A year on this ground
If this is not three days but the rest of your life. A Dearborn County homestead year.
The bet
You are in zone 6a, 175 frost-free days, clay-loam uplands, rich dangerous bottoms, oak-hickory fuel, deer, walnuts, a creek you must treat, and neighbors who still know how to run a chainsaw. That is a livable hand. The people who make it are the ones who cut next winter’s wood in February, plant potatoes in April, and put cabbage in a crock in October — not the ones who hunt every day and garden never.
Month by month
| Month | Do this |
|---|---|
| Jan | Wood, repair tools, eat cellar, order (or sort) seed, prune apples |
| Feb | Tap maples if the freeze-thaw starts, start onions indoors, cut coppice |
| Mar | Peas, potatoes, hens get more light and start to lay, graft apples |
| Apr | Last frost watch, morels, set out brassicas, open bees, plant oats if you have them |
| May | Corn, beans, squash after the 15th, chicks, garden fence before the deer |
| Jun | Garlic up, hay if you have a meadow, first honey, weeds are the job |
| Jul | Pickles, berries, second bean planting, cut firewood in the early morning |
| Aug | Tomatoes daily, dry beans, sow fall turnips and kale, put up water |
| Sep | Potatoes, pawpaws, walnuts start, deer patterns, pull honey only if they can spare it |
| Oct | Garlic in the ground, sweet potatoes cured, apples, kraut, pig date |
| Nov | Wood under cover, deer, drain hoses, deep litter in the coop |
| Dec | Rest the crew, mend, render fat, read last year’s notes, go to bed early |
What ‘enough’ looks like for two people
A garden about 2,000–3,000 sq ft actually weeded, not dreamed. 50 lb of seed potatoes in the ground. A 4-row block of dent corn. A bed of dry beans. A row of butternut. A kraut crock. 8 hens. A trio of rabbits or a deal with a neighbor who has them. Two cords of wood already stacked in March. A way to boil water. A written list of who on your road has a well, a sawmill, a bull, a canner, and a cooler head than you.
Note. Skills beat gear. The canner you have used 20 times beats the vacuum sealer you own and fear. Practice in July on purpose.