what we already have established in years past. There are several goals focusing on new projects but my plan is that those will be worked on last as time/energy/money allows.

Here is our list of homestead goals for 2026

1. Increase our income from raising chickens:

We set a goal to expand our current established farm business of raising chicken breeds for a colorful rainbow of eggs and selling fertile hatching eggs and eating eggs. My kids also love to hatch chicks in our incubator to sell to local families.

Last year we did not add any new chickens to our flock so we decided it was time to expand and bring in some new genetics to our flock. Amazingly once we set this goal, three opportunities arose for us to acquire some really lovely purebred chickens at a great price from several local families who were moving.

As we move into the season where most folks start to raise chicks, I’m excited for our homestead’s expanded offerings this year. Stay tuned for another post about the new additions to our flock

2. Increase our income from beekeeping

We are hobby beekeepers so we have always kept honey bees to help with pollination and to provide honey for our family. If we had extra honey to sell, that was great. Last year I shifted my focus to how could we turn our beekeeping hobby into more of an income stream for our family.

This year we have plans to expand our beekeeping and honey selling by adding more hives to the homestead (here’s how to get started if you’re new to beekeeping!) I already placed the order for our honeybee nucs and look forward to their arrival in May!

In addition to selling honey, I’ve been selling beeswax I render from our bee hives (here’s how we render beeswax from honeycomb). Last year I started selling homemade lip balm and salves again which I make with beeswax from our hives. This year we are going to increase our production of those as well as starting to make candles with our beeswax.

Be sure to sign up for our newsletter for updates on where we’ll be vending and when new items are added to our Etsy shop!

3. Increase our income from gardening

Last year we expanded our garden growing space and have plans to expand even more this year. The expansion last year allowed us to not only grow plenty of food to feed our family but also have extra to sell and donate to our local food bank. 

Last year’s garden expansion was in a new location on the homestead separate from our garden space full of raised beds. We decided to convert a section of our pasture to growing food. We fenced it in so the deer couldn’t devour our produce and used this landscape mat for weed suppression and helping to hold moisture in the soil.

We were amazed at how well the new garden grew and the abundance of delicious veggies it produced! This year we are going to make this garden space a little bigger to increase our growing space.

We are also planning to grow seedlings to sell this year. In years past we grew enough seedlings for our family and maybe a few extra to share with friends. But this year we rearranged our kitchen so we have space for shelves and grow lights for our seedlings. If you’re new to starting seedlings indoors, check out our post on how to start seedlings indoors!

I’ve been wanting to acquire a greenhouse but the ones that won’t be blown over in our strong winds are a bit out of our budget right now. I keep looking at local used sale ads hoping I’ll find a great deal on a used one that will fit our budget. But until then, growing seedlings in the house is our plan!

4. Set up a farm stand

This was actually a goal we had last year that did not come to fruition. We have a wonderful, supportive local customer base that bought our farm goods directly from me this last year without the farm stand.

As we expand our offerings, our dream is to have a farm stand where folks can stop by and purchase our farm goods without having to coordinate orders and pick up directly through me all the time.

I have been researching farm stand styles and buildings for a little while. I’ve also been shopping local sale ads hoping to find something affordable that would work for us.

Amazingly not long after we reaffirmed this goal to have a farm stand this year, I found a local family selling their cute little farm stand. It was in our budget and perfect for what we need. I’m so excited to finish getting it set up and see our farm stand dream become a reality!

5. Explore raising fiber animals

I’ve been busy researching raising sheep, goats and/or alpacas. I bought several books about raising sheep, goats and alpacas that have been really helpful in my quest to explore this option on our homestead. 

My favorite book so far is about Raising Animals for Fiber. This really speaks to me as a viable option for our homestead since we also enjoy spinning wool with our drop spindles and felting. 

We have had numerous opportunities to get some sheep and goats from local folks but I haven’t felt ready. I want to be sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew AND I don’t want it to turn into a money losing endeavor.

I know too many people who started out with the intent to raise sheep or goats for meat/milk/fiber and then they just turned into pets without any financial contribution to the farm. While I love animals and would love to have more pets, my single parent income cannot sustain that at this time!

My research has been focused on the best breeds for fiber, needs for fencing/shelter/feed etc and harvesting the fiber. If you have experience in raising animals for fiber, please comment below and share your tips and insights!

6. Plant willow to harvest for basketry

One of the things I’m excited to add this year is growing willow for willow basket weaving. We have a beautiful space to grow willow by our creek so I’ve been reading this book and researching which varieties to grow. So many choices!

I’ve had several folks tell me that growing willow can be difficult if you do not have a good location. Since we have a creek on our homestead, we have an ideal spot to grow willow. The willow can also help to stabilize the creek banks to reduce erosion and provide habit for birds.

If you grow will or weave with willow, I’d love to hear your insights on favorite willow varieties!

7. Offer classes on the homestead

This has been a dream of mine for a number of years but for various reasons it has never come to fruition. Maybe 2026 will be the year it finally does!

In addition to being a homesteading, homeschooling mama, I am a licensed mental health therapist. I am trained in equine therapy and I’m also a Master Gardener, Master Naturalist and an instructor in a variety of primitive/ancestral skills.

My dream is to be able to combine all of my passions to offer nature based classes with a therapeutic component.

8. Explore Agritourism

For the last few years I’ve been researching Agritourism and creating a list of ideas for our homestead. This is another one of those big projects that has a lot of moving parts to coordinate which is why it is lowest on our list of homestead goals.

I’m hoping that at some point this year I will have the time and energy to explore this a little more and maybe test out a couple ideas we have. If you have experience with Agritourism on your homestead please share below, I would love to hear your ideas!

What are your homestead goals for the year? I’d love to hear about your plans and dreams so share in the comments below!