Where Do We Start?

At long last, the saga of our quest for land has come to a conclusion, but that also means that the real work is just beginning! The Gardener and I have purchased a new home about 12 miles from our old abode, and with it comes plenty of space for creating a real homestead. We now have almost 4 acres! About 1/3 of that is currently wooded, but it leaves at least an acre for sheep pasture, and more than enough space for growing tons of vegetables and fruits.

The chickens are already loving their new Eglu and have really taken to scratching around in the grass and looking for bugs. There's a lot of overgrowth that needs to be cleared, but we have found some raspberries, wineberries, and a mulberry tree that we'll definitely be leaving. We also have a huge old neglected apple tree that we're going to try to prune back into shape. This weekend we're going to be renting a sod cutter and getting our garden beds ready. We're planning on having 5 separate beds, which should be just right for rotating crops and having one permanent one. We'll probably only use one or two for Fall crops and plant the rest with cover crops. The first thing we need to do is plant our pumpkins so that they're ready for Halloween! I'm also really excited about planting more peas since our spring crop did so well and were so easy to grow.

Meanwhile, over at the borrowed veggie plot, we have plenty of kale, bunches of green tomatoes, some baby peppers and eggplants, and squash galore. Our Yukon Gold potatoes should be ready to harvest in the next couple of weeks, and the Yellow Finn and German Butterball to follow shortly. Our corn is also starting to tassel. I know our garden is suffering from our inability to tend it on a daily basis, but I'm confident we'll still end up getting plenty of goodies!

Now that life has settled down enough for us to start getting some real work done, we'll be posting up a storm about all of our new projects. The only question now is where do we start?