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Dehydrating Foods: My New Hobby

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This series is going to go over the ins and outs of dehydrating foods. We are going to look at the last 9 months of work, from dehydrating and reconstituting to mishaps and successes. As always on this blog, you will get the real story about dehydrating foods, not the glamorous jars and packages of foods. You’ll see our mistakes and failures but also the successes! Welcome to the first installment of my new favorite hobby: Dehydrating Foods.

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $90 value for $49.99!

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Dehydrating Foods Journey

I always shied away from dehydrating foods, though I’m not really sure why. It’s a pretty simple process, but I’ve always stuck with canning. I’ve owned an Excalibur dehydrator for over 10 years and used it a hand full of times, usually making small patches of yogurt. About six months ago, I ordered dehydrated peppers from Azure Standard. It was a game changer! No longer having to go out and buy peppers for taco night? Having an item on hand that doesn’t take up space in my freezer? Sign Me Up!

Last year, I had quarts of peppers coming in every day from the garden. Most of them rotted before we could use them. Then I realized that I could roast them, grind them and turn them into a seasoning powder. But I used my oven instead of my dehydrator…Why? Because I didn’t feel like getting my dehydrator out, talk about a waste of electricity. But this year? I have so many plans for that dehydrator.

Dehydrating Foods Save Money On Pantry Staples

Onions are a staple in my pantry. I freaking love onions. Onion powder, chopped onions, diced onions, you name it. There’s usually onion in 75% of my dishes. Because I buy big bags of them, they tend to go bad before I can use all of them. If I buy smaller bags or single onions, it’s never enough. Plus, I don’t want or need an entire onion in some dishes. So what did I do? Freeze the other half of the onion, or fed it to the chickens. While it’s not necessarily wasted, I usually forget about the other half of the onion in the freezer and spend the money at the store for more.

Another pantry staple is celery. In the depths of winter, we eat a ton of soup. But celery doesn’t can or freeze well. Usually it turns to mush in either of those two preservation methods. And buying an entire bunch of celery isn’t economic when you need a cup of chopped celery.

Dehydrating Foods Reduces Waste

One of the things I hate the most in the entire world is wasting food. It drives me insane to dump food in the trash because it rotted, gets freezer burn, or we were just too lazy to do something with it. I go back to onions and celery. We don’t eat either of those raw. One for obvious reasons. But there is still a far amount of food waste when you lose food in the freezer. Dehydrating these foods helps make sure that waste is minimized.

How many times have you bought limes only to have them rot before you get a chance to use them? Or thought for sure you would use that entire batch of potatoes for mashed potatoes? Throwing them in the dehydrator is a great way to reduce food waste.

Dehydrating Foods Help Clear Out The Freezer

For the last two years, we have purchased a half or whole cow from a local farm. The first year, a half cow lasted us a little over 8 months. This year, we purchased a whole cow. Let me tell you, we struggled to find enough freezer space and end up buying another freezer. I talk more in depth about buying meat in bulk in this post.

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But dehydrating food helps to clear out the freezers from that bulk purchase of frozen corn, or random bag of onions that you forgot about. I don’t know about your freezers, but in our house, they become a jumbled mess of food. We try to keep our freezers “separated” by animal, but the reality is that doesn’t always work. Especially when veggies aren’t animals and most creamer is not actually dairy.

Should You Learn How To Dehydrate Food?

In short, yes. Dehydrators are relatively cheap, when compared to canning setups and the DIY options for building your own dehydrator are endless. I also think that having a well rounded approach to preserving your garden harvest is a must. Some things just aren’t going to freeze or can well like peas, celery, melons, zucchini, and summer squash.

Is Dehydrating Foods Sustainable?

Meh. Take this from someone who *gasp* reuses canning lids that are in good shape. Dehydrating foods really isn’t sustainable DEPENDING on how you do it. It usually requires electricity and sometimes requires a steady influx of mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. But canning sometimes requires electricity (you can can on a wood burning stove if you can get it hot enough or a propane camp stove), and after the initial purchase of jars, doesn’t REQUIRE additional purchase unless there is damage or a lot of use.

I don’t know that there is a truly sustainable food preservation method, except maybe fermentation, that ALL food can go through. So I think the question should be what food method is the most sustainable, but whatever.

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What Do You Need To Get Started?

Pretty simple list here:

Dehydrator- with trays I like my Excalibur but I would recommend one with a door that actually shuts.

Mylar Bags– I would recommend different sizes. Also grab a heat sealer while you’re at it. It’ll make your life easier

Oxygen Absorbers– This one is based on the size of the bags or jars you are using. So again, I would get a multi pack if you can.

Mason Jars– This is what I use. I’m not a fan of the mylar bags only because I’m set up for jars. I’ve got 8 storage units built in the basement that are the perfect height for jars. Plus I have a bunch of jars and I don’t want to spend more money.

Silicone Mats– These are the mats I use for things that are a little gooey or rollie (like peas). They are great!

Funnels– If you’re a canner, you have funnels. If not the link provided are the ones I have.

Dehydrating Foods Is Easy

This is literally the most set it and forget it way of preserving food. While not technically forget it, it allows you to not be chained to your stove, in a hot kitchen for hours. Over the years, I have spent hours and hours in my kitchen, every summer and fall, canning hundreds of jars of food. Please don’t misunderstand, I absolutely LOVE it. Especially in the winter when I have quarts and quarts of soup at the ready. Or on days when I come from a 24 hour shift and hit the ground running for another 12 hours on the farm, having beef stew on standby is amazing.

I will always be a canner. But now? Now, I’m a food preserver. I can, freeze, and dehydrate.

Reaching into my cabinet for a colorful jar of dehydrated mixed veggies, adding it to a soup, and serve? Yes, please.

Seeing more food in my basement, knowing that no matter if the entire world crumbles, or just my own, we have food.

Knowing that I am teaching my children the value of nurturing a garden, harvesting the bounty, and not wasting food? Invaluable.

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How To Build A Successful Homestead

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This is a loaded question that is personal, individual, and can only be answered by you, your family and your land’s capability. At the end of the day, every single homestead is going to look different. You may not want a lot of animals or you may not want huge gardens. You may have to work off farm or on a fixed income. There are so many variables to building a successful homestead. But here are my thoughts on how to build your successful on the homestead.

If you are just starting in your homestead journey, I have the deal for you! In The Homestead Bundle you will receive our Hay Calculator, Profit Calculator, Digital and Printable Garden Journal, The Backyard Homestead eBook, the Simple Budget, Schedule F worksheet, and Herd Health Sheets. That’s a $90 value for $49.99!

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What Is A Successful Homestead?

Before you start the first project, buy the first piece of land, or anything else, you need to determine what will make your homestead successful to YOU. Is it being 90% self reliant? Raising 100% of your own meat? Surviving or Thriving? It’s so important to have a definition of your success so you can measure your progress. And it’s okay if that definition changes or evolves. But if you cannot figure out the benchmark for your successful homestead, you won’t be successful.

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Defining A Successful Homestead

If you already know what your successful homestead looks like, congratulations! You are ahead of the game by a LOT. I didn’t really understand that I needed to define what my vision of success looked like until I had been homesteading for a couple of years and realized that I was spinning in circles, getting a lot of things done, but nothing that was moving us towards “success”.

So Jared and I sat down and really thought about how would we define the success of our homestead. The question we needed to answer was, “What is THE thing, that when it’s done, we can say we were a success.”

For our homestead, we define success as growing 75% of our food and our animals food, that means meat, dairy, and produce for us. It also means fodder like corn, oats, BOSS, squash/pumpkins and other veggies. Success also means building as much of our infrastructure ourselves whenever possible. Finally, I will deem the homestead and this blog a success when it not only supports itself financially but also allows us to retire early.

Measuring Against Your Definition Of A Successful Homestead

Every single goal, project, expectation, or purchase needs to be measured against your definition of success. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do that project, set that goal, or make the purchase. But the KNOWING is the most important thing.

raise goat bottle babies

To give you an example, I want a greenhouse so badly. I want to grow coffee, citrus, and other heat loving plants that my zone gets too cold for. Towards the bottom of the blog post, I have listed out our definition of success, but one of the big ones is growing 75% of our food. Measuring the want of a greenhouse against growing 75% of our own food, the greenhouse would be a good purchase and project. If I build a greenhouse, we could start our garden plants in the greenhouse which would greatly improve their chances of surviving Blu. It would limit the amount of citrus and coffee we purchase from the store. Win.

Another example would be buying a milk cow right now. This would definitely help us with grow/ own 75% of our own food because we would save a ton of money on dairy products and potentially meat. But if we do it now, before we have solid pastures set up, we would not be working towards success because of the amount of hay we would have to purchase. Lose. BUT it’s something that can be done later.

So before you start doing things to or for your homestead, make sure it’s getting you closer to success instead of further away.

Setting Expectations For Success

A long time ago, I heard someone say that the #1 relationship killer was unmet expectations. I thought it was a crock, because everyone knows it’s communication, right? But when he explained it further it makes total sense. Let’s say you expect your spouse to always do the dishes, but you never said “this is your chore” and they never agreed. They can’t meet your expectation.. Or if you have told your spouse a million times that you can’t stand roses. But they get you roses all the time, you have the expectation that they will not buy you roses because you don’t like them. That expectation is not met.

It’s the same for homesteading. If your expectation is to have all of your infrastructure in place within one year, and it doesn’t happen, you’re going to be upset. If you keep failing to meet your expectations, you could hit burnout and give up.

Unrealistic Expectations

One of the things that every single homesteader is guilty of is setting unrealistic expectations. We think that we have to have everything done, RIGHT NOW! The reality is that unless you have the capital to buy a farm that is already where you want it, it’s going to take years of work and a ton of capital to get you where you want to be. And if you don’t have a ton of capital, it’ll take even longer.

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It’s saying I’m going to buy a cow with absolutely ZERO grass to raise them on. Or I’m going to heat only with the trees harvested from my land and there isn’t a single tree on your property. Or my favorite, I’m going to grow 100% of my yearly food needs in an unproven garden with no experience.

These unrealistic expectations will not be met. Sure, you can get a cow, but you will be buying TONS of hay. You can’t heat with only wood from your farm if you have zero trees on your land. And trust me when I say, you won’t grow a year’s worth of food in an unproven garden if you have zero experience.

Realistic Expectations For A Successful Homestead

Setting your expectations for a successful homestead should be in line with your definition of success. For example, if you’re definition of success is for the homestead to feed you and your animals, maybe don’t get animals before the garden. Which ALL of us do, no matter how many times we say we won’t.

Your expectations should be worked into your goals. There is a huge difference between a goal and an expectation. A goal is something you are striving for, while an expectation is something you expect to happen. If your goal is to grow 75% of you and your animals feed, the expectation is that you are going to put in a garden.

Having a realistic expectation of what you are able to do, the capital available to do those things and a clear set of goals will set you up on the path to a successful homestead.

Your Land’s Capability

I feel like this is very important when it comes to homesteading, that you really look at what your land is capable of. I mentioned that if you have an expectation to heat with only wood harvested from your own land, but you have zero trees on your property, that is unrealistic. But I wanted to take it one step further because I don’t think new homesteaders truly understand what they are getting into.

preparing for winter

If your land is steep hills, mountains, etc, it is not necessarily capable of supporting a cow. If your land is mostly trees, you are going to have to do some major work to get a garden in. I want everyone to homestead in SOME capacity where you are right now. But at the same time, you have to be realistic in what you can and can’t do base on what your land can do.

Neighbors may not want to listen to your goats scream all day. Local ordinances may not allow more than so many chickens. Before you start defining your successful homestead, you have to be aware of what land you are buying and what it can actually do for you.

Our Successful Homestead Plan

For Jared and I to feel like we have been successful in building our homestead, it has to have 3 key points:

  1. The homestead grows 75% of the food for us and our animals.
  2. We build, create, or source from our property as much as we possibly can.
  3. Our homestead (and blog) would be considered a success if it can fully support itself and allows us to retire early.

Let’s break this down

75% Of All Food

This is a big expectation because it’s a lot of food. But I don’t expect that overnight or even in one year. We learned a lot in our first garden and we’ve learned even more since. But we have realized that we have to grow slowly so that we don’t end up packing too much work on ourselves. Since we both work fulltime, we have to be aware of how much we can actually do. This is where that homestead flexibility comes in.

We also have a ton of trees on our land. Which is great for heating the house, but sucks when it comes to sunlight and garden space. This year we installed a kitchen garden in this weird lawn space in between our driveways. It’s a lot of space and a great place to have veggie plants, flowers, herbs, and lettuces. We can even put in our potatoes, carrots, garlic and onions. But I forgot that in the summer, there are a ton of trees that block the sun. This isn’t a big deal because those trees need to come down anyways. But our garden may not thrive because of them.

Our gardens are a process and that’s okay. 75% of our food doesn’t need all be done right now.

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Being Self Reliant

Jared and I are both city kids and we don’t have anyone teaching us how to do these things. Because of that it’s really important to both of us that we learn how to do stuff for ourselves. I didn’t know how to make bread before I started this journey. Now, I can make sourdough!

Jared had never felled trees before coming to the homestead. Now? He’s really good at it. He didn’t know how to sharpen a chainsaw. Now, he does.

Leaving behind a legacy is really important to me. I’m not going to get my great grandmother or grandmothers cast iron pans. I didn’t get cooking skills from my mom, grandmother, great grandmother. Jared and I didn’t learn how to butcher animals or put in gardens from our family. And that’s okay because that’s not the life they lived. But because this is so important to us, we are also teaching our kids how to do these things. We are teaching them how to repair toilets, install light fixtures, build chicken tractors without plans, put in gardens, sharpen chainsaws, and so much more.

Financial Freedom

I started this blog and our homestead with one single end goal: Retire early. That’s it. We are putting in the work now, while we are young, so that we can have systems in place for retirement. When the homestead produces 75% of our food, that puts approximately $600/mo back in our pockets. When it produces 75% of our animals food? That’s $450/mo!

While this blog is not currently making a lot of money, the reality is that it is getting to the point of being self reliant. Thanks to you guys!

Walking into retirement with virtually zero bills or debt allows us to not worry so much about a crashing economy. Knowing that we can garden and sell the produce or sell goat kids? That brings more options to the table than praying my 401k and social security will still be there.

Building Your Successful Homestead

At the end of the day, your homestead is not going to look like anyone else’s. You’ve got your own hopes, dreams, capabilities, resources, and needs. But if you can define what a successful homestead looks like to you, and then start setting expectations and goals for it, you will get there so much faster.

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How To Prepare Your Vegetable Garden

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It’s March, y’all! In just a few short weeks, we will be planting our first plants and I am ridiculously excited. There is not much more thrilling, mood enhancing, joyous, and prideful moment then harvesting your first vegetable from your garden. When you plant a bunch of peppers, dehydrate them, and use them in your dinner? It’s an indescribable feeling. But in order to get there, you have to do some work to prepare your vegetable garden.

Before we get too far into this post, I wanted to give a suggestion about keeping a garden journal. A digital garden journal is a fantastic way to keep track of past, present and future gardens. Our Digital Garden Journal is a great way to keep up with everything without getting too overwhelmed.

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Before You Prepare Your Garden

They say that the first thing you should do on your homestead is start with a garden. They would be right, unfortunately, most of us start with animals. We get attached to our critters and then end up with a poorly producing garden, or no garden. But your garden has the potential for being the most money saving thing on the homestead! So there are a couple things I like to do every year before I prepare my garden.

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Check Last Years Journal/ Notes

Every year, I keep a garden journal. Mine is multi-year so that I can look back and see what we did, how it worked, etc. This really helps because there are a ton of finer details of a garden that sometimes get missed. Like how much you watered your peppers? Did you use pig, chicken, goat manure? What variety of melon did you hate? This information is important to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes, but also so that you can make sure you are doing the “right” thing for your gardens.

planning your garden

Look At What You Preserved

If you are using a garden for fresh eating, then I would take notes on what you are eating, how much you ate, etc. If you preserve your garden, go to your pantry and figure out what all you have eaten, used, etc and determine how much you need for this years gardens. For example, I know that we average 2 quarts of spaghetti sauce a week. That means that I need to make sure that we have at least 100 quarts of spaghetti sauce by the time my tomatoes are done for the year. This will help you determine how many plants you need.

Consider Your Animals Needs

If you have chickens, goats, pigs or other livestock, you should consider how much of their feed you could grow. This will look different for everyone based on the space they can dedicate to a garden and how many and the size of their animals, but this is something to consider. We have the space to have a fairly large garden, that means that I can absolutely grow a fair amount of feed for my animals. I know that pigs and chickens can eat basically anything in my garden. The goats require a little more care to make sure that whatever they eat, won’t make them sick. But I know that all of my animals can eat corn, beets, tomatoes, peppers, etc. So I will plant extra for them.

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How To Prepare Your Vegetable Garden

On to what I know you are interested in.

Depending on your philosophies for gardening, you will want to go ahead and clear any debris, weeds, or other things you don’t want in your garden. Our garden is roughly 58ft by 108ft, the 8ft is just to account for gates. That is just over triple the size of last years garden. We are going to be producing more of our animals feed this year which is why we are taking up more space.

Clearing The Garden

Because we are making the garden much, much bigger, we have to go in and clear a lot of debris from the previous owners, as well as a couple of dead trees that are in the way. We also have to pull a lot of briars and other browse that the goats didn’t get to last year. This actually works out well because we can actually replant the briars in an area that we are leaving for the goats. Win, win.

Lay Out Fencing

Now, you don’t have to put up fencing around your garden. In fact, a lot of people don’t. But we free range a lot of our animals and the goats and pigs would absolutely DESTROY the garden if we didn’t protect it. Last year the ducks ate all of the garden and the goats used our baby fruit trees as scratching posts. So we learned to protect our food. Because we are expanding our garden, we removed the old fence and reused it when we put up the new one.

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Consider Additives

I consider anything that I add to my soil (including more soil) an additive. You should have a soil test done every year to make sure that you are only using additives that you need. Too much nitrogen will kill your plants, even nitrogen loving plants like corn and tomatoes. You should also make sure that you aren’t adding hot manure straight to your soil.

All hot manure should be composted to make sure that it won’t burn your plants. Hot manure comes from pigs, chickens, horses, etc and should be aged or composted because they are so high in nitrogen. Cow, sheep, goat and rabbit manure are cold and could be put right on the plant with minimal adverse affects. However, I still allow my goat manure to compost in their bedding before adding it onto my plants. Just to be safe.

Other additives would be liquid fertilizers, pesticides, etc. This is where your philosophies will come into play. I do not spray or add anything to my plants. The reason is because I don’t feel like it’s necessary. I compost regularly for fertilizers, add mulch for weed protection and have chicken tractors in my gardens for fertilizer, weed control, and pest protection. I’ll be posting a whole post about our chicken tractors in the garden here soon.

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Sourcing Your Plants

No matter what plants you decide on, either starting your own seedlings or buying starts from the store, the simple fact that you are starting a garden is amazing! Don’t freak out about not having the “right” things. Starting a garden is the best part.

Starting Your Own Starts

This is hands down the most economical approach but it definitely requires patience and some start ups. I use 1020 trays and 2in pots. Each 1020 tray will hold 50 2in pots. After soil, pots, trays and seeds, each tray costs me about $15. I usually don’t transplant into bigger pots because I feel it’s unnecessary but you do what you need to. Since my garden is so large (again 58ft x108ft) I need 100’s of starts.

The best part about starting your own seeds is that you have the ability to get a bunch of different varieties. I have 5 different tomato varieties and at least 8 different pepper varieties. I buy all of my seeds from True Leaf, Eden Brothers, or Territorial Seed Company.

Buying Starts

Buying plant starts can be a great way to start your garden. Again, just starting a garden is fantastic, so don’t think you HAVE to start your own seedlings. Last year, my ducks ate ALL of my starts. I found a local nursery that only charged me $2/ 4 pack tray. That’s a great price! Especially because big box stores charge $3-6 per plant.

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The biggest downside to buying plant starts is the lack of variety. When you go to the store, you are probably never going to see luffa gourds. That’s sad because not only are they amazing sponges but luffa is great for goats!

Prepare Your Beds

Whether you are planting in raised beds, in the ground, or in containers on your patio, you are moving in the right direction! Playing in the dirt is one of my favorite past times and it makes me unbelievably happy. There is nothing like it. I am very excited that you are getting ready to start on your gardens. Big or small doesn’t matter. Starting does.

Building Your Beds

If you are using a raised bed system, you should be building these in the late winter early spring. For us, March is the last push to get any infrastructure for the garden done. This means building beds, sourcing soil, moving compost, etc. If you are building beds, you don’t want to run out of space half way through planting season and then get bogged down having to make multiple trips to the store for supplies.

Laying Out Your Garden

If you are planting in the ground, you should have a plan of what you want your rows to look like. Where are you putting the peppers, tomatoes, rosemary? Are you going to work on companion planting? All of these things are very important to figure out BEFORE you get too far into planting. So do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes planning your rows.

Irrigation

For some reason most people think about watering their gardens last. I don’t really know why since it is possibly THE most important thing. But I am equally as guilty of this. Last year, it was a last minute, oh crap moment that resulted in 4 trips to Lowes to get more irrigation hose. So do yourself a favor and put your garden in close to your water source, and figure out how much hose or water you need first. This year, the cost of drip hoses was going to be ridiculous, so we are toying with the idea of a sprinkler system. We haven’t decided yet. Because again, we are waiting till last minute….oops.

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Are You Interested In Learning How To Cook From Scratch

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Have you looked at your grocery bill lately? A blue box of mac and cheese is $1.50+. A box of flavored pasta is $2. Let’s not get started on the rising cost of bread, haha see what I did there? Have you looked at the label of those same things? It’s filled will all sorts of ingredients that don’t really exist in the natural world. But you’re pressed for time and dinner is a hassle, right? A lot of people are intimidated by from scratch cooking. That’s okay, so was I! But in the last five years I have made the decision to not only cook at home more, but to stop buying boxes and cans of junk that is not good for my family, but actually takes just as long (if not longer) to cook. So if you’re interested in learning how to cook from scratch, I got you.

Common Misconceptions About From Scratch Cooking

There are a million reasons why people don’t want to cook from scratch. While some of them are valid, I don’t think people realize how much easier from scratch cooking it actually is.

Time

The most common thing I hear from people who are interested in learning how to cook from scratch is time. They just don’t have it.

They come home from work and the very last thing they want to do is stand in front of a stove for hours cooking. Or they’ve been out in the fields all day working and the thought of getting out the yeast, flour and salt is just too much.

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Fear

Some people are afraid of learning how to cook from scratch because they just don’t know how. And fear may be a strong word, but some people are just too afraid of failing to take the leap.

Do you know how many times Jared has eaten some dish that I have concocted that was freaking TERRIBLE!? Can you guess how many times we STILL go scrounge in the basement for dinner when we just can’t stomach whatever I made? The amount of times we eat shark-coochie boards for dinner (yes, I know that’s not how you say it but that’s how Jaxson says it and it stuck), is kind of amazing.

Knowledge

If you grew up anything like me, everything came in a box or can. From sides to muffins to entire dinners. That I’m aware of, the only time my mom ever cooked from scratch was when she baked. PS I’m still waiting on my banana bread, Mom!

I didn’t learn how to cook from scratch at my mom, grandmother or great grandmother’s knee. I really didn’t learn how to cook from anyone. Sure, I helped my mom cook occasionally, but I didn’t really KNOW how to cook until really the last ten years.

Convenience

This is probably the biggest reason why people never learn how to cook from scratch. When it’s easy to reach for a jar of tomato sauce, why on earth would you EVER want to spend six plus hours making tomato sauce?! If I want a sandwich, why would I take the time to make a loaf of bread? A tube of biscuits costs $3+ and takes minimal effort and little clean up.

I totally understand! I’m busy, too! I work 24 hour shifts and sometimes the last thing I want to do is make a loaf of bread or a batch of biscuits. Don’t get it twisted, I have boxes and cans of over processed food in my pantry and cupboards. But I can’t tell you the last time I made a blue box of mac and cheese. Because cooking from scratch is actually really easy.

What Is Cooking From Scratch

Sometimes, cooking from scratch is as simple as melting butter, adding some flour, milk or cream, and then cheese. Bam! You have a cheese sauce! Other times, it’s realizing that you have no buns for burgers and you whip up a batch of rolls.

Or, if you’re like me, it’s making a HUGE batch of biscuits and putting them in the freezer.

But learning how to cook from scratch has to first start with what your definition is. If you’re definition of from scratch cooking is whipping up dinner every night like Ma Ingalls? I’m definitely not your girl.

If you are looking for ways to reduce the number of boxes, jars and bags in your trash? This I can help with.

Taking Your Time Back

You don’t have to spend hours in front of the stove. In fact, you can make an entire batch of yeast rolls in about 20 minutes. Making burgers only takes an extra 5 minutes on top of their cook time. Pork Carnitas takes no more time than browning ground beef.

It takes planning to cook from scratch. The first step is a meal plan. When you know what you’re supposed to be cooking, it makes everything easier. By having a plan, you will not only save money because you are only buying what you need, but you will also save yourself a ton of headache.

Meal Prep

Before anyone jumps on me, because a surprising amount of people are TOTALLY against the term meal prep, really look at how you are spending your time. For the sake of not upsetting the masses, well call it cooking in batches.

There is absolutely no reason to make one meal at a time. Seriously! If you are having ground meat three times this week, you could absolutely make all three batches at the same time! The only differences is usually seasoning.

Let me give you an example of a good meal plan.

If you are making breakfast for dinner one night, you could legitimately cook three dozen biscuits and freeze the left overs. Then you could make four pounds of bacon and have breakfast for the rest of the week. If you don’t mind the taste of “left over eggs” you could scramble up 18 and be done.

But if you look at Day 2 dinner, you get three meals out of that one roast!

Dirty Rice? Same thing. Not to mention turning spaghetti and meatballs into meatball subs? Delicious.

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Manage Your Expectations

At the end of the day, you need to manage your expectations of what you are trying to accomplish. Yes, cooking from scratch 100% of the time is amazing. But sometimes that just not going to happen. I’m here to tell you that while we cook at home 95% of the time, only about 70% is from scratch.

I have blue boxes of mac and cheese in my pantry. Easy noodle kits? Yup, got those, too. I buy tacos from the store. That’s OKAY! Sometimes a pizza from the store sounds better than ANYTHING I could make at home.

But when you make an entire meal from scratch? That feeling of pride is addicting.

The Point?

Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be a long drawn out process. In fact, you could easily cook 100% of your meals from scratch every day.

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How To Handle Power Outages

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With the state of our electrical grids, weather and rolling black outs, knowing how to handle power outages is a big deal. If you live in an area prone to outages, you may be a little more well versed in this. If you deal with winter storms that take out the power, you are probably okay. But what happens if you aren’t equipped to handle power outages? Today, I want to show you what we do to prepare for those outages and some things you can do too.

Preparing For Power Outages

When the power goes out, it causes massive issues. Not just on a local or state level, but inside your home can turn to complete chaos if you are not prepared. We know that a power outage doesn’t have to be storm related. Sometimes it’s rolling blackouts or the power grid became overwhelmed. Or you simply forgot to pay the bill…. guilty.

By no means is this an exhaustive list. You need to make sure that you’ve got whatever medications you need, food, and more.

But there are somethings you can do to prepare for when you lose power.

Food

I am a big believer in being prepared. Food is a big one for me. You should have two weeks per person of food stored in cases of emergency. There’s a ton of different options for this. For us, we choose to can, dehydrate, and freeze our food. But there are really great emergency food companies that have freeze dried food that will last for 25+ years.

We will get a freeze dryer at some point, but today is not that day.

Food Equipment

There is nothing worse than thinking you are prepared to handle power outages, only to realize that the only can opener you have, is electric. So do yourself a favor and make sure that you have manual tools and know how to use them! I am a big fan of learning out to do things manually and then introducing the electric version later when I know how to do something.

Blankets

I’m not talking about regular blankets here, either. Blankets not only come in handy during winter outages, they can also be used to insulate.

We have these blankets after a move from Texas back to Georgia. These are great to have on hand for many reasons. And not just to wrap up freezers. They are a little pricey but if they keep my freezers from defrosting? I’m game.

They are also great to hang on entry ways and windows. This will help keep warm air where it needs to be.

Coolers

I’m not talking about the itty bitty coolers here, but they will definitely work. You really want to keep your freezers closed and insulated as much as you can during an outage. But if you are on day 5 of a power outage? That top layer of food is going to go bad.

You’ve got a couple options. You can either plan to eat that food first, can it (not always possible), or throw it in a cooler with ice. You can then wrap that cooler in blankets to try and keep it insulated. This can buy you a little more time depending on how thawed, cold, or hot everything is.

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Firewood/ Fireplace

Always, and I repeat, ALWAYS have a way to heat your home if you have no power. If the temperatures dip too low for too long, you will freeze to death. No amount of blankets will save you when it’s -20 and you are without heat. In fact, in a lot of places, if the temperatures drop to freezing, communities will set up warming shelters. These shelters are not just for the homeless, but for anyone without heat.

That being said, you should have at least a fireplace in your home. Regardless of whether you have ever used it, you should be keeping it at least maintained. Finding out at last minute that you have a chimney full of bats? Not great.

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That being sad, make sure you have about a cord of firewood off the ground and dry every winter. I wrote a couple posts about firewood here and here. Since we heat with wood only, we try to make sure that we start winter with at least 5 cords of wood and then we continue to chop as we go throughout winter. We may not be able to use that wood that winter, but we can at least get started for next year.

Heaters

If the power goes out, you aren’t going to be able to heat unless you have a wood stove. BUT if your stove relies on a blower to move that warm air around? It’s not going to keep your house warm. My suggestion is a propane heater like this one. We also have one like this, it works pretty well but not great in large spaces.

Some words of warning. You need to have a working carbon monoxide/ smoke detector and good air flow. You don’t want to be one of those people that catch their house on fire because these things can be dangerous if not used correctly.

Fans

Whether your power goes out in summer or winter, having fans actually helps a lot. Yes, I know it’s weird. But in the winter, if you are using a fireplace, wood stove, etc, you need to get the air from the heat source to the rest of the house. We don’t want to move it quickly, just enough to get air moving.

We like these fans because they are rechargeable and are not that expensive. AND it’s got a lamp, so it’s a two birds, one stone thing which I really like. It will last from 6-36hrs. Of course, if you’ve got it on high with the highest setting lamp, it’s only going to last the 6 hours but still that’s a lot.

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I feel like I don’t need to explain the need for a fan in the middle of summer when the power goes out.

Well Pump

While some of you may not have this problem, having water is vital to all living things. If your house runs on a well, having a way to pump that water is a must if your power goes out. This manual hand pump is great for emergency situations where you must have water, and you can’t get it.

There are many, many different ones you can get but my suggestion is to get one that is manual and not solar powered. If you run into a situation where you can’t get power for many days, and it’s raining? Your solar powered pump isn’t going to work.

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Water Jug Dispenser

When it comes to water, you can never, ever have enough. The general rule of thumb is 1 gallon per person per day for drinking. Or about 5 gallons for daily use. Livestock need about 5 gallons a day depending on the size of your livestock, obviously For us, that would mean 20 gallons of water per day for our family and another 70 gallons for all of our animals per day.

That’s a lot of water and if you don’t have IBC’s or other water retention devices, you could be in trouble.

We have a bunch of 5gal jugs that we keep filled and in rotation. Then we use this dispenser to get the water out. It’s a great little pump that works pretty well.

One of the other ways we make sure that we have enough water stored is to fill our canning jars with water when not in use. The way I see it is this, empty jars take up as much space as a jar filled with water. So why not fill that empty jar with water and store it?

Power Banks

Another great way to ensure that you can handle power outages is to have power banks. There are a ton of different options to get and any of them will work well. I do recommend making sure that you have a couple that are solar like these. You want to make sure that you have the ability to recharge them if you run out of power.

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Handling Power Outages

A power outage is usually more mentally draining than physically, as long as nothing goes wrong. Make sure you’ve got some relaxing things to do to keep your mind off being without power. Take care of your animals and enjoy being unplugged.

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How To Create A Digital Seed Inventory

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Every year, it’s the same problem, “What seeds did I buy last year?” I have yet to meet a person that only buys exactly what they need. But most people forget what they purchased last year, if they liked it, how much they still have, etc. Every gardener, farmer, or homesteader, needs a seed inventory. There are about a million ways to create a seed inventory, from paper to digital to mental. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter HOW you keep track of your seeds, as long as you do it. Today, I want to show you how and why I have a digital seed inventory and how you can do it too.

Before we get too far into this post, I wanted to give a suggestion about keeping a garden journal. A digital garden journal is a fantastic way to keep track of past, present and future gardens. Our Digital Garden Journal is a great way to keep up with everything without getting too overwhelmed.

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Why A Seed Inventory

I want to say this first, you don’t have to have a digital seed inventory. In fact, if you want to keep it old school with a pen and paper? Go right ahead. I’m not here to judge. I just want you to be able to keep track of your seeds. In my garden planner, I’ve got several charts that help me track everything from seeds/seedlings, orchard information, pests, and more. This is my printed planner that helps me keep track when out in the garden. But I prefer my digital seed inventory for a lot of reasons.

First, when I order seeds, I am on my computer. Rarely, if ever, do I go into a store and buy seeds that I NEED. Those seeds are the seeds I saw and thought, “Hmm, that looks interesting.” And they get thrown in my cart. The seeds I need for my garden are bought online. That’s because I know exactly what I need, the amount I need, and I can usually get better deals that way.

Second, it helps me save a TON of money. I am an impulse buyer. No matter what I try to do to stop that, I am going to see something and snatch it up because it looks cool, could solve my problem and so much more. But the reality is that having a digital seed inventory on my phone tells me EXACTLY what I have on hand, and which storage bin it’s in.

Third, it helps me keep track of start times, harvests, and more. I enjoy being able to quickly look back at a seed in my inventory and see that it germinated well, produced a ton, and, probably most importantly, how many seeds I have on hand right NOW.

One of our five year goals is to feed ourselves and animals 90% from our land. That’s a ton of food. But to get to that goal, I need to make sure that I am only buying or saving the seeds that I know will work.

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Creating A Digital Seed Inventory

A simple spreadsheet is really all you need. It can be as fancy and in depth or as simple as you want. My seed inventory is pretty in depth because I want to make sure that I can track as much information as possible. But sometimes there is a need for simplicity and I that is where my garden journal comes in.

If you are choosing to start your own digital seed inventory, then you need to write down the things that you want to track. Do you care what color the pepper is? Do you care if it’s a transplant or direct sow? Where you bought the seeds?

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You also need to think about how you are going to access it when the time comes. Are you only going to use it at home? Then it probably doesn’t need to be web based. Are you looking for seeds from a local farmers market? Probably should be web based like Google Sheets.

Make sure that the things you want to know are easily accessible within that spreadsheet.

If you aren’t quite sure what you want in your spreadsheet, I have my digital seed inventory that you can purchase in our general store. This is the same one I use. The cool thing about it, is that while it is in depth, you can delete the things that you don’t want or need.

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Need Help Organizing Your Seeds?

In my digital seed inventory, the first column is “location”. Pro tip? Get yourself a couple of photo storage bins like this and put your seeds in it! This is seriously the best garden purchase I have made to date. These storage bins have 18 4×6 storage containers.

On the outside of the bin, I write which bin it is A, B, C, etc. On the inside 4×6 bins, I write A1, A2, A3, etc of the corresponding bin. This way when I look at my inventory, I can see that corn seeds are in bins C12-C18. That way when I go to plant that corn, I don’t have to go find it, lug out a million seed packets, and risk losing a couple packets. This has been my hack for the last 10 years and I will always use it.

No matter if you are using a box to store your seeds, a pen and paper to keep track of how many seeds you have, or going all digital and super organized. The reality is that if you are buying seeds, using them and growing food? You’re doing pretty amazing!

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Avoiding Homestead Burnout

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As I was writing about our 2022 goals and planning our 2023 goals, I realized something. I’ve hit burnout. As a medic, I am very, very familiar with burnout. But some of you may not know the signs and symptoms of burnout and you may not know how to fix it. Or you didn’t think you could burnout doing something you enjoy and are passionate about, but you’re ready to throw in the towel. Before you do that, let me see if I can help you deal with homestead burnout.

homestead burnout

What Is Burnout?

Burnout is a fancy word for stressed. Why we couldn’t simply call it “stressed” I’m not sure. The powers that be (psychiatrists) believe that it is work related. While I don’t disagree, I feel like it is more encompassing than that.

Your children can burn you out. That job you love, can burn you out. Those animals you love? Can burn you out. Your beautiful homestead? WILL burn you out. Why? Because burnout is stress and even the things we love most in the world, stress us out.

If you don’t know how to identify burnout, then you will never be able to cope with it.

But What Is Homestead Burnout?

Homestead burnout is no different than work burnout. It’s feeling overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done. Apathy when it comes to chores, projects or other upgrades to our homestead. A lack of empathy with those around you. It’s also a kind of depression, not wanting to get out of bed/house to take care of your farm, life, etc. Homestead burnout can also be trying to push through and failing miserably. Or, lastly, anxiety.

Identifying Burnout

Do your animals no longer bring you joy, or not as much?

Everything you touch seems to turn to sh…crap?

The thought of planning your garden causes so much anxiety that you avoid it at all costs?

The last thing you want to do is start another project?

You and your spouse are not on the same page?

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You are staying in your house more and more instead of working your property?

Constant fatigue?

Pain?

Congratulations, if you’ve answered yes to literally any of these, you are courting with burnout. If you answered yes to the majority of these, you are burned out.

I can’t talk for any other career field, but as a medic, I know more about burnout then I care to admit. Not only because I’ve had it, but because I’ve watched great medics and EMT’s lose the battle with burnout. In an effort of full disclosure, my homestead is my exit strategy for burnout. BUT I’ve put everything I have into my homestead, and guess what? It’s burned me out too.

Coping With Homestead Burnout

The crappy part is that even if you are burned out because of your homestead, there really isn’t much you can do about it, right? The animals, gardens, children, etc don’t just go away when you say, “That’s it! I’m stressed and I can’t function with this anymore.” Because guess what? You still have to slog out to feed and water the animals. There’s still weeds to pick and eggs to collect. There’s nothing we can do about it….

Or is there something you can do about it?

Things That “They” Say To Try

These think tanks that like to tell us how to minimize stress, reduce burn out, etc are obviously upper management and don’t get their hands dirty. For those of us in healthcare, it’s like them saying “I know you asked for increase staffing, higher pay and better equipment, but here’s a pizza party instead.”

I say this because “They” are saying things like “Have a support system” or “Get some sleep”…. and in the real world that doesn’t happen. I can’t just get more sleep. Trust me, I’ve tried. I have a support system. But guess what? They’re burned out too. So what are some ACTUAL ways to help relieve burnout?

If you are struggling with burnout and not sure where to start, there are several really good books out there to help identify and cope with burnout. I found this one and this one to be pretty helpful. Buuuuuttttttt. When I’m burned out the last thing I want to do is read books about burnout.

Identify

Identify the things that are burning you out. Really think about what is happening in your life that is causing your stress levels to be so high. There may not be much you can do about those stresses, but at least by identifying what they are, you can start looking at ways to reduce those. The first step in fixing a problem is realizing you have one, right? Same thing here.

If you are struggling to figure out what is stressing you out, simply look at the things you are avoiding. This may not look like active avoidance, “I refuse to weed the garden.” Instead, it could look something like, “I’m too busy to weed the garden, I’ll do it later.” Lately, I have been avoiding my goats. Not purposefully, but avoiding all the same. I just don’t hang out with them like I used to because I feel this all consuming drive to get all the things done. This resulted in not realizing that they are all covered in chewing lice and now I’m behind the eight ball on treatment.

Reduce Stress

Now, that you know what is causing your burnout, you can start to take steps to reduce it. Unlike normal burnout, it may not be as simple as walking away from that job or cutting back hours. Again, you can’t just stop homeschooling the kids. You can’t just stop being a farmer. But there are things you can do and the first is ask for help.

When you reach out for help, you need to be willing to accept that help in whatever form it comes in. This is really hard for us women. We want it done THIS way. But when you are at your wits end, sometimes done is better than not done, even if it’s not the way you would do it. You can always fix it your way later.

You can put off that project until you’re ready to concure it. It’ll still be there.

You can spend an extra 10 minutes playing with your goats. Everything else can wait.

You can make that homemade bread. If it sucks? The pigs can eat it.

Reducing stress doesn’t include doing nothing. Sometimes it’s as easy as doing something you WANT to do, instead of HAVE to do.

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Understand that it doesn’t all need to be done right now

For the last ten years or so, we have had it crammed into our head that tomorrow is never promised. So we have been killing ourselves trying to get everything done. Go see that play, hang out with friends, get the garden in, homeschool the kids, work more, save more. More, More, More.

But trust me, there’s always tomorrow. Yes, I understand that tomorrow is never guaranteed. But would you rather die stressed with almost everything done, or happy with a million unfinished projects. Personally, I want both. But I also understand that by stressing myself out getting everything done, I am not happy. Jared isn’t happy. And the farm suffers.

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Learn Something New

This may seem counter productive because we are trying to reduce stress, but learning something new or different can help ease stress. How? Because when we are learning, we tend to give ourselves grace. We’re just learning right? It’s okay to get it wrong because you understand that you can’t be an expert in something you are just learning.

Whenever I’m burned out, I pick a new craft, book, baking technique and start to learn it. This really helps pull my focus off the things that are burning me out, and pulls me back to learning which is something I love.

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Work On An Easy Project

When you have the anti-Midas touch, sometimes it’s really easy to get even more stressed and burned out. No matter what you are doing, everything turns to crap. But find a project that doesn’t require a lot of brain power from you. Or something you’ve done a million times and probably won’t screw up. Then go do it.

Part of burnout is depression. You just don’t care about whatever it is that you’re doing. But by working on a project that is easy, you are doing something. That alone will help you beat back that depression. And if you just can’t, that’s okay too. At least you tried.

How I Deal With Homestead Burnout

I’m not going to lie, usually I step back and punt. That means that I just don’t do the chores or I fall back on planning, cleaning, organizing, or my Finish Line Goals. I am beyond blessed that I have that option, and I know it. There are times when I simply cannot gather up the gumption to build a fence, work on the gardens, or literally anything else. So I ask for help, and do something else.

If that’s not an option and I have to do the things that are burning me out, I do it carefully and slowly. There’s nothing more frustrating that things not going how you want or need them to go.

Lastly, I go play in the dirt. For some reason, that is my reset. It doesn’t have to be anything major, either. Simply watering my plants or spreading grass seed is enough to remember that not everything has to be done the way I want it or think it should be. And that’s okay.

How Can You Deal With Burnout?

The reality is that you will burn out at sometime. Probably multiple times. That’s okay! You are normal. Identify that you are burned out, figure out (if possible) what is specifically burning you out, and then step back or go slower. Or don’t do it at all. Remember, at the end of the day, it’ll get done or it won’t. And both of those answers are just fine.

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Goal Setting: Did We Hit Our 2022 Goals?

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As we reach the end of the year, I wanted to see if we hit our goals for 2022. Goal setting is huge for me because it allows me to organize what little time I have. I started going through our plan and goals for the year, just to see if we got any of it done. I’m not going to lie, we kind of slacked this year on a lot of different things, and goals were a big one. But while it’s not okay, it is actually okay, and I’ll explain why.

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Goal Setting

We are the type of goal setters that will shoot for the stars and if we land on the moon, that’s okay too. We will set a variety of different goals for ourselves, the farm, the boys, etc. This is what I call a “Finish Line Goal”, or FLG, which is a goal that is easily marked off. Or I could set a goal for something that is complex and is going to take time, energy and teamwork to accomplish.

For me, as a list maker, seeing marked off items on my list pushes me to get more marked off, so having a bunch of FLG’s is key for me. Jared is the type that is very big picture and he will set a goal like put in the garden and he mental knows what he needs to do to get that done. All of that aside, as I look on my list of things that we wanted to get done, I am amazed that we did hit our goals.

Goals: Late Winter- January-February

  • Burn Pasture 2 and 3
  • Plant Pasture Seed
  • Gate Pasture 2 and 3
  • Firewood
  • Breed Dragons
  • Pig Pastures
  • Butcher Chickens

The only thing we didn’t do is plant the spring garden, place outside gates on pasture 3, and set up pig pastures. That’s not too bad, I think and I’m REALLY glad that we didn’t put in pig pastures. Especially since we hadn’t really researched breeds, permaculture, etc.

Also we did end up placing the gates inside the pastures but not outside pasture 3. When a tree fell on a section of fence in pasture 3, Jared was willing to put in a gate then.

Goals: Spring- March-May

  • Firewood
  • Front Porch Ceiling Fans
  • House Ceiling Fans
  • Irrigation/ Rainwater
  • Buy Pig, Chickens, Turkeys
  • Plant Garden
  • Yard Hydrants
  • Gable Fans

Well… We bought chickens and planted the garden. Technically speaking, we also put irrigation in the garden. But we needed to get drains dug to get the water away from the foundation of the house. We didn’t do that. But that’s okay. The garden was the main focus.

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Goals: Summer- June- August

  • Bumper Crops
  • Tend/ Harvest
  • Preserve Harvest
  • Firewood

No bumper crops or painting. But we did have a pretty impressive harvest for our very first garden. So that’s a big win. We were able to take a once in a lifetime trip to Yellowstone and to be honest, between that and the garden? I’m calling that a success.

Goals: Fall- September- November

  • Final Firewood Push
  • Seed Pastures
  • Cover Crops
  • Rotate Chickens and Pigs Through Property
  • Fall Garden
  • Chicken Barn
  • Remodel Living Room
  • Winterize Piping
  • Attic Storage
  • Paint Exterior of House

I would love to say that we knocked this out of the park, but in reality we burned out. Goal setting is great at the start of the year when you are gung ho to get everything accomplished. But as energy starts to wane and you are tired, it’s really hard to hit those goals. We got the living room partially remodeled. The attic got it’s storage put in, but that’s about it.

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Goals: December

Our last goals for the year is: finish the living room, start on tiling our master bathroom, continue to rotate livestock and lay down pasture seed.

Let me just tell you, none of the goals for December happened. Like the previous quarter, we hit burn out and just didn’t want to do anything anymore. Like, nothing. While that’s okay, it’s also not. Let me explain.

Goal Setting

Goal setting is great when you are chomping at the bit to get things done. But when you are tired, sick, hurt, or mentally not healthy? Those goals become overwhelming. No amount of discipline, finish line goals, or a kick in the pants are going to get you back in the game. You are burned out.

So my suggestion when working on setting your goals for 2023, is to spread it out. Pick a couple of things that are high work load and put the rest away. There’s time to get it done. If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t want to do that, but you need to protect your mental health to keep from burning out.

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How To Set Up A Garden Journal

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Much like everything else that is homestead related, there is no one size fits all approach to a garden journal. I wish there was because it would make it easier to just have someone tell you what to do and it work 100% of the time. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The next best thing that we can do is try different things until something works. Today, I’m going to show you how I set up a garden journal and give you the high points of how to start yours.

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What Is A Garden Journal

A garden journal is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a journal that details your gardens throughout the years. Yes, years. In the first year, you may notice a high infestation of Japanese beetles. In your journal you would make note of the beetles, an estimate of how many beetles, when you first noticed them, what plants they were attracted to, any treatments you did to get rid of them, etc. The next year as you look through your journal, you remember that you had a problem last year, and you can be proactive this year.

How To Set Up A Garden Journal

Everyone will have a different set up based on what they are growing, where they live, and so on. But here are some starting points. If you aren’t sure where to start, you can purchase my garden journal printable in our general store.

The Binder

I think that the best thing you could do is to purchase a binder for your garden journal. I use this binder because I like that it doesn’t take up a lot of space on my desk. Plus, when I am down in the basement working on seeds or out in the garden, it’s not this huge bulky thing. I also like using a binder because I can move pages around from year to year.

I used to have a bullet journal and while I loved it, it was hard to find what I was looking for since it was chronologically done. Not a bad thing, but if I couldn’t remember when I did something, it was lost. Being able to look back and see that last year I planted 100 tomato seeds and only 80 germinated tells me a lot about the seeds, soil, watering, etc if I have that information available.

The Dividers

I have a TON of dividers in my garden journal, but again, I want simple and easy to find. I use these mini dividers to match my mini binder. For your dividers, you need to think about the things that you want to track. Do you want to track how many seedlings you bought? Or are you planting your own seeds? Do you want to keep track of your soil tests? What about expenses? These are all things that you need to think about so that you can keep track accordingly.

I like to know what seeds I started and when. Then I want to know my soil tests, pests and what seeds I saved. When our orchard stops getting attacked by goats, I would like to know when I pruned, harvested, and more.

Loose Paper

I use loose leaf sheets to take notes, brainstorm, etc. I get the college rule and blank to make sure that if I want to design a garden bed, I can design it on a blank sheet and write on the lined sheets. I store all the excess paper in the back of the binder. I also use sheet protectors on the important pages.

For example: If I go into the basement and I am working on transplants, I don’t want the pages to get dirty. Or if I have designed a garden bed, I want to be able to take that page out of the binder and take it with me to the bed. By having a sheet protector on it, I don’t have to worry as much about it getting destroyed.

Using Your Garden Journal

After getting your journal set up, you should start filling it out with the information you have. In your soil test section, you should fill out previous years soil test results. Be sure to separate years with a line or something so that you don’t get confused. If you don’t have that information anymore? Or this is your first garden? No worries, do the best you can.

When you start your seedlings, be sure to write where you purchased your seeds from. This will help you decide if that was a good buy. If you buy seeds, make sure to put where you bought them from. In your Pest section, make sure to keep track of what pests came when and how you treated for them. This will help you because next year, you can say, “In 2022, the Japanese beetles came in April and only hit the apple trees.” In 2023, you can make sure to have beetle traps or other treatments already in place.

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I am the type that will write down everything because I will forget it. We had a great pepper harvest last year, but I know it could have been better if I had known only water them every 4-6 days. Because of my garden journal, I know not to water the peppers as often.

Another cool thing about my garden journal is that I have a harvest/ preservation section. This section tells me how much food I need to harvest and preserve from my gardens. I know that we eat a TON of green beans. Like, I can 100 quart jars of green beans and it’s usually gone by April. That tells me that I need to harvest at least 200# of green beans. Because I know these things, I know I need to plant a minimum of 200 pole bean plants. Same with corn and peas.

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Lastly, in my garden journal, I have a list of monthly chores that I need to do. This helps me stay on track with the needs of my garden. Because our goal is to reduce our grocery bill by 75% in 5 years and our feed bill by 80% in 2 years, I need all the help I can get. It not only tracks the weeding, watering and planting, but it also tells me when exactly when to do those things. In April I have final till of the garden, lay final layer of compost, plant after April 15th, weed weekly until seedlings are established, and so on. That way there is no guess work about what I need to do.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can find my garden journal printable in our general store here. There are a ton of different planners on the internet but none of them fit the style that I was going for, so I created my own.

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How To Create A Homestead Vision Board

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As we are coming up to the end of the year, I started taking down the 2022 vision board. I was able to reflect on all the things we did this year and it was incredible how many goals we hit and surpassed. It was also pretty eye opening how much stuff we just didn’t get around to. In this post I wanted to talk about how to set up a homestead vision board, how to prioritize your goals for your homestead and lastly how to prioritize WHICH goals for your homestead.

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Setting Up Your Homestead Vision Board

First thing is first, you need a board. I use a cork board like this one but you can use a poster board or whatever you have on hand. I like using the cork board because it doesn’t erase like a white board and it doesn’t put holes in my walls.

Next, you need to figure out your goals for the year. I’ve talked pretty in depth about the importance of infrastructure, our infrastructure goals, as well as how to set up homesteading goals in the links created. One of the ways that Jared and I set up goals is for each one of us to have 3 goals that we must hit for the year. Then we have another 5 “would be nice if” goals. The would be nice goals are simply ones that are important enough to write down but if we don’t hit them, the world won’t end. This is where homestead flexibility comes into play.

Homestead Vision Board

Since that piece of paper above has all of our goals on it, I will sit down and type up each goal individually, print them out and put them on my board. The original list will get pinned beneath the board so that I can cross that off as we get things done. Sometimes I just write them down on their own pieces of paper and put them on the board. It really depends on how crafty I feel when I put together my board.

Once we have those goals printed out and pinned to the board, I will find pictures of the items we want like the tractor, UTV/ATV, dream kitchens, etc and print those out. I will also have little sticky notes attached on the board to find the lists associated with each project. So for the outdoor kitchen, there would be a sticky note that said “see infrastructure list for more info”. This helps so that when we are ready to tackle a project, we know where to look.

Layout For Your Homestead Vision Board

There is no one size fits all approach to your vision board. It’s yours to do however you want. But I do have some suggestions. If you look at the list above you will see J Top 3 and L Top 3. Those are the most important and must do of all of the goals. Those need to be highlighted so they are completed first. So I will usually make those bigger and with a different font than the would be nice if goals. I will also print those out on different colored paper to make sure they stand out.

Laying out your board is another way that you can prioritize your goals on the vision board. You can put the most important goals in the middle, or even do a flowchart style layout. But select a space that is just for those goals. In years past I have put the most important goals in the middle and on bright card stock. Then I would put the less important goals around it or on the edges to show, on regular paper, to show that these weren’t as important.

Another important part of laying out your homestead vision board is decorate it. Now, I’m not talking about getting out the glitter. But the purpose of a vision board is to clearly lay out the vision you have for the year. But if it is boring, are you going to want to look at it every day? If it isn’t eye catching, are you going to remember that you have a goal of setting up your chicken coop and run? So make sure to decorate it in a way that is eye catching for each goal without being either overwhelming and hidden.

How To Prioritize Your Homestead Goals

I wanted to add in ways to set up your goals for your homestead. Since every homestead is different, I can’t tell you what how exactly to prioritize your goals. Plus, you may have different goals or priorities than your significant other. That’s okay. But in an effort of accountability, BOTH of you need to write down your goals for the year and put them on your vision board.

There are also two kinds of goal setters. Those that reach for the stars and are okay with landing on the moon. Then the rest of us who set realistic goals and want to surpass them. Either one is fine as long as you are getting it done. Jared’s goal of infrastructure is pretty lofty considering the infrastructure list is 8 typed pages. But that’s what he wants, so ok. One of my goals is to start the process of replacing our off farm income with on farm income.

Most Important Goals First

While this may seem obvious, you need to remember to write down the most important things you want to accomplish first. This is going to help you when you get distracted by something equally as important. For example, we do not have a working HVAC system. Also it’s not on my list of priorities to fix or replace it. But if I don’t stay on track with my goals, and it is mid August and 110* with 99% humidity? You can bet your last dollar I will want to repair that unit to get some relief.

Finish Line Goals

Every year I set Finish Line Goals or FGL’s. These are goals that are easy to hit and mark off the list. Things like: cleaning the bathroom, stacking firewood, cleaning off the front porch, or organizing one space in 10 minutes. These goals are crucial for getting motivated to tackle those big goals. They also help you slow down when you are getting overwhelmed and need something small to give you a break.

Grace Is Key

You are probably not going to hit every single goal. Life is going to happen and every plan you had may go out the window with job loss, sickness or injury. But if you give yourself grace, kindness and understanding? You will find that while you didn’t hit the mac daddy goal of replacing your off farm income with farmer’s market sales, it’s okay.

I hope this helps you figure out how to set up your homestead vision board as well as work on setting goals for your homestead. For us, it’s important to know what we are doing, when and why. This keeps all of us on track so that we don’t end up working on something that we don’t need to.

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