R & M Homesteading Goals for 2024

Mid Year Update: We are doing a wonderful job workings on our plans this year. After a great spring we have knocked out over half. We have more to do but its almost like things are finally coming together and we can enjoy what we have been working so hard to accomplish!

Year 2023 was a very trying but good year over all, we are hoping 2024 is a little less trying but much more productive on the homestead. We have a much smoother idea of what we need to focus on and when to focus on it.

Last year we focused mainly on our garden, and two rooms in the house along with keeping the status que on the animals and everything else. This year we plan to follow that same principle while adding a few more treats to get us more prepared. While all these goals are important to us, we know some of them take more priority over others

When it comes to in house projects, our main focus, will be finishing up the school room by adding a gaming/lego/craft table which will allow R to experience a large table build and finish clearing out the rest of the games for our dinning room. We also have a few small projects for M in the kitchen for her spices and cookbooks since she has been making more and more items from scratch. Then hopefully we can ether take on the laundry room storage issue or maybe we will have the supplies for the larger Dinning Room table (which is kinda needed now but were making due). We also have two boys that need beds. Thankfully the wood for that should be completely dried out and ready to go this spring.

We plan on stream lining our garden a bit. We love the size and production we had last year. We plan on dropping a couple of plant types/ plants in general and focus more on reaching a healthy production level of certain plants. For example Green Beans, Tiger beans, Potatoes, onions, garlic, Tomatoes for canning. while still having the nice to haves with the cabbage, Celery, watermelons, pumpkins and squashes. R also is determined to figure out how to grow our root plants even if its just on a small container scale. (6 years of failure but wont give up)

Then we have come to the conclusion of pressure canning is a must learn for us this year. We need to make more freezer space for meat which we plan on buying in bulk or harvesting from our own meat chickens and ducks, and rabbits. We are solely on meat rabbits now, and will consolidate our chicken flock into 2 heritage type breeds of birds which we started last year. And we plan on focusing on 4 types of herbs to grow/dry/store for future use. Along with saving even more seeds from our plants this year.

That’s the main goal for the homestead this year. Improve what we have and continue to slowly grow our supplies and knowledge. We hope you follow along and enjoy the ride! As always Happy Homesteading, and God Bless!