The House of Riona, Micro Homesteading 2026

Its a new year, so starting a new thread about my processes and life and growing things and living my life in a way that works for me.  Navigating disabilities, learning to be an ever-improving gardener, and doing the things I do.

Its 2026:
So the holidays are over, I met all my familial obligation goals for the end of the year etc.  I love Christmas and new year's don't get me wrong.  But they come with a lot of stress and high expectations of myself, and yes some expectations from others.  But we sailed through it and now are coming out the other end.
And we finally had a freeze the day before NYE.  Generally we have our first freeze in early Nov. so this was new territory, flowers at Christmas, etc.
Christmas activities and New Year's Eve went as usual for the most part with family traditions etc.

Logan is in the process of making our first batch of mead, it will be low-proof to start, because that's the quickest and easiest, from a Midieval recipe that families would have used on the daily.  If we want proper feasting mead it takes longer to ferment of course.  Once we see how this goes we'll probably do more of the feasting mead, that's what is familiar to us re. mead.

I've decided that we're lowering Logan's hours at work, which looks like a terrible idea on paper, but which I feel will be better for his quality of life, especially since he still has a lot more school to do, five more terms.  We've talked about this before, lowering him from 40 hours a week to 32 hours a week, but I think maybe now we may be able to pull it off, though it won't be easy financially.  Thing is though that if he works four days a week instead of five then he'll not only have more time to do school and relax but he'll have more time to help me with my projects which can earn some money.  If his work allowed 4 10s we'd just have him do that and we would have done that years ago.  But since they don't we're trying this.  We're stepping out in faith that God will guide us.  I think that always striving to have a better quality of life while spending less money is the best way for us.  I want sustainable situations for both of us and I think this is the next step for us even though our parents would kill us if they found out.  They don't need to know.
More oppertunities to have the yard stand open, really getting the swing of that and getting neighbourhood people used to it and things are starting to sell when I have it open, which I can only do certain times and days.  But that will improve too I suspect.
Logan smoked the most mindblowingly good roast the other day, wow, he's getting really good at smoking meat.  He's a good cook at most things but this is so so tasty.

I think from now on I'll have a seperate thread in the Cascadia section to talk about when I'm having my stand open, when I'm performing, etc.  That way people who are local can check it and all y'all who aren't local don't have to wade  through those bits.

Love how you’re making micro-homesteading work for your life — learning, adapting, and still finding joy in the little wins! 🌱✨

The first batch of mead:
So my husband made his first batch of mead, from a Midieval recipe which is for low-proof mead, like what the family and kids would drink on the daily because water wasn't always safe to drink at that time but a twitch of alcohol would sterilize for improved safety.  Anyways its very different than the feasting mead we're used to buying and drinking.  We're thinking about buying one of those containers with the spigget to pour out of that we could ferment in, since that way the yeast doesn't get disturbed when we pour a cup.

Well our shallow freeze didn't do much, calendulas still alive, though no more blooms.  I think I'm going to bag the last of the leaves to give to friends tomorrow as salad greens, because I seem to have developed a mild allergy to them, I noticed it back in summertime, my throat gets weirdly dry and a tad constricted when I eat them in salad.  I kept eating them for a while since we have them, but I'm going to sell all of the seeds and not grow anymore if my body is going to keep saying it wants me to stop eating them.

I planted a garlic clove and its started growing, I'm hoping it can self-regulate and not get ahead of itself.
I'm going to do some transplanting while my trees are leafless, moving the ornamental plum saplings into their own pots for year 2, moving my maple sapling into a bigger pot for year 2, I'm hoping my Italian plum tree which I transplanted last winter can stay in the same sized big pot for year 5, and hoping this year it will flower _and fruit instead of just flowering like it did last year.  And I want to transplant my blueberry bush into the barkdust-which-has-basically-turned-into-soil next to my front door, I think it would be happy there.  Its one of the few spots in my yard where I can easily plant directly into the ground.

The Christmas tree is down now and waiting for my husband to take it to drop in the bushes behind his work.

For when I'm singing, when I have the yard stand open and any other events I host check out my post in the Cascadia forum.

Transplanted the perenials:
Well I transplanted the saplings (1 maple and 2 ornamental plums both starting year 2) and the blueberry plant as intended, all in their new pots and spots.
I got me a daphne plant, which is very important to me.  I measure spring's arrival by when the daphnies bloom and waft their scent about.  Up into my early 30s I measured by my father's daphnies, but they came to the end of their lifespan (they'd been there since I was little) and so I had to start measuring by my mom's daphnies, which died prematurely and thus I had to measure by my step sister's daphnies.  But now I have my own and I'm thankful.
My friend gave us a pitcher with a spigget, so next batch of mead we make can be managed better, less yeast getting poured into cups by accident.

My MIL helped me fix my sign for the yard stand, hoping that will help increase sales.
We finally got multiple nights below freezing, probably good for the killing of certain insects etc.
So I did an experiment last spring by planting one of my broccoli microgreen seeds and growing it out.  It didn't ever grow a head of broccoli because it wasn't bred to do that.  Instead it grew edible leaves which are tough, so tough that they're still growing in wintertime, and recently it shot up with some broccolini on top  I want to eat it, but I'm also curious to see what happens next.

Find out when I'm singing, when the yard stand is open and etc. on my other thread in the Cascadia regional section of the forums.

Almost spring:
Some people have daffidills blooming, not here but in other neighbourhoods close by, and of course crocusses, the harbenger, have bloomed.  They tell us winter is almost done.  Still waiting for my new daphnies to bloom before I call it spring here in Milwaukie OR.  But I've been enjoying the sunny weather, with enough rainy days so the plants don't dry out.

I feel like I'm getting a better handle on Bokashi-ing as I go, and compost pile no. 1 is curing while compost pile no. 2 is what I'm adding to now, when Bokashi gets emptied it goes into pile no. 2 now.  I'm hoping pile no. 1 will be ready by next month.
I am going to send away for mason bees and later on in summer leafcutter bees to rent, there's a company in WA that rents them out and then you send them back once they've finished for the year.  My dear friend up in NW WA rents them each year and I'm going to follow suit and add more pollinators for myself, the other couple here who gardens and anyone else and the earth and nature itself, because pollinators!
I need to get some chicken wire to put down under my 2 new oval metal raised beds, set up said raised beds on top of that (so if roots get long they can reach down while keeping moles out), and then I need to fill them with some dirt below and soil up top.  I have some of both but not enough, so going to see if anyone can deliver a smallish amount for me locally without breaking the bank.  I also need to buy some sort of mesh because if Sandy the squirrel is still around she'll cause trouble for my seed planting once its time just like she did back in Aug./Oct.  This time I need to be prepared and if she has moved on then so much the better, but if not I'm older and wiser now so she'll be thwarted.  I'll take the mesh off once things are growing.
I used up all of my broccoli microgreen sprouting seeds so next I'm going to get a bulk bag of pea microgreen sprouting seeds, I like to change things up sometimes.
My potatoes are chitting in the cupboard, waiting for early March to be planted.

My husband is a good cook, but he doesn't have much baking experience, so he baked his first loaf of banana bread, a response to the bags of overripe bananas that are sold at discount sometimes at the grocery store where he works.  We live and die by the sales, that's how we make a lot of decisions.  I think it came out tasting pretty good.
We like having friends over for dinner, visiting, staying the night from out of town, etc.  I'm still working on getting my living/dining room into the place I want it to be for future goals.

Its March:
I abandoned my chicken wire idea, I'll just fill the raised beds without any barrier to the earth underneath and just hope I don't get moles etc. because according to the gal at the feedstore moles can squeeze through chicken wire.  I did however get a type of netting/covering to put over my containers and beds when I start planting soon to protect my seeds and potato chits as they begin.  The first things I'm planting are potatoes and radishes within the next few days.
I'm growing my sprouting pea microgreens and its a learning process, they're so different than other microgreens I've grown, taking it one day at a time.
Feeling overwhelmed between helping my husband with school projects and handling his challenging family.
My husband's friends came over for the day yesterday and he made them his first batch of homemade mac and cheese, which was too cheesy but hey it was his first go.  He loves learning to cook new things.
The weekly mental health peer support group I facilitate at a shelter in downtown Portland for our local NAMI chapter got moved to a later time, getting used to that and not jazzed about the time change, as the later at night one goes the more dangerous downtown is, but trying to be a good sport and take one for the team, as the shelter said this schedule change would work better for them.
The weather here is all over the place, as is common in March, sunny one minute, raining the next.  

Getting in the swing of spring:
Spring arrived in my area in early March and so I've got my potatoes and radishes planted.  I tried using the mesh to keep them safe from squirrels, so that if Sandy the squirrel from last year shows up they'll be safe.  But its a real hastle.  I may sound whingy but its the truth, so since I've heard that realistic squirrel sculptures can detour squirrels if I move them around periodically I'm going to buy a couple, plus they'll be cute.

Speaking of creatures I'm the proud renter of mason bees for spring and leaf cutter bees for summer!  They'll help pollinate flowers and also they don't sting which is nice.  I will benefit and my neighbours and the earth in general will benefit too.  My landlord agreed again to not pesticide my yard this year so that's a win.  Some of my bee cacoons haven't finished yet which worries me a bit, but I will let the natural course of things occur and stay out of it.
Compost pile no. 1 continues its curing, its halfway there most likely, and compost no. 2 pile is being built, including Bokashi composting of neat, bread and small bones.  I did go buy a bunch of soil to fill my new oval raised beds I bought for Christmas, I need to get them full and finished, and I need to plant spinich and lettuce tonight if the weather holds.
I used fertilizer to fertilize everything that's already growing, mostly perenials, and I'm trying to figure out how often to do it, probably once a season?  But I've been giving my year-5-grown-from-pit Italian plum tree some extra because its the second year it flowered and I'm hoping this is the year it will fruit for me, I think the bees already helped me by pollinating it, supposedly it can self-pollinate but bees are always the best.

I went on a nice 2 night vacation with my family to the beach, our family friends rent us their beachhouse at Ocean Park WA for very cheap if we bring our own linens and towels and we got to do that a couple of weeks ago, my nephews' mom found a whole sand dollar on one of our beach walks, we had seafood, etc. lovely time, the Long Beach Penn. is one of my fave places to go, been going since I was a little kid.  Most vacations I go on aren't super far away, so many wonderful things to do right here in the Pacific Northwest.

For more about my yard stand, singing, etc. I also write a thread in the regional section.

Planting and waiting:
Lettuce, spinich and fava beans, carrots, planted.  My fiddleneck phaecelia which overwintered as babies got really big and were about to bloom, but a very windy day put an end to them,  The last of the dead nettle are dying as is the cycle of things, the daylilies look really healthy though flowers aren't coming up yet.  Potatoes and radishes are coming along, much happier with my attempt at garlic, only one plant, but that's partly because I want to get more confident with it before growing more, last year it all ended early due to my move and the chaos of it.  Not a problem this year, we're happy staying here.  Sadly my walking onion from Paul hasn't come up, I don't think it survived our rainy winter, maybe they just don't like it here?

Next up, I need to plant my sunflower seeds from Matt McSpaddin in Maine's son Noah.
I'm concerned that the whole mason bee thing isn't going as well as I'd hoped.  My husband doesn't seem to see them around, and there's still some of the cacoons that didn't hatch yet.  I don't know what I did wrong, I made sure there's muddy spots for them to gather mud for their future babies, and water around for them to drink, everything the website says to do to make sure they're happy.

For more OR and WA relevent stuff check out my other post in the Cascadia section.

Its May:
And we've had our first 90+ degree day.  This is a normal time to have the first one, May or June, once back in 2014 we had some 90+ days in late Apr. that's the earliest I recall.  Anyways I love 70s and 80s, 90s+ are hotter than I like but I try to be adaptible.

Well it seems like for everything that does well in my garden there are 2 things that don't.  I've begun harvesting my radishes and we're enjoying them in salads.  My potatoes are coming along well, I finally figured out how to grow microgreen peas without them going raunch.  And my new slug trap already has one successful kill (casserole dish with pbr beer, the internet says slugs like its extra yeastiness).
But my lettuce and spinich failed because the seeds are too old, my second container of radishes is rather abismal so far and my 5 year plumtree, inspite of it being the second year it flowered, doesn't have any fruit setting.  The mason bees I rented failed, I guess they're duds, I mean my very dear friend up north in WA has a thriving colony she rented from the same place, you keep them for the season, they hatch and do their thing and then you send the eggs back in their mud hole structure.  But mine were somehow duds.  I'm hoping the leafcutter bees which are due to hatch next month out of their block will fair better but quite frankly I don't have a lot of hope, I think I'm just not cut out for bees.

I ground up all the egg shells I have been saving and spread them on where I'm about to go out and plant my pepper seeds.  Last year peppers didn't work out, neither the bell pepper seeds from produce or the havaneros from my MIL's post harvest seedsaving.  My motto is that I try most everything twice in my garden, which will include these pepper seeds one more time.
I quardened off an area on the southside in the sideyard and planted my mini-white pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds directly into the earth, I hope the lawn person that the landlord has come around will stay outta there, string and stakes.  I'm also about to transplant my liatris plants, they grow but then they don't flower and just die.  I think they need a deeper container.

Being more proactive about coffeegrounds on the blueberry plant and the garlic.  

Riona Abhainn wrote:my 5 year plumtree, inspite of it being the second year it flowered, doesn't have any fruit setting.

I'm newer to plum trees, and I have one type that is allegedly self pollinating while the other states it needs another pollinator. Could yours perhaps need a pollinator buddy?

Fingers crossed for more successes than failures in your near future!