Homestead Happenings – 24.2

Homestead Happenings is a weekly-ish update on what’s going on at the Northfarthing.

I ordered seeds!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I have never, not once, ordered the seeds. I am THE most accidental homesteader. And seed ordering has always fallen to Farmer Matt.

Well this year between Farmer Matt’s other responsibilities and my itchy fingers wanting to get digging in some dirt, it was time to order seeds. I had an entire order in my cart with one seed company and by a couple days later when I could sit down to finish the order, almost everything was out of stock. I was sad.

But this gave me a chance to try someone new – FedCo out of Maine. They specialize in organic, heirloom, and also seeds that are noted for shorter maturity seasons for us northerners. Our focus at Northfarthing this year is to do a better job of preserving our bounty. So starting in some cases up to a month sooner with that bounty will be incredibly helpful.

I’m a big proponent of growing what you will actually eat. I won’t give you an exhaustive list but if you’ve seen the seed aisle anywhere, we’ll basically grow some of everything, or at least try. Some fun things of note – we prefer to eat yellow tomatoes so we always grow those, I’ll be starting luffas again this year (we did them a few years back and I’m excited to bring them back to the homestead), and I’m going to try some dry bean varieties.

In addition to all the veggies that we’ll eat and want to put up, I also ordered flowers for our new cut flower farm business. We’ve already got the peonies in but they get better with age so I’m not banking on them this year. We’ll rely on sunflowers, zinnias, feverfew, echinacea, yarrow, snap dragons, and some yummy herbs for greenery in the bouquets.

We’re also planning on having a farmstand which is exciting. I took the bookends to shop for wheeled carts to serve as the base. I’m also looking on Marketplace for trailers. I’m holding myself back from the drill and the chop saw to get this party started!

We also cleaned up our seed starting area today. We pulled the table inside and got everything but the soil prepped for when the seeds come probably early next week. We’ll start onions and some snap dragons sets and then try to contain our excitement to start the rest. In fact, the kids wanted to start planting as soon as we got everything prepped today. I love the enthusiasm.

We finally got our snow and so I was just about to go out and tackle the location of the new garden beds but was thwarted by winter finally arriving. Shucks.

Actually almost nothing says new year like getting super amped up to get in garden work and be in with the new. I want to maintain that energy level through planting then I give myself a little break. So I’m thankful the snow is melting. I have stuff to build! Thank goodness I learned how to use a drill last year. (That’s for real.)