It's January and that means it's time to start planning!

 Hello Everyone! Happy New Years ( I know its 4 days late)!!!  So one of my biggest questions that I get is when is it time to start preparing for your garden and livestock rotation.  The way I was raised and the way I used to do things are two separate ideas.  I was raised to start planning the garden in January.  What I have been doing until recently is wait to the last minute.  In this blog, I will be going over why it is important to start planning in January.

So yes I am a huge procrastinator and one thing 2020 taught me was that I need to get rid of that flaw immediately.  So here it is 2021 and I am taking on what was passed down to me when I was a kid and it did help tremendously because we were never out of food.  So January is the best time to start planning what you are going to do with your garden and livestock.  The main reason is that you can start getting prepared and start growing the food you need at the beginning of the growing season.  This way if something goes wrong, you have the whole growing season to remedy the issue instead of a couple of weeks.

So this is what you need to do (or at least what I do).  Grab a notebook and write down what you would like to grow.  Then look up when do these items grow (such as in the southeastern region of the United States iceberg lettuce can be planted in January).  Find out what do these plants need to be successfully grown, like does it need full sun or partial sun just to name one example.  Now survey the area where you want to grow your vegetables at and draw it in your notebook.  Start marking where you would want to grow items.  If you plan on growing in raised beds then start getting the materials ready to make your raised beds.  Or if you plan on growing in the ground, then you need to start preparing the soil for what you are growing.  And then finally figure out where you want to purchase your seeds.

When it comes to livestock you need to take a few things into consideration.  For instance are you new to raising this livestock or have you already raised them and need to replenish your herd or flock.  Another thing you need to look at is whether or not you have an area prepared for the livestock you are getting.  And finally if you have the materials for the area to either build or make repairs.  For my family and farm, we eat a lot of turkey and chicken.  And we raise chickens in a rotation so right before we do our final harvest we have order new chicks to start the cycle all over again.  Our turkeys are different. We initially purchased 15 turkeys but lost 4 prior to harvesting time because turkeys are harder to raise (this topic will be a totally different blog post).  However, the plan when we first purchased the turkeys was to be able to raise a flock that would multiply and we are doing this buy keeping 1 tom (gobbler) and 3 hens.  This way we could have up to 45 turkey poults the next year and that could be extra income for the farm and enough turkey to help sustain us for the year.  

These are the steps that I do (now and as a kid) prior to getting ready for the year's growing season. Some of the places that I get my seeds are Seeds of Change (seedsofchange.com) and Burpee Seeds (www.burpee.com).  And I get my chickens and turkeys from Welp Hatcheries (www.welphatchery.com).  I hope you find this informative and feel free to follow us.