This spring on our homestead has been both chaotic and full of life. Between new animals, fresh plantings, and long-awaited property upgrades, it feels like everything is waking up at once. If you’re curious what real-life spring homestead projects look like for us—or looking for ideas for your own place—here’s what we’ve been up to.
Spring Planting: Fruit Trees, Strawberries, and Garden Beds
This spring, we’ve focused heavily on long-term food production. We planted new fruit trees, added strawberries, and finally started planting the garden.
Fruit Trees
We put in three apple trees to start planning ahead for the day when our older orchard slows down. Our established apple trees are slowly starting to die off, so these new trees are our way of making sure future us still has apples to harvest. In addition, we’ve planted two pear trees (because my 6-year-old son absolutely loves pears, and we love them too). All the fruit trees should start producing a small amount of fruit in about three years, with bigger harvests in the years after that. The kids are already talking about how they “can’t wait” to pick our own apples and pears someday.
Strawberries
We also planted 75 strawberry plants in three different varieties. About two-thirds are everbearing strawberries, which produce fruit throughout the growing season. The remaining third are June-bearing strawberries, the kind that give you that big flush of berries in June—what most people know from U-pick strawberry farms.
We’ll pinch the blossoms off the everbearing strawberries for the first couple of months while their root systems establish, then we’ll start letting them fruit. For the June-bearing strawberries, we’ll pinch all the blossoms this year so they can focus on roots, and we should start seeing fruit next summer. The kids are already excited, asking when they’ll get to pick strawberries and dreaming aloud about “strawberry snacks” straight from the garden.
Field and Garden
Out in the field, my husband planted our two-acre plot of oats, then tilled up a 120-foot by 30-foot field behind our barn (I know, cute) where we planted high population corn (planted more closely than typical field corn). These crops are intended to become feed for our pigs, chickens, and turkeys, which feels like a big step toward growing more of our own animal feed.
Once the April flooding finally receded, we started planting the main garden. So far we’ve gotten radishes (the perfect cool-weather crop), rutabagas, parsnips, and transplanted onions in the ground. There’s still plenty more to do, but it feels good to see those first rows planted.
Spring Animal Projects: Piglets, Chicks, and Turkeys
Anyone with animals knows that adding more livestock takes planning, patience, and a little bit of risk.
Piglets
Last year, we added two gilts to our pig herd and decided—almost on a whim—that we wanted to try farrowing piglets. Of course, biology says you can’t have piglets without a boar, so my brother-in-law graciously lent us his boar for two weeks in mid-January. In return, we helped him by cutting down a tree. Homestead barter at its finest.
Next, we needed a safe space for piglets to be born and grow for the first several weeks. My husband converted an old dilapidated shed into functional farrowing quarters. He shored up rotten sections, set used silo staves in cement to make a makeshift floor, and built a farrowing crate from reclaimed wood. He even added lights, knowing we’d be checking on her at all hours until she finally gave birth.
So far, one gilt has farrowed 10 piglets, and the second is due any day. We love having little babies around the homestead—it’s noisy, busy, and pretty wonderful.
Our plan is to either sell some of the piglets as feeder pigs or raise them for pork that’s grown outside on pasture. If you’re local (SE WI) and interested in either, feel free to reach out.
Chicks
About a month ago, we also added to our poultry flock. We purchased 15 straight-run Wyandotte chicks and set them up in our basement. At the same time, I set up my incubator with 22 eggs.
My first attempt at incubating eggs was a complete failure—I didn’t hatch a single chick from 47 eggs. Lesson learned: the orientation of the eggs in the incubator matters. They can’t be placed upright in egg cartons; they need to lie horizontally or they simply won’t develop.
This time, with the eggs properly positioned, 10 chicks hatched and 9 survived. That gives us 24 new chicks total. In theory, about half will be roosters and half hens. We plan to keep one rooster as our new stud, and the rest of the roosters will eventually head to “freezer camp” and become shredded chicken for soups, broth, and casseroles (yes, I’m from Wisconsin, and we call it casserole). The kids love checking on the chicks in the brooder, counting them, and reporting back on who’s sleeping, who’s eating, and which one is “their” favorite.
Turkeys
Our turkeys have their own spring plans. Both turkey hens found separate hidden spots around the property to sit on nests—despite the small detail that there are no toms currently on the homestead. My husband decided to do a little switcheroo and swapped one turkey’s eggs for fertile chicken eggs. We’ll see if any of those end up hatching. There’s never a dull moment with birds.
Property Improvements: Upstairs Progress and Cleanup
Spring hasn’t been all about plants and animals; we’ve made progress on the house and property, too.
Upstairs Progress
For those who don’t know, we bought our house in 2023 with an unfinished upstairs. Earlier this month, carpet was finally installed in most of that space, and now we’re down to finishing touches like closet doors and furniture. The last third of the upstairs still needs to be completed, and we’re planning to add a bathroom upstairs so we don’t have to navigate steep stairs in the middle of the night.
Outside Cleanup
Outside, my husband has been on a mission to clean up the property again, hauling away loads of scrap metal. The plan for this summer is to shore up one of the existing buildings so we can use it as temporary cover for our equipment while we demolish old structures and replace them with something more functional.
It’s a lot—but it’s the good kind of work.
Spring on a homestead is always busy, but seeing these projects come together—fruit trees in the ground, piglets in the barn, chicks in the brooder, and an upstairs that finally feels like it’s becoming livable—makes all the mud, mess, and chaos feel worth it.
It’s one more season of growing food, raising kids alongside all this work, and slowly building the kind of place we want to call home.
What spring projects are you working on around your home or homestead right now—plants, animals, or house upgrades?
If this gave you ideas—or just made you feel less alone in the spring chaos—tap like and share it with a friend who’s also growing, raising, or rebuilding something this season.
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