Our homesteading beginnings

In case you would like to follow our adventures into homesteading, this blog is for you ;)  We started with a garden and learning to can last year.  We had a small garden before but last year we decided to go much bigger (and this year will be even bigger than last year!).  We had all sorts of veggies and canned a lot of stuff - we had a lot of tomato plants which made for a lot of whole tomatoes, stewed tomatoes and homemade spaghetti sauce that we canned.  We had lots of peas and beans but ate most of those fresh or froze them since we did not get a pressure canner until later in the year.  We had a ton of peppers, bell, cayenne, banana, jalapeno and so on.  Cabbage, okra, broccoli, cauliflower and several different kinds of herbs along with more squash and zucchini than we knew what to do with, but we were able to can up a TON of zucchini bread and butter pickles which turned out to be quite popular.  Here is our garden from last year.

This was a typical everyday harvest when things were really producing...

We also visited the farmer's market several different times last year and got fruits and what not, here are a few pictures of some of the things we canned last year...

As of right now, we have seedlings started, the garden is burnt off and waiting to be tilled.  I'll post some pictures as we work on the garden, right now it's not much to look at.  We plan on expanding our garden this year, so it will be a ton of work but there are enough people here to take care of it :)  I have joked with mom that we need our own little family compound between her and dad, myself and my boyfriend TJ, my sister Kassie and her boyfriend Todd and two brothers - Stuart and Sterling, Stuart still lives here, so currently 7 people are living here.  

This years new adventure... chickens!!!!  We currently have 30 chicks, several different types - a couple meat birds, a few layers and a few that are good for both, as well as a few cute little Bantams.  Updates on them as they mature, we will be starting construction on the chicken coop in the next few days and I will take pictures as everything progresses.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of cute little chicks!