Happy Homestead; Preparing to Plan, Planning to Prepare

Planning is the Name of the Game

Like all things in life, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Planning is the first step in accomplishing something successfully. In business, we create business plans to keep us on the right track. Teachers (in my case, homeschooling mothers) create a lesson plan to ensure success. Soldiers don’t move out until we have a plan of attack. It’s really no different with homesteading.

Prepare for It

Gotta do the Prep Work

The first step in planning is preparation, likewise the first step in preparation is planning…sound like a catch 22? …Nah. Laying the ground work for all that you want to do is the most important and fundamental step that you will take in moving to homestead mode. Regardless of your current situation, your goals will determine your needs and having a plan to keep you on course is essential.

This system will work for anyone because you simply ask yourself questions, answer them (not out loud if other people are looking), and write everything down! A garden journal, a homestead journal, whatever you please, but always write it down. I’m going to go through the steps I’ve taken to gather my plan, but you can simply follow along and plug in your own information.

Step 1 – Determine you goals.

Whether your goals are small or large, you must have them pinpointed. If you don’t have a specific goal and you’re just ‘going with the flow’, you will not be able to create any kind of concrete plan and you will end up wasting an enormous amount of time. (A particular pet peeve of mine!) Now, some say that you should start small in the beginning. I’ve never been one to do anything on a small basis…maybe it’s a character flaw, but I’m driven in that way. I have a great deal of experience in this area and I know how much I can handle, so I’m cool with going big!

For example, you may want to begin with a small grouping of container plants to get your feet wet in gardening, or maybe just a couple of hens to learn about raising chickens. My particular opinion is that it doesn’t take a lot more work or time to care for a larger garden and it doesn’t take any more time to care for a couple dozen chickens…but, it’s all in what you want to get out of it.

When I’m planning my goals, I look at the end game and work backward. What am I going to do with it, what will I have to figure into my budget, both money and time, and what will my gain be? This is what it looks like for me:

Putting a Plan on Paper Helps it Live

I want to live off of the land as much as possible…that is, feed my family from my land and have enough left over to sell for extra income. So I will,

• *Raise a large garden plus put up a greenhouse to start my plants early and have more growing space.
• *Planning to grow tomatoes, green beans, peppers of all varieties, okra, black eye peas, squash, cantaloupe, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, onions, and a variety of herbs for use in cooking and home health.
• *I will grow, harvest and preserve the majority of my produce but I plan to sell the excess at the local farmer’s market. I also plan to sell my canned goods once Oklahoma’s Cottage Food law goes through. (Fingers crossed!)
• *As for livestock, we already have a pig (I might mention that we are new to our current home, which is why we only have the one animal thus far….it’ll be a regular petting zoo before too long!) I plan to order and have my baby chicks in by the end of January and we will also be raising meat rabbits.
• *Sidenote – Rabbits are easy and fun to raise-almost as much fun as chickens-and they reproduce quickly which makes them a wonderful option for raising your own meat. We will tan and sell their pelts and will more than likely show them as well.
• *I wasn’t planning on having goats again quite this quickly, however, since congress has not passed the new Farm Bill, we will more than likely be getting a milk goat…because I can’t afford $7-$8 per gallon of milk! And, from that I will also be able to make cheese, yogurt and soap products, so it all works out.

Step 2 – Decide what you need

Okay, so we have our goals, what now? Now we work backward. What will we need in order to get to our goals. For one, in my case, I have to build a greenhouse. Luckily, I love to build and have found a design that will be economical for me and still yield a good size growing space. I will blog about the building, step-by-step, soon. I also have to make certain that my garden is well planned; proper sunlight, soil and access to water. Check.

For my critters, I will have to build shelter; rabbit hutches and a chicken tractor, plus extend my small barn to encompass them and the pig and goat. I’m a bargain shopper (some say I’m cheap) and have found sources of salvaged wood to help me in this endeavor.

*As another sidenote – There is nothing wrong with bargain shopping and recycling building materials. I once built on to a home using very little brand new stuff. As well, I never bought any of it at retail! I saved a bundle because I designed and built it myself. I turned a house that was 1397 square feet into a 3000 square foot home. Never hired contractors, bought everything at surplus yards, etc and it was wonderful!! It did take me a year and a half to do it, but I did it myself and the feeling of accomplishment was amazing!

Step 3 – Put your plan on paper

As I mentioned previously, it is important to write everything down. It gives you something to refer to during the process. The size of your garden, the plants you will be growing, soil amendments you will use, the needs of your animals, when you plant everything, when you need to count on harvesting everything, what you will do with it once it is harvested. I know it seems like a lot to have to sit down, think about and write, but I promise it will save you so much time and headache in the future! Just grab a pot of coffee, a pen and some paper and get after it!

*Another sidenote – I know everyone uses ipads and all that electronic stuff, but for these purposes, a good old-fashioned notebook works best. You can get one of those handy-dandy 5 subject suckers and divide up your categories. You will at certain points want to create little sketches (size/shape of garden, plans for shelter, etc) and there’s nothing like a notebook for those purposes.

Step 4 – Put your plan into action

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised at how many people want to do something like this, think about it, write it down, study magazines and journals and….dream. They never actually get up and do it. There’s no time like the present and the best way to learn is by doing! I can’t think of any more colloquialisms right now, but you get the picture…just do it!!!

I sincerely hope that this information is helpful in planning and preparing to start this new journey. I would love to hear about your goals and plans as well as any success stories in this area. There is always something to learn…I look forward to learning from many of you!

Best Wishes!

Amy Stewart/Bell

More Ways to Connect and Contact Us

We also, as a homesteading family, have three additional blogs that might interest you. Two Oaks Farm Talk concerns the more technical side of homesteading. We discuss subjects like gardening, food prep, and farm building and construction with lots of tutorials!

Farm Raised Family is basically a hub for everything under the Two Oaks Farmstead umbrella. You can learn a great deal about all parts of the farmstead there. The Farm Raised Family blog focuses on financial matters such as budgeting, saving, and more and on current events affecting families.

You can also have a more in depth look at all that we do by visiting our Two Oaks Farmstead YouTube Channel and be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss a thing!

Farm Life and Freedom is the new podcast we are in the process of launching! It is going to be so much fun!

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