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Long time, no talk! Due to some somber, unexpected family circumstances this close to the Christmas season, I took the last two weeks off to spend time with family and provide support where needed.
So, this week I thought we’d lighten things up and talk about the future—well, the future, sustainable, homestead we are trying to build. We have lofty goals for this two-acre property and our entire goal is to become a self-sustaining “island.”And for us, self-sustaining is providing almost (or nearly almost) everything we need.
Table of Contents
SOLAR or Wind Energy
First up—well, maybe not first on our to-do list—is creating and using solar or wind energy as our main source of electricity. We’ve been talking about this for over a year and it’s on our to-do list, but the main inhibitory factor is the cost. I’ve said no to adding a more cost-effective windmill because they scare me. All I can thing about is this super pointy circular object flying through the air in 50mph winds.
With the amount of roof space we have, it would be easy to add the solar panels we need to produce the amount of electricity we use, plus some. We eventually want to make the switch to electric vehicles as well, so we are also planning for that in the kilowatt hour usage we will need.
With the ever changing technology, and I think a limited amount of resources out there for the general public to consume, we are still doing a lot of research before tackling the project. Most of the quotes we’ve received for the project (with battery back up, because we live in cloudy Pennsylvania) are between 30-60k for the project.
In the interim, we have changed our energy provider to “Clean Energy” and are being supported with wind/solar energy through our electric provider. Update Mar-2023: we’re getting whole home solar. You can read about the beginning of our solar research and journey in this post.
CREATING AN APPLE GUILD
This is one of my passion projects, that I keep tackling a little each year. The entire goal is to utilize different plants surrounding the apple trees to (1) attract bees and other beneficial insects, (2) deter any parasitic or bad insects, (3) and provide the nutrients and soil life the apple trees need to thrive.
So far, we have planted only a couple plants around our four apple trees. Comfrey, which is a rhizome that I call a “bio-mass accumulator.” Comfrey stores soil nutrients in it’s leaves that can be chopped several times a year to create compost tea, speed up your compost pile, or just mulch left directly on your soil to decompose. Yarrow, a beautiful and powerful herb, that attracts so many pollinators. And mint (strawberry), that will slowly grow as ground cover over a large portion of the guild and, in theory, deter many pests.
This year I have plans to add horseradish to help break up some of the soil, walking Egyptian onions, and possibly artichokes if I can find any as perennials in our zone.
RAIN GARDEN
I’m super stoked and a little scared about this project…but it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done. There are two places in our yard that water will just lay and accumulate for awhile due to the clay soil and the nature of the land. Since the water just lays there, this becomes a breeding ground for mosquitos, is impossible to landscape, and our “puppy” is constantly digging in the mud.
The rain garden will attempt to alleviate the sitting/standing water by (1) utilizing several different types of native plants built into a garden to quickly/slowly absorb the excess water and (2) to dry creek the water in our main yard down the hill to another rain garden at the edge of our property.
REMOVING GRASS YARD and REPLACING
With trying to utilize every portion of our property in our effort to become self-sustaining, we also want to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, this includes our gas lawn mower as well as increase our productivity. And let’s face it, mowing and weed-eating two-acres is not saving us any time. Our ultimate plan is to replace most of our land with garden, vegetable/herb/fruit, or a low-creeping herb. We’ve tried to to start replacing the grass between our twenty willow hybrids with cardboard and creeping thyme. Red creeping thyme is a beautiful herb that looks like a soft carpet when it all grows together. We’ll see how far we can get this coming year.
As far as inside the house goes: we have so many plans! Mostly to update the 70s look that is still lurking in all the corners, but also to create a more energy efficient and usable kitchen, switch to a tankless hot water heater, add another bedroom—wow, the list goes on. We’ll be quite busy for awhile and I promise to take you through all the projects with us. I think short-term, the Boyfriend and I are looking forward to making our office more energy efficient. We have energy efficient LED light bulbs and power-strips—but we don’t utilize our power-strips the way we should.
But for now, I hope I’ve left you with lots of thoughts to the future.