It was the first year on our new homestead and we decided with summer coming we were going to start a garden. I brought in a skid loader, dump truck, and an excavator. We tour up about a half an acre lot, took all the topsoil off of it, screened it and put it all back in mounds. We made pathways, ran water and permanent fenced the garden.
Now it was time to plant. We had the best of intentions…. But at the end of the season we had spent a whole lot of time, energy and money and had NO veggies from this monstrosity.
We didn’t realize as new gardeners we should start small, and not huge. We were just so excited thinking about all the things we could grow we didn’t stop to think about what we could actually handle.
New homesteaders make mistakes. It is part of the learning process. But avoid these 3 big ones we made our first year on our Homestead and you can make life on your new homestead a little better….
3 Things You Don’t Want To Do On Your New Homestead
- DON’T Invest a Whole Bunch Of Time and Money On Infrastructure. The biggest problem with our new garden it that is was designed by people who never gardened. Get some experience under you belt with more movable and temporary infrastructure and then grow and upgrade with some experience.
- DON’T Get New Animals Right Away. If you already have a few animals you can keep them, but when you move to your new place don’t buy a dozen more sheep to mow your new pasture the first week you arrive. You will need to spend time getting your infrastructure built or fixed, and you may be surprised at the problems that pop up the first few months at the new place. You don’t want to be maxed out on animals when you are busy getting settled in. If you have NO animals and your dying to get your first few chickens go ahead, but keep it simple.
- DON’T Expect to Make Money Right Away. You are going to move to the country, buy a bunch of chickens, sell eggs and meat and pay for your new property with pastured poultry! Sounds great. Maybe someday you will even do it! But year 1 you will not. Upstart costs to a new homestead are huge, and if you are expecting to be profitable year 1 you will be in trouble. Businesses typically take 3 years to be profitable. Expect your homestead to take the same amount of time to become a profitable business.
You are going to make mistakes the first year.
Mistakes are a natural way we learn. The first time you burned your hand on something hot you learned not to touch hot things in the future.
If you avoid these 3 mistakes you will be ahead of us when we were new homesteaders, and you will get to learn your own lessons the hard way 😉
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