Official Poll : What project are you planning to start this 2016?

[Support]

2015 has passed by like a breeze and it's now time to start planning for the year 2016!

So tell us, what project are you planning to start this 2016?

If your answer isn't listed, you can vote for "Others" and reply to this thread with your answers.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Merry Christmas all! I already do a lot of what's on the list - except soap making. I think I'd like to give that a try.

 

[goatgurl]

like FEM i already do a lot of these things. i want to try to make some $ selling the things that i do produce. and keep on doing the things that i started years ago.

 

[baymule]

We moved in February 2015 to 8 acres. I planted a garden but it was a bust. After years of successful gardening, that was hard to take. I'll be planting fruit trees and berries. We have 3 feeder pigs, one for us, two for friends, so we are raising our own meat. Bought 4 ewes to raise lambs, and plan to sell the lambs. I already can, dehydrate and freeze our own food. Already had chickens for eggs and meat.

 

[tortoise]

I could only vote for one so I went with income generating. 2016 will be my second year of large garden and preserving food, so I still have a lot to learn!

We will be doing some chicken breeding. Our goal is to raise some rhode island reds and some first-generation Cornish Rock crosses. We had decent success incubating eggs last year, so it sounds like a fun journey... other than butchering/processing.

DS8 and I are saving soda cans to make a big solar heat collector for the chicken coop.

We haven't butchered our first lamb yet, so that will be a 2016 project.

I will be homeschooling DS8. Waiting until the registration opens on July 1 to do the legal paperwork.

I want to add strawberries. We have loads of raspberries and blueberries. I just happen to adore strawberries and want to put a patch in at this property. It was hard to leave my berries behind when we moved.

I want to figure out starting plants from seed. I've tried every year for a decade and always fail. This year I had success with oregano and thyme. The rest of my stuff didn't make it through transplanting. Lighting is a problem, and I think I found a reasonably priced grow light set up. I hate buying tomato and pepper plants every year! If I can be successful, it will pay for itself in 2 seasons (the cost of the seedlings we buy), plus I'll be happy to be able to grow things I haven't been able to get started and am unwilling to buy.

I want to start a Food is Free project to share our excess produce.

And I want to grow BOSS for chickens! The pocket gophers ate 4 plantings of seed last year! But a fox has dug out the gopher holes, so I hope for better results in 2016!

 

[Dances With Critters]

In 2016 I'm hoping to get some chickens to produce eggs. So that's my major project.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

At first I wanted to select all of the above, because I plan on doing all of that, but I could only cast one vote, so selected income generating, also.
Besides, I already do all of those things already, but could use a bit more income.
I'm trying to get my garden picture perfect before spring. Chickens are helping me a lot and the goat as well. I'm really loving how I just have to drag the tractors around and they fed and the rag weed is history all in one shot. It motivates me to have a successful garden.
I really need to psych myself out and move the beehives, so I have access to more garden space. I want to set them up somehow in a way that I don't have to worry about weeds and grass taking over around them.
Truth be it known, my goal for 2016 is to floor DH.

 

[Denim Deb]

I need to come up w/a way to generate income for myself for just in case. Some is going to be SS related, some is going to be doing nature lessons-I hope.

 

[Mini Horses]

Beehives -- I'm sure you know to move them at night. As for grass around them, black plastic now to kill grass, garden weed cloth before move, cover with rocks. Won't be totally foolproof but sure close. Or, if you just want close around, put piece of an old pool liner, then cover with rock....or straw. Anything like that will work.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I can only move them at night, if I have them already on a wagon or something I can calmly transport, without freaking them out. If its a really sunny day, I can just smoke them and take the supers apart and relocate them, but I know what you mean. I have 2 of them that are actually a bit of a tower, so I can't really just run away with them.
Always 15 things to do.
It was so wet and miserable today and I was walking around moving my poor chickens onto fresh weeds and grass and out the mud and I was thinking, "Bloom where you planted" and I was thinking I have to do raised beds, but I hate weeds, so mulch heavily and maybe I can cut plastic drums to make small beds and while I'm at it, why not dig a well......I already know the water table is high, and I will reach water in a few hours, even in the dry season, and the resulting mud can either help fill up the beds or raise the level of the ground, so my poor birds aren't in mud.
If my body could do everything my head comes up with, I'd be rich.