Becca picks a forward-looking word for each year on her blog. If I had to pick a word for 2014, it would be “ambitious”. I was driven mostly by the long-range rewards of perennial plantings, with apple orchards and blueberry patches taking 3-5 years to yield a harvest. But I also wanted to cram in as much as possible in our truncated Minnesota summer, where delaying a project means waiting out the long and frigid winter before getting another shot. So, as I’m prone to do, I over-committed but got most of it done.
March
- Planned new garden layout
- Started tomatoes & herbs indoors
- Tapped maple trees & hosted Tree Tapping Party
April
- More cats arrive
- Evaporated 65 gallons of sap (making just over 2 gallons of syrup)
- Burned down our monstrous burn pile
- Picked out our apple trees
- Repotted seedlings
- Replanted our hayfield
May
- Built new raised beds
- Filled raised beds with 4 truckloads of black gold
- Planted main garden and blueberry patch
- Planted apple orchard and watered, watered, watered
- Planted strawberry patches
- Planted pumpkin patch
- Started beekeeping
June
- Maintained the garden
- First hay cutting
- Re-mulched the blueberries
- Hosted HoneyFest
- First harvest (lettuce, cucumbers)
July
- Built mobile chicken coop for raising broiler chickens
- Chickens arrive
- Weeding, weeding, weeding
- Harvested peas, beets, broccoli, carrots
- Second hay cutting
- Wild blackberry picking
- Staked apple trees
August
- Harvested tomatoes, corn, peppers, potatoes (124 lbs)
September
- Harvested onions (22 lbs) and shallots
- Preserved peppers
- “Harvested” broiler chickens
October
November
- Got a tractor
- Winterized the bees
- Installed new wood stove
December
- Pruned apple trees
3 comments
Are you sure this is still just a “hobby” farm? Wow. Great job.
“Hobby” as in unprofitable, yes. “Hobby” as in leisure, no. 😉