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So much to do in March!
Our March Homestead "To Do" list here at The Reid Homestead is getting pretty long. It has been dry and warm outside for the last 3 days, and that means work needs to get done. Here in the PNW, a dry day is rare and today the sky is the prettiest shade of blue, the sun is out again, and it is supposed to be about 50 degrees!
I had intended to work all day today on the blog, but woke up to sheer beauty outside. So. Yeah. I have got to get myself outside to get stuff done! But I snapped a few photo's, and thought I would share with you a glimpse, or a little tour, around the homestead here, and share my March Homestead to do list with you all. Maybe it will help me stay on track!
Be sure to see our Homesteading Tasks in the Winter article as well!
Please check out all of our favorite Homesteading and Gardening tools in our Amazon Shop!
March Homestead To Do List for Gardening:
Our mature blueberry bed hold 16 plants
Pruned our two rows of raspberries and one row of grapes this weekend. Still need to tie up all the raspberry canes.
Our immature blueberry rows with some more tomato pots up along the fence.
So many things, not quite sure where to start! Lets go over the state of the seed starting. I still need to start my own tomato seeds, write up an advertisement for tomato & pepper seeds to sell, and take orders for those. If you need tips on starting your own seed indoors, check out my Seed Starting 101 Series and my Seed Starting Schedule for Garden Zone 8b.
I have more Winter Sowing to do, mostly annuals at this point. Maybe a few perennials. Outside, I need to plant my peas and fava beans right away. By the end of the month I would like to have planted by seed, greens, carrots, beets, radishes.
See my article on How to Grow More Food with Cold Season Crops to learn more about growing food in these cooler months.
I planted potatoes last fall when I harvested, but haven't done that before, so need to check on them and plant more if there's any doubt they aren't coming up. Harden off the onions. Plant the brassica's. Transplant the peppers soon.
The greenhouse needs to be cleaned out. I have to wash out all my tomato and pepper pots so they are ready for transplants next month. All the veggie beds and flower beds need to be cleaned up. Mulch needs to be applied. Prune blueberries still. Tie up the raspberries. Prune the cherry trees and peach tree.
Another fun idea, is to track your food harvests for the year. Check out my article on Tracking Your Homestead Garden Harvest Tally, it is a fun idea for the whole family, and teaches kids lots of STEM concepts, so its a great way to get them involved!
Our month old onion starts that need another haircut.
Two week old baby pepper seedlings
March Homestead To Do List for the Animals:
Thankfully my hubby got the goats done, so their barn is clean and their hooves are trimmed. So now we have to focus on the chickens. We do a deep litter method in their coops for the winter, and it all needs to be taken out. Problem is, we have 10 coops. Yes. 10. So that is a lot of work.
I was going to start on that today. We have to shuffle a bunch of birds around into proper breeding pens as I still have juveniles in grow out pens with all the breeds mixed together, from last year. But it is almost hatching season, so we have to sort the breeds all out to get pure hatching eggs for next month.
See my other articles for more information on Raising Chickens, Chickens for Beginners and Chicken Breeds for Colorful Eggs.
The chickens really should be wormed and dusted for mites also. Sadly, we have lost all of our ducks, due to raccoons. So we have also ordered electric fence materials so that we can surround both compounds with it. Last year we lost a ton of chickens to raccoons. We beefed up the coops and runs, but the electric fence will be that extra level of protection to keep them away I hope. So we have to install al the electric fencing.
With farm animals and feed for them, come rats. See my article for tips on How to Get Rid of Rats on the Homestead.
Our Goat Compound: include the goat barn/shed, and 5 chicken coops.
Our Layer Coop compound. Includes our original shed chicken coop plus 4 more chicken coops.
Our duck pen enclosure built over our stream.
March Homestead To Do List for Food Preservation:
Well, you wouldn't think this time of year would have much in this department, right? But my harvest freezer still has half of my tomatoes in it from last years harvest (see my article on The Benefits of Freezing Your Tomato Harvest). I need to get them all out and make a huge batch of tomato sauce and can it up.
Same with berries. We are low on jam and I have a freezer full of berries, so I need to make more jam. See all my ideas on How to Use Your Berry Harvest.
I also need pressure can some dry beans. We go thru a lot of them since I am mostly a vegetarian/vegan want to be. And baked beans. The hubby loves baked beans and I have been buying them in the store for the last 6 months because I haven't made time to can up our own baked beans. I wanted to make some marmalade too, but I think I missed that opportunity this year. Oh well!
See my pressure canning articles here: 15 Reasons Why You Should be Pressure Canning and Which Pressure Canner Should You Get? for my review of the two most popular pressure canning models.
Some of my tomato pots from last year that need to be cleaned up.
The color of the sky today!
Check out our homestead to do lists here:
Time Management on the Homestead
I hope you all get some good weather soon and can hit your own to do lists hard! It's that time of year, where there is so much to do, I'm never quite sure where to start! Let me know what you are working on today! Happy Homesteading!
Danielle
Love the list! I should really come up with a March to-do list, but then again, so much of what I need to do is dependent on the weather, and after a beautiful week filled with outdoor work, it snowed. There's no telling how long that will last! But either way, I should make a list... that way I won't fumble around when the weather IS right!
Tamara
Hi Danielle! I am a list maker at heart, so I always have a million lists going. Making a To Do list helps calm me down, even if it all doesn't get tackled in the time frame that I have hoped for! Thanks for visiting!
Darlene
Do you have list for each month? If so where can I find them. Due to surgery and other health issues I have to wait yet another year to start my homesteading but I want to be ready when I can get back to it.
Tamara
Hi Darlene! Thanks for stopping by! I hope to create one for each month, but this blog is only 2 months old, and I didn't get one up for February. I will be trying to get one up the first week of each month in the future. So glad you found this one helpful! Just remember that you may need to alter the list for your own circumstances of course. 😉
Darlene Hall
Thanks for the quick reply, I will keep checking back for any future list.
Lisa Lombardo
What a nice homestead! Good luck with all of the homesteading chores this month. I have a lot to do on my homestead too! As soon as the snow melts I need to get busy in the garden.
Tamara
Hi Lisa! Thanks for stopping by! Yes, we got more snow again this morning and more coming tonight. Can't wait for spring!!!!
Dianne
I'm so glad to read that I am not the only blogger that "intends to work on the blog" and then the weather happens! Loved reading this post - a great list and I've got some envy going with the homestead.
Love the blueberries, raspberries, goats and chickens! All the things we are working toward having. On a mission to replace the lawn and grow an edible landscape with happy chickens and goats.
Love the images - thanks for sharing.
Tamara
Thanks Dianne for stopping by! Blogging and Homesteading are both similar, the work never ends! There are always a million things to do! Good luck with your homesteading goals!
Sherry
Thank you for sharing. As a newbie to homesteading and gardening, when you refer to "cleaning up your tomato pots", do you use the same soil that was in the pot and remove the old tomato vine? Or, do you use a new soil? Enjoying your posts and learning lots.
Tamara
Hi Sherry, I literally meant to clean the pots, like with soap and water! You want to remove any bacteria or fungal matter that may cause problems for your new plants. You can see more how I do that in my article How to Disinfect your Seed Starting Supplies and Plant Pots However, in regards to the soil, I usually discard the top 3" of soil, as it may also have more fungal spores like blight in it from each of my pots. The rest of the soil can be reused, but you will need to add in some more good soil or compost into it to beef up the nutrients within the mix for your new plants. Potting soil gets depleted from all of its nutrients pretty quickly in the span of one growing season. I would not use more than 50% in your mix. So I dump out the old potting mix into a large tub or bin, and then add in new potting soil or compost in the same amount or more, mix it all together, and then re-plant your scrubbed and clean pots. Hope that helps!