My Top 5 Homesteading Failures

I’m finding it rewarding to reflect on the past 7 years of homesteading and see how far I’ve come — I’ve accomplished so much re-connection to food, plants and my own heart.

A good portion of this lifestyle is trial and error because I was not brought up homesteading. And a lot of things I am doing (my favorite things) are more art than science, which has its own implications — like learning how to see and feel the natural world around me in new ways.

Exposing myself to the new and opening myself to risk invites more failures into my life and I’ve experienced so many that I lost track of them all.

My biggest failures are always at the ready and waiting to come right back into my consciousness so that they can teach me something. I remember them easily (sometimes I can’t forget them) because they stung badly, but they also offer wonderful opportunities to learn and shift.

Join me as I reminisce about my top kitchen, garden, orchard, livestock and mental failures!

Top Kitchen Fail: Yogurt

I’ve been making yogurt from local milk for 7 years across homesteads in 3 states. Ann and I both eat a lot of yogurt and I loved the idea of consuming local milk and supporting small local dairies. So I gave myself to the yogurt gods (and bacteria) even though I had pretty meh results in the beginning.

For the first year or so of making yogurt I could not keep my culture alive and thriving. The first batch of yogurt usually turned out OK but after reusing the live culture it went downhill. The second subsequent batch was more cheese like and the third was definitely not yogurt.

I’d have to get a new quart of yogurt from the store to start over every 2 or 3 weeks. I experienced the same results with heritage cultures. Ann and I spent over a year of eating failed yogurts as I troubleshooted.

One day I found a candy thermometer at the thrift store and brought it home. When I tried it in my yogurt making, low and behold we got great yogurt! Long story short, my other thermometer was keeping the culture too hot and I was none the wiser.

7 years later I am still making yogurt and Ann and I eat it almost daily with her homemade granola and our homemade jams which are pectin and sugar free.

Silver linings:

  • I discovered how dedicated I was to making yogurt and was rewarded through perseverance.
  • I have a ton of gratitude for Ann’s patience and willing to eat and cook with my failed yogurts week in and out.
  • I learned a ton about yogurt making through the process of troubleshooting.
  • I learned how to calibrate an analog thermometer with boiling water.
  • Ann and I found lots of ways to use failed yogurt, which always happened to resemble cream cheese, sour cream or cottage cheese. We especially made lots of creamy pastas.

Top Garden Fail: Direct Seeding

When we moved onto this land 5 seasons ago I started improving the soils where we would be gardening by piling lots of mulch like manure, leaves, straw, etc. The soil structure is great but it dries out fast in the summer and I wanted to counter that with mulch.

I started challenging myself to grow not just perennials but vegetables with more mulch to keep things moist longer. It was my first time direct seeding vegetables in or near thick layers of mulch.

A lot of my seeds came up and died or never came up at all. Turns out they were being eaten by decomposers like sow bugs and slugs. Those critters especially love bean and squash seedlings.

I tried for 3 seasons to work with the mulch, such as raking it far back to expose the soil. That approach works in theory but was hit or miss in practice (mostly miss) because wind, water and birds move the mulch back over my seed beds, so it was a constant daily maintenance issue.

Now I have learned to transplant large seedlings instead of direct sowing. And when I do direct sow its in a mulch free environment for at least several feet, or at the minimum a very fine layer of mulch.

Silver linings:

  • I learned some annuals like corn can be direct seeded in fairly thick mulch with no issue.
  • I learned that scarlet runner beans are more resistant to being direct seeded in mulch than other beans.
  • I embraced more nursery propagation and transplanting as a gardening style.
  • I discovered just how close or far thick mulch can be to my direct seeded annuals.

Top Orchard Fail: Irrigation

When we moved onto this land, one of the first things I did was haul over the many young trees that I had been propagating in nursery pots for two years. Many were seedlings that I started.

I was excited and enthusiastic to get trees in the ground and I planted many of the 2 year old seedlings all around the property. Some I planned to irrigate and some native and drought tolerant plants I let go without irrigation.

I totally underestimated the power of an arid climate and underestimated how much water native plants would need when transplanted.

I also watered many trees with buckets and hoses which got old after two years because I kept planting more trees and wore myself out trying to get water to all of them.

Many of my trees died. Perhaps more than half in the first 2-3 seasons. It was hard for me at times, but those dead trees taught me a lot about how far they can go without human help after being transplanted.

Since then I continue to plant trees each year but I also started setting up more irrigation infrastructure like drip lines and transplanted some trees to be closer to water and to other trees to ease the burden of irrigating them.

Silver linings:

  • I have more respect and awe for trees that live in nature without human help.
  • I learned a lot about relative drought tolerance of many different species of trees in their early years by watching them carefully throughout the season.
  • I learned how to better read a tree’s thirst level by watching its leaves.
  • By planting and tending trees all over the property I learned a lot about variations in soil and microclimates.
  • I learned my physical and emotional limits as an middle-aging man also raising a small child.
  • The trees that survived those first few seasons are thriving now.
  • The trees that I have planted after those first few seasons have a far better survival rate.

Top Livestock Fail: Chickens

After about one season of living here we decided to adopt a flock of chickens. It was an easy win since there was already a small chicken coop on this land. Ann and I had both already helped tend chickens at other homesteads and farms and so we were excited to raise our own flock.

Being idealists and having plenty of space we free ranged our chickens. They were so healthy and beautiful and gave us many delicious eggs.

After one season things took a turn for the worst. In a matter of months we lost the better part of our birds to a neighbor’s dog, a weasel, a bear and 3 different bobcats.

We tried a lot of things and I even finally managed to scare off the bear that kept returning after causing a lot of damage and running away with one hen.

It turns out bobcats were not scared to come in broad daylight to stalk our chickens even 20 feet from our family while we were gardening. I chased one for several hundred feet with a chicken in its mouth. It dropped the chicken out of sheer surprise, not because I could outrun it, which I couldn’t.

But alas the bobcats kept coming back in broad daylight and I began feeling very protective for our then very small and vulnerable 2 year old.

Rather than building a new fence to protect our chickens we decided to give death to the rest of our birds and retire them to our freezer so that we could at least love them in another way and at the same time stop inviting the predators to our home.

It was a sad day but it was the right decision. Then a sign from the universe confirmed out decision. A month or two later a large tree fell on the chicken coop and smashed the roof.

Next time we raise chickens we will have a confined fence instead of free ranging them exclusively, we will have a guardian dog or both.

Silver linings:

  • We stopped having to protect our many un-fenced plants and mulch from being over scratched.
  • We have more understanding of and appreciation for the numerous and diverse wildlife that live around us.
  • We learned a lot about raising chickens and our son got to be a part of that joy.
  • At the moment we enjoy less responsibility for raising other animals.
  • Chickens in the freezer which have been nourishing us for 2+ years. We cook and eat them slowly, mindfully and with fond memories.

Top Mental Fail: Expectations

I brought a lot of personal enthusiasm and passion into our new homesteading lifestyle. I still have all of that nearly a decade later but I am also older, more tired and wiser.

I came into homesteading wanting to do a lot of things that I now know I will never get to before I die. But back then I thought I would be doing a lot more. I setup a lot of expectations for myself that I could not deliver on.

One example is when I was excited about aquaponics. I found and purchased a used homemade aquaponics setup via craigslist that someone else had built and tinkered with for several years.

I put off setting it up year after year until I realized that I wasn’t going to get to it because I only had enough energy for so many “big” projects.

Finally I got real with myself and decided to sell it. I bought the equipment used, so it was really easy to get my money back out of it (this is one of my MO’s). The only thing I lost was space that it took up physically and emotionally. And then I received the joy of passing on the supplies to a young man that was overjoyed and inspired to get an amazing deal and make use of them. He literally used his birthday money to buy it!

At first I was upset with myself, a little sad and frustrated that I didn’t get to the projects I had planned on. A piece of me heart was holding on to the excitement of a possible future outcome. As I sat with that feeling for a few seasons I eventually allowed myself to grieve the loss of that possible future version of myself.

Going through that grief helped me to say no wholeheartedly, instead of from a conflicted place. These no’s help me open up more energy for what’s important to me right now.

I’ve set many expectations for myself about all the homestead projects and achievements that can be had. More interesting to me now are looking at the expectations I set about who I will be in the future.

As I become wiser with myself I learn how to more fully appreciate who I am now, which helps me let go a little more of wanting what I don’t have or who I am not.

Silver linings:

  • I am better at saying no to homestead projects that do not fully serve me.
  • I am becoming more fully present with the homesteading activities that I already do partake in.
  • This kind of introspection and self love supports my ongoing personal healing.

2 responses to “My Top 5 Homesteading Failures”

  1. Avatar
    Lindsay Jean McMahon

    Thanks for sharing! I especially relate to the aquaponic story. Great reminder to keep it simple and say no.

    1. Noel

      Hi Lindsay! I’m glad you could relate to that story. There are so many exciting opportunities in life, I don’t think homesteaders can ever get bored!

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