My homestead goals for 2013

As promised, here’s my list of goals for 2013 on the homestead.

Plant more fruit – Last year, I started planting the fruit trees for the orchard.  I also planted some raspberries.  This year I will expand my fruit production.  I currently have 2 types of apples, 2 types of sweet cherries, 2 types of tart cherries and 2 types of almonds.  My next trees will likely be Asian and European pears.  After that, I want some peaches, plums and more apples.  I’ve also been looking into pomegranate trees, I found that some grow into zone 5.  I may order a couple of those to add to the orchard.  In addition to trees, I plan on planting more cane fruit.  I will likely plant more raspberries, but will add blackberries to the yard.  I have a whole list of various fruits that I want to eventually grow, many are unique and not regularly grown in gardens.  I just want to try out as many as I can find.

Expand the garden - As I explained in my accomplishments, I have the same number of beds as last January.  This year, my goal is to increase the depth of the rest of the garden beds.  If time and money permits, I will also create a couple more garden beds.

Get my shed – This should be a fairly easy one.  Instead of building, I am buying the shed.  I have the box for the gravel pad finished.  I need to get gravel delivered and the shed delivered.  To do this, I’m waiting for the ground to freeze so the trucks don’t damage the yard.  I also have to take down a section of the fence, including a fence post.  I’ll ask my neighbor to use his skid steer to pull out that post.  Hopefully by February I’ll have a shed to move all my crap into.

Increase amount of produce preserved - I think I did a pretty good job of preserving my produce.  But there is always room for improvement.  For 2013, I want to increase the number of types of produce I preserve.  Instead of 23 pints of salsa, I’ll use some of that produce in other ways.  Maybe make my own onion powder.  Make up some hot sauce with the hot peppers.  I will likely make more types of jam and jelly.  In 2011, I discovered that I really like peach-hot pepper jam, I’ll probably make more of that.  If the raspberries produce well, I’ll make some raspberry preserves.

Garden better – Yes, I’m making this vague goal again.  I hope to keep up with the garden chores a little better than last year.  Tidiness in the garden makes it easier to harvest.

Build a rain water catchment system - I’m giving this one another shot this year.  This is kind of on the back burner.  It just doesn’t have the urgency that some of the other goals have.

Get livestock – One of my 13 skills for 2013 is to build a top bar beehive.  That ties directly into this goal.  I hope to have bees over-wintering next year at this time.  For each hive, I’ll need to clear out an area of grass around the hives.  I certainly don’t want to have to mow under a hive of bees.  I think that I’ll cut it low and put down a layer of weed block.  I may put stone over that or better yet, put a layer of compost over that and plant a low flowering plant into it.  I’m thinking that Lingonberry may be a good shrub for this.  They stay low and spread.  They also choke out any competing weeds.  But I will keep researching to see if there’s something better for this.  I will likely start vermi-composting with red wigglers, so I think that falls into the livestock goal.  I’m still working on the wife for the chickens, but that will take some doing to get the ok on that.

That’s all I have at the moment.  I know there are a couple more that I was looking to add, but for the life of me I can’t remember them.