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Looking back over the year is always fun, I get to see what I’ve done and what I didn’t do. Reflecting on the past helps me plan for the future. So, I’m really happy that I did this 2019 year in review.
I do think I forgot to do one last year but you can Read 2017 Here.
Well 2019 was interesting!
My 2019 Year In Review
My Blog turned 3 this month! Happy Birthday to me! It’s hard to believe it’s been three years. I’ve taken some time off here and there, from time to time. But I always return with news of happenings on the homestead and this year promises to be much more of the same only minus the staying away part.
The bummer parts
The first part of my 2019 year in review starts with my Dad being in the hospital, he had open heart surgery and another surgery after that one later in September, my birthday actually. Glad it went well. That took up a lot of time away from the farm.
On the bright side
But we did get our bathtub gardens planted and they were really awesome! We grew carrots and leaf lettuce in the bathtubs along with a pumpkin plant. That one did alright but we ended up feeding them to our chickens.
In the garden this year we had a blackberry bush come up and we trimmed it up so we could walk all the way around it. In the past the wild turkeys eat all of them down in the field. It’s pretty funny to see a big line of them coming to the blackberries all the moms and babies. But they eat all of them. With the bush in the garden, the turkeys won’t dare come that close to the house and our lazy outside dogs guarding the back porch.
They could care less what goes on in the front field, unless your downstairs watching tv or trying to take a cat nap. That’s when it’s time to bark like crazy right by the window.
Blackberry Bush
My blackberry bush in my garden worked out great. It wasn’t too big to shade my other plants in the garden and I got to pick off of it for about three weeks. I still have bags frozen in the freezer. Yum! I should go lay out a bag and make a blackberry cobbler.
Over the summer I made a cobbler with fresh peaches and blueberries YUM! That was really good.
We planted yellow squash, my favorite and I cut that into slices and froze them in bags for soups. I admit I’ve not used many of them. I keep forgetting about them. But I have added them to the dog food that I make. I’m going to share that in a future post really soon.
Freezing My Harvest
I did a lot of freezing last summer. I froze our cherry tomatoes and I add that to my chili soup. They are really great in chili. I froze the blackberries and we bought a bunch of blueberries so I froze them too along with my squash and I had a bunch of zucchinis that we grew. I made a lot of bread with them…so good.
I went ahead and shredded the extra when I was making zucchini bread and put it in the freezer bags.
Well that didn’t work out so well. The two cups of zucchini really didn’t make two cups after it’s frozen. And it was kinda mushy. If I do it again, I’ll have to add way more in the bag than two cups.
What We Planted In The Garden
We planted our main garden but only about two rows and something like 6ft by 6ft. Not the whole garden this time. Besides we had that blackberry bush in part of it.
We had 3 tomato plants, that didn’t do so good. The cherry tomatoes always work out and we ended up using them most of the time on hamburgers and things. The big tomatoes just didn’t produce this past summer.
We planted beans but the rabbits would come in and snip off the plant at the base just when they would start to sprout out some beans. They did it to all of the plants. Darn rabbits! Those lazy dogs. Next year I’m moving my beans over to my bathtubs and making a trellis for them to climb on.
Hopefully then I will get to eat some of them. The leaf lettuce I ate and feed to my guinea pig “Gus Gus” he Loved it! I’ll have to do that again.
Second or I Mean Third Garden
If you count my bathtub gardens as one, which I do. We also had a little garden that we made of rocks into a 4ft by 4ft square and then filled it with dirt. We have really square rocks here on the farm and they are perfect for landscaping. We’ve had that garden for a couple years so it’s not really got enough good dirt in it yet. But it’s getting better.
We had a couple squash plants up there and some tomatoes that task like soap. I forget what they are called but many people use them for salsa. All in all I think it worked out much better for us to have three tiny gardens than one massive one.
I wish they were all bathtubs in that once you get rid of the weeds once you really don’t need to weed anymore. I really hate to weed the garden.
Next year I would really love to have a green house and more raised beds. We’ll see.
Chickens
We still have chickens, and we sold quite a few hatching eggs on eBay last Spring, that was great extra income to help pay for the feed. We are planning on doing more of that this Spring. We hatched out quite a few, hubby wanted to get more of his favorite breed. But this year no hatching in the house. It made the house really dusty.
Rabbits
I sold off most of my angora rabbits, I have two left. It was just way too much work having 6 of them to trim. I forgot how often they needed a hair cut. I’m not interested in selling the wool I was just using it for myself. And I’m finding I would rather do other things than spin wool. I can’t do it around hubby, he watches all the fiber flying in the air. I can tell he doesn’t like it one bit. lol!
I ended up buying 3 Holland Lops and had one litter and she raised one little baby. Her name is “Sparkle Pop”. They are so cute. I have several of them potty trained which makes my job oh, so much easier cleaning out the cages each week. I’ll have to make a post on that too later on.
Flea killer that works
I discoverd flea and tick killer that works and isn’t harmful to the dogs or people. You can use it on both. I didn’t find a tick or flea on any of us all year. The stuff is AMAZING! And Cheap! Read about the flea and tick killer here.
Blog Stuff
I created some printables last year you can see those here, here and here, they were really liked by my readers. I also made my 2019 Garden planner that I gave away all year long. I made 2020 one for this year, you can sign up for that at the end of this blog post.
Home Improvement Stuff
We bought a new stove that I love and a new dining room table at a thrift shop, which turned out to be a brand-new set only retired. It was Tell City Furniture table with 8 chairs that’s the furniture factory in our little town, it’s closed down now. I bet it was from a home show or something. The table and chairs was way back in a corner of the thrift shop with mattresses piled up in front of it. Still had the new tag on it! We really thought it was used when we paid for the set. It was only when we were loading them on the trailer that we realized just what we had.
We paid $400 for the set, bought a old bottle in one of the booths at the same time. Sold the bottle for over $100 so my table and 8 chairs only cost me $300. Sweet!
It makes my kitchen look so much nicer. We had an old couch in there with a 70’s TV set, that still worked btw and we were watching it until we bought the table. Now my kitchen looks so nice with a real dining room we can entertain in, when the family comes over.
Christmas and Thanksgiving was awesome with my new table.
Some of my popular blog post of 2019 Year In Review
7 Must Get Beginner Herbal Books For Your Library
10 Mistakes I Made With My Goats
Top Reasons Why You Should Start A Blog For Your Homestead
17 Gifts For Gardeners Who Have Everything
Looking Ahead…What Are My Goals For 2020 On The Homestead?
- I want to get that garage built finally.
- Have mutiple income streams this year.
- Starting up a printables shop. I do love my printables.
- Go to more yard sales and pump back up my eBay store with new items.
- Let go of a bunch of craft things I don’t use anymore.
- Clean up a couple more rooms in the house, I’m on a roll now!
- New washing machine, because the old one quit working.
- Learn to can food! I’m really going to do it this year with tomatoes.
- Fix the chicken coop and get rid of many of the roosters (you should hear this place, glad I don’t have neighbors!)
That’s it! I really did have publishing this 2019 year in review post for you. It helped me to see areas that need work and where things really did work out. I’m happy to see 2020 come and can’t wait to see what adventure lies ahead.
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Hi! I'm Michelle. You can find me planning, cooking, and often wrangling chickens in my spare time (who am I kidding? I have no spare time). I am the CEO and creator for homesteadingforwomen.com. All posts are reviewed and updated personally by ME - if you have any questions, feel free to contact me here.
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